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Desh Drohi ( Traitor) is a 1980 Indian Hindi-language action film produced by Bhagwant Singh and G. L. Khanna. The film is directed by Prakash Mehra. The film stars Saira Banu, Navin Nischol, Asrani, Ranjeet. The film's music is by Kalyanji-Anandji. The film was released on 01 February 1980.
Cast
Saira Banu
Navin Nischol
Asrani
Ranjeet
Padma Khanna
Dev Kumar
Pran
Keshto Mukherjee
Madan Puri
Yunus Parvez
Rakesh Pandey
P. Jairaj
R.P. Sethi
Ram Mohan
Sunil Dhawan
Crew
Director - Prakash Mehra
Producer - Bhagwant Singh and G. L. Khanna
Story - Mohan Kaul
Writer - Satish Bhatnagar
Dialogue - Satish Bhatnagar
Editor - V. N. Mayekar
Cinematographer - N. Satyan
Audiography – K. S. Rane
Action – Veeru Devgan
Banner – Sangam Art International, Bombay
Assistant Music Director – Babla,Frank
Music
References
External links
1980 films
Indian action films
1980s Hindi-language films
1980 action films
Hindi-language action films | {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaWikipedia"
} | 5,351 |
{"url":"https:\/\/cs.stackexchange.com\/questions\/18948\/can-the-complement-of-a-non-recursive-language-be-re","text":"# Can the complement of a non-recursive language be RE\n\nI've got a problem where I need to check the validity (i.e to say whether it's true or false) of the following statement:\n\nComplement of a non-recursive language can NEVER be recognized by any turing machine.\n\nHow I've thought of this is that, if a language $\\mathcal{L}$ is non-recursive, there is no turing machine that accepts the language. That is, there's no TM that halts for every string in $\\mathcal{L}$. But there could be a TM $M_1$ that halts for some of the strings in $\\mathcal{L}$.\n\nNow suppose, the proposition is $\\ false$. So there could be a TM ${M_2}$ that recognizes the complement of $\\mathcal{L}$. So ${M_2}$ halts and accepts every string that is NOT in $\\mathcal{L}$ and may or may not halt for strings in $\\mathcal{L}$.\n\nIntuitively, It appears that ${M_1}$ and ${M_2}$ could be same, which makes my assumption $\\ true$. That is the the proposition is $\\ false$.\n\nBut I'm not certain about the arguments I've made (as the equivalence of $M_1$ and $M_2$ is based on intuition). Can someone verify whether I'm correct or correct me otherwise.\n\nFrom your question I believe there is some confusion of the terms being used here. A recognizable language L is one such that a turing machine exists accepting it, halting on every yes instance. There are also co-recognizable languages, those are languages whose complements are recognizable. Now, if a language happens to be both recognizable and co-recognizable, it is recursive, or decidable (why?). So a language can be non-recursive, but it may still be recognizable or co-recognizable. What can you say about the emptiness problem for turing machines $E_{TM} = \\{\\left < M \\right >\\ :\\ \\mathcal L(M) = \\varnothing\\}$ ?\n\nThe given statement can be proven false by the following example:\n\nThe emptiness problem for a TM is non-recursive(even non-recognizable) but it's complement is recognizable.\n\n$$\\qquad E_{TM}$$ = {$$\\langle M \\rangle$$ | $$M$$ is a TM and $$L(M) = \u2205$$}\n\n$$\\qquad E_{TM}^c$$ = {$$\\langle M \\rangle$$ | $$M$$ is a TM and $$L(M) \\neq \u2205$$}\n\n$$E_{TM}$$ - Set of all TM's that accept nothing.\n\n$$E_{TM}$$ - Set of all TM's that accept something.","date":"2020-02-18 11:44:43","metadata":"{\"extraction_info\": {\"found_math\": true, \"script_math_tex\": 0, \"script_math_asciimath\": 0, \"math_annotations\": 0, \"math_alttext\": 0, \"mathml\": 0, \"mathjax_tag\": 0, \"mathjax_inline_tex\": 1, \"mathjax_display_tex\": 0, \"mathjax_asciimath\": 0, \"img_math\": 0, \"codecogs_latex\": 0, \"wp_latex\": 0, \"mimetex.cgi\": 0, \"\/images\/math\/codecogs\": 0, \"mathtex.cgi\": 0, \"katex\": 0, \"math-container\": 10, \"wp-katex-eq\": 0, \"align\": 0, \"equation\": 0, \"x-ck12\": 0, \"texerror\": 0, \"math_score\": 0.4996533691883087, \"perplexity\": 302.288760387687}, \"config\": {\"markdown_headings\": true, \"markdown_code\": true, \"boilerplate_config\": {\"ratio_threshold\": 0.18, \"absolute_threshold\": 10, \"end_threshold\": 15, \"enable\": true}, \"remove_buttons\": true, \"remove_image_figures\": true, \"remove_link_clusters\": true, \"table_config\": {\"min_rows\": 2, \"min_cols\": 3, \"format\": \"plain\"}, \"remove_chinese\": true, \"remove_edit_buttons\": true, \"extract_latex\": true}, \"warc_path\": \"s3:\/\/commoncrawl\/crawl-data\/CC-MAIN-2020-10\/segments\/1581875143646.38\/warc\/CC-MAIN-20200218085715-20200218115715-00097.warc.gz\"}"} | null | null |
{"url":"http:\/\/chemicaldevelopment.us\/school\/pe-class-data-analysis","text":"Sep 6, 2016.\n\n# Cade Brown & Gregory Croisdale\n\nWe were given info collected about PE (Physical Education) students at L&N, including mile run times, number of push ups in a minute, and curl ups in 2 minutes.\n\nYou can find all of our info here\n\nYou can go to File>Make A Copy to view and edit\n\n## Responses\n\nAlthough some classes had very few responses, $L$ day and $N$ day both made up around $50\\%$ of the total responses, which is what you would expect.\n\nSome classes did not have all members ($N4$ only had 1 response), a good number of people from all made up a large database that accurately respresents mosts of the population.\n\nMost of the responses were from males, though it wasn\u2019t too horribly biased. There were still $> 40\\%$ females, so it is still quite reliable.\n\nSome explanations might be: females choose not to take PE as much as boys do, or that boys responded at a higher rate than females.\n\n## Mile Run\n\nAll values are in minutes. So, 2.5 is 2m30s\n\n Mean (Average) Median (Middle Value) Standard Deviation (How dense is the set?) 12.3 12.1 3.4\n\nWhat this tells us is that on average, you will run around a $12.25$ minute mile, and that $68\\%$ of students run a mile between $8.88$ minute and $15.62$ minutes (which is generated by $mean \\pm deviation$)\n\nLots of students finished in the $(-\\infty, 15]$ range we can see there are significantly more than in the corresponding range, $[15, \\infty]$ respectively.\n\nThis makes sense due to the way students flock together when running or jogging.\n\n## Push Ups Per Minute\n\nThese values are in pushups per 1 minute\n\n Mean (Average) Median (Middle Value) Standard Deviation (How dense is the set?) 12.2 12 8.1\n\nThe standard deviation is very large, which means the amounts vary from the mean, which is evident by the few on the far left of the spectrum. Again we seem to see groups emerge, and this means that certain people are staying almost exactly in sync with each other.\n\nWe can say that about $68\\%$ of students do between $4$ and $20$ pushups in one minute. This is a very large margin due to the size of the standard deviation.\n\n## Curl Ups Per 2 minutes\n\nThese values are in curlups per 2 minutes\n\n Mean (Average) Median (Middle Value) Standard Deviation (How dense is the set?) 34.4 30 17.3\n\nThe standard deviation is even larger for this dataset, which means the amounts vary more from the mean. This is surely the case, if you look at the right side, there is a group of just over 30 students who did between 60 and 65 Curlups in 2 minutes. These few threw off the average and standard deviation quite a bit from what it would have been, and based on the evidence, it would seem that people, in general, find curlups much easier than pushups, and a small group finds them extremely easier than pushups.\n\n#### Subscribe\n\nSubscribe to this blog via RSS.\n\nMath 4\n\nPgs 2","date":"2018-05-22 04:07:46","metadata":"{\"extraction_info\": {\"found_math\": true, \"script_math_tex\": 0, \"script_math_asciimath\": 0, \"math_annotations\": 0, \"math_alttext\": 0, \"mathml\": 0, \"mathjax_tag\": 0, \"mathjax_inline_tex\": 1, \"mathjax_display_tex\": 0, \"mathjax_asciimath\": 0, \"img_math\": 0, \"codecogs_latex\": 0, \"wp_latex\": 0, \"mimetex.cgi\": 0, \"\/images\/math\/codecogs\": 0, \"mathtex.cgi\": 0, \"katex\": 0, \"math-container\": 0, \"wp-katex-eq\": 0, \"align\": 0, \"equation\": 0, \"x-ck12\": 0, \"texerror\": 0, \"math_score\": 0.7020749449729919, \"perplexity\": 1527.828833896777}, \"config\": {\"markdown_headings\": true, \"markdown_code\": true, \"boilerplate_config\": {\"ratio_threshold\": 0.3, \"absolute_threshold\": 10, \"end_threshold\": 15, \"enable\": true}, \"remove_buttons\": true, \"remove_image_figures\": true, \"remove_link_clusters\": true, \"table_config\": {\"min_rows\": 2, \"min_cols\": 3, \"format\": \"plain\"}, \"remove_chinese\": true, \"remove_edit_buttons\": true, \"extract_latex\": true}, \"warc_path\": \"s3:\/\/commoncrawl\/crawl-data\/CC-MAIN-2018-22\/segments\/1526794864624.7\/warc\/CC-MAIN-20180522034402-20180522054402-00082.warc.gz\"}"} | null | null |
{"url":"https:\/\/blog.kazge.com\/%E8%8B%B1%E8%AF%AD\/2011\/06\/28\/it-e-41-some-rules-for-well-drawn-flow-charts\/","text":"# it-e-41 Some Rules for Well-drawn Flow Charts\n\nWell-drawn flow charts are easy to read. Here are a few rules for well-drawn flow charts:\nEvery flowchart has a START symbol and a STOP symbol.\nThe flow of sequence is generally from the top of the page to the bottom of the page. This\ncan vary with loops which need to flow back to an entry point.\nUse arrow-heads on connectors where flow direction may not be obvious.\nThere is only one flow chart per page.\nA page should have a page number and a title.\nA flow chart on one page should not break and jump to another page.\nA flow chart should have no more than around 15 symbols (not including START and\nSTOP).\n\nTotal views.\n\nPowered by Hydejack v6.6.1","date":"2023-01-29 01:26:34","metadata":"{\"extraction_info\": {\"found_math\": true, \"script_math_tex\": 0, \"script_math_asciimath\": 0, \"math_annotations\": 0, \"math_alttext\": 0, \"mathml\": 0, \"mathjax_tag\": 0, \"mathjax_inline_tex\": 0, \"mathjax_display_tex\": 0, \"mathjax_asciimath\": 1, \"img_math\": 0, \"codecogs_latex\": 0, \"wp_latex\": 0, \"mimetex.cgi\": 0, \"\/images\/math\/codecogs\": 0, \"mathtex.cgi\": 0, \"katex\": 0, \"math-container\": 0, \"wp-katex-eq\": 0, \"align\": 0, \"equation\": 0, \"x-ck12\": 0, \"texerror\": 0, \"math_score\": 0.3274046778678894, \"perplexity\": 2222.0013218319837}, \"config\": {\"markdown_headings\": true, \"markdown_code\": true, \"boilerplate_config\": {\"ratio_threshold\": 0.18, \"absolute_threshold\": 10, \"end_threshold\": 15, \"enable\": true}, \"remove_buttons\": true, \"remove_image_figures\": true, \"remove_link_clusters\": true, \"table_config\": {\"min_rows\": 2, \"min_cols\": 3, \"format\": \"plain\"}, \"remove_chinese\": true, \"remove_edit_buttons\": true, \"extract_latex\": true}, \"warc_path\": \"s3:\/\/commoncrawl\/crawl-data\/CC-MAIN-2023-06\/segments\/1674764499697.75\/warc\/CC-MAIN-20230129012420-20230129042420-00753.warc.gz\"}"} | null | null |
{"url":"https:\/\/balanceofcowards.net\/boc_blog\/de\/2014\/03\/praktische-latex-packages-fuer-wissenschaftliche-arbeiten\/","text":"# Praktische LaTeX Packages f\u00fcr wissenschaftliche Arbeiten\n\n(bislang nur Englisch)\n\nAcademic publications in the area of computer science (actually, most natural sciences, as well) are often prepared using the LaTeX typesetting system. LaTeX is great for a number of reasons. It separates content from presentation and, thereby, allows authors to concentrate on one without worrying too much about the other. While pure LaTeX already offers a large number of options for authors, its full power really stems from the abundance of specialized packages available for almost everything related to typesetting and page layout.\n\nDuring years of working with LaTeX documents, some of these packages have proven to be incredibly useful. Thus, here is a selection of LaTeX packages I use on a regular basis:\n\n## The obligatory ones\n\nThere is a number of packages that really should be found in every document preamble.\n\n### inputenc and fontenc\n\n\\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}\n\n\\usepackage[T1]{fontenc} For christs sake \u2013 use inputenc with the utf8 option, and encode your files with UTF-8! I don\u2019t even know why this isn\u2019t part of the standard LaTeX setup. I really thought, file encoding was solved with Unicode like decades ago\u2026 but again and again, I stumble across documents with misrepresented umlauts and the likes \u2013 all due to a mix up in file encodings. Just use UTF-8 consistently and be done with this once and for all. By now this should be possible on all major operating systems. The fontenc package will ensure that TeX knows how to encode non-ASCII symbols properly, thus producing a clearer layout.\n\n### graphicx\n\n\\usepackage{graphicx} Most likely you\u2019ll want to include figures in your document. Here, the graphicx package is the way to go. It\u2019ll not only allow you to include PNG and JPEG files, but also PDF, which is a nice way to have vector graphics (and thus stop caring about resolutions, DPI, and stuff like that). While SVG is not natively supported, it is usually easy enough to load an SVG into a tool like Inkscape and convert it to PDF.\n\n## The useful ones\n\n### hyperref\n\n\\usepackage{hyperref} Whenever you want to integrate PDF documents for online viewing in a nice way, the hyperref package is the way to go. Not only will it make internal links clickable, it also provides a nice way to encode URLs. Indeed, encoding URLs properly (and making them clickable in a PDF) is typically the main reason for me to use this package.\n\n### todonotes\n\n\\usepackage{todonotes} The todonotes package offers a nice way to include TODO marks in the margin of your text. Most texts will be written over a period of time, and you might want to note down which section still needs some work. This is even more useful when collaborating in a team. You can even use it to mimic the \u201eInsert comment\u201c functionality of LibreOffice or MS Word. Good to point out issues in the text to your coauthors.\n\n## The fancy ones\n\nWhile you can do without these packages, using them properly will make your content look infinitely more polished and pleasing.\n\n### booktables\n\n\\usepackage{booktables} Booktables is a package that is incredibly simple, while at the same time creating stunning results when used properly. Every once in a while, you will want to depict data by using a table. Now, creating tables in LaTeX usually tends to be a nuisance, at best. And, unfortunately, unlike a lot of other defaults, the typical LaTeX tables don\u2019t really look that good. Now, while booktabs doesn\u2019t change the syntax of LaTeX tables, it does give you some hints (and the respective commands, of course) on how to layout data in a good and beautiful way. I definitely recommend to take a look at the manual. Sometimes, a layout can already be significantly improved by following simple hints, such as \u201eAvoid vertical lines whenever possible\u201c.\n\n### pgfplotstable\n\n\\usepackage{pgfplotstable}Now, while booktables deals with the generic layout of tables, pgfplotstable really gives you the full, fine grained control on table layout you were missing in pure LaTeX. Plus, it even allows you read your data from a Comma Separated Values (.csv) file, thereby avoiding the lousy syntax of \u201a&\u2018 (for column separation) and \u201a\\\\\u2018 (for line separation) altogether, instead enabling you to use any CSV-capable software (e.g., Libreoffice) to organize your data. How awesome is that?!\n\n### tikz\n\n\\usepackage{tikz}The tikz package provides a specialized syntax to create diagrams. Think of it as a way of incorporating ASCII-diagrams and rendering them nicely in TeX. The downside is, that it does have quite a steep learning curve. The upside \u2013 all text in your diagrams will be fully controlled by the LaTeX renderer. Stop worrying about varying font sizes and families in your diagrams. This will really make your diagram more polished and more easily readable.\n\n## Conclusion\n\nThere\u2019s a huge bunch of LaTeX packages out there. For almost anything to do with typesetting there\u2019s a package. However, for some of those packages I keep coming back again and again. As a scientist, the eight packages listed here are my daily bread and butter. But of course, there\u2019s more. I might write about more specialized packages in the future.\n\n## Resources\n\nThe LaTeX Wikibook tends to be an excellent source of information. Also, the Tex \u2013 Latex Stackexchange website has helped me in countless occasions. The packages themselves are typically found on CTAN \u2013 usually together with extensive documentation. If you know more, please let me know :)\n\nDieser Eintrag wurde ver\u00f6ffentlicht in LaTeX und getaggt als . F\u00fcgen Sie den permalink zu Ihren Favoriten hinzu.\n\nKommentare sind geschlossen.","date":"2019-02-16 21:58:15","metadata":"{\"extraction_info\": {\"found_math\": false, \"script_math_tex\": 0, \"script_math_asciimath\": 0, \"math_annotations\": 0, \"math_alttext\": 0, \"mathml\": 0, \"mathjax_tag\": 0, \"mathjax_inline_tex\": 0, \"mathjax_display_tex\": 0, \"mathjax_asciimath\": 0, \"img_math\": 0, \"codecogs_latex\": 0, \"wp_latex\": 0, \"mimetex.cgi\": 0, \"\/images\/math\/codecogs\": 0, \"mathtex.cgi\": 0, \"katex\": 0, \"math-container\": 0, \"wp-katex-eq\": 0, \"align\": 0, \"equation\": 0, \"x-ck12\": 0, \"texerror\": 0, \"math_score\": 0.853790283203125, \"perplexity\": 1687.6165005768175}, \"config\": {\"markdown_headings\": true, \"markdown_code\": true, \"boilerplate_config\": {\"ratio_threshold\": 0.18, \"absolute_threshold\": 10, \"end_threshold\": 15, \"enable\": true}, \"remove_buttons\": true, \"remove_image_figures\": true, \"remove_link_clusters\": true, \"table_config\": {\"min_rows\": 2, \"min_cols\": 3, \"format\": \"plain\"}, \"remove_chinese\": true, \"remove_edit_buttons\": true, \"extract_latex\": true}, \"warc_path\": \"s3:\/\/commoncrawl\/crawl-data\/CC-MAIN-2019-09\/segments\/1550247481122.31\/warc\/CC-MAIN-20190216210606-20190216232606-00544.warc.gz\"}"} | null | null |
{"url":"https:\/\/www.studypug.com\/physics-help\/waves-behave-like-particles1","text":"# Waves behave like particles\n\n#### Everything You Need in One Place\n\nHomework problems? Exam preparation? Trying to grasp a concept or just brushing up the basics? Our extensive help & practice library have got you covered.\n\n#### Learn and Practice With Ease\n\nOur proven video lessons ease you through problems quickly, and you get tonnes of friendly practice on questions that trip students up on tests and finals.\n\n#### Instant and Unlimited Help\n\nOur personalized learning platform enables you to instantly find the exact walkthrough to your specific type of question. Activate unlimited help now!\n\n##### Intros\n###### Lessons\n1. Waves Behave Like Particles\n2. Introduction to particle model of waves.\n3. New theory of quantum mechanics.\n4. Wave practice duality of light\n5. Compton effect\n6. Compton experiment\n##### Examples\n###### Lessons\n1. The stopping potential, $V_{0}$, that prevents electors from flowing across a certain photocell is 6.0V. What is the kinetic energy given to the electrons by incident light? Give your answer in both $J$ and $eV$. Sketch the problem and calculate your answer.\n1. Potassium threshold wavelength is 564 nm,\n1. Find the work function of potassium in $eV$.\n2. If the ultraviolet radiation with a wavelength of 246 nm falls on potassium, what is the energy of the ejected electrons in $eV$. Sketch the problem and calculate your answer.\n1. The stopping potential required to prevent current through a photocell is 4.2$V$. Calculate the kinetic energy in joules and in $eV$ of the photoelectrons as they are emitted.\n1. The threshold wavelength of copper is 264 $nm$.\n1. Find the threshold frequency of copper.\n2. What is the work function in $eV$ of copper?\n3. Copper in a photocell is irritated by ultraviolet light of 140 $nm$ wavelength. What is the kinetic energy of the photoelectrons in $eV$?\n1. The work function for cadmium is 4.07 $eV$.\n1. Find the threshold wavelength for cadmium.\n2. What is the kinetic energy in $eV$ of photoelectrons ejected when 190 nm violet light falls on the cadmium?\n1. An X ray with a wavelength 6.0 x 10-14 $m$ is travelling in a vacuum.\n1. Calculate the momentum associated with this X ray.\n2. Why does the X ray exhibit little particle behavior?\n1. The work function of sodium is 2.28 $eV$.\n1. What is the threshold wavelength of sodium?\n2. Sodium is exposed to radiation of wavelength 160$nm$. What is the maximum kinetic energy of the ejected electrons in $eV$?\n###### Free to Join!\nStudyPug is a learning help platform covering math and science from grade 4 all the way to second year university. Our video tutorials, unlimited practice problems, and step-by-step explanations provide you or your child with all the help you need to master concepts. On top of that, it's fun - with achievements, customizable avatars, and awards to keep you motivated.\n\u2022 #### Easily See Your Progress\n\nWe track the progress you've made on a topic so you know what you've done. From the course view you can easily see what topics have what and the progress you've made on them. Fill the rings to completely master that section or mouse over the icon to see more details.\n\u2022 #### Make Use of Our Learning Aids\n\n###### Practice Accuracy\n\nSee how well your practice sessions are going over time.\n\nStay on track with our daily recommendations.\n\n\u2022 #### Earn Achievements as You Learn\n\nMake the most of your time as you use StudyPug to help you achieve your goals. Earn fun little badges the more you watch, practice, and use our service.\n\u2022 #### Create and Customize Your Avatar\n\nPlay with our fun little avatar builder to create and customize your own avatar on StudyPug. Choose your face, eye colour, hair colour and style, and background. Unlock more options the more you use StudyPug.\n###### Topic Notes\n\nIn this lesson, we will learn:\n\n\u2022 Waves behave like particle\n\u2022 Property of the spectrum emitted from the hot bodies\n\u2022 Photoelectric effect\n\u2022 Compton effect\n\nNotes:\n\n\u2022 Hot bodies contain vibrating particles, which radiate electromagnetic waves.\n\u2022 Looking through a prism at light coming from an incandescent lamp, you will see colors of rainbow.\n\n\u2022 The bulb also emits infrared radiation that you cannot see.\n\u2022 The spectrum of incandescent bodies shows different color at different temperatures and various frequencies.\n\u2022 Energy is emitted at variety of frequencies that depend on the temperature.\n\u2022 As temperature increases the frequency increases.\n\u2022 To explain the shape of the spectrum, Plank assumed that energy is not continues. He assumed that the energy of vibration of the atoms in a solid have only specific frequencies,\n\n\u2022 $E = nhf$\n\n$f$: Frequency\n$h$: Plank\u2019s constant\n$n$: Integer such as (0,1,2,3, 4. . . )\nSo the energy could have values $h f,2h f, 3h f$\n\u2022 This behavior is described by saying that energy is \u201cquantized\u201d, package of specific amounts.\n\u2022 He also proposed that atoms do not always radiate electromagnetic waves as they vibrate, the radiation is emitted only when their vibrating energy changes. For instance, if the energy of an atom changes from $4h f$ to $3h f$, atom emits radiation.\n\nNew Theory of Quantum Mechanics\n\nPlanck\u2019s Quantum Hypothesis:\n\u2022 Energy comes in little bundles, quanta (plural of quantum), quanta is the smallest bundle of energy, we can not have an amount of energy smaller than quanta, like we can not have an amount of charge smaller than one electron.\n\u2022 As you move up the stairs, they are certain levels at which you can stand, you cannot stand between the steps,\n\u2022 In similar ways electrons around an atom exist at different energy levels, electrons jump around randomly from one layer to another, we cannot say exactly where they are, but we can say where they are likely to be Circles representing different levels of energy associated with electrons\n\n\u2022 The further we move from the nucleus the higher the amount of energy\n\u2022 According to the quantum mechanics theory, electrons can exist one energy level or another but not anything between, so the energy is quantized, we can have only discrete amount of energy.\n\u2022 So the Planck\u2019s hypothesis states that molecular oscillations are quantized; their energy E can only be integer ($n$) multiplies of $hf$, where h is the Planck\u2019s constant and $f$ is the natural frequency of oscillations:\n$E = nhf$\n\nWave Practice Duality of Light\n\nPhotoelectric Effect\n\u2022 A negatively charged zinc plate discharges when ultra violet radiation falls on it, but it remains charged when ordinary visible light falls on it.\n\u2022 The positively charged zinc plate does not charge similarly.\n\u2022 Further study showed that the negatively charged zinc plate was discharged by losing or emitting electrons.\n\u2022 The emission of electron upon upon electromagnetic radiation is called the \u201cphotoelectric effect\u201d.\n\n\u2022 Photoelectric cell contains two metal electrodes sealed in evacuated tube.\n\u2022 The larger electrode, cathode, is coated with cesium.\n\u2022 The second electrode, anode, made of a thin wire to block only smallest amount of radiation.\n\u2022 The potential difference across the electrodes attract the electrons.\n\u2022 Only specific type of radiation produces current in the circuit which is read by the ammeter.\n\u2022 The frequency that produces current in the circuit called \u201cthreshold frequency\u201d, $f_{0}$\n\u2022 Frequency below $f_{0}$, does not eject any electrons, no matter how intense the light is.\n\u2022 Frequency above $f_{0}$, ejects electrons , even if the light is very dim.\n\u2022 According to wave model, intensive light should knock more electrons but, in this case is not true.\n\u2022 So the photoelectric effect can not be explained by wave model of light.\n\u2022 The only way to explain this phenomenon is the particle model of light.\n\u2022 According to Einstein, light and other forms of radiation consist of discrete bundles of energy, called \u201cphotons\u201d.\n\u2022 Energy of each photon depends on the frequency of the light.\n\n$E_{1} = hf_{1}$\n$E_{0} = hf_{0}$\n$K = E_{1} -E_{0} = hf_{1} - hf_{0}$\n\n\u201cThe excess energy becomes the kinetic energy of the electron\u201d\n\nThe Compton Effect\n\nThis effect proves that light has particle property.\n\n\u2022 The photoelectric effect reveals that a photon, even though it has no mass, has kinetic energy. So according Einstein, photon has another particle property, momentum.\n\n\u2022 Since photon is travelling as fast as light, we cannot use the $p = mv$ equation to find the photon\u2019s momentum.\n\n\u2022 For those particles that travel at speed of light, momentum is calculated using special relativity, which allows massless particles to have momentum.\n\n\u2022 Momentum of a photon is: $p= h\/\\lambda$, where h is the Plank\u2019s constant.\n$h =$6.626 x 10-34J.s $\\qquad \\lambda =$ wavelength in meters.\n\n\u2022 The energy of photon is calculated using; $E = hf \\enspace \\Rightarrow \\enspace E = \\frac{hc} {\\lambda}$\n\nand $\\lambda = c.T = c\/f \\, \\Rightarrow \\, f = c\/\\lambda$\n\n\u2022 To study the nature of photons, Compton directed X-rays of known wavelength at a graphite retarget, the wavelength of the scattered X-ray was longer than the original one.\n\n\u2022 The above equation shows that the energy of a photon is inversely proportional to its wavelength. The increase in wavelength observed by Compton, means that the X-ray photons had lost both energy and momentum.\n\n\u2022 The shift in the energy of scattered photons is called \u201cCompton effect\u201d.\n\u2022 Compton observed that electrons were ejected from the graphite block, so the energy and momentum of the photons are transferred to electrons, similar to the elastic collisions of particles.\n\u2022 Therefore, a photon is a particle that has energy and momentum.","date":"2022-10-06 14:05:32","metadata":"{\"extraction_info\": {\"found_math\": true, \"script_math_tex\": 0, \"script_math_asciimath\": 0, \"math_annotations\": 40, \"math_alttext\": 0, \"mathml\": 0, \"mathjax_tag\": 0, \"mathjax_inline_tex\": 0, \"mathjax_display_tex\": 0, \"mathjax_asciimath\": 0, \"img_math\": 0, \"codecogs_latex\": 0, \"wp_latex\": 0, \"mimetex.cgi\": 0, \"\/images\/math\/codecogs\": 0, \"mathtex.cgi\": 0, \"katex\": 0, \"math-container\": 0, \"wp-katex-eq\": 0, \"align\": 0, \"equation\": 0, \"x-ck12\": 0, \"texerror\": 0, \"math_score\": 0.5552842020988464, \"perplexity\": 1374.0115365995186}, \"config\": {\"markdown_headings\": true, \"markdown_code\": true, \"boilerplate_config\": {\"ratio_threshold\": 0.18, \"absolute_threshold\": 10, \"end_threshold\": 5, \"enable\": true}, \"remove_buttons\": true, \"remove_image_figures\": true, \"remove_link_clusters\": true, \"table_config\": {\"min_rows\": 2, \"min_cols\": 3, \"format\": \"plain\"}, \"remove_chinese\": true, \"remove_edit_buttons\": true, \"extract_latex\": true}, \"warc_path\": \"s3:\/\/commoncrawl\/crawl-data\/CC-MAIN-2022-40\/segments\/1664030337836.93\/warc\/CC-MAIN-20221006124156-20221006154156-00119.warc.gz\"}"} | null | null |
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\section{Introduction}
The cohomology theory of associative algebras was initiated by Hochschild \cite{Ho1,Ho2,Ho3} in 1945 in terms of multilinear maps into a bimodule and coboundary operators.
In 1953, after a discussing with Singer
at a conference,
Kaplansky went on from there to write his paper
\cite{Kap} proposing some problems about derivations on $C^*$-algebras and von Neumann algebras. He showed in \cite{Kap} that every derivation
on a von Neumann algebra $\mathcal{M}$ of type I is inner, which may be restated in cohomological terms that the first continuous cohomology group of $\mathcal{M}$ vanishes.
Recall that a \textbf{derivation} of a Banach algebra $\mathcal{A}$ (over the complex field $\mathbb{C}$) with coefficients in a Banach $\mathcal{A}$-bimodule $X$ is a linear map $D$ from $\mathcal{A}$ into $X$ satisfying $D(AB)=AD(B)+D(A)B$ for all $A$, $B$ in $\mathcal{A}$. We say that $D$ is \textbf{inner} when there is an element $T$ in $X$ such that $D(A)=AT-TA$ for each $A$ in $\mathcal{A}$.
Let $\mathcal{Z}^1(\mathcal{A},X)$
be the space of all (continuous) derivations from $\mathcal{A}$ into $X$ and $\mathcal{B}^1(\mathcal{A},X)$ be the space of all inner derivations, respectively. It is clear that $\mathcal{B}^1(\mathcal{A},X)$ is a linear subspace of $\mathcal{Z}^1(\mathcal{A},X)$. The first
(continuous) Hochschild cohomology group of $\mathcal{A}$ with coefficients in $X$ is then defined to be the following quotient vector space:
\[H^1(\mathcal{A},X)=\frac{\mathcal{Z}^1(\mathcal{A},X)}{\mathcal{B}^1(\mathcal{A},X)}.\]
The study of cohomology of operator algebras started with the Kadison-Sakai Theorem \cite{Kad, Sa}: Every derivation on a von Neumann algebra $\mathcal{M}$ is inner, i.e., $H^{1}(\mathcal{M},\mathcal{M})=0$. A similar problem is the case when the bimodule is $B(\mathcal{H})$, which is equivalent to Kadison's similarity problem \cite{Kad2}. To study the classification
of von Neumann algebras, from 1968 to 1972,
Johnson, Kadison and Ringrose \cite{KR,KR2,JKR,J}
proved a series of technical
results of the cohomology groups of von Neumann algebras. In particular, they showed that
$H^{n}(\mathcal{M},\mathcal{M})=0$ for all $n\geq1$ when $\mathcal{M}$ is a hyperfinite von Neumann algebra. Due to this fact, Kadison and Ringrose
conjectured that these cohomology groups are zero for
all von Neumann algebras. With the aid of the theory of completely bounded cohomology, this conjecture can be ultimately reduced to the case when $\mathcal{M}$ is a factor of type II$_1$ with separable predual. In \cite{SS}, Sinclair and Smith showed that
the conjecture holds for von Neumann algebras with
Cartan subalgebras and separable preduals. Later in 2003, Christensen et al. \cite{CPSS} proved that the continuous cohomology groups $H^n(\mathcal{M},\mathcal{M})$ and $H^n(\mathcal{M}, B(\mathcal{H})) $ of a factor
$\mathcal{M} \subseteq B(\mathcal{H})$ of type II$_1$ with property $\Gamma$ are zero for all $n\geq 1$. The latest result was proved by Pop and Smith in
\cite{PS}, which shows
that the second cohomology group $H^{2}(\mathcal{M} \overline{\otimes} \mathcal{N},\mathcal{M} \overline{\otimes} \mathcal{N})$ vanishes for arbitrary type II$_1$ von Neumann algebras $\mathcal{M}$ and $\mathcal{N}$. Note that the free group factor $L_{\mathcal{F}_2}$
satisfies none
of the above cases and the higher order
cohomology groups of $L_{\mathcal{F}_2}$ are still unknown.
The cohomology of Banach algebras are different from
that of von Neumann algebras in two main aspects:
the automatically continuity of derivations and the cohomology groups. It was conjectured
by Kaplansky in \cite{Kap} (which was finally proved by Sakai in \cite{Sa1})
that every derivation on a C$^*$-algebra is continuous.
While, derivations on a Banach algebra are not necessarily continuous. In \cite{BJ}, Bade and Curtis constructed several examples of Banach algebras on which not all derivations are continuous.
On the other hand, Johnson and Sinclair \cite{JS} showed that the continuity of derivations still holds for semisimple Banach algebras. Up to now, there are no examples showing that the cohomology groups of a von Neumann algebra are non-trivial. Let $\mathcal{A}(\mathbb{D})$ be the set of all complex-valued functions that are continuous on the closed unit disk and analytic in the interior. Then $\mathcal{A}(\mathbb{D})$ endowed with the supremum norm is a
unital Banach algebra. The second cohomology group of $\mathcal{A}(\mathbb{D})$ is non-trivial \cite[Proposition 9.1]{Joh}.
Thompson's group $\mathcal{F}=\langle X_0,X_1,X_2,\ldots\ |\ X_{i}^{-1}X_{j}X_{i}=X_{j+1},\ j>i\ \rangle$ was firstly introduced by Richard Thompson in 1965 \cite{CFP}. It was conjectured by Geoghegan
around 1979 that: ($\romannumeral1$) the group $\mathcal{F}$ contains no non-abelian free groups; ($\romannumeral2$) $\mathcal{F}$ is not amenable. Statement
($\romannumeral1$) was obtained by Brin and Squier
\cite{BS}
in 1985 while ($\romannumeral2$) still remains unknown. Many research works nowadays are
developed to answering this question due to two main reasons: $(1)$ $\mathcal{F}$ is related to many branches of mathematics such as geometric group theory; $(2)$ the amenability problem is one of the most significant research areas in mathematics. Every nontrivial element in $\mathcal{F}$ can be represented as a unique normal form:
\[X_{0}^{\alpha_0}X_{1}^{\alpha_1}\cdots X_{n}^{\alpha_n}X_{n}^{-\beta_n}\cdots X_{0}^{-\beta_0},\]
where $\alpha_{0}$, $\ldots$, $\alpha_{n}$, $\beta_{0}$, $\ldots$, $\beta_{n}$, and $n$ are natural numbers such that ($\romannumeral1$) exactly one of
$\alpha_n$ and $\beta_n$ is nonzero and ($\romannumeral2$) if $a_k >0$ and $b_k >0$ for some integer $k$ with $0 < k < n$, then $a_{k+1} > 0$ or $b_{k+1} > 0$. For example, $X_0X_1X_{0}^{-1}$
and $X_0X_1X_{2}^{-1}X_{0}^{-1}$ are two normal forms while $X_0X_2X_{3}^{-1}X_{0}^{-1}$
is not.
The amenability of Thompson's group $\mathcal{F}$
has been an open problem for more that 40 years. We refer the readers to \cite{CFP} for more details about it.
Let $G$ be a locally compact group and $l^{\infty}(G)$ be the space of all the bounded complex-valued functions on $G$. Then $l^{\infty}(G)$ is a commutative $C^{*}$-algebra. The group $G$ is said to be \textbf{amenable} if there is a state $\mu$ on $l^{\infty}(G)$ such that $\mu(gf)=\mu(f)$, where $f\in l^{\infty}(G)$, $g\in G$ and $(gf)(h)=f(g^{-1}h)$ for each $h$ in $G$. The state $\mu$ is then called a \textbf{left invariant mean} on $l^{\infty}(G)$. Additive group of integers $(\mathbb{Z},+)$ is amenable while the free group $\mathcal{F}_2$ on two generators is not amenable.
In \cite{Joh}, Johnson characterized the amenable group $G$ through the first Hochschild cohomology groups of $l^{1}(G)$, the space of all absolute-summable complex-valued functions on $G$, with coefficients in the dual Banach $l^{1}(G)$-bimodules:
Let $G$ be a locally compact group. Then $G$ is amenable if and only if $H^{1}(l^{1}(G), \mathcal{X}^{*})=0$ for each Banach $l^{1}(G)$-bimodule $\mathcal{X}$.
In this paper, we shall apply the theory of cohomology
to study the amenability of $\mathcal{F}$.
Let $\mathcal{S}$ be the subset $\{X_0^{i_0}\cdots X_n^{i_n}\in\mathcal{F}: \ i_j\in\mathbb{N},\ 1\leq j \leq n
\} $ of $\mathcal{F}$. Then $\mathcal{S}=\langle X_0,X_1,X_2,\ldots\ |\ X_{j}X_{i}=X_{i}
X_{j+1},\ j>i\ \rangle$ is a discrete cancellative semigroup and we call it
\textbf{Thompson's semigroup}. The structure of
$\mathcal{F}$ is inherited by $\mathcal{S}$ well.
It was proved by Grigorchuk in 1990 that Thompson's group $\mathcal{F}$ is amenable if and only if Thompson's semigroup $\mathcal{S}$
is left amenable. It is clear that every non-trivial element in $\mathcal{S}$ can be uniquely written as
$X_{i_1}^{\alpha_1}\cdots X_{i_n}^{\alpha_n}$ ($i_1<\cdots <i_n$) for some positive integers $\alpha_j$ ($1\leq j\leq n$). This property is similar to the fundamental theorem of arithmetic which states that every natural number ($\geq 2$) can be uniquely written as the product of primes up to reorder. Moreover, classical arithmetic functions,
such as M\"obius function and divisor function,
can be generalized on $\mathcal{S}$ \cite{Xue}. These properties can help us to understand the structure of $\mathcal{S}$ better.
Therefore, studying $\mathcal{S}$ may bring more useful tools to study the amenability of $\mathcal{F}$.
Let $\mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{S})$ be the Banach
algebra generated by the left regular representation of
$\mathcal{S}$ and $X$ be a Banach
$\mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{S})$-bimodule. The Banach algebras $\mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{S})$ and $\mathcal{L}(\mathcal{S})$ (See Section \ref{sec_Preliminaries}) are two important Banach
$\mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{S})$-bimodules. Essentially speaking, if $H^{n}(\mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{S}),X)\neq0$ for some $n\geq1$ and bimodule $X$,
then we can almost obtain that $\mathcal{S}$ is not left amenable. The main topic of this paper is to study
the cohomology of $\mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{S})$.
The basic idea behind the calculation of
cohomology groups is to take an average in a suitable way. In most cases, averages are taken on amenable groups. In this article, we shall extend it to $\mathcal{S}$.
The following sections are organized as follows. In Section \ref{sec_Preliminaries}, we provide
some basic definitions related to semigroup algebras and amenable semigroups. In Section \ref{sec_Unique factorization semigroups}, we introduce
the notion of unique factorization semigroup and give three classical examples: Thompson's semigroup, free semigroups and the amenable semigroup $\mathcal{T}$ (See Example \ref{ex_amenable semigroup T}). The continuity of derivations (See Proposition \ref{prop: continuity_derivations}) and the cohomology groups of $\mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{S})$ (See Theorem \ref{thm_the first cohomology is zero} and Theorem
\ref{thm_first_co_B(S)}) are the main contents of this paper and are discussed in Sections
\ref{sec_Automatically continuous of derivations} and \ref{sec_The first cohomology group}. We end this paper with some further discussions.
\textbf{Acknowledgements.}
The author wishes to thank Professor Liming Ge for all his long-term help and encouragement.
He would like to thank Boqing Xue and Yongle Jiang for helpful discussions. He also heartly thanks Hanbin Zhang
for his valuable suggestions on the manuscript.
This research was supported partly by AMSS of Chinese Academy of Sciences and by YMSC of Tsinghua
University.
\section{Preliminaries}\label{sec_Preliminaries}
Group algebras and group actions on manifolds are two major sources for the construction of operator
algebras. In applications, generalizations of groups (group algebras), such as semigroups (semigroup algebras), are also used. A brief description of semigroup algebras follows.
The Hilbert space $\mathcal{H}$ is $l^{2}(S)$, the space of all square-summable complex valued functions on the semigroup $S$. The semigroup $S$ (with unit $e$) is assumed to be discrete such that $\mathcal{H}$ is separable. The family of functions
$(\delta_s)_{s\in S}$ forms an orthonormal basis of
$\mathcal{H}$, where $\delta_s$ is $1$ at the semigroup element $s$ and $0$ elsewhere.
For each $f$ and $g$ in $\mathcal{H}$, let $L_f$ be the left convolution operator defined as
$L_fg= f\ast g$, where $ f\ast g(s)=\sum_{uv=s}f(u)g(v)$ for each $s$ in $S$. Let $\mathcal{L}(S)$
be the set of all bounded left convolution operators on
$\mathcal{H}$. Then $\mathcal{L}(S)$ is a subalgebra
of $B(\mathcal{H})$. In general, $\mathcal{L}(S)$ is a non-self-adjoint algebra. Similarly, let $\mathcal{R}(S)$ be the subalgebra of $B(\mathcal{H})$ consisting of all bounded right convolution operators. Then
$\mathcal{L}(S)'=\mathcal{R}(S)$ and $\mathcal{R}(S)'=\mathcal{L}(S)$, which implies that $\mathcal{L}(S)$ and $\mathcal{R}(S)$ are both weak-closed algebras. For each
$s$ in $S$, the operator $L_{\delta_s}$ is an isometry on $\mathcal{H}$ and is denoted by $L_s$ in this paper for convenience. Let $\mathfrak{B}(S)$ be the Banach algebra generated by $\{L_s:\ s\in S \}$ in
$B(\mathcal{H})$. Then
$\mathfrak{B}(S)$ is a Banach subalgebra of $\mathcal{L}(S)$.
Specific examples for such Banach algebras result from
choosing for $S$ any of the free semigroup $\mathcal{F}_n$ on
$n$ generators ($\geq2$), Thompson's semigroup
$\mathcal{S}$, or the multiplicative semigroup of natural numbers $(\mathbb{N},\cdot)$.
The algebraic structures of $\mathfrak{B}(S)$ can reflect the structures of $S$ well. In \cite{DHX}, Dong,
Huang and Xue proved that the maximal ideal space of the commutative Banach algebra $\mathfrak{B}(\mathbb{N})$ is homeomorphic to the Cartesian product of unit closed disk indexed by primes (see Theorem 1.1 in \cite{DHX}). They pointed out that this result implies the fundamental theorem of arithmetic. Analogously, to study the cohomology of the
Banach algebras $\mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{S})$, $\mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{F}_2)$
and $\mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{T})$ can help us to understand the properties of the corresponding semigroups well.
In this paper, we shall show that derivations on $\mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{S})$, $\mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{F}_2)$
and $\mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{T})$ are automatically continuous, and
every derivation on $\mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{S})$ is spatial and induced by a bounded operator in $\mathcal{L}(\mathcal{S})$. Comparing with a result of Kadison \cite[Theorem 4]{Kad} that every derivation on a $C^*$-algebra
is spatial, we give a non-trivial example in the case of Banach algebras. Moreover, the first cohomology group
of $\mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{S})$ with coefficients in
$\mathcal{L}(\mathcal{S})$ is shown to be zero, which gives a positive
indication for the left amenability of Thompson's semigroup.
In the following, we recall several concepts and results about amenable semigroups. We say that a discrete cancellative semigroup $S$ is \textbf{left (resp. right) amenable}
if there exists a left (resp. right) invariant mean on $l^{\infty}(S)$. For example, the additive semigroup
of natural numbers is amenable while the free semigroup on
$n$ generators ($\geq2$) is not.
A \textbf{left (resp. right) F{\o}lner net} of $S$ is a net of non-empty finite subsets $\{F_{\alpha}\}$ in $S$
such that for any $s\in S$,
\[\lim_{\alpha}\frac{|sF_{\alpha}\Delta F_{\alpha}|}{|F_{\alpha}|}=0\ \left( resp.\ \lim_{\alpha}\frac{|F_{\alpha}s\Delta F_{\alpha}|}{|F_{\alpha}|}=0\right).\]
It was firstly proved for groups by Følner, and was then generalized to discrete cancellative semigroups by Frey \cite{Frey} that $S$ is left (resp. right) amenable if and only if $S$ has
a left (resp. right ) F{\o}lner's net.
In \cite{Folner} , F{\o}lner proved that
every subgroup of an amenable group is still amenable. For semigroups, it is not always true. In
\cite{Frey}, Frey gave an example of a left amenable semigroup which contains a semigroup
that is not left amenable. Moreover, he proved the following lemma.
\begin{lemma}\label{thm_ amenability of subsemigroups}
Let $S$ be a cancellative semigroup such that $S$ contains no free subsemigroup on two generators. If $S$ is left
amenable, then every subsemigroup of $S$ is also left amenable.
\end{lemma}
\section{Unique factorization semigroup}\label{sec_Unique factorization semigroups}
\begin{definition}
Let $S$ be a discrete semigroup. We say that $S$
is a \textbf{unique factorization semigroup} if there exists
a subset $\{X_1,X_2,X_3,\ldots\}$ of $S$ such that
($\romannumeral1$)
every non-trivial element in $S$ can be uniquely written as $X_{i_1}^{\alpha_1}\cdots X_{i_n}^{\alpha_n}$, where $\alpha_i$ ($1\leq i\leq n$) are positive integers and $i_1<\cdots<i_n$;
($\romannumeral2$) If $e=X_{1}^{\beta_1}\cdots X_{n}^{\beta_n}$ for some non-negative integers $\beta_i$ ($1\leq i\leq n$), then $\beta_i$ must be zero. The subset $\{X_1,X_2,X_3,\ldots\}$ is then called a \textbf{basis}
of $\mathcal{S}$.
\end{definition}
For example, the multiplicative semigroup of natural numbers is a unique factorization semigroup and
the set of all primes is the unique basis up to reorder.
It is also clear that Thompson's semigroup $\mathcal{S}=\langle X_0, X_1,\cdots\ |\ X_jX_i=X_iX_{j+1},\ i<j \rangle$ is a unique factorization semigroup with the basis $\{X_n\in\mathcal{S}:\ n\in\mathbb{N}\}$.
Next, we introduce some definitions and properties of $\mathcal{S}$ that will be frequently used in Sections \ref{sec_Automatically continuous of derivations} and \ref{sec_The first cohomology group}.
\begin{definition}\label{def:Index_on_Thompson's_semigroup}
Let $X=X_{0}^{\alpha_0}X_{1}^{\alpha_1}\cdots X_{n}^{\alpha_n}$ be an element in $\mathcal{S}$,
where $\alpha_i$ ($1\leq i\leq n$) are positive integers and $i_1<\cdots<i_n$.
We define the \textbf{index of $X$ at the $i^{th}$ position}
as $\mathsf {ind}_i(X):=\alpha_i$ and the \textbf{index} of $X$ is given by $\mathsf {ind}(X):=\sum_{i=0}^{n}\mathsf {ind}_i(X)$. The \textbf{index} of the unit element $e$ is defined to be zero.
\end{definition}
It is clear that $\mathsf {ind}_{0}(uv)=\mathsf {ind}_{0}(u)+\mathsf {ind}_{0}(v)=\mathsf {ind}_0(vu)$ and $\mathsf {ind}(uv)=\mathsf {ind}(u)+\mathsf {ind}(v)=\mathsf {ind}(vu)$ for all $u$ and $v$
in $\mathcal{S}$. In general, $\mathsf {ind}_i(uv)\neq \mathsf {ind}_i(u)+\mathsf {ind}_i(v)$ for $i\geq2$. For example, $\mathsf {ind}_2(X_0X_2X_1)=\mathsf {ind}_2(X_0X_1X_3)=0\neq 1=
\mathsf {ind}_2(X_0X_2)+\mathsf {ind}_2(X_1)$.
\begin{definition}\cite{Xue}\label{def:Partial_order_ on_Thompson's_ semigroup}
Let $u$, $v$, $w$ $\in$ $\mathcal{S}$.
We call $u$ a \textbf{divisor} of $v$ if $v=uw$ which we denote by $u|v$.
\end{definition}
For example, $X_1|X_0X_2$ while
$X_2\nmid X_0X_2$. It is clear that if $u|v$ then $\mathsf {ind}(u)\leq \mathsf {ind}(v)$.
\begin{lemma}\cite{Xue}\label{lem:Partial_order_ on_Thompson's_ semigroup}
The relation ``$|$" is a \textbf{partial order} on $\mathcal{S}$.
\begin{proof}
Let $u$, $v$, $w$ $\in$ $\mathcal{S}$. Next, we verify the following three axioms of the partial order.
\begin{enumerate}
\item (Reflexivity.) $u=ue$ implies $u|u$.
\item (Antisymmetry.) If $u|v$ and $v|u$, then $u=vw_1$ and $v=uw_2$ for some $w_1$, $w_2$
in $\mathcal{S}$. Then we have $w_2w_1=e$,
which imples $w_1=w_2=e$. Thus $u=v$.
\item (Transitivity.) Suppose that $u|v$ and $v|w$,
then $v=uw_1$ and $w=vw_2$ for some $w_1$, $w_2$ in $\mathcal{S}$. We have $w=uw_1w_2$.
Thus $u|w$.
\end{enumerate}
As a result, we conclude that ``$|$" is a partial order.
\end{proof}
\end{lemma}
\begin{lemma}\label{lem:partial_order_S_property}
Let $X$ be an element in $\mathcal{S}$ such that $X_0|X$. Then
for each $n\in\mathbb{N}$, we have
($\romannumeral1$) $X_{1}^{-n}XX_{1}^{n}\in \mathcal{S}$ if and only if
$X_{1}^{n}|X$;
($\romannumeral2$) $X_{1}^{n}XX_{1}^{-n}\in
\mathcal{S} $ if and only if $X=YX_{1}^{n}$ for some $Y\in \mathcal{S}$.
\begin{proof}
($\romannumeral1$) If $X_{1}^{n}|X$, then it is clear that $X_{1}^{-n}XX_{1}^{n}\in \mathcal{S}$. Conversely, we have $X_1^n|XX_1^n$.
If $X_1^n$ is not a divisor of $X$, since
$X_1^{-n}X_0=X_0X_2^{-n}$, we have that the
normal form of $X_{1}^{-n}XX_{1}^{n}$ is $ZX_j^{-m}$ for some $Z\in\mathcal{S}$ and $j\geq2$, $m\geq1$. This leads to a contradiction. Thus
$X_1^n|X$.
($\romannumeral2$) Assume that $W=X_{1}^{n}XX_{1}^{-n}\in \mathcal{S} $, then we have
$X_0|W$ and $X=X_1^{-n}WX_1^{n}\in \mathcal{S}$. From ($\romannumeral1$), we have $X_1^n|W$. Let $Y= X_1^{-n}W$, then $X=YX_1^n$. The other direction is obvious. We complete the proof.
\end{proof}
\end{lemma}
Finally, with the aid of the index we introduce a total order on $\mathcal{S}$ which plays an important role in Sections \ref{sec_Automatically continuous of derivations} and \ref{sec_The first cohomology group}.
\begin{definition}\label{def:Total_order_on_ Thompson's_semigroup}
Let $u$, $v$ $\in$
$\mathcal{S}$. We write $u\prec v$ if
one of the following conditions holds:
($\romannumeral1$)
$\mathsf {ind}(u)<\mathsf {ind}(v)$;
($\romannumeral2$)
$\mathsf {ind}(u)=\mathsf {ind}(v)$ and $\mathsf {ind}_{0}(u)>\mathsf {ind}_{0}(v)$;
($\romannumeral3$) $\mathsf {ind}(u)=\mathsf {ind}(v)$, $\mathsf {ind}_{0}(u)=\mathsf {ind}_{0}(v)$, and there exits a positive integer $i$ such that
$\mathsf {ind}_{j}(u)=\mathsf {ind}_{j}(v)$ whenever $j<i$ while $\mathsf {ind}_{i}(u)>\mathsf {ind}_{i}(v)$.
We use $u\preceq v$ to denote $u\prec v$ or $u=v$.
\end{definition}
For example, $X_0\prec X_1\prec X_0X_1\prec X_0X_2
\prec X_1X_2$. The relation ``$\preceq$"
is a \textbf{total order} on $\mathcal{S}$
with the following properties.
\begin{lemma}\label{lem_property of total order of Thompson's semigroup}
We have the following:
($\romannumeral1$) There exists a unique minimal element in every non-empty subset of $\mathcal{S}$ under the total order;
($\romannumeral2$)
Let $u_i$ and $v_i$ ($1\leq i\leq n$) be $2n$
elements in $\mathcal{S}$.
If $u_{i}\preceq v_{i}$ for each $1\leq i\leq n$, then $\Pi_{i=1}^{n}u_{i}\preceq \Pi_{i=1}^{n}v_{i}$. The equality holds if and only if $u_{i}=v_{i}$
for each $1\leq i\leq n$.
\begin{proof}
It is clear that ($\romannumeral1$) holds.
We now give the proof of ($\romannumeral2$).
Firstly, we consider the case when $n=2$.
If $\mathsf {ind}(u_{1})<\mathsf {ind}(v_{1})$ or $\mathsf {ind}(u_{2})<\mathsf {ind}(v_{2})$, then
$\mathsf {ind}(u_{1}u_{2})=\mathsf {ind}(u_{1})+\mathsf {ind}(u_{2})<\mathsf {ind}(v_{1})+\mathsf {ind}(v_{2})=\mathsf {ind}(v_{1}v_{2})$. This implies $u_{1}u_{2}\prec v_{1}v_{2}$. In the case when $\mathsf {ind}(u_{1})=\mathsf {ind}(v_{1})$ and $\mathsf {ind}(u_{2})=\mathsf {ind}(v_{2})$, if $\mathsf {ind}_{0}(u_{1})>\mathsf {ind}_{0}(v_{1})$ or $\mathsf {ind}_{0}(u_{2})>\mathsf {ind}_{0}(v_{2})$, then
$\mathsf {ind}_{0}(u_{1}u_{2})=\mathsf {ind}_{0}(u_{1})+\mathsf {ind}_{0}(u_{2})>\mathsf {ind}_{0}(v_{1})+\mathsf {ind}_{0}(v_{2})=\mathsf {ind}_{0}(v_{1}v_{2})$. This also implies $u_{1}u_{2}\prec v_{1}v_{2}$. Hence, we may assume that $\mathsf {ind}_{0}(u_{1})=\mathsf {ind}_{0}(v_{1})$ and $\mathsf {ind}_{0}(u_{2})=\mathsf {ind}_{0}(v_{2})$. If either $\mathsf {ind}(u_{1})$ or $\mathsf {ind}(u_{2})$ is zero, then it is trivial. Thus we may further assume that $\mathsf {ind}(u_{1})=\mathsf {ind}(v_{1})\geq1$ and $\mathsf {ind}(u_{2})=\mathsf {ind}(v_{2})\geq1$.
\textbf{Case I:} $u_{2}=v_{2}$. If $u_{1}=v_{1}$, then it is proved. Otherwise, let $u_{1}=X_{0}^{\alpha_{0}}\cdots X_{n}^{\alpha_{n}}$ and $v_{1}=X_{0}^{\beta_{0}}\cdots X_{m}^{\beta_{m}}$.
By the definition of the total order, there exists an $i>0$ such that
$\alpha_{j}=\beta_{j}$ whenever $j<i$ and
$\alpha_{i}>\beta_{i}$. Since $\{X_l\in\mathcal{S}:\ l\in\mathbb{N}\}$ is a basis of
$\mathcal{S}$,
it only needs to prove
$u_{1}X_{l}\prec v_{1}X_{l}$ for each
$X_{l}\in \mathcal{S}$. In fact, we have
\begin{align} \label{eq1 of lem property of total order of Thompson's semigroup }
u_{1}X_{l}=
\begin{cases}
X_{0}^{\alpha_{0}}\cdots X_{l-1}^{\alpha_{l-1}}X_{l}^{\alpha_{l}+1} X_{l+2}^{\alpha_{l+1}}\cdots X_{i+1}^{\alpha_{i}}
\cdots X_{n+1}^{\alpha_{n}}&l<i,
\cr X_{0}^{\alpha_{0}}\cdots X_{i-1}^{\alpha_{i-1}}X_{i}^{\alpha_{i}+1} X_{i+2}^{\alpha_{i+1}}\cdots X_{n+1}^{\alpha_{n}}&l=i,
\cr X_{0}^{\alpha_{0}}\cdots X_{i-1}^{\alpha_{i-1}}X_{i}^{\alpha_{i}} X_{i_{1}}^{\alpha'_{i_{1}}}\cdots X_{i_{t}}^{\alpha'_{i_{t}}}&l>i,
\end{cases}
\end{align}
and
\begin{align} \label{eq2 of lem property of total order of Thompson's semigroup }
v_{1}X_{l}=
\begin{cases}
X_{0}^{\beta_{0}}\cdots X_{l-1}^{\beta_{l-1}}X_{l}^{\beta_{l}+1} X_{l+2}^{\beta_{l+1}}\cdots X_{i+1}^{\beta_{i}}
\cdots X_{m+1}^{\beta_{m}}&l<i,
\cr X_{0}^{\beta_{0}}\cdots X_{i-1}^{\beta_{i-1}}X_{i}^{\beta_{i}+1} X_{i+2}^{\beta_{i+1}}\cdots X_{m+1}^{\beta_{m}}&l=i,
\cr X_{0}^{\beta_{0}}\cdots X_{i-1}^{\beta_{i-1}}X_{i}^{\beta_{i}} X_{j_{1}}^{\beta'_{j_{1}}}\cdots X_{j_{s}}^{\beta'_{j_{s}}}&l>i,
\end{cases}
\end{align}
where $i<i_{1}<\cdots<i_{t}$ and $i<j_{1}<\cdots<j_{s}$. By comparing equations (\ref{eq1 of lem property of total order of Thompson's semigroup }) with (\ref{eq2 of lem property of total order of Thompson's semigroup }), we have $u_{1}X_{l}\prec u_{2}X_{l}$.
\textbf{Case II:} $u_{2}\prec v_{2}$. Let $u_{2}=X_{0}^{\gamma_{0}}\cdots X_{k}^{\gamma_{k}}$ and $v_{2}=X_{0}^{\omega_{0}}\cdots X_{l}^{\omega_{l}}$, then
there exists an $h>0$ such that $\gamma_{j}=\omega_{j}$ whenever $j<h$ and
$\gamma_{h}>\omega_{h}$.
By the first case, it can be reduced to the case when $u_{2}=X_{h}^{\gamma_{h}}\cdots X_{k}^{\gamma_{k}}$ and $v_{2}=X_{h}^{\omega_{h}}\cdots X_{l}^{\omega_{l}}$. If $u_{1}=v_{1}=X_{0}^{\alpha_{0}}\cdots X_{n}^{\alpha_{n}}$, then
\begin{align} \label{eq3 of lem property of total order of Thompson's semigroup }
u_{1}u_{2}=
\begin{cases}
X_{0}^{\alpha_{0}}\cdots X_{n}^{\alpha_{n}}X_{h}^{\gamma_{h}}\cdots X_{l}^{\gamma_{l}}&h>n,
\cr X_{0}^{\alpha_{0}}\cdots X_{h-1}^{\alpha_{h-1}}X_{h}^{\alpha_{h}+\gamma_{h}} X_{h_{1}}^{\alpha'_{h_{1}}}\cdots
X_{h_{t}}^{\alpha'_{h_{t}}}&h\leq n,
\end{cases}
\end{align}
and
\begin{align} \label{eq4 of lem property of total order of Thompson's semigroup }
v_{1}v_{2}=
\begin{cases}
X_{0}^{\alpha_{0}}\cdots X_{n}^{\alpha_{n}}X_{h}^{\omega_{h}}\cdots X_{l}^{\omega_{l}}&h>n,
\cr X_{0}^{\alpha_{0}}\cdots X_{h-1}^{\alpha_{h-1}}X_{h}^{\alpha_{h}+\omega_{h}} X_{h_{1}}^{\alpha''_{h_{1}}}\cdots
X_{h_{s}}^{\alpha''_{h_{s}}}&h\leq n,
\end{cases}
\end{align}
where $h<h_{1}<\cdots<h_{max\{t,s\}}$. By comparing equations (\ref{eq3 of lem property of total order of Thompson's semigroup }) with (\ref{eq4 of lem property of total order of Thompson's semigroup }), we have $u_{1}u_{2}\prec v_{1}v_{2}$. The proof of the case when
$u_{1}\prec v_{1}$ is similar, we omit it here. Moreover, we can obtain from the above process directly that $u_1u_2=v_1v_2$ if and only if $u_1=v_1$ and $u_2=v_2$.
The general case when $n>2$ can be obtained by induction.
\end{proof}
\end{lemma}
We now turn to the free semigroup $\mathcal{F}_n$ on $n$ ($\geq 2$) generators $a_i$ ($1\leq i \leq n$).
The following two definitions on $\mathcal{F}_n$
are parallel to Definitions \ref{def:Index_on_Thompson's_semigroup} and \ref{def:Total_order_on_ Thompson's_semigroup}, and Lemma \ref{lem:Fn_total_order_property} is parallel to
Lemma \ref{lem_property of total order of Thompson's semigroup}.
\begin{definition}
\label{def:Index_on_the_free_semigroup} Let $g=\prod_{j=1}^m \prod_{k=1}^{n}a_k^{i_{jk}}$ be an element in $\mathcal{F}_n$, where $i_{jk}$
($1\leq j \leq m$, $1\leq k\leq n$) are non-negative integers. The \textbf{index} of $g$ is defined as $ \mathsf {ind}(g):= \sum_{j=1}^m \sum_{k=1}^{n}i_{jk}$.
\end{definition}
It is clear that
$\mathsf {ind}(gh)=\mathsf {ind}(g)+\mathsf {ind}(h)$ for all $g$ and $h$ in $\mathcal{F}_n$.
\begin{definition}
\label{def:Total_order_on_the_free_semigroup} Let
$g=\prod_{j=1}^m \prod_{k=1}^{n}a_k^{i_{jk}}$
and $h=\prod_{j=1}^m \prod_{k=1}^{n}a_k^{i'_{jk}}$ be two elements in $\mathcal{F}_n$.
We write $g\prec h$ if one of the following conditions holds:
($\romannumeral1$) $\mathsf {ind}(g)<\mathsf {ind}(h)$;
($\romannumeral2$) $\mathsf {ind}(g)=\mathsf {ind}(h)$ and there exist
some $j_0$ ($1\leq j_0\leq m$) and $k_0$ ($1\leq k_0\leq n$) such that $i_{j_0k_0}> i'_{j_0k_0}$ and $i_{jk}= i'_{jk}$ whenever $j< j_0$ or $j= j_0$ and $k<k_0$.
We use $g\preceq h$ to denote $g\prec h$ or $g=h$.
\end{definition}
The relation ``$\preceq$" is a \textbf{total order} on $\mathcal{F}_n$.
\begin{lemma} \label{lem:Fn_total_order_property}
We have the following:
($\romannumeral1$) There exists a unique minimal element in each subset of $\mathcal{F}_n$ under the total order;
($\romannumeral2$)
Let $g_i$ and $h_i$ ($1\leq i\leq m$) be $2m$
elements in $\mathcal{F}_n$.
If $g_{i}\preceq h_{i}$ for each $i$ ($1\leq i\leq m$), then $\Pi_{i=1}^{m}g_{i}\preceq \Pi_{i=1}^{m}h_{i}$. Moreover, the equality holds if and only if $g_{i}=h_{i}$
for each $i$ ($1\leq i\leq m$).
\end{lemma}
\begin{proposition}\label{ex_free semigroups are unique factorization semigroups}
For $n\geq 2$,
free semigroup $\mathcal{F}_n$ on $n$ generators $a_i$ ($1\leq i \leq n$) is a unique factorization semigroup \footnote{We thank D. Wu for
his useful suggestion on the proof of Example
\ref{ex_free semigroups are unique factorization semigroups}.}.
\begin{proof}
Let $X_i=a_i$ ($1\leq i\leq n$), then $X_1\prec X_2
\prec \cdots \prec X_n$. Let $X_{n+1}$ be the minimal element of $\mathcal{F}$ such that $X_{n+1}$ cannot be represented as $X_1^{i_1}\cdots
X_n^{i_n}$ for any non-negative integers $i_j$ ($1\leq j\leq n$). Then $X_n\prec X_{n+1}$.
Let $X_{n+2}$ be the minimal element of $\mathcal{F}$ such that $X_{n+2}$ cannot be represented as $X_1^{i_1}\cdots
X_n^{i_{n+1}}$ for any non-negative integers $i_j$ ($1\leq j\leq n+1$). Then $X_{n+1}\prec X_{n+2}$.
Continuing this process, we can obtain a subset $\{X_1,X_2,\ldots\}$ of $\mathcal{F}_n$ such that
$X_i\prec X_{i+1}$ for each $i$ ($\geq 1$). Then every element can be written as the product
$X_1^{i_1}\cdots X_n^{i_n}$ for some non-negative integers $i_j$ ($1\leq j\leq n$). We shall show the uniqueness by induction on the index. It is clear that the uniqueness holds for index $\leq1$.
Assume that the uniqueness holds for index $\leq k$
($k\geq 1$).
Let $g\in \mathcal{F}_n$ and $\mathsf{ind}(g)= k+1$.
Suppose that $g$ has two different forms:
\[g= X_{i_1}^{\alpha_1}\cdots X_{i_n}^{\alpha_n}= X_{j_1}^{\beta_1}\cdots X_{j_m}^{\beta_m},\]
where $\alpha_i$ ($1\leq i\leq n$) and $\beta_j$ ($1\leq j\leq m$) are positive integers, $i_1<\cdots<i_n$ and $j_1<\cdots<j_m$. If $i_1=j_1$, then
\[X_{i_1}^{\alpha_1-1}\cdots X_{i_n}^{\alpha_n}= X_{j_1}^{\beta_1-1}\cdots X_{j_m}^{\beta_m},\]
which implies that $n=m$,
$i_t=j_t$ and $\alpha_t=\beta_t$ ($1\leq t\leq n$).
This leads to a contradiction.
We may assume that
$i_1<j_1$. Then there exists some $l$ ($1\leq l\leq n-1$) such that
$(X_{i_1}^{\alpha_1}\cdots X_{i_l}^{\alpha_l})^{-1}X_{j_1}$
belongs to $\mathcal{F}_n$ and $1\leq \mathsf{ind}((X_{i_1}^{\alpha_1}\cdots X_{i_l}^{\alpha_l})^{-1}X_{j_1})< \mathsf{ind}(X_{i_{l+1}})$, or $(X_{i_1}^{\alpha_1}\cdots X_{i_{l-1}}^{\alpha_{l-1}}$
$X_{i_l}^{\alpha'_l})^{-1}X_{j_1}$ ($1\leq l\leq n$)
belongs to $\mathcal{F}_n$ for some $\alpha'_l$ ($1\leq\alpha'_l< \alpha_l$) and $1\leq
\mathsf{ind}((X_{i_1}^{\alpha_1}\cdots X_{i_{l-1}}^{\alpha_{l-1}}X_{i_l}^{\alpha'_l})^{-1}$ $X_{j_1})< \mathsf{ind}(X_{i_l})$. In the first case, we have
$(X_{i_1}^{\alpha_1}\cdots X_{i_l}^{\alpha_l})^{-1}X_{j_1}=X_{s_1}^{\gamma_1}\cdots X_{s_t}^{\gamma_t}$ for some positive integers $\gamma_1,\ldots,\gamma_t$ and
$s_1<\cdots<s_t<min\{ i_{l+1},j_1\}$. Then
\[ X_{i_{l+1}}^{\alpha_{l+1}}\cdots X_{i_n}^{\alpha_n}= X_{s_1}^{\gamma_1}\cdots X_{s_t}^{\gamma_t}X_{j_1}^{\beta_1-1}\cdots X_{j_m}^{\beta_m},\]
which leads to a contradiction. In the second case, we have
$(X_{i_1}^{\alpha_1}\cdots X_{i_l}^{\alpha'_l})^{-1}X_{j_1}=X_{s_1}^{\gamma_1}\cdots X_{s_t}^{\gamma_t}$ for some positive integers $\gamma_1,\ldots,\gamma_t$ and
$s_1<\cdots<s_t<min\{ i_{l},j_1\}$. Then
\[ X_{i_l}^{\alpha_i-\alpha'_i}X_{i_{l+1}}^{\alpha_{l+1}}\cdots X_{i_n}^{\alpha_n}= X_{s_1}^{\gamma_1}\cdots X_{s_t}^{\gamma_t}X_{j_1}^{\beta_1-1}\cdots X_{j_m}^{\beta_m},\]
which also leads to a contradiction. Above all, we complete the proof.
\end{proof}
\end{proposition}
It is known that Thompson's semigroup is not right amenable while the
left amenability is still unknown. The free semigroup
$\mathcal{F}_n$ is neither left nor right amenable.
For completeness, we construct the following example.
\begin{proposition}\label{ex_amenable semigroup T}
Let $\mathcal{T}$ be the semigroup generated by
\begin{equation*}
A=
\begin{pmatrix}
1 & 0 \\
0 & 2
\end{pmatrix},\
B=
\begin{pmatrix}
2 & 0 \\
0 & 1
\end{pmatrix},\
C=
\begin{pmatrix}
0 & 2 \\
3 & 0
\end{pmatrix}
\end{equation*}
in $GL_{2}(\mathbb{Z})$. Then $\mathcal{T}$ is a
non-commutative unique factorization semigroup. Moreover, $\mathcal{T}$ is both left and right amenable.
\begin{proof}
It can be verified directly that
$AB=BA$, $AC=CB$, $BC=CA$. Hence $\mathcal{T}$
is non-commutative and every element in
$\mathcal{T}$ can be written as $A^{\alpha_1}B^{\alpha_2}C^{\alpha_3}$
for some natural numbers $\alpha_1$, $\alpha_2$ and $\alpha_3$.
Let $X$ be a matrix in $\mathcal{T}$ with two different representations: $X=A^{\alpha_{1}}B^{\alpha_{2}}C^{\alpha_{3}}=A^{\beta_{1}}B^{\beta_{2}}C^{\beta_{3}}$,
where $\alpha_i$ and $\beta_i$ ($1\leq i\leq 3$) are natural numbers. Take the determinant at the both side, we have $2^{\alpha_{1}}\cdot 2^{\alpha_{2}}\cdot(-6)^{\alpha_{3}}=2^{\beta_{1}}\cdot 2^{\beta_{2}}\cdot(-6)^{\beta_{3}}$.
Hence $\alpha_{3}=\beta_{3}$ and $\alpha_{1}+\alpha_{2}=\beta_{1}+\beta_{2}$. Then we have $A^{\alpha_{1}-\beta_{1}}=B^{\beta_{2}-\alpha_{2}}$, which implies $\alpha_{1}=\beta_{1}$ and $\alpha_{2}=\beta_{2}$. Thus $\mathcal{T}$ is a unique factorization semigroup.
For each positive integer $N$ ($\geq2$), let $F_{N}=\{A^{\alpha_{1}}B^{\alpha_{2}}C^{\alpha_{3}}\in\mathcal{T}\ |\ 0\leq \alpha_{i}\leq N-1,\ i=1,2,3\}$, we have
\begin{align*}
AF_{N}\cap F_{N}=\{A^{\alpha_{1}}B^{\alpha_{2}}C^{\alpha_{3}}\in \mathcal{T}\ |\ 1\leq \alpha_{1}\leq N-1,\ 0\leq \alpha_{i}\leq N-1,\ i=2,3\},\\
BF_{N}\cap F_{N}=\{A^{\alpha_{1}}B^{\alpha_{2}}C^{\alpha_{3}}\in \mathcal{T}\ |\ 1\leq \alpha_{2}\leq N-1,\ 0\leq \alpha_{i}\leq N-1,\ i=1,3\},\\
CF_{N}\cap F_{N}=\{A^{\alpha_{1}}B^{\alpha_{2}}C^{\alpha_{3}}\in \mathcal{T}\ |\ 1\leq \alpha_{3}\leq N-1,\ 0\leq \alpha_{i}\leq N-1,\ i=1,2\}
\end{align*}
and $|AF_{N}\cap F_{N}|=|BF_{N}\cap F_{N}|=|CF_{N}\cap F_{N}|=N^{2}(N-1)$. Then
\[\lim_{N\rightarrow\infty}\frac{|AF_{N}\cap F_{N}|}{|F_{N}|}=\lim_{N\rightarrow\infty}\frac{|BF_{N}\cap F_{N}|}{|F_{N}|}=\lim_{N\rightarrow\infty}\frac{|CF_{N}\cap F_{N}|}{|F_{N}|}=\lim_{N\rightarrow\infty}\frac{N^{2}(N-1)}{N^{3}}=1.\]
Since $A$, $B$, and $C$ are generators of $\mathcal{T}$, then $(F_N)_{N\in \mathbb{N}}$ is a left F{\o}lner
sequence of $\mathcal{T}$.
Thus $\mathcal{T}$ is left amenable.
On the other hand, we have
\begin{align*}
F_{N}A\cap F_{N}=&\{A^{\alpha_{1}}B^{\alpha_{2}}C^{\alpha_{3}}\in \mathcal{T}\ |\ 1\leq \alpha_{1}\leq N-1,\ 0\leq \alpha_{i}\leq N-1,\ i=2,3,\ \alpha_{3}\ \text{is even}\}\\
\cup&\{A^{\alpha_{1}}B^{\alpha_{2}}C^{\alpha_{3}}\in \mathcal{T}\ |\ 1\leq \alpha_{2}\leq N-1,\ 0\leq \alpha_{i}\leq N-1,\ i=1,3,\ \alpha_{3}\ \text{is odd}\},\\
F_{N}B\cap F_{N}=&\{A^{\alpha_{1}}B^{\alpha_{2}}C^{\alpha_{3}}\in \mathcal{T}\ |\ 1\leq \alpha_{2}\leq N-1,\ 0\leq \alpha_{i}\leq N-1,\ i=1,3,\ \alpha_{3}\ \text{is even}\}\\
\cup&\{A^{\alpha_{1}}B^{\alpha_{2}}C^{\alpha_{3}}\in \mathcal{T}\ |\ 1\leq \alpha_{1}\leq N-1,\ 0\leq \alpha_{i}\leq N-1,\ i=2,3,\ \alpha_{3}\ \text{is odd}\},\\
F_{N}C\cap F_{N}=&\{A^{\alpha_{1}}B^{\alpha_{2}}C^{\alpha_{3}}\in \mathcal{T}\ |\ 1\leq \alpha_{3}\leq N-1,\ 0\leq \alpha_{i}\leq N-1,\ i=1,2\}.
\end{align*}
Similarly, $(F_N)_{N\in \mathbb{N}}$ is also a right
F{\o}lner sequence of $\mathcal{T}$. Thus $\mathcal{T}$ is both left and right amenable. We complete the proof.
\end{proof}
\end{proposition}
\section{The continuity of derivations}\label{sec_Automatically continuous of derivations}
In this section, we shall prove the following theorem.
\begin{theorem}\label{prop: continuity_derivations}
Derivations on the Banach algebras $\mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{S})$ and $\mathfrak{B}(F_n)$ are continuous.
\end{theorem}
For the sake of proof, we firstly introduce the following definition.
\begin{definition}
A discrete semigroup $S$ is said to be \textbf{lower stable} if there is a total order
$``\preceq"$ on $S$ such that
($\romannumeral1$) There exists a unique minimal element in each subset of $S$ under the total order;
($\romannumeral2$)
Let $u_i$ and $v_i$ ($1\leq i\leq n$) be $2n$
elements in $S$.
If $u_{i}\preceq v_{i}$ for each $1\leq i\leq n$, then $\Pi_{i=1}^{n}u_{i}\preceq \Pi_{i=1}^{n}v_{i}$. Moreover, the equality holds if and only if $u_{i}=v_{i}$ for each $1\leq i\leq n$.
\end{definition}
By Lemmas \ref{lem_property of total order of Thompson's semigroup} and \ref{lem:Fn_total_order_property}, we have that
Thompson's semigroup $\mathcal{S}$ and the free semigroup $\mathcal{F}_n$ ($n\geq2$) are both lower stable.
\begin{definition}
A Banach algebra $\mathcal{A}$ is said to be \textbf{semisimple} if its Jacobson radical $\mathcal{J}$ equals zero, where
\[\mathcal{J}=\bigcap_{maximal\ ideals\ of\
\mathcal{A}}\mathcal{I}=\bigcap_{maximal\ left\ ideals\ of\ \mathcal{A}}\mathcal{I}_{l}=
\bigcap_{maximal\ right\ ideals\ of\ \mathcal{A}}\mathcal{I}_{r}.\]
\end{definition}
The following lemma is a characterization of
semisimple Banach algebras.
\begin{lemma}\label{lem_a characterization of semisimple}
Let $\mathcal{A}$ be a Banach algebra with the unit
$I$. If $\mathcal{A}$ contains no non-zero quasi-nilpotent
operators, then $\mathcal{A}$ is semisimple.
\begin{proof}
Let $T$ be a non-zero element in $\mathcal{A}$.
Let $\lambda$ be a non-zero spectrum of $T$, then
at least one of
$(\lambda I-T)\mathcal{A}$ and $\mathcal{A}(\lambda I-T)$ is properly contained in
$\mathcal{A}$.
We may assume that the right ideal $(\lambda I-T)\mathcal{A}$ is properly contained in $\mathcal{A}$, then there exists a maximal right ideal $I_{r}$
of $\mathcal{A}$ such that
$(\lambda I-T)\mathcal{A}\subseteq I_{r}\subset\mathcal{A}$. Thus $T$ does not belong to $I_{r}$. This implies $T$ is not in the Jacobson
radical $\mathcal{J}$ of
$\mathcal{A}$. Consequently, we have $\mathcal{J}=0$. This completes the proof.
\end{proof}
\end{lemma}
\begin{lemma}\label{prop:lower_stable_semisimple}
Let $S$ be a lower stable discrete semigroup and $\mathfrak{B}(S)$ be the Banach algebra generated by
$\{L_s:\ s\in S\}$ in $B(l^2(S))$. Then $\mathfrak{B}(S)$ is semisimple.
\begin{proof}
Let $L_f$ be a non-zero element in $\mathfrak{B}(S)$. We claim that the spectral radius $r(L_f)>0$.
By the definition of lower stable semigroup, there is a unique minimal element $X$ of the subset
$\{X\in S:f(X)\neq0\}$ under the total order. Then we have
\[\underbrace{f\ast\cdots \ast f}_{n}(X^{n})=f(X)^{n}\] for each $n\geq1$. Therefore,
\begin{align*}
r(L_{f})=lim_{n\rightarrow\infty}\|L_{f}^{n}\|^{1/n}&\geq lim_{n\rightarrow\infty}\|\underbrace{f\ast\cdots \ast f}_{n}\|_{2}^{1/n}\\
&\geq lim_{n\rightarrow\infty}|\underbrace{f\ast\cdots \ast f}_{n}(X^{n})|^{1/n}=|f(X)|>0.
\end{align*}
By Lemma \ref{lem_a characterization of semisimple}, we obtain that $\mathfrak{B}(S)$ is semisimple.
\end{proof}
\end{lemma}
\begin{corollary}\label{cor:S_Fn_semisimple}
The Banach algebras $\mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{S})$
and $\mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{F}_n)$ are semisimple.
\end{corollary}
The semigroup $\mathcal{T}$ in Example
\ref{ex_amenable semigroup T} may not be lower stable. However, the Banach algebra $\mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{T})$ is
semisimple. The proof is similar with that of Proposition
\ref{prop:lower_stable_semisimple}, we omit it here.
Now, we are ready to prove Proposition \ref{prop: continuity_derivations}.
\begin{comment}
\begin{lemma}\label{lem:T_semisimple}
The Banach algebra $\mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{T})$ is semisimple.
\begin{proof}
For each $s=A^{a}B^{b}C^{c}\in \mathcal{T}$,
we define
$ind_A(s)=a$, $ind_B(s)=b$, $ind_{C}(s)=c$, $ ind(s)=a+b+c$.
Let $s$ and $t$ be two different elements in $\mathcal{T}$, we write $``s\prec t"$ if one of the following conditions holds:
($\romannumeral1$) $ind(s)$<$ind(t)$; ($\romannumeral2$) $ind(s)=ind(t)$, $ ind_C(s)<ind_C(t);$ ($\romannumeral3$) $ind(s)=ind(t)$, $ind_C(s)=ind_C(t)$, $ind_A(s)<Ind_B(s).$ We use $``s\preceq t"$ to denote $s\prec t$ or $s=t$. Then $``\preceq"$ is a total order on $\mathcal{T}$.
Let $L_f$ be a non-zero element in $\mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{T})$
and $E=\{s\in \mathcal{T}\ |\ f(s)\neq0\}.$
Let $n=min\{ind(s)\ |\ s\in E \}$ and $E_0=\{s\in E\ |\ ind(s)=n\}$. Then $E_0$ is a non-empty finite subset of $E$.
Let $m=min\{ind_C(s)\ |\ s\in E_0\}$ and $E_1=\{s\in E_0\ |\ ind_C(s)=m\}$. Then $E_1$ is a non-empty finite subset of $E_0$. Let $X$ and $Y$ be the minimal element and the maximal element of $E_1$, respectively.
If $m$ is even, then
\begin{align*}
\|\underbrace{L_f\cdots L_f}_{k}\|&\geq\|\underbrace{L_f\cdots L_f}_{k}\delta_e\|_{2}
=\|\underbrace{f\ast f\cdots \ast f}_{k}\|_{2}\geq|\underbrace{f\ast f\cdots \ast f}_{k}(X^{k})|\\
&=\left|\sum_{u_1\cdots u_k=X^k}f(u_1)\cdots f(u_k)\right|\\
&=\left|\sum_{\substack{u_1\cdots u_k=X^k\\u_1,\cdots,u_k\in E_1}}f(u_1)\cdots f(u_k)\right|=|f(X)|^{k}.
\end{align*}
Hence, the spectral radius
$r(L_{f})=lim_{k\rightarrow\infty}\|\underbrace{L_f\cdots L_f}_{k}\|^{1/k}\geq |f(X)|>0.$
If $m$ is odd, then
\begin{align*}
\|\underbrace{L_f\cdots L_f}_{2k}\|&\geq\|\underbrace{L_f\cdots L_f}_{2k}\delta_e\|_{2}
=\|\underbrace{f\ast f\cdots \ast f}_{2k}\|_{2}\geq|\underbrace{f\ast f\cdots \ast f}_{2k}((XY)^{k})|\\
&=\left|\sum_{u_1\cdots u_{2k}=(XY)^k}f(u_1)\cdots f(u_{2k})\right|\\
&=\left|\sum_{\substack{u_1\cdots u_{2k}=(XY)^k\\u_1,\cdots,u_{2k}\in E_1}}f(u_1)\cdots f(u_{2k})\right|=|f(X)f(Y)|^{k}.
\end{align*}
Therefore, the spectral radius
$r(L_{f})=lim_{k\rightarrow\infty}\|\underbrace{L_f\cdots L_f}_{2k}\|^{1/2k}\geq \sqrt{|f(X)f(Y)|}>0.$
By Lemma \ref{lem_a characterization of semisimple}, we obtain that $\mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{T})$ is semisimple.
\end{proof}
\end{lemma}
\end{comment}
\begin{proof}[Proof of Proposition \ref{prop: continuity_derivations}]
Theorem 4.1 of \cite{JS} states that derivations on a semisimple Banach algebra are continuous, then by Corollary \ref{cor:S_Fn_semisimple}
we can obtain the conclusion.
\end{proof}
\section{The first cohomology group of $\mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{S})$}\label{sec_The first cohomology group}
A derivation $D$ on a Banach algebra $\mathfrak{B}\subseteq B(\mathcal{H})$ is said to be \textbf{spatial} if there exists a bounded operator $T$ in $B(\mathcal{H})$ such that
$D(A)=TA-AT$ for each $A$ in $\mathfrak{B}$.
In \cite{Kad}, Kadison proved that all derivations on a $C^{*}$-algebra are spatial. In this section, we will prove that all derivations on the Banach algebra $\mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{S})$ are spatial and are induced by bounded operators in $\mathcal{L}(\mathcal{S})$ (Corollary \ref{cor:derivation_spatial}). Moreover, the first continuous cohomology group of $\mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{S})$
with coefficients in $\mathcal{L}(\mathcal{S})$ is
shown to be zero (Theorem \ref{thm_the first cohomology is zero}).
The Hilbert space $\mathcal{H}$ is $l^2(\mathcal{S})$. Recall that $\mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{S})$ is the Banach algebra generated by $\{L_s:s\in \mathcal{S} \}$ in $B(\mathcal{H})$ and $\mathcal{L}(\mathcal{S})=\left\{L_{f}\in B(\mathcal{H}):f\in \mathcal{H}\right\}$. We use $\sum_{X\in \mathcal{S}}f(X)X$ and $\sum_{X\in \mathcal{S}}\overline{f(X)}X^{*}$ to denote $L_{f}$ and its adjoint operator for convenience. It is clear that
$XX^{*}$ is the projection from $\mathcal{H}$ onto the closure of the
subspace span$\{\delta_Y:\ Y\in \mathcal{S},\ X|Y\}$ and $X^{*}X=I$ (the identity operator). Recall that ``|" is the partial order of Thompson's semigroup introduced in Section \ref{sec_Unique factorization semigroups} and ``$X|Y$" means that there exists a $Z$ in $\mathcal{S}$ such that $Y=XZ$.
Let $(\mathbb{N},+)$ be the additive semigroup of natural numbers.
The notation $\beta \mathbb{N}$ denotes the maximal ideal space of $l^{\infty}(\mathbb{N})$, and
the elements in $\beta \mathbb{N} \setminus\mathbb{N}$ are called \textbf{free ultrafilters}.
Let $\omega\in \beta\mathbb{N} \setminus \mathbb{N}$ be a given free ultrafilter. For any $n\in\mathbb{N} $ and any $f$ in
$l^{\infty}(\mathbb{N})$, we define $E_n(f) =\frac{1}{n} \sum_{i=0}^{n-1} f(i)$. Then, for each given $f$, the function $n\rightarrow E_n(f)$ gives
rise to another function in $l^{\infty}(\mathbb{N})$.
By Gelfand-Naimark theorem, we have $l^{\infty}(\mathbb{N})\cong C(\beta\mathbb{N})$. Thus $E_n(f)$ is a continuous function on $\beta\mathbb{N}$.
The limit of $E_n(f)$ at $\omega$ is denoted by $E_{\omega}(f)$ or the integral $\int_\mathbb{N} f(n) dE_{\omega}(n)$. Then $E_{\omega}$ is an
invariant mean defined on $l^{\infty}(\mathbb{N})$,
i.e., $\int_\mathbb{N} f(n) dE_{\omega}(n)=\int_\mathbb{N} f(n+m) dE_{\omega}(n)$ for each $m\geq1$,
satisfying $E_{\omega}(f)=\lim_{n\rightarrow\infty}f(n)$ if the limit exists.
\begin{comment}
Thus $\mathbb{N}$ is amenable.
Recall that given a free untrafilter $\omega\in\beta\mathbb{N}\setminus \mathbb{N}$, the function
$E_{\omega}$ is an invariant mean on $l^{\infty}(\mathbb{N})$.
\end{comment}
\begin{comment}
We define a sequence of bounded linear functionals $(\mu_k)$ on $l^{\infty}(\mathbb{N})$
by
\[\mu_k(f)=\frac{1}{k}\sum_{n=0}^{k-1}f(n)\]
for each $f\in l^{\infty}(\mathbb{N})$ and $k\geq1$. Since the unit ball of
$(l^{\infty}(\mathbb{N}))^{*}$ is compact
in weak$^{*}$ topology, then there exists an accumulation point denoted by $\mu$ of $(\mu_k)$ in $(l^{\infty}(\mathbb{N}))_1^{*}$.
Then $\mu$ is an invariant mean on $l^{\infty}(\mathbb{N})$.
\end{comment}
Let $D$ be a continuous derivation from the Banach
algebra $\mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{S})$ into $\mathcal{L}(\mathcal{S})$. For each $\xi,\eta\in \mathcal{H}$, we define
\begin{align}\label{averaging for $X_0$}
\langle A\xi,\eta\rangle:=\int_\mathbb{N} \langle (X_{0}^{*})^{n}D(X_{0}^{n+1})\xi,\eta \rangle dE_{\omega}(n).
\end{align}
Then $A$ is a bounded linear operator on $\mathcal{H}$. Moreover, we have
\begin{align*}
\langle A\xi,\eta\rangle&=\int \langle (X_{0}^{*})^{n+1}D(X_{0}^{n+2})\xi,\eta \rangle dE_{\omega}(n)\\
&=\int \langle D(X_{0})\xi,\eta \rangle dE_{\omega}(n)+
\int \langle (X_{0}^{*})^{n+1}D(X_{0}^{n+1})X_0\xi,\eta \rangle dE_{\omega}(n)\\
&=\langle D(X_{0})\xi,\eta \rangle+
\langle X_{0}^{*}AX_0\xi,\eta \rangle,
\end{align*}
and it follows that
\begin{align}\label{*spatial for $X_0$}
D(X_{0})=A-X_{0}^{*}AX_0.
\end{align}
Similarly, we define
\begin{align}\label{averaging for $X_1$}
\langle B\xi,\eta\rangle:=\int_\mathbb{N} \langle (X_{1}^{*})^{n}D(X_{1}^{n+1})\xi,\eta \rangle dE_{\omega}(n),
\end{align}
then we have $B \in B(\mathcal{H})$ and
\begin{align}\label{*spatial for $X_1$}
D(X_{1})=B-X_{1}^{*}BX_1.
\end{align}
\subsection{The case of $X_0$}
\label{subsec_The case of $X_0$}
In this subsection, we will prove the following lemma.
\begin{lemma}\label{lem:spatial for $X_0$}
There exists some $\widehat{A}$ in $\mathcal{L}(\mathcal{S})$ such that
$D(X_0)=\widehat{A}X_0-X_0\widehat{A}$.
\begin{proof}
Let
\[D(X_{0})=\sum_{X_{0}|X}f(X)X+\sum_{X_{0}\nmid X}f(X)X.\]
By the fact that $X_{1}X_{0}=X_{0}X_{2}$, we have
\[ D(X_{1})X_{0}+X_{1}D(X_{0})=X_{0}D(X_{2})+D(X_{0})X_{2}.\]
It follows that
\[X_{1}\sum_{X_{0}\nmid X}f(X)X=\sum_{X_{0}\nmid X}f(X)XX_{2}.\]
Since $X_{1}X\prec XX_{2}$ whenever
$X_{0}\nmid X$, hence $f(X)=0$ in this case. Therefore,
\[D(X_0)=\sum_{X_{0}|X}f(X)X=X_{0}L_{f_1}\]
for some $L_{f_1}$ in $\mathcal{L}(\mathcal{S})$.
By further computations, we can obtain that
$D(X_0^n)=X_0^nL_{f_n}$ for some $L_{f_n}$ in $\mathcal{L}(\mathcal{S})$. We define
\begin{align*}
\langle \widehat{A}\xi,\eta\rangle&:=-\int_\mathbb{N} \langle (X_{0}^{*})^{n+1}D(X_{0}^{n+1})\xi,\eta \rangle dE_{\omega}(n),
\end{align*}
then $\widehat{A}\in B(\mathcal{H})$.
For each $T$ in $\mathcal{R}(\mathcal{S})$, we have
\begin{align*}
\langle T\widehat{A}\xi,\eta\rangle&=-\int_\mathbb{N} \langle (X_{0}^{*})^{n+1}D(X_{0}^{n+1})\xi,T^*\eta \rangle dE_{\omega}(n)\\
&=-\int_\mathbb{N} \langle (X_{0}^{*})^{n+1}D(X_{0}^{n+1})T\xi, \eta \rangle dE_{\omega}(n)\\
&=\langle \widehat{A}T\xi,\eta\rangle.
\end{align*}
It follows that $\widehat{A}\in\mathcal{R}(\mathcal{S})'=\mathcal{L}(\mathcal{S})$.
By equation (\ref{averaging for $X_0$}), we have
\begin{align*}
\langle A\xi,\eta\rangle&=\int_\mathbb{N} \langle (X_{0}^{*})^{n}D(X_{0}^{n+1})\xi,\eta \rangle dE_{\omega}(n)\\
&=\int_\mathbb{N} \langle (X_{0}^{*})^{n+1}D(X_{0}^{n+1})\xi,X_0^*\eta \rangle dE_{\omega}(n)\\
&= \langle -\widehat{A}\xi,X_0^*\eta \rangle,
\end{align*}
which implies $A=-X_0\widehat{A}$. Then by
equation (\ref{*spatial for $X_0$}), we have
$D(X_0)=\widehat{A}X_0-X_0\widehat{A}$.
This completes the proof.
\end{proof}
\end{lemma}
\subsection{The case of $X_1$}\label{subsec_The case of $X_1$}
The following lemma is the main conclusion of this subsection.
\begin{lemma}\label{spatial for $X_1$}
There exists some $\widehat{B}$ in $\mathcal{L}(\mathcal{S})$ such that
$D(X_{1})=\widehat{B}X_{1}-X_{1}\widehat{B}$ .
\end{lemma}
We need Lemmas \ref{lem_p_1_*_derivation_complete} and \ref{lem_p_1_conclusion} to obtain
Lemma \ref{spatial for $X_1$}.
\begin{lemma}\label{lem_p_1_*_derivation_complete}
$D(X_{1})=B-X_{1}^{*}BX_{1}$ for some
$B$ in $\mathcal{L}(\mathcal{S})$.
\begin{proof}
Let $D(X_{1})=L_{f}$ in $\mathcal{L}(\mathcal{S})$, then by the continuity of $D$ we have $f(X_{1}^{n})=0$ for each $n\in\mathbb{N}$.
For each $m\geq1$, we have
$(X_{1}^{*})^{m-1}D(X_{1}^{m})=\sum_{i=0}^{m-1}(X_1^*)^iL_fX_1^{i}$
and
$ \|(X_{1}^{*})^{m-1}D(X_{1}^{m})\|\leq\|D\|.$
Let $h_{1}$ and $ h_{2}$ be two elements in $\mathcal{S}$. If $h_{2}h_{1}^{-1}= X_{1}^{k}$ for some $k\in \mathbb{N}$, then
\[\lim_{n,m\rightarrow\infty}\left\langle\bigg((X_{1}^{*})^{m-1}D(X_{1}^{m})-(X_{1}^{*})^{n-1}D(X_{1}^{n})\bigg)\delta_{h_{1}},\delta_{h_{2}}\right\rangle=\lim_{n\rightarrow\infty}\sum_{i=n+1}^{m}f(X_{1}^{i}h_{2}h_{1}^{-1}X_{1}^{-i})=0.\]
If $h_{2}h_{1}^{-1}\neq X_{1}^{k}$ for any $k\in \mathbb{N}$, then
$X_{1}^{i}h_{2}h_{1}^{-1}X_{1}^{-i}\notin \mathcal{S}$ when $i$ is sufficiently large.
Therefore,
\[\lim_{n,m\rightarrow\infty}\left\langle\bigg((X_{1}^{*})^{m-1}D(X_{1}^{m})-(X_{1}^{*})^{n-1}D(X_{1}^{n})\bigg)\delta_{h_{1}},\delta_{h_{2}}\right\rangle=\lim_{n\rightarrow\infty}\sum_{i=n+1}^{m}f(X_{1}^{i}h_{2}h_{1}^{-1}X_{1}^{-i})=0.\]
We define
\[\langle T\delta_{h_1},\delta_{h_2}\rangle:= \lim_{m\rightarrow\infty}\big\langle(X_{1}^{*})^{m-1}D(X_{1}^{m})\delta_{h_{1}},\delta_{h_{2}}\big\rangle.\]
Then $T$ is the weak-topology limit of $(X_{1}^{*})^{m-1}D(X_{1}^{m})$ in $B(\mathcal{H})$. We have the following claim.
\textbf{Claim:} $T=L_{T\delta_{e}}\in\mathcal{L}(\mathcal{S})$. To prove this claim, we distinguish two cases:
\textbf{Case I:} $h_{2}h_{1}^{-1}\in \mathcal{S}$.
We have
\[\langle T\delta_{h_{1}},\delta_{h_{2}}\rangle=\sum_{n=0}^{\infty}f(X_{1}^{n}h_{2}h_{1}^{-1}X_{1}^{-n})=\langle T\delta_{e},\delta_{h_{2}h_{1}^{-1}}\rangle=\langle T\delta_{e}\ast\delta_{h_{1}},\delta_{h_{2}}\rangle.\]
\textbf{Case II:} $h_{2}h_{1}^{-1}\notin S$.
If $X_{1}^{n}h_{2}h_{1}^{-1}X_{1}^{-n}\notin S$ for any $n\in\mathbb{N}$, then
\[\langle T\delta_{h_{1}},\delta_{h_{2}}\rangle=\langle T\delta_{e}\ast\delta_{h_{1}},\delta_{h_{2}}\rangle=0.\]
On the other hand, there exists a natural number $n$ such that $X_{1}^{n+1}h_{2}h_{1}^{-1}X_{1}^{-n-1}\in \mathcal{S}$ and
$X_{1}^{i}h_{2}h_{1}^{-1}X_{1}^{-i}\notin \mathcal{S}$ whenever $i\leq n$. Let $X=X_{1}^{n+1}h_{2}h_{1}^{-1}X_{1}^{-n-1}$, then $X_{0}|X$.
By Lemma \ref{lem:partial_order_S_property} we have that $X_{1}^{-n}XX_{1}^{n}\notin \mathcal{S}$ for any $n\geq1$ and $X_{1}^{n}XX_{1}^{-n}\notin \mathcal{S}$ whenever $n>\mathsf{ind}(X)$.
Let $m$ be an even number such that $m>>\mathsf{ind}(X)$, then we have
\begin{align*}
\sum_{i=1}^{\frac{m}{2}}\left|\langle D(X_1^{m})\delta_e,\delta_{X_1^{m-i}XX_1^{i-1}}\rangle \right|^2=
\sum_{i=1}^{\frac{m}{2}}\left|\sum_{j=-(i-1)}^{m-i}f(X_1^{j}XX_1^{-j})\right|^2=
\sum_{i=1}^{\frac{m}{2}}\left|\sum_{j=0}^{\mathsf{ind}(X)}f(X_1^{j}XX_1^{-j})\right|^2.
\end{align*}
Note that $X_{1}^{m-i}XX_{1}^{i-1}\neq X_{1}^{m-j}XX_{1}^{j-1}$ whenever $1\leq i< j\leq\frac{m}{2}$, then we have
\[\sum_{i=1}^{\frac{m}{2}}\left|\sum_{j=0}^{\mathsf{ind}(X)}f(X_1^{j}XX_1^{-j})\right|^2 \leq \bigg\|D(X_{1}^{m})\delta_{e}\bigg\|_{2}^{2} \leq\bigg\|D\bigg\|^{2} \]
for any $m$. This implies that $\sum_{j=0}^{\mathsf{ind}(X)}f(X_1^{j}XX_1^{-j})=0$.
Therefore,
\[ \langle T\delta_{h_{1}},\delta_{h_{2}}\rangle=\sum_{j=0}^{\infty}f(X_{1}^{j}h_{2}h_{1}^{-1}X_{1}^{-j})
=\sum_{j=0}^{\mathsf{ind}(X)}f(X_{1}^{j}XX_{1}^{-j})=0.\]
From the above discussion, we have $\langle T\delta_{h_{1}},\delta_{h_{2}}\rangle=\langle T\delta_{e}\ast\delta_{h_{1}},\delta_{h_{2}}\rangle$
for all $h_{1}$ and $h_{2}$ in $\mathcal{S}$.
Thus the claim holds.
By equation (\ref{averaging for $X_1$}), we have $B=T$. This completes the proof.
\end{proof}
\end{lemma}
\begin{lemma}\label{lem_p_1_conclusion}
Let $D(X_{1})=L_{f}\in\mathcal{L}(\mathcal{S})$, then
\[D(X_{1})=\sum_{\ X_{0}|X}f(X)X+\sum_{ X_{0}\nmid X,X_{1}|X}f(X)X.\]
\begin{proof}
Let $D(X_{1})=\sum_{X_{0}|X}f(X)X+\sum_{X_{0}\nmid X,X_{1}|X}f(X)X+\sum_{X_{0}\nmid X,X_{1}\nmid X}f(X)X$. By the fact that $X_{1}X_{3}=X_{2}X_{1}$,
we have
\[D(X_{1})X_{3}+X_{1}D(X_{3})=D(X_{2})X_{1}+X_{2}D(X_{1}).\]
Then
\[\sum_{X_{0}\nmid X,X_{1}\nmid X}f(X)XX_{3}=X_{2}\sum_{X_{0}\nmid X,X_{1}\nmid X}f(X)X.\]
Let $X$ be the minimal element of the set $\{X\in\mathcal{S}:\ X_{0}\nmid X,\ X_{1}\nmid X,\ f(X)\neq0\}$. Then $X_2X\prec XX_3$.
It follows that $f(X)=0$ when $X_{0}\nmid X$ and $X_{1}\nmid X$.
This completes the proof.
\end{proof}
\end{lemma}
Now, we are ready to prove Lemma \ref{spatial for $X_1$}.
\begin{proof}[Proof of Lemma \ref{spatial for $X_1$}]
By Lemma \ref{lem_p_1_*_derivation_complete}, we have $D(X_{1})=B-X_{1}^{*}BX_{1}$ for some $B=L_{g}\in\mathcal{L}(\mathcal{S})$. We may assume that $g(e)=0$, where $e$ is the unit element of $\mathcal{S}$.
Let
\[L_{g}=\sum_{X_{1}|X}g(X)X+\sum_{X_{1}\nmid X,X_{0}|X}g(X)X+\sum_{X_{1}\nmid X,X_{0}\nmid X}g(X)X.\]
Then
\begin{align*}
D(X_{1})=&\sum_{X_{1}|X}g(X)X-X_{1}^{*}\sum_{X_{1}|X}g(X)XX_{1}+\sum_{X_{1}\nmid X,X_{0}\nmid X}g(X)X-X_{1}^{*}\sum_{X_{1}\nmid X,X_{0}\nmid X}g(X)XX_{1}
\end{align*}
\begin{align*}
+&\sum_{X_{1}\nmid X,X_{0}|X}g(X)X-X_{1}^{*}\sum_{X_{1}\nmid X,X_{0}|X}g(X)XX_{1}.
\end{align*}
Since $D(X_{1})\in\mathcal{L}(\mathcal{S})$ and $X_1^{-1}XX_1\notin \mathcal{S}$ when $X_{1}\nmid X$ and $X_{0}|X$ , we have $\sum_{X_{1}\nmid X,X_{0}|X}g(X)X=0$. Therefore,
\[D(X_{1})=\sum_{X_{1}|X}g(X)X-X_{1}^{*}\sum_{X_{1}|X}g(X)XX_{1}+\sum_{X_{1}\nmid X,X_{0}\nmid X}g(X)X-X_{1}^{*}\sum_{X_{1}\nmid X,X_{0}\nmid X}g(X)XX_{1}.\]
By Lemma \ref{lem_p_1_conclusion}, we have
\[\sum_{X_{1}\nmid X,X_{0}\nmid X}g(X)X-X_{1}^{*}\sum_{X_{1}\nmid X,X_{0}\nmid X}g(X)XX_{1}=0.\]
Let $X$ be the minimal element of the set $\{X\in\mathcal{S}:\ X_{1}\nmid X,\ X_{0}\nmid X,\ g(X)\neq0\}$, then $X\prec X_1^{-1}XX_1$ since $X\neq e$.
It follows that $g(X)=0$ when $X_{1}\nmid X$ and
$X_{0}\nmid X$. Thus $B=\sum_{X_{1}|X}g(X)X$. Let $\widehat{B}=-X_{1}^{*}B$, then $\widehat{B}\in\mathcal{L}(S)$ and $D(X_{1})=B-X_{1}^{*}BX_{1}=X_{1}X_{1}^{*}B-X_{1}^{*}BX_{1}=\widehat{B} X_{1}-X_{1}\widehat{B}$. We complete the proof.
\end{proof}
\subsection{Conditional expectation}
\begin{definition}\label{def_conditional expectation}
Let $\mathfrak{B}$ be a Banach algebra and $\mathcal{A}$ be a Banach subalgebra of $\mathfrak{B}$. Let $E$: $\mathfrak{B}\rightarrow \mathcal{A}$ be a contraction such that
($\romannumeral1$) $E(I)=I$;
($\romannumeral2$) $E(A_1BA_2)=A_1E(B)A_2$ whenever $A_1$, $A_2$ $\in \mathcal{A}$ and $B$ $\in\mathfrak{B}$.
\noindent Then $E$ is described as a \textbf{conditional expectation} from $\mathfrak{B}$ onto $\mathcal{A}$.
\end{definition}
\begin{definition}
Let
$\mathcal{L}_0(\mathcal{S})$ be the subset of $\mathcal{L}(\mathcal{S})$ such that for each $L_f$
in $\mathcal{L}_0(\mathcal{S})$, $f(X)=0$ if $X\neq
X_0^n$.
\end{definition}
It is not difficult to check that $\mathcal{L}_0(\mathcal{S})$ is a Banach subalgebra of $\mathcal{L}(\mathcal{S})$.
We have the following theorem.
\begin{theorem}\label{thm_conditional expectation}
Let $E$ be the map: $\mathcal{L}(\mathcal{S})$
$\rightarrow$ $\mathcal{L}_0(\mathcal{S})$,
$\sum_{X\in\mathcal{S}} f(X)X$ $\rightarrow$ $\sum_{n=0}^{\infty} f(X_0^n)X_0^n$. Then $E$
is a well-defined conditional expectation from $\mathcal{L}(\mathcal{S})$ onto $\mathcal{L}_0(\mathcal{S})$.
\begin{proof}
For each $g\in l^2(\mathcal{S})$ such that
$g(X)=0$ when $X\neq X_0^n$, we have
\begin{align*}
\bigg\|\sum_{n=0}^{\infty} f(X_0^n)X_0^n \sum_{n=0}^{\infty}g(X_0^n)\delta_{X_0^n} \bigg\|_2^2\leq\bigg \|L_fg\bigg\|_2^2\leq \bigg\|L_f\bigg\|^2\bigg\|g\bigg\|_2^2.
\end{align*}
This implies that $\sum_{n=0}^{\infty} f(X_0^n)X_0^n$ is bounded on the Hilbert subspace $l^2(\mathcal{S}_1)$, where $\mathcal{S}_1$ is the subsemigroup of $\mathcal{S}$ generated by $X_0$.
The norm of $\sum_{n=0}^{\infty} f(X_0^n)X_0^n$ is bounded by $\|L_f\|$.
Let $\mathscr{F}$ be the Fourier transform: $\mathbb{Z}\rightarrow \mathbb{S}^1$, $n\rightarrow e^{2\pi i \theta}$, $\theta\in [0,1)$. This induces the following isomorphisms \cite{Ge}:
\begin{align*}
&\mathbb{Z}\quad \subseteq\quad\ \ \mathbb{C}\mathbb{Z}\quad\quad \subseteq \quad l^1(\mathbb{Z})\ \quad \subseteq \quad C^*(\mathbb{Z})\quad \subseteq \quad\ \mathcal{L}(\mathbb{Z})\quad\ \ \subseteq\quad l^2(\mathbb{Z})\quad\ \subseteq\quad \cdots\\
&\updownarrow \quad\quad\quad\quad\ \updownarrow
\quad\quad\quad\quad\quad\ \updownarrow
\quad\quad\quad\quad\quad\quad \updownarrow
\quad\quad\quad\quad\quad\ \updownarrow \quad\quad\quad\quad\quad\ \ \updownarrow
\\
&\mathbb{S}^1\quad \subseteq\quad \mathbb{C}[Z]_{\mathbb{S}^1}\quad \subseteq \quad R(\mathbb{S}^1)\quad \subseteq \quad C(\mathbb{S}^1)\quad \subseteq \quad L^{\infty}(\mathbb{S}^1)\quad \subseteq\quad l^2(\mathbb{S}^1)\quad \subseteq\quad \cdots
\end{align*}
Restricting the Fourier transform on $\mathbb{N}$, we have
\begin{align*}
&\mathbb{C}\mathbb{N}\quad\quad \subseteq \quad\ l^1(\mathbb{N})\quad\ \subseteq \quad B(\mathbb{N})\quad\ \subseteq \quad\ \ \mathcal{L}(\mathbb{N})\quad\ \subseteq\quad\ l^2(\mathbb{N})\quad\ \subseteq\quad \cdots\\
&\ \updownarrow
\quad\quad\quad\quad\quad\quad \updownarrow
\quad\quad\quad\quad\quad\ \updownarrow
\quad\quad\quad\quad\quad\quad \updownarrow \quad\quad\quad\quad\quad\ \ \updownarrow
\\
&\mathbb{C}[Z]_{\mathbb{D}}\quad \subseteq \quad H^1(\mathbb{D})\quad \subseteq \quad H_c(\mathbb{D})\quad \subseteq \quad H^{\infty}(\mathbb{D})\quad \subseteq\quad H^2(\mathbb{D})\quad \subseteq\quad \cdots
\end{align*}
Since $\mathcal{S}_1$ is isomorphic to $\mathbb{N}$, therefore $\sum_{n=0}^{\infty} f(X_0^n)\delta_{n}$ belongs to $\mathcal{L}(\mathbb{N})$ and
$\mathscr{F}(\sum_{n=0}^{\infty} f(X_0^n)\delta_{n})$ is in $H^{\infty}(\mathbb{D})$.
It follows that $\mathscr{F}(\sum_{n=0}^{\infty} f(X_0^n)\delta_{n})$ belongs to $L^{\infty}(\mathbb{S}^1)$. Thus $\sum_{n=0}^{\infty} f(X_0^n)\delta_{n}$ is a bounded operator on $l^2(\mathbb{Z})$ and belongs to $\mathcal{L}(\mathbb{Z})$. Since the subgroup $\left\langle X_0\right\rangle$
of Thompson's group $\mathcal{F}$ is isomorphic to $\mathbb{Z}$, we have that
$\sum_{n=0}^{\infty} f(X_0^n)X_0^n$ is bounded on $l^2(\mathcal{F})$. Thus $\sum_{n=0}^{\infty} f(X_0^n)X_0^n$ is in $\mathcal{L}_0(\mathcal{S})$. Then $E$ is well-defined. It is clear that conditions ($\romannumeral1$) and ($\romannumeral2$) in Definition \ref{def_conditional expectation} hold for $E$. We complete the proof.
\end{proof}
\end{theorem}
\subsection{Proof of main results}
In this subsection, we shall show the main conclusions
(Theorems \ref{thm_the first cohomology is zero} and \ref{thm_first_co_B(S)})
of this paper. When the $\mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{S})$-bimodule is $\mathcal{L}(\mathcal{S})$,
the first continuous cohomology group of $\mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{S})$ vanishes.
\begin{theorem}\label{thm_the first cohomology is zero}
$H^1(\mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{S}),\mathcal{L}(\mathcal{S}))=0$.
\end{theorem}
The following result is an immediate corollary of
Theorems \ref{prop: continuity_derivations} and \ref{thm_the first cohomology is zero}.
\begin{corollary}\label{cor:derivation_spatial}
Derivations on the Banach algebra $\mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{S})$ are spatial and induced by linear operators in $\mathcal{L}(\mathcal{S})$.
\end{corollary}
Let $\mathcal{M}(\mathcal{S})$ be the subset of $\mathcal{L}(\mathcal{S})$ such that $[T,A]\in \mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{S})$ for each $T\in \mathcal{M}(\mathcal{S})$ and $A\in \mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{S})$. Then $\mathcal{M}(\mathcal{S})$ is a norm closed linear subspace of $\mathcal{L}(\mathcal{S})$ containing $\mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{S})$. Then the first cohomology group of $\mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{S})$
is charactered as the linear space $\mathcal{M}(\mathcal{S})$ module $\mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{S})$.
\begin{theorem}\label{thm_first_co_B(S)}
$H^{1}(\mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{S}),\mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{S}))=\dfrac{\mathcal{M}(\mathcal{S})}{\mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{S})}$.
\end{theorem}
The following two lemmas are crucial to obtain
the above results.
\begin{lemma}\label{lem_spacial_derivation_1}
Let $D$ be a continuous derivation from the Banach algebra $\mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{S})$ into
$\mathcal{L}(\mathcal{S})$. If
$D(X_0)=AX_{0}-X_{0}A$ and $D(X_{1})=AX_{1}-X_{1}A$ for some
$A$ in $B(l^{2}(\mathcal{S}))$, then $D(T)=AT-TA$ for each $T$ in $\mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{S})$.
\begin{proof}
For each $n\geq1$, if $D(X_{0}^{n})=AX_{0}^{n}-X_{0}^{n}A$, then
\[D(X_{0}^{n+1})=X_{0}D(X_{0}^{n})+D(X_{0})X_{0}^{n}=AX_{0}^{n+1}-X_{0}^{n+1}A.\]
Therefore, by induction we have $D(X_{0}^{n})=AX_{0}^{n}-X_{0}^{n}A$ for any $n\geq1$.
By the definition of Thompson's semigroup, we have $X_{1}X_{0}^{m}=X_{0}^{m}X_{m+1}$ for any
$m\geq1$. Then
\[D(X_{1})X_{0}^{m}+X_{1}D(X_{0}^{m})=D(X_{0}^{m})X_{m+1}+X_{0}^{m}D(X_{m+1}).\]
By computation, we have $D(X_{m+1})=AX_{m+1}-X_{m+1}A$. Similarly, it can be proved that
$D(X)=AX-XA$ for any $X$ in $\mathcal{S}$.
By linearity, we have $D(T)=AT-TA$ for each $T$
in the semigroup algebra $\mathbb{C}\mathcal{S}$. Since $\mathbb{C}\mathcal{S}$ is a dense subalgebra of $\mathcal{B}(\mathcal{S})$, we obtain that $D(T)=AT-TA$ for each $T$ in $\mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{S})$ by the continuity of $D$.
\end{proof}
\end{lemma}
The following lemma is a generalization of the above
conclusion.
\begin{lemma}\label{lem_spacital_derivation_2}
Let $D$ be a continuous derivation from the Banach algebra $\mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{S})$ into
$\mathcal{L}(\mathcal{S})$. If
$D(X_0)=AX_{0}-X_{0}A$ and $D(X_{1})=BX_{1}-X_{1}B$ for some
$A$ and $B$ in $\mathcal{L}(\mathcal{S})$, then
there exists an operator $C$ in $\mathcal{L}(\mathcal{S})$ such that
$D(T)=CT-TC$ for each $T$ in $\mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{S})$.
\begin{proof}
By the definitions of Thompson's semigroup and derivations, we have
\[X_{1}X_{0}=X_{0}X_{2},\ X_{2}X_{0}=X_{0}X_{3},\ X_{2}X_{1}=X_{1}X_{3}\]
and
\begin{align*}
D(X_{1})X_{0}+X_{1}D(X_{0})&=D(X_{0})X_{2}+X_{0}D(X_{2}),\\
D(X_{2})X_{0}+X_{2}D(X_{0})&=D(X_{0})X_{3}+X_{0}D(X_{3}),\\
D(X_{2})X_{1}+X_{2}D(X_{1})&=D(X_{1})X_{3}+X_{1}D(X_{3}).
\end{align*}
By the above equations, we have
\begin{gather*}
D(X_{2})=X_{0}^{*}X_{1}(A-B)X_{0}+X_{0}^{*}(B-A)X_{1}X_{0}+(AX_{2}-X_{2}A),\\
D(X_{3})=(X_{0}^{*})^{2}X_{1}(A-B)X_{0}^{2}+(X_{0}^{*})^{2}(B-A)X_{1}X_{0}^{2}+(AX_{3}-X_{3}A),\\
D(X_{3})=X_{1}^{*}X_{0}^{*}X_{1}(A-B)X_{0}X_{1}+X_{1}^{*}X_{0}^{*}(B-A)X_{1}X_{0}X_{1}
+X_{1}^{*}(A-B)X_{2}X_{1}\\
+X_{1}^{*}X_{2}(B-A)X_{1}+(BX_{3}-X_{3}B).
\end{gather*}
It follows that
\begin{gather*}
(X_{0}^{*})^{2}X_{1}(A-B)X_{0}^{2}+(X_{0}^{*})^{2}(B-A)X_{1}X_{0}^{2}+(A-B)X_{3}+X_{3}(B-A)=\\
X_{1}^{*}X_{0}^{*}X_{1}(A-B)X_{0}X_{1}+X_{1}^{*}X_{0}^{*}(B-A)X_{1}X_{0}X_{1}+X_{1}^{*}(A-B)X_{2}X_{1}+X_{1}^{*}X_{2}(B-A)X_{1}.
\end{gather*}
Let $A-B=L_{f}\in \mathcal{L}(\mathcal{S})$ and $L_{g}=L_{f}-f(e)I-\sum_{n\geq0}\sum_{m\geq1}f(X_{n}^{m})X_{n}^{m}$.
Then we have
\begin{equation} \label{equation1 of lem 5.5}
\begin{split}
(X_{0}^{*})^{2}X_{1}L_{g}X_{0}^{2}-(X_{0}^{*})^{2}L_{g}X_{1}X_{0}^{2}+L_{g}X_{3} - X_{3}L_{g}=X_{1}^{*}X_{0}^{*}X_{1}L_{g}X_{0}X_{1}-X_{1}^{*}X_{0}^{*}L_{g}X_{1}X_{0}X_{1}\\
+X_{1}^{*}L_{g}X_{2}X_{1}-X_{1}^{*}X_{2}L_{g}X_{1}+\left(\sum_{n\geq2}\sum_{m\geq1} f(X_{n}^{m})X_{n+1}^{m}\right)X_{3}- X_{3}\left(\sum_{n\geq2}\sum_{m\geq1}f(X_{n}^{m})X_{n+1}^{m}\right)\ \\
\quad\quad+X_{3}\left(\sum_{n\geq2}\sum_{m\geq1}f(X_{n}^{m})X_{n}^{m}\right)-\left(\sum_{n\geq2}\sum_{m\geq1}f(X_{n}^{m})X_{n}^{m}\right)X_{3}\quad\quad\quad\quad\quad\quad\quad.
\end{split}
\end{equation}
If $g\neq0$, then take the minimal element $X$ of the set $\{X\in \mathcal{S}\ |\ g(X)\neq0\}$ under the total order.
By the definition of $L_{g}$, we have
$X=X_{i_{1}}^{\alpha_{i_{1}}}\cdots X_{i_{t}}^{\alpha_{i_{t}}}$, where $i_{1}<i_{2}<\cdots<i_{t},\ t\geq2$, and $\alpha_{i_{1}},\cdots,\alpha_{i_{t}}\geq1$.
\textbf{Case I:} $i_{1}\geq3$. We have $X_{3}X\prec XX_{3}$.
Taking $\langle\cdot\ \delta_{e},\delta_{X_{3}X}\rangle$ at the both sides of equation (\ref{equation1 of lem 5.5}), we obtain that $g(X)=0$.
\textbf{Case II:} $i_{1}=1$ or $2$. We have $ XX_{3}\prec X_{3}X$. Analogously, taking $\langle\cdot\ \delta_{e},\delta_{XX_{3}}\rangle$ at the both sides of equation (\ref{equation1 of lem 5.5}), we also have $g(X)=0$.
\textbf{Case III:} $i_{1}=0$. If $X_1|XX_{2}X_{1}$, then taking
$\langle\cdot\ \delta_{e},\delta_{X_{1}^{-1}XX_{2}X_{1}}\rangle$, we can obtain that $g(X)=0$. If $X_1\nmid XX_{2}X_{1}$, by the normal form of Thompson's group $\mathcal{F}$ there exist $Y$ and $X_{k}$ in $\mathcal{S}$ such that $X_{1}^{-1}XX_{2}X_{1}=YX_{k}^{-1}$, where $X_{1}^{-1}$ and $X_{k}^{-1}$ are in $\mathcal{F}$.
Then taking $\langle\cdot\ \delta_{X_{k}},\delta_{Y}\rangle$, we can also obtain that $g(X)=0$.
It follows from the above discussion that $g=0$. This leads to
\begin{align*}
\left(\sum_{n\geq2}\sum_{m\geq1}f(X_{n}^{m})X_{n+1}^{m}\right)X_{3}-&X_{3}\left(\sum_{n\geq2}\sum_{m\geq1}f(X_{n}^{m})X_{n+1}^{m}\right)\\
+&X_{3}\left(\sum_{n\geq2}\sum_{m\geq1}f(X_{n}^{m})X_{n}^{m}\right)-\left(\sum_{n\geq2}\sum_{m\geq1}f(X_{n}^{m})X_{n}^{m}\right)X_{3}\\
=&0.
\end{align*}
It is not difficult to verify that $f(X_2^m)=0$
and $f(X_n^m)=f(X_3^m)$ for all $n \geq 4$ and $m\geq1$. Since $f\in l^2(\mathcal{S})$, we have
$f(X_{n}^{m})=0$ for any $n\geq2$ and $m\geq1$. Therefore, $A-B=\sum_{m=1}^{\infty}f(X_{0}^{m})X_{0}^{m}+\sum_{m=1}^{\infty}f(X_{1}^{m})X_{1}^{m}$+$f(e)I$.
Let
\[C=A-\sum_{m=1}^{\infty}f(X_{0}^{m})X_{0}^{m}=B+\sum_{m=1}^{\infty}f(X_{1}^{m})X_{1}^{m}+f(e)I.\]
Then by Theorem \ref{thm_conditional expectation} we have $C\in\mathcal{L}(\mathcal{S})$ and
\[D(X_{0})=CX_{0}-X_{0}C,\quad D(X_{1})=CX_{1}-X_{1}C.\]
By Lemma \ref{lem_spacial_derivation_1}, we have $D(T)=CT-TC$ for each $T$ in $\mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{S})$.
\end{proof}
\end{lemma}
\begin{proof}[Proof of Theorem \ref{thm_the first cohomology is zero}]
Let $D$ be a continuous derivation from $\mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{S})$ into $\mathcal{L}(\mathcal{S})$.
By Lemmas \ref{lem:spatial for $X_0$},
\ref{spatial for $X_1$} and
\ref{lem_spacital_derivation_2}, there exits a $C$ in $\mathcal{L}(S)$ such that $D(T)=CT-TC$ for each $T$ in $\mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{S})$. Thus $D$ is an inner
derivation and $H^1(\mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{S}),\mathcal{L}(\mathcal{S}))=0$. We complete the proof.
\end{proof}
\begin{proof}[Proof of Theorem
\ref{thm_first_co_B(S)}]
Let $D$ be a derivation on the Banach algebra
$\mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{S})$, then $D$ is continuous.
By Lemmas \ref{lem:spatial for $X_0$},
\ref{spatial for $X_1$} and
\ref{lem_spacital_derivation_2}, there exists an operator $C$ in $\mathcal{L}(\mathcal{S})$ such that
$D(T)=CT-TC$ for each $T$ in $\mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{S})$.
This induces the following map:
\begin{align*}
\pi:\quad H^{1}(\mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{S}),\mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{S}))\quad&\longrightarrow\qquad \frac{ \mathcal{M}(\mathcal{S})}{\mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{S})}\\
\overline{D}\qquad\qquad&\longrightarrow\quad\ C+\mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{S}).
\end{align*}
We shall show that $\pi$ is well-defined. If there exist two operators $C_1$ and $C_2$ in $\mathcal{L}(\mathcal{S})$ such that $D(T)=C_1T-TC_1=C_2T-TC_2$ for each $T$ in $\mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{S})$, then $C_1-C_2\in \mathcal{L}(\mathcal{S}) \cap \mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{S})'=\mathcal{L}(\mathcal{S}) \cap \mathcal{R}(\mathcal{S})=\mathbb{C}I$. Thus $C_1+\mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{S})=C_2+\mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{S})$. Now if $\overline{D_1}=\overline{D_2}$, then $D_1-D_2$ is an inner derivation of $\mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{S})$. There exists an operator $C_3$ in $\mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{S})$ such that
$(D_1-D_2)(T)=C_3T-TC_3$ for each $T$ in $\mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{S})$.
Assume that $D_1(T)=C_1'T-TC_1'$ and $D_2(T)=C_2'T-TC_2'$, where $C_1'$ and $C_2'$
are in $\mathcal{L}(\mathcal{S})$,
then $(C_1'-C_2')T-T(C_1'-C_2')=C_3T-TC_3$. It follows that $C_1'-C_2'-C_3$
belongs to $\mathcal{L}(\mathcal{S}) \cap \mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{S})'=\mathbb{C}I$.
Thus $C_1'-C_2'$
belongs to $ \mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{S})$, that is
$C_1'+\mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{S})=C_2'+\mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{S})$. The map $\pi$ is a well-defined and is a group homomorphism.
If $\pi(\overline{D})=0$, then there exists an operator $C'$ in $\mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{S})$ such that $D(T)=C'T-TC'$, which means that $D$ is an inner derivation.
The map $\pi$ is injective. The surjectivity of $\pi$ is obvious. It follows from the above discussion that $\pi$ is a group isomorphism. We complete the proof.
\end{proof}
\section{Further discussions}\label{sec_Further discussions}
We now recall the definition of higher order continuous Hochschild cohomology for Banach algebras.
Let $\mathcal{M}$ be a Banach algebra and $\mathcal{X}$ be a Banach $\mathcal{M}$-bimodule.
The space of all $n$-linear
(continuous) maps from $n$-fold Cartesian product $\mathcal{M}^n=\mathcal{M}\times\cdots\times\mathcal{M}$ into $\mathcal{X}$
is denoted by $L^{n}(\mathcal{M},\mathcal{X})$ for $n\geq1$,
while $L^{0}(\mathcal{M},\mathcal{X})$ is defined to be $\mathcal{X}$.
The coboundary operator $\partial^n$ : $L^{n}(\mathcal{M},\mathcal{X})\rightarrow L^{n+1}(\mathcal{M},\mathcal{X})$ is defined,
for $n\geq1$, by
\begin{align*}
\partial^n\phi(a_{1},a_{2},\ldots,a_{n+1})=&a_{1}\phi(a_{2},\ldots,a_{n+1})\\
+&\sum_{i=1}^{n}(-1)^{i}\phi(a_1,\ldots,a_{i-1},a_ia_{i+1},a_{i+2},\ldots,a_{n+1})\\
+&(-1)^{n+1}\phi(a_{1},\ldots,a_{n})a_{n+1}
\end{align*}
where $\phi\in L^{n}(\mathcal{M},\mathcal{X})$ and $a_1,\ a_2,\ldots,\ a_{n+1}\in\mathcal{M}$.
When $n=0$, we define $\partial^0$ by
\[\partial^0 x(m)=mx-xm\quad\quad\quad (x\in\mathcal{X},\ m\in\mathcal{M}).\]
It is routine to check that
$\partial^{n}\partial^{n-1}$ : $L^{n-1}(\mathcal{M},\mathcal{X})$
$\rightarrow$ $L^{n+1}(\mathcal{M},\mathcal{X})$
is zero for all $n\geq1$, and so $Im(\partial^{n-1}:\ L^{n-1}(\mathcal{M},\mathcal{X})\rightarrow L^{n}(\mathcal{M},\mathcal{X}))$ is a linear subspace of
$Ker(\partial^n:\ L^{n}(\mathcal{M},\mathcal{X})\rightarrow L^{n+1}(\mathcal{M},\mathcal{X}))$.
The $n^{th}$ Hochschild cohomology group $H^{n}(\mathcal{M},\mathcal{X})$ is then
defined to be the following quotient space
\[\frac{Ker(\partial^n:\ L^{n}(\mathcal{M},\mathcal{X})\rightarrow L^{n+1}(\mathcal{M},\mathcal{X}))}{Im(\partial^{n-1}:\ L^{n-1}(\mathcal{M},\mathcal{X})\rightarrow L^{n}(\mathcal{M},\mathcal{X}))}\]
for $n\geq1$. We end this paper by proposing some problems for future study:
\begin{itemize}
\item What are the higher order cohomology groups
$H^{n}(\mathfrak{B}(S),\mathfrak{B}(S))$ for $n\geq2$?
\item When $n\geq2$, does $H^n(\mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{S}),\mathcal{L}(\mathcal{S}))=0$?
The first step to calculate the high order cohomology groups should be the following. Given a 2-cocyle
$\phi$,
we need to modify it by a 1-coboundary such that
$\phi$ is $X_0$-multimodular, i.e., $\phi(X_0A,B)= X_0\phi(A,B)$, $\phi(AX_0,B)= \phi(A,X_0B)$, and $\phi(A,BX_0)= \phi(A,B)X_0$ for all $A,B\in \mathfrak{B}(\mathcal{S})$.
\end{itemize}
\newpage
\bibliographystyle{plain}
| {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaArXiv"
} | 3,455 |
Swindoll's Living Insights New Testament Commentary, Volume 13
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**Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data**
Swindoll, Charles R.
Insights on James, 1 & 2 Peter / Charles R. Swindoll.
pages cm. — (Swindoll's living insights New Testament commentary ; Volume 13)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-1-4143-9378-0 (hc)
1. Bible. James —Commentaries. 2. Bible. Peter —Commentaries. I. Title. II. Title: Insights on James, 1 and 2 Peter. III. Title: Insights on James, First & Second Peter.
BS2785.53.S95 2014
227´.907 —dc23 2014033709
Previously published by Zondervan under ISBN 978-0-310-28432-1
ISBN 978-1-4964-0067-3 (ePub); ISBN 978-1-4143-9393-3 (Kindle); ISBN 978-1-4964-0068-0 (Apple)
Build: 2017-11-10 08:47:37
# Contents
1. Author's Preface
2. The Strong's Numbering System
3. Introduction to James
4. Real Faith Produces Genuine Stability (James 1:1-27)
1. Trials of Life
2. Temptations to Sin
3. Response to Scripture
5. Real Faith Produces Genuine Love (James 2:1–3:12)
1. Partiality and Prejudice
2. Faith at Work
3. Bridling the Tongue
6. Real Faith Produces Genuine Humility (James 3:13–5:6)
1. Wise, Unwise, and Otherwise
2. How Fights Are Started —and Stopped
3. The Perils of Playing God
4. Warnings to the Wealthy
7. Real Faith Produces Genuine Patience (James 5:7-20)
1. Patience in Suffering
2. Patience through Prayer
3. Patience in Correction
8. Introduction to 1 Peter
9. Our Living Hope (1 Peter 1:1–2:12)
1. Smiling through Suffering
2. Staying Clean in a Corrupt Society
3. Reasons for Pulling Together
4. Becoming Living Stones
10. Our Strange Life (1 Peter 2:13–4:11)
1. Pressing On Even Though Ripped Off
2. The Give-and-Take of Domestic Harmony
3. Righteous Life and Ready Defense
4. Focusing Fully on Jesus Christ
5. How to Shock the Pagan Crowd
6. Marching Orders for Soldiers of the Cross
11. Our Fiery Ordeal (1 Peter 4:12–5:14)
1. A Firm Foundation through Fiery Trials
2. A Job Description for Shepherds
3. A Formula that Brings Relief
4. Standing Nose-to-Nose with the Adversary
12. Introduction to 2 Peter
13. Exhortation to Spiritual Maturity (2 Peter 1:1-21)
1. A Fruitful Faith
2. Be Sure of Your Source
14. Denunciation of False Teachers (2 Peter 2:1-22)
1. An Exposé of Counterfeit Communicators
2. The God of Wrath and Rescue
3. Disobedience Gone to Seed
15. Anticipation of Christ's Return (2 Peter 3:1-18)
1. A Warning to Skeptics and Sinners
2. The Day of the Lord
3. Living in Troubled Times
16. Notes
# AUTHOR'S PREFACE
For more than sixty years I have loved the Bible. It was that love for the Scriptures, mixed with a clear call into the gospel ministry during my tour of duty in the Marine Corps, that resulted in my going to Dallas Theological Seminary to prepare for a lifetime of ministry. During those four great years I had the privilege of studying under outstanding men of God, who also loved God's Word. They not only held the inerrant Word of God in high esteem, they taught it carefully, preached it passionately, and modeled it consistently. A week never passes without my giving thanks to God for the grand heritage that has been mine to claim! I am forever indebted to those fine theologians and mentors, who cultivated in me a strong commitment to the understanding, exposition, and application of God's truth.
For more than fifty years I have been engaged in doing just that — _and how I love it!_ I confess without hesitation that I am addicted to the examination and the proclamation of the Scriptures. Because of this, books have played a major role in my life for as long as I have been in ministry —especially those volumes that explain the truths and enhance my understanding of what God has written. Through these many years I have collected a large personal library, which has proven invaluable as I have sought to remain a faithful student of the Bible. To the end of my days, my major goal in life is to communicate the Word with accuracy, insight, clarity, and practicality. Without informative and reliable books to turn to, I would have "run dry" decades ago.
Among my favorite and most well-worn volumes are those that have enabled me to get a better grasp of the biblical text. Like most expositors, I am forever searching for literary tools that I can use to hone my gifts and sharpen my skills. For me, that means finding resources that make the complicated simple and easy to understand, that offer insightful comments and word pictures that enable me to see the relevance of sacred truth in light of my twenty-first-century world, and that drive those truths home to my heart in ways I do not easily forget. When I come across such books, they wind up in my hands as I devour them and then place them in my library for further reference . . . and, believe me, I often return to them. What a relief it is to have these resources to turn to when I lack fresh insight, or when I need just the right story or illustration, or when I get stuck in the tangled text and cannot find my way out. For the serious expositor, a library is essential. As a mentor of mine once said, "Where else can you have ten thousand professors at your fingertips?"
In recent years I have discovered there are not nearly enough resources like those I just described. It was such a discovery that prompted me to consider becoming a part of the answer instead of lamenting the problem. But the solution would result in a huge undertaking. A writing project that covers all of the books and letters of the New Testament seemed overwhelming and intimidating. A rush of relief came when I realized that during the past fifty-plus years I've taught and preached through most of the New Testament. In my files were folders filled with notes from those messages that were just lying there, waiting to be brought out of hiding, given a fresh and relevant touch in light of today's needs, and applied to fit into the lives of men and women who long for a fresh word from the Lord. _That did it!_ I began to work on plans to turn all of those notes into this commentary on the New Testament.
I must express my gratitude to Mike Svigel for his tireless and devoted effort, serving as my hands-on, day-to-day editor. He has done superb work as we have walked our way through the verses and chapters of all twenty-seven New Testament books. It has been a pleasure to see how he has taken my original material and helped me shape it into a style that remains true to the text of the Scriptures, at the same time interestingly and creatively developed, and all the while allowing my voice to come through in a natural and easy-to-read manner.
I need to add sincere words of appreciation to the congregations I have served in various parts of these United States for more than five decades. It has been my good fortune to be the recipient of their love, support, encouragement, patience, and frequent words of affirmation as I have fulfilled my calling to stand and deliver God's message year after year. The sheep from all those flocks have endeared themselves to this shepherd in more ways than I can put into words . . . and none more than those I currently serve with delight at Stonebriar Community Church in Frisco, Texas.
Finally, I must thank my wife, Cynthia, for her understanding of my addiction to studying, to preaching, and to writing. Never has she discouraged me from staying at it. Never has she failed to urge me in the pursuit of doing my very best. On the contrary, her affectionate support personally, and her own commitment to excellence in leading Insight for Living for more than three and a half decades, have combined to keep me faithful to my calling "in season and out of season." Without her devotion to me and apart from our mutual partnership throughout our lifetime of ministry together, Swindoll's Living Insights would never have been undertaken.
I am grateful that it has now found its way into your hands and, ultimately, onto the shelves of your library. My continued hope and prayer is that you will find these volumes helpful in your own study and personal application of the Bible. May they help you come to realize, as I have over these many years, that God's Word is as timeless as it is true.
The grass withers, the flower fades,
But the word of our God stands forever. (Isa. 40:8)
_Chuck Swindoll_
Frisco, Texas
# THE STRONG'S NUMBERING SYSTEM
Swindoll's Living Insights New Testament Commentary uses the Strong's word-study numbering system to give both newer and more advanced Bible students alike quicker, more convenient access to helpful original-language tools (e.g., concordances, lexicons, and theological dictionaries). The Strong's numbering system, made popular by the _Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible,_ is used with the majority of biblical Greek and Hebrew reference works. Those who are unfamiliar with the ancient Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek alphabets can quickly find information on a given word by looking up the appropriate index number. Advanced students will find the system helpful because it allows them to quickly find the lexical form of obscure conjugations and inflections.
When a Greek word is mentioned in the text, the Strong's number is included in square brackets after the Greek word. So in the example of the Greek word _agapē_ [26], "love," the number is used with Greek tools keyed to the Strong's system.
On occasion, a Hebrew word is mentioned in the text. The Strong's Hebrew numbers are completely separate from the Greek numbers, so Hebrew numbers are prefixed with a letter "H." So, for example, the Hebrew word _kapporet_ [H3727], "mercy seat," comes from _kopher_ [H3722], "to ransom," "to secure favor through a gift."
# INSIGHTS ON JAMES
First-century Jewish Christians struggled with persevering through hardship, maintaining good works, promoting peace in their churches, and living patiently in anticipation of the Lord's return. They knew Jesus as the Way of life but needed a travel guide for walking in that Way through life. So do we! In the midst of the struggles of everyday life, we can all use a dose of James's hands-on Christianity.
JAMES
# INTRODUCTION
We live in a world where politics rules the day. In this world, a person's public reputation too often drowns out the private reality. _Who_ you know usually trumps _what_ you know. Name-dropping often gets you farther than talent or skill. These cynical sayings not only apply to the political realm, where quid pro quo is the status quo. Unfortunately, the "good ol' boy" system also tends to corrupt most areas of business, academia, entertainment —and, yes, even the church.
This is why the opening words of the book of James are so refreshing. Like a cool spring breeze blowing through a musty room, the unassuming nature of these first few words drives out arrogance, ego, and presumption. Written by a man who could have dropped the Name above all names, this simple, straightforward greeting sets the tone for a letter that assaults our natural human tendencies toward sin and selfishness with a radical message of authenticity and humility.
## IDENTIFICATION OF JAMES
From the very first word, the name "James," this short letter presents us with a problem: Which "James" wrote this letter? His humble self-identification as "a bond-servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ" (1:1) doesn't get us far. And unless we were among those first recipients of the letter, we are left to some old fashioned sleuthing to find out which James penned these words.
If you run through the New Testament, you'll come across four or —depending on how you count them —five different men with this name (see chart, "Five Named James"). It's fairly easy to rule out a couple of these. James, the father of Judas, never appears in the New Testament except in Luke 6:16. And James, the son of Alphaeus, probably the same as "James the Less," though one of the Twelve, disappears from the biblical account after the upper room experience on Pentecost (Acts 1:13). These two can be safely dismissed as unlikely candidates for authorship.
* * *
# KEY TERMS IN JAMES
_dipsychos_ **(δίψυχος)** [1374] "double-minded," "wavering," "doubting"
A compound of "two" and "soul," this word first appears in the Greek language in the book of James (1:8; 4:8). It doesn't appear again until the end of the first century in nonbiblical Christian books. Some scholars believe James himself actually coined the term.[1] In any case, James uses the word to describe the wavering faith of Christians who claimed to believe one thing but lived in a way that betrayed that confession. This term sums up in one word the attitudes and actions James wanted his readers to avoid.
_pistis_ **(πίστις)** [4102] "faith," "confidence," "reliance," "trust"
For Christians, _pistis_ is the means by which they relate to God. Depending on its context, the term can range in meaning from simple intellectual "assent" to demonstrable "faithfulness." For Christians, the entire range applies. Acceptance of core beliefs is essential for faith, but knowledge alone does not save. James develops the uniquely Christian concept of authentic saving faith, which involves unwavering trust in and reliance upon God. This authentic faith manifests itself through acts of faithfulness (1:3, 6; 5:15).
_sophia_ **(σοφία)** [4678] "wisdom," "skill," or "ability to act on what you know"
"Wisdom" has a rich meaning in the Hebrew Scriptures as well as in early Jewish Christianity. Wisdom involves far more than mere knowledge of facts and advances even beyond skillful living or the emphasis on practical virtue seen in Greek philosophy. Rather, "wisdom" in the Christian sense is a gift from God closely associated with the presence and working of the Holy Spirit, producing supernatural discernment and prudence. This explains why God, not man, is the ultimate source of true wisdom, which is the repeated emphasis in James.
* * *
This leaves James, the son of Zebedee and brother of the apostle John (#2), or James, the half brother of Jesus (#4). Though the first James, a "Son of Thunder," played a major leadership role in the infant church as one of Christ's inner three (Peter, James, and John), he was the first of the Twelve to suffer martyrdom under Herod Agrippa I. That occurred around AD 44 in a persecution that resulted in further scattering the Jewish Christians throughout the Roman world (Acts 12:2). Shortly after this persecution, Jesus' half brother James (#4) stepped in to lead the persecuted church in Jerusalem (Acts 12:17; 15:13; 21:18). This James, reared with Jesus in the home of Joseph and Mary, likely penned the letter that bears this name.
* * *
FIVE NAMED JAMES
Four (or, perhaps, five) people with the name of James appear in the pages of the New Testament.
* Identification: 1. James, father of Judas (not Iscariot)
* Scripture: Luke 6:16
* Description: Nothing is known about this James. He is mentioned in the list of the original twelve disciples as the father of Judas (not Iscariot) to distinguish him from Judas the betrayer. This Judas is also distinguished by the name "Thaddaeus."
* Identification: 2. James, Son of Zebedee, brother of John
* Scripture: Matthew 4:21; 10:2; 17:1; Mark 1:19, 29; 3:17; 5:37; 9:2; 10:35, 41; 13:3; 14:33; Luke 5:10; 6:14; 8:51; 9:28, 54; Acts 1:13; 12:2
* Description: Brother of the apostle John and one of the "Sons of Thunder." He witnessed some of Jesus' private miracles, was present at Christ's transfiguration, and was invited to pray with Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. This James was the first of the twelve disciples to be martyred. He was put to death with a sword around AD 44.
* Identification: 3a. James, son of Alphaeus
* Scripture: Matthew 10:3; Mark 3:18; Luke 6:15; Acts 1:13
* Description: One of the twelve disciples, distinguished as the "son of Alphaeus" to keep him distinct from James #2. Many scholars believe #3a and #3b, "James the Less," are the same person.
* Identification: 3b. James the Less, son of Mary
* Scripture: Matthew 27:56; Mark 15:40; 16:1; Luke 24:10
* Description: The son of one of the women named Mary who witnessed Jesus' burial and resurrection. Many believe "James the Less" is the same as James, the son of Alphaeus (#3a), though he could be a different person altogether.
* Identification: 4. James, son of Joseph and Mary, half brother of Jesus
* Scripture: Matthew 13:55; Mark 6:3; Acts 1:14; 12:17; 15:13; 21:18; Galatians 1:19; 2:9, 12; 1 Corinthians 15:7; Jude 1:1
* Description: The natural son of Mary and Joseph after the birth of Jesus. Though he did not believe in his brother Jesus during His earthly ministry (John 7:5), after the risen Lord made a special appearance to him, James became a believer and eventually the leader of the Jewish Christian church in Jerusalem until he was martyred around AD 62.
* * *
This identification of the author as the half brother of Jesus goes back to the earliest centuries of Christian history. Most conservative New Testament scholars agree. Both the tone and the content of the letter match the style one would expect from a well-known leader of the original Jewish Christian church.
## A REVIEW OF THE LIFE OF JAMES
Having identified the author as James, the brother of Jesus, what do we know about him that will help us as we read his letter? Let's reconstruct a meaningful picture of James's life.
No second-born son or daughter can possibly fathom what it must have been like to suffer second child syndrome with an older brother who never sinned. But James did. Can you even imagine? Jesus always came when His mother called Him the first time. He always washed His hands properly before supper. He always did His chores quickly and with delight. He always obeyed. Then there was James, born with a sinful nature like the rest of us, living in the shadow of a big brother who was God in the flesh. Being far from perfect, younger brother James had a built-in problem right from the start.
I suppose James would have been happy to see Jesus leave home when He did. But then his already "strange" older brother came back to their home town claiming to be the long-awaited fulfillment of messianic promises (Luke 4:16-21). How do you think James felt toward his older brother then? We don't have to wonder. John 7:5 says, "Not even His brothers were believing in Him." And Mark 3:21 tells us that His family "went out to take custody of Him; for they were saying, 'He has lost His senses.'"
So, throughout the Gospels we see James in a state of unbelief and skepticism over his older brother. But things didn't stay that way. In 1 Corinthians 15:7, the apostle Paul gives us a brief glimpse at an otherwise unknown event —the appearance of the resurrected Jesus to James. We probably should avoid speculating about the nature of that visit, but I suspect it was different from Paul's much-needed Damascus encounter —the one that blinded him with brilliant glory (Acts 9:1-9). Rather, I picture Jesus putting His arms around His younger brother, whispering words of encouragement and love in his ear —words he had longed to hear all his life.
In any case, when Jesus' disciples gathered in the upper room after their Lord's ascension into heaven, James sat among them (Acts 1:14). He experienced the coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost (Acts 2) and the subsequent growth of the Jerusalem church in the midst of persecution (Acts 3–9). James was no doubt active in the Jerusalem church when Stephen was arrested and later martyred for his faith (Acts 6:8–8:2). So James would have been aware that a young, zealous rabbinical student known as Saul of Tarsus supported the brutal death of Stephen and had begun "ravaging the church, entering house after house, and dragging off men and women" to put in prison (Acts 8:3).
Shortly after his conversion on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:1-18, AD 32), Saul of Tarsus, now Paul the apostle, returned to Jerusalem to meet the leaders of the church he had once so viciously persecuted (AD 35). Acts 9:26-28 records the account of this visit:
When he came to Jerusalem, he was trying to associate with the disciples; but they were all afraid of him, not believing that he was a disciple. But Barnabas took hold of him and brought him to the apostles and described to them how he had seen the Lord on the road, and that He had talked to him, and how at Damascus he had spoken out boldly in the name of Jesus. And he was with them, moving about freely in Jerusalem, speaking out boldly in the name of the Lord.
The Jerusalem church accepted Barnabas's testimony and received Saul as a member of the Christian community, even welcoming him into the apostolic fellowship. It is noteworthy that Saul sought out James in that gathering (Gal. 1:19). Perhaps James recalled his own stubborn refusal to accept Jesus as the Messiah, even though he had lived with Jesus all his life. Like Saul of Tarsus, James had finally come around. God's work of grace had grabbed his heart and made him look at his brother Jesus in a whole new light. And so, about ten to fifteen years later, James wrote the very first book of the New Testament, the short, practical manual of Christian living we call "James."
Around AD 49, a dispute erupted in the church that threatened to break the unity between Jews and Gentiles. Acts 15:1 tells us, "Some men came down from Judea and began teaching the brethren, 'Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.'" Naturally, this addition of circumcision to the gospel troubled Paul and Barnabas, who had been preaching a simple message of salvation by grace alone through faith alone apart from works (Gal. 2:15-21). Wanting to set the record straight, Paul and Barnabas immediately went to Jerusalem to consult with the apostles and elders, including Peter and James.
When Paul made his case to the leaders in Jerusalem, Peter concurred, reminding the council that God had saved the Gentiles strictly by faith when he preached the gospel to Cornelius and his household (Acts 15:7-11; see 10:1–11:18). So, after Paul and Barnabas reported on their miraculous ministry among the Gentiles (Acts 15:12), James himself stood up and supported Peter and Paul.
"Brethren, listen to me. Simeon has related how God first concerned Himself about taking from among the Gentiles a people for His name. With this the words of the Prophets agree, just as it is written,
'AFTER THESE THINGS I will return,
AND I WILL REBUILD THE TABERNACLE OF DAVID WHICH HAS FALLEN,
AND I WILL REBUILD ITS RUINS,
AND I WILL RESTORE IT,
SO THAT THE REST OF MANKIND MAY SEEK THE LORD,
AND ALL THE GENTILES WHO ARE CALLED BY MY NAME,'
SAYS THE LORD, WHO MAKES THESE THINGS KNOWN FROM LONG AGO.
Therefore it is my judgment that we do not trouble those who are turning to God from among the Gentiles, but that we write to them that they abstain from things contaminated by idols and from fornication and from what is strangled and from blood. For Moses from ancient generations has in every city those who preach him, since he is read in the synagogues every Sabbath." (Acts 15:13-21)
James's wise and convincing words became the basis for the Jerusalem council's decision to affirm Paul's gospel of salvation by grace alone through faith alone. In agreement with Paul and Barnabas, the Jerusalem apostles and elders firmly rejected the addition of works to the gospel —and aren't we grateful! However, in order to maintain unity between the Jewish and Gentile believers, the Jerusalem council asked Gentile converts to avoid practices that Jews would find offensive (Acts 15:28-29; 21:25). Stated succinctly, James wanted to ensure that genuine faith was authenticated by God-honoring works.
James appears again in the book of Acts about ten years later (ca. AD 58). Shortly before being arrested and sent to Rome, Paul arrived in Jerusalem from his third missionary journey and met with James, who was by then clearly the leader of the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem (Acts 21:15-19). In an attempt to exonerate Paul from charges that he had been encouraging Jews to abandon their customs after coming in faith to Christ, James and the other elders in Jerusalem encouraged Paul to participate in a purity ritual at the temple (Acts 21:23-24). From this we learn that James, a Jew living in Jerusalem and leading the Jewish believers, continued to keep the Law as a testimony to his fellow Jews. The last thing he wanted was for his genuine faith in Jesus as the Messiah to be maligned because he and his people abruptly turned their backs on the Law of Moses. Though the Law was never a means of salvation, for James and many Jewish believers, it was a means of testimony to unbelieving Jews that their faith empowered them to do good works.
Ancient historians tell us that James continued to live and teach in Jerusalem, convincing many Jews and visitors to Jerusalem that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God. Greatly esteemed for his piety, he spent so much time in the temple kneeling in prayer that he was given the nickname "Camel Knees." Even his opponents, the scribes and Pharisees, could find no fault in him —except, of course, his "misguided" belief that Jesus is the Messiah.
Nevertheless, James's authentic faith eventually became the death of him. His true faith in Christ —demonstrated through good works, strengthened through suffering, and seasoned with God-given wisdom —drew the ire of the increasingly zealous and jealous religious elite. His words and works attracted thousands of Jews to Christ, and the anti-Christian powers in Jerusalem eventually had enough of him. The ancient church historian, Eusebius, describes the events leading up to James's final confrontation with his opponents:
But after Paul, in consequence of his appeal to Caesar, had been sent to Rome by Festus, the Jews, being frustrated in their hope of entrapping him by the snares which they had laid for him, turned against James, the brother of the Lord. . . . Leading him into their midst they demanded of him that he should renounce faith in Christ in the presence of all the people. But, contrary to the opinion of all, with a clear voice, and with greater boldness than they had anticipated, he spoke out before the whole multitude and confessed that our Savior and Lord Jesus is the Son of God. But they were unable to bear longer the testimony of the man who, on account of the excellence of ascetic virtue and of piety which he exhibited in his life, was esteemed by all as the most just of men, and consequently they slew him.[2]
Josephus reports that James was simply stoned, but Eusebius recounts that he was thrown from the pinnacle of the temple and then beaten to death with a club.[3] Whatever the details of his brutal and unjust execution, James, the brother of Jesus, was martyred for his faith in AD 62.
## A PREVIEW OF THE LETTER OF JAMES
In light of James's pedigree, position, kinship, and legacy, imagine how he could have started his letter:
"James, of the tribe of Judah, of the house of David, of the royal line of the kings of Judah . . ."
or
"James, the eldest of the brothers of Jesus, the incarnate Son of God . . ."
or
"James, pastor of the First Christian Church of the world . . ."
or
"James, long-time associate of Peter, James, John, Paul, and the rest of the apostles . . ."
Yes, James could have dropped all kinds of names, pulled rank, and impressed his readers with ego-inflating titles. But, as we will see when we unpack his letter, that kind of pride is one of the things he rails against. That may be the style of this me-first world, but that wasn't the style of James. Instead, he simply began his epistle, "James, a bond-servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ" (1:1). James was a bond-servant ( _doulos_ [1401]), an indentured servant or slave —not a prized position in the class culture of the Roman world. But James did not regard his slavery to God and submission to Jesus Christ as a burden or curse, but a glorious honor.
After introducing himself, James then addressed the letter to his audience, which was typical letter form at the time. To whom, then, was this letter written? "To the twelve tribes who are dispersed abroad" (1:1).
Although most of the historical twelve tribes of Israel had lost their distinct identities centuries earlier in the Assyrian and Babylonian captivities, the term "twelve tribes of Israel" continued to be used as a figure of speech referring to all children of Israel throughout the world. The phrase "who are dispersed abroad" reinforces the fact that James was primarily addressing Jewish Christians, many of whom he had probably known in Jerusalem before they were scattered as a result of persecution of the church by the unbelieving Jewish authorities. Several times throughout the letter, James calls his readers "brethren," indicating that he is addressing fellow believers in Jesus, not merely all Jews spread throughout the Roman world.
So, James was a Jewish believer writing to other Jewish believers in the first century who were "dispersed abroad" ( _diaspora_ [1290]), "scattered throughout" like seed sown throughout a field. When James wrote this letter, Jewish communities had already been established throughout the Roman world as a result of numerous exiles from the Holy Land. In addition, about this time, the Roman Emperor Claudius persecuted the Jews of Rome and drove them from the city. Jewish businesses were boycotted. Jewish children were mocked and thrown out of schools. Times were harsh and life was grim. So Jewish Christians, like the people to whom James wrote his letter, seem to have been living under a double _diaspora._ Not only were they subject to Roman ire because of their Jewishness; many had been driven out of the Jewish communities themselves because of their faith in the Messiah! More than any others, Jewish believers lived without roots and traveled outside Judea looking for a place to call home. Many of these men and women found themselves in a social and religious limbo.
I do believe suffering purifies and matures, but I also believe that relentless, extreme suffering can confuse and crush. Many of these Jewish believers had begun to grow weary, tempted either to turn their backs on their Jewish roots or to defect from their faith in Christ. Many claimed that they believed the truth of God concerning the Lord Jesus, but because of the pressures of the day, they began to live a lie.
In this context of suffering, confusion, and defection, it is not surprising that James writes a letter of strong exhortation. Remember, this letter was not a doctrinal treatise, not a defense of the gospel regarding the person and work of Christ, not a retelling of the Christian story. This letter assumed his readers already knew all those things. Instead, James penned a letter about authentic faith lived out in a hostile world.
The main theme of the book of James is that _real faith produces genuine works_. In other words, the person who has really found the way genuinely walks in it. If you claim, "I have come to Jesus Christ; He is my Lord and Savior," James answers, "Then let your life give evidence of that truth. Let your outward acts reflect the inward reality. Justify your faith before others by your good works." When we realize this overarching theme, many of the individual sections and troublesome verses will become clear.
In the first major section, including all of chapter 1, James tells his readers that _real faith produces genuine stability._ When real faith is stretched, it doesn't break but perseveres. James supports this claim with three examples. First, he shows that trials and tribulations in life do not destroy faith but actually deepen it and cause it to grow (1:1-12). Second, he reminds us that we can face temptations through genuine faith (1:13-18). Third, he explains that true believers respond to God's Word positively, changing their lives to conform to its truth (1:19-27).
The second major section begins at 2:1 and runs through 3:12. In this section James argues that _real faith produces genuine love._ When true faith is pressed by various circumstances, social challenges, and personal struggles, it does not fail. Instead, it produces responses that put others first. Real faith takes a stand against prejudice (2:1-13), justifies itself through obedience and action (2:14-26), and bridles the beastly tongue (3:1-12). Genuine faith does not produce a passive, wimpy pushover, but a daring and durable force of love in action.
In the third section, James asserts that _real faith produces genuine humility_ (3:13–5:6). He contrasts worldly ambition with heavenly wisdom; one results in envy and strife, the other in righteousness and peace (3:13-18). James also lends practical advice on overcoming worldly behavior in the church, including behavior that brings division (4:1-10). He then exhorts his readers to overcome boasting with true humility before God (4:11-17). He also warns the wealthy to live responsibly with their riches (5:1-6).
In the last section, James reaffirms the truth that _real faith produces genuine patience_ (5:7-20). Those Jewish Christians distressed by faith-challenging circumstances needed to hear that assurance over and over again. James exhorts his readers to be patient in suffering in light of the Lord's coming (5:7-12). He encourages them to seek physical and spiritual wholeness (5:13-18). And he ends his profoundly practical letter with an admonition to steer erring believers back onto the right path (5:19-20).
The Jewish Diaspora in the first century
# REAL FAITH PRODUCES GENUINE STABILITY (JAMES 1:1-27)
The two figures stood waist deep in the blue-green water flowing easily around them. Light danced across the surface of the river as the sun peeked through the feathery clouds, illumining the two men who appeared to be arguing with each other. The one, dressed in a simple garment of camel's hair with a leather belt around his waist, held up his hands and shook his head in mild protest. His eyes closed, he patted his chest and pointed to himself.
The other man, also in his thirties and dressed in the robe and sash of the commoners, had stripped himself in preparation for baptism and had been ushered by the prophet's younger disciples to the prophet John himself. After a brief exchange, John hesitated, then, placing his hands on the young man named Jesus, he immersed him.
As Jesus rose from the water of the Jordan River, the Baptizer looked into the sky as the sunlight, briefly veiled by a passing cloud, broke through with brilliant light. But now his eyes fixed on something —something only he could see. He staggered backward in the water, losing his footing, but his disciples caught him.
"What, master? What did you see?"
"The Spirit of God descending like a . . . dove," John answered. "And a voice —a voice from heaven saying, 'This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased.'"
John and his disciples watched the man Jesus climbing out of the water on the opposite bank of the river —the one facing the wilderness. Instead of turning to follow the meandering Jordan, Jesus, still dripping with water, followed a fluttering dove eastward, toward the desert.
For forty days and forty nights Jesus was tempted, tested, and tried. Hungry, thirsty, and exhausted, he stumbled over the rocks, slept on gritty sand, and wandered under a hot and brutal sun. But those physical troubles were nothing compared to the spiritual temptations He faced. Like a relentless warlord constructing a siege ramp to His soul, Satan tempted the Son of God to satisfy His human cravings (Matt. 4:1-4), to circumvent God's plan for salvation through suffering (Matt. 4:5-7), and even to fall down and worship him (Matt. 4:8-11). Though Jesus endured an excruciating period of physical trials and temptations, He emerged victorious, His true qualities shining through —perfect Man and perfect God. Yet Jesus' trials were not over. During the next three years of public ministry, He would continue to endure rejection, persecution, false accusation, abandonment, insults, mockery, beatings, and finally crucifixion before His work was through.
* * *
# KEY TERMS IN JAMES 1:1-27
_hypomonē_ **(ὑπομονή)** [5281] "patient endurance," "perseverance," "steadfastness"
This term comes from two Greek words, _hypo_ (under) and _menō_ (abide), with the basic meaning, "to abide under." In its common usage in the first century, it emphasized the ability to face difficult circumstances with patience and steadfast fortitude.
_peirasmos_ **(πειρασμός)** [3986] "trial," "test," "temptation"
Though the book of Revelation uses the term to refer to the coming period of global testing prior to the return of Christ (Rev. 3:10), the term generally refers either to tests that challenge the strength of one's faith (1 Pet. 1:6) or to temptations that challenge one's moral strength (Luke 4:13). James deals with both meanings in his letter: tests of faith in 1:2-12 and temptations to sin in 1:13-18.
_thrēskeia_ **(θρησκεία)** [2356] "religion," "worship," "piety," "devout practices"
The Greek word for "religion" refers not to one's private convictions but to a well-defined religious community or system. Judaism was in this sense a "religion" (Acts 26:5), as was the angel-worshiping cult described in Colossians 2:18. In James, it refers to the orthodox Christian religion, emphasizing its fundamental beliefs and practices that distinguish it from other religions (Jas. 1:26-27).
* * *
Believers in Jesus Christ have followed Him in baptism, received the blessing of the Holy Spirit, and been called God's children by adoption. But we often forget that the faith-gift that saved us will continually be put to the test by trials and temptations throughout our lives. Like wanderers in a wilderness of hardships and allurements, we Christians face the trials of life and temptations to sin. But like our Lord before us, we can face these harsh realities with confidence, responding to Scripture in faith and obedience rather than collapsing under temptations.
The book of James develops the overarching theme that _real faith produces genuine works._ In chapter 1, James argues that when faith is put to the test, it perseveres. It results in stability. To demonstrate this point, he gives three examples. First, he argues that the normal trials that accompany life don't crush genuine faith —they produce endurance (1:1-12). Then, he notes the key to overcoming temptations: God-given strength (1:13-18). Finally, he explains that, like the Lord Jesus' trials in the wilderness, genuine faith results in submission to God's Word, the conforming of the believer's life to the image of Christ (1:19-27).
# Trials of Life
JAMES 1:1-12
NASB
1[a]James, a bond-servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ,
To the twelve tribes who are [b]dispersed abroad: Greetings.
2 Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various [a]trials, 3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces [a]endurance. 4 And let [a]endurance have _its_ perfect [b]result, so that you may be [c]perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
5 But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and [a]without reproach, and it will be given to him. 6 But he must ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. 7 For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, 8 _being_ a [a]double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.
9 But the [a]brother of humble circumstances is to glory in his high position; 10 and the rich man _is to glory_ in his humiliation, because like [a]flowering grass he will pass away. 11 For the sun rises with [a]a scorching wind and withers the grass; and its flower falls off and the beauty of its appearance is destroyed; so too the rich man in the midst of his pursuits will fade away.
12 Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial; for once he has [a]been approved, he will receive the crown of life which _the Lord_ has promised to those who love Him.
1:1 [a]Or _Jacob_ [b]Lit _in the Dispersion_ 1:2 [a]Or _temptations_ 1:3 [a]Or _steadfastness_ 1:4 [a]V 3, note 1 [b]Lit _work_ [c]Or _mature_ 1:5 [a]Lit _does not reproach_ 1:8 [a]Or _doubting, hesitating_ 1:9 [a]I.e. church member 1:10 [a]Lit _the flower of the grass_ 1:11 [a]Lit _the_ 1:12 [a]Or _passed the test_
NLT
1 This letter is from James, a slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.
I am writing to the "twelve tribes" —Jewish believers scattered abroad.
Greetings!
2 Dear brothers and sisters,[*] when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. 3 For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. 4 So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.
5 If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking. 6 But when you ask him, be sure that your faith is in God alone. Do not waver, for a person with divided loyalty is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is blown and tossed by the wind. 7 Such people should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. 8 Their loyalty is divided between God and the world, and they are unstable in everything they do.
9 Believers who are[*] poor have something to boast about, for God has honored them. 10 And those who are rich should boast that God has humbled them. They will fade away like a little flower in the field. 11 The hot sun rises and the grass withers; the little flower droops and falls, and its beauty fades away. In the same way, the rich will fade away with all of their achievements.
12 God blesses those who patiently endure testing and temptation. Afterward they will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.
[1:2] Greek _brothers;_ also in 1:16, 19. [1:9] Greek _The brother who is._
* * *
People don't need to march to the drumbeat of daily life or analyze its melody for very long before they realize that much of life's music is played in a minor key. Hurts, heartaches, pain, problems, disappointments, discouragements, sicknesses, suffering, disease, and death form a constant bass line for what everybody wishes was an upbeat chorus. And however hard we try to conduct the often clamorous orchestra toward a sweeter song, the dissonant chords continually offend our senses.
This reality of suffering creates within us questions regarding God's justice and life's purpose. For millennia the best philosophers and theologians have attempted to resolve the apparent discord between the belief in an all-good and all-powerful God and the pervasiveness of wickedness, evil, and suffering in the world He created. And at the same time, scientists and saints alike have struggled against the natural order of things, desperately trying to bring lasting relief to humanity's misery. In the end, many people in this world end up enduring their short lives by dulling the torment with mind- or body-numbing methods that distract them from the pain but never deliver them from it: drugs, alcohol, entertainment, busyness, education, travel —even world-denying religious pursuits. But while these things can provide temporary means of escape, the floodwaters of adversity eventually rise above the highest hills of retreat. Trials of life —or death —eventually overtake everybody. Without exception.
In launching his overarching case that real faith produces genuine works, James begins with an opening argument that many preachers today would prefer to relegate to a closing remark —the problem of suffering and trials in life. But James couldn't have chosen a more relevant issue to test his thesis of the durability of true faith. As we saw in the introduction and greeting, James's dispersed readers were experiencing hardship as they tried to come to terms with their new identities as Jewish Christians in a culture that despised both Jews _and_ Christians. In a social context like that, it's understandable that these trials would push many toward a more comfortable alternative —either go back to Judaism or stop living out their faith in Christ. But this situation —or something very similar —is not unique to first-century Christians. In fact, life's painful trials have touched every generation of Christians throughout history —including you and me today.
## — 1:1-4 —
As we discovered in the introduction to James, the recipients of this letter were people enduring adversity. Having been "dispersed abroad," they were disoriented, disillusioned, and probably downright depressed. They were bearing the brunt of criticism, brutality, and unjust treatment.
James greets these beleaguered believers with a single word: "Greetings" ( _chairō_ [5436]). Though a common form of official greeting at that time (Acts 15:23), _chairō_ literally means "to rejoice," as in Romans 12:15 —"Rejoice ( _chairō_ ) with those who rejoice!" This contrast between his readers' harried situation and James's exhortation to "consider it all joy [ _chara_ (5479)]" in the very next line sets the tone for his letter.
So, without hesitating, James leaps headfirst into his most pressing issue —trials. The Greek word James uses for "trial" is _peirasmos_ [3986] _,_ which appears a second time in 1:12. The word can refer to tests that challenge the integrity of one's faith (as in 1 Pet. 1:6). But it can also refer to "temptations," things that appeal to our sinful tendencies and challenge our moral integrity (Luke 4:13). In 1:2-12 James deals with the first meaning —tests that challenge a believer's faith. Then, in 1:13-18 he treats the second meaning —temptations to sin. Before we address the testing aspect of these trials, let's look at two things James tells us about these tests of faith in this verse.
First, he tells us that trials are inevitable. Note that James doesn't say, "Consider it all joy _if_ you fall into various trials." Instead he uses the word "when" ( _hotan_ [3752]). Like death itself, trials are inescapable and unavoidable. Few things are certain in this world, but troubles, hardship, challenges to faith —count on it —will come.
Second, James says that the trials are "various" ( _poikilos_ [4164]). It may seem like a waste of time to dwell on such a seemingly unimportant word, but think about it. While we can expect trials to come, we have no idea what form they'll take. The Greek word _poikilos_ can mean diverse, variegated, or multicolored. In other words, trials occur in all shapes and sizes. Like unwelcome guests, they burst into our lives unannounced and stay too long! Trials may be frequent and frustrating or epic and life changing. We can never predict.
But James also pulls back the veil and lets his readers see the inner workings of trials, revealing that they have a purpose. As he traces the pathway of the Christian journey through life, James reveals that the presence of trials produces both immediate and ultimate results.
First, _the testing of faith produces endurance_ (1:3). That's the immediate result. The term "testing" ( _dokimion_ [1383]) refers to a means of authenticating something. Like a prospector biting into a gold nugget to test its quality, God applies specific things to each of His children, testing their faith to reveal its true character.
Note that the object of God's testing is "your faith." Our heavenly Father is no mad scientist trying to torture his subjects to the breaking point. He's more like an expert trainer who knows which muscles to develop, what diet to follow, and what schedule to keep in order to bring about the best results. The goal is not to snap our faith muscles, but to stretch and strengthen them, producing _endurance_ —the strength to "hang in there."
Endurance is just the initial result. Endurance itself has an even greater purpose, a "perfect result," literally, "perfect work." God says, in effect, "In My sovereign plan I've lined up a chain of events that will take place, and My finger of testing pushes the first one —endurance." When endurance takes place it bumps into maturity; then that leads ultimately to a fully developed character.
The people I would regard as having great Christian character are invariably people who have learned how to handle life in the crucible. It's the mother who's lost a child and is able to say to God, "You gave, and You took away. Blessed be Your name." It's the father who, having given his best at the firm for years, loses his job and says to his family, "Let's get together tonight and thank God for this opportunity to trust Him." It's the teenager who says, "I won't surrender my principles. I'll maintain my standards even though I am shunned and treated like an outsider by my peers." That's the marvelous quality of maturity. A completeness and wholeness emerge when we patiently "hang in there."
James states that inevitable trials take various forms in our lives to bring about specific purposes —building the quality of endurance and leading His children toward maturity. In these verses, he also answers the "how" question. How can Christians, neck deep in troubles, rise above their situations without dropping out, giving in, or falling short? What can they do to handle the various trials that come their way? In 1:2-4, James gives three specific imperatives (commands) he wanted his readers to follow: "consider" (1:2), "know" (1:3), and "let" (1:4). Each is worth a closer look.
The background of the Greek word translated "consider" is interesting ( _hēgeomai_ [2233]). The word comes from a term that means to lead or guide, from which we get our word "hegemony," the leading influence or guide of something. The Greek term could be used for a person at the front of a line, leading a procession. Though the term is probably functioning here as an intensified form of "to think," how appropriate that "joy" for James also happens to be the attitude behind which all of our other attitudes and actions should fall in line!
James uses a present participle for the word "knowing," which is his way of telling his readers how they can stay joyful, positive, and even calm in the midst of trials. By knowing that God has a greater purpose in the testing, the believer is able to "consider it all joy."
Finally, James encourages his readers to "let endurance have its perfect result" (1:4). The language communicates the idea of cooperation with God's work. We find a similar idea of a passive cooperation with God's plan in 1 Peter 5:6 —"Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time." Just as a potter's fingers mold a work of art, God's fingers are working through various circumstances to bring about His perfect result of maturity and completeness in the lives of His people.
So, how do believers rise above troubles in everyday life? They face them with a deliberate attitude of joy, calling to mind the process God is working out in their lives, and cooperating with the entire process.
## — 1:5-8 —
After giving a behind-the-scenes look at the ultimate purpose of trials and practical advice on how to endure them positively, James continues the theme by answering another lingering question, "Why do trials overwhelm us?" Why do we sometimes cave in? What things block the joy of enduring life in the crucible? The answer? _Our lack of wisdom_.
Therefore, when we feel ill-equipped to handle a trial, we have one option: Ask God for wisdom. In this context, wisdom can be defined as the ability to view life from God's perspective. James says this kind of wisdom comes by prayer (1:5). It might be something as simple as, "Lord, in the midst of this loss or heartache or failure, I ask You for wisdom. Help me, first, to see what I'm going through from Your viewpoint, and then please give me faith not to give up."
Of course, when we're overwhelmed, faith can be hard to come by. Just as a lack of wisdom can cause us to become overwhelmed, a lack of faith can result in our caving in. James isn't referring to saving faith in 1:6. He has in mind sustaining faith —the kind of faith that allows us to endure trials, to align our will and our attitude with a divine perspective, abandoning ourselves to God and His mighty hand.
The opposite of faith is doubt. And James compares a person who doubts to the "surf of the sea," driven by the wind. The word "surf" ( _klydōn_ [2830]) is used in the Gospel of Luke when the disciples thought they would perish in the storm on the Sea of Galilee. They woke Jesus up and He immediately "rebuked the wind and the surging waves ( _klydōn_ )" (Luke 8:24). Interestingly, the first words out of Jesus' mouth after calming the storm were "Where is your faith?" (Luke 8:25).
James describes this kind of deep-seated doubt as being "double-minded" (Jas. 1:8). The word _dipsychos_ 1374] literally means "two-souled." It appears here in the book of James for the first time in Greek literature, and James may have even invented the word himself.[[4] By the way, if you invent a word, you get to define it, so let's let James define it for us. James uses the term again in 4:8 —"Purify your hearts, you double-minded." It indicates an impurity of our inner person. Where there should be one thought, goal, attitude, or devotion, we find two competing thoughts. So, a double-minded person is one who wants his or her will and at the same time God's will. That kind of person is unstable in _everything_ he or she does. Pause and just imagine what happens when the double-minded person faces a double-barrel trial in life!
I've never done this —and I probably should preface this by warning you not to try this without professional supervision —but I've heard it said that one of the cheapest and easiest ways to catch a monkey is to cut off the end of a hollow long-necked gourd, fill it with rice, and tie it to a tree. The hungry monkey will push his scrawny little hand into the thin neck of the gourd to grab the rice. He'll clutch it with his hand and try to pull it out —but the monkey's fist is bigger than the gourd's neck. He's trapped, because that hungry, shortsighted monkey won't release the rice to remove his fist. He simply lacks the wisdom to decide that freedom without the rice is better than captivity with it.
That's the double-minded Christian. Inside the gourd is my will. Yes, part of me wants to live in God's will, but the other part wants it on my terms. And when a trial comes, I refuse to release my grip and trust that the purpose and plan of God will bring true freedom.
## — 1:9-12 —
Trials affect everybody —even the wealthy, who sometimes believe they have a shield of protection, or at least a cushion to blunt the fall. But wisdom and faith are required for both poor and rich. For the poor person, who continues to endure the challenges of lacking worldly wealth, God's wisdom can remind him of his high position. What high position is this? James probably has in mind the position believers have in Christ. Paul describes it this way: "[God] raised us up with Him [Christ], and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus" (Eph. 2:6-7).
For the wealthy, the worst trials come when they lose their worldly riches or when troubles that money can't deflect enter their lives. He, too, is reminded of the fragility of life (Jas. 1:10). If such a person fails to cooperate with the work of God, but instead, like a monkey grasping the rice, is determined to have his own will, he will fade away, as James says, "in the midst of his pursuits" (1:11).
But the one who stands up under the weight of trials will be blessed. The word "blessed" ( _makarios_ [3107]) means "genuinely happy." Jesus repeated the word some nine times in the introduction to His Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5:1-11). Quite likely, the last couple of those beatitudes form the background of James's own teaching:
"Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great." (Matt. 5:10-12)
James describes that reward in heaven as "the crown of life" (Jas. 1:12). Without denying the future reward in store for those who endure trials and tests, I think there's a temporal crown, too. I believe the person who truly lives in the Christian life is the one who perseveres under the trial. They are rewarded in this life with maturity, wisdom, and insight into God's purposeful plan. That's real life at its best!
* * *
# APPLICATION: JAMES 1:1-12
Rising Above Trials
It seems so easy to whistle songs of praise when the sun shines on us, when a glorious dawn breaks and life's forecast looks bright and clear. It's quite another thing to praise our heavenly Father when a dark sky frowns at us, thunder rolls in, and violent storms of trouble break over our lives. How can anyone sing when days are dark and nights are long? But this is exactly what James calls us to do, to respond to life's inevitable trials with joy, with wisdom, and with firm confidence in Him.
With an eye toward our personal response to God's truth, let's revisit two ways we can handle adversity.
First, _when troubles come, it's essential that we respond with wisdom_. This insight into trials doesn't come naturally. Wisdom for handling trials can come only from God, and the primary means He uses to give us wisdom is His Word. Calling to mind specific statements from Scripture that address this very issue will help you respond appropriately in times of trouble. Let me offer three to chew on. I suggest you turn to each one and linger there. Romans 8:28 tells us that "all things" work out in God's sovereign plan for our good. Hebrews 12:1-3 turns our attention on Jesus and other fellow-sufferers who have gone before as models of endurance. And 1 Peter 1:6-7 reminds us that endurance will ultimately result in praise, glory, and honor. Meditate on those passages to gain God's wisdom on trials.
Second, _when troubles come, we should respond in faith._ In the context of trials, faith means having absolute confidence in God's promises despite circumstances that appear to contradict those promises. In the middle of a trial, it may appear that God has allowed everything to crumble. To those who lack the insight and faith to see beyond their circumstances, it may appear that our lives are in a tailspin, heading for catastrophe. But single-minded, focused faith means making a conscious decision, with God's help, to choose our attitude. It means surrendering fully to God because we trust Him, resisting the natural tendency to abandon hope. This is where we can help each other. God's Spirit strengthens personal faith within the community of faith. Paul sent Timothy to the Thessalonians to "strengthen and encourage" their faith (1 Thes. 3:2). And the author of Hebrews exhorts his readers to hold fast their confession of hope by meeting together frequently to "stimulate one another to love and good deeds" (Heb. 10:24). Remember that God has not left us on our own to endure these things. He has given us a whole body of believers to strengthen and encourage our faith. Accept the gift He has given.
My prayer for those of you who are wounded and hurting, who are undergoing seasons of deep sorrows and pain, is that you never forget the importance of endurance —of "steadfast fortitude." May God grant you, by His Spirit and through His Word, both wisdom and faith to reap the blessing of maturity He is working in you.
* * *
# Temptations to Sin
JAMES 1:13-18
NASB
13 Let no one say when he is tempted, "I am being tempted [a]by God"; for God cannot be tempted [b]by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone. 14 But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. 15 Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin [a]is accomplished, it brings forth death. 16 Do not be [a]deceived, my beloved brethren. 17 Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or [a]shifting shadow. 18 In the exercise of His will He brought us forth by the word of truth, so that we would be [a]a kind of first fruits [b]among His creatures.
1:13 [a]Lit _from_ [b]Lit _of evil things_ 1:15 [a]Lit _is brought to completion_ 1:16 [a]Or _misled_ 1:17 [a]Lit _shadow of turning_ 1:18 [a]Or _a certain first fruits_ [b]Lit _of_
NLT
13 And remember, when you are being tempted, do not say, "God is tempting me." God is never tempted to do wrong,[*] and he never tempts anyone else. 14 Temptation comes from our own desires, which entice us and drag us away. 15 These desires give birth to sinful actions. And when sin is allowed to grow, it gives birth to death.
16 So don't be misled, my dear brothers and sisters. 17 Whatever is good and perfect is a gift coming down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens.[*] He never changes or casts a shifting shadow.[*] 18 He chose to give birth to us by giving us his true word. And we, out of all creation, became his prized possession.[*]
[1:13] Or _God should not be put to a test by evil people._ [1:17a] Greek _from above, from the Father of lights._ [1:17b] Some manuscripts read _He never changes, as a shifting shadow does._ [1:18] Greek _we became a kind of firstfruit of his creatures._
* * *
Marcus Antonius —better known as Mark Antony —was a famous Roman statesman from 83 to 30 BC. A supporter of Julius Caesar and eventually one of three rulers of the empire, that silver-tongued orator could sway the masses like no other man in his day. Not only did he have the gift of dynamic public speaking, but he was also a cunning general and a brilliant thinker. Yet his military and intellectual skills weren't enough to conquer his moral weakness. In fact, he was described by one historian as "a colossal child, capable of conquering the world, but incapable of resisting a pleasure."[5]
That indictment could be made against far too many "Mark Antonys" today. Many Christians are supersaturated with education, biblical knowledge, inspiring examples of moral successes, and sobering warnings from moral failures. Yet far too many have driven headlong into temptation, suffering disaster in work, church, and the home. Temptation knows no limits. It respects no title. It plays no favorites. It ignores all human obstacles, cares nothing about the time of day or night, and camouflages itself in any situation, prepared to pounce at any moment. Temptation has many faces —stealing, lying, gossiping, cheating, envying, striving for popularity, vying for power —the list seems endless.
In the previous section, James dealt with the kind of "trials" of life that test a person's endurance —the ability to keep the faith under extreme pressure to give in (1:1-12). Next, James explores the other meaning of that word _peirasmos_ [3986] —a test of moral endurance (1:13-18). In six short verses, he presents the truth about temptation in a straightforward manner. Rather than skimming the surface of temptation, as many preachers and teachers tend to do, James probes deeply below the surface to reveal the inner workings of temptation. But less like a psychologist and more like a physician, James begins with certain facts that describe temptation (1:13-16), then moves to a focus that determines victory (1:17-18).
## — 1:13 —
James wants his fellow believers to understand at least four things about temptation. First, temptation is always present. Nobody is exempt from temptation. James says "when," not "if." Like tests of faith, temptations are inevitable. There is no spiritual vaccine, no "get out of temptation free" card, no alternate route to avoid the traps along the trail. Not a person reading these words is immune or innocent. The aging monk in the monastery is no more safe from temptation than the young person at the mall. The saint in prayer wrestles with temptation just as much as the salesman in his Porsche.
Second, God never prompts temptation: "Let no one say . . . 'I am being tempted by God'" (1:13). Clearly, God doesn't whisper evil thoughts into our minds or create an alluring mental image. But God isn't even indirectly involved in temptation. While God uses trials and troubles in life to bring about His work of maturing us (1:1-12), God is never the author of temptation or evil. Never!
God's absolute goodness and holiness guarantee the truth of James's statement. To be holy means to be separate from evil, set apart, untainted, and untaintable. Holiness has two sides —the inability to be affected by evil and the inability to cause evil. For God, who is the absolute standard of holiness, both are true. James says God is not able to be tempted, nor does He tempt. He's holy!
## — 1:14-15 —
The third fact to understand about temptation is that temptation always follows a consistent process. James introduces his statement with "but," indicating a contrast. In contrast to the wrong view that God is the author of temptation, James reveals the true source. In 1:14 James implies that temptation originates in some kind of external object of lust or desire. In that same verse he clearly states that the one who is tempted is "enticed by his own lust." The term "enticed" ( _deleazō_ [1185]) is actually a fishing term, meaning "to bait." So, a lure is dropped into our lives —something external. That, in itself, is not sin. Our problem is that deep within us a hunger stirs, a desire to take the bait — _lust_. Through persuasion of curiosity mixed with a big dose of rationalization we find ourselves drawn toward the lure, motivated by our own desire to _have_.
At this point James uses the preposition _hypo_ [5259] —we are tempted "by the direct agency of" our own lust. Note the contrast! Whereas God is not even remotely a part of the temptation, not even indirectly, our lustful desire is the _direct cause_ of sin. In fact, we can't even blame the alluring bait! The temptation itself is a necessary cause, but not a sufficient cause. The point? We, _alone_ , are culpable.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the courageous German theologian put to death by the Nazis for taking a stand against Hitler's evil regime, articulates the process of temptation as clearly as I've ever found it explained:
In our members there is a slumbering inclination towards desire which is both sudden and fierce. With irresistible power desire seizes mastery over the flesh. All at once a secret, smouldering fire is kindled. The flesh burns and is in flames. It makes no difference whether it is sexual desire, or ambition, or vanity, or desire for revenge, or love of fame and power, or greed for money, or, finally, that strange desire for the beauty of the world, of nature. Joy in God is in course of being extinguished in us and we seek all our joy in the creature. At this moment God is quite unreal to us, he loses all reality, and only desire for the creature is real; the only reality is the devil. Satan does not here fill us with hatred of God, but with forgetfulness of God.[6]
In sum, 1:14 describes the essential ingredients for temptation: an alluring outward bait plus our inward desire. When these two are combined with a will that yields to the temptation, the result is disaster, described in 1:15.
James begins 1:15 with the word "then." The order of steps in the process is clear. The word "conceived" ( _syllambanō_ [4815]) is literally used for the conception of a child. In this context, James is emphasizing that when the two necessary ingredients are joined together —the object of temptation and the internal lust —then temptation is conceived. A cycle is set in motion that, if allowed to run its course, results in a sinful act.
King David clearly illustrates James 1:14-15 in a radical way. While his armies were out fighting, David stayed in Jerusalem, lounging and lingering at the palace (2 Sam. 11:1). Had he been with his army where he was supposed to be, the downward plunge into immorality could have been avoided. But instead of waging physical war on the battlefield, David fought a spiritual war against temptation —and lost. It started out innocently enough. As he meandered on the palace roof, the king's wandering eyes caught a woman bathing (2 Sam. 11:2). This accidental glance was not itself a sin. But mixed with David's restless urges, that unintentional glance quickly became a willful stare. He noticed she was "very beautiful" (2 Sam. 11:2). The focus of his gaze and his internal desires conceived a powerful temptation that few men in David's position could resist. Like a victim dropping through a trap door, David's plunge from temptation to sin followed in a rapid-fire progression: He inquired about her, sent for her, and slept with her —knowing full well that she was Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite (2 Sam. 11:3-4).
David's sin didn't end with adultery. His immorality turned into desperate attempts at cover-up, leading ultimately to two deaths —the death of Uriah the Hittite and the death of his son, the product of his one-night stand (2 Sam. 11:5–12:14). From lust to death, David's temptation serves as a textbook example of temptation and sexual lust, almost as if he were taking the slippery slope of sin in James 1:14-15 as a script.
The most frightening thing about David's sin is that it happened to "a man after [God's] own heart" (1 Sam. 13:14). If such a great man of God could fall so suddenly and so severely, we shouldn't think for a moment that it can't happen to us. That's the bad news about temptation.
But the good news is, any temptation can be resisted. A person can resist the desire, turn from the bait, and retrace his or her steps, canceling the process. But if the one who is tempted coddles the desire, embraces the enticement, and runs (or even wanders) into the trap, the result is the act of sin. Don't miss the progression. When we get carried away by an allurement, we move into the realm of temptation. When we allow temptation to linger, we eventually sin. And when sin continues without repentance, it results in death —a death-like existence (Jas. 1:15). Sin, that monstrous offspring of depravity, goes through conception, development, birth, growth, and finally death. That's James's "death cycle" of sin.
It would help to linger for a while over the word "death" in 1:15. Sometimes people can die physically as a result of sin, such as those who are infected with diseases through sexual sin or those whose alcoholism or drug addiction leads to premature death. James, Paul, and John all refer to sins that can lead to sickness or even death, apparently a result of God's temporal discipline of saints for the sake of their ultimate sanctification (5:15; 1 Cor. 11:30; 1 Jn. 5:16-17). However, James 1:15 can't be referring primarily to physical death as a result of temptation and sin. If that were the case, all of us would be corpses within days. We wouldn't be able to live through it. James doesn't mean _eternal_ spiritual death either. Our good works don't save us, nor do our bad works condemn us. Paul says we are saved by grace through faith apart from works (Eph. 2:8-9). "There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus" (Rom. 8:1). So, if James isn't talking about physical death or spiritual death as a result of sin, to what death is he referring?
This is where recognizing the Jewish background becomes helpful. In Jewish thinking, death was often seen more as a trajectory than a destination. To be "dead" was often a description of the poor quality of life rather than the cessation of being. Deuteronomy 30:15 says, "See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, and death and adversity." We also see this choice between "life existence" and "death existence" in Proverbs: "In the way of righteousness is life, and in its pathway there is no death" (Prov. 12:28); "The teaching of the wise is a fountain of life, to turn aside from the snares of death" (Prov. 13:14). Jewish Christians saw people as either traveling the path of life (walking with Christ by the Spirit) or the path of death (walking apart from Christ in the flesh). This "death-like existence" is the opposite of the "abundant life" Christ promised (John 10:10). No longer can the sinner, walking in death, live out the true life in the Spirit —love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. For those walking in death, gone are the signs of spiritual vitality, like fading memories of estranged friends. That's the kind of death James has in mind.
We have seen that temptation is always present and that it is never prompted by God (Jas. 1:13). We have also explored the consistent process temptation follows (1:14-15). The fourth fact James notes regarding temptation is that temptation flourishes on inconsistent thinking (1:16).
## — 1:16 —
James abruptly breaks into his description of temptation, sin, and its consequences with a clear command: "Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren." Do not be led astray. The lures of temptation will come in many forms and at different times. Don't let your thoughts stray away from the truth toward the deception of falsehood. Because the process of temptation begins in the mind, we must force ourselves to face the facts, to apply the truth, to review the consequences of our lustful actions in advance. Allurement builds its case on deceptive thoughts and empty promises. Don't buy it.
## — 1:17-18 —
Having vividly described the facts of temptation, James then turns his readers' attention to the source of victory in the final two verses —God.
God provides the means of victory over the subtle allurements of temptation and sin. Anything good and perfect comes from the One who is Himself good and perfect. He is the "Father of lights," who dispels the darkness of deception. And He is the unchanging One, in whom there is no "variation or shifting shadow," unlike the allurements of temptation. We should note a contrast between the irresponsible sinner James quoted in 1:13 ("I am being tempted by God") and the reality of God's role in the lives of believers —goodness and perfection (1:17).
The One who creates things good and perfect is the One who "brought us forth by the word of truth" (1:18; see Col. 1:5; 2 Tim. 2:15). And He continues to do His work in us by means of that same word. We were designed to be "first fruits" among His creatures, not spoiled fruit rotting on the vine.
* * *
# From My Journal
# Focus and Flee
JAMES 1:13-18
During the sixteen months I spent on the island of Okinawa as a twentysomething young man in the Marine Corps thousands of miles away from my wife and family, I learned the value of focusing on God's Word. I was involved in a Bible study with other guys in the military service. We would come from different bases on the island every Friday night and make our way to the home of The Navigators' representative, Bob Newkirk, who lived in Naha, the capital city. Between my base at Camp Courtney and Bob's home were several villages, each having numerous bars and brothels. The prostitutes on the island were both plentiful and available —always offering themselves to young and lonely men. Bob knew of the strong temptations all of us faced every Friday night as we made our way to his home week after week.
He taught us a simple formula: " _Focus and flee_ ," he would say. We learned to walk straight ahead, never looking to the left or right, as we focused on specific "victory verses" we had memorized. In addition, we learned to keep a fast pace —he even suggested to _run_ at times. (I discovered that it's impossible to run and lust at the same time.) Looking back on those months, I am _so_ grateful for Bob's counsel. More importantly, I am thankful that God's Word really can keep a young man pure —and older ones, too! —as we read in Psalm 119:9-11,
How can a young man keep his way pure?
By keeping it according to Your word.
With all my heart I have sought You;
Do not let me wander from Your commandments.
Your word I have treasured in my heart,
That I may not sin against You.
Now that I have grandsons in their teen years, I am passing along the same counsel to them as we spend time together reading and discussing the Scriptures. The same focus on the "victory verses" that once worked for me is now working for them.
* * *
In the previous section (1:1-12), James argued that trials of our faith are given for our good —to mature us. And only God's wisdom can bring about their intended result. In this section (1:13-18), James explained that temptations to sin come not from God but from our own sinful nature. But God's good and perfect gifts can bring victory through His Word. James contrasted two trajectories in the lives of believers —one toward maturity, the other toward sin; one by enduring trials, the other by succumbing to temptations; one upward on the path of abundant life, the other downward on the slippery slope of death. (See the chart, "Two Trajectories in James 1" on page 20.) James implies a question for all who read his inspired words: Which path are you on?
* * *
# APPLICATION: JAMES 1:13-18
Focus That Determines Victory
Sow a thought, you reap an act;
Sow an act, you reap a habit;
Sow a habit, you reap a character;
Sow a character, you reap a destiny.
—AUTHOR UNKNOWN
Those words poignantly reflect the warning of James. The "insignificant" thoughts, the "minor" transgressions, the "harmless" habits —all these can snowball into lifestyles that will obliterate the testimony of the most respected saint. And this forces the obvious question: How can we avoid the slippery slope of sin and stand victorious against the allurement of temptation?
First, _victory comes through dwelling on the good_. James notes that good and perfect gifts come from God the Father (1:17). Surely, He gives these good things for a reason. You can't harbor evil in your mind and reap good results; neither can you nurture good and wholesome thoughts in your heart and constantly produce evil. So, not surprisingly, you must dwell on the good in order to reap the good. Addressing the value of allowing the peace of God to guard our hearts and minds, Paul writes, "Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things" (Phil. 4:8).
Honestly now, do you do that? When you're overwhelmed by a particular problem, what do you think about? What do you read? Who do you listen to? What do you dwell on? Take some time to evaluate the kinds of seeds you sow in the fertile garden of your mind. Are they seeds that grow into thoughts that are true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, good, excellent, and worthy of praise? Or are you slowly poisoning your mind and setting yourself up for failure when the inevitable tempests of temptation blow through your life?
Second, _victory comes through living in the truth_. James says that we have been brought forth "by the word of the truth" (Jas. 1:18). That same motherly word that gave birth to us will also nurture and protect us, giving us all we need to grow. And when those inevitable and appealing temptations come, God's Word can literally deliver us from evil. The psalmist said, "Your word I have treasured in my heart, that I may not sin against You" (Ps. 119:11).
How are you treasuring God's Word in your heart? Do you merely dabble in Scripture now and then, or do you immerse yourself in its purifying, refreshing waters? Do you search through it mechanically to satisfy your curiosities, or do you allow it to search you in order to cleanse your heart and mind? Reading, memorizing, and meditating on God's Word —the greatest and most perfect gift from above —will help you to stand strong in the moment of temptation.
Take this opportunity right now to ask the Holy Spirit to do soul surgery in your life. Pray the prayer David once prayed:
Search me, O God, and know my heart;
Try me and know my anxious thoughts;
And see if there be any hurtful way in me,
And lead me in the everlasting way. (Ps. 139:23-24)
Whatever your particular temptations may be, no matter how relentless they are, He is ready to provide the good and perfect gifts that will strengthen your heart with His life-giving power and personal victory. I can tell you from my own personal experience, focusing on God's Word works.
* * *
# Response to Scripture
JAMES 1:19-27
NASB
19[a] _This_ you know, my beloved brethren. But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak _and_ slow to anger; 20 for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God. 21 Therefore, putting aside all filthiness and _all_ [a]that remains of wickedness, in [b]humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls. 22 But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves. 23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his [a]natural face in a mirror; 24 for _once_ he has looked at himself and gone away, [a]he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was. 25 But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the _law_ of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but [a]an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in [b]what he does.
26 If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not [a]bridle his tongue but deceives his _own_ heart, this man's religion is worthless. 27 Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of _our_ God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, _and_ to keep oneself unstained [a]by the world.
1:19 [a]Or _Know_ this 1:21 [a]Lit _abundance of malice_ [b]Or _gentleness_ 1:23 [a]Lit _the face of his birth;_ or _nature_ 1:24 [a]Lit _and he_ 1:25 [a]Lit _a doer of a work_ [b]Lit _his doing_ 1:26 [a]Or _control_ 1:27 [a]Lit _from_
NLT
19 Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry. 20 Human anger[*] does not produce the righteousness[*] God desires. 21 So get rid of all the filth and evil in your lives, and humbly accept the word God has planted in your hearts, for it has the power to save your souls.
22 But don't just listen to God's word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves. 23 For if you listen to the word and don't obey, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror. 24 You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like. 25 But if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don't forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it.
26 If you claim to be religious but don't control your tongue, you are fooling yourself, and your religion is worthless. 27 Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you.
[1:20a] Greek _A man's anger._ [1:20b] Or _the justice._
* * *
A debilitating disease is crippling the body of Christ —a syndrome so common that it seems to affect every believer with either a mild or an acute case. This insidious condition neutralizes the church's impact and nullifies her testimony. It can diminish effectiveness and paralyze production. The problem? A rupture between confession and deed, theology and action, hearing and doing. For too many of us Christians, God's Word fails to make it from the head to the heart. And for many more, His Word gets lodged between the heart and the hands. A. W. Tozer vividly portrays the situation:
So wide is the gulf that separates theory from practice in the church that an inquiring stranger who chances upon both would scarcely dream that there was any relation between them. An intelligent observer of our human scene who heard the Sunday morning sermon and later watched the Sunday afternoon conduct of those who had heard it would conclude that he has been examining two distinct and contrary religions. . . .
It appears that too many Christians want to enjoy the thrill of feeling right but are not willing to endure the inconvenience of being right. So the divorce between theory and practice becomes permanent in fact, though in word the union is declared to be eternal. Truth sits forsaken and grieves till her professed followers come home for a brief visit, but she sees them depart again when the bills become due.[7]
In developing his overarching lesson that _real faith produces genuine works_ , James has already dealt with the Christian's perseverance through trials, which proves our faith (1:1-12), and the believer's victory over temptation, which demonstrates our character (1:13-18). In this final section of chapter 1, James zooms in on the believer's appropriate response to God's Word. The break in the relationship between belief and behavior may be pandemic among Christians, but James reminds us that the two estranged partners of the Christian walk _can_ be reconciled.
## — 1:19-20 —
James begins with a reminder: "This you know, my beloved brethren." Unquestionably, he's writing to believers, brothers and sisters in Christ. And he begins by acknowledging that they already know what he's about to say. James is saying, "Yes, I know you're aware of what I'm about to cover, but you need to hear it again. I feel the need to review it, to revisit some basics." In that sense, the phrase "you know" serves as a mild command: "Remember!" As we'll soon see, it's also a rebuke: "You've forgotten!"
What is the content of this knowledge? Three important things fertilize the soil of the heart in preparation for receiving the planting of God's word in our hearts (1:21). First, James urges us to be "quick to hear" (1:19). The command means more than merely listening intently. James wants us to genuinely receive the words that are spoken. Let me give you an illustration. You probably know from experience that there are two ways of reading a book. The first kind of "reading" —if it can even be called that —is the assigned reading in school or college. The eyes scan the pages of words, sentences pass across the retina, but the ideas don't seem to make it into the brain! The goal of that kind of reading is to place a check box in the reading report. But another kind of reading —authentic reading —includes highlighting or underlining important points, taking notes, even incorporating the ideas in discussions or reports. It should be obvious which student actually _read_ the book. The same is true for listening.
Jesus Himself complained about hypocrites in His day: "You will keep on hearing, but will not understand" (Matt. 13:14). And He followed this sentiment with an interpretation of His parable of the sower:
"The one on whom seed was sown on the rocky places, this is the man who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet he has no firm root in himself, but is only temporary, and when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he falls away." (Matt. 13:20-21)
Jesus' teaching forms the background of James's letter. Having just discussed the need to endure through trials of life and overcome temptations to sin (Jas. 1:1-18), he warns that failure to receive the Word of God with a ready heart can lead to disaster (1:19-27).
To receive the Word effectively also includes being "slow to speak" (1:19) —putting a damper on the tongue. That's the other side to listening well. Keeping our mouths shut makes room for thinking, pondering, meditating, considering —all the elements necessary for true listening (and learning). Right on the heels of "slow to speak," James attaches the phrase "slow to anger." In the Greek text James doesn't include a conjunction like "and" between these admonitions. They are so closely related to the precondition for receiving the planting of the Word that James conceives of them as being connected like links in a chain.
How does being "slow to anger" relate to the reception of the Word? It relates in part to the function of the Word in the lives of believers. Paul tells us, "All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness" (2 Tim. 3:16). When the Word hits close to home, a sinner most naturally responds with defensiveness, indignation —even anger. We don't want our crookedness to be held up to a perfect standard, but that's just what happens when we let God's Word expose our innermost thoughts and actions. Instead of allowing the typical response of anger, James calls us to respond in peace, "for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God" (Jas. 1:20). Anger rejects rebuke; peace accepts it. Anger dismisses correction; peace embraces it.
## — 1:21 —
After preparing to receive the truth by opening the ears of the heart, zipping the lips, and suppressing the urge to strike back (1:19-20), we are ready to properly receive the truth (1:21). Nestled in the center of this short verse is a simple command that ties the whole section together: _receive_ ( _dechomai_ [1209]). The word usually means more than to passively "accept." It often includes the idea of fully embracing, making the thing part of oneself. The word is used of people "receiving" Jesus hospitably (John 4:45). More appropriate for the usage in James, the Bereans "received ( _dechomai_ ) the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so" (Acts 17:11). Similarly, the Thessalonian believers not only "received the word in much tribulation with the joy of the Holy Spirit" (1 Thes. 1:6), but they also received it "not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God" (1 Thes. 2:13). These passages illustrate the eagerness, the earnest reception James has in mind in 1:21.
With the conjunction "therefore," James rests this command on his previous admonishment to be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger (1:19-20). _Because_ an angry response to the Word does not achieve God's righteousness, we must _therefore_ receive the Word a certain way. James describes the conditions that must accompany this reception: putting aside all filthiness, putting aside all that remains of wickedness, and putting on humility. Filthiness in life plugs our hearing. Wickedness slows our response time. Pride keeps us from exposing our true selves to the light of the Word. But humility means submitting to whatever the Word has to tell us, ready to put off the thoughts and deeds of the old lifestyle in favor of the attitudes and actions of the new.
## — 1:22-25 —
The logic in James's progression for preparing for, receiving, and responding to the truth is simple and elegant. First, the soil of our souls should be prepared (1:19-20). Second, the seed of truth must be planted (1:21). And third, the smothering weeds of anger, filth, and wickedness must be uprooted (1:19-21). But having gotten this far in the process, God's Word still hasn't borne fruit in our lives. This requires a proper response (1:22-27).
James begins with a command: "Prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers" (1:22). If one phrase in James's letter could be called a key phrase, this is it. That phrase sums up the whole theme of the book — _real faith produces genuine works._ Those who hear without doing may be guilty of "fake faith," but those who hear and do demonstrate their authenticity. Note that James doesn't simply tell his readers to be "doers." He pairs it with the other side of the coin —not merely "hearers." Hearing, listening, receiving the word is a necessary first step. The word must be understood and lodged in our hearts. That's the key. But James contrasts the one who hears and acts with one who simply hears.
Let me illustrate this with something you run across in colleges or universities frequently, though you may not realize it immediately. In many classes you have what they call "auditors." They are merely _hearers_ of the instruction. They sign up for the class, pay a nominal auditor's fee, and then sit through the lectures. But beyond that, everything is optional. Some may take notes, but they're not required to do so. Some might read the textbook, but that's optional, too. Auditors don't write papers or take tests. They're not in it for course credit; they are merely _hearers_ of the instruction, not doers. In contrast, James says the Christian life is one not only of hearing, but of doing. Those who merely hear the Word without acting on it "delude themselves" (1:22).
James follows this exhortation to be doers of the Word with an illustration (1:23-25). He describes two different kinds of Christians who show up for church. Believe me, five decades of pastoral ministry have shown me that the same thing is true today. I see these different brands of Christians in every church. The first is what we call the "forgetful hearer" (1:23-24). James uses the illustration of a man who glances in the mirror, sees what he looks like (which apparently isn't attractive), then shrugs, walks away, and does nothing about it. Similarly, God's spiritual mirror shows you what kind of person you are. James pictures a man who glances at the Scriptures, looks at words on the page, then closes it and goes his way, forgetting what God said about his condition.
The second kind of Christian is the "effectual doer" of the Word (1:25). What characterizes this person? He gives careful attention to the Scriptures, which James calls "the perfect law, the law of liberty." He thinks deeply, obeys willingly, responding positively, abiding by its principles. Instead of hearing and forgetting, he hears and does. This person will be blessed in what he does —made genuinely happy in his pursuit of doing what is right.
* * *
# From My Journal
# My Years as an Auditor
JAMES 1:22-25
For many years in my life I was simply an "auditor," not an "actor" —a "hearer," not a "doer" of the Word. Though I take full responsibility for my former condition, it didn't help that I attended a church where the Bible was opened and dealt with like a textbook. I got so much information my ears could hardly stay together as my head swelled with all sorts of new truth that never made that all-important journey down to my heart and out into my hands. Sunday after Sunday the lectures from the pulpit would stack fact upon fact until I thought I knew it all.
God had to get me out of that classroom Christianity to break the auditor mentality. And that's just what He did. One man —a true mentor —was honest enough to look me in the eye and set me straight. "Chuck, you know more truth than our whole group of Christians put together, but it sure doesn't show. That's called hypocrisy!" He got my attention. As time passed, I began to see the Scriptures not as a textbook of information, arguments, and logical propositions to satisfy my intellectual curiosity but as the living Word of truth given by God to alter my attitudes and change my actions.
A lifetime of pastoral ministry has shown me that the church has too many "auditors" of the Word. I see the old me in the faces of so many people in the pews. They have their notebooks packed full of notes, but they would be hard-pressed to show any significant changes they made based on those notes. I can no longer settle for that kind of Christianity. I want well- _grounded_ faith, and I long for it to result in well- _rounded_ living.
* * *
## — 1:26-27 —
James next describes the person who is a true adherent of a religion. The Greek word for "religion," _thrēskeia_ [2356], which occurs twice in these two verses, refers not to one's personal convictions or principles, but to participation in the worship of a well-defined religious community or organization. Judaism was in this sense a "religion" (Acts 26:5), as was the angel-worshiping cult described in Colossians 2:18 (the "religion of angels"). James is therefore referring to Christianity as a distinct body of believers. This is important to note because James says a person who does not control his tongue, but who says one thing and does another, actually makes his religion worthless (Jas. 1:26). How many times have we seen this to be true! When unbelievers witness the hypocrisy of Christians, it all too often makes the whole _religion_ look bad, not just the person claiming the name.
But in his typical way, James provides a positive example to contrast his negative. Those who live lives consistent with their religion give attention to the needs of others. Visiting orphans and widows, keeping unstained by the world —these are clear examples of genuine faith, demonstrating the uniqueness and truthfulness of the Christian message (1:27).
James thus concludes his first major section of his letter by hinting at some practical themes he'll return to in the next section —putting genuine faith into practice (2:1-26) and controlling the tongue (3:1-12). But before moving on, let's remind ourselves of the foundation James has laid in this first section. In chapter 1, he argued that when faith is put to the test it produces genuine stability. To demonstrate this point, he gave three examples. First, he argued that the normal trials of life don't crush genuine faith —they produce endurance (1:1-12). Then, he urged his readers to overcome temptations to sin by relying on God-given strength (1:13-18). Finally, he explained that genuine faith results in submission to God's Word without hypocrisy (1:19-27).
* * *
# APPLICATION: JAMES 1:19-27
Reconciling the Great Divorce
Domestic divorce between husbands and wives has become an epidemic in the church, but spiritual divorce —a breach between the truth we hear from God's word and the lifestyles we live in the world —has become a _pandemic_. We open the word and say, "My, what a great practical principle!" Or we hear a sermon and think, "What a fantastic, inspiring message!" Then, as we close our Bibles or walk out through the foyer, we divorce the word from our everyday lives.
What are some examples of real Christianity in which hearing and living are reconciled? James gives three of them in 1:26-27.
First, _don't divorce the truth and your speech_. When we speak contrary to what we read in Scripture or hear in Sunday worship, our own hearts are deceived. Does our 9-to-5 talk-time square with our early morning quiet time? Does our Monday through Saturday speaking conform to the Sunday preaching? When there's no divorce between His Word and our words, that's real Christianity.
Second, _don't divorce the truth and the needs of others_. Are we moved by the needs of others, leading to actions that meet those needs? That's not the "social gospel." That's authentic Christianity! That's true faith that touches people's lives. The truth should manifest itself not only in words but also in deeds. When our works benefit those around us in tangible, observable ways, that's real Christianity.
Finally, _don't divorce the truth and your upright lifestyle._ The gray waters of compromise and smog of immorality are increasingly polluting our world. Instead of letting the lies of secularism dirty our testimonies, we must let the truth of God's Word wash us clean, making us stand out in the world around us. The contrast should be obvious. When our upright lifestyles contrast sharply with the crooked norms of our surrounding culture, that's real Christianity.
* * *
# REAL FAITH PRODUCES GENUINE LOVE (JAMES 2:1–3:12)
I'll never forget my first week in boot camp. When I arrived, I had an idea about the Marine Corps that was altogether false, and it took about sixty seconds for reality to shatter my fragile image. During our first orientation class, with our heads shaved, our bodies aching, and our egos stripped, I distinctly remember the instructor shouting, "Look to your right! Look to your left! In fourteen weeks one of those guys won't be here!" And I thought, "Are they gonna shoot 'em?" Of course not, but at that point we were all scared half to death. We just wanted to survive. As those petrified recruits pivoted their heads left and right, I thought, "Hey! The guys on my right and my left are looking at me!" And I realized that I could very well be one of those men who wouldn't be able to measure up.
It wasn't a bluff. In the course of our training we started with eighty-five, and we graduated forty-two. So that instructor wasn't exaggerating. That intense training thinned the ranks. We all had a naive, even romantic, idea of life in the Corps —like a fourteen-week summer camp or like Boy Scouts for adults. But after a few months had passed and forty-three men had dropped out, I had learned what it was really all about. We all had learned what it meant to be among "the few, the proud." We had discovered the meaning of submission, taking orders, and going above and beyond the call of duty. And we had learned the true meaning of the Marine Corps motto, _Semper Fidelis —"_Always Faithful."
Like that life-changing experience in boot camp, a serious reading of the book of James thins the ranks. It sifts religious phonies out of the Christian crowd. James is looking for a few good men and women who will remain "always faithful" in word and deed. The tough words of James assault the inauthentic faith of wannabes. Some onlookers may even say, "That's just not for me." But that's the job of the book. James is asking, "If you say you believe like you should, why do you live like you shouldn't?" People who naively embraced a sit-back-and-watch kind of comfy Christianity will have a hard time with our drill instructor, James. The first section already introduced a number of profoundly practical themes —enduring life's tests and temptations (1:2-8), the struggle between rich and poor (1:9-11), the need to be authentic doers of the Word (1:22-26), guarding the tongue (1:26), and investing in those who could never repay (1:27). He introduced these as examples of how to submit to the "perfect law" that sets you free, answering the question, "What does authentic faith look like?"
* * *
# KEY TERMS IN JAMES 2:1–3:12
_dikaioō_ **(δικαιόω)** [1344] "to justify," "to declare righteous," "to prove innocent," "to vindicate"
In the New Testament, this verb almost always bears a legal connotation in which a person is granted the legal status of "not-guilty." This official pronouncement may or may not reflect the actual guilt or innocence of the subject. A ruler may vindicate an innocent person and officially affirm his or her righteousness; or that ruler may declare someone righteous despite his or her actual guilt, so that he or she receives the same rights and privileges as an innocent person.
_ergon_ **(ἔργον)** [2041] "work," "deed," "completion of a task or duty"
This Greek term, like the English noun, "work," describes both the act of labor and its result. If a person were to build a house, the structure is said to be his or her "work." That is, the house represents both the effort and the result of the builder's activity. For James the term "work" emphasizes the practical effects of a person's inward convictions —those things that are visible manifestations of invisible thoughts.
_glōssa_ **(γλῶσσα)** [1100] "tongue," "language"
Throughout the Old Testament, and especially in wisdom literature, Scripture addresses the "tongue" in both positive and negative terms. In fact, Proverbs 18:21 says, "Death and life are in the power of the tongue." James, steeped in Jewish wisdom imagery, draws on this concept of the "tongue" as a potential weapon of both blessing and cursing, life and death. Though the word refers specifically to the physical organ, most of its uses are metaphorical for a person's words or language.
* * *
But now, in the second major section of this manual of hands-on Christianity, James shatters the fantasy world of a flimsy faith. He sets out to deal with the nitty-gritty of the Christian life, burrowing deeply into issues of partiality and prejudice (2:1-13), faith and works (2:14-26), and bridling the tongue (3:1-12). Fully developing matters merely touched on in the first section, James intends to transform his readers from a ragtag bunch of naive recruits into a cadre of spiritual warriors who set the standard of faithful living in a world of corruption and compromise.
# Partiality and Prejudice
JAMES 2:1-13
NASB
1 My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with _an attitude of_ personal favoritism. 2 For if a man comes into your [a]assembly with a gold ring and dressed in [b]fine clothes, and there also comes in a poor man in dirty clothes, 3 and you [a]pay special attention to the one who is wearing the fine clothes, and say, "You sit here in a good place," and you say to the poor man, "You stand over there, or sit down by my footstool," 4 have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil [a]motives? 5 Listen, my beloved brethren: did not God choose the poor [a]of this world _to be_ rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him? 6 But you have dishonored the poor man. Is it not the rich who oppress you and [a]personally drag you into [b]court? 7 Do they not blaspheme the fair name [a]by which you have been called?
8 If, however, you are fulfilling the [a]royal law according to the Scripture, "YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF," you are doing well. 9 But if you show partiality, you are committing sin _and_ are convicted by the [a]law as transgressors. 10 For whoever keeps the whole [a]law and yet stumbles in one _point,_ he has become guilty of all. 11 For He who said, "DO NOT COMMIT ADULTERY," also said, "DO NOT COMMIT MURDER." Now if you do not commit adultery, but do commit murder, you have become a transgressor of the [a]law. 12 So speak and so act as those who are to be judged by _the_ law of liberty. 13 For judgment _will be_ merciless to one who has shown no mercy; mercy [a]triumphs over judgment.
2:2 [a]Or _synagogue_ [b]Or _bright_ 2:3 [a]Lit _look at_ 2:4 [a]Lit _reasonings_ 2:5 [a]Lit _to the_ 2:6 [a]Lit _they themselves_ [b]Lit _courts_ 2:7 [a]Lit _which has been called upon you_ 2:8 [a]Or _law of_ our _King_ 2:9 [a]Or _Law_ 2:10 [a]Or _Law_ 2:11 [a]Or _Law_ 2:13 [a]Lit _boasts against_
NLT
1 My dear brothers and sisters,[*] how can you claim to have faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ if you favor some people over others?
2 For example, suppose someone comes into your meeting[*] dressed in fancy clothes and expensive jewelry, and another comes in who is poor and dressed in dirty clothes. 3 If you give special attention and a good seat to the rich person, but you say to the poor one, "You can stand over there, or else sit on the floor" —well, 4 doesn't this discrimination show that your judgments are guided by evil motives?
5 Listen to me, dear brothers and sisters. Hasn't God chosen the poor in this world to be rich in faith? Aren't they the ones who will inherit the Kingdom he promised to those who love him? 6 But you dishonor the poor! Isn't it the rich who oppress you and drag you into court? 7 Aren't they the ones who slander Jesus Christ, whose noble name[*] you bear?
8 Yes indeed, it is good when you obey the royal law as found in the Scriptures: "Love your neighbor as yourself."[*] 9 But if you favor some people over others, you are committing a sin. You are guilty of breaking the law.
10 For the person who keeps all of the laws except one is as guilty as a person who has broken all of God's laws. 11 For the same God who said, "You must not commit adultery," also said, "You must not murder."[*] So if you murder someone but do not commit adultery, you have still broken the law.
12 So whatever you say or whatever you do, remember that you will be judged by the law that sets you free. 13 There will be no mercy for those who have not shown mercy to others. But if you have been merciful, God will be merciful when he judges you.
[2:1] Greek _brothers;_ also in 2:5, 14. [2:2] Greek _your synagogue._ [2:7] Greek _slander the noble name._ [2:8] Lev 19:18. [2:11] Exod 20:13-14; Deut 5:17-18.
* * *
Through most of my Christian life, I've wrestled against a form of Christianity obsessed with externals. Too many believers draw quick conclusions about people based merely on their first impressions —almost as if they had forgotten that "man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart" (1 Sam. 16:7).
* Her hair is too short.
* He shouldn't wear _that_ to church.
* What's with those tattoos?
* That car is too expensive.
* Their house is too big.
* He has a PhD.
* She didn't even graduate from high school.
* They go to public school.
* They're homeschoolers.
Prejudice. Our English word stems from a Latin noun that emphasizes a prejudgment of someone, causing us to form an opinion before knowing all the facts. And once we've raced to our conclusions, ignoring those essential facts, we're well on our way to establishing an irrational, insidious attitude that says, "My mind's made up. Don't confuse me with the facts."
The whole point of James 2:1-13 is to diffuse that kind of faulty thinking. As a master communicator, James first states his principle (2:1) then provides a real-life illustration of the principle (2:2-4). Next, he explains the reasons why such behavior is inconsistent with authentic Christian faith (2:5-11) and ends with a final exhortation to do what's right (2:12-13).
## — 2:1 —
James begins by saying, in essence, "Faith in Christ and partiality are incompatible." The command in this verse is straightforward: literally, "do not have." James is clearly addressing Christians, whom he calls "brethren," those who already have faith in Christ. The issue is not what they believe or whom they trust. In fact, James uses some of the most exalted language for Christ in this brief statement —"our glorious Lord Jesus Christ." So, their theology was right. They were part of God's forever family.
But something was wrong. The attitude that accompanied their faith didn't fit. The Greek word translated "personal favoritism" is _prosōpolēmpsia_ [4382], a compound word that communicates the idea of "receiving the face." What a great way to put it! You see a person's outward appearance (his or her "face") and you receive that image as if it's the real thing. The word is used in the New Testament in reference to God. In Acts 10:34 Peter says, "I most certainly understand now that God is not one to show partiality." God judges the truth of a matter by the heart, not the face. And Christians are called to reflect this quality in their own lives.
A word of clarification is in order. Partiality and prejudice can go in one of two directions: positive or negative. By merely looking at the outside characteristics, we can miss fatal character flaws in a person masked by attractive attire, smooth talk, and a firm handshake. On the other hand, we can too quickly condemn a person based on the outward appearance, failing to see the Christlike character and abundant spiritual fruit that compose the person's true identity. So, James isn't questioning the importance of wise character study to discern whether we should really be involved with a person. We should all exercise that kind of discernment. James is addressing the problem of prejudice —judgment made prior to any careful discernment.
## — 2:2-4 —
Like windows of light flooding a home with beauty, illustrations open the truth to our minds and let it shine in our hearts. James is a master illustrator. He doesn't just leave his readers with a rule to follow; he tells them a story to which they can relate.
The setting of the illustration is the "assembly." The word here isn't _ekklēsia_ [1577], "church," but _synagōgē_ [4864], "meeting." This word referred to any meeting, not just a Jewish synagogue. Early Jewish Christians were sometimes able to meet in the Jewish synagogues, but before long the unbelieving Jews decided that they couldn't tolerate fellow Jews who believed in Jesus as the promised Messiah, and they expelled them. Wherever they met, whether in homes or other convenient locations, the term _synagōgē_ described their meetings. As we apply these verses to our day, the "assembly" represents our place of worship, the church.
In James's illustration, two men stand out as the church is gathering for worship. One is dressed to the nines —from fancy jewelry to expensive, elegant clothing. In the ancient Near East, it was customary for people of great wealth or nobility to wear jewel-studded garments of fine fabric like silk. Their garments announced that they were influential, powerful people who could change your life with the nod of their heads. But something about this illustration would probably strike James's first-century readers as odd. At the time James wrote this letter, the story was usually reversed —Christians were often brought into the assemblies of the rich and powerful for interrogation and judgment. It wasn't common for the wealthy and respectable to show up at church! So, having caught his readers' imagination, James introduces the second character in his illustration.
A floor plan of a first-century synagogue, indicating the seating arrangement and the location of the _b_ _ē_ _ma_ and lectern
A poor man in grubby, soiled clothes wanders into the assembly. His clothes hang from his scrawny form. No jewels, no silk, no entourage to protect him from thieves or assassins —and no influence over anyone. Please note that this isn't just an average man off the street coming to church out of curiosity. This one stands out to normal people as exceptionally poor, just as the wealthy man stood out as enviably rich.
This leaves the usher with a decision to make and no time to think. In cases like this, a person's true character shines through. What does he do? In James's illustration, the usher is blinded by the bling (2:3). The rich man gets VIP treatment: "You sit here in a good place." Where was that? Matthew 23:6 mentions "chief seats in the synagogues," so there must have been preferred seating for people of importance. In an ancient synagogue, the pulpit stood near the center of the meeting hall, and the tabernacle, where the scrolls were kept, was toward the front. Seating for men ran along the two sides and women and children sat in a balcony. The best seats in the house would have been nearest the pulpit.
While the rich man is shown to a seat of honor, the poor man doesn't even get a seat! Instead, with a wave of the hand or an impatient huff, the usher barks, "You stand over there, or sit down by my footstool" (2:3). In other words, "Stay out of the way!"
Now let me make something clear about what James is _not_ saying in this passage. The illustration is about the one who's judging the rich man as being better than the poor man. It's not about the rich man or the poor man. There's nothing necessarily wrong with being rich. And there's nothing necessarily wrong with being poor. The problem James is addressing is the _motive_ that affects the _behavior_.
In 2:4, James announces his verdict: the usher is guilty of discrimination. He "made distinctions" and became a judge not with objective clarity, but with "evil motives." Maybe he put him down, initially thinking it would win him personal favor with an influential politician. Maybe less personally —but just as wrong —the usher envisions the great financial contribution that could come to the church through such a wealthy man.
James couldn't be clearer. _This kind of prejudice is sin_. If there's one place where class distinctions should be broken down, it's in our places of worship. Discrimination over color, political persuasion, financial status, fashion, or appearance doesn't belong in the church, either inside or outside its doors, in private or in public.
## — 2:5-11 —
Here James shifts into low gear and explains why prejudice and partiality are unfit for Christians. He gives three reasons: a theological reason, a logical reason, and a biblical reason.
_A Theological Reason_ (2:5). God shows no partiality, so neither should His children. The apostle Paul develops this theological principle in 1 Corinthians 1:26-29.
For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are, so that no man may boast before God.
* * *
# From My Journal
# General Seating No Longer Available
JAMES 2:2-4
When I was stationed on the island of Okinawa, our general liked to sit down front during chapel services. There was always a place reserved for him and his entourage of aides —all those guys that waited on him hand and foot. He would usually arrive about five minutes after the worship started, and you could just hear all of them marching in step to go sit down in that one spot that everybody knew belonged to them.
Well, we had a fine Christian chaplain who was a real maverick, a strong preacher, and a courageous fellow. He was one of the only chaplains I knew who was genuinely born-again. One Easter Sunday morning the chapel was packed. There were guys outside who couldn't get a seat. The chaplain wanted to make as much room as possible for all the troops, so he packed them in wherever there was space. He told the ushers, "Bring 'em down." And guess who sat in the general's seat? _A private_. Now in the Marine Corps, trust me, no one else sits where generals are supposed to sit —especially buck privates!
But this Easter Sunday he did.
Then in came the general. He surveyed the chapel and saw there was no place available. The general obviously didn't like that, because our fine chaplain was sent off that island in less than three months' time. The chaplain paid a big price for a valuable virtue. He refused to show partiality, even if it meant seating an on-time private over a tardy general.
But God works in mysterious ways. I found out months later that our chaplain who got booted off Okinawa wound up being stationed in Hawaii. How good is that!
* * *
_A Logical Reason_ (2:6-7). James asks two rhetorical questions, which reveal much about the situation in which the Jewish Christians found themselves. First, the rich and powerful were persecuting the Christians, dragging them before the authorities (2:6). Second, the rich and powerful were blaspheming Christ's name (2:7). Reading between the lines, we can tell that the poor were not involved in this kind of persecution. So, indiscriminately showing favoritism toward the rich and mistreating the poor made no sense at all!
_A Biblical Reason_ (2:8-11). Finally, James points his readers to Scripture, which excludes all partiality. His text comes from Leviticus 19:18 —"You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Sound familiar? James's readers would have immediately recognized this as a key Old Testament verse Jesus used in His own teaching (Matt. 19:19; quoting Lev. 19:18). In fact, it's the basis for His "Golden Rule" —"Treat people the same way you want them to treat you" (Matt. 7:12). Christ called this the second of the two greatest commandments, the first being to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength (Mark 12:29-31). Referring to this second great commandment, Paul says that every commandment in the Law of Moses "is summed up in this saying" (Rom. 13:9) and that "the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself'" (Gal. 5:14). Given the fundamental importance of this "royal law," to break this one law is like breaking all of them; and, vice versa, if you break any of the others, you've broken this one (Jas. 2:11). For this reason, prejudice —which refuses to love all equally —transgresses the great commandment.
## — 2:12-13 —
James wraps up his indictment against partiality with an exhortation to apply his teaching. Let Scripture be your standard! Let love be your law! Let mercy be your message! Speak not and act not out of natural, superficial, cultural conditioning. To speak and act that way makes believers into lawbreakers, subjecting them to God's discipline. Believers will never fall under condemnation by God (Rom. 8:1), but they will be judged and rewarded on how they conduct themselves in this life. James reveals the standard by which all believers will be judged: "by the law of liberty" (Jas. 2:12). In the context of 2:8-11, we know the law James had in mind —the liberating, royal law that excludes all prejudice and puts away all partiality —"You shall love your neighbor as yourself."
* * *
# APPLICATION: JAMES 2:1-13
Prejudice Is a Sin
As the old adage goes, "birds of a feather flock together." How true that is, even in our churches. I'm tempted to say, _especially_ in our churches. We have large churches, small churches, downtown churches, suburban churches, inner-city churches, young churches, old churches, formal churches, informal churches —all of them composed of people who look the same, think the same, talk the same, and act the same. Oh, and they often mistrust, dislike, or alienate the "others" on the outside of their culture.
Why has it been so difficult for Christians to take James's words about partiality and prejudice seriously? We're okay with loving our neighbors as long as we get to pick the neighborhood! But James's words concerning prejudice and partiality should challenge our attitudes — _and change our actions_. At the close of 2:1-13, James leaves us with some ways to apply his principles against prejudice in our own lives.
First, _let the Scriptures —not your habits —be your standard_ (2:12). I was raised in the South. I inhaled the prejudice propaganda from the moment I took my first breath. I was taught it in school. I saw it among my friends. I even heard it in pulpits. But I have to call it what the Bible calls it — _sin_. We often hide behind excuses like, "That's just how I was raised" or "Those people have their own ways of doing things." As James said, prejudice and faith in Christ do not mix (2:1). So, stop holding on to your prejudices and hiding behind flimsy excuses. Whether your particular group is black, white, Hispanic, Arab, Asian, Palestinian, Jewish, rich, poor, white collar, or blue collar, you need to get over your prejudice against others! Decide right now to agree with Scripture and call it what it is.
Second, _let love be your law_ (2:12). James calls the command to love my neighbor as myself the "royal law" (2:8) and "the law of liberty" (2:12). When we encounter people who are different from us —older or younger, lighter or darker, richer or poorer —we need to resist the question, "How can I get as far away from this person as possible?" We must answer the question, "How can I best love this person in word and action?" How can I help her? How can I build this person up? How can I show grace and mercy instead of discrimination and partiality?
As you seek to apply James's message, ask God to reveal where you may be guilty of favoritism and partiality. At the same time, ask for discernment to make accurate distinctions about how to love, whom to trust, and when to confront. James isn't saying we must treat every soul on earth exactly the same, but we can't treat people unfairly simply based on our superficial prejudices.
If we approach each person we meet as an opportunity to demonstrate love, we'll make good progress at putting away prejudice from our midst.
* * *
# Faith at Work
JAMES 2:14-26
NASB
14 What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can [a]that faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, [a]be warmed and be filled," and yet you do not give them what is necessary for _their_ body, what use is that? 17 Even so faith, if it has no works, is [a]dead, _being_ by itself.
18 But someone [a]may _well_ say, "You have faith and I have works; show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works." 19 You believe that [a]God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder. 20 But are you willing to recognize, you foolish fellow, that faith without works is useless? 21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up Isaac his son on the altar? 22 You see that faith was working with his works, and [a]as a result of the works, faith was [b]perfected; 23 and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, "AND ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS RECKONED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS," and he was called the friend of God. 24 You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone. 25 In the same way, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? 26 For just as the body without _the_ spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.
2:14 [a]Lit _the_ 2:16 [a]Or _warm yourselves and fill yourselves_ 2:17 [a]Or _dead by its own standards_ 2:18 [a]Lit _will_ 2:19 [a]One early ms reads _there is one God_ 2:22 [a]Or _by the deeds_ [b]Or _completed_
NLT
14 What good is it, dear brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but don't show it by your actions? Can that kind of faith save anyone? 15 Suppose you see a brother or sister who has no food or clothing, 16 and you say, "Good-bye and have a good day; stay warm and eat well" —but then you don't give that person any food or clothing. What good does that do?
17 So you see, faith by itself isn't enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless.
18 Now someone may argue, "Some people have faith; others have good deeds." But I say, "How can you show me your faith if you don't have good deeds? I will show you my faith by my good deeds."
19 You say you have faith, for you believe that there is one God.[*] Good for you! Even the demons believe this, and they tremble in terror. 20 How foolish! Can't you see that faith without good deeds is useless?
21 Don't you remember that our ancestor Abraham was shown to be right with God by his actions when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? 22 You see, his faith and his actions worked together. His actions made his faith complete. 23 And so it happened just as the Scriptures say: "Abraham believed God, and God counted him as righteous because of his faith."[*] He was even called the friend of God.[*] 24 So you see, we are shown to be right with God by what we do, not by faith alone.
25 Rahab the prostitute is another example. She was shown to be right with God by her actions when she hid those messengers and sent them safely away by a different road. 26 Just as the body is dead without breath,[*] so also faith is dead without good works.
[2:19] Some manuscripts read _that God is one;_ see Deut 6:4. [2:23a] Gen 15:6. [2:23b] See Isa 41:8. [2:26] Or _without spirit._
* * *
Many years ago I was driving through our town with a couple of my young kids in the backseat. As children do, they were singing a song they had learned in Sunday school. Now, this was long before they made kids in the backseat wear seatbelts, so one was laying on the seat, the other on the floor. That kind of thing today makes us cringe, but many of you are old enough to remember when that was typical. I couldn't see them back there, but I could sure hear them belting out that song at the top of their little voices: "If you're saved and you know it, say 'Amen!'" And they'd shout, "Amen!"
Eventually they wrangled me into singing along. As we got to the last verse where we're supposed to "do all three," I stopped at a red light. With the window rolled down, I was shouting, "If you're saved and you know it, do all three!" And I stomped, shouted "Amen," and clapped my hands. Just then I realized we were being watched by two sophisticated-looking people in the car beside us. Well, I should say _I_ was being watched —because they couldn't see the two kids singing with me, lying down on the back seat!
I could tell by the looks on their faces, they were shocked. They must have thought I was nuts, intoxicated, high, or worse —but they weren't going to stick around to find out. Their car took off as soon as the light turned green. I wanted to chase them down and explain, "There are two kids in the back seat that got me into this!" But I shrugged my shoulders and thought, "Who cares?"
Then, as I accelerated through the green light, we were at the part of the song where we sang, "If you're saved and you know it, then your life will surely show it." And I stopped singing. They kept on, but I stopped. Immediate conviction set in. I thought, "Lord, does my life really show it?" I sure showed something to those people in the next car over, but I was only a little embarrassed about that minor social infraction. What about all the things I'm called to do daily as a believer in Christ —all those things that cut crosswise against cultural norms and society's expectations? So I began to quickly review the past weeks, months, and years, trying to determine if my life really showed my faith. That simple children's song got to me.
Someone once said that faith is like calories: you can't see them, but you can always see their results! That's the major theme resonating throughout James's letter. We can boil it down to one word — _results_. Real faith results in genuine works. And nowhere does James more passionately argue and illustrate this theme than in 2:14-26. This passage forces us to answer that penetrating question, "If you say you believe like you should, why do you behave like you shouldn't?"
## — 2:14 —
This section is the main thesis of the book. Everything before this passage is like an arrow pointing forward to it. Everything after is like an arrow pointing back. It's the apex of a pyramid in James's mind. He asks two rhetorical questions, not expecting an answer but about to give one: "What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him?"
James's question is like asking, "What good is it to carry around a driver's license if you can't actually drive?" People may be called Christians and claim to be part of the faith, but do they have any genuine results that prove to those around them that their confession is authentic? That's what James is asking. And quite frankly, James says that if somebody claims to have faith in Christ but his or her life doesn't show results of faith, that faith might very well be phony.
The second question, "Can that faith save him?" refers to a certain _quality_ of faith —that faith which produces no fruit. The implied answer, of course, is a resounding _no_! In fact, the form of the question in Greek shows that James is asking a rhetorical question that demands a negative answer.
For the rest of the section, then, James digs deeper into this basic assertion that phony faith that produces no works is not genuine saving faith.
## — 2:15-20 —
In 2:15-20 James sets out four characteristics of genuine faith.
First, _genuine faith is not indifferent, but involved_ (2:15-16). Carefully consider this illustration. James is making it easy for his readers to decide whether they should help these people in need. They're not being asked to throw charity at ungrateful heathens or wicked blasphemers. These needy folks are genuine "brothers and sisters" who have genuine needs: food and clothing (2:15). In 1 Timothy 6:8, Paul said, "If we have food and covering, with these we shall be content." The people in James's example didn't even have the basics of life! They were in dire need, but instead of providing them with clothing or food, James's hypothetical feigners of faith send the needy believers away with nothing but a hollow cliché: "Go in peace, be warmed and be filled" (Jas. 2:16).
My guess is that everybody reading this has experienced something like this from so-called brothers and sisters in Christ. Maybe you haven't missed meals or clothing, but perhaps you've endured pain and desperately needed comfort, or you've had a specific need that required at least a caring ear and a shoulder to cry on. But instead, you felt a pat on the head and you heard a hasty platitude. Instead of reaching out with real help, those who could (and should) have stepped up did nothing to meet your need. That's James's indictment.
James isn't alone in these sentiments. The apostle John says the same: "But whoever has the world's goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him?" (1 Jn. 3:17). The implication? _It doesn't_. If there's genuine love, it reaches out to others. And if there's real faith, it produces acts of compassion. In James's definition, genuine faith is not indifferent, but involved.
Second, James urges that _genuine faith is not independent, but in partnership_ (2:17). James says that genuine faith is always accompanied by results. If it doesn't have results, it's "dead." By "dead" James means "useless, ineffective, impotent." It's the opposite of a living, effective, vibrant faith. In this verse, we might even put quote marks around "faith," because in James's mind the so-called faith that has no works is phony faith.
Third, _genuine faith is not invisible, but on display_ (2:18). James puts words in the mouth of a hypothetical person who says, "You have faith and I have works; show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works." The argument is subtle. This is somebody who agrees with James but claims to have a quiet, invisible, private faith. You've met people like that. "I keep my faith to myself," they say. "I don't wear my religion on my shirtsleeve." To a person like that, anybody who actually lives out his or her faith looks like a fanatic. But the challenge to a private, passive faith is valid; genuine faith displays itself. If you can't actually see it, how can anyone know it actually exists?
Fourth, _genuine faith is not intellectual, but from the heart_ (2:19-20). James imagines yet another kind of person, the religious intellectual. He knows the facts and can recite the truth, but he doesn't really have a life that matches the facts. He believes that "God is one" (2:19). This statement comes straight out of the ancient confession of Judaism called the _Shema_ —"Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one!" (Deut. 6:4). So he has his basic theology down. He gives intellectual assent to the truth. But it hasn't penetrated his heart or made its way to his hands and feet. Those whose faith is merely intellectual have that much in common with demons! Only those whose lives exhibit genuine faith by visible works are better off than demons, whose theology is impeccable, but whose works are abhorrent.
By the way, we encounter another kind of "religious intellectual" in our own day, and that's the intellectual skeptic. You've seen them interviewed in documentaries on the historical Jesus or waxing eloquently on the "truth" behind the "myths" of the Bible. They boast all kinds of scientific and historical credentials. They want to talk about religion as a social, psychological, or philosophical phenomenon. They claim to remain objective, analyzing and reinterpreting faith for the modern mind. But the truth is, _they don't actually have faith_. And to make matters worse, they aren't really interested in getting it! That's a radical intellectual disconnect that goes even farther than what James had in mind, but it's a new reality we have to cope with today. Studying the idea of God or analyzing belief systems is light-years away from receiving the Lord Jesus Christ by authentic faith then living out that faith with real action.
Finally, driving his case home by repeating his thesis, James writes, "But are you willing to recognize, you foolish fellow, that faith without works is useless?" (2:20). This rephrasing of the statement from 2:17 helps us understand what James meant by referring to faith without works as "dead." Though James doesn't say that a person without works is dead, he clearly states that faith without works is useless —as good as dead. Standing behind this description of fruitless faith may be a suggestion that such a person has not truly experienced the gift of salvation by grace through genuine faith, but the point here is to encourage faith-motivated living rather than to stir doubts about one's salvation.
Let me put this in very practical terms. Suppose a member of your adult home group has lost his job and can't buy school clothes for his family. You just got a big raise. But instead of opening your hand to your brother, you just pat him on the back and say, "We'll be praying for you." Or put yourself in the other place. An unexpected illness hits your family and the medical bills have made it difficult to stay afloat. Instead of tapping into their benevolence fund to help you through this tough time, you get nothing but a card from your pastor that says, "God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God" (Rom. 8:28). In each of these cases we see a specific need and an ability to meet the need . . . but a useless, dead response.
In light of James's indictment, do these responses exemplify genuine faith? No!
## — 2:21-25 —
As a master teacher, James drives his point home with two biblical examples of true inward faith demonstrated by obvious outward actions. Though he has at his disposal a host of examples of faith and faithfulness in the Old Testament, James selects two extremes: Abraham and Rahab. What a difference!
ABRAHAM | RAHAB
---|---
the father of the Hebrews | a Gentile prostitute
a man of power and respect | a woman of ill repute
the recipient of God's promises | a breaker of God's moral laws
These two were polar opposites! Yet in selecting these to prove his point, James casts a broad net that captures every one of us reading his words —every Christian finds him or herself somewhere between Abraham and Rahab. So James's message about faith and works applies to all of us.
The author of Hebrews, too, marveled at the faith exhibited by the actions of Abraham and Rahab and included them in the catalogue of Old Testament believers who illustrate powerful testimonies of lives lived by faith. Hebrews 11:17 says, "By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was offering up his only begotten son." And in Hebrews 11:31 we read, "By faith Rahab the harlot did not perish along with those who were disobedient, after she had welcomed the spies in peace." James was not the only New Testament writer to see in both Abraham and Rahab examples of true faith. And both the author of Hebrews and James emphasize that these works were done _by faith_. This means the actions were the result of a genuine faith within each believer, working themselves out in very practical, hands-on actions.
At this point, all those familiar with the letters of Paul will see an apparent problem pop off the page. In 2:21 James writes, "Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up Isaac his son on the altar?" Hold it! _Justified by works?_ Doesn't this contradict what Paul says in Romans? Paul wrote, "For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law" (Rom. 3:28). How, then, could James say "You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone" (Jas. 2:24)? Is James denying the heart of the gospel of grace? Or did Paul get it completely wrong?
Neither! James is not disputing Paul, and Paul is not correcting James. We might remind ourselves that James fully supported Paul's preaching of salvation by grace through faith (Acts 15:13-21). And James defended Paul's reputation among the Jewish believers in Jerusalem (Acts 21:15-24). Nowhere do we see Paul and James wrangling over the core essentials of the gospel. On the contrary, they are always seen in agreement on foundational truths! But if James and Paul were not in need of reconciliation in the first century, how do we reconcile their differences in our own minds here in the twenty-first?
The answer involves two different nuances of the word "to justify." The Greek verb is _dikaioō_ [1344]. Depending on the context, the word can mean either "to _declare_ righteous," as in a legal proceeding, or "to _demonstrate_ as righteous." The legal definition can simply be a verdict of "not guilty" even if a person is in fact guilty as charged! In the second case, a person demonstrates his or her rightness by actions observable to everybody. Paul and James use "justify" in two different ways, but these two uses are actually two sides of the same coin.
Paul is looking at the root of salvation. At the moment of salvation, you are saved through faith plus nothing. On the other side of the coin, James is looking at the fruit of salvation. After salvation —after the root of faith is planted —our lives will bear the fruit of good works. Another contrast involves two different perspectives. Paul looks at life from God's perspective; James looks at life from the human perspective. Paul uses the word "justified" to mean "declared righteous in the sight of God even though I am still in my state as a sinner." That's a free gift. James is addressing believers who have already experienced this gift of salvation, so he uses the word "justified" to mean "demonstrate myself to be righteousness in the sight of people to show that I have received God's gift of eternal life." The chart, "Paul and James: Two Sides of the Same Coin" can help distinguish the two complementary (not contradictory!) aims of Paul and James.
PAUL AND JAMES: TWO SIDES OF THE SAME COIN
PAUL | JAMES
---|---
"For we maintain that a man is _justified by faith_ apart from works of the Law." (Rom. 3:28) | "You see that a man is _justified by works_ and not by faith alone." (Jas. 2:24)
Uses "justified" to mean "pronounced righteous in the sight of God" | Uses "justified" to mean "proved righteous in the sight of others"
Shows how an unbeliever becomes a Christian | Shows how a believer lives as a Christian
Emphasizes the root of salvation | Emphasizes the fruit of salvation
Stresses inward disposition | Stresses outward actions
Demonstrates God's part with human participation | Demonstrates human part with God's help
Once we understand James's different approach, his illustrations from the actions of Abraham and Rahab make sense. We know Abraham was a man of faith because we can see his ultimate act of faith in obeying the commands of God even when they made absolutely no sense! To this day, we squirm as we read about God's testing Abraham's faith when He ordered him to offer Isaac as a sacrifice. Knowing beforehand that God fully intended to stay Abraham's hand and provide a ram as a substitute doesn't help. Abraham didn't know that! He trusted in the absolute goodness and power of God, in spite of the incomprehensible command. Just think of it! Isaac was Abraham's only son and the one through whom God promised He would make Abraham's descendants into a great nation! Yet this is the one who was to be offered as a sacrifice to God! The book of Hebrews tells us that while he was offering Isaac, Abraham "considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead" (Heb. 11:19). Though he didn't know _how_ God could keep His promises through Isaac, Abraham exhibited for generations to come an absolute, unswerving trust in God's goodness and power. James concludes, "You see that a man [in this case, Abraham] is justified [shown to be a person of faith] by works and not by faith alone" (2:24).
Rahab serves as James's second example. She was not an Israelite and therefore not a member of God's covenant people. Yet she went out on a limb and believed that the God of Israel would keep His promises to Israel and deliver her city of Jericho into their hands. Having lost all confidence in Jericho's local deities to protect the city, Rahab changed allegiances and demonstrated her change in faith from false gods to the one true God. We read in Joshua 6:17, 22-23 that when the Israelites defeated Jericho, Rahab and her household were spared because of her courageous act of faith. And we learn that Rahab herself became an Israelite. In fact, she was one of four Old Testament women included in the genealogy of Jesus (Matt. 1:5). What a remarkable example of the lasting fruit of authentic faith!
## — 2:26 —
James concludes this section on faith at work with a reiteration of his thesis: "For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead." Wherever you find separation, you find death. It's true in physical life when the spirit is separated from the body. It's also true in the Christian life. When you have a life that's called "faith" and there is nothing to demonstrate it as authentic over the long haul, then an abnormal separation has occurred between faith and works. The result is a hollow, useless faith. For a person whose life is without works, it means one of two things. If that person is a genuine believer, the result will be a slide toward a death-like existence. We saw James deal with that when he explained the slippery slope toward sin (1:13-15). The answer for true believers? Repent and get back on the path of spiritual life and growth.
The other kind of person is the one who simply can't produce real fruit because he or she doesn't have the root of faith. It may be that a person has fake faith. It may be that he or she never understood that salvation comes as a free gift from God through simple faith in Christ's death and resurrection for us. The reason they have no works is that they have no true faith. The solution to that kind of spiritual death is not to try to make yourself better through more works, but to admit that apart from Christ you can do nothing. Only when that root of faith is firmly planted can a life produce authentic fruit that is pleasing to God and apparent to others.
* * *
# APPLICATION: JAMES 2:14-26
Feeding a Living Faith
James's puzzling phrase, "justified by works," can sometimes distract us from the extremely practical principles in this section. Instead of dissecting his words, how about digesting them? Let's move from the study into the dining room and let me offer you a five-course meal for making James's message part of a balanced spiritual diet.
Instead of rushing through your meals this week, how about nourishing your soul with some spiritual food around the table? Choose the best mealtime for discussion and chew on these questions with family members, friends, and anyone else who sits at your table. Or carve out a little time alone each day during the week to think through the practical implications of James's emphasis on the fruit of genuine faith.
_Day 1_. Define clearly the issue in 2:14. Why would people _claim_ to have genuine faith if they don't? What might motivate this kind of deception (or self-delusion) in our world today? How would you know for sure if another person is truly born again —or _can_ you?
_Day 2_. Read 2:15-16. Does this mean that we should help everyone in need? What if they aren't a "brother or sister" in Christ? Isn't discernment needed? What constitutes a real need according to this passage? How can we discover real needs in our own church or community? What are these?
_Day 3_. James attacks cold, intellectual belief in 2:19-20. Illustrate this kind of "heady" approach to Christianity with a couple of modern examples. Why is it wrong to assent to the facts without having it affect your life? In what ways do you tend to _intellectualize_ rather than _actualize_ your faith?
_Day 4_. Look at 2:21-25. Abraham and Rahab — _what a combination_! Think about the differences between those two examples of fruitful faith and discuss why James would use them as illustrations. Their stories are found in Genesis 22 and Joshua 2 and 6. Put yourself in their places and describe how difficult it would be for you to exhibit faith in those circumstances. What circumstances in your life make it difficult for you to live out your faith today?
_Day 5_. Looking back to the time you were saved, can you think of specific "works" that soon occurred, demonstrating to others that your faith in Christ was genuine? Share a few of the changes God has brought about in your life. On the basis of James 2:20 and 26, would you describe your faith as "living" or "dead" —profitable or useless?
Before clearing the table, discuss what you need to _do_ in response to your answers to these questions. The book of James is all about hands-on Christianity. He's telling each of us to stop sitting on our hands and start using them to do God's work!
* * *
# Bridling the Tongue
JAMES 3:1-12
NASB
1 Let not many _of you_ become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such we will incur a [a]stricter judgment. 2 For we all stumble in many _ways._ If anyone does not stumble in [a]what he says, he is a perfect man, able to bridle the whole body as well. 3 Now if we put the bits into the horses' mouths so that they will obey us, we direct their entire body as well. 4 Look at the ships also, though they are so great and are driven by strong winds, are still directed by a very small rudder wherever the inclination of the pilot desires. 5 So also the tongue is a small part of the body, and _yet_ it boasts of great things.
See how great a forest is set aflame by such a small fire! 6 And the tongue is a fire, the _very_ world of iniquity; the tongue is set among our members as that which defiles the entire body, and sets on fire the course of _our_ [a]life, and is set on fire by [b]hell. 7 For every [a]species of beasts and birds, of reptiles and creatures of the sea, is tamed and has been tamed by the human [a]race. 8 But no one can tame the tongue; _it is_ a restless evil _and_ full of deadly poison. 9 With it we bless _our_ Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the likeness of God; 10 from the same mouth come _both_ blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be this way. 11 Does a fountain send out from the same opening _both_ [a]fresh and bitter _water?_ 12 Can a fig tree, my brethren, produce olives, or a vine produce figs? Nor _can_ salt water produce [a]fresh.
3:1 [a]Or _greater condemnation_ 3:2 [a]Lit _word_ 3:6 [a]Or _existence, origin_ [b]Gr _Gehenna_ 3:7 [a]Lit _nature_ 3:11 [a]Lit _sweet_ 3:12 [a]V 11, note 1
NLT
1 Dear brothers and sisters,[*] not many of you should become teachers in the church, for we who teach will be judged more strictly. 2 Indeed, we all make many mistakes. For if we could control our tongues, we would be perfect and could also control ourselves in every other way.
3 We can make a large horse go wherever we want by means of a small bit in its mouth. 4 And a small rudder makes a huge ship turn wherever the pilot chooses to go, even though the winds are strong. 5 In the same way, the tongue is a small thing that makes grand speeches.
But a tiny spark can set a great forest on fire. 6 And among all the parts of the body, the tongue is a flame of fire. It is a whole world of wickedness, corrupting your entire body. It can set your whole life on fire, for it is set on fire by hell itself.[*]
7 People can tame all kinds of animals, birds, reptiles, and fish, 8 but no one can tame the tongue. It is restless and evil, full of deadly poison. 9 Sometimes it praises our Lord and Father, and sometimes it curses those who have been made in the image of God. 10 And so blessing and cursing come pouring out of the same mouth. Surely, my brothers and sisters, this is not right! 11 Does a spring of water bubble out with both fresh water and bitter water? 12 Does a fig tree produce olives, or a grapevine produce figs? No, and you can't draw fresh water from a salty spring.[*]
[3:1] Greek _brothers;_ also in 3:10. [3:6] Or _for it will burn in hell_ (Greek _Gehenna_ ). [3:12] Greek _from salt._
* * *
If you ever see a wild animal prowling your neighborhood, you can call your local animal control agency to round it up and haul it off. The dogcatcher can take stray dogs to the pound or return loose dogs to their owners. Feral cats can be caught, skunks chased off, raccoons lured away. All these wild and roaming animals can be rounded up. Why not have a catcher and a pound for stray words? Now _that's_ an occupation that could earn a decent living in _any_ economy!
Imagine a razor-toothed invective cornered by a couple word catchers: "Careful now, careful —that's a mean one!"
"Who would let such a thing loose?"
"Aw, some guy got worked up and unleashed it on his poor wife."
"I'd hate to see what that gal feels like now."
"Like shredded wheat, probably."
"Well, let's get this pit bull of a word off the street before it bites somebody else."
Now then, let's say you're home and these same word catchers suddenly ring your doorbell. "Excuse me, sir," they ask, "does this word belong to you? We caught it running loose out there, backbiting everyone where you work. Your boss said it sounded like it was one of yours." You take a long look at their catch and sure enough, you let that little gossip out on Wednesday and by Saturday it's ruined a dozen weekends. Red-faced, you claim your nasty words and send the word catchers away.
Of course, word catching is an imaginary profession. But my guess is if you could find a way to round up and return people's words in time to stop their damage, it would be a lucrative business in our world of loose lips and unrestrained tongues. I know there are a few nasty ones I've let loose in my life that I would have paid almost anything to take back. I'm sure you've got your list, too.
In 2:14-26, the half brother of our Lord zoomed in on his central message —real faith produces genuine works. Throughout the book of James, a probing question holds his whole theme together: "If you say you believe like you should, why do you behave like you shouldn't?" In 3:1-12, he develops this general theme in a very specific direction: controlling the tongue. No other section of the Bible speaks with greater clarity and impact on the potential destructive power of our words. We might summarize this powerful passage in the form of a question: "If you say you believe like you should, _why do you say things you shouldn't_?"
## — 3:1-2 —
James begins his indictment against the tongue with a surprising introduction. At first glance, it looks as though he's attacking and condemning the ministry of teaching in the church. But on closer examination, we realize he's trying to protect it. James begins with a direct imperative to his readers: "Don't run quickly to the role of teaching." It's a warning, not a condemnation. The reason? Because teachers —those who have the responsibility of speaking God's truth fully and accurately —will fall under stricter judgment.
Why does a teacher receive stricter judgment than the learner? Several reasons come to mind. First, a teacher is responsible to speak _the truth_ , not personal opinions. You and I have seen teachers that have strayed from the truth into the realm of their own speculations. Second, what a teacher says affects many lives. Sometimes it's an overwhelming feeling that I experience before a message on Sunday morning. The responsibility to handle God's Word accurately can't be taken lightly. Too many people's lives are at stake to just wing it. Third, teachers are expected to _live_ the truth, not just teach it. You see, the real test of teachers isn't what they say, but what their families say. The extent of people's ministries isn't the size of their churches, it's the depth of their family life. Teachers must never forget that.
James 3:2 especially applies to the teacher. Nobody is infallible. Everybody stumbles in many ways. But when teachers stumble, they can cause a whole crowd of people to stumble with them. The tongue is the teacher's indispensable tool. But an ignorant, deceptive, or wicked tongue can be a disastrous weapon. If you have the responsibility of teaching but have a loose tongue, James says you'll become the object of God's judgment. Every teacher should take to heart the fact that James states with uncompromising clarity: "If anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man" (3:2). Because there was only one perfect Man, the logical conclusion is that every one of us will stumble in what we say. So we teachers should take the warning with utmost seriousness.
A couple of clarifying remarks are necessary before we dig into the meat of the passage. First, James is not condemning teaching. The church needs willing, gifted, trained, and qualified teachers. James is warning against hurrying into it without realizing what a serious responsibility it is. Second, James is not condoning silence or promoting silence. He's urging self-control. And this self-control begins not with the tongue but with the heart.
Jesus' words in Matthew 15 set the proper theological background for James's practical teaching about the tongue. Jesus tells us that the basic problem is not the tongue, but the heart. The tongue is just the messenger that carries the words from the heart. It's the bucket that dips into the well and pours out either fresh water or poison. In fact, Christ addressed the serious responsibility of teachers, calling the Pharisees "blind guides of the blind," who were leading their followers into a pit (Matt. 15:14). This suggests that James had this specific teaching of Jesus in mind as he penned his own words to his Jewish Christian audience. Listen to Jesus' words:
"It is not what enters into the mouth that defiles the man, but what proceeds out of the mouth, this defiles the man." . . . "Do you not understand that everything that goes into the mouth passes into the stomach, and is eliminated? But the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders." (Matt. 15:11, 17-19)
Now that we understand this root problem of the heart, let's observe how James develops his thoughts regarding the tongue.
## — 3:3-5 —
Leonardo da Vinci's giftedness as a master sculptor led him to study the human body in as much detail as any physician of his day. When he began describing the tongue (which rarely appears in either his paintings or his statues) he noted, "No member needs so great a number of muscles as the tongue . . . this exceeds all the rest in the number of its movements."[8] Indeed, the tongue is very small but extremely powerful. James wants to impress this fact on our minds so we won't underestimate the effects it can have, both positively and negatively. To do so, he gives us three analogies for the power of the tongue.
First, the tongue is like a bit in a horse's mouth (3:3). A small piece of rope, a few straps of leather, or a uniquely shaped strap of metal controls the movement of an entire horse. Similarly, the tongue can steer the direction of a person's life. Second, the tongue is like the rudder on a ship (3:4). Just think of a giant cruise ship —a towering, floating hotel, really. But that massive hulk of steel can be steered by a comparatively small flap of metal, determining the course of that ship. In the same way, the tongue, though small, determines the course of a person's life.
The first two illustrations, steering a horse and piloting a ship, are neutral. They could have either positive or negative results. But James's third analogy reminds us of the potential danger of the tongue: "See how great a forest is set aflame by such a small fire" (3:5). If you take a spark, a glowing ember, or a smoldering ash and drop it in the wrong place, hundreds of thousands of acres of forest can be destroyed. By analogy, the tongue is a tiny spark, but it can set hundreds of people's lives ablaze. An unchecked tongue can assassinate a person's character, destroy a reputation, even ruin a church.
I visited a church years ago that suffered devastating effects of biting, bickering, gossip, and slander. No major heresy, no natural disaster, no great financial collapse. Instead, a hundred fiery tongues had lit those hearts on fire. By the time the flames of controversy had swept through, about thirty-five members were left stumbling through the ashes.
Our words can build unity —or demolish it. The tongue can encourage fellowship —or destroy it. Our mouths can form community —or fracture it. The tongue is a small but powerful member. Yes, it has the ability to do tremendous good. But it also has the potential to do incalculable harm.
## — 3:6-8 —
James further develops the image of the tongue as fire, moving to an even more direct picture to demonstrate that the tongue is necessary but dangerous. Please observe a couple of things about the vivid terms James uses to describe this tiny muscle tucked behind our teeth. First, look at those intriguing phrases:
* It's a world of iniquity.
* It defiles the entire body.
* It sets on fire the course of our life.
* It's set on fire by hell.
What harsh words! James is saying that the full range of iniquity finds an outlet through the tongue. Think about that. It's virtually impossible to seethe with anger without expressing our rage in words. Bitterness sours our speech. Pride prattles on and on. Hate explodes from the lips. The tongue can suddenly turn an otherwise gentle person into a monster. It's a "world of iniquity."
First-century Jerusalem
The tongue is also connected to hell. Isn't that interesting? Look at the relationship. The tongue is set on fire by hell —and then it sets the entire course of our lives on fire. In Greek the word translated "hell" is _geenna_ [1067], or _Gehenna._ The word only appears in Jesus' teaching in the Gospels and here in James. The word finds its origin and most common usage among Jews familiar with Jerusalem, so James's Jewish Christian audience would have caught his meaning instantly. "Gehenna" refers to the Hinnom Valley, which runs along the south side of Jerusalem. In the days of Jesus and James, residents of Jerusalem stacked all the garbage and filth in Gehenna, where it was often burned. It's as though James were saying, "You know that stinky, smoldering trash dump south of town? Our tongues are just like that. When we start our uncontrolled blathering, the garbage in our hearts is set ablaze. And like the putrid smoke that reminds us that garbage is burning in Hinnom Valley, our tongues let everybody hear the wickedness in our hearts."
James also refers to the tongue as an untamed beast (3:7). It seems we can train any kind of animal —from snakes to elephants, from tigers to dolphins —but the wild tongue resists taming. We can't seem to break that beast. Here is a truth to be remembered. James 3:8 says literally, "No one has the power to tame the tongue." James is talking about subduing our sinful speech by our own power. He says human beings, on their own, don't have the ability to keep their tongues in check. But if you know Christ personally, God's power through the Holy Spirit's presence can transform your heart and take full control of the tongue. As Christ said regarding another impossibility —"With people this is impossible, but with God all things are possible" (Matt. 19:26).
James also pictures the tongue as "full of deadly poison" (Jas. 3:8). It's as though we have a capsule of cyanide behind our teeth, ready to break open and spread words of death wherever we go. I once lodged at a hotel that was hosting a convention of military officers —several colonels, majors, a number of lieutenant colonels, captains. A lot of rank in that crowd. At one evening meal, a large number of officers —both men and women —were sitting very near our table. So near, in fact, that my ears caught a steady flow of profanity from their mouths. The men had no respect for the mixed company. They had no regard for the "civs" at the tables around them. And they had no concern about the decorated uniforms they wore. Instead, it seemed like every sentence produced a steady stream of cursing, constant as machine-gun fire. And as I listened, I thought of Romans 3:13-14: "Their throat is an open grave. . . . The poison of asps is under their lips; whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness." Now their words didn't hurt me or anybody else in that room. They weren't directed at us or to anybody in particular. But they certainly soiled their image. Any respect one might have for their uniforms or their ranks was diminished by their vile verbiage.
## — 3:9-12 —
After likening the tongue to a fire, a wild beast, and a deadly poison, James backs up his argument with two illustrations. The first comes from human experience (3:9-10). The second comes from nature (3:11-12). Together these examples demonstrate that the tongue is necessary . . . but inconsistent.
I think all of us can relate to James's first illustration from human experience. You're driving along, singing a joyous song of praise to the Lord: "This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it . . ." Suddenly some bozo cuts you off, forcing you to slam on your brakes, leaving skid marks on the highway. But worse than that, the tongue you just used to praise God suddenly switched gears and you find yourself cursing the guy on the cell phone who couldn't find a free hand to signal! "From the same mouth," James says, "come both blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be this way" (3:10).
This can happen just as easily in a family setting. After a long Sunday morning service, a family sat down to eat lunch. The father bowed his head and led the children in the blessing. He thanked the Lord for the food, for the day, and for their home. Shortly after saying "Amen," he proceeded to fuss about the preacher, the church, his job. Nothing but complaints poured from his lips. Following all that, his little daughter tapped him on the shoulder and said, "Daddy, did God hear you when you said the blessing?"
Switching to theological authority, Dad answered, "Yes, darling, He did."
"Well," asked his daughter, "did God hear you when you fussed right after you prayed?"
"Well . . . uh, yes, honey, I suppose He did."
"Then, Daddy," she said, "which one did God believe?"
James concludes by illustrating his point from nature. A fountain doesn't produce both fresh and contaminated water, a fig tree doesn't produce olives, and a grapevine doesn't produce figs. If our hearts are filled with grace, shouldn't our lips overflow with goodness? In 3:11-12, James says the product is consistent with the source. A man who speaks out of both sides of his mouth is a double-minded man (see 1:8; 4:8). Just as Jesus said, "A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit" (Matt. 7:18). This sobering thought forces us to ask ourselves, _Where is this inconsistent speech coming from?_ Or if we're consistently negative, deceitful, or bitter, we have to consider what our tongue reveals about our hearts. Think about that. Don't just shrug this off and move on. Let it sink in.
* * *
# APPLICATION: JAMES 3:1-12
Tongue-Taming 101
We've all experienced it, haven't we —the irreversible harm done by an untamed tongue. I've seen the countenance of children's faces wilt under the rage of a father's tongue. I've seen the spirit of a new Christian crushed because of the demeaning and debilitating words of an impatient, older Christian. I've seen characters assassinated, reputations ruined, marriages ripped apart because of an uncontrolled, wicked tongue. The tongue can be a devastating force of enormous destruction!
Because of the severity of the problem of the untamed tongue, let's consider a few simple statements that sum up James's practical concern. We'll couple these with some opportunities to apply these principles to our lives.
First of all, _the tongue defiles_. Jesus said that in Matthew 15. James says it in the first several verses of chapter 3. With just a syllable it can stain your clean-cut image. The tongue is that powerful. Think about this. Would your waitress know that you're a gracious child of God? Or have you defiled your testimony with rude comments, complaints, and criticisms? In the traffic tomorrow evening coming home, when you have pulled up to the light and that other fellow who's jockeyed for the same position pulls up, would you be free to get out of your car or roll your window down and tell him about the Savior? Or has your testimony been so tarnished by your tongue that anyone would be amazed to know that you have a relationship with the Savior?
Second, _the tongue defies_. It resists merely natural attempts at self-control —resolutions, self-improvement gimmicks, whatever. In our own strength, those techniques simply will not work, at least not permanently. We sometimes casually speak of Christ as Lord of our lives but somehow fail to make Him Lord of our tongues! Have you surrendered control of your speech to the Lord Jesus? Have you yielded to the Holy Spirit's sanctifying work with regard to your speech? No human can tame the tongue. That's the work of God alone.
Third, _the tongue displays_ what you really are. That inner person, hiding behind the nice image we project to others, always seems to find opportunities to reveal itself through the tongue. The fruit of our lips finds its source in the root of our soul. The answer? Stop all attempts at self-control and surrender to God's control. He can quench the raging fire. He can tame the snarling beast. He can provide the antidote to the poison of hellish, hateful speech. James doesn't rail against the tongue to condemn us for what we've all done in our past, but to prevent us from allowing this behavior to go on into our future. This would be an appropriate time to pause and pray. Ask God to change your heart and your tongue today.
* * *
# REAL FAITH PRODUCES GENUINE HUMILITY (JAMES 3:13–5:6)
I remember a documentary several years back that featured a flyover shot of the vast Libyan Desert in North Africa. Picture miles and miles of shimmering waves of sand. Beautiful, but bleak. But then something remarkable comes into focus. In the center of that wasteland, a patch of green appears —a paradise island in the midst of an ocean of sand. As the camera draws closer, we make out details. This is more than an oasis of palm trees; we see deep green plants, luscious fruit trees, thriving vegetation. When we finally calculate the scale of the massive oasis, we realize it runs through the desert for miles. Obviously, that track of green landscape has something the rest of the desert doesn't: _water —lots and lots of water._ Engineers had sunk deep wells and pumped massive amounts of water to the surface, quenching that parched land and producing an Eden-like paradise in what was once a barren, fruitless desolation.
This image vividly illustrates the Christian life. Left to our natural state, we humans are like deserts: rough, barren, dry, and fruitless. We have nothing to offer the world but dust and death. That's the natural condition of the soul apart from God's grace. But when the Spirit of God invades the otherwise desolate human heart, it teems with new life. A spring of living water satisfies the soul and soon spiritual fruit begins to emerge.
James has already told us that "every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights" (1:17). He has reminded us that God "brought us forth by the word of truth, so that we would be a kind of first fruits among His creatures" (1:18). This new birth from above —spiritual birth by the Holy Spirit —transforms the lives of believers from within. Throughout his letter, James encourages us believers to cultivate that implanted word (1:21). When we do so, God's Spirit produces living works of faith in us. In the first section, James argues that _real faith produces genuine stability_ (1:1-27). It endures trials (1:2-12), resists temptations (1:13-18), and responds to God's Word (1:19-27). In the second section James tells us that _real faith produces genuine love_ (2:1–3:12). Faith rejects prejudice (2:1-13), acts kindly toward those in need (2:14-26), and refrains from harming others with the tongue (3:1-12).
* * *
# KEY TERMS IN JAMES 3:13–5:6
_krinō_ **(κρίνω)** [2919] "to judge," "to divide," "to assess," "to decide"
The literal meaning is "to sift and separate" in order to isolate the components of a mixture. The primary use is metaphorical in the sense of "sifting through the details to arrive at a conclusion." When this verb is used with a person as its object, the idea is to sift the details of his or her life in order to examine them and render a decision about his or her character. "Judgment," then, is the result of this sifting.
_tapeinoō_ **(ταπεινόω)** [5013] "to humble," "to lower," "to submit"
Though James uses the word only once in his letter (4:10), the concept of humbling oneself can be found throughout his exhortations. The concept of humbling means to make oneself lower than his or her normal stature. In the ancient world "humbling" was often associated with the physical act of bowing or lying down on the ground, demonstrating inner humility before someone of greater rank.
_zēlos_ **(ζῆλος)** [2205b] "jealousy," "zeal"
In James this concept is closely related to "selfish ambition." Though the word can have positive connotations, such as being "zealous" or "jealous" for God (Rom. 10:2), James speaks of _zēlos_ that is misguided and misplaced —self-centered zeal, or self-serving acts of jealousy (Jas. 3:14, 16).
* * *
In this third section of his letter, James reminds us that _real faith produces genuine humility_ (3:13–5:6). He reminds us that our goodness comes from God-given wisdom, not our own (3:13-18). He calls us to turn to God, not ourselves, for peaceful relationships (4:1-10). He warns us against boasting about our lives instead of submitting to God's sovereignty (4:11-17). And he rails against the pride that so easily deludes the rich of this world (5:1-6). In each case, James encourages God-enabled humility, for apart from God's grace working in our hearts to produce godly wisdom and good works, we will be as fruitless as the parched Libyan Desert.
# Wise, Unwise, and Otherwise
JAMES 3:13-18
NASB
13 Who among you is wise and understanding? Let him show by his good behavior his deeds in the gentleness of wisdom. 14 But if you have bitter jealousy and [a]selfish ambition in your heart, do not be arrogant and _so_ lie against the truth. 15 This wisdom is not that which comes down from above, but is earthly, [a]natural, demonic. 16 For where jealousy and [a]selfish ambition exist, [b]there is disorder and every evil thing. 17 But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, [a]reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering, without hypocrisy. 18 And the [a]seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace [b]by those who make peace.
3:14 [a]Or _strife_ 3:15 [a]Or _unspiritual_ 3:16 [a]V 14, note 1 [b]I.e. in that place 3:17 [a]Or _willing to yield_ 3:18 [a]Lit _fruit of righteousness_ [b]Or _for_
NLT
13 If you are wise and understand God's ways, prove it by living an honorable life, doing good works with the humility that comes from wisdom. 14 But if you are bitterly jealous and there is selfish ambition in your heart, don't cover up the truth with boasting and lying. 15 For jealousy and selfishness are not God's kind of wisdom. Such things are earthly, unspiritual, and demonic. 16 For wherever there is jealousy and selfish ambition, there you will find disorder and evil of every kind.
17 But the wisdom from above is first of all pure. It is also peace loving, gentle at all times, and willing to yield to others. It is full of mercy and the fruit of good deeds. It shows no favoritism and is always sincere. 18 And those who are peacemakers will plant seeds of peace and reap a harvest of righteousness.[*]
[3:18] Or _of good things,_ or _of justice._
* * *
An old woodman's proverb says, "A tree is best measured when it's down." The true size and quality of a tree's lumber can best be determined when it's been felled. So, too, the true measure of a person's accomplishments can be seen at the end of his or her life. This proverb is especially true of the life of Solomon, son of David. During Solomon's reign over Israel he thrived as an author, diplomat, poet, politician, philanthropist, architect, and engineer. At his zenith, Solomon was a man unparalleled by any other.
How was Solomon able to accomplish so much during his lifetime? Second Chronicles 1 provides the answer. When Solomon inherited the kingdom from his father David, God appeared to him in a vision, saying, "Ask for whatever you want me to give you" (2 Chr. 1:7, NIV). Can you imagine that offer? What would you ask for if the Lord of heaven and earth offered _anything you asked_?
Well, Solomon reveals his true character when he answers, "Give me now wisdom and knowledge, that I may go out and come in before this people, for who can rule this great people of Yours?" (2 Chr. 1:10). In essence, he said, "I've inherited an overwhelming task! More than anything else, I need wisdom! I need practical insight into the subtleties of life so I can govern Your people well. _This_ I ask and nothing more." Now that's a response of humility! With open hands, he turned to God to give him what he needed to accomplish what he needed to do.
About a thousand years after Solomon asked for wisdom from God to accomplish his calling, another descendent of David named James wrote, "But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him" (Jas. 1:5). In fact, one might say that the book of James is the New Testament version of Old Testament wisdom literature. Like Solomon's own contrast between Madam Folly and Lady Wisdom in the opening chapters of Proverbs, James 3:13-18 contrasts the unwise and the wise. These six short verses paint two pictures with a palate of colorful words: one portrait of the one who lacks God's wisdom, the other of a person who has received the wisdom from above.
UNWISE VERSUS WISE (JAMES 3:13-18) | The Unwise | The Wise
---|---|---
Signs | 1. Bitter Jealousy
2. Selfish Ambition _(3:14)_ | 1. Good Behavior
2. Gentle Deeds _(3:13)_
Characteristics | 1. Arrogant
2. Dishonest
3. Worldly
4. Natural
5. Demonic _(3:14-15)_ | 1. Pure
2. Peaceable
3. Gentle
4. Reasonable
5. Merciful
6. Bountiful
7. Unwavering
8. Sincere _(3:17)_
Results | 1. Disorder
2. Every Evil _(3:16)_ | 1. Righteousness
2. Peace _(3:18)_
## — 3:13 —
James kicks off with a question: "Who among you is wise and understanding?" James isn't really looking for a show of hands. Obviously, most people reading this want to think of themselves as wise and knowledgeable. It's like that once-popular game show, _Who Wants toBe a Millionaire?_ Dumb question. Almost anybody you ask would raise both hands! The real challenge was demonstrating the lengths and depths of your knowledge —how much you know about obscure and trivial things. Very few would measure up. That's the point of James's question. "You think you're wise and understanding? Well, we'll see about that. Let's take a look at a couple things that will test the quality of your wisdom."
James instructs the wise person to demonstrate wisdom by good behavior and gentle deeds (3:13). The first refers to the changed lifestyle of a believer, a topic James has already treated in great depth (see 2:14-26). The life of a wise person changes toward the good, exhibiting ready obedience to God's Word. This relates directly to the main message of James's letter — _real faith produces genuine works_. Smarts, wits, and education don't make a person wise. The truly wise person reflects the truth in his or her lifestyle.
Second, "deeds in the gentleness of wisdom" refers to wisdom-inspired humility and meekness. People today view "meekness" and "gentleness" as marks of weak, spineless folks who let others walk all over them. Not so in Scripture! "Gentleness" is a fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:23 and it's closely tied to "self-control." It's a word used to describe a high-spirited horse brought under control. He hasn't lost his natural strength, but he carries that strength with gentleness and humility. That's biblical wisdom.
This has profound practical implications. Are you looking for a good teacher or preacher? Invariably you'll gravitate toward the most intellectually astute person, preferably seminary trained. The more letters after his name, the better —right? That's fine. Degrees and training are great, provided they're accompanied by a lifestyle patterned after the truth with an ego under control. Far too many credentialed teachers and eloquent preachers tend toward rash, foolish extremes. But wise leaders and mentors know when to put on the brakes —and when to accelerate. It's not by accident that in Paul's profile of church leaders he sandwiches "able to teach" between the need to be "kind" and "patient" (2 Tim. 2:24).
## — 3:14-16 —
Having introduced the idea of a wise person marked by a good way of life and gentle works, James shifts gears and spends some time describing the signs of somebody who is unwise. He starts off at the beginning of 3:14 with two heart-level characteristics: bitter jealousy and selfish ambition. These dispositions overflow into a person's life, which is what James describes in 3:14-15, with the ultimate results of such actions mentioned in 3:16.
* * *
# From My Journal
# Unbridled Zeal
JAMES 3:13
Back in the 1950s, I worked my way through school in a machine shop, which I regarded as my personal mission field. I remember witnessing to a man who happened to be a member of a denomination vastly different from mine. Naturally, I targeted him for conversion. After all, I had a firm footing on the truth and this guy was neck-deep in error! I wasn't aware of it at the time, but I came across as a raving zealot. I had Bible verses, facts, answers, provocative questions —an entire arsenal of spiritual weapons to slaughter my opposition. And I was using everything I had. I wasn't just witnessing; the way I swung the Sword of Truth against infidels back then would have probably put medieval crusaders to shame!
I hammered away at that misguided fellow day after day, shift after shift. Relentless, merciless evangelism. Finally he'd had enough! He grabbed me by the arm, looked me in the eye, and said, "Listen to me. You've convinced me by the facts that I'm wrong, _but I will never change . . ._ " Just as my mind was rushing to come up with a good response to such a stupid, foolish statement, he added, ". . . _because I can't stand you_!"
Those words still sting as I think about how foolish I had been. It was like somebody throwing a rock through the window of my soul, a rock carrying a message I desperately needed to hear —and would never forget. You can have all the facts on your side, but if you don't have the wisdom to know how to share those facts without assaulting a person, keep your mouth shut. I had put that co-worker down time and time again, beating him black and blue with the facts. And as a result, he couldn't stand me. I was worse than annoying — _I was_ _downright obnoxious_.
The great Howard Hendricks of Dallas Theological Seminary summed up that message in one of the pithy proverbs for which he's a legend. I'm sure these words are still ringing in the ears of thousands of his former students: "They won't care how much you know until they know how much you care." Those wise words reflect the kind of gentle words and deeds urged in James 3:13.
* * *
"Bitter jealousy" likely refers to jealousy that harbors hard feelings. A jealous person has full hands but feels his or her own belongings or accomplishments are threatened by another's success. This first vice usually accompanies the second: selfish ambition. The heart of an unwise person carries an insatiable hunger to push himself or herself to the top.
By the way, don't think for a second that Christian circles are free from jealousy and selfish ambition. If you attend enough Bible conferences, visit enough churches, or hang out long enough in Christian academia, you'll find a lot of petty jealousy and unbridled ambition. You'll also see it among singers, preachers, missionaries, and educators —saints jockeying for higher positions and jostling to stay on top.
James gives five characteristics of counterfeit wisdom dominated by the flesh. This is the opposite of wisdom given from above. This wisdom is generated in the human heart.
1. _Arrogance_ (3:14). The Greek word ( _katakauchaomai_ 2620]) basically means to exult over others. For wicked people, it means proudly justifying one's own sinful actions. This is contrary to God-inspired humility. The great theologian Charles Hodge said it best: "The Bible doctrine concerning man . . . is eminently adapted to make him what he was designed to be: to exalt without inflating; to humble without degrading."[[9]
2. _Lying against the truth_ (3:14). Despite what a lot of philosophers, theologians, and, yes, preachers, are saying today, truth is an immovable standard. Forget postmodern concepts of relative truth or the uncertainty of truth. God's revealed truth corresponds to the way things really are. The unwise, however, change their truth standard to match their beliefs or lifestyles.
I learned this lesson the hard way many, many years ago. I had been deeply impressed with the life of a Bible teacher. I dearly loved and respected him. I knew of no one who could handle the Word like that particular scholar. I quoted him, followed him, studied with him, and longed to be like him. A lot of us did. But gradually I began to discern certain things in his teachings that didn't seem to square with the Bible. So I went to him and said, "Look, this verse says so-and-so. How does that fit with what you're saying?" Instead of explaining the passage, he pulled rank on me. In his reaction and verbal rebuke, I witnessed arrogance, defensiveness, and self-justification. Eventually the situation came to a head and he put me down, castigating me for my disagreement —just for asking about inconsistencies between his words and _the_ Word. That teacher exhibited a pride that led him to clutch his self-made doctrines even when they failed to align with God's truth.
3. _Earthly_ (3:15). The word ( _epigeios_ [1919]) means "of the earth," and James contrasts it with wisdom "from above" ( _anōthen_ [509]). It's a purely horizontal perspective —worldly measures of truth, earthly standards of success, material motives, and temporal priorities.
4. _Natural_ (3:15). This fourth characteristic of the unwise literally means "soulish." The Greek word, _psychikos_ [5591], is related to our word "psyche," which applies to the self —the inner human motives. The source of this wisdom is our own thoughts, attitudes, interests, and pursuits, not the Spirit's wisdom from above.
5. _Demonic_ (3:15). This doesn't necessarily mean their worldly wisdom comes straight from demonic beings, though in some cases that may be true. Rather, the emphasis is on wisdom that reflects a philosophy or pattern of thinking so contrary to God's truth that it could be endorsed by Satan himself.
So, we see the heart of the unwise marked by bitter jealousy and selfish ambition (3:14). Such a person is arrogant, dishonest, worldly, natural, and demonic in his or her character (3:14-15). James ends his portrait of the unwise with a brief description of the end result: "For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing" (3:16). In the wake of the unwise we see waves of chaos, confusion, disharmony, antagonism, and pettiness —certainly not an example to follow!
## — 3:17-18 —
Having described wisdom from below in frank terms in 3:14-16, James ends with the stark contrast of "wisdom from above" (3:17-18). He already mentioned the truly wise person as demonstrating this wisdom by his good behavior and deeds done in gentleness (3:13). Now he revisits the person with this kind of heart, showing the characteristics that mark his or her life (3:17) and the results that follow (3:18).
1. _Pure._ Wisdom from above is "first pure." The word "first" means more than merely first on a list. It indicates first in order of importance. God-given wisdom produces purity of internal motives as well as external actions. This kind of lifestyle has a built-in promise, as Jesus said: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God" (Matt. 5:8). Purity of thought and deed helps us see God working in all of our circumstances.
2. _Peaceable_. In contrast to the "bitter jealousy" and "selfish ambition" of the unwise, God-given wisdom produces peaceful relationships. The natural tendency is to be argumentative, quarrelsome, belligerent, quick-tempered. But God's supernatural life within us guards against alienating others. Rather, it seeks to remove ill will. Jesus has a promise for those who are peaceable: "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God" (Matt. 5:9).
3. _Gentle_. The third characteristic of a wise person is gentleness ( _epieikēs_ [1933]). This is a different Greek word than the word translated "gentleness" in James 3:13 ( _prautēs_ [4240]). In that verse the emphasis was on humility. Here in 3:17 the meaning is "equitable," "moderate," "yielding." It describes a person who surrenders his rights for a higher ideal. In our day when people feel their rights have been violated, they strike out with a lawsuit over the most insignificant offenses. That's the world's wisdom: petty, contentious, selfish, bitter. But with God's wisdom, we meet petty infractions of our "rights" with a different kind of ethic: "Whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, let him have your coat also" (Matt. 5:39-40).
4. _Reasonable_. This Greek word ( _eupeithēs_ [2138b]) appears only here in the New Testament. It comes from two Greek words, "well" and "persuadable." Together they mean "easily persuaded." But don't get the wrong idea. This doesn't mean a wise person is a naive pushover! Rather, it has the sense of "teachable," somebody who puts aside stubbornness and readily yields to the truth. It can refer to a person who is conciliatory, flexible, and open to change. When the Spirit of God captures the heart and does His work deep within, He softens us.
Abraham's relationship with Lot in Genesis 13 exemplifies this kind of conciliatory attitude. God had blessed these two men with so much livestock that the same fields could no longer sustain their herds. Now remember, Abraham was the elder of the two, and he was the one to whom God had promised all the land of Canaan. He could have said, "Lot, take your herdsmen and your flocks and move on." But he didn't. According to Genesis 13:8-9, "Abram said to Lot, 'Please let there be no strife between you and me, nor between my herdsmen and your herdsmen, for we are brothers. Is not the whole land before you? Please separate from me; if to the left, then I will go to the right; or if to the right, then I will go to the left.'" Now that's a man of wisdom — _reasonable, cooperative, flexible_.
5. _Merciful._ The fifth character trait of those who exhibit wisdom from above is mercy. If grace is giving a person a blessing he or she doesn't deserve, mercy is withholding a just punishment a person _does_ deserve. Mercy implies looking on somebody with compassion when they probably deserve punishment. While worldly wisdom would heap on ridicule or judgment, mercy shows kindness and benevolence.
6. _Bountiful._ Wise people are filled with "good fruits." James ties this closely with the previous quality, "mercy." It probably refers to the outward actions that accompany the attitude of pity for others. A person who has genuine mercy will be bountiful in his blessings toward others. In the previous chapter, James used the example of the useless "faith" of those who saw a brother or sister in need but refused to do anything about it (2:15-16). Godly wisdom, on the other hand, puts mercy to work, abounding in fruitful deeds.
7. _Unwavering._ This term ( _adiakritos_ [87]) suggests a person with fixed principles, who will never violate biblical standards regardless of the situation. This steadfast person is never willing to compromise on the truth of Scripture. Never! Now, this doesn't contradict the earlier characteristic of "reasonableness." Rather, James indicates the balance that true wisdom brings. A wise person does not take the virtue of steadfastness to the extreme of ornery legalism, nor does he or she take flexibility to the extreme of compromising on absolute truth. That kind of balance takes true wisdom —and that comes only from above.
ALCE/DollarPhotoClub
Relief sculpture of theater masks worn by a Greek actor ( _hypocrit_ _ē_ _s_ )
8. _Sincere._ Finally, James describes wisdom from above as "non-hypocritical" ( _anypokritos_ [505]). The related word _hypocrisis_ [5272] comes from a term used to describe an actor playing multiple parts. In Greek plays, one actor would often switch masks, costumes, or props, taking on different roles. (The fewer actors who put on a play, the larger the cut from the ticket sales!) When the actor played a comedic role, he would wear a mask with a big smile. For a tragic character, the mask would change to sorrow. He'd then run off the stage and come out with an angry face for the villain. That's the essence of hypocrisy —a shiftiness, instability, unpredictability. But believers endowed with the Spirit of wisdom will live a life of sincerity. All the masks come off and they follow the WYSIWYG principle: "What You See Is What You Get."
Following the eight characteristics of a wise person, we see the results in 3:18: "The seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace." The word "peace" refers to relational harmony, peace with one another. Remember the outcome of false "wisdom" in James 3:16 —"disorder and every evil thing"? The exact opposite lifestyle produces the opposite result: order (peace) and every good thing (righteousness).
James makes his point crystal clear: If you claim to have wisdom like you should, why do you live like you shouldn't?
* * *
# APPLICATION: JAMES 3:13-18
Trapped Between Two Portraits
Imagine yourself sitting in the center of a small art gallery. The brightly lit room is empty except for two contrasting portraits on opposite walls. On the one side hangs the portrait of an arrogant, worldly, devilish fellow on a dark backdrop that stirs emotions of anger and envy. A scraggly beard and mustache veil his features and a large hat casts a shadow over his shifty eyes. He leaves chaos and destruction in his wake as he advances unflinching toward the pursuit of his goals, driven by jealousy and ambition. The caption beneath the portrait reads: "The Unwise" painted by "Self."
The portrait on the facing wall couldn't be more different. That man bears a gentle demeanor, his posture relaxed and expression serene. His eyes are inviting, and his hands appear ready for service. Behind him people follow, eager to hear his words and mimic his actions. Children celebrate his arrival, delighted to see what gifts he might bring. Clearly respected, he shows no signs of pride, and in his path are joy, peace, and prosperity. Below this portrait the caption says: "The Wise" painted by "The Spirit of God."
In light of the two contrasting pictures of the wise and unwise in James 3:13-18, with which portrait do you identify? Do you struggle with jealousy of others' successes? Is your life motivated by personal pursuits at the cost of peace? How have these inward feelings and outward actions affected those around you? Do disorder and pettiness mark your life? Do you pursue the things of the world rather than the things of God?
Or is your life characterized by gentleness and humility? Do people know you as a person of mercy, authenticity, and peace? Do you act the same way at home as you do at work or at church or in public? Do you build others up, rejoice at their successes, and place the needs and interests of others ahead of your own? Do you leave harmony and joy in your wake?
As you seriously think through these questions, avoid answering the way you _wish_ things were. Answer the way things really _are_. Try to defend your answer with actual evidence from examples that come to mind. Ask yourself whether your closest family members or friends would answer these questions for you the same way.
After you've identified with either the portrait of the wise or the unwise, it's time to think through your response. For the wise, respond to God with thanksgiving, praising Him for molding you through the unfolding years of your life. You're not wise by your own making, but by the inner working of God's Spirit. For the unwise, ask God for wisdom, then determine which character problems you need specifically to address by God's help. Do you need to mend a particular relationship? Do it. Need to forsake a certain selfish pursuit? Stop it. Need to start a neglected spiritual exercise like prayer, worship, or Scripture reading? Get started now. It's never too late to start doing what's right. Don't let the effects of folly spiral out of control. Allow God to begin repainting your portrait with life-transforming colors. You'll begin to reflect not your own frail character but the character of His Son.
* * *
# How Fights Are Started —and Stopped
JAMES 4:1-10
NASB
1[a]What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? [b]Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members? 2 You lust and do not have; _so_ you commit murder. You are envious and cannot obtain; _so_ you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask [a]with wrong motives, so that you may spend _it_ [b]on your pleasures. 4 You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 5 Or do you think that the Scripture speaks to no purpose: "[a]He [b]jealously desires the Spirit which He has made to dwell in us"? 6 But He gives a greater grace. Therefore _it_ says, "GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD, BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE." 7 Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.
4:1 [a]Lit _From where wars and from where fightings_ [b]Lit Are they _not from here,_ from your 4:3 [a]Lit _wickedly_ [b]Lit _in_ 4:5 [a]Or _The spirit which He has made to dwell in us lusts with envy_ [b]Lit _desires to jealousy_
NLT
1 What is causing the quarrels and fights among you? Don't they come from the evil desires at war within you? 2 You want what you don't have, so you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous of what others have, but you can't get it, so you fight and wage war to take it away from them. Yet you don't have what you want because you don't ask God for it. 3 And even when you ask, you don't get it because your motives are all wrong —you want only what will give you pleasure.
4 You adulterers![*] Don't you realize that friendship with the world makes you an enemy of God? I say it again: If you want to be a friend of the world, you make yourself an enemy of God. 5 Do you think the Scriptures have no meaning? They say that God is passionate that the spirit he has placed within us should be faithful to him.[*] 6 And he gives grace generously. As the Scriptures say,
"God opposes the proud
but gives grace to the humble."[*]
7 So humble yourselves before God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Come close to God, and God will come close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners; purify your hearts, for your loyalty is divided between God and the world. 9 Let there be tears for what you have done. Let there be sorrow and deep grief. Let there be sadness instead of laughter, and gloom instead of joy. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up in honor.
[4:4] Greek _You adulteresses!_ [4:5] Or _They say that the spirit God has placed within us is filled with envy;_ or _They say that the Holy Spirit, whom God has placed within us, opposes our envy._ [4:6] Prov 3:34 (Greek version).
* * *
Ever eat grass?
In the neighborhood where I grew up, that was the standard punishment for anybody who lost a fight. Victor and spectators jeered and howled while the vanquished grazed. Then we would all go play again —until the next fight. You probably had your own unwritten protocol that integrated fighting into the fabric of adolescent subculture. Our cycle of "fighting, eating grass, playing, fighting, eating grass, playing" sure sounds silly, doesn't it? And it was.
I just wish we had grown out of it by our adult years.
No, we don't eat grass anymore, but we still seem to work fighting into our lives. Fighting comes naturally to most people, especially men. Why? Because we're each born with a scrappy nature that prefers going for the jugular instead of giving in. It all started after the Fall (Gen. 3). The first fight between Cain and Abel ended in murder (Gen. 4:1-8). Since then, we can chart history easily by its conflicts and wars. It isn't surprising, then, that James addresses the cycle of conflicts among Christians. Worshiping, fighting, praying, worshiping, fighting, praying —it was the same two thousand years ago as it is today. That's the problem James addresses in 4:1-10.
The chapter break between James 3:18 and 4:1 is unfortunate. Remember, James didn't number chapters or verses —those were added centuries later for convenience. The fourth chapter continues to develop the major themes of chapter 3. In fact, the initial comments he made regarding the destructive nature of the tongue in 3:6-10 build to a climax in the beginning of chapter 4 as he deals with open conflicts among Christians. And he further unpacks the effects of bitter jealousy and selfish ambition introduced in 3:13-15. So, in 4:1-10, James sets forth the reasons for fights among believers, as well as their tragic results. But James doesn't leave us without any answers on how to stop these conflicts that have taken their toll within our ranks. His diagnosis includes a prescription for handling all kinds of conflict.
## — 4:1 —
We should expect that the world, with its back to God, devoid of His Word and Spirit, would be characterized by fighting. People fight in business, in politics, in religion, in education, in marriage, and in sports. But sad to say, believers also fight in church. In fact, this is the specific arena of conflict James has in mind in the first part of 4:1: "What is the source of quarrels and conflicts _among you_?" Throughout his letter, he's addressing Jewish Christian believers (3:1; 4:11). This section reveals that they are obviously having problems getting along.
Their problem? Quarrels ( _polemos_ [4171]) and conflicts ( _machē_ [3163]). _Polemos_ is a general word for fights or warfare from which we get our word "polemics." _Machē_ may be a more narrow term for skirmishes, individual attacks. In any case, these Christians were in an ongoing state of quarreling that often exploded into open conflict.
Where do these wars and skirmishes come from? We might be tempted to say, "From Satan!" or "From false brethren!" or "From heretics who crept in secretly!" Wrong! James answers, "Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members?" James is good at rubbing our nose in our own depravity when we need it. It may seem harsh at times, and if you dwell there every minute of the day, it can be. But frequent reminders of our own wicked natures apart from God's grace can do us good. Remember that James told us that the source of temptation and sin was our "own lust" (1:14). And disorder and wickedness are the result of our own "jealousy and selfish ambition" (3:16). In the same way, we are primarily responsible for our own infighting. Satan may have a field day and unbelievers may be pleased to see us go at it, _but we are the ones to blame_.
James 4:1 uses a more neutral term for "pleasures" ( _hēdonē_ [2237]). In everyday Greek, it literally meant "enjoyments." This included the desire to be successful, the desire to use your gifts and talents, the desire for relationships, for food, for leisure, for the necessities of life. But the problem comes when the world frustrates our achievement of these desires. Then the "pleasures" of life become sources of conflict. When something steps in the way of fulfilling our desires, our tendency is to fight until we get our way.
## — 4:2-4 —
Those who lust for things they don't have "murder" (4:2). Of course, few people actually commit murder in a literal sense, but we are all guilty of murder in our hearts and with our lips. Remember Christ's interpretation of the Law: "You have heard that the ancients were told, 'You shall not commit murder' and 'Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.' But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court" (Matt. 5:21-22).
Those who fight out of frustration fail to turn to God for their provision. Jesus said, "Until now you have asked for nothing in My name; ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be made full" (John 16:24). Fighters fail to pray. "But," some may object, "I've prayed and prayed for such-and-such, but He still hasn't given me what I want!" James has an answer for this: "You ask and you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures" (Jas. 4:3).
God's promise of answering our prayers and giving us what we ask for must be governed by all the Bible's teachings about prayer. This isn't a "name-it-claim-it" kind of deal or a "gab-it-grab-it" theology. The apostle John helps balance our perspective on prayer: "Whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight" (1 Jn. 3:22) and "This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us" (1 Jn. 5:14).
Did you catch that? James warns against pleasure-motivated prayer; John encourages God-pleasing prayer. Spiritually minded Christians pray for things that are pleasing in God's sight, not for things that fuel their own envious, selfish desires.
James addresses his readers in 4:4 as severely as any passage in Scripture: "Adulteresses!" That grabbed their attention. Why are some of his readers called "adulteresses"? Because they're cheating on God! Their attention, affection, and allegiance are not toward God and His people but toward themselves and the world. "World" here is the Greek word _kosmos_ [2889]. Here it refers to the world system at odds with God. It's fallen humanity collectively shaking its fist at God, turning its back on the Creator. God only calls people "adulterers" if they're supposed to be faithful to Him. The unsaved person is not an adulterer. But the saved person who cozies up with the _kosmos_ is committing adultery and therefore making himself an enemy of God.
So James refers to Christians committing spiritual adultery. This worldliness in the church causes quarrels and conflicts. It comes when we play politics, place economics before ministry, or try to entertain rather than discipline. It surfaces when we replace unchanging truth with cultural fads or turn a relationship with Christ into just another world religion. Those moves split churches and destroy ministries.
To sum up, frustrated inner desires lead to murderous thoughts, arguments, failure to pray, and prayer with wrong motives (4:1-3). A heart beating to the rhythm of the world leads to anger with God and opposition to His words and works (4:4). These conditions lead to quarreling and fighting among believers.
## — 4:5-6 —
Thankfully, James doesn't drop the problem on us then leave us without a solution. Like a good physician, he follows the diagnosis of our ailment with a prescription. He presents a synopsis of the solution, a treatment for infighting that includes pointing out the power and then laying out a principle.
James 4:5 is notoriously difficult to translate and interpret. One scholar calls it "one of the most difficult verses" in the whole New Testament James alludes to some Old Testament passage or teaching: "Or do you think that the Scripture speaks to no purpose" (4:5).[11] But the actual statement is difficult to render into English without making all kinds of interpretive decisions. A quick comparison of a few Bible translations demonstrates how tough this verse can be.
* "He jealously desires the Spirit, which He has made to dwell in us." (NASB)
* "He jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us." (NIV)
* "The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy." (KJV)
* "The spirit that God caused to live within us has an envious yearning." (NET)
* "God is passionate that the spirit he has placed within us should be faithful to him." (NLT)
* "God yearns jealously for the spirit that he has made to dwell in us." (NRSV)
So, which is it? The problem is that the words James uses for "jealously" ( _phthonos_ [5355]) and "desires" ( _epipotheō_ [1971]) can both have either a positive or negative connotation. Also, the word "spirit" ( _pneuma_ [4151]) can refer either to the human spirit or the Holy Spirit. Further confusing the problem, the form of the word "spirit" in Greek can be either the subject of the phrase or the object! So what is James saying? There are at least four possibilities:
1. The human spirit, given to us when God created Adam, "envies intensely."
2. God is intensely jealous for us to honor Him with our spirits.
3. God's Spirit within us is intensely jealous for our faithfulness.
4. God is intensely jealous for us to honor Him by the Holy Spirit living in us.
I think the context of this phrase helps us clear up the confusion. Remember that James 4:4 accuses believers of being "adulteresses," those who cheat on God and His ways in favor of the world and its ways. Then James follows up with God's response to believers' unfaithfulness. We might render this phrase, "The Spirit that dwells in us is longing jealously." If this is the meaning of the phrase, James probably had dozens of Old Testament passages in mind when he said, "the Scripture speaks." God's jealousy for His people's faithfulness is like a husband's longing for his wife's fidelity. We see this theme best developed in the book of Hosea, where God's relationship to Israel is illustrated by the prophet's relationship to his prostitute wife, Gomer. This background fits the image of God as a husband who is justly jealous for the faithfulness of His bride, the church. So, the first solution to the problem presented by James is the power of the Holy Spirit. God wants control of your life by His Spirit, and that means relinquishing your own control.
I remember years ago when my children were little and they wanted to drive the car. On occasion, I let them. But I didn't just hand my six-year-old the keys and say, "Be back by seven." No way! I sat them on my lap, shifted into drive, and let them "steer" a few feet right or left in the safety of the driveway. Oh, they thought they were driving, and in a certain sense, they were. But the reality is I had my foot poised on the brake, my hands near the steering wheel, and a close eye on my surroundings. I was in complete control —and my son or daughter cooperated with me. That's the kind of control God wants to have in our lives. If we release our grip and our selfish demands, He'll make sure we're steering straight.
This kind of humble surrender to God's control is the key principle described in 4:6: "But He gives a greater grace." Greater than what? Greater than our wills, our selfishness, our inability to relinquish control. That's the primary work of the Holy Spirit. It's not easy to turn from the self-centered pride of life and humble ourselves before God. But when we do, we'll find a storehouse of God's grace ready to be poured out on us. The nearly forgotten hymn of Annie Johnson Flint puts it well:
He giveth more grace when the burden grows greater;
He sendeth more strength when the labors increase.
To added affliction He addeth His mercy;
To multiplied trials, His multiplied peace.[12]
## — 4:7-10 —
James ends this section with practical advice on how to put the principle of humility into practice through the power of the Spirit. Our frustrated pursuit of pleasure was the cause of our propensity to fight (4:1-4). And God's Spirit of grace is the prescription (4:5-6). James now spells out the way we apply the cure to our lives (4:7-10). It's the daily regimen, the proper dosing, if you will, that describes how to make God-given humility a part of our character.
Initially, we must submit to God. This is an imperative —a command. Don't fight, resist, and push. Instead, surrender, resign, and relinquish. Yes, it goes against the grain of our natural tendency to fight, but God gives grace to do it. Say, "Lord, I give up. I'm beaten."
Submitting to God goes hand in hand with resisting the devil, which James commands next. Don't take his statement out of context. James isn't suddenly shifting into a lesson on casting out demons. He's saying the proud pursuit of our own "I wills" looks a lot like Satan's rebellious conceit that led to His downfall (Isa. 14:13-14). Following the philosophy of the world is to follow the demonic worldly wisdom (Jas. 3:15). It's the opposite of following God.
Then James tells us, "Draw near to God and He will draw near to you" (4:8). In terms of salvation, we can't draw any nearer to God than we already are. When we place our faith in Christ alone to save us, we are immediately baptized by the Spirit into the body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:13). The Spirit sealed us for redemption (Eph. 4:30). And we have been given "everything pertaining to life and godliness" (2 Pet. 1:3). We _have been saved_ (past tense) by God's grace through faith alone (Eph. 2:8-9). All of this describes our _position_ in Christ, which can never change. But James 4:8 is speaking about our daily _relationship_ with God —our experiential growth in knowing Him and progressively becoming more like His Son. Then, how do we "draw near to God" in our personal relationship with Him? The rest of 4:8-10 provides that answer in rapid-fire fashion:
* "Cleanse your hands" —Stop doing evil!
* "Purify your hearts" —Stop thinking evil!
* "Be miserable and mourn and weep" —Feel remorse for your wickedness!
* "Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom" —Don't make a joke out of your wickedness!
All these commands reflect the inner thoughts and outward effects of _repentance_. If we clench our fists and turn our back to God in our proud rebellion, then drawing near to God means turning our faces toward Him and opening our hands to whatever He has for us. Only then can we receive from Him what we had been trying to gain for ourselves: "Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you" (4:10).
James's message is clear. Instead of putting up a fight, put on faith. Instead of causing conflict, nurture contentment. Instead of stomping and stonewalling, willingly submit to God. When you do, He will give you the grace to handle whatever circumstance you're facing.
* * *
# APPLICATION: JAMES 4:1-10
Slaying the Green-Eyed Monster
O, beware, my lord, of jealousy;
It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock
The meat it feeds on.[13]
Those words from Shakespeare's _Othello_ are the background for the English idiom, "green with envy." The ancient Greeks thought that feelings of envy and its sister sin, jealousy, caused an overproduction of bile, turning a person a pale, putrid green. The idea of being sick with jealousy comes from that deep, nauseous feeling we get when we're jealous or envious. James blames uncontrolled envy for all kinds of problems when he writes, "You are envious and cannot obtain; so you fight and quarrel" (4:2).
What exactly is envy? How does it differ from its sibling, jealousy? Envy is a painful and resentful awareness of an advantage enjoyed by another, accompanied by a strong desire to possess the _same_ advantage. Envy sheepishly wants to have what someone else possesses. Jealousy wants to possess exclusively what it already has. Jealousy is coarse and cruel. Envy is sneaky and subtle. Jealousy clutches and smothers. Envy is forever reaching, longing, squinting, pondering, and saying sinister things.
Envy finds socially acceptable ways of expressing personal resentment. One favorite method is the "but" approach. When I talk of someone I envy, I may say, "He is an excellent salesman, _but_ he really isn't very sincere." Or "Yeah, she has a brilliant mind, _but_ what a dull teacher!" Or "The man is an outstanding surgeon, _but_ he doesn't mind charging an arm and a leg!"
Another favorite avenue of expressing envy is the "reversal" approach. Somebody does a good job, but I cast a shadow over it by questioning the motive. An individual gives a truly generous gift, and we mutter, "He's obviously trying to impress us." A Christian couple buys a new car and a few pieces of furniture. Watch out! There will be somebody who will squeeze out an envious comment like, "Hmmmm. I wonder how many missionaries could have been supported with that car payment!"
The "unfavorable comparison" approach is equally cynical. The baritone does a commendable job on Sunday as an envious pew-warmer thinks, "Yeah, he was all right. But you should have heard so-and-so sing that piece." Or "If you think my neighbor has a nice lawn, you should see that house down on First Street!" Or "That's a nice car all right, but _Consumer Reports_ gave it only an average rating."
It's a curious fact that envy is a tension often found among professionals, the gifted, and the highly competent. You know the sort: doctors, singers, artists, lawyers, entrepreneurs, authors, entertainers, educators, athletes, politicians —and preachers. Strange, isn't it, that such capable folks find it nearly impossible to applaud others in their own field who excel a shade or two more than they? Envy's fangs may be hidden, but take care when the creature coils. No matter how cultured and dignified it may appear, the green-eyed monster's venom can leave a whole community in chaos.
Look at the monster in Scripture. It sold Joseph into slavery, drove David into exile, threw Daniel into the den, put Christ on trial, and nearly split the church at Corinth. Paul tells us envy is one of the prevailing traits of depravity (Rom. 1:29). And it hangs around with other beasts like profanity, suspicion, and conceit (1 Tim. 6:4).
Are you struggling with envy? Ask yourself these questions. When somebody at work gets a commendation or promotion that you were hoping for, how do you respond? When somebody at church is recognized for an accomplishment, what's your reaction? Do you share the news with a "but" attached? Do you try to discern wrong motives that might be driving the recognition? Do you try to "put it into perspective" by comparison? If so, you've been bitten by the green-eyed monster. Feeling sick yet?
What's the cure? _Contentment._ Feeling comfortable and secure with who you are and where you are. Not having to "be better" or "go further" or "own more" or "prove to the world" or "reach the top." Contentment means surrendering your frustrated hopes and missed goals to God. He alone "makes poor and rich; He brings low, He also exalts" (1 Sam. 2:7). Having some struggles with envy? Eating your heart out because somebody's a step or two ahead of you in the race and gaining momentum? _Relax_. You are _you_ —not him or her! And you're responsible to do the best you can with what you've got for as long as you're able.
The choice is yours: _contentiousness_ or _contentment_. If you want the peace that comes with contentment, why don't you spend some time committing Philippians 4:11-13 to memory? Then turn to God and ask for strength to slay the green-eyed monster.
* * *
# The Perils of Playing God
JAMES 4:11-17
NASB
11 Do not speak against one another, brethren. He who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks against the law and judges the law; but if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge _of it._ 12 There is _only_ one Lawgiver and Judge, the One who is able to save and to destroy; but who are you who judge your neighbor?
13 Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit." 14[a]Yet you do not know [b]what your life will be like tomorrow. You are _just_ a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. 15[a]Instead, _you ought_ to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that." 16 But as it is, you boast in your [a]arrogance; all such boasting is evil. 17 Therefore, to one who knows _the_ [a]right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin.
4:14 [a]Lit _Who do not_ [b]Or _what_ will happen _tomorrow. What kind of life is yours?_ 4:15 [a]Lit _Instead of your saying_ 4:16 [a]Or _pretensions_ 4:17 [a]Or _good_
NLT
11 Don't speak evil against each other, dear brothers and sisters.[*] If you criticize and judge each other, then you are criticizing and judging God's law. But your job is to obey the law, not to judge whether it applies to you. 12 God alone, who gave the law, is the Judge. He alone has the power to save or to destroy. So what right do you have to judge your neighbor?
13 Look here, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we are going to a certain town and will stay there a year. We will do business there and make a profit." 14 How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog —it's here a little while, then it's gone. 15 What you ought to say is, "If the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that." 16 Otherwise you are boasting about your own pretentious plans, and all such boasting is evil.
17 Remember, it is sin to know what you ought to do and then not do it.
[4:11] Greek _brothers._
* * *
Without question, Jesus Christ best demonstrates true humility. He voluntarily gave up His heavenly position and came into the world, became a blue-collar laborer, lived in perfect obedience to God and the Law, and willingly sacrificed His life on the cross for the sins of all (Phil. 2:6-8). This perfect humility of God the Son becomes a model for us to follow in our own pursuit of humility. Paul said, "Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus" (Phil. 2:5). And to back up a little more, Paul warned the Philippians against the very same kinds of egocentric arrogance that James rails against. Paul writes, "Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others" (Phil. 2:3-4).
In this major section of his letter (3:13–5:6), James develops the theme that _real faith produces genuine humility_. He illustrates this cardinal virtue of the Christian faith with powerful words and potent images. We've already seen how he contrasted those who are wise in their own eyes with those who have humble wisdom from God (3:13-18). And we looked at the cause of quarrels and conflicts —envious ambitions, cured only by submitting to God in true humility (4:1-10).
In the present passage (4:11-17), James goes a step further and reveals more ways we assert an arrogant spirit. The first has to do with the way we often view others (4:11-12). James deals with our tendency to take the place of God in other peoples' lives as we judge or criticize them. The second has to do with the way we often view ourselves (4:13-16). In these verses, he deals with our tendency to take the place of God in our own lives as we presume or boast in ourselves. In both cases —whether playing judge over others or playing king for ourselves —we err by playing roles reserved for God alone.
## — 4:11-12 —
The objective of playing God in the lives of others is to imagine oneself superior to other Christians and to put them down in various ways. The one who takes on God's role becomes a qualified critic, somebody who stands over a fellow, assuming a position of superiority.
The two simple rules of the game are in 4:11. The first is to "speak against" a brother or sister in Christ. What does this look like? Scripture gives several examples using the same Greek word ( _katalaleō_ [2635]), both in the Greek translation of the Old Testament as well as in the Greek New Testament.
* Aaron and Miriam _spoke against_ Moses for marrying a Cushite woman (Num. 12:1, 8).
* The people of Israel _spoke against_ God by complaining about their conditions in the wilderness (Num. 21:5).
* The Psalmist says a wicked person will _speak against_ his brother, slandering him with lies (Ps. 50:20).
* Job's friends _spoke against_ Job, insulting him and crushing him with their words (Job 19:1-3).
* Unbelievers _speak against_ Christians, slandering them as evildoers (1 Pet. 2:12; 3:16).
What does this recounting of _katalaleō_ tell us? Let me put it bluntly. James is suggesting that Christians who "speak against" their brothers or sisters in Christ include themselves in that biblical register of rebellious mumblers, moaning grumblers, deceitful slanderers, crushing insulters, and wicked slanderers. Not exactly the best company!
Let me show you how this game works. You speak against the other person in the ears of the hearer, hoping to lower their estimate of the person —and in the process you hope to make yourself look all the better. Of course, you have to cover up your malicious intent with creative sentimentality. So, you begin your statements with "Now, stop me if I'm wrong, but . . ." or, "Now, I don't mean to be critical, but . . ." or, "Perhaps I shouldn't say this about him or her, but . . ." or even, "I really like so-and-so as a person, but . . ."
James also brings up the horrible habit of judging believers. These two go hand in hand —speaking against a sister and judging her. Slandering a brother and condemning him. The Bible repeatedly condemns judgmental attitudes and actions. Jesus said, "Do not judge so that you will not be judged" (Matt. 7:1). And Paul wrote, "You have no excuse, everyone of you who passes judgment, for in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself" (Rom. 2:1). The idea of withholding judgment is certainly biblical. But we need to note the context. Jesus spoke of a pharisaical, legalistic judgmentalism with a "more-righteous-than-thou" attitude: "How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' and behold, the log is in your own eye?" (Matt. 7:4). And Paul wrote, "But do you suppose this, O man, when you pass judgment on those who practice such things and do the same yourself, that you will escape the judgment of God?" (Rom. 2:3).
In short, the Bible targets self-serving, malicious judgment while actually encouraging wise, righteous discernment. Jesus said, "Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment" (John 7:24). And Paul said, "What have I to do with judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within the church? But those who are outside, God judges. Remove the wicked man from among yourselves" (1 Cor. 5:12-13). So, let's be clear. James isn't suggesting we be gullible and permissive, letting people get away with everything. Remember, in his own letter James confronts fellow Christians about their sins. But there's a difference between confrontation for the purpose of building up and condemnation for the purpose of tearing down.
James says that if you tear down and judge your fellow Christian, you become a lawbreaker. Which law does James refer to? This isn't the Law of Moses, and certainly not the additional laws of Judaism. James refers to the law he's been advocating throughout his letter. He describes it as the "perfect law, the law of liberty" (1:25). It's the royal law, "love your neighbor as yourself" (2:8). In fact, James revisits the theme of standing in judgment over others, which he introduced in 2:4-13 when discussing the problem of partiality and prejudice. So, a judgmental attitude manifests itself in all sorts of ways. But in all cases, the self-made judge breaks the law of love.
The real problem with judging others is that it comes perilously close to playing God. James reminds us that there is only one "Lawgiver and Judge" (4:12). Only God can pass judgment on a person's actions _and_ motives without fault, without hypocrisy, and without spite. The final indictment in 4:12 packs a personal punch in Greek. He's saying, "You there! Who are you to judge your neighbor?" We might paraphrase the indictment in 4:12 this way: "Who do you think you are?" or even "Who made _you_ God?"
* * *
# From My Journal
# Fact-Check
JAMES 4:11-12
I remember an event back in seminary that still haunts me. We had a guest missionary speaker who did a lousy job with his presentation. Afterward a group of us stood in the back and bad-mouthed the message. We ripped him apart with a smug, critical spirit. And we weren't concealing our scorn, because an underclassman overheard us. He targeted me for censure because —I hate to admit it —I was one of the officers of the student body. I should have known better.
That younger man grabbed me by the arm and said, "Chuck, you don't know all the facts."
"What do you mean?" I said, "That was a pitiful message!"
He responded: "Did you know that two hours before the message his wife called and told him his youngest son had been killed? Did you know three months before his wife was diagnosed with terminal cancer? And in spite of all that he still came and delivered his message."
The younger student had every right to confront me. You can't imagine the shame I felt. I had judged —and spoken against —a brother in Christ who delivered His poor message under unimaginably difficult circumstances. I didn't know the facts.
Far too often, Christians criticize others before we get all the facts. We observe an event, catch a few words of a conversation, or gather a handful of random facts. We then leap to conclusions and start flapping our jaws about it. The jabbering catches on and spreads, and before you know it the "gossip" becomes "news." There's nothing more contagious in a church, student body, business, staff, organization, or home than a negative spirit. That infection is contagious —it spreads like a cold in a kindergarten!
Thankfully, the younger seminarian had the guts to confront me about my judgmental attitude before it got out of control. He appropriately reminded me that I wasn't qualified to pass judgment on that missionary.
The principle bears repeating: only God is qualified to judge, because only He has all the facts.
* * *
## — 4:13-16 —
In 4:11-12, James addressed the problem of playing God in the lives of others. In 4:13-16, he looks at playing God over our own lives. The objective of this game is to imagine ourselves as the final authority over our own lives —and to live like it! You sequester God in His own compartment of your life and keep Him there except in a rare instance when you're really in a bind. Now, most people wouldn't admit to banishing God to the back room of their lives. But many assign Him sovereignty over certain tasks, keeping the daily and mundane for ourselves. God becomes the boss of religious issues, moral matters, international conflicts, questions of faith. That's His realm. But we'll handle things like finances, relationships, business decisions —those things God couldn't care less about as long as He has our hearts.
At the core of this false philosophy, though, is the idea that we're the masters of our own destiny. Such people recite the hymn of self-reliance encapsulated in the verse of William Ernest Henley's poem, "Invictus":
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.[14]
That's the philosophy of the person who plays God in his or her own life. Pray only for important things. Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps! Call your own shots!
The rules for this game are found in James 4:13. Let me break it down step by step.
RULES FOR PLAYING GOD (ACCORDING TO JAMES 4:13)
1. Set your own schedule. | Today or tomorrow . . .
---|---
2. Select your own path. | we will go to such and such a city . . .
3. Place your own limits. | and spend a year there . . .
4. Arrange your own activities. | and engage in business . . .
5. Predict your own outcome. | and make a profit.
Now, notice that none of the activities James describes is negative in and of itself. There is nothing wrong with planning ahead, nothing evil about setting a schedule, nothing bad about engaging in business, and nothing sinful about making a profit! In fact, James describes the everyday affairs of normal life. _But that's precisely his point._ Because God is our sovereign Lord, we must consider His will in every aspect of our lives.
James begins pointing out problems with a go-it-alone attitude toward life in 4:14. _First, as mere mortal humans, we have no idea what the future will bring_. We don't know what will happen today, much less what the next year or two will look like. Every one of us is one heartbeat away from death. One rude intrusion of an unexpected event could put an end to all our plans. We could live into our 90s —or die tonight. Nobody knows. Only God knows.
_Second, playing God with our own lives is risky because we have no assurance of a long life_. James describes our lives as a "vapor" that appears suddenly and dissipates quickly. Imagine yourself outside in the middle of a subzero winter day. You're bundled in your thick coat, stocking cap, and gloves, with a scarf wrapped twice around your neck. As you exhale, what happens? Your warm breath forms a small puff of white vapor that lingers for a second, then vanishes. Gone. That's life —and not just the life of somebody who dies young. Even a relatively long life flies by. People in their nineties say they feel like it was just yesterday they graduated from school. But youth doesn't last. Before you know it —poof! —the vapor of life dissolves. And it happens fast. About the time your face clears up, your mind gets fuzzy!
_Third, we have no right to ignore God's will in any aspect of our lives_. In 4:15, James provides the necessary corrective to the folly of playing God: "Instead, you ought to say, 'If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.'" For many believers those two words, "God willing," have become nothing but a cliché, an obligatory tag-on that we superstitiously attach to our plans to make sure we're not perceived as presumptuous. James's instruction to say "If the Lord wills" reflects an attitude and orientation toward life. It means submitting ourselves humbly before the one true God who is entitled to be Lord of all things in our lives, not just a few things. It means erasing from our minds the sacred/secular, heavenly/earthly, spiritual/physical dichotomies that delegate some things to God and some to us. God governs _all_ things, even the "mundane" daily decisions. He owns it all. The alternative to submitting all things to God is an evil, boastful arrogance —living life as if we are the masters of our fate or the captains of our souls (4:16).
## — 4:17 —
James concludes by pointing out two ways to stop playing God in our lives (4:17). Both relate to true humility that flows from authentic faith —first, _know the right thing to do_ , then, second, _start doing the right thing._ God has a standard of right living that transcends our own interests and pursuits. And He wants to guide us along the path He's set for us. To make that happen requires staying close to His Word and shaping our path according to its wisdom. But that's only half the solution. When we know what God wants from us, we need to _do_ it. If we continue to live as though God isn't interested in certain areas of our lives, it's sin. If we try to call our own shots, make our own plans, do our own thing, we're not doing what God wants us to do. That's the point of James's final warning. Know the right way. Then humbly submit to it.
* * *
# APPLICATION: JAMES 4:11-17
"Take My Will and Make It Thine"
Psalm 14:1 says, "The fool has said in his heart, 'There is no God.'" I suppose something worse than pronouncing that there is no God and living accordingly would be to _know_ and _believe in_ the true God —and then act like He's not God. And to add idolatry to blasphemy, the worst case is to set ourselves up as "god" in place of the only One who has the right to be both Judge and Lord over our lives. This is the point of James 4:11-17. When we stand in judgment over our brothers and sisters in Christ, we're playing the part of divine _Judge_. And when we plan our lives as if God were uninterested or uninvolved, we're playing the part of divine _Lord_.
James 4:17 is especially practical for those of us who have a tendency to encroach on God's territory: "Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin." In this short verse, James gives us two simple rules to follow. First, _you must know the right thing to do_. Whatever the cost, you must evaluate your life and pattern it according to God's Word, not according to your habits or traditions. Second, _you must start doing the right thing_. Instead of doing the wrong thing, replace it with the right thing. First know, _then do_.
Let me lay it on the line here. If you are a negative, petty, gossipy person and you have been confronted with this message from God's Word, you must change. If you don't, it's sin. Let me make that very clear. Slanderous judgment, malicious criticism, mean-spirited denigration —these things are unbecoming of a Christian. It's damaging to the body of Christ —and to yourself. Stop! Reread James 4:11-12 and consider these probing questions: Have I been speaking against a brother or sister in Christ in a judgmental way? Have I hypocritically pointed the finger at others out of self-serving motives? Have I confronted others under the guise of looking out for their interests, while masking a heart of envy or jealousy? What must I do to stop this pattern of behavior?
But there's another side of playing God, probably more common. If you've slipped outside the absolute lordship of Christ over every aspect of your life, it must stop. If you're calling your own shots, being your own umpire, making your own plans, it's sin. I can't put it any clearer. It _has_ to stop. Ask yourself these questions: In what specific areas of my life do I tend to go it alone? What decisions have I made lately in which I failed to include God's perspective? What decisions are on the horizon that I need to set before God and seek His will?
We're all guilty of the sin of playing God to some degree. We play God with others when we talk down to and judge them. We play God with ourselves when we leave Him no room to guide our steps. Rather than the me-centered philosophy of Henley's "Invictus," how much better to emulate the lyrics of Frances Ridley Havergal:
Take my life and let it be
Consecrated, Lord, to Thee,
Take my moments and my days —
Let them flow in ceaseless praise,
Let them flow in ceaseless praise.
Take my voice and let me sing
Always, only, for my King;
Take my lips and let them be
Filled with messages from Thee,
Filled with messages from Thee.
Take my will and make it Thine —
It shall be no longer mine;
Take my heart —it is Thine own,
It shall be Thy royal throne,
It shall be Thy royal throne.[15]
Is something keeping you from making this hymn of surrender your prayer today?
* * *
# Warnings to the Wealthy
JAMES 5:1-6
NASB
1 Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries which are coming upon you. 2 Your riches have rotted and your garments have become moth-eaten. 3 Your gold and your silver have rusted; and their rust will be a witness against you and will consume your flesh like fire. It is in the last days that you have stored up your treasure! 4 Behold, the pay of the laborers who mowed your fields, _and_ which has been withheld by you, cries out _against you;_ and the outcry of those who did the harvesting has reached the ears of the Lord of [a]Sabaoth. 5 You have lived luxuriously on the earth and led a life of wanton pleasure; you have [a]fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. 6 You have condemned and [a]put to death the righteous _man;_ he does not resist you.
5:4 [a]I.e. Hosts 5:5 [a]Lit _nourished_ 5:6 [a]Or _murdered_
NLT
1 Look here, you rich people: Weep and groan with anguish because of all the terrible troubles ahead of you. 2 Your wealth is rotting away, and your fine clothes are moth-eaten rags. 3 Your gold and silver are corroded. The very wealth you were counting on will eat away your flesh like fire. This corroded treasure you have hoarded will testify against you on the day of judgment. 4 For listen! Hear the cries of the field workers whom you have cheated of their pay. The cries of those who harvest your fields have reached the ears of the LORD of Heaven's Armies.
5 You have spent your years on earth in luxury, satisfying your every desire. You have fattened yourselves for the day of slaughter. 6 You have condemned and killed innocent people,[*] who do not resist you.[*]
[5:6a] Or _killed the Righteous One._ [5:6b] Or _Don't they resist you?_ or _Doesn't God oppose you?_ or _Aren't they now accusing you before God?_
* * *
In 1923, an elite group of businessmen met at the luxurious Edgewater Beach Hotel in Chicago. The roster included some of the most influential, famous, and wealthy moguls of the early twentieth century. These men were among them:
* Charles M. Schwab —president of Bethlehem Steel Corporation
* Richard Whitney —president of the New York Stock Exchange
* Albert Fall —Secretary of the Interior under President Harding
* Jesse Livermore —Wall Street tycoon
* Ivar Kreuger —head of a global monopoly of match manufacturers
These heavy hitters controlled more wealth than the total assets of the United States Treasury at the time. Surely these men would become models of the entrepreneurial spirit and stellar examples of financial success. But fast-forward about twenty-five years or so and look back on the courses of their lives:
* Schwab —died $300,000 in debt in 1939
* Whitney —served time at Sing Sing prison for embezzlement
* Fall —served time for misconduct in office, leaving behind a ruined reputation
* Livermore —committed suicide in 1940, describing himself as "a failure"
* Kreuger —shot himself in 1932 after his global monopoly collapsed[16]
Buried beneath the rubble of humiliation, defeat, crime, sickness, and financial collapse, these men —along with a number of their colleagues —died in a depressing, pitiable condition. Their wealth, power, and prestige did nothing to soothe the personal anxiety and guilt they suffered in life. The reality is that great intelligence and hard work can make a person wealthy. But it takes God-given wisdom and supernatural humility to be able to manage wealth and influence.
In 3:13–5:6, James develops the theme that _real faith produces genuine humility_. We've already heard James remind us that our goodness comes from God-given wisdom, not our own (3:13-18). He called us to turn to God, not ourselves, for peaceful relationships (4:1-10). And he warned us against playing God instead of submitting to God's sovereignty (4:11-17). Now, James rails against the pride that so easily deludes the wealthy of this world (5:1-6). In each case, James encourages God-enabled humility.
## — 5:1 —
James begins by calling his wealthy readers to attention: "Come now!" He used the same phrase when addressing the autonomous businessman in 4:13. It's almost as though James expects certain people to be so distracted by their own worldly pursuits that he needs to snap them out of their daze —"Listen up!" In 4:13, he addressed those who spent their _days_ as if God weren't their Lord. In 5:1, he addresses those who spend their _money_ as if He weren't their Master.
This is the first time James has directly addressed wealthy people in his letter. But he has mentioned them twice before. In 1:10-11 he said that the rich man should "glory in his humiliation," because he will fade away in the midst of his pursuits like grass withering in the scorching wind. And in 2:5-6 he scolded those who favor the wealthy over the poor, because the rich and powerful are the ones who tended to persecute Christians. Based on these passages, it would be easy to conclude that James has it in for the rich! One might walk away from James's apparent ridicule of the rich and conclude that the poor go to heaven while the rich go to hell. But let's not go there. Clearly, Scripture teaches it's not a person's financial wealth or poverty that determines one's relationship with God, but the person's _spiritual_ condition.
Being _outwardly_ rich or poor refers to how much of the world's goods a person has at his or her disposal. _Inward_ wealth or poverty refers to a person's relationship (or lack of such) with God, expressed through his or her love for others. When we look at things this way, there are really four classifications. The chart below may help explain this. I have included a description, a prescription for how to minister to people in each category, and a biblical example or two for each type.
Now, looking at this chart, some of you may see yourself as fitting into the third category —poor in this world, but spiritually rich in Christ. Let me challenge you, though, by suggesting that for the most part our definition of "poor" is far different from the Bible's. Poor people in the Bible were homeless, helpless, destitute, and hopeless. They often had nothing to eat, nothing to wear, and nowhere to stay. By biblical standards, even most people living by our society's standard of "poverty" wouldn't have been regarded as truly "poor." The reality is that most of us are blessed with more than we need and are therefore in the position to bless others —assuming that we haven't fallen into the fourth category.
James addresses his rebuke to those in the fourth category, the physically rich and spiritually poor. Although believers can be outside of God's will with regard to their finances, in 5:1-6 James targets the unbelieving rich who oppress the poor. These are the same people he mentioned in passing in 2:6-7. What does he say to this group? "Weep and howl for your miseries which are coming upon you" (5:1). Behind this general warning lies a long history of crying and wailing because of judgment that comes upon the ungodly (Isa. 13:6; Jer. 4:8). This is the same context in which James addresses the oppressive rich. He mentions "the last days" in 5:3, and then discusses how believers should live "until the coming of the Lord" in 5:7. The warning is clear: trusting in the strength of riches instead of trusting in Christ will end in disaster. As Psalm 62:10 says, "Do not trust in oppression and do not vainly hope in robbery; if riches increase, do not set your heart upon them."
FOUR KINDS OF WEALTH AND POVERTY
* Physical Condition: Poor
* Spiritual Condition: Poor
* Description: Having few of the world's goods and not living in God's love, the doubly poor are in a most miserable condition.
* Prescription: Provide essential physical needs to express God's love; _for unbelievers_ , point them to salvation in Christ; _for believers_ , exhort them to trust in Christ to provide both physically and spiritually.
* Biblical Example: Those who are both physically and spiritually afflicted (Isa. 61:1)
* Physical Condition: Rich
* Spiritual Condition: Rich
* Description: Having been blessed in both material wealth and heavenly riches, the doubly rich use their prosperity to help others.
* Prescription: Provide opportunities for giving and serving others with time and resources.
* Biblical Example: Job before and after his trials (Job 1:1-3; 42:10); Joseph of Arimathea (Matt. 27:57)
* Physical Condition: Poor
* Spiritual Condition: Rich
* Description: Having few of the world's goods, the externally poor are often in need of food, clothing, and shelter; but they have a strong faith and often give what little they have.
* Prescription: Provide essential physical needs and give opportunities to minister to the spiritual needs of others.
* Biblical Example: The poor widow (Mark 12:42-44); the poor of this world who are rich in faith (Jas. 2:5); the church in Smyrna (Rev. 2:9)
* Physical Condition: Rich
* Spiritual Condition: Poor
* Description: Having an abundance of the world's goods, the spiritually poor forget that their blessings come from God in order to bless others.
* Prescription: Provide correction; _for unbelievers_ , exhort them to trust in Christ instead of riches; _for believers_ , encourage them to submit their wealth to the lordship of Christ.
* Biblical Example: Unbeliever: the rich young ruler (Mark 10:21) Believers: the church of Laodicaea (Rev. 3:17)
## — 5:2-6 —
After that general rebuke, James turns to some specific reasons for it. James paints a grim picture of the wealthy unbelievers' dark spiritual condition. And along the way he also points out the divine retribution that comes with this kind of behavior.
First, James rebukes the rich _because they were guilty of hoarding their riches_ (5:2-3). In those days, a person could display his or her wealth in three ways: by feasting lavishly, by dressing extravagantly, and by spending wildly. (Some things never change!) James targets these three areas of the flamboyant lifestyle of the rich, pointing out how foolish it is to center their lives on these things. Through time and disuse, food goes bad, garments get eaten by moths, and precious metals tarnish. By hoarding rather than sharing, the wealth of the rich rots and rusts.
Second, James rebukes the rich _because they were guilty of cheating others_ (5:4). Instead of giving a fair wage to those who worked their fields, the rich cheated them. One sign of the selfish rich is their reluctance to pay their bills. During the financial crisis that began in 2008, the world witnessed numerous superrich reward themselves with bonuses while their employees lost their jobs. It's an amazing reality that some of the greediest people are also some of the wealthiest —and some of the most generous people will give away their last dime!
Third, James rebukes the rich _because they were guilty of a selfish lifestyle_ (5:5). The wealthy wicked lived in the lap of luxury, indulging in pleasures and fattening not just their bellies, but their hearts, too! James paints a picture of a person trying to satisfy the deepest longings of his heart by a playboy lifestyle. Like a pig being fattened for slaughter, these wealthy don't even know that as they selfishly gorge themselves on the pleasures of life, they are eating and drinking judgment upon themselves.
Fourth, James rebukes the rich _because they were guilty of taking unfair advantage of the righteous_ (5:6). Echoing a charge already mentioned in 2:6, James takes his rebuke to the highest level. The rich are guilty of judging and putting to death the "righteous." The word "righteous" is singular, referring to a kind of person —the righteous one. This category would not only include Jesus, the ultimate Righteous One, but also all those believers who, like their Lord, endured condemnation and martyrdom for their faith —all at the hands of rich, powerful oppressors. It includes all the righteous people who are treated brutally by wealthy unbelievers.
* * *
# APPLICATION: JAMES 5:1-6
Strong Words to the Wealthy
As we've seen, James uses some sharp words for the wicked, reserving some of his severest warnings for those who are physically wealthy but spiritually poor. Before we shrug our shoulders at this warning and pretend we are exempt, we would be wise to recall some practical principles for all believers to follow.
First, _hoarded riches reap miserable dividends_ (5:1-3). If you look into the face of the unsaved wealthy today, more often than not you'll see stress, worry, bitterness, and emptiness. Wealthy people finally discover that money can't purchase happiness; on the contrary, it often brings despair.
Second, _riches provide no relief in eternity_ (5:3). Proverbs 11:4 says, "Riches do not profit in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from death." A day is coming, says James, when the true Accountant will conduct His audit. On that day the unsaved rich will be handed a bill they can't pay, and all their earthly treasures will be like ashes blowing in the wind. Only God's righteousness —the free gift that comes by faith in Jesus Christ —rescues a person in the day of judgment.
Third, _unjust acts of the unsaved are not forgotten_ (5:4). James says that the outcry of those treated unjustly "has reached the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth." The title "Lord of Sabaoth" means "Lord of hosts," or "Lord of the armies." It refers to God as the Judge who wages war against His enemies (Isa. 2:12). James's Jewish audience would have been familiar with this title since it was borrowed from their native Hebrew language and culture. And they would have caught its allusion to the coming end-times judgment. Just as the voices of the oppressed Hebrews enslaved in Egypt reached God and brought His judgments (Exod. 2:23-25), so God hears the voices of today's oppressed people.
Finally, _a lack of judgment today does not mean a lack of judgment tomorrow_ (5:1-6). Throughout this passage, James holds the warning of end-times judgment over the pretty heads of the plutocrats. The believer's judgment is behind him —Christ bore the full punishment of death, paying for all of our sins on the cross. But the unbeliever's judgment is ahead of him. The one who dies rejecting Christ faces not only end-times suffering if he is alive during the last days, but also eternal judgment after he is condemned at the Great White Throne Judgment (Rev. 20:11-15). For a season, it may appear that the wicked get away with prospering at the expense of others, but in the end their wicked deeds will be remembered.
If James illustrates the extreme examples to avoid, Paul's first letter to Timothy gives us at least two principles to follow. First, God's concern is not with actual wealth, which is neutral, but with our attitudes toward wealth (1 Tim. 6:8-10). God urges His people to be content (1 Tim. 6:8), rather than longing to be rich. Money itself is not the root of evil. The _love_ of money is the root of all kinds of evil (1 Tim. 6:10).
Second, God is not against people who are wealthy, but against their misguided priorities (1 Tim. 6:17-19). The rich have a special obligation to "be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share" (1 Tim. 6:18). God blesses us for the purpose of blessing others, not for the purpose of satisfying our own self-centered pleasures.
If we keep our attitudes right and maintain proper priorities, we won't be led astray by riches and become spiritual paupers. But this kind of attitude toward riches can only come from a God-given humility in our hearts. The cure for the pride and arrogance of wealth is the work of the Spirit.
* * *
# REAL FAITH PRODUCES GENUINE PATIENCE (JAMES 5:7-20)
In his short letter to Jewish Christians, James asks his readers the question, "If you claim to believe like you should, why do you behave like you shouldn't?" First-century Jewish believers struggled with persevering through hardship, maintaining good works, promoting peace in their churches, and living patiently in anticipation of the Lord's return. They knew Jesus as the Way of life, but needed a step-by-step guide for walking in that Way.
In the climax of his brief handbook on practical Christianity, James affirms that _real faith produces genuine patience_ (5:7-20). Those Jewish Christians, distressed by their faith-challenging circumstances, needed to hear that message repeatedly. James exhorts his readers to be patient in suffering in light of the Lord's coming (5:7-12). He encourages them to seek physical and spiritual wholeness (5:13-18). Finally, he challenges them to steer erring believers back onto the right path (5:19-20). _Patience_ in the midst of life's challenges should mark true believers as a sure sign of real faith.
* * *
# KEY TERMS IN JAMES 5:7-20
_epistrephō_ **(ἐπιστρέφω)** [1994] "turn," "turn back," "turn around," "return"
Like the term "repent," _epistrephō_ refers to an internal or external turning, or change of path, from one course of thought or action to another. In James's use (5:19-20), the word likely reflects his Jewish wisdom background of the two ways —the path of life and the path of death. When a wandering believer is turned back from the wrong path, he or she is restored to the right path of a fruitful Christian life.
_makroth_ _y_ _meō_ **(μακροθυμέω)** [3114] "to persevere," "to be patient," "to wait long"
This word is related to two Greek words, _makro_ [3117], meaning "large," and _thymos_ [2372], meaning "intense anger," "burning wrath," or "explosive rage." Together these terms refer to the act of holding back one's anger. We might say such a person has a long fuse and can avoid sudden outbursts of rage. It also implies the ability to keep calm and cool for a long time, without exhibiting frustrations with circumstances.
* * *
# Patience in Suffering
JAMES 5:7-12
NASB
7 Therefore be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious produce of the soil, being patient about it, until [a]it gets the early and late rains. 8 You too be patient; strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near. 9 Do not [a]complain, brethren, against one another, so that you yourselves may not be judged; behold, the Judge is standing [b]right at the [c]door. 10 As an example, brethren, of suffering and patience, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. 11 We count those blessed who endured. You have heard of the [a]endurance of Job and have seen the [b]outcome of the Lord's dealings, that the Lord is full of compassion and _is_ merciful.
12 But above all, my brethren, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or with any other oath; but [a]your yes is to be yes, and your no, no, so that you may not fall under judgment.
5:7 [a]Or _he_ 5:9 [a]Lit _groan_ [b]Lit _before_ [c]Lit _doors_ 5:11 [a]Or _steadfastness_ [b]Lit _end of the Lord_ 5:12 [a]Lit _yours is to be yes, yes, and no, no_
NLT
7 Dear brothers and sisters,[*] be patient as you wait for the Lord's return. Consider the farmers who patiently wait for the rains in the fall and in the spring. They eagerly look for the valuable harvest to ripen. 8 You, too, must be patient. Take courage, for the coming of the Lord is near.
9 Don't grumble about each other, brothers and sisters, or you will be judged. For look —the Judge is standing at the door!
10 For examples of patience in suffering, dear brothers and sisters, look at the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. 11 We give great honor to those who endure under suffering. For instance, you know about Job, a man of great endurance. You can see how the Lord was kind to him at the end, for the Lord is full of tenderness and mercy.
12 But most of all, my brothers and sisters, never take an oath, by heaven or earth or anything else. Just say a simple yes or no, so that you will not sin and be condemned.
[5:7] Greek _brothers;_ also in 5:9, 10, 12, 19.
* * *
_It can happen when we drive_. Somebody accidentally cuts us off, and we drive an extra eighty miles just to return the favor! _It can happen at work_. Somebody makes our job difficult one day, and we wait to find an opportunity to "get back at 'em." _It can happen at church_. Somebody offends us, and we keep a record of that filed in the back of our minds, ready to crack open when the time is right. _It can happen anywhere_. Somebody wrongs us —either intentionally or accidentally —and the urge to retaliate hits us like an uncontrollable gag reflex. It happens to me, and it happens to you.
* * *
# From My Journal
# Suppressing the Revenge Reflex
JAMES 5:7-12
Sometimes everyday events can really put your patience to the test. Several years ago, I was driving my car into a supermarket parking lot looking for a good space. Finding a suitable spot, I carefully maneuvered my compact car into a narrow space between two other vehicles. It would be a tight fit, and I'd have trouble squeezing out of my door when I opened it, but it was the only space I could find. My son, who was with me, slipped out his door with no problem. But as carefully as I opened my own door, it still bumped the car beside me.
I frowned and wiped the spot where I had accidentally tapped the car. Nothing. Not a scratch. Was I relieved! Then I glanced up and saw the man in his car. He wasn't smiling. I gestured toward the door and said with a grin, "Sorry about that. But there's no damage." He either didn't believe me or just didn't like me, because I don't think I could have _chiseled_ the frown from his stony face. He stared in silence. I shrugged, closed my door, and headed into the store with my son.
Call it intuition or an unconscious deduction, but something told me to turn around and look. Sure enough, that guy was already opening the back door of his car. _Smash! Smash!_ Right into my back fender. Now let me describe what went through my mind in half a second. My first reaction was to storm across the lot and remove his head from his body! With that carnal notion still loitering in my mind, in came a second image —the front page of the local newspaper with the headline, "Pastor Kills Man In Parking Lot." Then a third thought followed right behind the second: "This guy's bigger than I am!" So the front-page headline changed to the back page containing my obituary.
In the end, I did nothing. My young son had his hand in mine and I thought, "Boy, it would just foul everything up if he saw his dad out there getting smeared all over the parking lot." So I did nothing. Actually, though, I _did_ do something. Something remarkable. I applied that rare virtue of patience —the kind of patience that comes only by the work of the Spirit. I didn't shoot him a finger "greeting," didn't phone the police, didn't shout awful things at him. God's Spirit miraculously suppressed my revenge reflex. As I think back on that day when I walked away from what could have become an ugly scene, I'm grateful I did. But I can't take the credit. It was God's gift of faith producing in me inexplicable patience.
* * *
We've all experienced the hurt of mistreatment and misunderstanding. Such hurts come in a variety of forms —an intolerable working situation, domestic conflicts, overbearing parents, rebellious children, a treacherous friend, a petty parishioner, a gossipy neighbor. Our natural tendency is to retaliate —to return evil for evil, an eye for an eye. Or we bottle it up and allow a slow, grinding ferment. But God has a better idea than either bottling up or bursting out! James reveals this alternative. He tells us not only what to do when we've been wronged but also how to do it.
## — 5:7a —
James 5:7 simultaneously connects and contrasts with the previous section. James begins with "therefore" ( _oun_ [3767]), indicating that what follows is based on what came before. But he also changes his audience from "you rich" (5:1) to "brethren" (5:7). You will remember that James addressed oppressive wealthy people in 5:1-6, exposing their wrongs and calling for repentant humiliation in light of the coming judgment of God. Now, beginning in 5:7, James addresses the victims of their ugliness: "Therefore _[in light of the fact of the ultimate judgment of the wicked rulers oppressing you]_ be patient, brethren!"
James continues with the theme of Christ's coming in judgment —"until the coming of the Lord." While persecutors should fear Christ's coming, believers anticipate it through patiently enduring suffering. Don't miss the fact that James has shifted to believers in this section. The man without Christ lives under frustration if he tries to bring patience into persecution, mistreatment, or everyday afflictions. But the believer has the supernatural ability —by the work of the Holy Spirit —to endure under the miseries of life, whether mild or extreme. How valuable is patience!
The exhortation to "be patient" in 5:7 governs the rest of chapter 5 until the end of James. It's the faith-inspired response to a variety of circumstances Christians must endure in this world, from putting up with suffering (5:7-11) to responding to sickness (5:14-15), from the temptation to flippancy (5:12) to the treatment of those who have strayed into sin (5:19-20). James answers a simple question in this section: "How can I do right when I've been done wrong?"
He answers this underlying question with four commands —two positives to embrace and two negatives to avoid.
## — 5:7b-8a —
_Be patient._ James illumines the first answer to the question of how we can respond right when we've been wronged with an illustration. Just as a farmer learns to wait patiently through the growing season before he can reap the fruit of his labors, Christians should "be patient" (5:8). The word translated _patience_ comes from the Greek word _makrothymeō_ [3114], referring to the ability to wait in tranquility. James says, "When something unjust takes place, have a long fuse. Don't blow your top. Chill."
But let's face it, we would rather take our offenders by the throat. God has a better plan: that we wait on Him. What does that mean? In the most ultimate sense, when Christ returns He will mete out justice on those who have persecuted His people (5:7). But patiently waiting on the Lord also has a here-and-now application. God has a way of working out His purposes and plans on an everyday scale, just as He will work out His grand plan on a cosmic scale. So, being patient in negative circumstances means we deliberately allow God to handle the situation in His own way and in His own time. Like the farmer waiting for a harvest, _be patient_.
* * *
# EARLY RAINS AND LATTER RAINS
JAMES 5:7
For thousands of years farmers in the Holy Land have experienced an annual cycle of dry and rainy seasons. The dry season, running roughly from June through September, leaves the soil parched. The rainy season, however, quenches the land in two six-week periods in October and November (the "early rains") and then again in April and May (the "latter rains"). The early rains would allow the seeds to germinate. After a long wait, the latter rains would cause the plants to take root and grow. While the land was in its dry season for those five months, the farmers eagerly watched the skies for God to send rain and produce a bountiful crop (Jer. 5:24; Joel 2:23; Zech. 10:1).
The Israelites understood that God was their Sustainer and Provider, who sent rains of blessing according to His promises (Gen. 1:11-12). On the other hand, absence of sufficient rain was one of the curses for disobedience under the Old Testament Law (Deut. 11:13-17; 28:12, 23-24). When James likens the farmer's anticipation of the latter rains to the believer's expectation of the Lord's return, he emphasizes the need for patience. Though we are not yet receiving the blessing of final salvation planted in our lives by the seed of faith, our unbreakable New Covenant promise of salvation guarantees that one day God will rain His blessings on us through the glorious appearing of His Son.
* * *
## — 5:8b —
_Strengthen your hearts._ The second command relates to how we should respond when we've been wronged. It refers to our emotional fortitude or inner disposition. The word "strengthen" ( _stērizō_ [4741]) means to establish, support, or fix something firmly in place so it's immovable. Under stress and duress, the heart can grow heavy, but the Spirit of God can lighten the load of a heart weighed down with pressures. Psalm 55:22 says, "Cast your burden upon the LORD and He will sustain you; He will never allow the righteous to be shaken." Similarly, 1 Peter 5:6-7 tells us to humble ourselves under God's mighty hand, casting all our anxieties on Him.
Practically speaking, this is where I find the "50-20" principle helpful. I get the name from Genesis 50:20, the climactic passage on the life of Joseph. Remember the story? Joseph's brothers had sold him into slavery and told their father, Jacob, that he had been killed. As Joseph's tragic life unfolded, he went from imprisoned slave to prime minister of Egypt. Years later, when the same brothers who had sold him down the river show up on the scene again, groveling for mercy, how does Joseph respond? With the "50-20" principle: "As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive" (Gen. 50:20).
Unless we can see beyond the one who wronged us, we'll retaliate. That's the natural (and carnal) response. But God works out all things for our ultimate good (Rom. 8:28). We need to have a big-picture perspective. We don't need "20/20" vision, but "50-20" vision. That shift in perspective from our own limited view of things to a God's divine viewpoint has helped strengthen my own heart through all kinds of wrongs. Trust me —it can do the same for you.
## — 5:9-11 —
_Don't complain._ The second answer to how believers should respond to suffering concerns our actions toward those around us. When your circumstances try your patience and when you feel discouraged and frustrated by external pressures, the next tendency is to complain. Here, James refers to a phenomenon much more insidious than silently holding a grudge against those who have wronged us. He warns us not to groan, grumble, or complain "against one another" (5:9).
Isn't it odd that when a family, business, or church suffers hardship, the members of that community often internalize their aggression and turn on each other? Or they turn on their leadership. Or they turn on their children, employees, or pets! We vent our frustrations on those around us. On the outside we may appear to have patience in the midst of suffering, but on the inside we've become a tightly wound spring, exploding at the slightest touch on those who are nearest to us.
James has already dealt with the results of this kind of complaining spirit in 4:11-12. The one who speaks against or judges a fellow Christian will be subject to the judgment of God (4:12). Equally serious, those who point fingers and complain against others will be subject to the disciplining hand of God (5:9). We've already seen that God doesn't judge believers with condemnation or hell (Rom. 8:1). However, He doesn't let our bitterness and bad behavior go without discipline, just as a loving father disciplines his children for their good (Heb. 12:5-11).
The ancient Hebrew prophets serve as an example to us for how to suffer with patience (Jas. 5:10). "Prophets" often refers not merely to the prophetic office —people like Isaiah and Daniel —but also to the whole cast of Old Testament figures who spoke and acted on behalf of God (Matt. 5:17; Rom. 1:2). James zooms in on perhaps the greatest example of patient endurance under excruciating suffering —Job. Though Job endured incomprehensible personal, financial, and physical losses, he refused to give in to the revenge reflex, demonstrating his real faith through genuine patience. James reminds us that Job's suffering was temporary, eventually giving way to abundant blessing that reflected the compassion and mercy of God (Jas. 5:11). In the same way, those who patiently endure hardship today without grumbling can rely on God's promise of ultimate reward and blessing, whether in this life or in the life to come. Complaining is one habit worth breaking!
* * *
# JAMES AND THE COMING JUDGE
The return of Christ, the judgments and rewards of God, and the coming of the kingdom are repeated themes in James's letter. The following passages underscore the role that the return of Christ has in James's thinking.
* "Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial; for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him." (1:12)
* "Did not God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him?" (2:5)
* "For judgment will be merciless to one who has shown no mercy." (2:13)
* "Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such we will incur a stricter judgment." (3:1)
* "Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries which are coming upon you." (5:1)
* "It is in the last days that you have stored up your treasure." (5:3)
* "You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter." (5:5)
* "Be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord." (5:7)
* "Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near." (5:8)
* "Behold, the Judge is standing right at the door." (5:9)
* "Your yes is to be yes, and your no, no, so that you may not fall under judgment." (5:12)
* * *
## — 5:12 —
_Don't swear_. This final command related to how we should respond when we've been wronged refers to our tendency to make rash decisions and promises under duress. The word "swear" ( _omnyō_ [3660]) doesn't refer primarily to the use of profanity. Rather, it means to "take an oath," to grasp onto something with our words. It's calling God into the circumstance and presenting Him to give validity to your commitments. For example, "I swear by God I'm not lying!" Or, "Before God, I'll do this." Or, "As God is my witness, this will never happen!" James got his teaching on oaths from Jesus' Sermon on the Mount:
"But I say to you, make no oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is the footstool of His feet, or by Jerusalem, for it is THE CITY OF THE GREAT KING. Nor shall you make an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. But let your statement be, 'Yes, yes' or 'No, no'; anything beyond these is of evil." (Matt. 5:34-37)
We don't know enough about the historical situation to determine exactly why they were taking oaths. However, we do know that his Jewish Christian readers were caught between both Jewish and Gentile persecutors. They lived under extreme religious, cultural, and economic pressures to deny Christ in their words or deeds. It may be that James's prohibition of oath-taking related to going back on their confession of faith in Christ —or swearing allegiance to others outside the church. That is, in this context the result of swearing would bring great benefits —a lessening of the suffering, persecution, hardship, or trial. But the cost would be abandoning their Savior.
I see in all this an exhortation to simplicity of speech. Respond to the circumstances with a simple "yes" or "no." Answer succinctly and with authenticity. When it comes to the tough circumstances we find ourselves in, we're wise to avoid long explanations, detailed excuses, and especially pious spiritualizing. This kind of overanalysis leads to stumbling in our words. We'll find ourselves bringing God into circumstances to play a role on our own terms. We'll fall into the trap of making deals with God, promising Him all sorts of extreme things if He'll just lighten the load. In the process we think we've figured out what's causing the suffering —and how we can weasel out of it. Resist this temptation to overspiritualize and overanalyze.
Instead, stay quiet, sit back, and let God work out His purpose.
Have patience.
* * *
# APPLICATION: JAMES 5:7-12
Doing Right When Done Wrong
In 5:7-12, James answers a simple question: "How can I do right when I've been done wrong?" His answer comes in the form of four commands: be patient (5:7-8), strengthen your hearts (5:8), don't complain (5:9-11), and don't swear (5:12). In light of these practical exhortations, let me suggest four easy-to-understand applications.
First, don't focus on _the situation_ , or you'll get angry. Instead, be patient! Yes, you've been wronged. Yes, you could express your anger through retaliation. But don't. Resist the revenge reflex and let it go. _Be patient_.
Second, don't focus on _yourself_ , or you'll have self-pity. Instead, be strong! Remember the 50-20 principle (Gen. 50:20) and say, "Lord, I see this person not as an enemy but as a tool. He or she may see themselves as my enemy inflicting damage on me, but I know You're bigger than that. Thank you for making me the object of Your handiwork. Please make me a vehicle of your grace." Let God get you through it and accomplish His purpose. _Be strong_.
Third, don't focus on _someone to blame_ , or you'll complain. Instead, view others as a means God uses to shape your life. Just as the perpetrators of wrong are tools for your spiritual growth, those God has placed over you, around you, and under you can be tools to teach patient endurance. Don't redirect your wrath toward them. Don't put them down with your complaining, bitter spirit. Don't shift blame on others. Instead, view others as a means God uses to shape your inner person.
Fourth, don't focus on _the present_. Look to the future for insight. This is a tough principle to apply when you're in the middle of a crisis. So consider memorizing a few key verses to stitch this idea into the fabric of your heart.
For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. (Rom. 8:18)
For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. (2 Cor. 4:17-18)
In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. (1 Pet. 1:6-7)
Make this perspective a part of how you think.
I don't know what's in store for you in the next weeks, months, and years. Neither do you. But God knows. It may be a court summons you don't deserve. It may be an unwarranted rebuke from an employer —or an unexpected layoff. It may be a neighbor who causes you prolonged grief over some triviality. It may be a spouse who walks out, a child who rebels, or a parent who treats you like garbage. Whatever may come, the practical advice in James can get you through. Be patient. Support your heart. Don't hold a grudge. Don't scheme to get out from under it.
* * *
# Patience through Prayer
JAMES 5:13-18
NASB
13 Is anyone among you suffering? _Then_ he must pray. Is anyone cheerful? He is to sing praises. 14 Is anyone among you sick? _Then_ he must call for the elders of the church and they are to pray over him, [a]anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; 15 and the prayer [a]offered in faith will [b]restore the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up, and if he has committed sins, [c]they will be forgiven him. 16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective [a]prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much. 17 Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed [a]earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months. 18 Then he prayed again, and the [a]sky [b]poured rain and the earth produced its fruit.
5:14 [a]Lit _having anointed_ 5:15 [a]Lit _of_ [b]Or _save_ [c]Lit _it_ 5:16 [a]Lit _supplication_ 5:17 [a]Lit _with prayer_ 5:18 [a]Lit _heaven_ [b]Lit _gave_
NLT
13 Are any of you suffering hardships? You should pray. Are any of you happy? You should sing praises. 14 Are any of you sick? You should call for the elders of the church to come and pray over you, anointing you with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 Such a prayer offered in faith will heal the sick, and the Lord will make you well. And if you have committed any sins, you will be forgiven.
16 Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results. 17 Elijah was as human as we are, and yet when he prayed earnestly that no rain would fall, none fell for three and a half years! 18 Then, when he prayed again, the sky sent down rain and the earth began to yield its crops.
* * *
Like a car without fuel, life without prayer grinds to a halt. Like a lamp without electricity, the prayer-starved Christian fails to shine in a dark and desperate world. But show me a man or woman of prevailing prayer and I'll show you a man or woman whose faith is deep. Effective, fervent prayer moves the heart of the omnipotent God of the universe. Yet far too many Christians fill their lives with dizzying activities, leaving no time for this crucial ingredient that can transform mere human actions into divine acts of power.
You may recall from the introduction to James's letter that James was well-known for his prayer life. He had the nickname "Camel Knees" because he spent so much time on his knees in prayer that they resembled the calloused knees of a camel. As one would expect from a book written by a man famed for prayer, the theme comes up repeatedly in the letter. In 1:5, James wrote, "But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him." And in 4:2, he said, "You do not have because you do not ask." Now, at the climax of his letter, James develops the theme of prayer more fully.
Let me put James's discussion of effective prayer in the context of his argument. In this last major section of the letter, James argues that _real faith produces genuine patience_ (5:7-20) _._ In 5:7-12, he answered the question of how to respond to suffering through patient endurance. He taught us that patience resists the natural mode of giving in, complaining, and speaking rash words. Here in 5:13-18, James continues to develop the idea of how we are to conduct ourselves with patience as we await the Lord's return: true faith exhibited through patience manifests itself in prayer. In the face of every obstacle, whether sickness or sin, the correct response is prayer. Prayer not only reflects an attitude of genuine faith, it also reveals patient endurance as we rely on God to handle life's struggles in His timing and according to His promises. As such, prayer becomes a quintessential mark of authentic faith.
## — 5:13 —
James begins by referring to two ends on the spectrum of life: suffering and cheerfulness. The one refers to affliction —physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual. It can include disease or discouragement, doubt or anxiety, financial hardships or relationship conflicts. In short, it includes anything that causes trouble or affliction. The response? "He must pray."
People usually don't have a hard time turning to God in prayer when their lives are unraveling. When pain increases, when worry overcomes them, when events spin out of control, God finally gets His call. But in my experience, people tend to put off prayer as the last option, or they treat it like a time-waster that distracts them from working out a solution to the problem on their own. But James is clear: prayer _is_ the solution to the problem. Everything we do must start with prayer. Believers would do well to remind themselves of the words of that nearly forgotten hymn by Hugh Stowell:
From ev'ry stormy wind that blows,
From ev'ry swelling tide of woes,
There is a calm, a sure retreat:
'Tis found beneath the mercy seat.
Ah! Whither could we flee for aid,
When tempted, desolate, dismayed:
Or how the hosts of hell defeat,
Had suff'ring saints no mercy seat.[17]
This doesn't mean that God immediately ends the affliction. He never promises to bring instant relief. But He does promise to provide the strength for patient perseverance. Prayer doesn't express faith in God to deliver us _from_ trials but _through_ trials. So, when we're afflicted, it's time to pray. And when that affliction is finally lifted, it's time to praise!
This leads us to the opposite of affliction —cheerfulness. The response is to sing praises. James sees praise as another form of prayer, lifting our hearts in worship, thanksgiving, and honor to God for who He is and for what He has done. This suggests that in all circumstances —the good and the bad —the right response is to turn to God in prayer and praise. In other words, we are to pray _constantly_.
## — 5:14-15 —
James next covers a major area of prayer with which most Christians are familiar. Who hasn't called out to God for healing from sickness, either for ourselves or for others? In fact, it seems like most of the prayer requests in our prayer lists have to do with recovery from illness, surgery, or injuries. So James addresses the issue of the physically ill in 5:14-15.
The word "sick" in 5:14 has the basic meaning of "weak" or "feeble" ( _astheneō_ [770]). In the New Testament, it often refers to physical sicknesses (Luke 4:40; Acts 9:37). But it also refers figuratively to those who are "weak in faith" (Rom. 4:19; 14:1) or to those who have a "weak conscience" (1 Cor. 8:12). In James 5:14-15 the emphasis is more on the person who is weak from physical illness. James prescribes three things for such a person.
First, he or she must call for the spiritual leaders of the church (5:14). Isn't that interesting? We look at it the other way around nowadays. Sometimes the pastors are the last to know when somebody is sick, hospitalized, or incapacitated. Maybe for serious conditions those who are sick eventually let the church know. But people seldom go to the leadership of the church first. In fact, some who are sick don't want _anybody_ to know it. But James says that even our physical illnesses are not private, personal matters. We're to give the body of Christ the opportunity to minister to us in our weakness along with the medical community.
Second, James prescribes a specific response by the elders of the church: prayer and anointing. The Greek syntax combines these two actions, one accompanying the other —"pray, while anointing him with oil." We find two distinct uses of anointing with oil in the Bible. One involves a religious or ceremonial act as a symbol for consecration, as in the anointing of David as King of Israel (1 Sam. 16:13). A more mundane type of anointing was for medicinal or hygienic purposes. Like the use of lotion for dry skin or the use of ointments for wounds, oils were used to affect the body in specific ways. We see this use when the Samaritan pours wine and oil on the injured man in Luke 10:34. The wine cleansed the wounds while the oil soothed and protected them.
Most likely James has the second use of oil in mind. The idea behind the use of both prayer and anointing was that the church should seek to come to the aid of both the physical and spiritual needs of a sick person. The medicinal use of oil provided physical comfort and promoted the healing process. Please observe that for James there was _no_ conflict between prayer and medicine.
The third prescription for the physically ill was to leave the results up to the Lord. Ultimately _God_ does the healing —not the oil, not the elders, not the prayer. Praying "in the name of the Lord" meant praying according to _His_ will. This in turn means accepting His plan and purpose.
James 5:15 sets forth three specific results of the elders' prayer and anointing offered in faith: restoration, raising up, and forgiveness. This suggests that James may have had in mind a particular individual who suffered illness as a result of sin. The Greek word for "restore" ( _sōzō_ [4982]) is used for spiritual salvation, but it can also refer to physical healing (Matt. 9:21; John 11:12). Although physical ailments can be a result of personal sin, James uses the expression "and if" ( _kan_ [2579]) in this final phrase, " _and if_ he has committed sins, they will be forgiven him." This indicates that not all cases of physical illness are the result of sin. But if the person's illness was caused by his or her own sin, then God's restoration can include both physical and spiritual recovery.
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# EXCURSUS: THE FIVE LAWS OF SUFFERING
JAMES 5:14-16
Does God heal today?
That question sparks an endless debate. Whole denominations have been formed around the belief in God-gifted healers who claim that Christ's death not only bought us forgiveness of our sins and eternal salvation but also guarantees physical healing in this life. Are they right? Are those who suffer pain, sickness, and hardship without God's healing lacking faith? Are they missing out on some benefits of the Christian life?
Over the years I have developed what I call the "Five Laws of Suffering." These principles will help the hurting and erase their confusion about why we suffer and what God has done (and can do) about it.
_Law One: There are two classifications of sin_. Original sin is the sinful condition all humans (except Jesus Christ) inherit from Adam, who was the source and "head" of the human race (Rom. 5:12). Personal sins are individual acts of wrong we commit on our own because of our sinful condition (Rom. 3:23). Because of original sin (the root), we commit acts of sin (the fruit).
_Law Two: Original sin introduced suffering, illness, and death to the human race._ If Adam and Eve had not sinned in the Garden of Eden, humanity would never have known sickness or death (see Rom. 5:12). In the broadest sense, all sickness and suffering today are the result of _original sin_. After Adam and Eve fell, they began to suffer a death-like existence in a hostile world characterized by suffering. This was caused by their own departure from God's way (Gen. 3).
_Law Three: Sometimes there is a direct relationship between personal sins and sickness._ David testified to the relationship between his own personal acts of disobedience and physical ailments in Psalms 32:3-5 and 38:3-5. Paul also warned that some of the Corinthian believers were "weak and sick" and a number of them were dead because of their personal sin (1 Cor. 11:27-30).
_Law Four: Sometimes there is no relationship between personal sins and sickness._ Some people are born with afflictions, suffering before they ever reach the age of committing personal sins (John 9:1-3; Acts 3:1-2). Others, like Job, are living upright lives when suffering comes (Job 1:1-5). Jesus Himself never committed personal sins, yet He often suffered; therefore, He can fully sympathize with our plight of suffering in a fallen world (Heb. 4:15; 5:8).
_Law Five: It is not God's will that everyone be healed in this life._ There are those who believe God wants every believer to experience complete physical healing in this life. They support their convictions with the words of Isaiah: "By His scourging we are healed" (Isa. 53:5). "Christ's death brought us healing!" they sing and shout. Of course it did! But what kind? Check the context. The whole flow of thought in Isaiah 53 has to do with the _spiritual_ needs of humans and Christ's priceless provision for the forgiveness of sin. That's why he was wounded and bruised. That's why he died —not primarily to heal sick people in this life, but to give spiritual life to all, and to one day raise us from the dead in bodies that will never again suffer sickness and death (Rev. 21:3-4). In fact, Peter interprets the verse this same way, connecting its application to the forgiveness of sins and a life of righteousness: "He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; _for by His wounds you were healed_ " (1 Pet. 2:24). Peter clearly refers to spiritual wholeness, not physical healing.
Still not convinced that physical healing isn't a guarantee for believers? Take Paul as an example. Three times he asked God to remove the thorn of suffering from his flesh. Three times he got a direct and unequivocal "no" answer from God (2 Cor. 12:7-9). Following that traumatic experience, he stated that he was "well content with weaknesses" because even without healing the Lord proved Himself sufficient and strong in the apostle's life (2 Cor. 12:10). Physical healing is not promised to everybody.
Now let me clarify two important points. Am I suggesting God doesn't heal? _Absolutely not!_ God can —and does —heal people, sometimes instantly and miraculously, sometimes slowly and gradually. In fact, _every time_ healing happens, regardless of the means, God is responsible. _He_ is the source of life and health. Most often, healing comes through diagnosis and medical treatment. But sometimes God can choose to heal miraculously — _nothing is too difficult for Him._ His healings are complete and permanent. Therefore, when God heals, there is no way any man or woman can grab the glory or take responsibility.
Am I stating that God uses divine healers —certain people specially "anointed" by the Spirit of God to lay hands on people and heal them instantly? _Absolutely not!_ So-called divine healers prey on those who don't know the facts. They blame all sickness on sin or a lack of faith. And when their healing powers don't work, guess who those charlatans blame? The sick person who didn't have enough faith to be healed. Tragic!
Don't forget the Five Laws of Suffering. Write them in the back of your Bible. Sure as the world, you're going to run into folks who will wonder why they (or their loved ones) are not being healed. Maybe God will use your words to quiet their hearts and remove their confusion.[18]
* * *
## — 5:16 —
I want you to notice the link with the previous verse. James says, " _Therefore_ , confess your sins to one another." He shifts from the third person (anyone who is sick) to the second person: "your sins." James 5:16 helps us understand this whole passage regarding sickness and sin. James is saying, in effect, "There are those who are in your assembly who are sick because of sin. The elders are to come, upon being called, and they are to pray and wait upon God to bring about restoration. But there are some of you, right now, before sickness sets in, who need to take care of this matter. So confess your sins to one another and pray for one another."
At this point we might refer to a similar situation in which sin in the church led to God's discipline of sickness, weakness, and even death. In 1 Corinthians 11:27-31, Paul writes,
Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. But a man must examine himself, and in so doing he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly. For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep. But if we judged ourselves rightly, we would not be judged.
This reality of sin that leads to sickness and death stands behind James's exhortation, "confess your sins to one another" (Jas. 5:16). What kind of confession is this? James isn't talking about our original confession of faith for salvation. He's not even referring to confession of offenses before God. He's not urging confession to a priest in a dark, small booth. And he certainly doesn't advocate indiscriminately dumping all of your sins and shame in front of everybody in the congregation. The context of James's message suggests making amends with those whom you have wronged and forgiving those who have wronged you.
Some of you reading this are sick deep inside; your soul is plagued by a gnawing bitterness or guilt. If you allow those thoughts to fester without clearing them out through confession and prayer, they'll consume you. They'll eventually work their way out in the form of unhealthy habits, chronic depression, unmanageable stress, underlying anger, and even physical illness. But it doesn't have to be that way. When believers in Christ confess their sins to those they've wronged, their guilt will be healed. When they pray for those who have harmed them, their bitterness will be cured.
And guess what? When you have released the burdens of guilt and bitterness through confession and prayer, the garbage that has contaminated and diseased your inner life will be cleared away. That condition of righteousness before God and others will result in your ability to pray more effectively. James affirms, "The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much" (5:16). This leads us then to the fourth area of prayer for the believer.
## — 5:17-18 —
When afflicted with trouble, we should pray (5:13). When physically ill, we should pray (5:14-15). When stained with guilt or bitterness, we should pray (5:16). Now, to conclude his practical treatise on prayer, James gives us an example of praying for specific requests (5:17-18).
Remember, the context of praying for God to respond to specific requests is the life that has been cleansed from sin through confession and prayer (5:16). If you're bogged down with guilt, bitterness, or a stack of other sins, not only will your prayers be ineffective but you may not even be in a spiritual state to discern _what_ to pray for or _how_ to pray. The righteous person has his or her attitude, priorities, and disposition oriented toward God's will. That's what causes the prayer of a righteous person to be effective and unusually powerful. The Greek word for "effective" is _energeō_ [1754], from which we get the word "energy." Prayer is the ingredient that turns ordinary utterances into powerful words. The word James uses for the "prayer" ( _deēsis_ [1162]) of the righteous person refers to asking for a specific need. "Petition" or "entreaty" might be better translations.
* * *
# TWELVE SPECIFIC THINGS FOR WHICH BELIEVERS ARE INSTRUCTED TO PRAY
1. For those who persecute them (Matt. 5:44)
2. For the kingdom of God (Matt. 6:10)
3. For daily provision (Matt. 6:11)
4. For overcoming temptation (Matt. 6:13)
5. For forgiveness (Luke 11:4)
6. For all the saints (Eph. 6:18)
7. For the gospel's advancement (2 Thes. 3:1)
8. For earthly rulers (1 Tim. 2:2)
9. For wisdom (Jas. 1:5)
10. For perseverance through suffering (Jas. 5:13)
11. For one another (Jas. 5:16)
12. For wayward believers (1 Jn. 5:16)
* * *
Let me offer a few guidelines on how to pray effectively. First, it involves knowing the Scripture and praying in keeping with the Word of God. Second, it includes being specific, dealing directly with particular issues and asking for specific results. Third, it embraces absolute faith in God's ability, timing, and wisdom, trusting without reservation that His answer to your petition will be right. These things characterize the prayer life of a righteous person. Small wonder that this kind of prayer "accomplishes much."
James illustrates this kind of prayer with the prophet Elijah (5:17-18). He reminds us that Elijah had a nature just like ours (5:17) —sinful, inconsistent, imperfect, yet forgiven and equipped with gifts from above. Elijah's specific petitions had such an abundance of power that he was able to stop and start the rain. Before you rush outside and pray for a sudden change in the weather, you need to understand the broad context —the context of James and of Elijah. Elijah, being a righteous man, knew what to pray for and when to pray for it. The Spirit specially enabled him to discern God's will to pray for certain miraculous events to get the attention of the rulers of Israel and drive home his call for repentance (1 Kgs. 17–18). A righteous believer today can be in tune with the Spirit's leading and know how to pray, when to pray, and what to pray for. But even when we don't have a clear sense of God's leading in a matter, we can always pray for the things God has told us to always pray for explicitly in the Bible.
To conclude this section on prayer, let's remind ourselves how it fits in the overall argument of the letter. In 5:7-20, James develops the idea of how we are to conduct our lives as we patiently await the Lord's return. The main theme is this: _real faith produces genuine patience_. He first answered the question of how to respond to suffering through patient endurance (5:7-12). In 5:13-18 he points out that true faith exhibited through patience affects how we respond to God. In every circumstance —sickness or health, joy or hardship —we must go to God in prayer. Prayer not only reflects an attitude of genuine faith, but it also reveals patient endurance as we turn to God to handle life's struggles in His timing and according to His promises. As such, prayer becomes a quintessential mark of true faith.
* * *
# APPLICATION: JAMES 5:13-18
Practical Principles of Prayer
Prayer may be one of the most misunderstood and neglected blessings of the Christian life. The irony is that prayer is one of the simplest concepts to understand and one of the easiest actions to do. Let me share with you four simple and practical lessons I gather from James's profound passage on prayer.
First, _prayer is to be continuous_. If prayer applies to all situations and to every circumstance, then it should be a constant rhythm in your life. It should represent the inner disposition toward God that creates a rhythm as consistent as your heartbeat or as natural as breathing. I'm not necessarily talking about a scheduled event at three or four specific times during the day, though that's a great discipline worth considering. I'm talking about the need to be in conversation with God throughout the day, responding in prayer and praise to whatever occurs. Believers need to be prayer addicts. We should "suffer" from chronic prayer. Is that you? How much have you prayed since last Sunday when you were asked to bow for prayer in church? Do you speak to your Lord throughout the day —mealtime blessings excluded? Or is prayer an infrequent act?
Second, _prayer is designed for every part of life._ Stop thinking of prayer like a fire extinguisher. It's not to hang around in the back spaces of your mind until a crisis arises or a tragedy strikes. Yes, prayer will normally follow affliction, sickness, sin, fear, and loss. But it also relates to joy, blessing, thankfulness, and intimate conversation with your heavenly Father. Every kind of situation calls for prayer. Do you still act like you're a member of a volunteer prayer squad —responding in prayer only when needed? Or have you discovered the peace and joy that comes when you respond to the Father in every kind of circumstance?
Third, _prayer is not a substitute for responsibility_. Remember that James says that prayer is supposed to accompany the application of medicine (5:14). Prayer doesn't exclude intelligent action but includes it. We err when we exclude prayer from our planning and action. But we also err when we exclude action from prayer. Don't pray to be healed without at the same time taking reasonable steps to get healthy. Don't ask God to protect your children if you neglect them yourself. That isn't faith, it's presumption. Prayer and action go hand in hand.
Finally, _prayer is not for the perfect but for the imperfect_. James used Elijah as an example of the powerful prayer of a man "with a nature like ours" (5:17). You don't need to be a prophet or an apostle to pray effectively. You don't need to wait to be perfect before God will hear your prayers. Cleansing from sin comes through prayer (5:15). Wisdom comes through prayer (1:5-6). Specific needs are met through prayer (4:2-3). Yes, the prayer of a righteous person produces _much_ fruit (5:16). But you don't need to be sinless to pray. If that were so, nobody would be able to pray for anything! So, don't wait until you're great! Pray _while_ you wait.
Don't forget: God is listening.
Are you praying?
* * *
# Patience in Correction
JAMES 5:19-20
NASB
19 My brethren, if any among you strays from the truth and one turns him back, 20 let him know that [a]he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.
5:20 [a]Lit _he who has turned_
NLT
19 My dear brothers and sisters, if someone among you wanders away from the truth and is brought back, 20 you can be sure that whoever brings the sinner back from wandering will save that person from death and bring about the forgiveness of many sins.
* * *
Lifeguards who have rescued swimmers from drowning know better than most that victims tend to fight their rescuers in the hysteria of that terrifying moment. In an uncontrollable panic, they will even pull their rescuers under the water. Reason should tell them that if the lifeguard goes under, so does their only hope of surviving. But a drowning person isn't thinking reasonably. The same is often true when a believer attempts to rescue those who are floundering spiritually because their faith has suffered shipwreck.
My mentor and lifelong friend, Professor Howard Hendricks of Dallas Theological Seminary, tells the story of a young man who, after straying far from the Lord, was finally brought back by the help of a friend who loved him unconditionally. When he was fully restored, Dr. Hendricks asked him what it felt like when he was straying from God.
The man answered, "It seemed like I was being pulled farther and farther out to sea, into deep water. And all my friends were standing on the shoreline hurling accusations at me about justice, condemnation, and sin." Then he added, "But there was one Christian brother who actually swam out to get me and he wouldn't let me go. I fought him, but he withstood my fighting. He grasped me, put a life jacket around me, and managed to pull me to shore. By the grace of God he was the single reason I was restored —the man refused to let me go."
James doesn't want us to let anybody go, either. Throughout his letter, he stresses the need for a faith that works. He asks, "If you say you believe like you should, why do you behave like you shouldn't?" Now, at the climactic conclusion of the book, James instructs us on how to actually deal with those who believe like they should but behave like they shouldn't.
For the last several verses, James has been developing the theme that _real faith produces genuine patience._ But _genuine patience_ is different from _passive permissiveness._ Under the excuse of "patiently waiting on the Lord," Christians frequently stand back and "patiently" watch a brother or sister sink deeper into sin. Don't forget that genuine patience is part of the larger theme of James's book — _real faith produces genuine works_. We've already seen that real faith manifests itself in _various kinds_ of works: in stability (1:1-27), acts of love (2:1–3:12), humility (3:13–5:6), and patience (5:7-20). So, when it comes to how we should handle straying saints, the genuine work prompted by real faith includes not only prayer but also intervention. Throughout the process of confrontation and restoration, we should maintain a disposition of patient reliance on God.
In these last two verses, James addresses a number of practical questions. Is there ever a time when one Christian ought to intervene and deal with the sin of another? At what point should a Christian's patience run out? Is the correction of straying saints solely a work of the Holy Spirit, or should we step forward and become part of the solution too? If so, how can we do this without appearing legalistic or judgmental? Didn't James condemn this kind of judgmental attitude earlier in his book?
With these questions in mind, let's examine his answer.
## — 5:19 —
One year my older son, Curt, took a metalworking course in summer school. In the process of that course, a tiny particle of metal flew into his eye and became embedded in his cornea. We didn't realize it at the time because it was so small. But his eye was irritated, and it became obvious that there was a problem. We took him to an ophthalmologist, who quickly discovered the metal speck. So, that physician calmly rested my son's chin on a brace, numbed the cornea, and proceeded to extract the metal particle with care and precision. It was agonizing for me. I could hear the long prong give off a high-pitched _ping_ - _ping_ - _ping_ as he was trying to pluck that speck of metal from Curt's eye. (I had to look the other way, since that kind of thing does me in.) Thankfully, the skilled physician was able to remove the speck with delicate care and great patience.
In Matthew 7:3-5, Jesus gave instructions about removing specks from the eyes of those whose sight has been blurred by sin:
"Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' and behold, the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye."
Some people feel called to criticize! Even when their own life is a shambles and their own perspective clouded by sin, they feel it's their duty to point out even the most minor flaws of others. Jesus condemns this kind of hypocritical judgment of others. Like his older brother, James spoke out against those who hypocritically judge, slander, and speak against a brother or sister in Christ (Jas. 4:11-12). In light of these warnings, we must never hastily rush into the practice of spiritual eye surgery. Only those qualified with clear vision, refined by patience, and equipped with wisdom and humility should take on this task (see Gal. 6:1-2).
Given these important warnings, and understanding the seriousness of our responsibility for straying saints, we can work through James's principles for handling wayward brethren. Let's follow James's reasonable instruction in 5:19. First, James is addressing the situation of believers who have gone astray. He's not talking about leading unbelievers to salvation, but restoring Christians who have strayed from the truth. We get our English word "planet" from the Greek word for "strayed" ( _planaō_ [4105]). Unlike stars, which kept their place in relation to other heavenly lights, planets appeared to drift and wander through the night sky. In the same way, these individuals have drifted and wandered from the straight path.
Note also that the person James has in mind wanders from the _truth_ ( _alētheia_ [225]). That refers to the complete body of Christian truth contained in Scripture. People can stray from the truth in a couple of ways. They can wander _doctrinally_ , that is, they can err in their _beliefs_. But they can also stray from the truth _practically_ , failing to align their practice with their profession. In either case, the response of healthy believers should be the same: we should turn those who have strayed back to the truth.
The word for "turn back" ( _epistrepho_ [1994]) means to turn around and head in the opposite direction —a 180-degree reversal. You may recall that Jewish believers viewed life as heading in one of two trajectories, the path of life or the path of death. Believers growing in faith and good works were on the way of life. But unbelievers were on the way of death. James says that some believers, after making progress along the way of life, can stray, heading in the wrong direction. Such people need firm yet gracious intervention to avoid the discipline of God described previously in 5:15-16.
Not everybody is equipped with the right attitude for turning wayward saints back toward the right way. I mentioned Galatians 6:1 earlier. It gives a clear description of the attitude with which one must approach straying saints: "Brethren, even if anyone is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; each one looking to yourself, so that you too will not be tempted." Did you catch that? The person who intervenes in the life of a wayward brother or sister in Christ must be spiritual, gentle, wise, and humble. The fleshly, harsh, and arrogant have no business trying to rescue the wandering —though they are often the ones who try to do so.
I'm deeply concerned that we too often take upon ourselves the practice of digging specks from other people's eyes without first considering whether we're qualified for the task. If a person relishes the idea of confronting a believer, he or she probably shouldn't. Furthermore, if the one who confronts the wandering soul assumes a holier-than-thou attitude, the intervention will do more harm than good. That kind of approach pushes the speck deeper in rather than gently plucking it out.
## — 5:20 —
James assures us that if we succeed at our rescue operation through patience, humility, gentleness, and perseverance, we will have restored the person to the right path. He then describes the wholesome and encouraging results of this restoration.
First, _when we turn a sinning Christian from the error of his way we will "save his soul from death."_ Given the Jewish Christian background of this letter, it seems most likely that "death" here refers to the "way of death" —a dark, "death-like" existence. In early Christian training, life was viewed as following one of two paths, as summed up in the opening line of the first-century Jewish Christian writing, the _Didache_ : "There are two paths: the path of life and the path of death, and there is a vast difference between these two paths" ( _Didache_ 1.1). The Greek word for "path" or "way" ( _hodos_ [3598]) refers either to a literal road or figuratively to a lifestyle. In 5:20, James again uses the _hodos_ to describe the wayward Christian's lifestyle as the "error of his way [ _hodos_ ]." So, James has the figurative use of the term in mind —not physical death but a _lifestyle_ characterized by death. However, we have also seen that some unrepentant sin can lead to sickness and physical death (5:14-16), which is really viewed as the final destination of those who continue down the "way of death" without turning around in repentance.
Second, _when we turn a sinning Christian from the error of his way we will "cover a multitude of sins."_ This has a double application. Not only does a person's confession of sin bring forgiveness for the wayward path he or she took, but it also prevents that person from continuing farther along that dead-end path of sin and death. The damage that the rebellious Christian's personal sins have done and could still do will be covered. Peter uses the same term for "cover" ( _kalyptō_ [2572]) when he says that "love covers a multitude of sins" (1 Pet. 4:8). The intervention of loving Christians through prayer, patience, and perseverance will not only save that person from accumulating more sin and making a greater mess of this life, but also spare the church from the damage done by a wayward brother or sister.
James doesn't fudge on his claim that real faith produces genuine patience, but sometimes we must step forward and accompany our prayers for straying saints with deliberate words and actions. In other words, patience is not an excuse for passivity; faith is not an excuse for inaction. If James has taught us anything, he has made it clear that _real faith produces genuine works_.
If you're considering whether to get involved in the life of a straying believer with a word of encouragement, relief, or correction, check your motives first. Make certain you're acting out of genuine love for that person. Be sure you've immersed yourself in prayer. And be ready to apply patience as you endure a long process. Most wayward saints don't suddenly turn around with a tap on the shoulder. It can take a long, long time.
* * *
# APPLICATION: JAMES 5:19-20
Watching Out for the Wayward
I think it's fitting that James ends his letter with an exhortation to watch out for wayward saints. His entire book has been a plea to make sure outward actions accompany inward convictions, that our words match our deeds, that real faith produces genuine works of stability (1:1-27), love (2:1–3:12), humility (3:13–5:6), and patience (5:7-20). He has involved himself in the most intimate areas of his readers' lives. And he has done it with a spirit of conviction and care. James's entire letter exemplified his own call to restore wayward saints to the path of life. His finale addressed to the original readers could just as easily be addressed to you: "I've come to your rescue in this letter and have invested my time in giving my thoughts to you in these specific areas where you were going astray. Now you do the same." This final exhortation involves three important principles we need to keep in mind.
First, _there are occasions when we're to be involved in removingspecks from others' eyes, helping others who have strayed._ Just as we need to be ready to receive correction when we've lost our way, we need to be ready to correct others. This isn't a sign of contempt or hatred but of compassion and love.
Second, _the entire process must be under the direction and control of the Holy Spirit._ It can't be a fleshly ego trip. It can't be something prompted by pride, but rather by humility bathed in gentleness. There's no room for haste, rage, or vengeance. The fruit of the Spirit must dominate (Gal. 5:22-23).
Third, _the motive and attitude is as important as the action._ Sometimes those whom we correct will respond negatively —even harshly —to our actions. But they should never be able to condemn our hearts. When our attitudes consist of constant compassion, eventually the repentant saint who returns from his or her straying will see that they had been loved all along. Remember that when you "intrude" into a person's wayward ways, you're saving that person from a path of destruction.
Admittedly, one of the least pleasant aspects of ministry is confronting those who stray. It's not popular. It's not glamorous. It's not easy. And it's not always received well. Frequently it leads to misunderstanding when the heart is not prepared by God to change. But it's biblical, necessary, and when the Spirit works repentance in the person's heart, it can be a great blessing to both the one who corrects and the one we have corrected.
* * *
# INSIGHTS ON 1 PETER
Painful trials are not the end. God will frustrate His adversaries and bring about a redemptive purpose through these periods of pain. Peter reminds us of what we can so easily forget: Christ gives hope in hurtful times.
1 PETER
# INTRODUCTION
"Even though all may fall away because of You, I will never fall away!" (Matt. 26:33). Those words of Peter brashly followed Jesus' calm assertion that all of the disciples —without exception —would turn their backs on their Master: "You will all fall away because of Me this night" (Matt. 26:31). Peter should have known better, but he piously rejected Jesus' words and swore, "I will never fall away" (Matt. 26:33). Yet Christ's response to Peter's impetuous devotion only reinforced the fact that He was speaking prophetically, not pessimistically: "Truly I say to you that this very night, before a rooster crows, you will deny Me three times" (Matt. 26:34).
In response to Christ's clear and specific pronouncement, Peter passionately objected, "Even if I have to die with You, I will not deny You" (Matt. 26:35). Once spoken, those words lingered, perhaps echoing into the night, replaying in the Master's ears and the other disciples' memories. In any case, Peter seemed to take Jesus' words not as a prophecy but as a personal challenge to prove his worth as the greatest among the disciples. How much he still had to learn!
Just hours later the brokenhearted Peter found himself weeping bitterly, having denied his Savior not once, not twice, but three times (Matt. 26:69-75). Just as Jesus had predicted. For many men, this scene would have marked the end of a promising ministry. But for Peter, the denial became the moment that did more than break his heart; it clarified his absolute weakness before God and prepared him for true God-given greatness in the kingdom of His Lord.
It's difficult even to imagine that the same man who spat the defensive denial, "I do not know the man" (Matt. 26:72), later penned the words, "Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense" (1 Pet. 3:15). Who was this man? Where did he come from? What transformed his brash audacity into bold confidence?
* * *
# KEY TERMS IN 1 PETER
_elpis_ **(ἐλπίς)** [1680] "hope," "confident expectation"
Hebrews 11:1 says, "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." This parallelism links "things hoped for" with "things not seen," giving us a glimpse of the depth of hope in the Christian life. One of the three prominent Christian virtues (1 Cor. 13:13), a Christian's living hope is the future-oriented dimension of faith and love. Hope for a Christian is not abstract, but focused on particular promises, especially the promise of Christ's return and our future resurrection from the dead (1 Peter 1:3, 21; 3:15).
_nēphō_ **(νήφω)** [3525] "to be sober," "to be calm and collected," "to be temperate"
Used three times in 1 Peter (1:13; 4:7; 5:8), the exhortation to "be sober" literally means to avoid drunkenness. But in its six New Testament uses it refers metaphorically to being clear-headed rather than cloudy (1 Thes. 5:6) and having a temperate, discerning spirit, which is the primary meaning in 1 Peter. The term implies the ability to focus fully on what's most important.
_paschō_ **(πάσχω)** [3958] "to suffer," "to experience pain," "to endure hardship"
Both the verb form and its noun counterpart, _pathēma_ [3804], appear in every chapter of 1 Peter. Like life itself, Peter's letter is riddled with suffering. This word stands behind our English term "passion," especially as it refers to the sufferings of Christ. In Peter's letter the believers' experiences of suffering are closely linked to their continued participation in the ministry of Christ as His body, the church, called not only to eternal glory but also to temporal hardship.
* * *
## A REVIEW OF PETER'S MINISTRY
If you're like me, when you get a note, letter, or email, you first observe who sent it. When a total stranger writes me, I can usually understand the words, but I can never fully grasp the emotions and motives behind them. But if I know the person, it makes reading and understanding the words much easier. So, before we dive into the New Testament book called 1 Peter, we need to take the time to get acquainted with a man who began life as a rugged, coarse fisherman and ended it as a martyred statesman of the church.
We catch our first glimpse of Peter in Mark 1 when Jesus calls him and his brother, Andrew, as disciples:
As He was going along by the Sea of Galilee, He saw Simon and Andrew, the brother of Simon, casting a net in the sea; for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, "Follow Me, and I will make you become fishers of men." Immediately they left their nets and followed Him. (Mark 1:16-18)
Without hesitation, Simon Peter and Andrew turned their backs on that lucrative fishing business based in the Galilean city of Capernaum and followed Jesus. We could interpret their reaction as either enthusiastic or impulsive. Either way, Simon Peter's immediate response —in fact, the responses of all the Galilean disciples —fit what we know of the character of Galileans in general. The Jewish historian Josephus, onetime general in Galilee during the first century, described the Galilean temperament as "ever fond of innovations, and by nature disposed to changes, and delighting in seditions."[19] William Barclay notes, "Quick-tempered, impulsive, emotional, easily roused by an appeal to adventure, loyal to the end —Peter was a typical man of Galilee."[20]
Just think about Simon Peter's response. Most adults I know are fully engaged in their careers. Even if they're bored stiff, they know that making a career change usually means starting over and working up from the lowest rung on the proverbial ladder. So, whether they're just starting out or have been in a job for decades, most would think long and hard before suddenly dropping everything and leaving. But that's just what Simon Peter did. Yes, this may tell us something important about Jesus' compelling personality and preaching, but it also gives us a picture of Peter's adventurous abandon.
A casual glance at the biblical record of Peter's role among the disciples reveals that he enjoyed a place of prominence. Matthew even refers to Peter as "the first" ( _prōtos_ 4413]) of the twelve disciples (Matt. 10:2). However, we see in the account of Peter's calling that he and his brother, Andrew, were called at the same time (Mark 1:16-18). So, in Matthew 10:2 _prōtos_ probably means "first in prominence," not merely "first in order."[[21]
Indeed, Peter quickly became the spokesperson for the disciples. His boldness led him to step forward with questions nobody else would ask (Matt. 15:15; 18:21; 19:27). He acted as Jesus' PR man to those on the outside (Matt. 17:24). And when they were in Capernaum, Jesus used Peter's home as their ministry headquarters (Mark 1:29-32).
Barry Beitzel
Capernaum: The modern Catholic church in the foreground is built over the ruins of a fifth-century Byzantine church, which in turn was built on the likely location of Peter's house. The other structure is a fourth-century synagogue.
Yet the biblical texts indicate that Peter was a bit impulsive in his loyalty. He actually argued with Jesus when the Lord let the disciples in on His impending death and resurrection (Matt. 16:21). That plan didn't fit with Peter's idea of how the Messiah's career should pan out. Matthew writes, "Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, 'God forbid it, Lord! This shall never happen to You'" (Matt. 16:22). Peter's loyal but impulsive response drew Jesus' ire: "Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; for you are not setting your mind on God's interests, but man's" (Matt. 16:23).
Of course, nobody can forget Peter's denial. His great zeal led the man to make promises he couldn't keep. Not because he didn't want to, but because in the power of the flesh —without the enabling Spirit of God —he couldn't. "Even though all may fall away because of You, I will never fall away!" (Matt. 26:33). We've already seen the results —determination, desperation, denial . . . and despair.
When that kind of tragedy occurs, it's tempting to conclude that you're through forever, isn't it? You may have never explicitly denied the Lord. But chances are you know the feeling of having failed to live up to your testimony. You may have stumbled into a lifestyle that has gotten off track, tripped up in your witness at home, work, or school, or perhaps slipped into an unfortunate string of words said in an angry outburst you wish you could retrieve. The good news is that failure is never final. No failure, no denial, no sin can trump the grace of God that restores the repentant rebel. Peter's life illustrates this beautifully.
* * *
# POPE PETER THE GREAT?
1 PETER
Was Peter the first in a long succession of popes placed at the head of the universal church by Jesus Himself? By coupling Simon Peter's place of leadership among the disciples with Peter's unique renaming in Matthew 16:18-19, some have concluded that Jesus founded the church upon Peter.
josefkubes/DollarPhotoClub
Statue of St. Peter in front of St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican
"I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven." (Matt. 16:18-19)
This deserves a closer look. We need to realize that Jesus didn't give special authority to Peter alone nor make him the one foundation upon which the universal church was established. First, it's true that Jesus renamed Simon the "Rock" ( _Petros_ [4074]) because of his confession about Christ. But when He refers to the foundation of the church He uses the word for "stone" ( _petra_ [4073]), which could refer metaphorically to Peter's confession or to Jesus Himself. Second, although the authority of "binding and loosing" is addressed to Peter in the singular in Matthew 16:19, it is also given to all the disciples in Matthew 18:18 and John 20:23. Finally, Peter himself uses the same term, _petra_ , to refer to Christ, the "rock ( _petra_ ) of offense" (1 Pet. 2:8), which he regarded as the "corner stone" of the church (1 Pet. 2:4-8).
We must remember, although Peter was a great leader in the first century church, he was never singled out with unique authority over all the other apostles. Nor should he be regarded as the "first pope," the first in a long line of popes in Rome who exert doctrinal authority over the Catholic Church. This notion of the "seat of Peter" having priority over all other Christian churches was not the view of the earliest church fathers. In fact, like the Protestant churches, the Eastern Orthodox Church never accepted the authority of the pope in their two thousand years of history.
* * *
Immediately after the resurrection, an angel at the empty tomb instructed the women, "Go, tell His disciples and Peter" (Mark 16:7). I've always loved it that the angel intentionally singled Peter out for the message that Jesus had risen from the dead. With those words, God's plan of restoration began. This rehabilitation of Peter is in keeping with Christ's own promise prior to Peter's denial: "Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat; but I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned again, strengthen your brothers" (Luke 22:31-32).
We see the climax of this restoration in the Gospel of John. After sharing breakfast beside an open fire on the shore of the Sea of Galilee with his disciples, Jesus quietly turned to Simon Peter and asked, "Simon, son of John, do you love Me more than these?" (John 21:15). John uses the verb for "unconditional love," _agapaō_ [25], which underscored the kind of superior devotion Peter had claimed when he promised never to abandon the Lord even if all others did (Matt. 26:33).
Ashamed at his claim to having devotion superior to the other disciples, Peter replied, "Yes, Lord; You know that I love You" (John 21:15). In this case John uses the word _phileō_ [5368], not _agapaō_ , defaulting to a word that means "brotherly love." Peter wasn't about to claim a place of superiority over his fellow disciples. Not again.
This was just the attitude of humility Jesus sought from that broken leader. So he responded to Peter, "Tend My lambs" (John 21:15). And just as Peter had denied his Lord three times, Jesus questioned Peter about his devotion three times (John 21:15-17). But the third time, John uses the word _phileō_ instead of _agapaō_ , illustrating how the Master met Peter where he was in his chastened sense of devotion to Christ, reassuring him that he was restored to his position of leadership among the disciples. From that point on, Peter would stand out as a shepherd among Christ's sheep, tending the lambs as a humble servant-leader.
We see Peter display this front-and-center leadership after Christ's ascension when he "stood up in the midst of the brethren" to take the lead in finding a replacement for Judas as the twelfth disciple (Acts 1:15). And on the day of Pentecost, Peter didn't hesitate to leap to his feet when the unbelieving Jews questioned the meaning of the miraculous signs of the Spirit: "But Peter, taking his stand with the eleven, raised his voice and declared . . ." (Acts 2:14). Years later, the apostle Paul regarded Peter as a major pillar in the church, ascribing to him a place of prominence (Gal. 1:18; 2:7-9).
However, Peter was not free of controversy in his growth toward maturity. At Antioch, Paul had to publicly rebuke Peter for hypocritically withdrawing himself from the Gentile believers when Jewish believers from Jerusalem arrived. Paul was referring to Peter when he reported, "For prior to the coming of certain men from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles; but when they came, he began to withdraw and hold himself aloof, fearing the party of the circumcision. The rest of the Jews joined him in hypocrisy, with the result that even Barnabas was carried away by their hypocrisy" (Gal. 2:12-13).
We know Paul's rebuke was effective because at the Jerusalem council Peter stood up among the apostles and made it clear that the gospel of grace was for the Gentiles apart from works of the Law:
After there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, "Brethren, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles would hear the word of the gospel and believe. And God, who knows the heart, testified to them giving them the Holy Spirit, just as He also did to us; and He made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith. Now therefore why do you put God to the test by placing upon the neck of the disciples a yoke which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? But we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, in the same way as they also are." (Acts 15:7-11)
Clearly, Peter didn't adjust quickly to God's program of bringing the gospel to the Gentiles. God repeated a vision for Peter three times in order to prepare him to preach the gospel to the Roman centurion Cornelius (Acts 10:9-48). But once he was convinced, Peter became a great champion of the Holy Spirit's mission to the Gentiles. He defended the development before Jewish Christians who hadn't yet come around to the idea (Acts 11:1-18).
Truly, Peter had been restored from his great denial. The gruff fisherman turned fisher of men continued to exercise great influence during the foundational years of the infant church. Consider several of the ways Peter left his mark on the first half of the book of Acts:
* Peter took the lead in choosing a twelfth disciple to take Judas's place (Acts 1).
* Peter became the major spokesman for the first outreach of evangelism (Acts 2).
* Peter healed the lame man at the temple with John (Acts 3).
* Peter courageously defied the Sanhedrin and refused to stop preaching Jesus (Acts 4).
* Peter presided over the grim task of dealing with the deception of Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5).
* Peter confirmed the preaching of the gospel to the Samaritans and dealt with the deceit of Simon the Magician (Acts 8).
* Peter healed the sick and raised the dead in Lydda, Sharon, and Joppa (Acts 9).
* Peter reached out to the Gentiles and realized the universal offer of the gospel (Acts 10).
The Bard wrote, "The evil that men do lives after them, / The good is oft interred with their bones."[22] In grace, Christ gave Peter a second chance at redeeming his legacy. It could have easily ended at dawn that Good Friday morning as the rooster crowed. But God had other plans for Peter.
## A PREVIEW OF PETER'S FIRST LETTER
Our brief sketch of the first part of Peter's life should give us enough background to understand the character of the man who penned 1 Peter. (We'll save the latter part of Peter's life for the introduction to 2 Peter.) In light of his life, you'll see some things about the letter that will make better sense. Peter had a heart for the hurting and broken. He had a ministry to those who were undergoing times of suffering. He got it. He knew that ministry means more than well-crafted messages and gentle pats on the back. Sincerity and truth, encouragement and exhortation —these things go hand in hand. So we shouldn't be surprised that Peter wrote his first letter to those who were hurting and at the brink of hopelessness.
## THE WRITER(S) AND RECIPIENTS OF THE LETTER
Though Peter identifies himself as the author of the letter in 1 Peter 1:1, he later mentions, "Through Silvanus . . . I have written to you briefly" (5:12). In the first-century world, this phrase often meant that the named person served as the secretary who either wrote a dictated letter or contributed to the composition of the letter under the direct authority of the primary author. This is likely the meaning here.[23] Peter doesn't say that he sent the letter to them by means of Silvanus but that he actually wrote the letter with Silvanus's help.
Who was this Silvanus who assisted Peter in composing this great letter of hope? Silvanus, also called "Silas," is first mentioned in Acts 15:22 as a leader in the Jerusalem church, where he first met Peter. He was one of the men sent with Paul and Barnabas to Antioch bearing the results of the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15:27). We are told that Silas was himself a "prophet" who encouraged and strengthened the believers in Antioch upon his arrival (Acts 15:32). After Paul's abrupt falling-out with Barnabas over whether to bring John Mark on the second missionary journey (Acts 15:35-39), Paul decided to take Silas instead of Barnabas (Acts 15:40). Silas is then mentioned repeatedly during Paul's second missionary journey. He suffered persecution with Paul, rejoicing through their suffering (Acts 16:19, 25). He worked closely with Paul and Timothy in establishing and strengthening the churches throughout Asia Minor, Macedonia, and Greece (Acts 16–18; 2 Cor. 1:19). It's easy to forget the fact that 1 and 2 Thessalonians are written not by Paul alone, but by "Paul and Silvanus and Timothy" (1 Thes. 1:1; 2 Thes. 1:1). After his ministry with Paul and Timothy, Silas next appears with Peter in Rome (the "Babylon" of 1 Peter 5:12-13). Silas was responsible for composing and sending the letter from Peter to the churches in Asia Minor (5:12); Silas was no doubt personally acquainted with many in these congregations.
So, if Silas (Silvanus) was partly responsible for writing 1 Peter, we have a collaborative writing by both an apostle (Peter) and a prophet (Silas).[24] The resultant letter, written in words inspired by the Holy Spirit, bears absolute authority and profound relevance for the church in every age. Although we may be able to discern the influence of Silas in this letter through various phrases that connect us to Paul's unique language and imagery, the author primarily responsible for its content is Peter.
The recipients of the letter are "those who reside as aliens, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia" (1:1). They were scattered aliens who knew the Lord —citizens of God's kingdom living in exile in the far reaches of the world. From an earthly perspective they were refugees, but from a heavenly perspective they were "chosen." Although they were scattered by persecution, victimized by circumstances beyond their control, and wandering in the wilderness of despair, these men and women still had reason to rejoice. They were God's chosen!
The believers scattered throughout Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey) included both Jewish and Gentile Christians experiencing persecution. Peter, likely writing from Rome, drew from both his Jewish background and his intercultural experience to weave together a message that would communicate to both groups. He drew extensively on Old Testament texts and images that would be familiar to Jewish Christians. But he also reminded his Gentile readers that they were no longer ignorant and immoral (1 Pet. 1:14) but now recipients of mercy as the people of God (2:10; quoting Hos. 1:6, 9-10; 2:23).
## PURPOSE AND PREVIEW OF THE LETTER
Our hope as believers must rise above the treatment we receive from those who dislike and distrust us. It must rely on the Lord and His sure promises. The point of Peter's letter, to put it simply, is that _Christ gives hope in hurtful times_. Who better to know how to keep hope ablaze in a cold world of dark despair than one who has lived his earlier life in physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual gloom?
So, throughout the book of 1 Peter we see reminders of the reality of suffering (1:6-7; 2:18-19; 3:15-16; 4:12-16; 5:8-10). The theme keeps moving to the forefront of Peter's mind. It's the message his readers needed to hear —and a message Peter was well-prepared to send. The purpose of Peter's letter was to remind the Christians that painful trials are not the end. God will frustrate His adversaries and bring about a redemptive purpose through these periods of pain. Peter reminds us of what we can so easily forget: Christ gives hope in hurtful times.
Peter develops this encouraging message through three movements. First, he _informs_ his readers of their living hope (1:1–2:12). In this section, he lets us know that grace and peace can be ours as we claim our hope (1:3-12), as we walk in holiness (1:13-25), and as we grow in Christ (2:1-12). Peter highlights the grace that sustains us, describing a _living hope_ through Christ's resurrection (1:3). Christ becomes the _source_ of hope in hurtful times.
Next, Peter _exhorts_ his readers to hopeful living in spite of their status as aliens and strangers (2:13–4:11). He urges us to submit to various authorities (2:13–3:7), to be humble in spirit (3:8-22), to be armed with endurance (4:1-6), and to glorify God (4:7-11). These principles become the key to living as Christians in a hostile world. Peter emphasizes grace to stand firm, describing a _calm hope_ through personal submission (3:6). Christ becomes the _example_ of hope in hurtful times.
Finally, Peter _comforts_ his readers in the midst of their fiery ordeal (4:12–5:14). He reminds us not to be surprised at our difficult circumstances (4:12). Instead, we should keep rejoicing (4:13), entrust our lives to God (4:19), and cast our worries on Him (5:7). Peter encourages us with grace to rejoice, turning our attention toward a _firm_ hope through faith (4:19). Christ becomes the _foundation_ of hope in hurtful times.
Peter addressed his first letter to believers living in five regions of Asia Minor (modern Turkey): Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia (1:1).
# OUR LIVING HOPE (1 PETER 1:1–2:12)
Bursting into the darkness ahead of his younger companion who had reached the tomb a few moments earlier, Peter's eyes needed to adjust to the darkness. It only took a glance for him to confirm Mary's report: _Jesus' body was gone_! But the situation was not as simple as a missing corpse. Instead of the dead body that had been placed in the tomb, Peter found the stained linen wrappings still lying on the slab and the facecloth rolled neatly and set aside.
John's voice suddenly broke the silence, echoing off the stone walls. "He's . . . he's risen!"
"Shh!" Peter whispered, still thinking things through. He had made enough rash decisions to last a lifetime. He was not about to make another one. Somebody could have stolen the body. But who? None of the disciples; he knew that for sure. They had been holed up since the crucifixion, fearing that they, too, would be arrested and executed like their Master. And it could not have been the Jewish authorities or the Romans. Of all people, they needed Jesus dead and buried. But who else would have snatched the body? And where would they have taken it?
"He's risen!" John insisted. Peter motioned for him to be silent, then stroked his beard with a trembling hand. Even if somebody had taken the body, they had left the burial clothes! And they had even taken the time to fold the face cloth neatly. How preposterous! You don't just go trudging around Jerusalem with a naked, cold corpse. That wasn't kosher by any standard. Peter closed his eyes as Jesus' words passed through his mind. It was as if the Lord Himself were privately whispering them to him again: "Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat; but I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned again, strengthen your brothers" (Luke 22:31-32).
Tears welled up and overflowed as he opened his eyes and surveyed the empty tomb. John pressed forward, scanning the burial clothes and turning back to Peter with an expression somewhere between delight and terror: "Simon, listen to me . . . He —has —risen. He —is —alive!"
Nodding his head, Peter leaned against the wall of the tomb and said, "You're right, John. He has risen indeed!" At that moment, Peter felt as if a massive tombstone rolled away from his own heart and stale burial wrappings were removed from his mind.
* * *
# KEY TERMS IN 1 PETER 1:1–2:12
_aphthartos_ **(ἄφθαρτος)** [862] "imperishable," "not subject to decay," "incorruptible"
This word is the negation of _phthartos_ [5349] —"corruptible." Whereas everything in this fallen world is subject to decay, including mortal humans (Rom. 1:23) and material rewards (1 Cor. 9:25), Christians look forward with hope in an incorruptible resurrection body (1 Cor. 15:53) and an imperishable reward (1 Pet. 1:4). Peter further refines this idea by noting that we are imperishable because we have been born by an imperishable seed, the "living and enduring word of God" (1:23).
_hagios_ **(ἅγιος)** [40] "holy," "sacred," "set apart," "pure," "upright"
The concept of holiness plays a major role in Peter's first letter. In its basic sense, "holy" means to be set apart, separated for a special, unique purpose. When used regarding a person, it sometimes means to be consecrated for a particular service (1 Pet. 2:5). Other times the moral aspect is emphasized —being morally distinct from the surrounding immoral society (1:15). In either case, the standard for our holiness is God's holiness (1:16), and the means is the calling of the Holy One through the sanctifying work of the Spirit of holiness (1:2, 15).
_hypakoē_ **(ὑπακοή)** [5218] "obedience," "compliance," "submission"
This word is related to the verb _hypakouō_ [5219] —"to hear," or "obey." Peter calls on Christians to render absolute obedience to Christ as Lord (1 Pet. 1:2, 14, 22). Therefore, we are to be listening for His commands, and when He calls we must immediately respond without reservation.
* * *
He knew that everything would soon change —everything.
Almost thirty years later Peter would pen these words of praise: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead" (1 Pet. 1:3).
It is to this living hope Peter points his readers in the first major section of his letter. First he informs his readers regarding their hope (1:1–2:10). Then he broadens his scope as he lets believers of every generation know that grace and peace can be ours as we claim our hope in the midst of suffering (1:3-12), as we walk in holiness in a corrupt world (1:13-25), and as we grow together in Christ as His special people (2:1-10).
Highlighting the grace that strengthens us to go on in spite of our circumstances, Peter shines the light on the resurrected Christ —not on us or the world —as the one reliable source of hope in hurtful times. And just as the light of day displaced the darkness in that empty tomb nearly two thousand years ago, the light of hope can fill all our hearts with joy, driving out the shadows of despair.
# Smiling through Suffering
1 PETER 1:1-12
NASB
1 Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ,
To those who reside as aliens, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, who are chosen 2 according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit, [a]to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with His blood: May grace and peace [b]be yours in the fullest measure.
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to _obtain_ an inheritance _which is_ imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, 5 who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various [a]trials, 7 so that the [a]proof of your faith, _being_ more precious than gold which [b]is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ; 8 and though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and [a]full of glory, 9 obtaining as the outcome of your faith the salvation of [a]your souls.
10 As to this salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that _would come_ to you made careful searches and inquiries, 11[a]seeking to know what person or time the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating as He predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories [b]to follow. 12 It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves, but you, in these things which now have been announced to you through those who preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven —things into which angels long to [a]look.
1:2 [a]Lit _unto obedience and sprinkling_ [b]Lit _be multiplied for you_ 1:6 [a]Or _temptations_ 1:7 [a]Or _genuineness_ [b]Lit _perishes_ 1:8 [a]Lit _glorified_ 1:9 [a]One early ms does not contain _your_ 1:11 [a]Or _inquiring_ [b]Lit _after these_ 1:12 [a]Or _gain a clear glimpse_
NLT
1 This letter is from Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ.
I am writing to God's chosen people who are living as foreigners in the provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia.[*] 2 God the Father knew you and chose you long ago, and his Spirit has made you holy. As a result, you have obeyed him and have been cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ.
May God give you more and more grace and peace.
3 All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is by his great mercy that we have been born again, because God raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Now we live with great expectation, 4 and we have a priceless inheritance —an inheritance that is kept in heaven for you, pure and undefiled, beyond the reach of change and decay. 5 And through your faith, God is protecting you by his power until you receive this salvation, which is ready to be revealed on the last day for all to see.
6 So be truly glad.[*] There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you must endure many trials for a little while. 7 These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold —though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world.
8 You love him even though you have never seen him. Though you do not see him now, you trust him; and you rejoice with a glorious, inexpressible joy. 9 The reward for trusting him will be the salvation of your souls.
10 This salvation was something even the prophets wanted to know more about when they prophesied about this gracious salvation prepared for you. 11 They wondered what time or situation the Spirit of Christ within them was talking about when he told them in advance about Christ's suffering and his great glory afterward.
12 They were told that their messages were not for themselves, but for you. And now this Good News has been announced to you by those who preached in the power of the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. It is all so wonderful that even the angels are eagerly watching these things happen.
[1:1] _Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia,_ and _Bithynia_ were Roman provinces in what is now Turkey. [1:6] Or _So you are truly glad._
* * *
All people, in all places, and at all times have one thing in common —we know what it means to hurt. Whether Jews or Christians, Muslims or Hindus, atheists or idolaters —our tears are all the same. Cultures ebb and flow, nations rise and fall, and people groups come and go; but suffering transcends all cultures, invades every nation, and translates its message of pain to each person who has ever lived.
Pain, being such a pervasive problem, requires a potent prescription. Peter's first letter dispenses the remedy by telling us how we can endure suffering, not with disciplined determination and clenched teeth but with a settled sense of peace —yes, even joy. For most, that sounds absolutely preposterous. But Peter deserves a fair hearing.
The people to whom Peter wrote were displaced believers, scarred by the flames of persecution. Their circumstances were bleak. They had every earthly reason to give up hope. Many were defecting. But Peter didn't try to pump them full of positive thinking or offer a pile of empty platitudes. Instead, he came alongside them in their suffering, gently turning their attention heavenward, allowing them to see beyond their circumstances and find new hope in their celestial calling.
And Peter's words can do the same for us.
## — 1:1-2 —
I love modern inventions, technology, and the efficiency and convenience that come with them. But I also like old things —classical music, quaint sayings, leather-bound books. One old thing I really appreciate is the style of writing letters where the person who wrote put his or her name at the beginning. Isn't that convenient? In ancient times, people signed their letters at the beginning, so the recipient knew immediately who put the ink on the papyrus.
Now imagine that you are a Christian living in the midst of tremendous pressure from every direction. In your best moments, you grit your teeth and complain about the Lord's delayed return. At your worst, you consider going back to the familiar rituals of the synagogue or even returning to those idol-filled temples. At one of your disillusioned moments, somebody hands you a letter rolled up and bound. You break the seal, slowly unroll the scroll, and read immediately, "Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ." Like a cool breeze cutting through sultry summer heat, those opening words blow through your weariness and ignite fresh hope. That great apostle has written a letter — _to you_. Suddenly that light roll of papyrus feels heavy in your hands and you can't wait to gather with your fellow believers and pore over it. Hope has just arrived!
Peter wrote to "those who reside as aliens, scattered." They were foreigners away from home; their treasured destination was with Christ —in heaven when they died, but ultimately in His kingdom whenever He returns. But now? Now they were "scattered" ( _diaspora_ [1290]), displaced throughout the world. _Diaspora_ is the term James used to refer to displaced Jewish believers (Jas. 1:1). Peter uses the term in a broader sense, referring to _all_ Christians —Jews and Gentiles —driven by hardship into the wilderness of a harsh and hostile world, persecuted and alienated. Whether they were living in their own homes or not, these readers had "scattered" lives, fractured spirits, and broken hearts. Their pain was bone deep.
When facing persecution, our instincts tell us to flee or fight back. Persevering through suffering and responding with grace is extremely difficult to do. If you've ever had anyone mistreat you, you know the great temptation to defend yourself, to lash back, to get even. Peter wrote for the purpose of helping his readers get beyond all that, to gain composure, and to find hope in spite of all the unfair treatment.
Because the church began in Judea among Jews, the Roman Empire first looked upon it as a sect of Judaism. Among all the pagan religions in the Roman world, Judaism was the only legal religion not required to offer sacrifices to the emperor. Instead, they could offer prayers on the emperor's behalf. As long as Christians were viewed as a sect of Judaism, the Romans regarded them as being under that umbrella of exemption and protection. But when the synagogue expelled Christians and Christianity took on a distinct identity composed of both Gentiles and Jews, it lost its legal protection and would eventually become the target of Roman persecution. Until then, society at large as well as local leaders would increasingly marginalize, demonize, and antagonize the Christian communities. This is the situation in which the Christians living in Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey) found themselves when they received Peter's letter. The spark of suspicion had lit the flame of persecution, which would eventually engulf the Roman world in a blazing rampage against the infant church, seeking to reduce the movement to ashes. Peter's words are meant not only to comfort them in their hot crucible of suffering but also to prepare them for subsequent waves of more severe persecutions that were sure to follow.
Peter begins to encourage his readers by reviewing their position before God. They are "chosen" according to the Father's foreknowledge, made holy and set apart by the Spirit, and consecrated by the blood of Christ, whom they were to serve through obedience (1:2). This reminder of God's grace toward them was to bring them peace "in the fullest measure," regardless of the chaos they endured in daily life.
## — 1:3-9 —
In 1:3-9, Peter writes about how we can do more than cope with suffering. We can, in fact, defiantly rejoice in its midst! In this majestic hymn, called a "doxology" ("glorifying words"), Peter praises God for providing at least six reasons we can rejoice through suffering. These verses are the meat on the bones of "grace and peace" mentioned in 1:2. And if 1:2 asserted our unconditional position before our triune God as His chosen ones, 1:3-9 describes the incomparable possessions we have in that abiding relationship with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
* * *
# EXCURSUS: THE TRINITY AND SALVATION
1 PETER 1:2
If you're not careful, you might zip through 1 Peter 1:2 and miss the Trinity at work in your salvation. Many Christians forget —or at least fail to fully appreciate —that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit work together in perfect harmony to establish our new identity as children of God. Far too often we imagine that the doctrine of the Trinity is irrelevant to our lives, that it's just so much theory without actual practical importance. But Peter's opening blessing dismisses that view as shortsighted at best.
One author writes, "Each person of the Godhead plays a distinct role: the Father chooses, the Son redeems, and the Spirit sanctifies."[25] We must recognize that although the triune persons affect distinct aspects of our salvation, the work is done in complete unity. At the same time, we must be careful not to confuse the persons of the Trinity in ways that imply that they are the same person with different names. For example, Christians who thank God the Father for dying on the cross are carelessly attributing the work of the Son to the Father. We need to follow the New Testament example, understanding that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit —though sharing complete deity and eternally united —are also distinct in their roles.
This working in unity and distinction reflects the unity and diversity of Father, Son, and Spirit in the Godhead. In contrast to the countless gods of pagan religions, Scripture teaches that there is one true God (Deut. 6:4; Isa. 45:6; 46:9). However, in the unity of the Godhead exist three coeternal persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Father is God (John 6:27; Eph. 4:4-6), the Son is God (John 1:1; Heb. 1:8), and the Holy Spirit is God (Acts 5:3-4). But the Father is not the Son (Luke 23:46; John 20:17), the Father is not the Spirit (Luke 11:13; John 14:26), and the Spirit is not the Son (John 14:16; Acts 2:33). Yet there are not three gods, but one triune God. This biblical doctrine of the Trinity —"one God in three persons" —is impossible to fully comprehend, but foundational to our salvation (1 Pet. 1:2).
* * *
_A living hope_ (1:3). The first reason we can rejoice is because we have a "living hope." Believers in Jesus Christ have been "born again" to a living hope because of Christ's resurrection from the dead. When we realize that the ultimate destination on this long, difficult journey is eternity in heaven, it makes the potholes and breakdowns in life worth bearing. To the unsaved, hope is nothing more than wishing upon a star.
* "I hope I win the lottery."
* "I hope my boy shapes up someday."
* "I hope things work out for me in my job."
* "I hope I make it to the next paycheck."
But this kind of wishful thinking isn't the same as a _living hope_. Christian hope is grounded on the reality of Christ and His resurrection. Because He rose from the grave, we, too, will be raised like Him in glorified bodies to dwell in a new heaven and new earth for eternity (1 Thes. 4:16-18; Rev. 21:5).
_A permanent inheritance_ (1:4). The second reason we can rejoice in suffering is that we have a permanent inheritance. I've had the privilege over my years of ministry to do a lot of traveling, staying in all kinds of motels and hotels around the world. But I freely confess, I get especially irritated when my "guaranteed" room reservations somehow vanish. You show up at 9:30 at night exhausted from a long day of travel, give the guy your name and credit card, and wait while he does some voodoo on his computer, then stares through you like you're a ghost. If your name isn't on their little screen, you don't exist! You then give him your confirmation number, but it does no good. In the end you wind up in a flophouse two blocks down with nothing but a halfhearted apology because somehow your reservation vanished —faded away.
Peter offers great news: This will never happen to our reservation in glory! Our heavenly reservations are purchased by the blood of Christ and confirmed by His glorious resurrection. Some celestial receptionist won't look at you and say, "Now what was your name again?" or "Could I see your credit card just one more time?" No —after your long, painful journey in this life, the living God will welcome you home without an inch of red tape. We can rejoice in times of suffering because our inheritance is sure.
_A divine protection_ (1:5). The third reason to rejoice in suffering is that we "are protected by the power of God." No matter how acute the persecution, you and I will never be lost in the process. God's hand of comfort and strength will remain with us. No matter the calamity, no matter the cause of death, the depth of pain, the horror of catastrophe —God is in control. And He is all-powerful, all good, and all knowing. That means we can trust Him regardless of our circumstances. Death may destroy our outward bodies, but God has promised to protect our souls —and to raise our bodies immortal and glorious "in the last time." No one can tell us all the reasons we go through such hard times. Nobody can explain it to our complete satisfaction. But because we know the kind of God we have, we can accept the mystery of suffering and know for sure that God will protect us by His power from now throughout eternity.
_A developing faith_ (1:6-7). The fourth reason to rejoice in the midst of various trials is that these bring about a growing, strengthening faith. Peter acknowledges that they have been "distressed by various trials" for some time. He doesn't try to downplay or dismiss the reality of suffering, but he offers a reason to "greatly rejoice" in spite of —not because of —the testing (1:6). Pain and suffering are not in themselves good. They are the result of a fallen world. We can be certain of this: When God cures this world from its curse, those things will not be present. In spite of the evils of persecution, pain, and hardship, God providentially brings about good results.
Verses 6-7 offer four truths about trials.
* They are necessary to humble us, to turn our attention from self to God.
* They are distressing, painful, and difficult, not good, delightful, and easy.
* They are varied and diverse; they come in different forms, at different times, and for different durations.
* They are revealing, proving the genuineness of our faith, just as gold, when refined in fire, is purified and demonstrated to be authentic.
All these things merge to bring about the development of faith as believers endure trials throughout life. Although we don't rejoice over the trial itself, we can rejoice over the result brought about by our God.
_An unseen Savior_ (1:8). Christians can rejoice through times of suffering because we have confidence in the unseen power of Christ. Behind Peter's words may be an event that happened several years earlier when Jesus revealed Himself alive to Thomas, who had doubted the Resurrection. When Thomas finally declared his belief in Jesus as Lord and God, Jesus responded, "Because you have seen Me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed" (John 20:29). This is the category in which Peter's readers found themselves —they were especially blessed because although they had not literally seen the Savior, they still believed in Him and loved Him as if He were present. We "see" Christ most clearly in times of trial. When suffering comes, it dispels a lot of the fog that clouds our vision. Often, all that remains is the Savior and our trust in Him.
_A guaranteed deliverance_ (1:9). I'll never forget a trip to Canada that lasted eight days. I had clothes with me for two days because my bags ended up in Berlin. They had been delivered thousands of miles away, across an ocean that they had no business crossing. That kind of experience will make you think twice about trusting your luggage with the person standing in front of the conveyor belt, ready to send your bags to who-knows-where. I don't blame people who refuse to check bags, because the delivery is never guaranteed. But Christ can guarantee delivery. The final reason we can rejoice in suffering is because the salvation of our souls is guaranteed. God has the power to save us physically through trials, true, but even when our bodies eventually succumb to death, our souls are faithfully delivered as promised.
Can we really rejoice in the midst of suffering? Peter answers this with a resounding "Yes!" But our rejoicing is not because suffering is great or because we're out of touch with reality, but because we have a living hope, a permanent inheritance, a divine protection, a developing faith, an unseen Savior, and a guaranteed deliverance. Training ourselves to remember these truths helps to soften life's sharp edges.
## — 1:10-12 —
What a marvelous salvation! It not only guarantees an inheritance for us in the future but also provides inexplicable faith, hope, and joy in the present. In light of this glorious truth, Peter shifts gears from the future and present to revisit the past. In fact, he goes far back into the distant past.
This slight regression unpacks something about the "salvation" mentioned in verse 9. Peter begins, "As to this salvation," then mentions the Old Testament prophets who prophesied back in their day about the grace that had now arrived in Peter's time (1:10). How does this regression fit into Peter's argument that we can have hope in hurtful times? Quite simply, his reflection on how the prophets looked forward to the salvation through Christ increases the value of our current hope. It also affirms that God has a track record of making good on His promises. The prophets looked forward in hope toward Christ —and _Christ came_! In the same way, we look forward to the return of Christ —and _Christ will come_!
* * *
# EXCURSUS: PROPHETIC TELESCOPING
1 PETER 1:10-12
Looking into the future, the Old Testament prophets didn't have a clear picture of God's full plan. They saw, as it were, two mountain peaks: Mount Golgotha and Mount Olivet. On Golgotha Christ would die in humility and disgrace (Isa. 53:8-9; Mark 15:22); on Olivet He would return in glory and power (Zech. 14:4). They saw the peaks, but from their vantage point they couldn't see a great valley that stretched between the two mountains. This valley represents the present age of the church.
The Old Testament believers were also at a disadvantage in that they didn't have the permanent indwelling of the Holy Spirit as we do today. The Spirit of God spoke through the prophets, igniting their message, but they had not experienced the spiritual baptism into the body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:12-13; Eph. 3:4-6). Today the Spirit works to empower us with faith and hope as in no other era. With the cross behind us and the crown of glory before us, we are encouraged to press on.
* * *
Peter says that we have a unique vantage point that the Old Testament prophets didn't have. We can look back and see Christ's life and miracles recorded by eyewitnesses. We see His saving death and resurrection, read His words and promises, and see how the church grew and spread throughout the world in spite of persecution. All this gives us confidence that God will work out His current plan in our lives today. But the Old Testament prophets had much less to go on. Their mental images prior to the coming of Christ weren't as clear as our understanding after His coming. In fact, Peter says they "made careful searches and inquiries, seeking to know what person or time the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating as He predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow" (1:10-11).
Peter says the Old Testament saints saw the high peaks of God's plan —the death and resurrection of Christ and His future kingdom —but they missed the finer points of the space in between. That space, always part of God's plan but kept hidden from the prophets' view, includes the present period of salvation through Christ in the church. From the Old Testament prophets' perspective, they may have expected an immediate leap from the sufferings of the cross to the glories of the crown. But between these epochal events, we experience the "in-between" times, in which suffering and hope, pain and glory, are mingled.
Those prophets didn't fully grasp what they wrote by the Holy Spirit's revelation. As they obediently wrote, they realized that their words were for a future time. Peter knew that this time had come in the person and work of Christ. The same Holy Spirit who had inspired the Scriptures empowered the apostles to preach this good news to the believers of Asia Minor (1:12). So profound is the fulfillment of those expectations that even angels long to listen in on our songs of redemption, to look over the shoulder of a sinner praying for forgiveness, and to linger as believers endure temporary suffering for the sake of eternal glory.
If angels marvel at the hope we have in Christ, shouldn't we?
* * *
# APPLICATION: 1 PETER 1:1-12
Making Sense of Your Suffering
In his book _The Problem of Pain,_ C. S. Lewis commented on the ramifications of the lofty creative vision God has for our lives —to make us more like Christ.
We are, not metaphorically but in very truth, a Divine work of art, something that God is making. . . . Over a sketch made idly to amuse a child, an artist may not take much trouble: he may be content to let it go even though it is not exactly as he meant it to be. But over the great picture of his life —the work which he loves, though in a different fashion, as intensely as a man loves a woman or a mother a child —he will take endless trouble —and would, doubtless, thereby _give_ endless trouble to the picture if it were sentient. One can imagine a sentient picture, after being rubbed and scraped and re-commenced for the tenth time, wishing that it were only a thumb-nail sketch whose making was over in a minute. In the same way, it is natural for us to wish that God had designed for us a less glorious and less arduous destiny; but then we are wishing not for more love but for less.[26]
For those who suffer, only Christ's perspective can replace resentment with rejoicing and hardness with humility. I've seen it happen in hospital rooms as I prayed with hurting people. I've seen it happen in my study as I counseled hardened hearts. I've seen it happen with individuals lost and wandering in the world as they came to embrace Christ and suddenly realized that Jesus is the central piece of life's puzzle, which had been missing all those years. If you fit Him into place, the rest of the puzzle —no matter how enigmatic —begins to make sense.
Are you in the midst of the storm right now? Wondering when, or if, it will ever end? Have you begun to think that maybe you're being punished, that God has abandoned you, or that you need to do whatever it takes to escape all this pain? Stop. When you become a Christian, the storms of life will not suddenly break. Truth be told, they sometimes intensify into hurricanes for a season. But even in the midst of the hurricane, you have the Master of the wind and waves sitting beside you in your tiny boat, manning the helm and keeping you on an even keel.
* * *
# Staying Clean in a Corrupt Society
1 PETER 1:13-21
NASB
13 Therefore, [a]prepare your minds for action, [b]keep sober _in spirit,_ fix your hope completely on the grace [c]to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 14 As [a]obedient children, do not [b]be conformed to the former lusts _which were yours_ in your ignorance, 15 but [a]like the Holy One who called you, [b]be holy yourselves also in all _your_ behavior; 16 because it is written, "YOU SHALL BE HOLY, FOR I AM HOLY."
17 If you address as Father the One who impartially judges according to each one's work, conduct yourselves in fear during the time of your stay _on earth;_ 18 knowing that you were not [a]redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, 19 but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, _the blood_ of Christ. 20 For He was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but has appeared [a]in these last times for the sake of you 21 who through Him are believers in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.
1:13 [a]Lit _gird the loins of your mind_ [b]Lit _be sober_ [c]Or _which is announced_ 1:14 [a]Lit _children of obedience_ [b]Or _conform yourselves_ 1:15 [a]Lit _according to_ [b]Or _become_ 1:18 [a]Or _ransomed_ 1:20 [a]Lit _at the end of the times_
NLT
13 So prepare your minds for action and exercise self-control. Put all your hope in the gracious salvation that will come to you when Jesus Christ is revealed to the world. 14 So you must live as God's obedient children. Don't slip back into your old ways of living to satisfy your own desires. You didn't know any better then. 15 But now you must be holy in everything you do, just as God who chose you is holy. 16 For the Scriptures say, "You must be holy because I am holy."[*]
17 And remember that the heavenly Father to whom you pray has no favorites. He will judge or reward you according to what you do. So you must live in reverent fear of him during your time here as "temporary residents." 18 For you know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And it was not paid with mere gold or silver, which lose their value. 19 It was the precious blood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God. 20 God chose him as your ransom long before the world began, but now in these last days he has been revealed for your sake.
21 Through Christ you have come to trust in God. And you have placed your faith and hope in God because he raised Christ from the dead and gave him great glory.
[1:16] Lev 11:44-45; 19:2; 20:7.
* * *
In the opening passage, Peter's emphasis was on hope to go on in spite of suffering. This hope grows stronger as we focus on the relief we'll enjoy in our heavenly home. Still focusing on the believer's life in this fallen world, Peter now shifts his emphasis from physical trials to spiritual temptations. If the question in the first section was, "How can I remain joyful in the midst of suffering?" the question in the next is, "How can I stay clean in a corrupt society?"
Throughout history, Christians have responded to this question with all sorts of extremes. Some have adopted a hermit mentality, hiding away in caves and living a life of virtual solitude. Others have modeled a monk mentality, dwelling only with believers in a close-knit community away from the world's reach. Those with a utopian mentality have attempted to rebuild a perfect society from the ground up —a world without worldliness. Interestingly, each approach falls under the idea of a sanctification by isolation —withdrawing from the world in some way to keep it from rubbing off on them.
The Bible provides a very different approach from that of the hermits, monks, and utopians. Believers have a mission to accomplish in the world, and therefore we can't afford to lock ourselves _outside_ the world. The Christian's solution to the problem of holy living in an unholy world is not _isolation_ , it's _insulation._ This is why 1 Peter 1:13-21 challenges us to be different from our depraved society without fleeing to the caves, cloisters, or communes.
## — 1:13-16 —
I can imagine that as Peter dictated the first twelve verses of his letter, he did so in a posture of praise as he paced the room in Rome where he was staying. Perhaps he stared out the window, directing his prayerful words partly to his secretary, Silas, and partly to his heavenly Father, as he praised Him for the living hope believers have through Christ. But then, after he spoke the words "things into which angels long to look" in 1:12, I can picture Peter stopping in his tracks, closing his eyes, and taking a deep breath. His tone changes from exultation to exhortation, and he says, "Therefore, prepare your minds for action" (1:13). In other words, in light of the great salvation that has been lavishly poured upon us, it's time to get serious. He fires off a series of staccato commands one after the other. If he were writing in today's style, he might have used bullet points.
* Prepare your minds!
* Keep sober!
* Set your hope on grace!
* Don't be conformed!
* Be holy!
Peter wants believers to realize that even though we're living in a wicked world filled with thousands of daily trials and dark temptations, our focus must rise above the present circumstances. This means living by a higher standard than the world around us. That's the meaning of "holiness" Peter's addressing. It means being _different._ Peter says it starts in the mind: "Prepare your minds for action, keep sober" (1:13). But it leads outward, beyond ourselves: "Fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ." According to 1 John 3:3, hope and holiness belong together: "And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure." (It sounds like Peter and John hung out a lot, doesn't it?)
Peter then assumes their obedience in verse 14. It's not an unreasonable assumption if they were obeying the commands of verse 13; if they had prepared their minds, kept sober and alert with regard to the world around them, and fixed their hope on the coming of Christ, obedience would come more easily. Their obedience took a specific form: "Do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance" (1:14). We've already seen how Peter and John used similar language regarding hope and holiness. Now we observe a striking parallel between Peter and Paul. You may remember Paul's language in Romans 12:2: "And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." Another reminder: Holiness starts in the mind. It includes a departure from ignorance and a renewal of your thought life. And it leads to conforming to Christ's holiness rather than to the lusts of the world.
This leads to Peter's exhortation to holiness: Like the Holy One Himself, believers are to be holy in all their behavior (1 Pet. 1:15). He reinforces this practical outworking of their hope and obedience by quoting the book of Leviticus. In Leviticus 11:44-45, God declared, "For I am the LORD your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy. . . . For I am the LORD who brought you up from the land of Egypt to be your God; thus you shall be holy, for I am holy."[27] In Leviticus 20:26, this same mandate is linked to the role of Israel as God's special people: "Thus you are to be holy to Me, for I the LORD am holy; and I have set you apart from the peoples to be Mine."
What does it mean for Christians to be "holy"? Ask around and you'll get a host of answers, most of them erroneous. The term, in its basic sense, means to be set apart, separated for a special, unique purpose. This is why marriage is sometimes called "holy matrimony." A husband and wife separate from their former family commitments as they commit themselves to each other in a unique and intimate relationship. We also call the Bible "Holy Scripture" because these writings, inspired by the Holy Spirit, are of such perfection that they have been set apart from all other human writings, however good and helpful others may be. So it is with God's people. Israel in the Old Testament and now Christians in the New are set apart for the glory of God.
* * *
# From My Journal
# Holy Is as Holy Does
1 PETER 1:15-16
When I was serving in the military eight thousand miles away from my wife, I had nobody around to check up on me as far as my "holy matrimony" was concerned. I had only the memory of standing before God and a couple of preachers who said the right words so that Cynthia and I might be husband and wife. I had the memory of being exclusively set apart unto my wife and she exclusively set apart unto me —for the rest of our lives.
It was a holy setting-apart of our lives to one another. To go into another life and to be intimate with another partner would be to break that holy relationship, that exclusive oneness that was ours by holy matrimony. But it wasn't enough to have consecrated myself to my wife that one moment. I had to continue to glance down at my wedding band, stare at that photograph, cling to those letters, and remember those words. You see, even though I was permanently set apart unto my wife, I still needed to be continually confirmed in that commitment. What's true in marriage is true in our relationship with God. We were declared "holy" by our gracious God when we were saved, entering into a permanent relationship with Him. But from day to day we must continually remind ourselves of our holy calling, recommit ourselves to it, and live in it.
This is why I begin virtually every morning by saying, "Lord, I set apart my mind for You today. I set apart my passion, my eyes, my ears, my lips. I set apart my motivations, my attitudes, my disciplines. I set apart all these things to You." This kind of simple reminder has kept me moving toward that goal of holiness Peter mentions in 1 Peter 1:15-16. I would urge you to do the same.
* * *
## — 1:17 —
Not only are we to live holy lives in light of our hope (1:13-16); we also are to conduct our walk in the fear of the Lord (1:17). I know we're living in a world that doesn't like to talk much about the fear of God. People don't mind talking about the love, grace, mercy, and blessings of God; but to refer to God as the Judge who evaluates our work —this kind of thinking bothers a lot of people today, even Christians. But Peter doesn't hesitate to refer to the great holiness and justice of God, who demands reverence before Him. We would be wise to conform our attitude to Peter's words rather than to the world's preferences.
When Peter says, "If you address as Father . . . ," he has prayer in mind. If we're going to pray to God as "our Father," then we must speak and act as "obedient children" (1:14). We should hold Him in high reverence, knowing that we will one day give account to Him for our time spent on this earth. Hope again fills in the gap —but this is a realization that the hoped-for ascent to our heavenly dwelling will be accompanied by rewards directly related to the genuine quality of our lives. Paul gives us a similar sobering reminder: "So then each one of us will give an account of himself to God" (Rom. 14:12). And in 2 Corinthians 5:10 he writes, "For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad."
One day, believers will be brought before the judgment seat of Christ, where we will give account for our lives before God and He will reward us accordingly. First Corinthians 3:15 makes it clear that even the believer who gains no reward will still be saved, but God's judgment will separate the quality things from the wasted time, money, energy, and motives that tainted a believer's holiness. On this earth, Christians applaud other Christians who have dynamic ministries, impactful evangelism, and powerful testimonies. And on the surface, many appear to be super-saints, or at least they have achieved a level of celebrity status in the Christian realm. Regardless of all that adulation and applause, we must never forget that God is the Judge. He alone knows the true motivation behind a person's life. In the final analysis, He will be the one to say, "That deserves reward, but _that_ does not." He will judge our works and expose our motives without partiality. This is why our hope for heaven must induce us to holiness on earth.
## — 1:18-21 —
Peter wants believers to live their lives in holiness (1:13-16), and to conduct their walk in fear (1:17). He also wants them to focus their minds on Christ (1:18-21). Our focus must be on Christ because our primary battlefield is the mind. The enemy has his sights set on our minds. If he can get us to focus on something other than the hope we have in Jesus Christ, he will have won the battle; everything else will be just claiming the spoils of war.
We conduct ourselves with holy lives in fear of the Lord by "knowing that [we] were not redeemed with perishable things . . . but with the precious blood . . . of Christ" (1:18-19). Let me explain what this means. All those who don't know Christ are merchandise in the slave market of sin. Whether they realize it or not, they are in bondage to desires, impulses, and ignorance —alienated from God, the one source of true freedom. They live in a condition in which they cannot help or change themselves. Spiritually blind and shackled in sin, they are jostled and abused by the uncontrollable flesh, the alluring world, and the seducing demons. They continue to dwell in that futile, frustrating lifestyle passed down to them from previous generations. Their only hope is help from the outside.
Christ provided that help at the cross, where His own blood paid the penalty for sin —death. He didn't pay in silver or gold —worthless scrap metal compared to the price of a human soul. No, Christ paid with His blood, breaking the chains, opening the door, and calling the unredeemed to step out of the bondage from which they had been purchased. That's redemption. And the only thing keeping any person from receiving this freedom is his or her own decision to accept the free offer of eternal life, stepping from the darkness of futility into the light of a joyous, meaningful life.
God, of course, knew our total emptiness —that we were helpless to work or buy ourselves out of sin's slave market. So even before the foundation of the world, He had a plan ready to be implemented for our sakes (1:20). And that plan meant that His eternal, divine Son would set aside His celestial comforts and privileges, take on full humanity, and voluntarily take the cross upon Himself on our behalf so that our faith and hope could rest in God (1:21). There is no other solid ground of hope in hurtful times than the fact that Christ Himself took it all on and rose victorious, ready to lead us to victory with Him. A stanza from the great hymn of Charles Wesley sums it up brilliantly:
Long my imprisoned spirit lay
Fast bound in sin and nature's night.
Thine eye diffused a quick'ning ray:
I woke —the dungeon flamed with light!
My chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.
Amazing love! how can it be
That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me
* * *
# APPLICATION: 1 PETER 1:13-21
General Orders for Christ's Ambassadors
Christ didn't purchase us with His precious blood to turn us all into hermits, monks, and utopians. We have been redeemed from slavery and called to be His ambassadors —special agents with a mission in the world. This requires us to stay clean in a corrupt society, to be representatives of light in a world of darkness. How can we do this? I have four suggestions I would urge you to remember. Think of them as your four general orders as an agent of Christ sent on a mission into the world.
First, _pay close attention to what you look at._ That takes us back to 1 Peter 1:13 —"Prepare your minds for action, keep sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ." Your eyes are the closest connection to your mind. They capture images that are alluring, attractive, sensual, and pleasurable. Take care what you allow to pass through the gates of your eyes, especially when you're alone. To reinforce this principle, read Job 31:1; Colossians 3:1-2; and 2 Peter 2:13-14.
Second, _give greater thought to long-range consequences than to immediate pleasures._ You'll notice that one of the characteristics of the world is that nobody ever mentions the disastrous consequences of pornography, an affair, or feeding your greed at the expense of your family. Walk through the consequences of your actions, thinking through the effects, naming the people whose lives will be harmed, and reminding yourself of the high cost of a ruined reputation. Journey through all the consequences of your actions. To help consider the consequences of sin, study Proverbs 7.
Third, _start each day by renewing your sense of reverence for God._ Don't limit that to the church or to a small group. Start each day spending time with the Lord. Sometimes I simply say, "Lord, I'm here. I'm yours. I give You my day. As inadequate and fragile as I am, I need Your help this day." Revere Him as the source of your power. Start each day by renewing that Father-child relationship. To remind yourself of the need to fear God daily, read Ecclesiastes 12:13-14 and 2 Corinthians 7:1.
Fourth, _refocus on Christ throughout the day._ As people, events, and temptations cross your path, you'll begin to drift from that original course. Whatever happens, realign your focus upon Christ. Even if it means regularly scheduling short times of prayer or reading your Bible or devotional during breaks or lunch. Take time to focus on Him throughout the day. Take a close look at Hebrews 12:1-2 to consider new ways you can focus fully on Christ.
* * *
# Reasons for Pulling Together
1 PETER 1:22–2:3
NASB
22 Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a [a]sincere love of the brethren, fervently love one another from [b]the heart, 23 for you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, _that is,_ through the living and enduring word of God. 24 For,
"ALL FLESH IS LIKE GRASS,
AND ALL ITS GLORY LIKE THE FLOWER OF GRASS.
THE GRASS WITHERS,
AND THE FLOWER FALLS OFF,
25 BUT THE WORD OF THE LORD ENDURES FOREVER."
And this is the word which was [a]preached to you.
2:1 Therefore, putting aside all [a]malice and all deceit and [b]hypocrisy and [b]envy and all [b]slander, 2 like newborn babies, long for the [a]pure [b]milk of the word, so that by it you may grow [c]in respect to salvation, 3 if you have tasted [a]the kindness of the Lord.
1:22 [a]Lit _unhypocritical_ [b]Two early mss read _a clean heart_ 1:25 [a]Lit _preached as good news to you_ 2:1 [a]Or _wickedness_ [b]plural nouns 2:2 [a]Or _unadulterated_ [b]Or _spiritual_ (Gr _logikos_ ) _milk_ [c]Or _up to salvation_ 2:3 [a]Lit _that the Lord is kind_
NLT
22 You were cleansed from your sins when you obeyed the truth, so now you must show sincere love to each other as brothers and sisters.[*] Love each other deeply with all your heart.[*]
23 For you have been born again, but not to a life that will quickly end. Your new life will last forever because it comes from the eternal, living word of God. 24 As the Scriptures say,
"People are like grass;
their beauty is like a flower in the field.
The grass withers and the flower fades.
25 But the word of the Lord remains forever."[*]
And that word is the Good News that was preached to you.
2:1 So get rid of all evil behavior. Be done with all deceit, hypocrisy, jealousy, and all unkind speech. 2 Like newborn babies, you must crave pure spiritual milk so that you will grow into a full experience of salvation. Cry out for this nourishment, 3 now that you have had a taste of the Lord's kindness.
[1:22a] Greek _must have brotherly love._ [1:22b] Some manuscripts read _with a pure heart._ [1:24-25] Isa 40:6-8.
* * *
Before Andrew Jackson became the seventh president of the United States, he served as commander of the Tennessee militia. During the War of 1812, his troops reached an all-time low in their morale. A critical spirit spread among them. They argued, bickered, and fought amongst themselves. Reportedly, Jackson called them all together on one occasion when tensions reached a breaking point and said, "Gentlemen! Let's remember, the enemy is _over there_!"
What a sobering reminder for the church today!
On the night Christ instituted the Lord's Supper, He told His disciples, "By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another" (John 13:35). To our shame, the world sometimes looks on Bible-believing Christians as self-seeking and factious, even unloving and argumentative. We aren't always known for our love and support for one another. Instead of being loyal and fiercely committed to each other, we tend to look for ways to pick at each other, to put down rather than build up. How strange! The frequent occurrences of brother bashing and sister smashing indicate that we need to remind ourselves of the reasons for pulling together.
Peter offers some vital thoughts on unity within the body —a unity that can be weakened and even shattered in the midst of suffering and loss of hope. As we have seen, Peter's readers were going through various trials. Some were tempted to conform, compromise, or give up altogether. They were getting nervous —and getting on each other's nerves! But that wise old apostle, likely having reflected on Jesus' message of unity during the course of his own ministry, prescribed an easily overlooked antidote for the disease of defeat —unity.
## — 1:22 —
Scattered, distressed, tested, and tempted —Peter's original readers experienced all the ingredients of a loss of hope and a fragmenting of community. In this context, Peter began what we might call his motivational message, taking on the role of a coach or personal trainer, encouraging his team to pull together. Because they were part of the same family, they needed to be going in the same direction, pursuing the same goal.
What is it that makes this possible? How do believers support one another? How do we develop unity and community so we don't live lonely and hopeless lives? Peter gives us three answers to this question in the first part of verse 22. First, unity requires "obedience to the truth." We don't follow inner urges, the example of others, or our cultural norms. We obey the truth —God's standard of what it means to be Christians. Second, it requires "purity of soul." This excludes all pride, prejudices, grudges, and bitterness. It means getting rid of —cleansing —those things that stand between brothers and sisters in Christ. Third, it requires a "sincere love." Because of our obedience to the truth and cleansing of our soul, we are freed to love without hypocrisy. We are given extra measures of grace to overlook the faults of others.
Verse 22 then moves from the conditions that make loving unity possible to the command that makes it real: "Fervently love one another from the heart." On the surface, it may look like Peter is repeating himself —loving each other sincerely, they are to fervently love one another from the heart. Actually, Peter uses two different words for "love" in this single verse. The New Testament primarily uses two Greek words to describe love. One is _philos_ 5384], which refers to a brotherly love or the love of a friend. The other is _agapē_ [26], a higher expression of unconditional love (see 1 Cor. 13:4-7). Both types of love are used in 1 Peter 1:22. When Peter spoke of "a sincere love of the brethren," he used the word _philadelphia_ [5360] —brotherly love. Then, in his exhortation, Peter called his readers to "fervently love one another," using the higher form of love, _agapaō_ [25] _._ This final expression of love, however, is modified by the adverb _ektenōs_ [1619], which means "fervently" or "constantly."[[29]
In very practical terms, Peter's exhortation means we need to support each other. Some people we know are suffering from the devastation of divorce. They need help from others in God's family who have been through this and know how to get through the feelings of rejection, shame, and loneliness. Some have recently lost loved ones and need someone to walk with them through the dark valley of grief. Others are wrestling with an addiction and they need somebody to come alongside them and say, "I've been there. I know what it's like to be one decision away from falling back into the mire. Let me help." In short, we all need —and we can all provide —that refuge of care and encouragement that Peter describes as fervently loving one another from the heart.
## — 1:23–2:3 —
This kind of selfless love doesn't come naturally. Our old selfish nature kicks against it with all sorts of excuses —
* "Those aren't my gifts."
* "Other people have more experience in that."
* "I have my own problems."
* "I wish I had time!"
But Peter preempts all our excuses when he dives into four essential reminders of why we are to care for and support each another in the family of God.
First, _we are all children of the same heavenly Father_. Note the logical connection between verses 22 and 23. We "fervently love one another from the heart" (1:22). But why, Peter? " _For_ you have been born again" or " _because_ you all have been born again" (1:23). The implication is that we all have the same Father. While the specific circumstances that led up to our conversions to Christ are unique, we believers were all reborn spiritually the same way: "through the living and enduring word of God" (1:23). We are all members of a permanent family —brothers and sisters in Christ. Peter's point? Because you're all born into the same family of God, _live like it_!
The second reason we need to pull together as a family is because _we take our instruction from the same source_. The living and abiding "Word of God" endures forever. Peter's reference to the Word of God as "the seed" by which we are reborn may reach back to Jesus' parable of the sower and the seed in Matthew 13:1-23. For that seed to take root and to bear fruit, it must be well-planted and watered in our lives. It always amazes me when the same Scripture —read, taught, or preached to the same group of people —leads to such radically different results with different people. That's because the Word needs to be understood, embraced, and applied, not merely heard.
Note how Peter quotes Isaiah 50:6-8, intentionally contrasting the frailty of the human flesh with the power of the Word of God. Peter might even have had in the back of his mind Jesus' own words of rebuke when He had asked Peter, James, and John to pray with Him on the Mount of Olives. As they kept dozing off instead of supporting Christ in prayer, Jesus said, "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak" (Matt. 26:41). How true this is! Even though the Word of God is powerful, effective, and imperishable, we are quite the opposite: weak, defective, and perishable. So, to pull together as God's family, we need to receive the instruction from God's Word and diligently implant it in our minds, our hearts, and our lives.
* * *
# SINS THAT PUSH US APART
The specific sins in 1 Peter 2:1 are the most frequent barriers to mutual support, so they deserve a closer look.
* _Malice._ The Greek word _kakia_ 2549] is a general word for evil. It could also be translated "wickedness" or "depravity."[[30] In this passage it characterizes those who are entrenched in the world system and exhibit the malicious spirit of the world.
* _Deceit._ The Greek word _dolos_ 1388] means "cunning" or "treachery."[[31] It involves more than just lying to a person's face. It includes acting in ways that are disingenuous or two-faced.
* _Hypocrisy._ The Greek word _hypokrisis_ 5272] refers to one who acts a part, "being one thing inside and another thing outside."[[32]
* _Envy._ The Greek word _phthanos_ 5355] refers to "envy" or inappropriate "jealousy." Commenting on Peter's use of this word, Edward Selwyn describes envy as "a constant plague of all voluntary organizations, not least religious organizations, and to which even the Twelve themselves were subject at the very crises of our Lord's ministry."[[33] Envy remains one of the "favorite indoor sports" among fellow believers.
* _Slander._ The Greek word _katalalia_ 2636] means "evil speech."[[34] It refers to speaking ill of another, slander, and defamation, which is especially prevalent when a rumor is passed around. This disparaging gossip destroys our confidence in an individual and can weaken that person's reputation.
* * *
* * *
# From My Journal
# Family Needs
1 PETER 1:22
I remember an old Marine buddy who became a Christian several years after he was discharged from the Corps. When news of his conversion reached me, I was more than pleasantly surprised —I was thoroughly shocked! He was one of those guys you'd never picture as being interested in spiritual things. He cursed loudly, drank heavily, fought hard, chased women, loved weapons, and hated church. He and God weren't on speaking terms when I used to bump around with him.
One day years later, we ran into each other. As the conversation turned to his salvation, he frowned, put his hand on my shoulder, and admitted: "Chuck, the only thing I miss is that old fellowship all the guys in our outfit used to have down at the slop shoot [base tavern]. Man, we'd sit around, laugh, tell stories, drink a few beers, and really let our hair down. It was great! I just haven't found anything to take the place of that great time we used to enjoy. I ain't got nobody to admit my faults to, to have 'em put their arms around me and tell me I'm still okay."
My stomach churned. Not because I was shocked, but because I could only agree. The man needed a refuge, someone to hear him out. He needed the _family of God,_ not a rehearsed, staged, impersonal production that too often passes for "church." He needed the body of Christ, brothers and sisters of faith who would laugh with him, cry with him, understand and accept him, struggle with him, and suffer with him. When God's family forgets its call to authentic living and genuine love for each other, it fails to live up even to the camaraderie of a local bar!
In my earliest years growing up in the Swindoll family, my dad would remind us about the need for sticking together as a family. "We may have a few differences inside these walls, but kids, remember, if your brother or sister needs you, you take care of 'em. You love 'em. You pull for 'em." This is a pep talk we brothers and sisters in Christ could use today.
* * *
The third reason for pulling together is because _we have our struggles in the same realm_. Peter begins chapter 2 with "Therefore," continuing to build on the implications of our relationship as brothers and sisters in the family of God and our common tutelage under the Word. In light of this, we should put aside five things with which we all struggle. Just as we take off a soiled shirt, we are to strip off malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander. (For particular definitions of these sins, see the sidebar on this page.) Notice that all of these have potentially disastrous effects on our relationships with others, and each one of them flies in the face of Peter's call for both brotherly love ( _philadelphia_ ) and unconditional love ( _agapē_ ). Peter narrows in on areas in which every believer will continue to struggle for the rest of his or her life.
The fourth reason we ought to pull together as the family of God is because _we focus our attention on the same objective_ (2:2-3). For over three years Peter had followed Jesus closely, listening to His words, tracking with His actions, and witnessing His mighty deeds. He had personally tasted the kindness of the Lord as Jesus showed him patience beyond measure and forgiveness beyond what he deserved. And because of his growth in Christlike spiritual maturity, Peter could encourage his own disciples to follow the same path. As newborn babies, believers must feed on the milk of the Word and grow in their understanding and application of their salvation. If the goal of the Christian life is spiritual maturity, then the nourishment comes from God's Word and the model is God's Son.
Jesus Christ is the sure hope in hurtful times, but tragically —far too often —the family of God is the source of the hurt! We must all strive to set aside our petty differences, embrace our common salvation, and live as reflections of hope for the sake of our brothers and sisters in Christ. That sounds simple and easy, but it is a full-time task!
* * *
# APPLICATION: 1 PETER 1:22–2:3
Four Steps to Unity
Strangely, in churches where biblical teaching and theological knowledge are strong points, love and unity are weak. Christians must strive for both maturity in knowledge and unity in love. We should keep the important objective of Christian growth at the forefront, treat each other with humility and respect, and help each other along the path as we seek to become like Christ. Jesus set the example, then His disciples showed that it could be done. Only the remnants of our old natures are keeping us from doing the same. It's time we put off the old and pull together around the new!
Let's take a few minutes to probe our own hearts and habits in light of Peter's lesson, particularly the four reminders of the need for unity. Ask yourself these questions:
First, _are you treating your fellow believers as children of the same heavenly Father_ (1:23)? Disunity in churches is often indicated by practices such as gossiping about other believers, complaining about leadership, grumbling about decisions, criticizing others' shortcomings, and developing cliques. Take a few moments to examine your own church social life and note any of these or other indications of disunity that you might be exhibiting. Especially consider specific people toward whom you have exhibited unloving attitudes or actions.
Second, _are you actively seeking to implant the seed of God's Word in your heart_ (1:23-25)? When it comes to relationships with others, it's easy to become merely a hearer of the Word rather than a doer. Take time now to set out specific actions you'll take to submit yourself more intentionally to the instruction of God's Word. Do you faithfully hear it and regularly read it? Do you ponder its meaning and significance for you personally? Do you plan specific actions to respond to the Word of God? Applying God's truth isn't automatic. It calls for the discipline of personal follow-through.
Third, _what common struggles affect you the most in your relationships with others_ (2:1)? Do you struggle the most with malice (evil thoughts, intentions, or actions)? Deceit (lies, half-truths)? Hypocrisy (putting on a show, hiding real intentions, covering motives)? Envy (spite, jealous feelings, ambitious actions that harm others)? Slander (gossip, unrestrained criticism, cynical comments, exaggerated sarcasm)? Be painfully honest, now. How have these things specifically hurt others?
Finally, _is Christlike spiritual maturity your primary ambition_ (2:2-3)? Stop and think before you answer. What is your top priority in life? Toward what are you directing most of your time, energy, and money? If a video crew were to follow you around for a week, or if an accountant were to flip through your checkbook, would anyone conclude that your growth as a Christian is the most important thing in your life? Defend your answer with some real examples.
These questions can help you get to the root of the issues, but until you make a decision to do what's necessary to come together and provide love and hope for your fellow believers, absolutely nothing will change. Take time in prayer to ask God to conform you to the image of Christ. Ask for help in "putting aside" old habits that produce disharmony and hurt, and putting on the new habits that promote harmony and hope.
* * *
# Becoming Living Stones
1 PETER 2:4-12
NASB
4 And coming to Him as to a living stone which has been rejected by men, but is [a]choice and precious in the sight of God, 5 you also, as living stones, [a]are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 6 For _this_ is contained in [a]Scripture:
"BEHOLD, I LAY IN ZION A CHOICE STONE, A PRECIOUS CORNER _stone,_
AND HE WHO BELIEVES IN [b]HIM WILL NOT BE [c]DISAPPOINTED."
7 This precious value, then, is for you who believe; but for those who disbelieve,
"THE STONE WHICH THE BUILDERS REJECTED,
THIS BECAME THE VERY CORNER _stone,_ "
8 and,
"A STONE OF STUMBLING AND A ROCK OF OFFENSE";
for they stumble because they are disobedient to the word, and to this _doom_ they were also appointed.
9 But you are A CHOSEN RACE, A royal PRIESTHOOD, A HOLY NATION, A PEOPLE FOR _God's_ OWN POSSESSION, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; 10 for you once were NOT A PEOPLE, but now you are THE PEOPLE OF GOD; you had NOT RECEIVED MERCY, but now you have RECEIVED MERCY.
11 Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul. 12 Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may [a]because of your good deeds, as they observe _them,_ glorify God in the day of [b]visitation.
2:4 [a]Lit _chosen;_ or _elect_ 2:5 [a]Or _allow yourselves to be built up;_ or _build yourselves up_ 2:6 [a]Or _a scripture_ [b]Or _it_ [c]Or _put to shame_ 2:12 [a]Or _as a result of_ [b]I.e. Christ's coming again in judgment
NLT
4 You are coming to Christ, who is the living cornerstone of God's temple. He was rejected by people, but he was chosen by God for great honor.
5 And you are living stones that God is building into his spiritual temple. What's more, you are his holy priests.[*] Through the mediation of Jesus Christ, you offer spiritual sacrifices that please God. 6 As the Scriptures say,
"I am placing a cornerstone in Jerusalem,[*]
chosen for great honor,
and anyone who trusts in him
will never be disgraced."[*]
7 Yes, you who trust him recognize the honor God has given him.[*] But for those who reject him,
"The stone that the builders rejected
has now become the cornerstone."[*]
8 And,
"He is the stone that makes people stumble,
the rock that makes them fall."[*]
They stumble because they do not obey God's word, and so they meet the fate that was planned for them.
9 But you are not like that, for you are a chosen people. You are royal priests,[*] a holy nation, God's very own possession. As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light.
10 "Once you had no identity as a people;
now you are God's people.
Once you received no mercy;
now you have received God's mercy."[*]
11 Dear friends, I warn you as "temporary residents and foreigners" to keep away from worldly desires that wage war against your very souls. 12 Be careful to live properly among your unbelieving neighbors. Then even if they accuse you of doing wrong, they will see your honorable behavior, and they will give honor to God when he judges the world.[*]
[2:5] Greek _holy priesthood_. [2:6a] Greek _in Zion._ [2:6b] Isa 28:16 (Greek version). [2:7a] Or _Yes, for you who believe, there is honor._ [2:7b] Ps 118:22. [2:8] Isa 8:14. [2:9] Greek _a royal priesthood._ [2:10] Hos 1:6, 9; 2:23. [2:12] Or _on the day of visitation._
* * *
Far too many Christians picture God with His jaw clenched, brows furrowed, and arms folded, constantly disapproving of everything we think, say, or do. Clucking His tongue at our mess-ups and shaking His head at our errors, He's always frowning, ready to pounce on us with severe discipline the moment we inevitably go astray.
Amazingly, we Christians tend to forget our kind, loving Father who held us in His arms, protected us, taught us how to walk and talk, and fed us just what we needed to grow. Most new believers feel free and open with their heavenly Father, asking Him anything, sharing everything with Him. But as they advance in biblical and theological knowledge, an erosion begins to occur. Many drift away from their original childlike intimacy with God, and before long that caring Father seems distant, uninterested in our everyday problems, even a bit irritated by our constant mistakes and nagging requests.
Peter was writing to believers whose hope had waned. Displaced by persecution, stripped of their earthly comforts and conveniences, they were enduring times of undeserved suffering and persecution. Having nearly forgotten their identity as God's beloved children, they were tempted to return to a lifestyle less offensive to their pagan neighbors. If nothing else, it was a safer way to live. The Holy Spirit gave Peter words of instruction and encouragement to remind believers that in hurtful times we can embrace the hope that comes through knowing who we are in God's eyes. For those who have come to view themselves as troublesome school children suffering under the sour stare of a divine schoolmaster, the reality of God's positive estimation of us can be truly liberating.
## — 2:4-8 —
"And coming to Him . . ." With the opening words of verse 4, we're faced with two immediate questions: (1) To whom is Peter referring when he says "Him"? and (2) what does it mean to come to Him? The context answers the first question. Verse 3 ends with, ". . . if you have tasted the kindness of the Lord." He is the One who was "rejected by men" (2:4), the "precious corner stone," and "the stone which the builders rejected" (2:6-7). The "precious corner stone" comes from Isaiah 28:16:
Therefore thus says the Lord GOD,
"Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a tested stone,
A costly cornerstone for the foundation, firmly placed.
He who believes in it will not be disturbed." (Isa. 28:16)
Peter says that salvation by faith in the Cornerstone relieves disappointment (1 Pet. 2:6), which brings precious value to the life of the believer. That's good news for those who have come to the living Stone. But for those who have failed to notice that firm Foundation, that same Stone can become the very thing that trips them up. Peter strings together images from Psalm 118:22 and Isaiah 8:14 when he refers to a rejected stone that has become a "stone of stumbling and a rock of offense" (1 Pet. 2:8). Given the context of the passage in Isaiah, Peter probably had in mind his fellow Jews who were rejecting Jesus as their Messiah (Isa. 8:14). Yet this text also has application to anybody who refuses to come to Christ, who was "rejected by men" (1 Pet. 2:4).
Clearly Peter refers here to Jesus Christ. And, to answer our second question, "coming to Him" refers not to our initial conversion but to our drawing nearer to God through our spiritual growth in fellowship with God and others. The Greek verb "coming" (2:4) is a present participle connected to the main verb of the sentence, "you are being built up" (2:5). So, Peter declares that by drawing nearer to Christ, we are being built up. Notice that this verb is in the passive, not active, voice. That means God is the One ultimately responsible for our growth. We participate, yes, and we do so obediently, voluntarily, and actively (see 1 Pet. 1:14-15, 22; 2:1-2). But we should never let it enter our minds that we are ultimately responsible for our own spiritual growth. As Paul said in another context, "I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth" (1 Cor. 3:6). We play our parts in our own and in others' growth toward maturity, but God is the Master Gardener who brings about the effects by His own grace.
We know that Christ is the living stone, a precious cornerstone and that those who reject Him are bound to trip and fall. But what about those who believe in Him? Peter uses a special metaphor for believers. He calls them "living stones" who "are being built up as a spiritual house" (1 Pet. 2:5). Where did Peter get this illustration of the people of God as a building? Back in the events recorded in Matthew 16, Peter confessed, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God" (Matt. 16:16), to which Jesus famously responded, "You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church" (16:18).
* * *
# LIVING STONES IN THE BUILDING OF GOD
1 PETER 2:5-8
First-century building practices often included cutting new stones from fresh quarries to fit them perfectly in place. But a faster and less expensive way of gathering building materials was to use stones from old or toppled buildings, chiseling them to the appropriate shape, and fitting them into new buildings. In fact, archaeologists often unearth buildings that incorporated many stones from earlier centuries. And some of these recycled blocks may even have traces of old inscriptions, revealing the original identities of those earlier stones.
The early church saw in these construction practices a great metaphor for God's work in building His church with "living stones." Whether the stones come from new quarries (Gentile believers) or from old buildings (Jewish believers), they both require some cutting, chiseling, and shaping to fit them into a unified and stable structure. Paul frequently uses this image of God building His temple, twice in his letters to Corinth (1 Cor. 3:16-17; 2 Cor. 6:16) and again in his letter to Ephesus (Eph. 2:20-22). Even after the apostles, leading pastors of the ancient church continued to use metaphors of buildings, towers, and temples in reference to the church.[35]
Ignatius, a pastor of Antioch martyred early in the second century for his unwavering faith in Christ, wrote to the Ephesian church around AD 110: "You are stones of a temple, prepared beforehand for the building of God the Father, hoisted up to the heights by the crane of Jesus Christ, which is the cross, using as a rope the Holy Spirit."[36] Temples were common in the ancient world, the centers of worship and meeting places for encounters with the divine. By using the temple as a metaphor for the church, with its individual stones as members, Peter emphasized the unity of the body of Christ and the supernatural presence of the Holy Spirit as believers gathered for worship and communion with God.
Roman Sigaev/DollarPhotoClub
Ancient stonework: the Western Wall, or Wailing Wall, at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem
* * *
We're in the middle of an ongoing construction project. Christ is in the process of building up His church —those dead stones that are being quarried from the pit of sin, brought to life as "living stones," and fitted into His glorious structure. Each time someone trusts Christ as Savior, another stone is placed into that living, growing church. Please understand that becoming a stone in a building of countless stones doesn't detract from your significance. In fact, it enhances it! You represent a vital part in the outworking of God's plan. Without you, something would be missing. The wall would be weakened. Never underestimate your important part in the larger community of Christ.
In these verses Peter draws out another analogy. Not only are we living stones in God's spiritual house, but we are "a holy priesthood" called "to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ" (1 Pet. 2:5). Peter repeats this description in verse 9 —"a royal priesthood." There's a twofold implication of our call into the new royal and holy priesthood of all believers. The first is that we have unmediated access to the throne of God. Because of our relationship with Christ —our High Priest —we can "draw near with confidence to the throne of grace" (Heb. 4:16). We need no animal sacrifice to cleanse us, no earthly priest to serve as a middle man, no ritual or ceremony to give us access to the door to heaven. We have direct access to God. We can simply pray, "Our Father." The second implication of our priesthood is that we have the privilege —and the responsibility —of serving as priests on behalf of each other. We're admonished over and over again in the New Testament to intercede through prayer for each other and even confess our sins to one another. James 5:16 says, "Confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed."
Not every believer is gifted and called to be a career pastor, preacher, teacher, missionary, or evangelist. But we are all called to be full-time priests. At minimum we're to "offer up spiritual sacrifices" (1 Pet. 2:5). But what does that look like? The book of Hebrews gives us a clear indication of what kinds of sacrifices are appropriate for New Testament believers:
Through Him then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that give thanks to His name. And do not neglect doing good and sharing, for with such sacrifices God is pleased. (Heb. 13:15-16)
Praising God, thanking Him, doing good, and sharing —these are the kinds of sacrifices pleasing to God. Clearly, all of us can serve as priests in that "holy" and "royal" order (1 Pet. 2:5, 9).
## — 2:9-10 —
Besides being living stones in God's building and priests in His temple, we are also members of a "chosen race," citizens of a "holy nation" (2:9), a new people of God "for God's own possession" (2:9-10), and the benefactors of God's "mercy" (2:10). For these designations Peter borrows language and imagery from the book of Deuteronomy, drawing an analogy between the nation of Israel as a specially chosen people of the Old Testament and the church as the special people of the New.
"For you are a holy people to the LORD your God; the LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for His own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. The LORD did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any of the peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but because the LORD loved you and kept the oath which He swore to your forefathers, the LORD brought you out by a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt." (Deut. 7:6-8)
Just as God called the people of Israel to be a unique nation with a special purpose among the pagan kingdoms, He has called the church to be a unique witness of Jesus Christ in the midst of a wicked world. Now, our heads might swell at the notion that we're chosen by God —unless we realize that this wasn't an election for which we campaigned. It wasn't something we earned or deserved. Just as the Hebrew people were not chosen for any merit of their own (Deut. 7:7), Christians were not chosen for their superior intellect, beauty, influence, or morality.
When He chose us, He made us into a "holy nation." As we learned earlier, holiness means being set apart. As a "nation" among the nations, we are called for special purposes: "so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light" (1 Pet. 2:9). As such, we are "a people for God's own possession." Think about how much the value of something ordinary increases if it has been owned by someone extraordinary. An old dictionary becomes more valuable if it was Abraham Lincoln's dictionary. A desk suddenly becomes more expensive and interesting if Winston Churchill wrote his famous speeches hunched over its worn surface. And, yes, a normal man or woman takes on a different kind of significance if she or he is the personal possession of God Almighty (2:10).
The fact that we are not our own makes a difference in how we live and for whom we live. That's the whole point of Peter's summary in 2:11-12. Renewing our relationship with God involves remembering our position in Him and responding to Him with hope, regardless of our circumstances.
* * *
# EXCURSUS: DID THE CHURCH REPLACE ISRAEL AS GOD'S PEOPLE?
1 PETER 2:7-10
When Peter takes Old Testament language addressed to the nation of Israel and applies it to the New Testament church, is he implying that Israel has been completely rejected and replaced by the church? Many Christians today believe that God's plan for the Jewish people has come to an end, that the promises of a glorious nation and ultimate blessing in the land have been abolished. Some say the promises have been fulfilled in a spiritual sense by Christians. Others propose that Israel has been divorced by God so He could take to Himself a new bride, the church.
But the New Testament tells us that God's plan is not to reinterpret or abolish the Old Testament promises to Israel, but to fulfill them through Jesus Christ. Although most of ethnic Israel has been in a state of unbelief since the time of Jesus, God will one day bring a remnant to faith in Christ and restore them in the land promised to their forefathers (Gen. 13:15). Jesus Himself promised the apostles, "In the regeneration when the Son of Man will sit on His glorious throne, you also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel" (Matt. 19:28).
Years later, Paul addressed the problem of the present unbelief of most Jews by declaring that this rebellion would one day be reversed: "A partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in; and so all Israel will be saved" (Rom. 11:25-26). In other words, when God has accomplished His purposes through the church, He will again turn His attention to the nation of Israel and bring them to faith in Christ. God will not forget His people or His promises.
So, when Peter refers to Israel as those "builders" who rejected the corner stone, Jesus Christ (1 Pet. 2:7), we must understand this in light of Paul's teaching: "I say then, they did not stumble so as to fall, did they? May it never be!" (Rom. 11:11). And when Peter applies passages from the Old Testament to the New Testament church, we must not assume the chosen people of the Old have been utterly divorced and replaced by the people of the New. Rather, the Old Testament serves as an example with application to us, though the primary meaning of the passage still remains unmoved. As Paul writes with reference to Old Testament Scripture, "Now these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come" (1 Cor. 10:11).
* * *
## — 2:11-12 —
In light of our new, unique, "called-out" position before God, Peter instantly turns the theological into the practical. Our position as "aliens and strangers" to the world means we should live in such a way that sets us apart from the attitudes and actions of our culture. In these two short verses, I find at least four simple yet urgent exhortations. First, _God's royal priesthood must live exemplary lives_ (2:11-12). For unbelievers, the world is a playground of passions. But for believers it's a battleground of opposition and temptation. We must shout "No!" to fleshly lusts.
Second, _God's chosen race must leave no room for slander_ (2:12). The most compelling defense against false accusations by unbelievers is unimpeachable integrity. Denying false charges is easy. But there must be more. We must live lives that make those charges sound ridiculous to those who know us best.
Third, _God's holy nation must do good deeds among unbelievers_ (2:12). When we see somebody in need our first question is not, "Can I see your Christian ID?" but "What can I do to help?" This might mean crossing the sometimes well-guarded borders of our Christian communities and hanging around with those outside our circles. Or it might mean inviting the "aliens" into our midst. Only then will they see our good deeds, as Jesus said: "Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven" (Matt. 5:16).
Finally, _God's own people should never forget they're being watched_ (2:12). Peter says "as they observe" our good deeds, unbelievers will glorify God. Whether we like it or not, we are being observed. The world is watching. If they don't see us reflecting the unwavering love and hope they're longing for, they won't think much of our salvation —or our Savior.
Warren Wiersbe illustrated these points with the following story:
In the summer of 1805, a number of Indian chiefs and warriors met in council at Buffalo Creek, New York, to hear a presentation of the Christian message by a Mr. Cram from the Boston Missionary Society. After the sermon, a response was given by Red Jacket, one of the leading chiefs. Among other things, the chief said,
"Brother, we are told that you have been preaching to the white people in this place. These people are our neighbors. We are acquainted with them. We will wait a little while and see what effect your preaching has upon them. If we find it does them good, makes them honest and less disposed to cheat Indians, we will then consider again of what you have said."[37]
* * *
# APPLICATION: 1 PETER 2:4-12
Standing Out by Fitting In
Every believer in Christ is a living stone designed to fit into God's temple in a way that uniquely contributes to the spiritual growth of others and ultimately glorifies God (1 Pet. 2:4–5). However, the more we "fit in" with God's plan for us, the more we'll "stand out" in contrast to the world. Just as Christ, the first "living stone," was "rejected by men" (2:4), chances are good that his servants will likewise experience this kind of rejection by the world.
Nevertheless, if we're going to proclaim the brilliant excellency of Christ in a dark world, we need to put the principles of 1 Peter 2:11-12 into practice daily. Let's revisit each of these and consider how we can draw others to join with us as living stones in the glorious temple of God. Ask yourself the following questions. Take your time to think through them carefully and answer them honestly. Don't rush!
* _Do I live an exemplary life_? Would anybody be able to identify me as a stone that belongs in God's temple, or is the outward surface of my life so damaged, stained, or misshapen that I would be mistaken as a common rock unfit for building?
* _Do I have unimpeachable integrity_? If I were accused of wrongdoing in the workplace, school, church, or social circles, would people be surprised, or have they sadly come to expect such behavior from me?
* _Do I do good deeds among unbelievers_? Have I become a "Sunday Christian," only doing my best deeds for fellow believers, or do I let the light of the Holy Spirit shine before others in a way that draws their attention to Christ in me?
* _Do I consider how outsiders view my attitudes and actions_? When I'm outside my circle of Christian family and friends, do I "let my hair down" and take the opportunity to lower my standards, or do I maintain my Christian convictions even in the world?
It's not comfortable to stand out in a world increasingly at odds with Christ and his followers. But stand out we must. If we're going to fit into his holy temple, we need to nurture attitudes and actions that mark us as a royal priesthood, a chosen race, a holy nation, a unique people of God.
* * *
# OUR STRANGE LIFE (1 PETER 2:13–4:11)
I love the story of an American missionary couple that returned to Americas by ship after several decades of faithful service in Africa. On board with them was an important diplomat who received VIP treatment during the voyage while the missionary couple simply stood back and watched the fanfare. Upon arrival in New York City, a crowd and a band had gathered to receive the politician. And when he walked down the gangplank, music and loud applause erupted as his motorcade whisked him away.
Then, quietly, with no fanfare, no attention, no music, the missionary couple walked arm in arm down the gangplank, taking their first steps on American soil in over thirty years. After some silence, the husband turned to his wife and said, "Honey, it doesn't seem right after all these years that we would have nobody to greet us, while that man got such a grand reception."
The wife put her arms around her husband and gently reminded him, "But, honey, we're not home yet."
By faith [Abraham] lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise; for he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. (Heb. 11:9-10).
Because of his hope, driven by faith, Abraham, like countless Old Testament saints, lived in this world like a foreigner. Noah, a preacher of righteousness and recipient of God's grace, didn't fit in his world of constant wickedness (Heb. 11:7; 2 Pet. 2:5). Moses, too, lived the life of a sojourner and wanderer, never feeling at home in Egypt, in the land of Midian, or in the wilderness of Sinai. In fact, Moses named his first son "Gershom," which means "a stranger there" —a constant reminder that he was "a stranger in a strange land" (Exod. 2:22, KJV). Like Noah and Abraham before him, Moses knew all too well that as a servant of God his ultimate citizenship was not in any earthly kingdom, but in the kingdom of God.
You and I live our lives as Christians away from home. Although we're temporary residents of particular nations here on earth, we're actually eternal citizens of another land (Phil. 3:20). Let me put this plainly. We live in the midst of a _pagan_ culture surrounded by _pagan_ people who embrace a _pagan_ philosophy, a _pagan_ way of life, and a _pagan_ attitude toward believers. But God has planted us here to be the ambassadors of a different kingdom and to lead others to that better city whose architect and builder is God (Heb. 11:10).
* * *
# KEY TERMS IN 1 PETER 2:13–4:11
_hagiazō_ **(ἁγιάζω)** [37] "to make holy," "to consecrate," "to set apart"
Related to the adjective "holy" ( _hagios_ [40]) and noun "holiness" ( _hagiosynē_ [42]), this verb refers to the process that sets something or someone apart. Usually the word refers to God's work in making believers more holy (Eph. 5:26; 1 Thes. 5:23). But Peter's single use is unique in that believers are called to "sanctify" Christ (1 Pet. 3:15). When we consciously "set Christ apart," we are regarding Him as holy, placing Him in the unique place as Lord and Master over our lives.
_hypotassō_ **(ὑποτάσσω)** [5293] "to subject," "to submit," "to subordinate"
This verb refers to subjection to authority, whether willingly acknowledged or forcefully imposed. The theme of willing submission runs throughout Peter's letter. All must submit to human governments (2:13-14), servants to employers (2:18), wives to husbands (3:1), and young men to their elders (5:5). In other words, every aspect of life is to be conducted with order, not disarray.
* * *
In this second major section of 1 Peter —the longest of the three —Peter _exhorts_ his readers to hopeful living in spite of their lives as strangers in a strange land (2:13–4:11). He urges his readers to submit to various secular authorities (2:13–3:7), to be humble in spirit (3:8-22), to be armed like soldiers stationed in foreign territory (4:1-6), and to glorify God in light of Christ's coming to take them to their real home (4:7-11). These principles become the key to living as Christians in a hostile world. Throughout this section, Peter emphasizes grace to stand firm, describing a _calm hope_ through personal submission (3:6). And the Lord Jesus becomes the _example_ of unjust suffering in light of untold glory —the model of hope in hurtful times.
# Pressing On Even Though Ripped Off
1 PETER 2:13-25
NASB
13 Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether to a king as the one in authority, 14 or to governors as sent [a]by him for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right. 15 For [a]such is the will of God that by doing right you may silence the ignorance of foolish men. 16 _Act_ as free men, and [a]do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but _use it_ as bondslaves of God. 17 Honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the [a]king.
18 Servants, be submissive to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and gentle, but also to those who are [a]unreasonable. 19 For this _finds_ [a]favor, if for the sake of conscience toward God a person bears up under sorrows when suffering unjustly. 20 For what credit is there if, when you sin and are harshly treated, you endure it with patience? But if when you do what is right and suffer _for it_ you patiently endure it, this _finds_ [a]favor with God.
21 For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps, 22 WHO COMMITTED NO SIN, NOR WAS ANY DECEIT FOUND IN HIS MOUTH; 23[a]and while being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting _Himself_ to Him who judges righteously; 24 and He Himself [a]bore our sins in His body on the [b]cross, so that we might die to [c]sin and live to righteousness; for by His [d]wounds you were healed. 25 For you were continually straying like sheep, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and [a]Guardian of your souls.
2:14 [a]Lit _through_ 2:15 [a]Lit _so_ 2:16 [a]Lit _not having_ 2:17 [a]Or _emperor_ 2:18 [a]Or _perverse_ 2:19 [a]Or _grace_ 2:20 [a]V 19, note 1 2:23 [a]Lit _who_ 2:24 [a]Or _carried . . . up to the cross_ [b]Lit _wood_ [c]Lit _sins_ [d]Lit _wound;_ or _welt_ 2:25 [a]Or _Bishop, Overseer_
NLT
13 For the Lord's sake, submit to all human authority —whether the king as head of state, 14 or the officials he has appointed. For the king has sent them to punish those who do wrong and to honor those who do right.
15 It is God's will that your honorable lives should silence those ignorant people who make foolish accusations against you. 16 For you are free, yet you are God's slaves, so don't use your freedom as an excuse to do evil. 17 Respect everyone, and love the family of believers.[*] Fear God, and respect the king.
18 You who are slaves must submit to your masters with all respect.[*] Do what they tell you —not only if they are kind and reasonable, but even if they are cruel. 19 For God is pleased when, conscious of his will, you patiently endure unjust treatment. 20 Of course, you get no credit for being patient if you are beaten for doing wrong. But if you suffer for doing good and endure it patiently, God is pleased with you.
21 For God called you to do good, even if it means suffering, just as Christ suffered[*] for you. He is your example, and you must follow in his steps.
22 He never sinned,
nor ever deceived anyone.[*]
23 He did not retaliate when he was insulted,
nor threaten revenge when he suffered.
He left his case in the hands of God,
who always judges fairly.
24 He personally carried our sins
in his body on the cross
so that we can be dead to sin
and live for what is right.
By his wounds
you are healed.
25 Once you were like sheep
who wandered away.
But now you have turned to your Shepherd,
the Guardian of your souls.
[2:17] Greek _love the brotherhood._ [2:18] Or _because you fear God;_ Greek reads _in all fear._ [2:21] Some manuscripts read _died._ [2:22] Isa 53:9.
* * *
Ever bought a used car and realized a few weeks later that you got a lemon? Ever drop ten bucks on a movie that made last summer's home video of your family vacation look like _The Sound of Music_? Who hasn't been hoodwinked by a smooth-talking salesman in a striped suit with styled hair and patent leather shoes? And who hasn't been burned by a glitzy political campaign that promised much more than it delivered.
Common rip-offs like these are often relatively easy to recover from. It's much more difficult to endure when the suffering gets personal. If you've ever caught the brunt of a raw deal, you're in good company. David was done wrong by Saul, Esau was cheated by Jacob, Joseph was brutalized by his brothers, and Job got a raw deal from the devil himself! Of course, being numbered among the ranks of David, Esau, Joseph, and Job isn't all that great when it means being treated unjustly.
When someone slanders our reputation, gossips behind our back, or threatens our livelihood, things can get pretty nasty. In my experience, our knee-jerk reactions to unfair treatment generally fall into one of three categories. First, we may adopt the aggressive pattern of blaming others, focusing on the person who did us wrong and doing whatever it takes to exact revenge. Second, we may embrace a passive pattern of feeling sorry for ourselves, becoming absorbed in self-pity and whining constantly about our plight. Third, we may slip into a holding pattern of postponing feelings, placing our emotions on the back burner and seething beneath a calm surface. All these natural reactions make sense from a human standpoint, don't they? But that's all they are — _natural and human_. But the apostle Peter offers a supernatural and divine alternative. Let me warn you, though. Peter's stout examples of unjust treatment probably outweigh most of our relatively petty grievances, stripping us of any excuse to default to the three typical knee-jerk reactions.
## — 2:13-17 —
Remember that Peter's purpose in writing this letter is to point his readers in Asia Minor to Jesus Christ as the true source of hope in hurtful times. And what hurtful times they were! Those Christians were scattered and mistreated, imprisoned, and enslaved. They were rejected by family members, singled out by employers, and attacked by law-enforcement officials who were supposed to protect them. And all of them —throughout the empire —were living under an emperor who was growing increasingly insane and anti-Christian —Nero.
So, when Peter begins his God-honoring response to the unfair treatment with "Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every human institution," it doesn't sound strange —it sounds _radical_! The word "submit" comes from the Greek word _hypotassō_ [5293], a term describing deference to another person's authority. A brutal authority might impose his will on an unwilling subject; however, Peter calls for believers to submit with a willing heart.
Submitting to human government requires that we "render to Caesar" our civil obedience (Matt. 22:21). It involves sincere prayer for rulers in authority over us (1 Tim. 2:1-2), regardless of whether we agree with their politics and policies. And it means we live honorably and peacefully in their realm (Rom. 13:1-7). Believers are to be model citizens, not social rebels and misfits. So Peter urges his readers to recognize the higher authorities ("kings") and even the local authorities ("governors"). Regardless of their corruption and idolatry, the existing authorities were to be respected and supported. But _why_?
Peter gives the reason for this radical submission in 2:15: "For such is the will of God that by doing right you may silence the ignorance of foolish men." The word for "silence" ( _phimoō_ [5392]) literally means "to muzzle," as in "You shall not muzzle the ox while he is threshing" (1 Tim. 5:18). But more often the New Testament uses the term in its metaphorical sense, to render somebody speechless because of guilt (Matt. 22:12), to defeat in debate (Matt. 22:34), or even to submit to higher authority (Luke 4:35). Peter has in mind the metaphorical "muzzling" of Christianity's foolish opponents. You see, baseless charges and rumors had been flying around about Christians in those days. "They're loyal to a different king." "They're a rebellious sect." "They want to overthrow the government." "They're subversives!" By submitting voluntarily, by doing right before God and people, they would muzzle the mouths of those spreading such vicious and erroneous rumors.
wikimedia
Nero Caesar, reigning from AD 54 to 68, was known for his tyranny, brutality, and official persecution of Christians.
Behind Peter's command to submit (2:13-14) and his reason for submission (2:15) stands an important principle about our attitude in submission (2:16-17). In today's context, we submit to the president even if we didn't vote for him or his party. And we submit to the decisions of lawmakers even though we think their laws are sometimes senseless and excessive. In short, we submit not because we're blind nationalists but because we're "bondslaves of God." And as such, our obligation is to serve Him, and to do so we need to live in such a way as to bring honor to His reputation in the public square.
With this principle come four brief commands like a barrage of gunfire in rapid succession: "Honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king" (2:17). These eleven words are easy to write, but together they create a tough balancing act, don't they? We are to honor and respect all people, regardless of their faith in Christ, their godless lifestyles, or their attitudes toward Christians. At the same time we must love the brotherhood of believers unconditionally. God must have our reverence, treating His will as supreme. But we must also honor the king, who may in fact hate us, hate his own people, and hate God!
Let's be realistic. The Bible never suggests that rulers will be perfect, and our civil submission is not conditional upon our government modeling Christian virtue or reflecting Christian morality. Remember, in Peter's day the empire wasn't a benevolent, pro-Christian monarchy. A percentage of the taxes Christians paid supported the construction of pagan temples and funded unjust wars. And don't forget —the insane dictator, Nero, was notoriously cruel toward Christians. This combination posed a dilemma for Peter and his readers: How does one honor all people, love the brethren, fear God, _and_ honor that particular king? Shouldn't they refuse to pay taxes that support such an oppressive regime? Or maybe take up arms and resist a government with such a leader? Peter said no. Nowhere in Scripture are revolt and anarchy promoted.
But Peter's call to submit to established government as a system for maintaining order doesn't mean that God endorses every particular ruler. Neither does He approve of particular laws that stand in defiance against His will. Believers are not obligated to follow such laws that conflict with His clearly revealed will (Dan. 6; Acts 5:29). Nor are they instructed to keep silent in the face of obvious social and political injustices (Mark 6:17-18). In cases where God has given His people a command —like preaching the gospel and shunning idolatry —believers must obey God rather than human leaders. But in so doing, they must also be ready to suffer the legal consequences for that disobedience and outspoken criticism.[38]
Clearly, our responsibility to submit to human government and our responses to the evil of that same government are matters we must approach wisely, carefully, and prayerfully. Neither is the answer to follow the unholy agenda of a tyrant while waving our flags of patriotism. That would be dishonoring to God, the brethren, and the world. We are not to barricade ourselves in a barbed-wire compound and wage war against the corrupt government officials who come knocking with a tax bill or a search warrant. That would dishonor the king and bring reproach on Christ. But between these two extremes we live in the constant tension of Peter's seemingly impossible commands: "Honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king." Only God-given wisdom can help us live appropriately in this tension.
## — 2:18-25 —
Leaving the larger issue of submission to government authority, Peter turns to on a particular example of submission quite common in the first century: slavery.
In a twenty-first century world that rightly shudders at the sound of slavery as an abject violation of basic human rights, Peter's words will seem shocking. To some, they will be downright offensive! The institution of slavery in Peter's day was much different from the disgusting racist system in modern history or even the deplorable underworld slave-trafficking in our own days. But slavery in the ancient world could still be miserable, even deadly —especially if a master didn't appreciate his slave's newfound faith in Christ!
Many people have drawn an analogy between first-century slavery and today's employer-employee relationship, suggesting they were similar enough to apply this passage to modern-day work situations. In some ways this is appropriate, but in many fundamental ways the analogy breaks down. As far as applying the principles of this text in today's world, the realm of our employment is the place to start, but we must never forget that the vast majority of employment situations in the Western world today are voluntary, not compulsory.
* * *
# SLAVERY IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE
1 PETER 2:18-25
It would be incorrect for us to understand slavery in Peter's day as similar to slavery in the modern world. While certainly not free, slaves in the ancient world should be regarded as a social class. Historians believe the total number of slaves in Roman society may have constituted twenty-five to forty percent of the population.[39] Prior to the time of Peter, the Romans acquired most of their slaves as the spoils of war, but men and women could become slaves in a number of ways. Children of slaves automatically became slaves, and abandoned children could be brought up as slaves. People might sell their children —or even themselves —into slavery to fulfill debts or other obligations. As such, slavery in the Roman world was based more on social, economic, and political status than on race or ethnicity.
The actual daily tasks of slaves varied depending on their skills, the status of their masters, and the city or region in which they lived. Duties could be as menial as cleaning or as brutal as mining. Other slaves could be prized cooks, teachers, or even physicians. And the treatment of slaves depended on the temperament of their masters or mistresses.
Masters could set their slaves free at their leisure, at which time the slave took his master's name and was typically granted the same social status as his master.[40] Since Roman law allowed for the possibility of granting rights to such slaves, the composition of the slave population began to change over time, especially in regard to an increase in ethnic diversity. Whereas at one time only non-Roman peoples were slaves, by the time of Peter the population of slaves included both Romans and non-Romans.[41]
Relief showing a Roman woman and her servant
* * *
Throughout history, some radical Christians have interpreted the freedom they have in Christ as warranting a social and political freedom from authority and oppression. During the Reformation, Martin Luther's emphasis on the "freedom of the Christian" from spiritual bondage at the hands of the Catholic Church was taken to an extreme by enthusiastic peasants who took up arms against the German lords who ruled over them. Today, many advocates of "liberation theology" have interpreted the message of the cross in socialistic or communistic ways, pushing for the overthrow of oppressive social systems and for economic equality for all.
However, the apostles and the early church leaders knew the dangers of pushing for social and political upheaval apart from a true conversion of the hearts and minds within society. It is true that where the gospel of Jesus Christ penetrates people's hearts on a wide scale, that culture is transformed and evils like poverty, slavery, and oppression are radically diminished. But these social changes are the result, not the goal, of God's ultimate priority —transforming hearts and minds (Rom. 12:1-2; 1 Cor. 7:20-24).
Knowing the human tendency to rebel against unfair treatment, Peter urges Christian servants to submit to their masters, even to those who are rough and unreasonable. Admittedly, that's a hard load to bear. But Peter's exhortation to submission makes sense when we connect it to our calling to shine as reflections of Christ's character in a dark, godless world. Peter makes this point clear when he brings it back to Christ's own unjust suffering: "For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps, who committed no sin, nor was any deceit found in His mouth" (1 Pet. 2:21). When we suffer unjustly at the hands of a cruel dictator or an unfair and overbearing boss, we participate in Christ's own ministry of unjust suffering on behalf of others. Christ suffered on behalf of us. We suffer on behalf of unbelievers who need to see the gospel lived out in our everyday lives.
Nobody suffered as unjustly as Christ. The only perfect man who ever lived was misunderstood by listeners, maligned by enemies, forsaken by family, betrayed by friends, abandoned by disciples, tortured by law enforcers, and executed by politicians. The only one in history with every right to lodge a complaint remained silent. The only man who could have called on God to judge His enemies quietly endured undeserved judgment (2:23). And He did all of this not for Himself but for us (2:24). Dying in our place on the cross —the just for the unjust —He healed our souls so that we can live a new life of righteousness (2:24).
Peter calls his readers —and all of us —to submit willingly to people in authority, even if they behave unjustly. But he doesn't make this call simply to keep the peace or uphold a world system. Rather, he points us to Jesus Christ as the epochal example. Christ entrusted Himself to "Him who judges righteously," and could therefore endure injustice with hope. Similarly, we can entrust ourselves to the Shepherd and Guardian of our souls (2:25). In short, by following the example of Christ, we can secure an unshakable hope in hurtful times.
* * *
# APPLICATION: 1 PETER 2:13-25
Benefits of Bearing the Brunt
Peter's approach to facing unjust treatment from both government authorities and those who dominate us in our work appears radical. In fact, outright rebellion and overt revenge seem _less_ revolutionary than patiently enduring unjust suffering for the cause of Christ.
Currently, not many of us suffer persecution at the hands of civil government, but as Christians in an increasingly pluralistic society that's growing less tolerant toward Christianity, we face challenges from political and social institutions involving unfair treatment. And with the rapid deterioration of Christian values, we're more likely to experience mistreatment in our employment because of our commitment to Christ. In both cases, our initial response will likely be to speak out radically. But Peter offers an _even_ _more radical way_.
Our world bombards us with messages that urge us to stand up for our personal rights. We're quick to defend ourselves when we think somebody steps on our toes, crosses the line, ignores boundaries, or intrudes on our personal domain. We can find a lawyer's phone number quicker than a passage of Scripture calling us to endure hardship. Stop and think —when was the last time you took it on the chin for the cause of Christ? When did you last surrender your rights for the deliberate purpose of following Christ's example? How rare that is, especially in our fight-back, get-even culture!
Peter's message to that fledgling first-century church can feel like a punch in the stomach of the twenty-first century church. We simply can't downplay the significance of his call to patiently endure the intolerance, prejudice, and unjust treatment that comes with being a follower of Christ. And because this attitude doesn't flow from us naturally, take some time to work through your own approach to unfair treatment by answering some of the following questions.
First, consider which "natural" reactions to unfair treatment generally characterize your own. Do you instantly strike back? Look for opportunities for revenge? In your experience, what have been the negative effects of these responses? How might unbelievers perceive Christians and Christianity because of your reactions?
Second, reflecting on Jesus' words in Matthew 5:38-42, how does Christ's teaching apply to everyday situations in your life? How might unbelievers perceive Christians and Christianity if you lived this radical response to harsh treatment?
We might enjoy a rush of personal gratification when we stand up for ourselves or exact revenge against those in authority over us, but Christ calls us to a better way. Instead of meeting the world's slap in the face with a punch in the gut, Christ tells us to turn the other cheek. We must never let the world's sense of right and wrong dictate our own. We submit to the lordship of a perfect Leader who set an example of surrendering personal rights for a greater glory.
* * *
# The Give-and-Take of Domestic Harmony
1 PETER 3:1-7
NASB
1 In the same way, you wives, be submissive to your own husbands so that even if any _of them_ are disobedient to the word, they may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives, 2 as they observe your chaste and [a]respectful behavior. 3 Your adornment must not be _merely_ external —braiding the hair, and wearing gold jewelry, or putting on dresses; 4 but _let it be_ the hidden person of the heart, with the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in the sight of God. 5 For in this way in former times the holy women also, who hoped in God, used to adorn themselves, being submissive to their own husbands; 6 just as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord, and you have become her children if you do what is right [a]without being frightened by any fear.
7 You husbands in the same way, live with _your wives_ in an understanding way, as with [a]someone weaker, since she is a woman; and show her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life, so that your prayers will not be hindered.
3:2 [a]Lit _with respect_ 3:6 [a]Lit _and are not_ 3:7 [a]Lit _a weaker vessel_
NLT
1 In the same way, you wives must accept the authority of your husbands. Then, even if some refuse to obey the Good News, your godly lives will speak to them without any words. They will be won over 2 by observing your pure and reverent lives.
3 Don't be concerned about the outward beauty of fancy hairstyles, expensive jewelry, or beautiful clothes. 4 You should clothe yourselves instead with the beauty that comes from within, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is so precious to God. 5 This is how the holy women of old made themselves beautiful. They put their trust in God and accepted the authority of their husbands. 6 For instance, Sarah obeyed her husband, Abraham, and called him her master. You are her daughters when you do what is right without fear of what your husbands might do.
7 In the same way, you husbands must give honor to your wives. Treat your wife with understanding as you live together. She may be weaker than you are, but she is your equal partner in God's gift of new life. Treat her as you should so your prayers will not be hindered.
* * *
With a twinkle in his eye, a young groom helps his beautiful bride onto the coach and then hops on as well. He takes the reigns of the one-horse carriage, and with a word he coaxes the horse into a leisurely trot. The crisp, clear night is perfect for the ride. Romance is in the air; the newlyweds sit close, staring more at each other than at the beauty of their moonlit surroundings. After a few miles, however, things begin to change. The husband is distracted from steering the horse. The carriage swerves. The wife tries to take control and conflict breaks out. As the two play a fierce game of tug-of-war with the leather reins, the horse breaks into a gallop and darts into the woods. A once-smooth tour under a star-studded night sky quickly deteriorates into a bumpy and dangerous ordeal that worsens by the second. When the carriage finally topples, the couples' internal wounds hurt more than their external bumps and bruises.
This imaginative picture illustrates an important fact: _A wedding is one thing; a marriage is something completely different_. Having been married to Cynthia for well over fifty years, I've become a realist about marriage —not an idealist. Our decades of marriage have been years of learning and growth, difficulty, delight, discovery, heartaches, tragedies, hurtful times, and ecstatic moments together. These experiences have made our marriage stronger. The apostle Peter, too, spoke about marriage, but not from some remote prophet's cave or in a scholar's ivory tower. No, Peter was married. In fact, his wife accompanied him on many of his travels (1 Cor. 9:5). So Peter knew firsthand the struggles that all married couples endure.
Like a diamond nestled in a platinum setting, Peter's focus on Christian marriage is set in the midst of his discussion of our strange life as believers living in a hopeless and hostile world. Throughout this entire letter, Peter has been turning the spotlight on Jesus Christ, in whom we can find hope in hurtful times. Remember, in the immediate context of this passage, Peter is discussing submission. He has just called on believers to submit —for the sake of Christ —to human institutions and human masters, even those who treat them harshly (2:13-25). We _must_ submit because it will bring honor to God and keep those on the outside from having a basis for attacking Christianity. And we _can_ submit because Christ serves as an example of patient endurance through undeserved suffering for a greater purpose and with an eye toward the hope of glory that follows.
So, is Peter hinting that living in marital harmony may require the ability to live in a situation that can be unfair and sometimes even unbearable? Most marriages I know aren't exactly _unbearable_. Tough, challenging, and frustrating? Yes. But usually not so excruciating that they can't be tolerated or so dangerous that they're borderline deadly. That's not the common marriage. I also know that almost all marriages go through days, weeks, maybe even recurring periods that are difficult to bear, in which one partner drives the other to the brink of exhaustion or even despair. Peter addresses this kind of marital struggle, offering hope through following the example of Jesus Christ.
## — 3:1-6 —
Peter begins with the phrase "In the same way" or "likewise" ( _homoiōs_ [3668]). This connective immediately sends us back to Peter's previous discussion, since it prompts us to ask, "In the same way as _what_?" A more appropriate question should be, "In the same way as _whom_?" It shouldn't surprise us that the immediate context is the example of Christ's faithfulness to the plan and purpose of God. But this call to imitate Christ entails faithful citizenship (2:13) and faithful service (2:18). In other words, just as we are called to be faithful to the institutions of government and servanthood, we should also be faithful to the institution of marriage.
We should not be surprised, then, when Peter reiterates the same command he has given to citizens and servants: "Wives, be submissive." It's the same verb, _hypotassō_ , meaning to subject oneself to another, with the implication of following the other's lead in obedience. I am acutely aware of how sensitive the issue of submission in marriage can be, especially in a world where wives have too often been the object of physical and emotional abuse at the hands of husbands who display nothing of the love of Christ. Peter will address husbands later in verse 7. I don't believe Peter has any intention of forcing a person to endure the abuse of that kind of relationship, in which a wife or husband risks health or life to stay faithful to the marriage. That's not submission; that's intolerable surrender. On the other hand, some have interpreted this passage on marital roles as a product of Peter's cultural context, irrelevant in today's world. So it becomes a mere option —and an outdated one at that. But wouldn't that mean submitting to human government is also optional? Or that insubordination at work is now acceptable for Christians? Though popular, this kind of relativistic approach to the principles of Scripture doesn't work. So, conscious of the two ditches on either side of this narrow path, we should let Peter's own words explain this wise counsel to wives and husbands.
In the first six verses I find four implied imperatives woven into the fabric of Peter's general principle of a wife's call to submit to the leadership of her husband:
* Analyze your actions (3:1-2).
* Watch your adornment (3:3).
* Check your attitude (3:4).
* Evaluate your attention (3:5-6).
Let's look more closely at each of them.
First, _Peter urges wives to analyze their actions_ (3:1-2). Peter first addresses a common response to the principle of submission: "Turnabout is fair play; I'll be the kind of wife God wants me to be —when George is the kind of _husband_ God wants him to be!" But 1 Peter 3:1 explicitly portrays a husband who is _not_ living up to biblical ideals. Peter says wives should exhibit a submissive spirit toward their husbands "even if any of them are disobedient to the word." The phrase "disobedient to the word" at least means those who are not living by biblical principles, but it could also include those who have not personally submitted to the lordship of Christ.
Peter isn't writing this to "put wives in their place." Submission has a greater purpose than simply domestic order: "so that . . . they may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives." Here's the point: when a Christian wife lives a Christlike life, her attitudes and actions can win over a husband who might otherwise be hard-hearted toward biblical truth. In fact, Peter says such a husband may be drawn to Christ because he will observe her "chaste and respectful behavior" (3:2). The term "observe" ( _epopteuō_ [2029]) implies a careful observation, not a casual glance. One "good deed" of remarkable and gracious submission is not sufficient. Peter has in mind a consistently virtuous character. This chaste and respectful submission is not a cringing, spineless cowering. It's the commitment of a wife to chastity, purity, and devotion to her husband. It requires a calm spirit of unselfish cooperation rather than flashes of stubborn opposition. A wife like that cannot —and will not —be ignored.
Second, _Peter urges wives to watch their adornment_ (3:3). The Greek word translated "adornment" is the word _kosmos_ [2889], from which we get the term "cosmetics." It refers to anything used to beautify or decorate. For example, Luke uses the related verb ( _kosmeō_ [2885]) when he describes the temple in Jerusalem as "adorned with beautiful stones" (Luke 21:5). It's the same Greek noun used for the ordered world: the physical world of ordered creation (Acts 17:24), the world of humanity in general (John 3:16), or the human system oriented in opposition to God (1 John 5:19). Please note that Peter does not forbid the appropriate use of cosmetics, jewelry, or hairstyling. Some have taken this out of its context and opted for a "plain Jane" approach, resulting in an unkempt, even sloppy appearance that draws attention to the externals just as much as an exaggerated, flamboyant adornment. That approach misses Peter's point. Wives who use cosmetics appropriately and in good taste are not "worldly." However, those who substitute an emphasis on their external appearance for the lack of cultivating their internal character have chosen the wrong priority.
Third, _Peter urges wives to check their attitudes_ (3:4). Verse four begins with a strong contrasting conjunction, "but" ( _alla_ [235]). Peter points his readers to the internal attitudes of the heart rather than the external adornments of the body. The word "heart" ( _kardia_ [2588]) refers to the source of one's true character. Though the source of this adornment is invisible, it manifests itself in external words and actions. So, in verses 3 and 4 Peter contrasts _kosmos_ with _kardia_ , the external with the internal, the superficial decking of one's body with the superior displaying of one's virtue. It may take only a few hours to prepare for an elegant evening, but it takes a lifetime to build an elegant character. Mothers should pay close attention to this warning because young daughters especially take their cues about priorities from Mom. You can teach your little girls how to fret over hair, makeup, jewelry, and clothing, all the while missing the important virtues of modesty, gentleness, and peace.
This kind of emphasis isn't popular today. Western culture values the showy, the fashionable, the trendy. Media bombards us with one message: "Look your best at all costs!" The world lavishes its treasures on those considered the most physically beautiful. But God turns the tables on the world's agenda. The internal adornment of virtue never goes out of style; _it's imperishable_. While the quality of a gentle and quiet spirit may not impress the red carpet crowd at the Academy Awards, _it's precious in God's sight._
Finally, _Peter urges wives to evaluate their attention_ (3:5-6). To illustrate the principle of biblical submission, Peter turns to Old Testament heroines, whom he calls "holy women . . . who hoped in God" (3:5). We should take careful note of Peter's connection between holiness and hope —a theme he has developed and will continue to develop throughout the letter. By hoping in God —turning their full attention to Him as the source of strength, holiness, provision, and protection —the saints of old were able to conduct themselves in humility, gentleness, and submission. Apart from this divine hope, such a divine disposition is impossible to maintain.
Also note how Peter uses the word "adorn" ( _kosmeō_ [2885]) for the inner attitudes that manifest themselves in both words and deeds. Sarah, the wife of Abraham, became the model of this kind of hopeful and holy submission to her husband. She showed him respect in her words and in her works —which she did without fear. She didn't rebel, lash out, or abandon Abraham so she could do her own thing. She gave him the attention and honor due him as her husband.
I realize some reading this may be tempted to cross their arms and respond, "Okay, but Sarah was married to Abraham —the father of faith! If my husband were a saint like Abraham, I'd gladly follow him wherever he goes!" But let's not forget the hard life Sarah had to endure as the wife of Abraham. Think about these things from Sarah's perspective.
* Her husband claimed to have had visions from God instructing him to move (when they were quite old) into a strange land (Gen. 12:1-5).
* Her husband convinced Sarah to pretend to be his sister while they were in Egypt, where the pharaoh temporarily took Sarah as his wife (Gen. 12:10-20)!
* She followed her husband's lead when Abraham surrendered the best grazing land to his cousin, Lot (Gen. 13:1-11).
* Abraham tried to pass Sarah off as his sister a second time, attracting the attention of Abimelech, king of Gerar, who wanted Sarah as his wife (Gen. 20:1-18).
* She endured the near-sacrifice of her only son, Isaac, at the hands of Abraham, who claimed God had instructed him to offer Isaac (Gen. 22:1-19).
From Sarah's perspective, Abraham may have appeared unpredictable, devious, foolish, rash, and irresponsible. In some cases her estimation of the man would have been quite accurate! Yet Peter tells us in 1 Peter 3:6, "Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord." Not because of her secure and perfect marriage, but because of her insecure and imperfect marriage, Sarah becomes a paragon of submission for all believers.
At this point it would be appropriate for wives to ask themselves some probing questions. "Am I looking to saints like Sarah as role models, or to today's celebrity trendsetters?" "Is my husband at the top of my prayer list?" "Do I put my husband first in my planning?" "Do I look for ways to honor him?" "Do I make his life easier or more difficult?" These kinds of questions would be appropriate in light of Peter's exhortation to hopeful and holy living as a godly wife.
## — 3:7 —
Peter doesn't drop a heavy weight on the side of wives and let husbands go scot-free. In fact, though he only addressed husbands in one verse, that single verse contains three strong imperatives, either explicit or implied: _live with your wife_ , _know your wife_ , and _honor your wife._ Before we jump into those commands, please note how he begins his address to husbands: "You husbands _in the same way_ " ( _homoiōs_ [3668]). This language actually parallels Peter's opening line to wives:
* _In the same way_ , you wives . . . (3:1)
* You husbands, _in the same way_ . . . (3:7)
The Greek adverb _homoiōs_ means "similarly," "in like manner," or simply "likewise." Remember the broader context of this section? Because of the hope we have in Christ, we can have security in Him and, for His sake, submit ourselves to others in every context of life —government, employment, and marriage. Just as Christian wives have certain responsibilities in marriage, Christian husbands have equally important roles to play.
First, _husbands are to live with their wives._ The phrase means more than "putting up with" or "surviving." It means dwelling together in close relationship —physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. Husbands too easily substitute making a good living and meeting physical needs for sharing their time, their words, and their feelings. But this kind of close relationship is necessary to truly _live with_ their wives.
Second, _husbands are to know their wives._ The Greek text literally states that husbands are to dwell together with their wives "according to knowledge." This has nothing to do with superficial knowledge like her favorite colors or least favorite foods. Nor does it pertain to psychological knowledge about the needs of women in general. No, Peter means a deep understanding and appreciation of one's wife. It includes perceiving her most intimate desires and personal needs. It involves discerning her unspoken concerns and worries. And it includes assisting her in working through issues in a careful, caring manner. It's directly related to "living together," so it means a constant, moment-by-moment understanding of one's wife.
Along with this understanding Peter urges husbands to treat their wives as they would treat, literally, a "weaker vessel." We might paraphrase this as "delicate vase."[42] The idea is that the husband's tendency may be to act like a bull in a china shop, handling situations in a masculine manner as he would with his male friends or colleagues. Instead, he is to treat his wife as a fine piece of china —tenderly, carefully, with gentleness. While one might toss around a football, nobody would play catch with an expensive Etruscan vase!
Peter's description here of the "weaker vessel" isn't meant to demean a woman or regard her with less value —just the opposite! This can't mean that women are morally or intellectually weaker than men. And I've been close to enough women who endure the trials of pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood, to know it can't refer to a weakness in stamina! Rather, most commentators believe this phrase refers to general physical strength of women as compared to men.[43] It is true that _on average_ men are physiologically built to have greater muscle mass than women. This means that in a game of tug-of-war, if we had ten average men on one side of a rope and ten average women on the other, the men would win. So, when Peter calls on husbands to understand their wives, treating them as one would treat a delicate vessel, he has in mind a woman's need for physical care and protection. This is still true today, but it was especially relevant in the ancient world where a woman could easily fall victim to crime or be taken advantage of legally without a husband's protection. But another implication is that Peter calls on husbands to reject all verbal and physical abuse of their wives. Behind Peter's words looms a sharp rebuke —"What kind of sick man, built twice the size of his wife, would even _consider_ lifting a hand to her?"
* * *
# From My Journal
# Hands Off!
1 PETER 3:1-7
In the early years of my pastoral ministry I married a man and woman that I should have known were headed for trouble. In hindsight, I probably ought to have refused to conduct the ceremony, but even though I tried my best to put it off, they wouldn't hear of it. Blinded by love or driven by passion, they were determined to get married —now!
I remember bluntly telling the wife-to-be when we were alone that I thought the groom was "a little weird." I couldn't say exactly what it was that struck me as strange, but there was just something about him that didn't seem right. To my surprise, she agreed with me. But like so many men and women viewing their premarital world through pink, heart-shaped glasses, she responded, "I know. But I think we can work it out." She thought she could put up with his rather odd behavior, or that she could help him change it.
Several months after the wedding, that couple passed through the door of my study again. Sheepishly, he walked in and took a seat. The tension in the air was thick. Finally she opened her mouth and asked, "Is it normal for a husband to take all the doors off the house after you get married?"
I answered, "Well, I've never heard of that before, but . . ."
"Because several days after we got home from our honeymoon he took every door off the hinges so there wouldn't be any secrets between us!"
That man distrusted his wife so much that he had to be able to watch her every move — _while they were at home_! Talk about creepy! But distrust and suspicion are all too common. That leads to jealousy. Jealousy turns into rage. And rage fuels violence. I can't think of a more despicable kind of man than one who abuses his wife, whether physically, emotionally, or verbally. If a husband can't control himself enough to keep from pummeling his wife with his hands —or his words —he needs to get help _immediately_. And just because your _hands_ are clean doesn't mean you're guilt-free. Oppression, manipulation, obsession, neglect —yes, and removing all the doors to keep a watchful eye on her —these are all ways to flat-out _disobey_ Peter's exhortation for men to live with their wives in an understanding way.
* * *
Third, _husbands are to honor their wives_. At this point Peter makes it clear that he views women as honorable and equal partners in the marriage relationship. Husbands are to assign their wives a place of honor. A man's wife should be his top priority, occupying the greatest place not only in his heart and mind but also in his schedule. He should honor her with his words and through his actions. She deserves this kind of honor because she is "a fellow heir of the grace of life." Husband and wife share a common relationship with their Lord Jesus Christ. _In the spiritual realm they are unquestionably equal_.
Finally, Peter points out a great purpose for maintaining domestic harmony: "so that your prayers will not be hindered." Have you ever tried to pray after having an argument with your wife? How easy is it to hold your husband's hands in prayer after butting heads in conflict? When a husband and wife don't keep their married life intact, they'll have trouble keeping their spiritual life on track. Why? Because there's a direct relationship between the love of God and the love of our fellow believers (1 Jn. 4:20). Marriage, then, functions like a barometer, measuring our spiritual lives through an everyday relationship. Think about it. If Jesus Christ is in the midst of two people gathered in His name (Matt. 18:20), just imagine how powerful the prayers of a unified husband and wife can be, which more than any human analogy pictures the union between Christ and His church (Eph. 5:31-32)!
* * *
# APPLICATION: 1 PETER 3:1-7
Beyond Crotchety Husbands and Ornery Wives
Let's be honest. Many husbands have a real problem understanding and honoring their wives. They tend to crowd their schedules with things that advance their careers or satisfy their interests or inflate their egos rather than things that build closeness with their wives. At the same time, many wives have a problem respecting and following the lead of their husbands. They openly complain about their husbands or belittle them in front of friends. It isn't uncommon for some wives to engage in either active or passive manipulation to get their way.
Both husbands and wives should remind themselves of their roles and responsibilities in their marriage. The principles of 1 Peter 3:1-7 can take a number of practical forms, but let me suggest a few practical projects to get you going right away. First, over the next week, spend some time together as a couple and write down four qualities you appreciate most about your spouse. Tell them. Let them know how you desire to honor them as persons.
Second, using 1 Peter 3:1-7 as a guide, admit one thing you would like to change about _yourself_ as it relates to the treatment of your spouse. Don't get it backwards! Don't mention four things you want to change about _your spouse_. Stick with the section of this Scripture that applies to you! Having done this, admit to your spouse that you've failed to live up to this and that you want to work on it. Then do it with prayer and patience.
Third, if you're struggling with your own role as a husband or wife, consider finding a role model to help you grow in your relationship with your spouse (Titus 2:3-5). Contact somebody you look up to as a good example of a harmonious marriage and ask him or her to meet with you to discuss their own approach to marital harmony. Or, if you have been through the ups and downs of marriage and have some wisdom to share with a couple who are just starting out, consider seeking out somebody you might mentor through this season of their marriage.
Above all, remember that real domestic harmony doesn't come easy. Sometimes it feels downright impossible. Crotchety husbands set in their ways or ornery wives unwilling to budge can be real obstacles to the application of the principles in 1 Peter 3:1-7. But don't give up! With hope in God even through hurtful times, you can press on until you see the fruit of your faithfulness in the life of your own spouse.
* * *
# Righteous Life and Ready Defense
1 PETER 3:8-17
NASB
8[a]To sum up, all of you be harmonious, sympathetic, brotherly, kindhearted, and humble in spirit; 9 not returning evil for evil or insult for insult, but [a]giving a blessing instead; for you were called for the very purpose that you might inherit a blessing. 10 For,
"THE ONE WHO DESIRES LIFE, TO LOVE AND SEE GOOD DAYS,
MUST KEEP HIS TONGUE FROM EVIL AND HIS LIPS FROM SPEAKING DECEIT.
11 "HE MUST TURN AWAY FROM EVIL AND DO GOOD;
HE MUST SEEK PEACE AND PURSUE IT.
12 "FOR THE EYES OF THE LORD ARE TOWARD THE RIGHTEOUS,
AND HIS EARS ATTEND TO THEIR PRAYER,
BUT THE FACE OF THE LORD IS AGAINST THOSE WHO DO EVIL."
13 Who is [a]there to harm you if you prove zealous for what is good? 14 But even if you should suffer for the sake of righteousness, you [a]are blessed. AND DO NOT FEAR THEIR [b]INTIMIDATION, AND DO NOT BE TROUBLED, 15 but [a]sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always _being_ ready to make a [b]defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and [c]reverence; 16[a]and keep a good conscience so that in the thing in which you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ will be put to shame. 17 For it is better, if [a]God should will it so, that you suffer for doing what is right rather than for doing what is wrong.
3:8 [a]Or _Finally_ 3:9 [a]Lit _blessing instead_ 3:13 [a]Lit _the one who will harm you_ 3:14 [a]Or _would be_ [b]Lit _fear_ 3:15 [a]I.e. set apart [b]Or _argument;_ or _explanation_ [c]Or _fear_ 3:16 [a]Lit _having a good_ 3:17 [a]Lit _the will of God_
NLT
8 Finally, all of you should be of one mind. Sympathize with each other. Love each other as brothers and sisters.[*] Be tenderhearted, and keep a humble attitude. 9 Don't repay evil for evil. Don't retaliate with insults when people insult you. Instead, pay them back with a blessing. That is what God has called you to do, and he will grant you his blessing. 10 For the Scriptures say,
"If you want to enjoy life
and see many happy days,
keep your tongue from speaking evil
and your lips from telling lies.
11 Turn away from evil and do good.
Search for peace, and work to maintain it.
12 The eyes of the LORD watch over those who do right,
and his ears are open to their prayers.
But the LORD turns his face
against those who do evil."[*]
13 Now, who will want to harm you if you are eager to do good? 14 But even if you suffer for doing what is right, God will reward you for it. So don't worry or be afraid of their threats. 15 Instead, you must worship Christ as Lord of your life. And if someone asks about your hope as a believer, always be ready to explain it. 16 But do this in a gentle and respectful way.[*] Keep your conscience clear. Then if people speak against you, they will be ashamed when they see what a good life you live because you belong to Christ. 17 Remember, it is better to suffer for doing good, if that is what God wants, than to suffer for doing wrong!
[3:8] Greek _Show brotherly love._ [3:10-12] Ps 34:12-16. [3:16] Some English translations put this sentence in verse 15.
* * *
Without a doubt, the process of spiritual growth is a long and often painful one. En route to maturity, we all spill our milk, say things we shouldn't, and fail to act our age. Sometimes we throw temper tantrums like toddlers or pout like preschoolers or argue and complain like teens. All the while we should be conducting ourselves as mature believers, setting an example to those who are younger in the faith. We may have the knowledge, but we don't have the will to do what's right. Even those who are spiritually mature have days when they take a return trip to the "terrible twos."
Human parents rejoice as their children grow from infancy through childhood, up through adolescence and into adulthood. In the same way, our heavenly Father wants all His children to grow in their faith. Sadly, too many Christian _grow old_ without _growing up_! There's a difference. A lot of people can say, "I've been a child of God for thirty years." Sometimes I want to say, "Then quit acting like a three-year-old saint!"
In 1 Peter 3:8-12, the apostle Peter sums up what he sees as the kind of lifestyle that epitomizes Christian maturity. As such, these virtues provide believers with a measuring rod for spiritual growth. As a tangible, objective set of checkpoints, we can use them to measure our own maturity in different areas of life. In only five verses, Peter summarizes his comments in the form of eight marks of maturity.
Remember that Peter's purpose in this section of the letter is to describe with accuracy the _strange life_ we live in relation to the world. This list of Christian virtues certainly flies in the face of prevailing cultural norms, setting believers apart as God's holy people in an unholy world. But again and again, Peter ties this lifestyle of holiness to the life of hope —consistent anticipation of the reward that will come at the appearing of Jesus Christ. Mature, holy living can only come as we embrace Christ as our hope in hurtful times.
## — 3:8-12 —
Peter begins this checklist of maturity with the phrase "to sum up." The Greek _to telos_ 5056] literally means "the end" or "the conclusion." Peter wasn't concluding the letter, but was summing up the purpose of his previous teaching concerning attitudes and actions.[[44] The preceding context instructed believers to live as "aliens and strangers" in their personal conflict against the fleshly desires (2:11-12). This conflict played out in the battlefields of unjust treatment by human government (2:13-17), unfair behavior of masters (2:18-25), and the struggles of married life (3:1-7). When Peter sums up the virtues of the ideal "resident alien" living in this world, he touches on a number of things he has already covered —and he anticipates several themes he will address in the rest of the letter.
The maturity checkpoints include unity, mutual interest, friendship, affection, compassion, humility, forgiveness, a controlled tongue, a pure life, and a peaceful disposition.
_A like-minded unity_ —"harmonious" (3:8a, _homophrōn_ 3675]). The Greek word refers to "having the same mind,"[[45] which implies oneness of heart, similarity of purpose, and agreement on major points of doctrine. Unity isn't the same as _uniformity,_ where everybody looks and acts exactly the same. Nor is it the same as _unanimity,_ when everybody agrees one hundred percent on everything. Peter isn't calling us to sing together in _unison_ but in _harmony,_ which means we all contribute our unique notes in a beautiful chorus that far surpasses any single note.
_A mutual interest_ —"sympathetic" (3:8b, _sympatheis_ [4835]). The Greek word _sympatheis_ lies behind our English "sympathy." It means, literally, "to feel with" someone. When we are in as close a fellowship with fellow believers as Peter has in mind, we will naturally affect each other emotionally, rejoicing when others rejoice, weeping when others weep. We have a mutual interest in each other.
_A true companionship_ —"brotherly" (3:8c, _philadelphos_ [5361]). The Greek word _philadelphos_ is the adjective form of the same word Peter used for "brotherly love" in 1 Peter 1:22. It refers to an affectionate friendship or the love of a sibling. This affectionate companionship is much deeper than the often superficial activities that pass for "fellowship" in many churches. _Philadelphos_ indicates a sense of loyalty just as strong as one's natural family relationships.
_A heartfelt compassion —_"kindhearted" (3:8d, _eusplanchnos_ [2155]). Paul uses this same term in Ephesians 4:32 —"Be kind to one another, _tender-hearted_ , forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you." This heartfelt compassion, closely associated with forgiveness, emphasizes the actions taken to reach out to those who are hurting.
_A spirit of humility —_"humble in spirit" (3:8e, _tapeinophrōn_ [5012b]). This means to have a humble mindset. It might be easy to appear humble, to act with false modesty. But Peter has in mind a deep-down humility where nobody can see —in our thought life. In our "me-first" world, it's hard to swallow the "last shall be first" principle. When people are blessed with exceptional talents or skills, the temptation is great to promote themselves and crave the limelight. A true spirit of humility curbs the ego's insatiable appetite from within.
The first five virtues of a mature Christian related to how we _think_ (like-minded and humble in spirit) and how we _feel_ (sympathetic, brotherly, and compassionate). The last four characteristics relate to what we do and say —the outward actions as they directly affect people. None of these, of course, is mutually exclusive. A person won't be able to feel compassion, affection, and sympathy if she is proud and contentious. And a believer won't manifest virtuous words and deeds if his thoughts and emotions are those of a novice Christian. Mind, emotion, and will must all grow together into a well-rounded, balanced character. This will lead to a lifestyle befitting a Christian and attractive to unbelievers.
_A forgiving nature_ —"not returning evil for evil" (3:9). Refusing to exact revenge when we've been injured in some way is one thing. Replying with a blessing, either in word or in deed, is something quite different. But because we have been called to inherit a blessing and because Christ has secured this hope, we can endure evil and insults with patience and grace.
_A controlled tongue_ —"keep his tongue from evil" (3:10). Peter quotes Psalm 34:12-13, grounding his call for the controlled tongue firmly in the Old Testament. This quote immediately follows Peter's warning against lashing out in vengeance (3:9), so the thought is that our words are more likely to get away from us when we're tempted to strike back. The mature believer's tongue is tamed. It avoids gossip, slander, crude language, deception, exaggeration, and all kinds of wickedness and folly. This reminds me of another psalm: "Set a guard, O LORD, over my mouth; Keep watch over the door of my lips" (Ps. 141:3). Those lines are worth praying every morning before a single stray word slips from our tongues.
_A life of purity —_"turn away from evil and do good" (3:11). Continuing his quote from Psalm 34:14, Peter recasts his repeated exhortation to holy living. Purity from wickedness means turning away from evil inclinations, temptations, and even the sins that once beset us in our past. Instead, we are to replace these bad thoughts and habits with pure, positive ideas.
_A peaceful disposition —_"seek peace and pursue it" (3:11). We're a people who love to argue and fight. We jump to our feet when wronged, dig in our heels when challenged, and clench our fists when crossed. Whether it's over minor doctrinal differences or carpet color, Christians can quickly rob each other of peace. Instead of seeking and pursuing peace, we often pursue controversy or engage in open conflict. Instead, shouldn't the servants of the Prince of Peace (Isa. 9:6) reflect something of that peace, both in their churches and in the world?
Behind Peter's list of Christian virtues stands an important assumption —that believers _can_ grow in spiritual maturity to a point where we walk consistently in light of God's Word. Note that I didn't say we will walk _perfectly_ without stumbling, but consistently. A consistent life of unity, mutual interest, friendship, affection, compassion, humility, forgiveness, self-control, purity, and peace doesn't mean we never fail. It means that when we do fail we acknowledge it and allow God's grace to restore and strengthen us.
These nine virtues of spiritual maturity are _general_ enough to encompass all areas of our lives, and they are _specific_ enough to hit us where it hurts. When properly understood, Peter's rapid-fire arrows point out the weakest spots in our spiritual armor, convicting us that we're all still soldiers in training. But as we examine the chinks in our own armor, we can easily lose sight of Peter's bigger perspective. He has in mind a greater purpose for the holiness and hope we should have in an unholy and hopeless world.
## — 3:13-17 —
Peter makes it clear that the spiritually mature men and women described in 1 Peter 3:8-12 will provoke responses from the world around us. But don't be surprised when these responses aren't always positive. Many in the world live lifestyles of conflict instead of peace, sin instead of purity, pride instead of humility, or hatred instead of compassion. Some will view believers as speed bumps on their superhighways of self-gratification. Or others may simply wonder what would motivate somebody to live such a strange life of holiness and hope.
So Peter asks his readers to consider an important question: "Who is there to harm you if you prove zealous for what is good?" (3:13). He has already defined what it looks like to be zealous for "good" with the nine virtues in 3:8-12. For the most part, living this way —though strange in the world's eyes —will generally keep believers out of trouble. Just think about it. If you pay your debts, you'll stay financially sound. When you stay sexually pure, you'll avoid disappointment and jealousy. If you behave with humility and peace, you'll keep from making enemies. And when you maintain close relationships with other believers, you'll always have people to help you through tough times. So in general, Peter's advice for wise living will bring good —not harm —from others. But even when it doesn't work out that way, living this way has a lasting advantage. Why? Because "the eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous, and His ears attend to their prayer" (3:12).
Though the principle may be generally true most of the time and in most situations, Peter knows there are exceptions. In fact, at certain times in history and at certain places in the world, the smoldering cinders of opposition can burst into outright persecution. And the lifestyle that keeps believers safe may actually endanger them! Peter says that we may actually "suffer for the sake of righteousness" (3:14).[46] In Peter's discussion of the possibility of unfair treatment, I find five pieces of advice on how to respond as Christians who have centered their hope on Jesus Christ.
The first response to unfair treatment is to _consider yourself blessed by God_ (3:14a). This isn't the response we might expect. When we experience unfair treatment we might think, "What have I done wrong?" or "Hasn't God seen my good works? Why is He allowing this?" Instead, Peter takes an approach similar to James 1:2: "Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials." How can believers actually count themselves blessed by God in light of unfair treatment? First, they are blessed because God uses this kind of unfair treatment as part of His plan to strengthen and make us more like Christ, as seen already in 1 Peter 2:21–3:9. Rather than marking us as outside God's will, unfair treatment for righteousness indicates that we are _in_ God's will and plan. Second, we are blessed because we can look forward to a future reward for enduring such trials. Jesus said, "Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 5:10). Very likely Peter had these words of his Lord in mind when writing this letter.
The second response to poor treatment for righteous living is to _refrain from panic and worry_ (3:14b). There's no reason to fear your enemy's methods of intimidation or be troubled. The Greek verb for "fear" is _phobeō_ 5399], from which we get our word "phobia." It implies fleeing or avoiding something.[[47] The word "trouble" ( _tarassō_ 5015]) refers to shaking up or intimidating somebody.[[48] Jesus uses it in John 14:1, when He tells the disciples, "Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me." The background of Peter's call to avoid panic and worry lies in Isaiah 8:12-13, where the Lord called on His people, Israel, to turn away from fear and dread of those pagan nations threatening to undo them. Instead of fearing and trembling before the nations, they were to rely on God's promises and tremble before Him alone.
In fact, Isaiah's call to regard the Lord as holy leads us to Peter's third response to mistreatment: to _acknowledge Christ as Lord_ (3:15a). The phrase "sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts" is contrasted with fearing the intimidation of persecutors. The language and imagery tracks closely with Isaiah's own exhortation in Isaiah 8:13-14, as seen in the comparison below. Peter uses the same Greek terms as the Greek version of Isaiah read in Peter's day.
ISAIAH 8:12-13 | 1 PETER 3:14-15
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12And you are not to fear what they fear or be in dread of it. | 14And do not fear their intimidation, and do not be troubled,
13It is **the** **L ORD** **of hosts** whom you should regard as holy. | 15but sanctify Christ **as Lord** in your hearts.
We should not quickly pass over this allusion to Isaiah 8:13 without noticing that the original Old Testament text to which Peter refers uses the name of God —Yahweh —for "LORD." Therefore, Peter is making clear and direct claims about Jesus' deity, equating Him with the LORD God of the Old Testament and declaring that we should "sanctify" or "regard as holy" Jesus Christ as the Lord over our lives. When Christ is Lord and God over all aspects of our lives, we need not fear the opposition of enemies.
The fourth response to unjust treatment is to _be ready to give a defense_ (3:15b). The term "defense" is the Greek word _apologia_ [627], which means "to give an account" or to provide legal testimony. Our English word "apologetics" comes from this term. Peter tells his readers that they should be ready to give a reason for the hope that they have in Christ. Note that this explanation for their hope comes only when they have considered themselves blessed, refused to panic and worry, and acknowledged Christ as Lord over their unfair treatment. When that happens, people on the outside will see their behavior and marvel: "How can you put up with this kind of treatment? I would have snapped by now!" Here Peter's overarching theme of Christ as the source of hope in hurtful times comes again to the fore. Jesus alone provides a solid basis for hope in the midst of suffering.
Finally, the fifth response to the world's unfair treatment is to _keep a good conscience_ (3:16). Not only do we set Christ apart as Lord over every event of our lives, but we must maintain a good conscience. Peter began this section by cataloguing Christian virtues that mark us out as God's holy and hopeful people (3:8-12). Then he pointed out that although living in this way generally brings good, it can sometimes draw the ire of wicked people (3:13). But when this happens, Peter writes, we should endure the unjust treatment of others, unwavering in our integrity. This maintenance of a good conscience even in the midst of persecution will draw attention from the pagan crowd and even silence slanderers. In other words, Peter argues that a life of consistent integrity is a quiet defense of the Christian life, opening the opportunity for testimony regarding the lordship of Jesus Christ.
Peter brings this section to a close by echoing a principle he stated earlier in 1 Peter 2:20. Although believers may suffer unjust treatment for living a virtuous Christian life, we must be careful that we're not actually incurring deserved punishment for doing wrong. Only when we suffer unjustly on behalf of Christ and as a testimony to others can we claim to be truly walking after the pattern of our Lord, who suffered and died for our sake (3:18).
* * *
# APPLICATION: 1 PETER 3:8-17
Apologetics 101
Back in my seminary days, I learned about the great "apologists" of the Christian faith —those great minds who provided a well-reasoned defense of the Christian faith in response to unreasonable philosophical objections. Throughout the past two thousand years of church history, every generation has had its Christian scholars who stood strong for the faith —sometimes against overwhelming opposition. Even today, the field of Christian apologetics is filled with PhDs who can argue atheists and unbelievers into silence. I thank God for such men and women trained in both the philosophies of the world and the true wisdom of the Word. But sometimes the rest of us may think we're off the hook because we can't explain arguments for the existence of God or we can't fire off three responses to the theory of evolution or we can't explain where Cain got his wife! We leave those questions to qualified scholars as we tell ourselves we're not meant to be involved in apologetics.
But the truth is, according to Peter, _every believer is called to be an apologist_. We should always be ready to make a defense for the hope we have in Christ. Yet presupposing this explanation, Peter describes a particular consistent lifestyle of virtue that actually draws the attention of unbelievers. So, Apologetics 101 begins not with having the right answers to others' skeptical challenges but with having the right lifestyle to raise the right questions!
To be faithful to Peter's exhortation, then, we need to examine our own lives to see if we're measuring up to his standards of spiritual maturity described in 1 Peter 3:8-12. It wouldn't hurt to assign yourself a specific maturity level for each area. If you're really brave, have a close friend or your spouse rate you, too! Once you've discovered the areas of your life that are most susceptible to the charge of immaturity, you can see where your own lifestyle apologetics needs to be strengthened. Use the chart below to grade your level of maturity as infant, toddler, youth, teen, or adult. You may need to go back in the text to review the description of each of these areas.
* Like-minded unity
* Infant:
* Toddler:
* Youth:
* Teen:
* Adult:
* Mutual interest
* Infant:
* Toddler:
* Youth:
* Teen:
* Adult:
* True companionship
* Infant:
* Toddler:
* Youth:
* Teen:
* Adult:
* Heartfelt compassion
* Infant:
* Toddler:
* Youth:
* Teen:
* Adult:
* Spirit of humility
* Infant:
* Toddler:
* Youth:
* Teen:
* Adult:
* Forgiving nature
* Infant:
* Toddler:
* Youth:
* Teen:
* Adult:
* Controlled tongue
* Infant:
* Toddler:
* Youth:
* Teen:
* Adult:
* Life of purity
* Infant:
* Toddler:
* Youth:
* Teen:
* Adult:
* Peaceful disposition
* Infant:
* Toddler:
* Youth:
* Teen:
* Adult:
Now select one area in which you need the most growth. Commit this to prayer. Focus on submitting this area to Christ's lordship, described in 3:15, and aim to keep a "good conscience" toward God (3:16). Because we're called to grow together in the body of Christ, consider sharing your desire to grow in this area with a close friend, pastor, or teacher who can hold you accountable and pray for your growth (see Eph. 4:15-16). Also, make this area of growth a focal point in your Bible reading, study, and devotional life, growing from infancy by feeding on "the pure milk of the word" (1 Pet. 2:2).
* * *
# Focusing Fully on Jesus Christ
1 PETER 3:18-22
NASB
18 For Christ also died for sins once for all, _the_ just for _the_ unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the [a]spirit; 19 in [a]which also He went and made proclamation to the spirits _now_ in prison, 20 who once were disobedient, when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through _the_ [a]water. 21 Corresponding to that, baptism now saves you —not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God [a]for a good conscience —through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 22 who is at the right hand of God, having gone into heaven, after angels and authorities and powers had been subjected to Him.
3:18 [a]Or _Spirit_ 3:19 [a]Or _whom_ 3:20 [a]I.e. the great flood 3:21 [a]Or _from_
NLT
18 Christ suffered[*] for our sins once for all time. He never sinned, but he died for sinners to bring you safely home to God. He suffered physical death, but he was raised to life in the Spirit.[*]
19 So he went and preached to the spirits in prison —20 those who disobeyed God long ago when God waited patiently while Noah was building his boat. Only eight people were saved from drowning in that terrible flood.[*] 21 And that water is a picture of baptism, which now saves you, not by removing dirt from your body, but as a response to God from[*] a clean conscience. It is effective because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
22 Now Christ has gone to heaven. He is seated in the place of honor next to God, and all the angels and authorities and powers accept his authority.
[3:18a] Some manuscripts read _died._ [3:18b] Or _in spirit._ [3:20] Greek _saved through water._ [3:21] Or _as an appeal to God for._
* * *
The year is AD 200. The place is Rome. After fasting for several days and preparing his heart for a rite of initiation and dedication to the triune God, the young believer's moment had finally arrived. With all the excitement and anticipation of a wedding celebration, the small group of believers gathered together with their pastor, elders, and deacons, and the young convert to the Christian faith stepped into the water as the congregation awaited the proclamation of his "vows" —the confession of faith. Though the exact form varied from region to region and church to church, they all told the same story; they all pointed to the same essential truths:
I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth;
And in Jesus Christ His only Son, our Lord; who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; He descended into Hades; the third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God, the Father Almighty; from thence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Christian church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.[49]
When that new believer affirmed this creed as his confession of faith and was accepted by the church, he was baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. He rose up from the water as a full member of the church, validated by the rite of baptism.
Fast forward many centuries. When I was a lad, my family and I attended a church where the congregation recited the Apostles' Creed every Sunday. Within months I had it memorized. Reciting wasn't the same as understanding, and the pastor of that church never made a point of actually explaining it. Unlike the second-century believers, I didn't have the luxury of a three-year training period to clarify the rich theology of the creed. So when we got to the part that said, "He descended into Hades," I wasn't at all sure what that meant. Some forms of the creed even said, "He descended into Hell." I recall putting it out of my mind, and I didn't recall it again until years later when I sat in a seminary classroom and we studied the Greek text of 1 Peter. Finally some light was shed on the dim corners of that creed —the activity of Jesus during the hours between His death and His miraculous, bodily resurrection.
While 1 Peter 3:18-22 may have explained one aspect of the Apostles' Creed, it brought up several new questions and controversies. In fact, 1 Peter 3:20-21 are some of the most difficult verses not only to translate but also to interpret. Let's take a close look at this passage, focusing closely on its context to help us better grasp its content.
## — 3:18 —
This section actually begins in the middle of a paragraph, a larger unit of Peter's thought and argument. In the previous section, Peter referred to the believer's appropriate response to unjust suffering (3:14-17). Believers who conduct their lives virtuously (3:8-12) _sometimes_ incur unjust treatment as a result (3:14). Peter makes his point clear in 3:17: "For it is better, if God should will it so, that you suffer for doing what is right rather than for doing what is wrong." At this point in the paragraph, Peter turns our attention to Christ, who exemplified unjust punishment. And in 3:18-22 Christ alone is the focus of our attention.
Peter outlines in summary fashion the major movements of Christ from His suffering and death on our behalf (3:18) to His resurrection and exaltation to the right hand of God (3:21-22). Sandwiched between the familiar recounting of Christ's death and resurrection we find a few brief statements about what Christ did in the midst of His descent (3:19-20) and how we as believers publicly associate ourselves with Christ's death and resurrection through our conversion and baptism (3:21).
But before we follow Christ's ultimate descent in verses 19-20, look closely at how His own suffering is described (3:18). Here we have a clear and concise statement of the gospel.
* Christ died for sins.
* Christ died once for all.
* Christ died in place of sinners, "the just for the unjust."
* Christ died to bring us to God.
Here we have the need (our sins), the complete payment (Christ's death in our place), the all-sufficiency of that payment (once for all), and the outcome (our access to God). It doesn't get any clearer than this. These are the facts of the gospel, the message of good news for lost sinners. Peter already mentioned this salvation in chapter 1 when he noted that it was God's mercy that "caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead" (1:3). Through faith, we are saved by God's power (1:5). Those verses emphasize the divine work of salvation — _God's provision_. In 3:18 and 21 we see the work of the Cross and Resurrection that secured our salvation — _Christ's payment_. And in 3:21 Peter focuses on the believer's inward and outward responses to the Gospel — _our profession_.
So, the central theme of the passage is Christ's unjust (but saving!) suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension. This V-shaped work of Christ is meant to give us hope. We live and suffer as followers of Christ and as strangers in a strange world. We have also been spiritually united to Christ's death and resurrection on our behalf and physically identified with that spiritual reality through baptism. As such, we can look forward with absolute hope that —like Christ —we will be resurrected and glorified when this life is over.
The New Testament's treatment of Christ's death and resurrection generally focuses on Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday. Peter could have followed suit, and his explanation would have made perfect sense. But the Spirit moved him to discuss briefly the work of Jesus on Saturday, between His death and His resurrection.
Peter says that Christ was "put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit" (3:18). In Greek the words "in the flesh" ( _sarx_ 4561]) and "in the spirit" ( _pneuma_ [4151]) could mean any number of things. It could mean that after Christ died on the cross, the Holy Spirit made Him alive at His resurrection. But this wouldn't explain why Peter focuses on the spirits "now in prison" in 3:19. Something in his thinking about Christ's being made alive "in the spirit" brought to mind the current condition of wicked spirits in spiritual prison. This suggests that Peter is speaking of what Christ's human spirit did on the Saturday between the death of His flesh on the cross and the resurrection of His flesh on Sunday. In my view, "in the flesh" refers to Christ's physical death and dying in this physical, earthly world, and "in the spirit" refers to His continued existence as a disembodied spirit being alive in the spirit world.[[50]
## — 3:19-20 —
What, then, did Jesus do on the Saturday between His death and resurrection? Peter tells us that when Jesus was made alive in the spirit realm, He "made proclamation to the spirits now in prison" (3:19). Who are these "spirits"? Peter says these were the spirits of those who were once disobedient in the days of Noah (3:20). In fact, Peter's language and narrative reflect a common understanding among Jews and early Christians, based on their reading of Genesis 6:1-4. According to that understanding, prior to the Flood fallen angels (demons) sinned gravely by cohabiting with human women. Though not a part of the inspired biblical writings, the ancient book of _1 Enoch_ paraphrases the events of Genesis 6:1-4, giving us a clear example of the prevalent view in Peter's time:
And it came to pass when the children of men had multiplied that in those days were born unto them beautiful and comely daughters. And the angels, the children of the heaven, saw and lusted after them, and said to one another: "Come, let us choose us wives from among the children of men and beget us children." ( _1 Enoch_ 6)[51]
But is there any way we can be sure Peter had this common historical interpretation of Genesis 6 in mind when he wrote 1 Peter 3:19-20? Actually, when we compare parallel passages in Jude and 2 Peter with language from _1 Enoch_ , we see that this is, in fact, in both Peter's and Jude's minds. Note the similarities in language and imagery as we compare these passages.
1 Peter 3:19-20 | He went and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison, who once were disobedient, when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark.
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2 Peter 2:4 | For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment . . .
Jude 1:6 | And angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day.
_1 Enoch_ 10:4, 6-7; 12:4 | "Bind Azazel one of the wicked angels] hand and foot, and cast him into the darkness. . . . And on the day of the great judgement he shall be cast into the fire". . . . "[The angels] . . . have left the high heaven, the holy eternal place."[[52]
* * *
# EXCURSUS: IMMORAL IMMORTALS?
1 PETER 3:19-20
For centuries —even millennia —students of Scripture have wrestled with various interpretations of the "sons of God" and their sin described in Genesis 6:1-4. Some say this refers to the righteous line of Seth ("sons of God") turning away from God and marrying daughters of the unrighteous descendants of Cain ("daughters of men"). Others say the "sons of God" were powerful human rulers —possessed by demons —who turned the world into an arena of polygamy, immorality, and bloodshed. In both of these interpretations, the sinfulness of the world reached such a height of severity that God judged the earth with a flood.
But the most ancient understanding of Genesis 6:1-5 takes the "sons of God" in its normal sense as a reference to angelic beings (see Job 1:6; 2:1; 38:7).[53] In this interpretation, these angelic beings produced superhuman offspring (called _Nephilim,_ or "giants," in Genesis 6:4). Apparently these demons attempted to corrupt the entire human race in order to thwart God's promise to send a Savior who was an offspring of Eve (Gen. 3:15).
But is it possible for angelic beings to procreate with humans? Many point to Matthew 22:30 as a text that rules out such a possibility: "For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven." But note that this text limits the unmarried angelic beings to those "in heaven," not necessarily to those who left their heavenly abode and fell into sin. Also, by saying that demonic beings were responsible for producing offspring by human women, it may have been a case of some sort of supernatural genetic manipulation rather than natural reproduction. We simply don't know how such a thing happened, and it's wise to cease speculation at that point.
Nevertheless, as bizarre and distasteful as it may sound, it seems the most probable interpretation of Genesis 6:1-4 is that the "sons of God" are demons who somehow cohabited with human women.
* * *
So, Peter referred to a general tradition —likely passed down from the ancient Old Testament prophets —that because of the nature of their rebellion, these demons have been kept in a special place of imprisonment in the spirit realm to this day. There they await future judgment when they will be cast into the lake of fire, the place originally created for the devil and his angels (Matt. 25:41).
If this refers to these fallen angels, what kind of "proclamation" ( _kēryssō_ 2784]) did Jesus make when He passed into this spirit realm? The Greek verb _kēryssō_ refers to making an official pronouncement of an edict.[[54] It most likely refers to Christ's proclamation of victory over death, sin, and the power of Satan. Though the imprisoned angels once tried to wipe out the human race by genetic pollution, the Promised Offspring still arrived, the "Seed of the woman" (see Gen. 3:15). And though Satan and his wicked spirits tried —by crucifying Him —to destroy the Offspring who was destined to crush the serpent's head, Christ's proclamation on Saturday revealed that their efforts were in vain and that _victory,_ not defeat, was achieved through that crucifixion (see 1 Cor. 2:8; Col. 2:13-14). In 1 Peter 3:22, Peter makes mention of this subjection of the spiritual realm to Christ's victory: Christ went into heaven "after angels and authorities and powers had been subjected to Him."
With his mind on the pre-Flood era, when the spirits of wickedness committed their abominable sin, Peter focuses further on the contrast with the one beacon of righteousness in that age: Noah. Like Peter's own readers, Noah and his family lived in a strange and hostile world filled with wicked spirits and wicked men who persecuted them because of their righteousness. But in the end, it was Noah and his family who were saved when the judgment swept through in the form of a flood. All of those unjust persecutors, along with their world of unbridled sin, were washed away, cleansing the earth and making way for a new world.
Peter then makes a clever analogy between the cleansing water of the days of Noah and the water used in baptism in Peter's own day. The same waters that buried the earth in judgment and death also lifted eight humans (and the animals) to safety. This is why the early church often viewed the ark of Noah as a symbol of salvation. Membership in the ark and association with Noah could be compared with membership in the universal body and union with the victorious Christ. To complete the analogy, Peter points his readers to their own act of association with Christ: water baptism.
## — 3:21-22 —
Peter begins his compact statement concerning Christian baptism by tying it directly to the analogy of Noah's family brought safely "through the water." He says baptism _corresponds_ to the flood of Noah, using the Greek term _antitypos_ [499] —an "antitype." At this point it's important to understand the biblical concepts of "type" ( _typos_ [5179]) and "antitype." After Christ came and revealed God's plan hidden to past ages (Eph. 3:9), the apostles began to see foreshadowing patterns in the Old Testament that vividly illustrated New Testament truths. The Old Testament image is called the "type," and the New Testament correspondence is called the "antitype." For example, Paul said that the things in the Old Testament "happened as examples ( _typos_ ) for us" (1 Cor. 10:6), and specifically that Adam serves as a _typos_ of Christ. The type (Adam) was the source and head of the old humanity that fell into sin, while the antitype (Christ) is the source and head of the new redeemed humanity (Rom. 5:14).
So how does "the water" of Noah's day correspond to the way baptism "saves" believers in the New Testament? The waters of the flood were actually the means of judging the sinful human race, allowing Noah and his family to escape from that wicked world to begin a new life after the floodwaters receded. In the same way, the water of baptism represents a break from the old, sinful lifestyle and a new beginning as a believer in Christ. In the Bible, water baptism provides a vivid picture of our response to the gospel and the salvation it brings. The water of baptism, like the flood waters, portrays death, the penalty for sin. It is a magnificent object lesson, a sermon without words. The believer's descent into the water represents death and burial with Christ. The believer's ascent from the water illustrates the resurrection into a new kind of life.
The parenthetical explanation of baptism in 3:21 is especially difficult to translate. We know the first part attempts to remove the focus from the physical act of cleansing. That is, baptism is not merely bathing a soiled body; it's "not the removal of dirt from the flesh." But Peter's explanation of how water baptism really functions is a little more difficult to translate. Just look at a few examples of the diversity of interpretations:
* "an appeal to God for a good conscience" (NASB)
* "the answer of a good conscience toward God" (NKJV)
* "the question of a good conscience in regard to God" (Young's Literal Translation)
* "a response to God from a clean conscience" (NLT)
* "the pledge of a good conscience to God" (NET)
The understanding of this second half of the phrase that makes most sense in light of the Bible's whole teaching about the function of baptism seems to be "the pledge to God from a good conscience." That is, Peter views baptism as an outward ceremony —much like a wedding ceremony —that includes a public confession and commitment to live the new life redeemed from sin. The water of baptism does not cause a person to have new life or a good conscience, but it is the response to God based on a conscience that has already been purified by the Holy Spirit through faith. This "good conscience" comes with new life because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead (1 Pet. 3:21).
So, just as Jesus Christ proclaimed His triumph over sin and death through His own suffering and death on the cross, believers proclaim their triumph over sin and death through water baptism. The water of baptism itself does not save a person or cleanse the conscience. These are the works of the Holy Spirit, who baptizes and saves a believer by faith apart from water baptism, a distinction confirmed clearly in Acts 10:44-48. Peter himself was present and saw with his own eyes that water baptism could not be viewed as the necessary cause of a person's salvation:
While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit fell upon all those who were listening to the message. All the circumcised believers who came with Peter were amazed, because the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles also. . . . Then Peter answered, "Surely no one can refuse the water for these to be baptized who have received the Holy Spirit just as we did, can he?" And he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. (Acts 10:44-48)
When sinners believe the gospel of Christ's person and work, they express their faith by reenacting their association with Christ through baptism. Christ's death and resurrection are vividly portrayed in that ancient rite. And when we come up out of the water, we are committed to serving our Savior, who ascended to heaven and is seated at the right hand of God (1 Pet. 3:22) —not the philosophy or teachings of a dead sage or legendary teacher. That living Lord, who has authority over all powers in heaven, earth, and Hades, provides His followers a living hope in hurtful times.
* * *
# APPLICATION: 1 PETER 3:18-22
Bringing Baptism to Life
Peter's words in 1 Peter 3:21 echo the practice in the early church that closely associated a person's conversion to Christ by faith in His death as payment for their sins with the practice of baptism as an outward profession of that inner faith. So closely was baptism associated with a person's genuine conversion to the Christian faith that Peter could even say "baptism now saves" believers from their former lives of sinfulness, just as the flood waters in the days of Noah saved God's people from the world of wickedness in which they lived.
Though water baptism itself doesn't save, some Christians have gone to the extreme of neglecting or delaying water baptism for years or even decades! In light of the importance associated with baptism as the appointed means of public confession of faith, it would be a deviation from Scripture for believers to abandon or neglect baptism. To use a modern analogy, becoming a Christian without submitting to water baptism would be like getting married without a wedding! Yes, I know that men and women can elope or have common-law marriages today. But when they do, they deprive family and friends of participation in an important public ceremony. And they avoid a meaningful opportunity to express their covenant commitment to each other. For the rest of their lives, married couples look back on their wedding day as the official mark of their lives together.
In the same way, baptism can serve as a way to remind ourselves of the spiritual reality that we have died to the old lives we once lived before faith in our Lord, Jesus Christ. Paul wrote concerning the spiritual reality pictured by water baptism:
How shall we who died to sin still live in it? Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. (Rom. 6:2-4)
Corresponding to this spiritual baptism, water baptism reminds us that the Holy Spirit has made us alive with Christ, uniting us to Him and freeing us from the power of sin. So Paul can urge us, "Consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus" (Rom. 6:11). A husband struggling with faithfulness in his marriage can look back on his wedding vows to renew his commitment. In the same way, believers can look back on their baptism as the visible mark of spiritual death to their old lives and resurrection to a brand new life.
If you believe in Jesus Christ and haven't yet submitted to water baptism, why are you waiting? In many Third World cultures, it is a person's public baptism that announces to all, "I am a devoted follower of Jesus Christ!" And it is at that point that persecution against that believer begins.
Let that ancient and meaningful celebration of your new life mark a firm commitment to follow Christ. If you're a baptized believer, remind yourself of the confession and commitment to new life exemplified in that significant celebration. Don't let the sin that once sullied your old life compromise your new life. Publicly testify of your faith in Christ! Return daily to the reality that baptism represents: the cleansing power of the Holy Spirit, who is also the source of power for victorious living.
Admittedly, your conversion to Christ is a private matter between you and your Lord. But once you have come by faith alone to Christ alone, your relationship with Him is not to be hidden. Water baptism is your way of saying to the world, "I am a devoted follower of Jesus Christ!" The difference it will make in your public witness and personal journey toward maturity is amazing.
* * *
# How to Shock the Pagan Crowd
1 PETER 4:1-6
NASB
1 Therefore, since Christ has [a]suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same purpose, because he who has [a]suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, 2 so as to live the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for the lusts of men, but for the will of God. 3 For the time already past is sufficient _for you_ to have carried out the desire of the Gentiles, [a]having pursued a course of sensuality, lusts, drunkenness, carousing, drinking parties and [b]abominable idolatries. 4 In _all_ this, they are surprised that you do not run with _them_ into the same excesses of dissipation, and they malign _you;_ 5 but they will give account to Him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. 6 For the gospel has for this purpose been [a]preached even to those who are dead, that though they are judged in the flesh as men, they may live in the spirit according to _the will of_ God.
4:1 [a]I.e. suffered death 4:3 [a]Lit _having gone in_ [b]Lit _lawless_ 4:6 [a]I.e. preached in their lifetimes
NLT
1 So then, since Christ suffered physical pain, you must arm yourselves with the same attitude he had, and be ready to suffer, too. For if you have suffered physically for Christ, you have finished with sin.[*] 2 You won't spend the rest of your lives chasing your own desires, but you will be anxious to do the will of God. 3 You have had enough in the past of the evil things that godless people enjoy —their immorality and lust, their feasting and drunkenness and wild parties, and their terrible worship of idols.
4 Of course, your former friends are surprised when you no longer plunge into the flood of wild and destructive things they do. So they slander you. 5 But remember that they will have to face God, who stands ready to judge everyone, both the living and the dead. 6 That is why the Good News was preached to those who are now dead[*] —so although they were destined to die like all people,[*] they now live forever with God in the Spirit.[*]
[4:1] Or _For the one_ [or _One_ ] _who has suffered physically has finished with sin._ [4:6a] Greek _preached even to the dead._ [4:6b] Or _so although people had judged them worthy of death._ [4:6c] Or _in spirit._
* * *
Throughout the New Testament, we read of the changed life that follows genuine conversion. When God freely and fully forgives the sins of our former life —when the righteousness of Christ is credited to our account and the Spirit of God takes up residence in our hearts —then the old things pass away and all things become new (2 Cor. 5:17). The lifelong process of transformation begins. This radical series of changes results in an alteration of our attitudes, inner motives, habits, and pursuits, as well as our choice of close friends.
As far back as the first century, Peter wrote of all these things. Though almost two thousand years separate us from Peter's original audience, there isn't a Christian today who can't identify with the apostle's words. Written for a particular time, they are nevertheless timeless. They speak with incredible relevance today, especially his comments regarding the reaction of those who don't know the Lord. In this section, Peter reminds us that because our citizenship is in heaven, the world in which we dwell isn't our true home. We're representatives of a different kingdom. And like foreign tourists visiting another country, we may be the only way people get a picture of what God's kingdom is like. As a result, unbelievers today will either be attracted or repelled by our heavenly home.
## — 4:1-3 —
With the logical conjunction "therefore" Peter is saying in shorthand, "Now in light of everything I have just written about Christ, I'm going to present you with some practical conclusions." In the previous section, Peter discussed Christ's suffering and death to pay for our sins and His resurrection to give us new life. But Peter's discussion also included the reality that those who have responded to this message in faith have put to death the old life and have begun anew —a private transformation marked by public baptism.
In light of our relationship to Christ's saving work, Peter urges his readers: "Arm yourselves also with the same purpose" of dying to the old and living for the new. The Greek word _hoplizō_ 3965], translated "arm yourselves," is a military term that refers to a soldier taking up weapons in preparation for battle. Paul uses the related noun ( _hoplan_ [3969]) to refer to the "armor" of light (Rom. 13:12), "weapons" of righteousness (2 Cor. 6:7), and "weapons" of spiritual warfare (2 Cor. 10:4). The word-picture of the Christian as a soldier is common in the New Testament, reinforcing the truth that we're soldiers in a spiritual battle.[[55] Commentator Kenneth Wuest writes, "The noun of the same root was used of a heavy-armed footsoldier who carried a pike and a large shield. . . . The Christian needs the heaviest armor he can get, to withstand the attacks of the enemy of his soul."[56]
Peter's point is clear. Christ didn't send us into the world as vacationers on a self-guided tour of a playground but as soldiers on a tour of duty in a battlefield. We're not called to kick back, relax, take in the scenery, and wait for our Guide to take us home. We're engaged in a fierce conflict on foreign soil. We need to arm ourselves with spiritual armor to withstand the temptations of this world. Peter says if you have been conformed to Christ's death and resurrection, the power of sin has been broken (4:1). Because the old person you used to be has died with Christ, you are now free to live with Christ.
Verses 1-3 provide four reminders of our new condition that will help all of us arm ourselves for our tour of duty in this hostile world.
Lagui/DollarPhotoClub
Roman soldier armed for battle
* We no longer serve sin as our master (4:1).
* We don't spend our days overwhelmed by desires (4:2a).
* We've opened the door to the will of God (4:2b).
* We've closed the door on godless living (4:3).
Don't overlook the strong contrast between the "will of God" (4:2) and the "lusts of men" (4:3). Peter continues, "The time already past is sufficient for you to have carried out the desire of the Gentiles." In a certain sense, all believers have in their lives a BC and AD —before Christ and after Christ. Peter saw "year one" as the moment of conversion, officially marked by baptism (3:21). Before this spiritual birthday, the old person lived out the old course of life: "sensuality, lusts, drunkenness, carousing, drinking parties and abominable idolatries" (4:3). Peter's list isn't exhaustive, but it paints a picture of what many believers' BC years were like. When we consider that most people in the world still live in this BC period, it shouldn't surprise us that they expect everybody to speak their foul language, follow their distorted mindset and customs, and uphold their corrupt cultural values. When we don't conform, they notice. When we allow our transformation to play out on the stage of life, we'll stand out from the rest of the crowd by the fact that we don't participate in their self-indulgent escapades.
## — 4:4-5 —
Maybe you've heard some of these reactions to your new and different way of life in Christ.
* "What do you mean you don't do that?"
* "C'mon! You mean God doesn't want you to have fun?"
* "So, you think you're some kind of saint?"
* "You think you're better than we are?"
* "What's _wrong_ with you?!"
When we close the book on the old chapter of our lives and open up the new, our friends and colleagues usually respond with surprise, sometimes even shock. In their astonishment at your new life, they may ignore you or even abandon you. You soon discover that you no longer get invited to their parties or that they won't ask you over for dinner. You may even lose their companionship.
In many cases the world will respond with disdain. Peter says they will "malign" ( _blasphēmeō_ [987]) you. The word _blasphēmeō_ refers to a harsh, slanderous outburst against sacred things. In this context, the sacred thing they malign is the believer, the person set apart for holy living in an unholy world (3:15). However, by blaspheming the ambassadors, they're also blaspheming the kingdom and its King, the great Lord and Judge. Your very presence in the world, taking a stand for what's true and good, becomes a standard of righteousness against which unbelievers don't measure up. This reminds them that God has a righteous standard and will one day call them to account for their lives (4:5). That kind of reminder will make any fast-living pagan despise believers as "speed bumps" of life.
## — 4:6 —
I would love to say that everyone who gets turned off by the new lives of believers will ultimately surrender their lives to the Lord. Peter himself presents this as a possibility and even a goal for sustaining our Christian testimony in the midst of persecution (2:15; 3:1, 15-16). But running parallel to that thread of hope is the threat of reprisal (2:18-19; 3:14, 17). The history of the church provides numerous examples of believers whose new lives in Christ led to harsh treatment, threats, persecution, imprisonment, and sometimes death.
* * *
# FACING FURY WITH FEARLESS HOPE
1 PETER 4:1-6
All believers would benefit from reading both historical and modern accounts of Christians who have suffered for their faith. For example, _Foxe's Book of Martyrs_ traces the martyrdom of Christians throughout the centuries and demonstrates how darkly the world can act in its attempts to extinguish the light of Christlike character. We see one famous account in the second century martyrdom of Polycarp, pastor of the church in Smyrna, who had known and learned from the apostle John himself. Polycarp faced the fury of the proconsul of Smyrna with fearless hope.
And when he came near, the proconsul asked him whether he was Polycarp. On his confessing that he was, [the proconsul] sought to persuade him to deny [Christ], saying, "Have respect to thy old age," and other similar things, according to their custom, [such as], "Swear by the fortune of Caesar; repent, and say, Away with the Atheists." But Polycarp, gazing with a stern countenance on all the multitude of the wicked heathen then in the stadium, and waving his hand towards them, while with groans he looked up to heaven, said, "Away with the Atheists." Then, the proconsul urging him, and saying, "Swear, and I will set thee at liberty, reproach Christ;" Polycarp declared, "Eighty and six years have I served Him, and He never did me any injury: how then can I blaspheme my King and my Saviour?"
And when the proconsul yet again pressed him, and said, "Swear by the fortune of Caesar," he answered, "Since thou art vainly urgent that, as thou sayest, I should swear by the fortune of Caesar, and pretendest not to know who and what I am, hear me declare with boldness, I am a Christian . . ."
The proconsul then said to him, "I have wild beasts at hand; to these will I cast thee, except thou repent." But he answered, "Call them then, for we are not accustomed to repent of what is good in order to adopt that which is evil; and it is well for me to be changed from what is evil to what is righteous." But again the proconsul said to him, "I will cause thee to be consumed by fire, seeing thou despisest the wild beasts, if thou wilt not repent." But Polycarp said, "Thou threatenest me with fire which burneth for an hour, and after a little is extinguished, but art ignorant of the fire of the coming judgment and of eternal punishment, reserved for the ungodly. But why tarriest thou? Bring forth what thou wilt."
While he spoke these and many other like things, he was filled with confidence and joy, and his countenance was full of grace, so that not merely did it not fall as if troubled by the things said to him, but, on the contrary, the proconsul was astonished, and sent his herald to proclaim in the midst of the stadium thrice, "Polycarp has confessed that he is a Christian."[57]
* * *
In 4:6, Peter addresses the reality of those believers —known to his readers —who had given their very lives for the gospel. Remember that this second major section of Peter's letter answers the question of how believers are to live as strangers in a hostile world, where they can expect to be treated unfairly for their faith in Christ. Peter refers to those who heard the gospel of Christ, but were judged, literally "according to men" in the flesh —that is, declared "guilty" by human standards and put to death. Similarly, Christ had been put to death "in the flesh" as a result of human judgment (3:18; 4:1). Yet He was also made alive "in the spirit" and resurrected to new life (3:21-22). In the same way, believers who suffer the ultimate expression of rejection, persecution, and judgment in this life, will "live in the spirit according to the will of God" (4:6) and, like their Lord, will one day be resurrected to eternal life.
Throughout history the majority of Christians have never had to face martyrdom, though all have been the object of various levels of ridicule and rejection (John 15:18-20; 1 Jn. 3:13). As we face anger from friends and family, we should never forget that even though we are judged "according to men" in the flesh, God has judged us "not guilty" by His grace. So now we can live in the spirit regardless of what people may do to us physically.
* * *
# APPLICATION: 1 PETER 4:1-6
Standing Out in the Crowd
Everything in 1 Peter 4:1-6 —both the warnings and the rewards —presuppose that something in your character marks you as a Christian. I'm not referring to wearing a cross around your neck, sticking a fish symbol on your bumper, or driving to church on Sunday mornings. No, I mean something that really makes you stand out in the crowd. It's easy to appear to be a Christian at certain times and in certain places. But to live a life of integrity in which your internal attitudes match your external actions everywhere and at all times —that's something different. This is the kind of radical discipleship described in the heart of 1 Peter.
In 4:3, Peter mentions the "time already past" in which believers lived their lives in the flesh before converting to Christ. He gives a few ideas of what that old life looked like, in case his readers forget the kinds of things from which they were saved. This is an ideal moment to personally reflect on some specific things from which you were delivered. In the boxes below, list some of the inner and outer characteristics that marked you in your BC days (negatives). Then, note in the AD box the observable changes in your attitudes and actions (positives). Think before you write.
Rather than quickly moving past this exercise, return to the first box (BC) and note the elements of the old lifestyle that somehow keep jumping over the cross and back into your new life. Circle these lingering habits of your old character. Mark them as exposed parts of your character over which the armor of God needs to be strengthened. As you take up Peter's challenge to "arm yourselves," focus Christ's transforming power on these particular issues, surrendering them to Him through prayer. Ask God to strengthen you in those specific areas by His Holy Spirit. Then, trusting that His power is working in you and with you, take the first step to strengthen these weaknesses in your life. It may not come easily. It will definitely take time. And in some cases it may very well take help from others. But the outcome will make you a stronger soldier of Christ.
Do you want to stand out as an ambassador for the kingdom of light in the midst of an empire of darkness? Do you want to be like brave soldiers of the faith throughout history? Of course you do! You don't need to arm yourself with fanaticism. You won't want to cultivate a judgmental attitude or wag a condemning finger. All you have to do is put on a lifestyle impervious to unreasonable assaults. Many will give you the cold shoulder. Others will strike out with slander. You may live in a danger zone where others may even try to harm you physically. But a few people will see the noble character reflected in your changed life and inquire about your King.
* * *
# Marching Orders for Soldiers of the Cross
1 PETER 4:7-11
NASB
7 The end of all things [a]is near; therefore, be of sound judgment and sober _spirit_ for the purpose of [b]prayer. 8 Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins. 9 Be hospitable to one another without complaint. 10 As each one has received a _special_ gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. 11 Whoever speaks, _is to do so_ [a]as one who is speaking the utterances of God; whoever serves _is to do so_ as one who is serving [b]by the strength which God supplies; so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
4:7 [a]Lit _has come near_ [b]Lit _prayers_ 4:11 [a]Lit _as utterances_ [b]Lit _from_
NLT
7 The end of the world is coming soon. Therefore, be earnest and disciplined in your prayers. 8 Most important of all, continue to show deep love for each other, for love covers a multitude of sins. 9 Cheerfully share your home with those who need a meal or a place to stay.
10 God has given each of you a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts. Use them well to serve one another. 11 Do you have the gift of speaking? Then speak as though God himself were speaking through you. Do you have the gift of helping others? Do it with all the strength and energy that God supplies. Then everything you do will bring glory to God through Jesus Christ. All glory and power to him forever and ever! Amen.
* * *
The name "Peter" and the adjective "practical" go hand in hand. Being married helped. So did his career as a fisherman. Prior to following Christ, Peter's life consisted of tangible, practical things: boats, nets, fish, sweat, hard work, family —the nitty-gritty of real life. We shouldn't be surprised to discover that both his rugged personality and his to-the-point style flow through his writing.
Being neither scholarly nor sophisticated, Peter had little interest in theoretical discussions. Truth was meant to be lived, not simply talked about and then ignored. The way he figured, if there is a cause worth fighting for, fight —don't philosophize! If urgency required action, the man rolled up his sleeves and dug in. When Peter began to dictate this letter to suffering saints, he didn't beat around the fig tree; he got right down to basics. Urgency led to simplicity.
In the midst of his discussion of how to face suffering with hope in Christ, Peter can't avoid the very practical effects of living in light of Christ's return. He doesn't get bogged down speculating about the hows, whens, and wheres of the end times; he focuses instead on the question, "So what?" He answers this bottom-line question in five short verses that issue four urgent commands and present one simple goal to remember (4:7-11).
## — 4:7 —
When we know time is short, two otherwise neglected operating principles suddenly kick in: urgency and simplicity. For example, when people discover that they don't have long to live, they put their relationships with loved ones at center stage and simplify their schedules. Or think about what happens when people hear that a hurricane or tornado is imminent. They don't pull out a croquet game or start landscaping the backyard. Instead, they grab the essentials and head for cover —immediately! Being short on time requires urgency and simplicity.
Scripture treats the end times in the same way. Over and over, it reminds us that the time is short or that the end is near.[58] Peter switches into this mode of end-times urgency and simplicity with a somewhat puzzling phrase: "The end of all things is near" (4:7). I say "puzzling" because nearly two thousand years later the end of all things —as far as I can tell —hasn't happened yet. Was Peter wrong? No! The key to understanding Peter's language comes from understanding the Christian doctrine of imminence. The opening line literally says, "The goal of all things has come near." Peter pictures Christ in heaven at the right hand of the Father awaiting one word from the throne —"Go!" So, when the Bible speaks of the end as "near" or "coming quickly," it refers to the suddenness and unexpectedness of the return of Christ. That is, Christ could come at any moment.
In light of this "any-moment" view of Christ's return and the unfolding of end-times judgments, Peter says we should respond with specific actions. The first command follows an important "therefore." In light of Christ's imminent return, _use good judgment and stay calm with a spirit of prayer_ (4:7). Having "sound judgment" and a "sober spirit" means you don't panic when a natural disaster hits, or when an official is elected that you don't like, or if the nightly news seems to be getting worse. Don't worry! Don't jump off a tall building! This also means you don't quit your job because Jesus just might come back today. Rather, you keep your nose to the grindstone and continue your work with an ongoing sense of purpose and urgency. You live as if Christ may come today but plan for the possibility that it could be long after you've passed away. That's a reasonable, balanced approach to life in light of the unknown hour of Christ coming. The motto of the Revolutionary War minutemen comes to mind: "Trust in God, but keep your powder dry!"
The secret to maintaining this kind of balance and calmness is prayer. When something alarms you, pray. When current events confuse you, pray. If the world looks like it's spinning out of control, pray. In fact, prayer is what sharpens our awareness so that we're able to be more discerning. It gives us genuine hope and confidence in Christ in the midst of confusion. When you're panicking, you're not praying. When you're reacting, you're not trusting in your sovereign God.
## — 4:8 —
The second command to follow in light of Christ's imminent return is to _stay fervent in love_ _for one another_. The word "fervent" comes from the Greek word _ektenēs_ 1618], literally meaning "strained,"[[59] and used figuratively for being intent or determined. Think of an athlete stretching to reach the finish line at the end of the final lap. Peter sat at Jesus' feet and heard Him describe the end times with the phrase, "Most people's love will grow cold" (Matt. 24:12). And Paul reminded Timothy that in the last days people will be "lovers of self" (2 Tim. 3:1). Peter completely reverses this frigid self-love: in sharp contrast, believers are to have _fervent_ love directed _toward one another_.
This has immediate application to our own day as well. In the midst of unjust treatment, persecution, and confusion, nothing helps strengthen and encourage believers more than mutual love and care for each other. Peter quotes a line from Proverbs 10:12 to demonstrate the practical manifestation of this love: "Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all transgressions." Nothing more quickly turns unbelievers off of Christ than witnessing His church fighting with each other viciously rather than loving each other fervently.
* * *
# From My Journal
# Commence Prayer
1 PETER 4:7
It was in 1968 on an airplane headed for New York —a routine and normally very boring flight. But this time it proved to be otherwise. As the plane was on its descent pattern, the pilot realized that the landing gear was not engaging. He messed around with the controls, trying again and again to get the gear to lock into place —without success. He then asked ground control for instruction. As the plane circled the landing field, the emergency crew coated the runway with foam as fire trucks and other emergency vehicles moved into position.
Meanwhile, the passengers were told of each maneuver in that calm, unemotional voice pilots do so well. Flight attendants glided about the cabin with an air of cool reserve. Passengers were told to place their heads between their knees and grab their ankles just before impact. There were tears and a few cries of despair. It was one of those "I can't believe this is happening to me" experiences.
Then, with the landing only minutes away, the pilot suddenly announced over the intercom: "We are beginning our final descent. At this moment, in accordance with international aviation codes established at Geneva, it is my obligation to inform you that if you believe in God you should commence prayer." Scout's honor. That's exactly what he said!
I'm happy to report that the belly landing occurred without a hitch. No one was injured and, aside from some rather extensive damage to the plane, the airline hardly remembered the incident. In fact, a relative of one of the passengers called the airline the very next day and asked about that prayer rule the pilot had quoted. The answer was a cool, reserved "No comment."
Amazing. The only thing that brought out into the open a deep-down "secret rule" was crisis. Pushed to the brink, back to the wall, right up to the wire, all escape routes closed . . . only then does our society crack open a hint of recognition that God may be there and that "if you believe . . . you should commence prayer."
Reminds me of an interview I heard on television shortly after Mount Saint Helens erupted back in 1980. The guy being interviewed was a reporter who had "come back alive" from the volcano with pictures and a soundtrack of his own personal nightmare. He was up near the mouth of that mountain when she blew her top, and he ran for his life —with camera rolling and the mike on. The pictures were blurred and dark, but his voice was recorded.
It was eerie, almost too personal to be disclosed. He breathed deeply, sobbed, panted, and spoke directly to God. No formality, no clichés —just the despairing cry of a creature in crisis.
Things like, "Oh, God, oh, my God . . . help! Help!" More sobbing, more rapid breathing, spitting, gagging, coughing, panting. "It's so hot, so dark . . . help me, God! Please, please, please, please . . ."
There's nothing like crisis to expose the otherwise hidden truth of the soul. Any soul.
We may mask it, ignore it, pass it off with cool sophistication and intellectual denial; but take away the cushion of comfort, remove the shield of safety, interject the threat of death without the presence of people to take the panic out of the moment, and it's fairly certain that most in the ranks of humanity "commence prayer."
Crisis crushes. And in its crushing, it also refines and purifies. I've stood beside too many of the dying, ministered to too many of the victims of calamity, and listened to too many of the broken and bruised to believe otherwise. Unfortunately, it usually takes such brutal blows of affliction to soften and penetrate hard hearts.[60]
* * *
## — 4:9 —
The third command Peter issues in light of Christ's imminent return is to _be hospitable toward one another_. I think most of us are fine with the idea of hospitality, as long as we get to define what that looks like. We invite people we like into our homes and make appropriate adjustments as willing hosts —within limits, of course. But Peter refers to "one another" in the broadest sense of that term. He used it in 4:8 with reference to fervently loving even those who need our forgiveness, that is, those who have wronged us! And he uses "one another" in 4:10 to refer to the larger body of Christ, whom we are to serve with our spiritual gifts. So, picking and choosing whom you will invite into your lives isn't at all what Peter had in mind.
Peter tacks on another phrase that makes this command even more convicting: "without complaint." Being truly hospitable can cost money. It definitely takes time. It can become inconvenient and occasionally frustrating. Peter urges believers to have a positive attitude toward hospitality, one that flows from the fervent love and prayerful hope described in 4:7-8.
On the other hand, hospitality isn't something Christians should take advantage of. So having discernment and love doesn't mean we enable people to leech off us while they sit back and lazily fulfill their parasitic cravings. Some Christians in Peter's day were living unbalanced lives in response to the teaching about the imminent return of Christ. They thought, "If Christ is coming soon, why bother working? Why not just sell everything and live off others?" Paul specifically addresses this problem of responsibility in 2 Thessalonians 3:6-15, and Peter indirectly addresses the other side of true, self-sacrificial hospitality in 1 Peter 4:10-11 —the mutual contribution of _all_ believers in the body of Christ.
## — 4:10-11 —
The fourth and final command Peter issues in light of Christ's any-moment return is to _keep serving one another_. Peter makes it clear in just a few words that each believer has a spiritual gift. He says, "Just as each one received a gift" (4:10, NET). He takes it for granted that if you're a believer, you've been gifted by God. But this isn't a gifting to make you feel better about yourself, to boost your ego, or to serve your own interests. Rather, these are investments God has made in various members of His body, and He expects a return on that investment.
In other words, we are to be "good stewards" of the "manifold grace of God." "Manifold" translates the Greek word _poikilos_ [4164], which literally means "many colored." The term implies that great variety of giftedness can be seen within the Christian community. Though Peter doesn't list all these various gifts in his letter, his fellow apostle, Paul, gives us a good idea of the diversity of these gifts in several places in his writings. (See the comparative chart on this page.)
Peter encourages his readers to be responsible with the unique gifts God has given each of them. Peter gives two specific examples by selecting two representative gifts from the broad variety of gifts —a speaking gift and a serving gift (4:11). His point is that we should treat our giftedness as a unique responsibility and honor, relying on God's strength and never forgetting that the message we proclaim is _His_ message, not ours. And the purpose is not to serve ourselves, but to serve "one another" (4:10).
In summary, our hopeful expectation of the Lord's return should motivate us to _use good judgment and stay calm with a spirit of prayer_ (4:7). We should _stay fervent in love for one another_ (4:8). We must remember to _be hospitable toward on another_ (4:9). And we should never neglect to _serve one another_ through the use of our spiritual gifts. These four commands answer Peter's question, "What should we be doing in light of the any-moment return of Christ?"
* * *
# SPIRITUAL GIFTS LISTED IN SCRIPTURE
Peter mentions only two "spiritual gifts" in 1 Peter 4:11, but the apostle Paul mentions several more that supplement Peter's two representative gifts of speaking and serving.
* Romans 12:6-8
* Prophecy
* Service
* Teaching
* Exhorting
* Giving
* Leading
* Mercy
* 1 Corinthians 12:4-11
* Word of wisdom
* Word of knowledge
* Faith
* Healing
* Miracles
* Prophecy
* Distinguishing spirits
* Speaking in languages
* Interpreting languages
* Ephesians 4:11
* Apostles
* Prophets
* Evangelists
* Pastors
* Teachers
* 1 Peter 4:10-11
* Speaking
* Serving
* * *
Yet Peter doesn't leave this discussion with just four marching orders for spiritual soldiers. He reminds us of our ultimate mission, the purpose for which we have been called, equipped, and sent. Every army's general has an ultimate military objective, and God is no different. We find it at the very end of 1 Peter 4:11 in the form of a doxology, a brief, enlivened hymn of praise to God. We are to do all these things, live this way as strangers in a strange world, put up with the unfair treatment by others, and abide with one another in loving unity "so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen."
When we keep this ultimate objective at the forefront of our minds, little else in life matters, and everything falls into place. I'm not saying it will make sense. I'm not saying it will make everything easy. But we'll be able to step back and confess with confidence that God alone will get the glory through each event and in every circumstance. When we give Him the glory, we'll leave the results of our labors to Him —and trust Him for the strength we need. Seeking God's glory in all things is a difficult assignment in the spiritual battlefield of this present world. But when we look forward to the specific hope of Christ's return —when the battle will be decisively won —we'll embrace that specific hope to help us persevere through hurtful times.
* * *
# APPLICATION: 1 PETER 4:7-11
End-Sight for Living
When we consider the end times, our minds are often overtaken by fearmongers shoving their way to the front. Crackpots walking the sidewalks with placards that announce, "THE END IS NEAR!" Otherwise seemingly normal people quitting their jobs to camp on some mountaintop to wait for the Rapture. Stern-faced preachers sensationalizing world events to alarm us into buying their books on how to survive the Tribulation or identify the Antichrist.
But when Peter preaches about the end times, we see a completely different picture: practical exhortations, prudent warnings, and a balanced perspective. Yes, he announces that "the end of all things is near" (4:7), but he doesn't tell us to head for the hills, hide in caves, build a bomb shelter, stock up on food, or stockpile weapons. Ponder again his lucid exhortations:
* Be of sound judgment.
* Have a sober spirit.
* Make prayer a priority.
* Keep fervent in love.
* Be hospitable without complaint.
* Serve one another with your gifts.
When it comes to the return of Christ and the end times, what kind of picture are you presenting to the world? Does your hope for Christ's imminent return promote a religion of half-baked quacks that the world wishes would experience the Rapture soon just to get rid of them? Or do you represent a loving, wise, hospitable, and God-glorifying community against which nothing unkind can be said?
Yes, the end is near. We need to keep this truth ever in our sight. But more than that, we need to live our lives in light of His return.
* * *
# OUR FIERY ORDEAL (1 PETER 4:12–5:14)
Like life itself, 1 Peter presents constant reminders of the reality of suffering. The consummate realist, Peter made no attempt to sugarcoat the truth that believers should expect to face —not escape —various trials in their lifelong journey. But Peter was no cynic. In the midst of his down-to-earth portrayal of suffering saints, he consistently directs us toward the hope that God will bring about His redemptive plan through periods of pain. Peter reminds us of what we can so easily forget — _Christ gives hope in hurtful times_.
Like a symphony composed in both minor and major keys, Peter develops his encouraging message through three movements. At this point in the letter, we have already experienced the first two. First, Peter _informed_ his readers regarding their living hope (1:1–2:12). He let us know that grace and peace can be ours as we claim our hope (1:3-12), walk in holiness (1:13-25), and grow in Christ (2:1-12). Peter highlighted the grace to go on, describing a _living hope_ through Christ's resurrection (1:3). In mostly upbeat and exuberant notes, the first movement of Peter's symphony reveals Christ as the _source_ of hope in hurtful times.
In the second movement we notice a change of key. In deeper, more somber, and even darker tones, Peter _exhorted_ his readers to hopeful living in spite of the reality of their strange life of suffering (2:13–4:11). Peter urged us to submit to various authorities (2:13–3:7), to be humble in spirit (3:8-22), to be armed with endurance (4:1-6), and to glorify God in everything (4:7-11). These principles became the key to living as Christians in a hostile world. Peter emphasized grace to stand firm, describing a _calm hope_ through personal submission (3:6). Through this second movement, we perceived Christ as the _example_ of hope in hurtful times. The second movement of Peter's symphonic composition concluded with a doxology of praise, reminding us that everything we say, do, think, or experience should be to the glory of God through Jesus Christ.
It is time for us to move on to the third and final movement. Here, Peter revisits the motifs of hope and struggle —two competing themes working together toward an awe-inspiring climax. In this section Peter will _comfort_ his readers in the midst of their fiery ordeal (4:12–5:14). He will remind them not to be surprised at their difficult circumstances (4:12). Rather than being surprised, they should keep rejoicing (4:13), entrust their lives to God (4:19), and cast their worries on Him (5:7). Peter will also encourage all of us, his readers, to focus on God's grace and to rejoice, turning our attention toward a _firm_ _hope_ through faith (4:19). So, in this grand finale of Peter's great symphony of hope, we see Christ Himself as the Composer and Conductor of our lives —our sure _foundation_ of hope in hurtful times.
* * *
# KEY TERMS IN 1 PETER 4:12–5:14
_poimainō_ **(ποιμαίνω)** [4165] "to shepherd, watch over, or feed a flock"
The verb _poimainō_ is related to the nouns for "shepherd" ( _poimēn_ [4166]) and "flock" ( _poimnē_ [4167]), and literally means to tend, feed, or keep watch over a flock. It became a common term for the leader of a congregation of believers, translated "pastor" (Eph. 4:11). Peter used the verb "to shepherd" as a command to elders of a church, whose task it is to oversee the spiritual life and personal growth of the congregation (1 Pet. 5:2).
_tapeinoō_ **(ταπεινόω)** [5013] "to humble," "to lower," "to make low"
Peter uses _tapeinoō_ only once in this letter, perhaps echoing James's exhortation to "humble yourselves" (5:6; Jas. 4:10). The concept of humility is woven through the fabric of Peter's letter, forming the basis for such themes as obedience, submission, and perseverance. In Peter, as in James, the result of humbling oneself before God is a future exaltation in God's own timing.
* * *
# A Firm Foundation through Fiery Trials
1 PETER 4:12-19
NASB
12 Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you; 13 but to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing, so that also at the revelation of His glory you may rejoice with exultation. 14 If you are reviled [a]for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. 15 Make sure that none of you suffers as a murderer, or thief, or evildoer, or a [a]troublesome meddler; 16 but if _anyone suffers_ as a Christian, he is not to be ashamed, but is to glorify God in this name. 17 For _it is_ time for judgment to begin [a]with the household of God; and if _it_ _begins_ with us first, what _will be_ the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God? 18 AND IF IT IS WITH DIFFICULTY THAT THE RIGHTEOUS IS SAVED, [a]WHAT WILL BECOME OF THE GODLESS MAN AND THE SINNER? 19 Therefore, those also who suffer according to the will of God shall entrust their souls to a faithful Creator in doing what is right.
4:14 [a]Lit _in_ 4:15 [a]Lit _one who oversees others' affairs_ 4:17 [a]Lit _from_ 4:18 [a]Lit _where will appear_
NLT
12 Dear friends, don't be surprised at the fiery trials you are going through, as if something strange were happening to you. 13 Instead, be very glad —for these trials make you partners with Christ in his suffering, so that you will have the wonderful joy of seeing his glory when it is revealed to all the world.
14 If you are insulted because you bear the name of Christ, you will be blessed, for the glorious Spirit of God[*] rests upon you.[*] 15 If you suffer, however, it must not be for murder, stealing, making trouble, or prying into other people's affairs. 16 But it is no shame to suffer for being a Christian. Praise God for the privilege of being called by his name! 17 For the time has come for judgment, and it must begin with God's household. And if judgment begins with us, what terrible fate awaits those who have never obeyed God's Good News? 18 And also,
"If the righteous are barely saved,
what will happen to godless sinners?"[*]
19 So if you are suffering in a manner that pleases God, keep on doing what is right, and trust your lives to the God who created you, for he will never fail you.
[4:14a] Or _for the glory of God, which is his Spirit._ [4:14b] Some manuscripts add _On their part he is blasphemed, but on your part he is glorified._ [4:18] Prov 11:31 (Greek version).
* * *
Pause for a moment and replay these words in your mind. Take your time. Ponder each line.
When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie,
My grace all sufficient shall be thy supply;
The flame shall not hurt thee; I only design
Thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine.[61]
These timeless lyrics from a classic hymn have been sung with boldness and confidence for generations. But they are quickly forgotten when the things we hold dear suddenly ignite in the incinerator of earthly trials. When the flames of the furnace begin to singe our lives and livelihoods, those timeworn lyrics can seem strangely remote, even unreal.
In his classic book _The Problem of Pain_ , C. S. Lewis wrote this about the impact of fiery trials:
I am progressing along the path of life in my ordinary contentedly fallen and godless condition, absorbed in a merry meeting with my friends for the morrow or a bit of work that tickles my vanity to-day, a holiday or a new book, when suddenly a stab of abdominal pain that threatens serious disease, or a headline in the newspapers that threatens us all with destruction, sends this whole pack of cards tumbling down. At first I am overwhelmed, and all my little happinesses look like broken toys. Then, slowly and reluctantly, bit by bit, I try to bring myself into the frame of mind that I should be in at all times. I remind myself that all these toys were never intended to possess my heart, that my true good is in another world and my only real treasure is Christ. And perhaps, by God's grace, I succeed, and for a day or two become a creature consciously dependent on God and drawing its strength from the right sources. But the moment the threat is withdrawn, my whole nature leaps back to the toys.[62]
Such is human nature. We so easily forget the promises that accompany the trials of life. We forget the hymns, Scriptures, sermons, and lessons that taught us the purpose of testing and the outcome of suffering. And when trials subside, it isn't long before we return to patterns of thinking and living that set us up for yet another surprise attack when the inevitable fires return. Three numbers illustrate this perfectly: 9/11.
Peter wrote this letter to Christians who faced desperate circumstances —undeserved suffering, unfair treatment, unexpected calamities. Here in his concluding counsel, he cycles back to this major theme of hope in hurtful times, giving us practical insights to help us not merely survive the flames but even thrive in their midst.
## — 4:12-13 —
Peter's term for "fiery ordeal" ( _pyrōsis_ [4451]) refers to an agonizing experience of burning with fire. It's the same term John uses to describe God's judgment on "Babylon" (Rev. 18:9, 18). But here Peter has in mind a particular circumstance his readers are enduring together: "the fiery ordeal among you" (4:12). We know this trial related to unjust treatment at the hands of despisers of Christianity back in the first century. That excruciating trial was severe enough for Peter to write a letter reminding them of their source of hope in such times. But we don't know the precise details of that trial. Occasionally trials are slight and brief, quickly forgotten. At other times they linger and lean hard upon us, leaving us exhausted and dispirited. Sometimes they even put us out of commission for an extended period of time.
Peter gives us two appropriate responses to these agonizing trials. First, we must _not_ be surprised (4:12). We're not to think it's strange that such things are happening to us. Peter doesn't open this section with "beloved" for nothing —this is an address to faithful believers, not disobedient saints or phony frauds. He also describes the "fiery ordeal" as occurring "among you," "upon you," and "to you" (4:12). This isn't something that accidentally swept them up, like innocent victims who got caught up in a mob stampede by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Make no mistake, the fiery ordeal they were experiencing came upon them because they were believers.
Ironically, a lot of Christians believe they should be fireproof. Their first reaction is just the thing Peter rejects —surprise! Too often I hear objections like "I can't believe this is happening _to me_!" or "Why doesn't God protect me from these things?" or "Why is God allowing this to happen now?" But Peter responds to this normal reaction of surprise with an important reminder: The fiery ordeal comes upon believers for their testing. Like refining fire that tests and purifies gold, separating the precious metal from its impure contaminants, the fire of trials tests and purifies us deep within.
It might help to view our present life as a schoolroom with God as our instructor. We would never be surprised when our human teachers give surprise quizzes and tough exams. Tests are normal when we're involved in the pursuit of intellectual growth or development of skills. Why should it alarm us if the master Teacher tests us as we follow His instruction in the curriculum of Christlikeness?
This should logically lead to the second reaction to our fiery ordeal: rejoicing (4:13). Peter is not alone in promoting the paradox of joy in the midst of suffering. James wrote, "Consider it all joy . . . when you encounter various trials" (Jas. 1:2). Paul declares that trials draw us into more intimate fellowship with Christ (Phil. 3:10). Peter tells us that when believers suffer, it make us partners in the sufferings of Christ so we can rejoice in his glory when he returns (1 Pet. 4:13). In suffering unjustly, we participate to a limited degree in the kind of suffering Christ experienced on our behalf. If our Master suffered, so will His disciples. At the same time, Peter urges us to rejoice, knowing that at Christ's return, He will bring with Him relief and rewards for those who suffered faithfully in this life. Our firm hope for the future allows us to rejoice even in the midst of our present fiery ordeal. James 1:12 puts it this way: "Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial; for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him."
## — 4:14-18 —
Having instructed believers on how to react during fiery trials, Peter then describes five truths to remember as the flames intensify:
* Trials provide an opportunity to draw upon divine power (4:14).
* Sometimes our suffering is deserved (4:15).
* Most suffering should not cause us to feel shame (4:16).
* Suffering is usually timely and necessary (4:17a).
* What believers suffer now cannot be compared to what the unrighteous will suffer later (4:17b-18).
First, _trials provide an opportunity to draw upon divine power_ (4:14). When faced with excruciating trials, we easily come to the end of ourselves. At that desperate point, we can quickly become mentally confused, emotionally drained, physically exhausted, and spiritually spent. From a purely human perspective, we often think this is the worst possible situation to be in. But from a divine perspective, this is the precise condition necessary to draw believers closer to God. We're never more dependent on the Holy Spirit's strength than when we've come to the absolute end of ourselves. As long as we operate under the illusion that we can handle things ourselves, we'll wallow in spiritual weakness. But when we finally admit that apart from Christ we can do nothing (John 15:5), then we can begin to draw on divine power. When we're reviled for our faith in Christ, God promises to provide strength by His Spirit. In this way we are "blessed" even in the midst of the unfair treatment.
Second, we should keep in mind that although spiritual blessing and strength are given to those who suffer for the cause of Christ, _some suffering is actually deserved_ (4:15). Peter chooses several examples of things believers could do to incur the wrath and reviling of civil authorities and unbelieving observers.
The first two offenses, murder and thievery, are extreme and obvious legal infractions that bring the wrath of governmental authorities. That kind of punishment is just and deserved! It is appropriate for believers to be punished for such crimes. They should not expect blessing from God in the suffering that results, but rather His discipline.
The second two offenses, committing evil and meddling, seem to refer not to lawbreaking but to moral and social offenses. Believers can sometimes conduct themselves hypocritically, becoming instruments of wickedness instead of being conduits of righteousness. And they can also needlessly align themselves with causes and activities that annoy and irritate unbelievers. The term "troublesome meddler" refers to somebody who interferes in things that are unrelated to his or her calling. It is easy for Christians to drift off into political involvements or social causes that have little to do with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Peter's advice is to make sure we're not engaged in activities that not only would get us off target and bring a reproach on the name of Christ, but also would cause us to miss God's blessing and lose our reward when Christ returns.
Third, if we are suffering as Christians because of our righteousness, then _this suffering should in no way cause us to feel shame_ (4:16). Though we use the word quite commonly today, the name "Christian" appears only three times in the New Testament, and its original meaning gives us some insight into Peter's use of the name here. Acts 11:26 says that "the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch." In fact, "Christian" may have originally been a derogatory word used by opponents of Christianity to "label" these disciples. Simply naming Christ's followers distinguished the Christian beliefs and practices from all others, making them easily identifiable. So, Peter says if a Christian suffers because he or she bears the name of Christ in word and deed, there is no reason for shame. In fact, such suffering is to be viewed as an honor.
Fourth, Peter reminds us that _suffering is usually timely and necessary_ (4:17a). Though always difficult to endure and often impossible to comprehend at the time, believers need hurtful times to be purified. Suffering itself is a tool God uses to sanctify, cleanse, and refine His people. The "household of God" not only needs daily dusting and sweeping, but also periodic spring cleaning. Proverbs 3:12 provides an important parallel to Peter's thoughts here: "For whom the LORD loves He reproves, even as a father corrects the son in whom he delights." The reality is that we endure purifying discipline _because_ we are God's children, not in spite of it. And as parents know, discipline can be both positive and negative —discipline corrects bad behavior, but discipline also promotes good behavior. The Bible describes both negative discipline —"All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness" (Heb. 12:11) —and positive discipline —"Discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness" (1 Tim. 4:7). The fact that God allows us to endure fiery trials for the purpose of discipline should not surprise or disillusion us. Quite the contrary! It should encourage us to know that God cares enough about His children to reprove and discipline us in order to bring us to maturity in our walk with Him.
Finally, Peter reminds us that even though the church suffers a little while for its own benefit, with blessings and rewards to follow, those who are afflicting us will not get away scot-free! Essentially, we need to keep in mind that _what_ _believers suffer now cannot be compared to what the unrighteous will suffer later_ (4:17b-18). Peter reasons that if God's own children, whom He loves and cares for, cannot escape His discipline, then we can't begin to imagine what kind of punishment is in store for unbelievers who shake their fists at God! In 4:18, Peter quotes from Proverbs: "If the righteous receive their due on earth, how much more the ungodly and the sinner" (Prov. 11:31, NIV). When Peter refers to being "saved" with difficulty, he refers to the life of difficulty, hardship, and struggle that accompanies salvation, not to earning salvation because of our suffering.
The word "difficulty" ( _molis_ [3433]) refers to the quality of the spiritual journey. Luke used the word _molis_ to recount the difficult voyage he and others experienced as they sailed toward Crete: "We had sailed slowly for a good many days, and with difficulty had arrived off Cnidus" (Acts 27:7). Similarly, believers encounter many difficulties throughout their spiritual journey, from their initial launch at conversion to their ultimate destination of glory in the heavenly harbor. John Bunyan's classic work, _The Pilgrim's Progress_ , illustrates this beautifully.
## — 4:19 —
During this difficult journey of the spiritual life, in which believers suffer "according to the will of God" for the purpose of godliness, we could lose heart if we didn't have absolute confidence in both the goodness and the power of God. Because God is all-powerful, we know that no trial can ever be so far out of control that God's ultimate purposes are thwarted. We can also be sure that God is able to accomplish His plan through these painful circumstances. And because God is all-good, we know that those purposes are to mature us, not destroy us. This is why Peter reminds us that God is a "faithful Creator" —all-powerful and all-good! As we continue to do what is right in the midst of unjust suffering, we can entrust our lives to Him with hope even in hurtful times.
* * *
# APPLICATION: 1 PETER 4:12-19
Rest in Him
The tests and trials we endure as Christians are never wasted or mistaken. God never says, "Whoops, made a mistake! That was meant for Frank. Sorry, Bob." He doesn't indiscriminately toss trials into the lives of a hundred believers, hoping to affect a few. God has designed a specific curriculum for each of us, a particular course of study designed to bring out the virtuous character of Christ deep within us. These uniquely designed and tailor-made trials drive us to the Lord and produce measurable spiritual growth.
But the common response is to resist. Such reactions are only human. Sometimes the tests are so grueling that we want to drop out of God's training school entirely. But we all need to come to grips with the fact that God's tailored trials are not simply _elective_ courses in the Christian life. They are, in fact, _prerequisites_ for Christlikeness. But let me give you a couple suggestions, both tied to 1 Peter 4:19, which have helped me face trials without dashing for the nearest exit.
First, when trials come, remember that God is faithful. Contrary to what your circumstances may seem to tell you, God hasn't abandoned you. Forget about what cynics tell you. God hasn't forgotten you. God is faithful. You can trust that He's working out His purposes for your ultimate good (Rom. 8:28). When you're doubting whether God has kept His promise never to desert you or forsake you (Heb. 13:5), remember that He's the "faithful Creator" (1 Pet. 4:19). This means He can never lie (Heb. 6:18). But it also means that everything He created was "very good" (Gen. 1:31), everything He is making is good in time (Eccl. 3:11), and everything will be ultimately restored to perfection (Rev. 21:5). This truth about God's faithfulness leads to a specific action: _rest in Him_. The key word in 1 Peter 4:19 is _entrust_. The Greek word is _paratithēmi_ 3908], which means to place something in the care of another, making a deposit for safekeeping.[[63] This is the same word used in Luke 23:46 when Jesus says, "Father, into your hands I commit My Spirit." Because He is faithful and powerful, we can entrust our entire life to Him.
When the X-ray doesn't look good, remember that God is faithful. Rest in Him. When you read a note from your spouse you never thought you'd receive, remember that God is faithful. Rest in Him. When you get news about one of your children that no parent wants to believe, remember that God is faithful. Rest in Him. When you get that dreaded pink slip at work and you realize the ax just fell, remember that God is faithful. Rest in Him.
How do you remember that God is faithful? By His Word. I've mentioned several passages above. But you only have to read a few pages in the Bible to see the absolute faithfulness of God demonstrated in the lives of His people in spite of their faithless rebellion against Him. Begin by reminding yourself of God's faithfulness by reading His Word.
But how do we fully entrust ourselves to God? How do we finally rest in Him? We mentally deposit ourselves into God's safekeeping. What a wise deposit! It yields peace and joy in this life —and eternal dividends in the next. The concept of entrusting our souls to God during trials includes turning our situation over to God in prayer. It also means revealing our struggles to members of the body of Christ, who can help us through our trials. And it means continuing to do this moment by moment as the fiery trial continues to burn.
When trials come —and they will come —be confident that God is faithful. Rest in Him.
* * *
# A Job Description for Shepherds
1 PETER 5:1-4
NASB
1 Therefore, I exhort the elders among you, as _your_ fellow elder and witness of the sufferings of Christ, and a partaker also of the glory that is to be revealed, 2 shepherd the flock of God among you, exercising oversight not under compulsion, but voluntarily, according to _the will of_ God; and not for sordid gain, but with eagerness; 3 nor yet as lording it over [a]those allotted to your charge, but [b]proving to be examples to the flock. 4 And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading [a]crown of glory.
5:3 [a]Lit _the allotments_ [b]Or _becoming_ 5:4 [a]Lit _wreath_
NLT
1 And now, a word to you who are elders in the churches. I, too, am an elder and a witness to the sufferings of Christ. And I, too, will share in his glory when he is revealed to the whole world. As a fellow elder, I appeal to you: 2 Care for the flock that God has entrusted to you. Watch over it willingly, not grudgingly —not for what you will get out of it, but because you are eager to serve God. 3 Don't lord it over the people assigned to your care, but lead them by your own good example. 4 And when the Great Shepherd appears, you will receive a crown of never-ending glory and honor.
* * *
Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834–1892) was one of England's best-known preachers. At the age of twenty he was called to the pastorate at the New Park Street Chapel in London. Soon after he took the pulpit, his sermons began drawing crowds that overflowed capacity, necessitating the construction of the famous Metropolitan Tabernacle six years later. During his thirty-eight years as a pastor, Spurgeon led a congregation that swelled to over fourteen thousand members on the roster.[64]
Though he lived over a century ago, his prolific pen still flows with relevance. Some of Spurgeon's eloquence is preserved for us in his classic volume, _Lectures to My Students_. His shepherd's heart beats loudly through his words.
Every workman knows the necessity of keeping his tools in a good state of repair. . . . If the workman lose the edge . . . he knows that there will be a greater draught upon his energies, or his work will be badly done. . . .
. . . It will be in vain for me to stock my library, or organise societies, or project schemes, if I neglect the culture of myself; for books, and agencies, and systems are only remotely the instruments of my holy calling; my own spirit, soul, and body, are my nearest machinery for sacred service; my spiritual faculties, and my inner life, are my battle axe and weapons of war.[65]
Spurgeon's poignant principles are part of a centuries-old tradition of seasoned pastoral advice to younger ministers. The shepherding of shepherds' hearts goes back to Jesus Himself, who spent three years preparing his own disciples to carry on His work after His departure. The tried-and-tested Paul encouraged the young ministers Timothy and Titus to stay hard at the work of the ministry after he was gone.
At this point in his letter, Peter turns from a general readership to those responsible for spiritual leadership in the churches. He now fine-tunes his words to the shepherds, or "pastors," of those churches, lest they "neglect the culture" or themselves.
This discussion of pastoral leadership appears in the context of how Christians can endure the fiery ordeal of unjust treatment, trials, and tribulations in this life as they look with hope toward the next. Peter argues that strong, spiritual leadership is essential to thriving in this world. When leaders model holiness and hope to those sheep within their charge, the whole church will be able to look to the Chief Shepherd, who provides hope in hurtful times.
## — 5:1-2a —
Peter begins his address with "therefore." It may appear that suddenly shifting into low gear and plowing through issues of church leadership seems a little out of place in his fast-paced treatment of the practical Christian life. But in Peter's mind, how believers live their lives in a hostile and unholy world is closely tied to the function of leaders who serve as shepherds to guide their flocks.
I see in these first couple of verses two effective principles for those called to leadership in ministry. The first is that _pride of position must be absent_. Notice how the apostle Peter refers to himself. Although he was an eyewitness of Christ's suffering, death, and resurrection, he calls himself a "fellow elder" (5:1). He's also a partaker, or partner, in the coming glory that will be revealed when Christ returns. He shares his readers' destiny. And he serves with them on the same ministry team. They're in this together.
Ministry can lead to a proud life for several reasons:
* Ministers speak and serve on behalf of God.
* They address large groups of people regularly.
* People make major life decisions based on their teaching.
* They're trusted by most —and held accountable by few.
All these things can easily lead to pride —and a terrible fall. This is what makes Peter's humble identification with other church leaders so insightful. If Peter, one of the original twelve disciples and the earliest spokesman for the church, would identify himself as a "fellow elder," all of us in ministry ought to follow suit with a humble view of any position we hold.
The second effective principle is that _the heart of a shepherd must be present_ (5:2a). The very first imperative in this passage is "shepherd," which translates _poimainō_ 4165], "to tend a flock." The word is used figuratively in ancient literature and in the New Testament for any kind of general leadership role or special position.[[66] Besides the figurative use of this term, many analogies in Scripture compare God's relationship to His people with that of a shepherd to His flock.[67] The related noun _poimēn_ [4166] is the basis for our English word "pastor." It's used of church pastors in Ephesians 4:11.
In 5:2, Peter doesn't tell the pastor-elders to "shepherd your own flock" but to "shepherd the flock of God." Throughout this passage the flock is seen as those _entrusted_ to the care of the pastors, not as their own followers. The ultimate Shepherd is God. But pastors and teachers should serve as faithful under-shepherds, looking to the Chief Shepherd as their inspiration and model. Peter uses the image of a "shepherd" intentionally. The role of a shepherd certainly includes teaching, but it's not the same as being only a teacher. It includes administration, but it's more than being an organizer. It includes having a heart for evangelism, but it involves more than preaching the gospel. Peter addresses some of the specific attitudes and responsibilities required of shepherds of God's flock in 5:2b-3.
* * *
# From My Journal
# Curb Your Expectations
1 PETER 5:1-4
As I look back on a lifetime of pastoral ministry, a couple of personal insights come to mind regarding expectations, which can happen on both sides of the pulpit. A young minister comes to a church and has a boatload of unrealistic expectations for the flock. On the other side, the flock calls a man to pastor the church, and they have such an array of expectations that nobody could live up to them!
So, one of the secrets to a long-term pastorate is clear-thinking realism for both the pastor and the congregation. Not every church will experience phenomenal growth. Most preachers won't be eloquent or in great demand. Both pastor and congregation need to banish from their minds the expectations of grandeur and popularity.
Another principle that has kept me going is the importance of two-way tolerance. A pastor needs to be tolerant of the people he is serving. And the flock is to be tolerant of the minister who serves as their under-shepherd. We need to have attitudes of grace, providing a lot of wiggle room. Give each other the freedom to try and fail, to be imperfect, to be yourselves. Grace, mercy, forgiveness, and unwavering love are key ingredients of any thriving ministry.
I should add that the path to a large and effective ministry is never without its disappointing dips and unexpected turns. I've encountered church members who have accused me of wrong motives, criticized my candor, questioned my sincerity, and walked out in anger. I've made my share of mistakes and miscalculations, too, failing to live up to the qualifications set forth in 1 Timothy 3:1-7. That's ministry in the raw. Imperfect shepherds leading imperfect sheep in the service of a perfect God who has a perfect plan.
* * *
Peter also refers to the responsibility of shepherding, or "pastoring," as "exercising oversight." The Greek word here is _episkopeō_ [1983]. The related noun _episkopos_ [1985] refers to an "overseer" (traditionally "bishop") in the qualifications for that office (1 Tim. 3:2; Titus 1:7), but the term can also refer to the same group of church leaders as "elders" (Acts 20:17, 28). Back when the original apostles exercised direct oversight in the churches, the office of elder, pastor, and overseer were synonymous. After the apostles departed, the office of a senior overseeing elder developed to help stabilize church authority, and it is this position that in later centuries would develop into the episcopacy, the authority of a single bishop over a number of churches. During the New Testament period, however, elder, pastor, and overseer were all one calling with the same responsibility to shepherd the flock. All three of these terms —"elders," "pastors," and "overseers" —are used together in Acts 20:17, 28. Paul called the "elders" of the church of Ephesus to meet him in Miletus, then instructed them, "Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers ( _episkopos_ ), to shepherd ( _poimainō_ ) the church of God which He purchased with His own blood" (Acts 20:28).
## — 5:2b-3 —
After exhorting the leaders of the churches to which he was writing, Peter gives three practical attitudes with which earthly shepherds are to exercise oversight. He structures each of these in the same form, including both a negative quality and its corresponding positive attitude. A simple chart highlights the contrasts:
NOT | BUT
---|---
under compulsion | voluntarily
for sordid gain | with eagerness
lording over the flock | being examples to the flock
_The first attitude is one of willingness —_"not under compulsion, but voluntarily" (5:2b). Compulsion implies doing something by force. Peter knew that it can become a chore for pastors to motivate themselves to maintain the high-energy requirements of ministry.
Let me illustrate the negative side of this with an amusing story. A young man was sound asleep one Sunday morning when his mother burst in and said, "Wake up, son. You need to get out of bed _right now_!"
With his face buried in his pillow he responded with a muffled voice, "Give me three good reasons why I should get out of this bed."
Engaging in a tug-of-war with his bed sheet, she said, "One: because it's Sunday and as Christians we always go to church on Sundays."
The man moaned.
"Two: because we only have forty minutes until church starts and you haven't even showered!"
The man tried to ignore his mother.
"Three: because you're the pastor and you need to be there!"
_That's ministry under compulsion!_ While most pastors don't need their mothers to pull them out of bed on Sunday mornings, pulpits are often filled with preachers who are at the verge of ministry burnout and can barely keep going. There are many reasons. Maybe they went to Bible college or seminary and acquired the degree and skills for ministry, but their heart is no longer in it. Maybe they've been in ministry so long that to make a career change now would mean starting their lives over. Maybe they've been corralled into a particular ministry position that doesn't match their gifts or training, and they can't find a way to switch to something more appropriate. Whatever the case, involuntary ministry leads to lack of enthusiasm, lack of motivation, mediocrity, and even depression. If this is the case, Peter's words imply that a change needs to be made —either fix the problem leading to compulsion or find a way to step down for a while until the joy of ministry returns.
_The second attitude for shepherds is_ _eagerness —_"not for sordid gain, but with eagerness" (5:2c). Peter contrasts true excitement for ministry with financial motivation. The term "sordid gain" implies a motivation of greed. It means focusing on what the flock can do for them, rather than what they can do for the flock. Titus 1:10-11 illustrates the same idea with a concrete example: "For there are many rebellious men, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision, who must be silenced because they are upsetting whole families, teaching things they should not teach for the sake of sordid gain." This is why one qualification for elders is that they be free from the love of money (1 Tim. 3:3; 6:10).
God's shepherds should have an attitude of self-sacrificial zeal —not merely a willingness to serve but an authentic enthusiasm that springs from the heart. This principle flies in the face of the excessive professionalism common in the ministry today. Degrees, résumés, popularity, and references don't qualify a person for ministry. Rather, an eagerness to serve —occasionally at great personal cost —is a vital ingredient found in a well-rounded shepherd and well-grounded ministry.
_The third attitude for successful ministry is meekness —_"nor yet as lording it over those allotted to your charge, but proving to be examples to the flock" (5:3). With the phrase "lording it over," Peter echoes Jesus' own warning against a domineering leadership attitude:
"You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. It is not this way among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave; just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many." (Matt. 20:25-28)
The idea of "servant leadership" finds its basis in this warning against "lording leadership." Admittedly, "servant leadership" is an overworked expression that's often misunderstood. However, it does summarize Jesus' teaching on the importance of resisting authoritarian approaches to shepherding. Jesus didn't exhibit that attitude —neither should we. We're to be _team leaders_ —fellow learners, sharers, and partners in the same work. We can only be "examples to the flock" when we're engaged in the same kind of service we expect from others serving with us. Shepherds who lead like Christ exemplify servanthood.
## — 5:4 —
With regard to the role of leaders in the church, Peter points out two effective principles: _pride of position must be absent_ (5:1), and _the heart of a shepherd must be present_ (5:2a). He then illustrates the shepherd's heart with three essential attitudes: _willingness_ (5:2b), _eagerness_ (5:2c), and _meekness_ (5:3). Granted, shepherding the flock of God can involve hard work! This is why Peter ends his address to the elder-pastors of the churches with a reminder of their eternal reward. If Christ's shepherds faithfully discharge their duties with the proper attitudes, they will receive "the unfading crown of glory" from Christ at His return. As the "Chief Shepherd," Jesus serves as the model of how His earthly shepherds are to serve. As such, Christ Himself is the perfect model of ministry.
As he has done throughout this letter, Peter wraps up his discussion on leadership by pointing to Christ as the source of true hope in hurtful times. When the going gets tough in ministry —and there are times when it's borderline _unbearable —_we can be motivated to go on. Christ Himself continued on in His ministry in spite of horrendous obstacles and hostile reactions, but the result of His sacrificial service was magnificent. We, too, can be assured of our future reward for faithful service at the judgment seat of Christ (1 Cor. 3:10-14).
* * *
# APPLICATION: 1 PETER 5:1-4
Some Advice for Shepherds
Allow me a few extra moments to address those involved in vocational Christian ministry —shepherd to shepherd, elder to elder —as Peter did two thousand years ago.
First, if you teach, remain a good student. Stay teachable. Read. Listen. Learn. Observe. Admitting when you're wrong is just as important as standing firm when you're right. Share the things you learn with those you teach. Not one of us in ministry is a know-it-all, so don't set yourself up as one. Few things are worse than an arrogant teacher of the Bible!
Second, if you lead, delegate well. Think about what it would be like to listen to yourself. Exaggerating your leadership role is just as dangerous as underestimating your gift and service. No, others won't do things exactly like you would. No, delegation won't always result in the quality of work you expect from yourself. But learn to let things go. If you don't, you'll model a horrible form of "lording leadership" through your example, and this will result in the kind of leadership husbands will take home with them, bosses will implement in the office, and other pastors will reflect in their own ministries.
Third, don't take yourself too seriously. Laugh often —especially at yourself. Make yourself the brunt of your humor. Point out your own foibles and fumbles. Remind others and yourself that you're only human, and that the almighty God, through the Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ, is working out His perfect plan through imperfect people empowered by the Holy Spirit.
Finally, get some rest. Back off. Loosen up. Recharge your batteries. Refresh your personal life. Keep yourself from running at full throttle day after day. Back in seminary, a lot of us thought that to minister ourselves to death was the modern-day equivalent of martyrdom. We repeated stupid statements like, "I'd rather burn out than rust out!" And our fat calendars and flat family lives reflected it. Looking back, I realize how stupid that statement really was. Either way, you're _out._ Don't go there.
Finally, take your day off —I mean a _real_ day off —once a week. And _take your vacations_. A burnt-out, exhausted, depressed, and unmotivated pastor is not a healthy, wholesome shepherd.
* * *
# A Formula that Brings Relief
1 PETER 5:5-7
NASB
5 You younger men, likewise, be subject to _your_ elders; and all of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, for GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD, BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE.
6 Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, 7 casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.
NLT
5 In the same way, you who are younger must accept the authority of the elders. And all of you, dress yourselves in humility as you relate to one another, for
"God opposes the proud
but gives grace to the humble."[*]
6 So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and at the right time he will lift you up in honor. 7 Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.
[5:5] Prov 3:34 (Greek version).
* * *
Our society has gorged itself on the pursuit of success. Upward mobility, getting ahead, snagging that promotion —only one direction will do: up . . . _up . . . UP_! We've stuffed ourselves with money-making schemes and binged on books and seminars teaching us how to make ourselves great. In fact, not long ago our gluttony for financial success inflated an economy until it exploded. But not to worry! We'll just pick up the pieces and start all over again.
The world tells us that to be satisfied we need _fortune_ : Make a lot of money —in fact, make a _boatload_ of money! Society persuades us that to be significant we need _fame_ : be well-known and well-connected. The culture tries to convince us that to have true success we need _influence_ : wield power, be in control, and don't take orders — _give them_! And if this "big three" of success doesn't do it, then the real secret lies in _indulgence_ : fulfilling your wants, desires, and pleasures. The world's methods of achieving these things isn't difficult. _Work hard_ , or at least harder than everybody else. _Push ahead_ , even if it means stepping on others. _Remove all obstacles,_ such as friends, family, and faith. And _promote yourself_ even if it means exaggerating a bit or trashing somebody else!
The great irony of all this is that the more success we have, the more we want. History, experience, religion, psychology, and sociology have all taught us that such purposeless pursuits can never ultimately quench our thirst for true meaning or relieve our hunger for true happiness. Instead of fulfillment, we experience the bloated nausea of disappointment. In the end the all-you-can-eat lifestyle leaves us weighed down in our spirit, nauseated with worry, and let down by life.
In an age like ours, the countercultural message of humility is neither popular nor appreciated. At a time when looking good is considered more important than being good, and when superficial impression makes a bigger splash than solid integrity, who has time for things like submission, dependence, and trust? In our dog-eat-dog, cut-in-line lifestyle, deferring to others looks stupid and sounds silly.
In contrast to the world's narcissistic plan for success, Peter outlines in 1 Peter 5:5-7 the essential ingredients for _relief_.
## — 5:5 —
In 1 Peter 5:1-4, Peter addressed those pastor-elders who were in authority as overseers of the flock. They had been given special responsibilities necessary for effective ministry. Those principles of leadership go against the typical human tendency of "lord it over" those under authority. So, when Peter turns to the younger men, who were under the authority of those older saints, we can anticipate that he will confound our cultural expectations again.
Peter begins with the adverb "likewise" ( _homoiōs_ [3668]). Just as the older leaders are to conduct themselves in a Christlike, countercultural manner, those who are younger must do so as well. Though the positions may be different, our calling to live in conformity with Christ never changes.
Who is Peter addressing in verse 5? The term _neos_ 3501] can mean several things. Our English prefix _neo_ \- borrows from this term, which means "new" or "young." In the New Testament its most common use is the most general —something new as opposed to old.[[68] It can also refer to a person of physically youthful age in contrast to somebody more mature.[69] And it's used once in reference to the "new" identity we have in Christ after salvation (Col. 3:10). It may also generally refer to those under the authority of leaders —that is, servants, disciples, or assistants (Acts 5:6).
How does Peter use the term _neos_ in 5:5? Does it refer to younger believers (novices) in the faith or to literal young people? I think a key to understanding this use comes from Jesus' own words, no doubt recalled by Peter in this context. In the previous section on leaders, we saw the echoes of Jesus' warning about the Gentile method of leadership: "The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them. . . . But it is not this way with you" (Luke 22:25-26). This corresponds to Peter's call for leaders to reject "lording leadership" and instead set an example of submissive servanthood (1 Pet. 5:3). Similarly, Jesus continued: "But the one who is the greatest among you must become like the youngest [ _neos_ ], and the leader like the servant" (Luke 22:26). So, according to Jesus, the "greatest" in rank contrasted with the "youngest" in the same way a leader contrasts with a servant. Peter likely picks up on this contrast. Having called on leaders to serve in 1 Peter 5:1-4, he then gives directions to those who are under their leadership, the "newer" believers in verses 5-7.
This brings us to Peter's exhortation to those under the elders' authority. Simply put, they are to submit to the elders' authority. What a novel idea in this era that promotes an entrepreneurial, independent spirit necessary for personal success! But Peter doesn't stop there. With another possible allusion to the words and work of Jesus prior to His crucifixion, he instructs believers to "clothe" themselves with humility (1 Pet. 5:5). It may be that Peter was recalling the last meal in the upper room, when Jesus —the greatest leader of all —girded Himself with a towel and washed the disciples' feet (John 13:4-17). The Master served the servants. The spiritually older stooped down and washed the feet of the spiritually younger. The word Peter used for "putting on" literally means to "put or tie something on oneself."[70] Wuest notes that this word "speaks of the act of tying or tucking up the long outer garments . . . around the waist as a roll or band or girth. . . . The word in its noun form referred to a slave's apron under which the loose outer garments were gathered."[71] Jesus even _looked_ like their servant. What humility!
Peter's main exhortation in 5:5 is _to submit to those who are wise_. He calls the younger believers under the authority of the elders to listen to their counsel. Be open to their reproofs. Watch their lives and follow their good examples. Accept their decisions without second-guessing and challenging them. Respect their years of experience and honor their seasoned lives. All of this is included in the call for the younger believers to "be subject to" the elders.
To support his call for humility and submission, Peter quotes Proverbs 3:34, expressing an idea found in various forms throughout the Old and New Testaments.
Psalm 138:6 | For though the LORD is exalted,
Yet He regards the lowly,
But the haughty He knows from afar.
---|---
Proverbs 3:34 | He mocks proud mockers but gives grace to the humble and oppressed. (NIV)
Matthew 23:12 | Whoever exalts himself shall be humbled; and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted.
James 4:6 | God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.
1 Peter 5:5 | God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.
God has demonstrated His ability to humble the proud; He reduces to nothing those world leaders who are puffed up with pride (Isa. 14:4-21; Ezek. 28:1-10; Dan. 4:28-37). He also has a penchant for promoting the humble. We see this clearly in the lives of both Joseph and Daniel, two men who suffered unjustly and ended up in slavery. But God used their humble status to raise them up through the ranks to accomplish His purposes. This twin theme is woven through the fabric of the Old and New Testaments.
So, the first strong word of counsel for those who want to find genuine satisfaction and true success comes from a whole parade of passages in Holy Scripture —submit yourself to those who are wise instead of flaunting your own authority. To those who genuinely submit with humility, God will provide a greater measure of grace.
## — 5:6 —
The second in Peter's series of three commands has to do with our attitude. To experience true success in life, we must _humble ourselves under God's mighty hand_ (5:6). In the Old Testament, God's "hand" was a metaphor for his power displayed in two ways: discipline (Exod. 3:20; Job 30:21; Ps. 32:4) and deliverance (Deut. 9:26; Ezek. 20:34). So, humbling ourselves means we accept whatever comes from Him. We follow our sovereign Lord along the smooth highways as well as the bumpy back roads. In other words, we don't manipulate events or people. We don't hurry things to conform to our own timetable. Instead, we allow our God to orchestrate things at His own tempo. Only in this way will the promise of 1 Peter 5:6 be fulfilled in us: "that He may exalt you at the proper time."
Let me illustrate. Let's say you write music and you're fairly talented. But you're just getting started and are unknown except in your small church and circle of Christian friends. But you love the Lord and want to serve Him with the talents He's given you. So you have a quandary. Do you push hard to be discovered? How hard? After all, your gifts are only good if you use them, right? What would it mean to humble yourself under God's mighty hand in this situation? We're not left to wonder.
King David serves as a good biblical example. Back in 1 Samuel 16 you find a young homegrown musician who kept his father's sheep. He had never heard the applause of the public. His world was limited to bleating sheep. But he kept playing his music, writing his songs . . . and all the while he had no idea that one day his original compositions would find their way into the book of Psalms. David didn't pursue fortune and glory with his music. He didn't hire an agent or rent an oxcart to take his songs on the road. Nevertheless, more than any other collection of "hits," David's inspirational psalms have brought glory to God. In God's timing He found young David. His attitude of humility exalted him and his work to a place he could never have reached on his own. In fact, look at what Psalm 78 says about David:
He also chose David His servant
And took him from the sheepfolds;
From the care of the ewes with suckling lambs
He brought him
To shepherd Jacob His people,
And Israel His inheritance.
So he shepherded them according to the integrity of his heart,
And guided them with his skillful hands. (Ps. 78:70-72)
When David humbled himself under God's mighty hand, God exalted Him at the proper time.
## — 5:7 —
I've never been one to jump out of airplanes with a parachute on my back or to leap off high bridges strapped to a giant rubber band. But I suppose the feeling of free fall one experiences by skydiving or bungee jumping is similar to the way we feel when we've totally submitted to the authority of others and humbled ourselves before God. The feeling of absolute surrender and powerlessness could cause us to panic at first. But when we realize that our lives are not dependent on a parachute or bungee cord, _but on the living God_ , we'll realize that we've traded insecurity for true security. We'll discover that we'd been depending on our own man-made devices rather than trusting in God's supernatural strength.
This leads to Peter's third strategy for true success: _to throw yourself onto the mercy and care of God_ (5:7). The term "casting . . . on" ( _epiriptō_ 1977]) literally means "to throw upon."[[72] This represents a decisive action on our part, neither passive nor partial. When Peter tells us to cast all our anxiety on Him, this is the means by which we humble ourselves under His mighty hand (5:6). We surrender all those anxieties, questions, and concerns. Psalm 55:22 reflects the same thought: "Cast your burden upon the LORD and He will sustain you; He will never allow the righteous to be shaken." Similarly, Peter accompanies His exhortation of radical surrender with a reminder of the character of God. We can cast everything on Him because He cares for us (5:7).
Do you want a simple formula that will enable you not only to handle whatever success God may bring your way, but also to provide you with the relief you need? Peter gives us just such a formula in 1 Peter 5:5-7. It's not popular and it certainly doesn't conform to the world's advice. I should warn you: When you try to put it into practice, your natural instinct will be to resist it. But it's the raw material of a life lived in hope:
_Submission_ to others + _Humility_ before God − _Worry_ of the world = _Genuine Relief_
* * *
# APPLICATION: 1 PETER 5:5-7
True Success
If we want to get a grasp on what true success is and how to obtain it, we need to tune out the seductive messages from the world and tune in to the instructive messages from God's Word. We need to look to Christ as the model of humility and turn away from Satan as the example of hubris. The way I see it, our great need for this reorientation involves three dimensions: direction, discipline, and discernment.
First, we need _direction_ so we can know to whom we should submit. We aren't called to submit to everybody indiscriminately. But neither are we to follow our own ways in our own wisdom. Peter identifies the ones to whom we must submit: our "elders." But how do you know they're trustworthy? One way is to make sure they're pointing to Christ, not themselves. Paul wrote, "Be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ" (1 Cor. 11:1). We should also follow those who guide us by the light of God's Word, not their own suggestions and opinions. Psalm 119:105 describes the Word as "a lamp to my feet and a light to my path." Finally, we should follow those whom God has placed in authority over us in official leadership in our churches. Hebrews 13:17 says, "Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account."
Second, we need _discipline_ to restrain our hellish pride. Pride will keep rearing its ugly head. The more successful you are, the more you'll be tempted to chuck God's plan for the world's. You'll start out just dabbling in the world's ways, but before you know it you'll find yourself on the wrong road heading in the wrong direction. Paul provided Timothy with a good perspective on this issue: "But have nothing to do with worldly fables. On the other hand, discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness; for bodily discipline is only of little profit, but godliness is profitable for all things, since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come" (1 Tim. 4:7-8). Paul sets up a contrast between "worldly fables" and "bodily discipline" on the one hand and godliness and future-oriented hope on the other. Our pride will never sit down and stay quiet. It needs strong discipline to keep it in its place.
Third, we need _discernment_ so we can spot the beginnings of anxiety. If we don't pounce on our fears the moment they begin to creep in, they'll soon latch onto our heart and mind, choking out our joy and peace. Ever have some little worry start to nag you? You can't get it out of your head. Like a poison, it starts to eat away at your insides and soon you're paralyzed with fear. It takes discernment to spot that kind of anxiety before it gets out of control.
Do you find yourself caught up in the success syndrome, hopelessly running on the treadmill of discontent? Are you still convinced that the world's path to success is the best? Do you find yourself manipulating people and pulling strings to get ahead? Stop! That kind of success never satisfies. Only God's formula for success brings real relief. Through submission to mature believers, humility toward God, and turning our anxieties over to Him, we can experience lasting relief. Direction, discipline, and discernment are essential components to our having enduring hope in hurtful times.
* * *
# Standing Nose-to-Nose with the Adversary
1 PETER 5:8-14
NASB
8 Be of sober _spirit,_ be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. 9[a]But resist him, firm in _your_ faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your [b]brethren who are in the world. 10 After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen _and_ establish you. 11 To Him _be_ dominion forever and ever. Amen.
12 Through Silvanus, our faithful brother a, I have written to you briefly, exhorting and testifying that this is the true grace of God. Stand firm in it! 13 She who is in Babylon, chosen together with you, sends you greetings, and _so does_ my son, Mark. 14 Greet one another with a kiss of love.
Peace be to you all who are in Christ.
5:9 [a]Lit _whom resist_ [b]Lit _brotherhood_ 5:12 [a]Lit _(as I consider)_
NLT
8 Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. 9 Stand firm against him, and be strong in your faith. Remember that your family of believers[*] all over the world is going through the same kind of suffering you are.
10 In his kindness God called you to share in his eternal glory by means of Christ Jesus. So after you have suffered a little while, he will restore, support, and strengthen you, and he will place you on a firm foundation. 11 All power to him forever! Amen.
12 I have written and sent this short letter to you with the help of Silas,[*] whom I commend to you as a faithful brother. My purpose in writing is to encourage you and assure you that what you are experiencing is truly part of God's grace for you. Stand firm in this grace.
13 Your sister church here in Babylon[*] sends you greetings, and so does my son Mark. 14 Greet each other with a kiss of love.
Peace be with all of you who are in Christ.
[5:9] Greek _your brotherhood._ [5:12] Greek _Silvanus._ [5:13] Greek _The elect one in Babylon._ Babylon was probably symbolic for Rome.
* * *
With this section we arrive at the end of Peter's powerful letter of hope in hurtful times. This is a good time to do a quick review of how the final section fits within the whole letter. Peter began his letter by informing us of our _living hope_. He introduced the possibility of peace in the midst of difficult times as we embrace God-given hope, walk in holiness, and grow in our faith (1:1–2:12). Peter then exhorted his readers to hopeful living in spite of their _strange life_ of suffering. By humbly submitting to earthly authorities and arming ourselves with endurance, we will glorify God and bring a light of hope to our otherwise dark world (2:13–4:11).
In the final section, Peter comforts us in the midst of our _fiery ordeal_ (4:12–5:14). The dramatic climax of his letter sounds like a general rallying his troops before leading them into battle. He began by reminding them of the fiery ordeal that will test and strengthen their faith (4:12-19). He then turned to the appointed commanders —elders of the churches —and exhorted them to lead their battalions as noble examples of Christlike leadership (5:1-4). Peter then addressed those who are younger in the faith, urging them to submit to their commanders' authority and leadership. They need to follow their examples with humility, entrusting themselves to the great Commander-in-Chief, in whose service the battle can never be lost (5:5-7).
Finally, Peter sounds the battle alarm (5:8-14). He draws the army's attention to their spiritual opponent who is planning his evil strategy behind their fiery trials (5:8). He tells the soldiers of Christ how the adversary can be defeated (5:9). He reminds us that the fierce conflict will soon be over and that we will one day emerge as victors (5:10). Finally, he points to Christ, who will ultimately triumph and exercise dominion over all (5:11).
## — 5:8 —
Whoever lives under the impression that Satan doesn't exist is living in a dreamworld. In clear, unmistakable terms, Peter identifies and describes the devil in 5:8.
Satan goes by several titles throughout the Bible. In 5:8 Peter uses the terms "adversary" ( _antidikos_ 476], "adversary") and "devil" ( _diabolos_ [1228], "slanderer"). The term "adversary" makes us think of the name "Satan," which comes from a Hebrew word for "adversary" ( _satan_ [H7854]).[[73] _Diabolos_ refers to how he falsely accuses God's people.[74] In Revelation 9:11 he is called _Abaddon_ and _Apollyon_ , meaning "Destroyer," titles that refer to his destructiveness.[75] Together, these and other labels for the adversary describe him as a dangerous, destructive deceiver who slanders and accuses us at every opportunity. Revelation 12:9-10 describes Satan's future and final fall from the heavens in vivid terms that reveal both his nature and his activity:
And the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, "Now the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, he who accuses them before our God day and night."
I take Satan very seriously. No, I'm not intimidated by him. I'm not afraid of him. But I don't underestimate his power to inflict great harm on people through temptation, deception, and destruction. Satan is the source of all kinds of pain and suffering in the world, even in the lives of believers. His activities may come in subtle forms of temptation and discouragement. Or he may unleash absolute fury, tragedy, and destruction. We can't ignore the potential damage he can do to our physical and spiritual lives.
However, there is no reason to overestimate Satan's power. Too many Christians do this. They believe that anything bad that happens to them comes directly from the devil or his demons. This is as much a mistake as underestimating his power. Satan isn't the immediate cause of all suffering and sin. Fallen, depraved human beings can do enough damage to themselves and others without the devil's prodding. Furthermore, the world system offers its own evil allurements that can take a vicious toll on the believer's walk.
Acting on these two extremes —attributing too much or too little power to Satan —leads either to overreaction or a lack of preparation. So an awareness of some of Satan's tactics is necessary for believers. One writer notes,
No military commander could expect to be victorious in battle unless he understood his enemy. Should he prepare for an attack by land and ignore the possibility that the enemy might approach by air or by sea, he would open the way to defeat. Or should he prepare for a land and sea attack and ignore the possibility of an attack through air, he would certainly jeopardize the campaign.
No individual can be victorious against the adversary of our souls unless he understands that adversary; unless he understands his philosophy, his methods of operation, his methods of temptation.[76]
* * *
# GOD VERSUS SATAN?
1 PETER 5:8
People often think that Satan is the exact opposite of God —that he is God's mortal enemy, and that the forces of good and evil have battled each other for eons. But this picture is not accurate according to the biblical view of God and Satan.
The ancient Zoroastrians believed in dualism —that two equally powerful gods, one good and one evil, stood in opposition to each other. These two gods engaged in immortal combat with each other over the obedience of humans.[77]
This ancient dualistic image of the spiritual realm has influenced many pagan religions and has even worked its way into popular art and culture. Various ancient heresies advanced a dualistic view of the world that split divinity into balancing forces of good and evil. Numerous superstitious Christians of the medieval period viewed God as the good and Satan as the evil influence in the world. And even today the _Star Wars_ films have popularized the idea of a "Force" with a light and a dark side.[78]
But the Bible teaches that Satan is an angelic creature of God (Ezek. 28:12-16; cf. Ps. 148:2, 5; Col. 1:16) who can do nothing apart from God's control or permission (Job 1:1-12; Luke 22:31). He may be an equal-but-opposite counterpart of the archangel Michael (Jude 1:9; Rev. 12:7), but nobody in heaven or earth is an equal of God —opposite or otherwise. Yet he is also the enemy and accuser of humans (Zech. 3:1-2; 1 Pet. 5:8). While we must not deny that Satan has power to attack and ensnare us (Eph. 4:27; 6:11; 1 Tim. 3:7), we must also guard against attributing to Satan more power than he actually has.
* * *
Peter calls Satan our "adversary, the devil" (5:8). And because he's on the prowl like a lion hunting for prey to devour, we must be "of sober spirit" and remain "on the alert." In each of the three major sections of the book, Peter exhorts us to be "sober" in spirit. The first call to spiritual sobriety came as a response to the assurance of our faith and the hope we have in Christ: "Therefore [in light of the promises made sure], prepare your minds for action, _keep sober in spirit_ , fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ" (1:13). The second call to sober up is found in the context of the imminent return of Christ and the need for prayerful diligence: "The end of all things is near; therefore, be of sound judgment and _sober spirit_ for the purpose of prayer" (4:7). This third and final call to stay sober and alert combines the need for firmness of faith and patient endurance in the face of satanic attack as we look forward to our eternal reward with Christ (5:8-10).
Like wanderers in the wild savannahs of Africa, we must always be aware that we're being hunted. The lion lurks quietly in tall grass, stalking our every step, waiting for a moment to catch us off guard. If we stray from the group, put down our weapons, or doze in the sun, he'll strike. Satan knows our weaknesses and our strengths. He's had thousands of years to observe humankind and become an expert on human nature. In fact, Satan knows the depths of your depravity far better than you do. We must never forget that we are his prey and that this roaring lion is ravenous with hunger.
Satan's style is to prowl and to pounce when we least expect it, which explains our need to be alert and sober. His one purpose is to destroy us —our testimonies, our hope, our holiness, and if possible, our lives. Therefore, we must be aware of his tactics and have a respect for his power. In the same way that a Pacific islander might respect the power of the volcano or a sailor would respect the devastating might of a hurricane at sea, we must never allow ourselves to underestimate the adversary's ability to outwit, deceive, and attack us.
## — 5:9 —
What are we to do when standing nose-to-nose with the adversary? Panic? Run? Surrender? No! Peter says, "Resist him, firm in your faith" (5:9). The word "resist" ( _anthistēmi_ [436]) means to "stand against," to "oppose." But this command is met with a vital qualification. We don't resist Satan with confidence in our own power or ability. Any time we do that, we're overmatched. We are to be firm in our faith. Peter certainly isn't speaking of faith in self; in other humans; or in some sort of method, mantra, or gimmick. Rather, we stand with unshakable faith in our all-powerful God, relying on His defense to stand against the wicked works of the devil.
James affirms the need to stand confidently against Satan in the shadow of God's mighty presence: "Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you" (Jas. 4:7-8). And in his letter to the Ephesians, the apostle Paul expresses the same wise counsel: "Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil" (Eph. 6:10-11). Peter, James, and Paul all knew that believers can experience decisive victory over Satan. They knew that although our strength is insufficient in and of itself, when we turn to our Lord and draw on His limitless power through faith, we can stand against the adversary.
Peter adds another source of strength: the confidence that comes from knowing that we're not fighting alone (5:9). A great army of saints, stretching throughout history right up to present-day believers, has taken part in the relentless battle. Our hope is strengthened when we remember that believers are standing shoulder to shoulder with each other across the globe in the same spiritual battle, enduring the same kinds of suffering, facing the same kinds of obstacles, experiencing the same kind of victory. The strength that comes from God's caring and praying community cannot be appreciated enough. Support groups and prayer chains are popular for a reason —they work! God designed the body of Christ to function this way. Remember, we're not Lone Rangers doing hand-to-hand combat with a superior foe. Rather, we're a platoon of vigilant soldiers watching each other's backs, awaiting a victory assured by the power of God.
## — 5:10-11 —
Though victory is certain, Peter reminds us that suffering and pain will accompany the battle. No one who has endured enemy attack emerges without some measure of pain. The battle will shake us, shock us, and often leave ugly scars. But what happens when the dust settles? Peter lists the benefits that come with God's heavenly version of the Purple Heart:
* He will perfect us.
* He will confirm us.
* He will strengthen us.
* He will establish us.
Peter paints the picture of a well-grounded, seasoned warrior who comes through the battle with maturity and stability that couldn't have been developed any other way. But even as we go through the necessary fiery ordeal that God allows to refine, strengthen, and grow us, we can continue to have hope because of four unforgettable truths. Every believer should inscribe them in his or her mind. The suffering is only "for a little while" (5:10a). It is accompanied by God's grace and calling (5:10b). It has a holy purpose that reverses and spites Satan's pursuits (5:10c). And through it all, thankfully, God remains in control (5:11).
In light of these truths, let's not confuse confidence in Christ with cockiness in the flesh. Never attempt to stand on your own, to wage war against the flesh, the world, and the devil by your own means or with your own methods. As Proverbs 21:31 says, "The horse is prepared for the day of battle, but victory belongs to the LORD." Always remember that suffering is temporary, but God's rewards are eternal. Paul expresses our hope with eloquence: "For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us" (Rom. 8:18).
## — 5:12-14 —
If you had been a member of the original Greek-speaking recipients of this letter, you would have noticed a sudden change in 1 Peter 5:12. The style of writing would have suddenly shifted from the elegant, flowing handwriting of a cultured composer to the large, deliberate script of a rugged fisherman. The grammar, syntax, and vocabulary immediately change. At this point it becomes obvious that Peter's secretary, Silas, has handed the pen to the aged apostle, who personally concludes his letter with his own calloused hand.
Besides noting that his loyal brother in ministry, Silas (Silvanus), had assisted in writing the letter, Peter's final lines reaffirm the overall exhortation. Because we hold to the true faith in a trustworthy God, we are to stand firm in God's grace (5:12). In the midst of all oppression, mistreatment, temptation, or trials, we can endure with hope because of the sustaining power of God. In short, through Christ we can have unwavering hope.
The last few lines end with three somewhat cryptic references that puzzle interpreters: the lady, the city, and the son. The first involves the personal greeting Peter passes on from an unnamed female described as "chosen together with you" (5:13). Some say that Peter refers figuratively to the church in Rome as the "bride of Christ." Others think that Peter is referring to an individual woman, perhaps his own wife (see Mark 1:30; 1 Cor. 9:5).[79] Unfortunately, we don't have enough information to make a definite identification. Either interpretation is possible. But one thing is clear: Believers in the early church had a great sense of kinship with fellow believers and churches throughout the world. This kind of concern for other Christian churches besides our own is an important lesson to remember today.
The second mystery relates to Peter's mention of "Babylon," where the woman dwells. Is this the same Babylon of the Old Testament in modern-day Iraq? Or is this a figure of speech referring symbolically to another city? Or does it signify the "Babylon-like" world system? According to our earliest Christian sources outside the New Testament, Peter's ministry never extended to the literal city of Babylon in Mesopotamia. His later ministry was actually based in Rome. Furthermore, the literal city of Babylon had dwindled in size and significance by the first century, so it had a very small Jewish community at the time 1 Peter was written. Peter would not have had a thriving ministry in the ancient city of Babylon, especially with Silas at his side. Most likely, then, "Babylon" in 1 Peter 5:13 refers to the city of Rome. This name was code language for Rome in both Jewish and Christian circles in the first and second centuries AD. The use of symbolic city names with negative or positive connotations also appears elsewhere in the New Testament (see Gal. 4:24-26; Rev. 11:8).[80]
Finally, who is the "Mark" mentioned at the end of verse 13? Peter calls him "my son," though this need not be taken literally, as the term is often used with reference to a close assistant or even convert in the faith (1 Tim. 1:2; Titus 1:4). So this probably refers to "John Mark" (Acts 12:12, 25; 15:37). In the book of Acts, he was the figure of contention between Barnabas and Paul. Barnabas wanted to bring John Mark with them on their second missionary journey; Paul opposed the idea (Acts 15:37-38). The result was that Barnabas took Mark with him, alone, to Cyprus while Paul took Silas and traveled with him (15:39-40). It is interesting to see that both Silas and Mark are found together —working closely with Peter —some fifteen years later. This illustrates the essential unity of the apostles' ministries despite strong disagreement along the way. Very early Christian history tells us that this same Mark is responsible for the Gospel that bears his name. This Gospel has always been regarded as Mark's record of Peter's firsthand account. It was likely written while Mark was with Peter in Rome, close to the writing of 1 Peter.
Peter ends this remarkable letter of hope by reemphasizing love and peace. Believers were to greet one another with a "kiss of love" (5:14). This formal kiss was a sign of peace among early Christians, demonstrating their brotherly affection, commitment, and unity (1 Cor. 16:20). The outward kiss reflected the inward peace between believers. This is why he can write, "Peace be to you all who are in Christ."
When we step back and look at Peter's letter as a whole, we see these final themes of love, unity, peace, faith, grace, and hope running throughout the letter. He has certainly taken us on a sobering —but encouraging —journey. We first visited the theme of the _living hope_ in 1 Peter 1:1-2:12. We all can claim this hope by focusing on the Lord and trusting in His Word. Peter then explored the ups and downs of our _strange life_ as aliens living in a world that's not our ultimate home (2:13–4:11). We live as pilgrims through submission to authorities even in the midst of unjust treatment, keeping our testimony of holiness strong in the midst of an unholy world. Finally, Peter leads us home through our _fiery ordeal_ to land safely in the arms of the Savior for whom we are called to suffer and serve (4:12–5:14). We endure these trials, not in isolation but as a flock tended by faithful shepherds in the face of a dreaded but defeated foe. Through mutual love and concern and absolute reliance on the power of God, the fires that were sent by our enemies to consume us will only serve to purify and strengthen us. In short, Peter's magnificent letter accomplishes the vital purpose of providing essential hope in hurtful times.
* * *
# APPLICATION: 1 PETER 5:8-14
Don't Peter Out!
I can't speak for you, but Peter's life and ministry give me hope. When I consider how that rough-hewn Galilean went from failure to faithfulness through God's transforming grace, I can't help but think that God can do the same for you and me. I find at least three key lessons we can learn from Peter's example.
First, _failure in the past does not nullify purpose in the future_. People will try to persuade you (and you'll sometimes convince yourself) that God follows a "one strike and you're out" rule: If you mess things up, He'll check you off and move on to somebody more reliable and faithful. If you're ever tempted to think God has written you off in His plan, think of Peter. After three strikes he counted himself out, but Christ deliberately restored him, lifting him to a place of leadership among his fellow disciples. I don't believe Peter could have ever led in the infant church had he not come to full terms with Christ's absolute forgiveness of his blatant denials. He received God's forgiveness and, in the process, forgave himself. He saw himself as God saw him, wiped clean and released from the guilt and shame of his past. Don't think for a moment that failure in your past nullifies God's plans for your future.
Second, _a broken heart is great preparation for healing fractured lives_. Paul said that God "comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God" (2 Cor. 1:4). Who better than Peter could lead a thriving ministry of reconciliation, proclaiming God's unconditional forgiveness through Jesus Christ? He knew the frailty of humanity, the weak interiors masked by bold veneers, the tendency to fall no matter how hard a person tries to stand. So, as he ministered to distressed believers teetering at the brink of their own precipice, he can encourage them from personal experience to pick themselves up and press on. The same is true for you and me. We suffer hardships, survive crises, and recover from failures for a reason. God wants to use these very experiences from our past to minister to others in similar circumstances. A broken heart is great preparation for healing fractured lives.
Third, o _ne note of hope brings more encouragement than a thousand thoughts never expressed_. From distant Rome, in the midst of a busy ministry of his own, Peter felt the need to write to beleaguered believers in a region two seas away. He could easily have left them in the care of another. Instead he took the time to write what he called a "brief letter." That compassionate expression made all the difference in their lives. Some of you reading this know of individuals who are struggling through tough times and could use your encouragement. You've been there. You know what to say and what _not_ to say. Write to them. And I don't mean an e-mail or instant message. Give them something real to hold on to, a tangible sign that they are not alone, that somebody out there cares. Take Peter's life as an example and bridge the gap between remote concern and real action. Knowing that one note of hope brings more encouragement than a thousand thoughts never expressed, I urge you to take the next step. Take the time to connect and bring a ray of hope into someone's dark and discouraging world!
* * *
# INSIGHTS ON 2 PETER
Having matured in his own faith and having reached the end of his life, Peter wanted to leave a written legacy addressing some of the most pressing concerns facing the young church. He wrote this rapid-fire, urgent reminder to warn against false doctrine and moral compromise in the last days. And because his writing was inspired by the Holy Spirit, his final words are as timely for us today as they were for believers in the first century.
2 PETER
# INTRODUCTION
The vast majority of the first Christians never met Jesus Christ personally. They knew of Him through the preaching of the apostles and their associates —Peter, James, John, Andrew, Thomas, and the rest. The story of Christianity begins with the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. But it continues with His ascension to heaven, His exaltation at the right hand of the Father, and the sending of the Spirit upon that small band of believers at Pentecost.
This continuing saga of God's explosive work of redemption in the world is the reason Luke the physician wrote a sequel to his Gospel, known today as the Acts of the Apostles. That action-packed account follows the work of the Holy Spirit that spread the good news of Jesus Christ from Jerusalem, to Judea and Samaria, and far beyond that toward the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8). The leading men in that adventure without question were the apostles Peter and Paul.
In fact, the book of Acts can be roughly divided in two based on its accounts of the distinct ministries of these two apostles. In the beginning of the disciples' ministry of proclaiming the resurrection of Jesus Christ, Peter often stands as their chief spokesperson.[81] Then we encounter the dramatic conversion of the hostile and passionate opponent of Christianity, Saul of Tarsus. His startling transformation into the apostle Paul marks a turning point for the church (Acts 9), especially with regard to the preaching of the gospel to the Gentiles. But it's actually the apostle Peter —not Paul —who is personally involved in the first Gentile conversion to Christ when he visits the house of Cornelius, the Roman centurion (Acts 10). The next two chapters in Acts continue to follow the ministry of Peter, but at Acts 13 the point of view changes to the first missionary journey of the apostle Paul, whom God called to take the gospel to the Gentiles. In fact, Peter's name only appears once after chapter 13; Paul's ministry dominates Acts 13–28. (See the chart below for a comparison of the treatment each apostle receives in Acts.)
A comparison of the appearances of "Simon/Peter" and "Saul/Paul" in the book of Acts
## THE MINISTRY OF PETER
The fact that Peter drops completely out of the narrative of Acts could lead us to believe that Peter's ministry became irrelevant —or at least less significant —compared to Paul's daring exploits. But this would be far from the truth. Though we don't have a blow-by-blow account of Peter's ministry between about AD 45 and the end of his life around AD 67, this shouldn't be interpreted to mean Peter retired from ministry, went back to his fishing business, or withdrew to a remote island away from the spotlight. Peter continued to travel widely, ministering to both Jewish and Gentile believers. What we know of the last twenty years of Peter's life comes to us from hints in the New Testament as well as accounts from early church historians.
Peter traveled from Jerusalem throughout the northern Mediterranean, likely teaching and preaching in Antioch (Gal. 2:11), Corinth (1 Cor. 1:12), and Rome (1 Pet. 5:13). His wife accompanied him in his travels (1 Cor. 9:5). Though Peter and Paul experienced some conflict over practical issues related to applying the truth of the gospel to a different cultural context (Gal. 2:11-21), they regarded each other's ministries as complementary and united, not conflicting and divided (Gal. 2:9; 2 Pet. 3:15). In fact, their ministries overlapped, though Peter primarily focused on Jewish evangelism while Paul emphasized his Gentile mission (Gal. 2:7-8).
* * *
# KEY TERMS IN 2 PETER
_epignōsis_ **(ἐπίγνωσις)** [1922] "knowledge," "insight," "recognition"
Similar to the more general term for knowledge ( _gnōsis_ [1108]), this term refers to "true" or "intimate" knowledge (1:3, 8). This deeper knowledge refers not to mere intellectual awareness or theoretical knowledge but to "heart knowledge." Believers do not only know _about_ God; they have an intimate, personal knowledge _of_ God, a knowledge that can deepen through spiritual growth (1:2-3; 3:18).
_hypomimnēskō_ **(ὑπομιμνῄσκω)** [5279] "cause to remember," "remind," "recall"
This term refers to reviewing something already learned. The New Testament uses the word several times to describe the strengthening of areas of vital Christian knowledge that have been forgotten or neglected (2 Tim. 2:14; Titus 3:1). For Peter, bringing to remembrance important truths is a major purpose for his letter (2 Pet. 1:12). In fact, he calls his letter a "reminder" of things his readers already know (1:13; 3:1).
_phthora_ **(φθορά)** [5356] "destruction," "corruption," "decay," "ruin"
The word often translated "corruption" can have both a nonmoral and moral sense. In a neutral, nonmoral sense, it refers simply to the decay of perishable things (1 Cor. 15:50). In a moral sense, "corruption" means to engage in unnatural or unclean activities that lead to discipline or judgment (2 Pet. 1:4; 2:19). It can also refer to the destruction that will come in the future judgment (2:12), so those who practice corruption will receive corruption as the outcome for their actions.
_spoudazō_ **(σπουδάζω)** [4704] "give diligence," "make haste," "exert oneself"
Christianity is not meant to be a passive faith; it calls for active participation. Peter uses a Greek word that implies hard work that results in observable change, demonstrating the authenticity of our calling (1:10; 3:14). To the basic foundation of faith, therefore, believers are to build Christian virtue, "applying all diligence" (1:5).
* * *
Toward the end of his life, Peter settled in Rome, where he ministered with Paul's early associate, Silvanus (also known as "Silas"). Silvanus actually assisted him in writing his first letter to churches in Asia Minor (1 Pet. 5:12). John Mark was also with him, and very early tradition informs us that Mark wrote his Gospel by using Peter as his primary eyewitness source.[82]
The earliest mention of Peter after his death comes from Clement, the pastor of the church in Rome around AD 98, who may have been the same Clement that Paul mentioned in Philippians 4:3. Clement wrote in a letter to the church at Corinth, "Peter, through unrighteous envy, endured not one or two, but numerous labors, and when he had at length suffered martyrdom, departed to the place of glory due to him" ( _1 Clement_ 5.4).[83] So we know that Peter was famous for his experiences of suffering, trials, and death. In fact, around AD 200 Tertullian of Carthage recalled that Peter had been crucified like Christ in Rome,[84] and early stories of his crucifixion suggest that he endured crucifixion upside down, unwilling to suffer in the exact manner as his Lord.
Peter suffered that final fate under the reign of Nero. The most likely location of his crucifixion was the "Circus" of Nero, an arena where numerous Christians were tortured and killed in the first and second centuries. Not long after Peter's death, a shrine was built to mark his grave. Later centuries saw a series of churches built upon the site, and today the great St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican rests on the location where Peter was likely martyred and buried. Incidentally, in the 1950s excavations beneath St. Peter's Basilica in Rome unearthed first-century remains of a sixty- to seventy-year-old male near the traditional location of Peter's burial. These may very well be the bones of the apostle Peter himself.
Michael J. Svigel
The present-day plaza before St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City. The arrow marks the approximate location where Peter was probably crucified, while his mortal remains are likely entombed in caverns deep beneath the altar under the dome.
* * *
# WHO WROTE 2 PETER?
2 PETER 1:1
Even though the first two words of the letter say "Simon Peter" (1:1), many liberal scholars doubt that the apostle actually wrote the book. They believe the book was written long after Peter had died. The theory suggests that second-generation Christians wanted to address their own problems with the same authority as Peter. The critical scholars' complaints against the letter involve three major areas: (1) the drastic difference in style between 1 Peter and 2 Peter, (2) the limited use of the letter in the early church, and (3) its concern with issues such as Paul's writings and the delay of Christ's return, which supposedly would have only been concerns to later generations.
First, everybody acknowledges that the two letters have different styles, vocabulary, and uses of Greek grammar. One of the main reasons for this is that the first letter was written "through Silvanus" (1 Pet. 5:12). This likely meant that Silvanus assisted in writing the letter, serving, perhaps, as Peter's translator and/or secretary. The language of 1 Peter is noticeably more polished and precise.[85] We have no indication that Peter had that same level of help writing his second letter. Only Peter's name is mentioned as the author (2 Pet. 1:1), though he could have used a different unnamed assistant to write the second letter.[86]
Second, it is true that 2 Peter didn't have as wide a popularity as 1 Peter. In fact, it isn't quoted as often by later Christians in their writings and doesn't appear in the earliest list of New Testament books. However, the process of copying and collecting the inspired writings of the New Testament apostles and prophets took time, and the historical situation in which the letter was written could have limited the ability of the communities in Asia Minor to pass it around to other churches. Nonetheless, as early Christians around the Roman Empire got hold of 2 Peter, they soon identified it as inspired Scripture from the apostle Peter.[87]
Third, with the rise of false teachers in the 60s and the arrest and martyrdom of many original disciples, questions regarding the use of Paul's writings and the delayed return of Christ were bound to come up. As the authoritative apostles and prophets were dying, where would the churches turn for authoritative teaching? Peter answers by pointing not only to the Old Testament (1:19-21) but also to the teachings of Jesus and all the apostles (1:16-18; 3:1, 15-16). And as the original apostles passed off the scene, many scratched their heads and wondered why Christ hadn't come back during that first generation. Peter addresses this issue as well, confirming that the delay of the end affords more opportunities for repentance, but that the return of Christ would come suddenly.
In short, there is no reliable reason to doubt that the apostle Peter wrote 2 Peter toward the very end of his life to address issues he knew —by the wisdom of the Holy Spirit —would concern Christians long after his departure.
* * *
## PETER'S LAST WORDS
Peter's second letter was written around AD 66, about one year before the aging apostle's execution. Peter knew his time on this earth was nearing its end and that he would die before the Lord returned (2 Pet. 1:14). Brief but powerful, 2 Peter serves as his last written words to the church and a permanent testament of Peter's practical teachings.
Sometime before AD 68, churches scattered throughout five Roman provinces in Asia Minor received their second letter from the apostle Peter. Unlike the first letter that pointed to Christ as the source of hope in hurtful times, Peter wrote his second letter, as we would say today, to rattle some cages. He knew his time on earth was nearly up. Instead of leaving the fading echoes of his oral preaching that would be quickly forgotten, Peter wanted to leave an unfailing written record of his teaching. Understandably, Peter picked his battles wisely. He didn't have the time or patience for incidental matters. So in this letter he treated essential themes that would matter not only to his original readers, but to us as well.
## TWO INITIAL OBSERVATIONS
Let me make two introductory observations about Peter's last words to the church before jumping into an overview of the letter itself.
First, Peter's second letter is more difficult to interpret than the first. Even though it's only a few short chapters, they are dense and sometimes difficult to interpret and understand. It will be important for us to return again and again to the overall purpose of the letter —to warn against false doctrine and moral compromise in the last days.
Second, the concern in this second letter is different from the first. Peter's first letter focused on external sources of hardship, such as persecution by civil authorities, unfair treatment by slave owners, and an increasingly hostile pagan society. In contrast, 2 Peter addresses the problem of false teachers —teachers who claim to be Christians but are not. In fact, Peter clearly states the purpose for writing this second letter: "This is now, beloved, the second letter I am writing to you in which I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder, that you should remember the words spoken beforehand by the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior spoken by your apostles" (3:1-2).
To combat the problem of heresy, Peter reaffirmed the foundation of Holy Scripture —both the Old Testament and the budding writings of the early apostles and prophets, which would be collected and form the New Testament. In another place Peter writes, "Therefore, I will always be ready to remind you of these things, even though you already know them, and have been established in the truth which is present with you. I consider it right, as long as I am in this earthly dwelling, to stir you up by way of reminder" (1:12-13). Because of his inevitable passing and the imminent threat of false teachers, Peter wanted to stir up their memories of sound teaching, spur them on to diligence in the faith, and shore up the biblical foundations of their beliefs and practice.
## OVERVIEW OF THE BOOK
Like the feathers, shaft, and head of an arrow, Peter develops three themes that guide his letter to a particular point. We might name the three feathers _warnings —_"watch out," "beware"; _reminders_ —"remember," "don't forget"; and _promises_ —"it will happen," "count on this." Peter doesn't use these feathers to tickle the ears of his readers. Instead, they help guide the diligent application of these truths; so the label on the shaft of our imaginary arrow is _diligence_. And if Peter's readers diligently heed the warnings, consider the reminders, and embrace the promises, then the arrow will reach its intended target — _hope._
After a brief introduction (1:1-3), the first major section in chapter 1 addresses the coming moral corruption of the last days (1:4-21). Peter answers the pressing question, "How can I avoid defilement?" On this first arrow we see the guiding feature in the form of a _warning_ —avoid the corruption of the world (1:4). He also attaches a _reminder_ —fruitfulness in the Christian life expected (1:5-13). And he includes a _promise_ —holy living brings stability (1:10). With these guiding themes, Peter exhorts us to _diligence_ that drives us to _hope_ (1:19).
Chapter 2 shifts from moral corruption to the second major issue: doctrinal compromise. Peter addresses the critical question, "What should I expect from false prophets?" Firing his second arrow, he first gives a _warning_ that false prophets are coming (2:1-3). He then provides a _reminder_ that false teaching brings judgment (2:21-22). And he also shares a _promise_ —God will rescue the righteous from wrath (2:9). This second arrow calls for _diligence_ in avoiding false teachers and their apostate teachings (2:1-3). It also aims for a _hope_ that comes from God's promise to preserve His people (2:9).
Finally, chapter 3 presents Peter's prophetic concerns. He clarifies the question, "How will all this end?" That is, he addresses issues related to the coming of Christ and the end times. This third arrow serves as a final _warning_ —avoid worldly corruption and false teachers (3:11, 17-18). It also functions as a last _reminder_ that the biblical testimony is trustworthy (3:1-2). And here Peter proclaims a glorious _promise_ —a new creation is coming in which righteousness dwells (3:13). This final arrow calls for _diligence_ to be found spotless (3:14). And it finds its target in an unwavering _hope_ —both now and forever (3:12, 18).
In sum, Peter addresses moral corruption (chapter 1), doctrinal compromise (chapter 2), and prophetic concerns (chapter 3). Having matured in his own faith and having reached the end of his life, Peter wanted to leave a written legacy addressing some of the most pressing concerns facing the young church. Like a last will and testament to believers of every generation, Peter wrote this rapid-fire, urgent reminder to warn against false doctrine and moral compromise in the last days. And because his writing was inspired by the Holy Spirit, his final words are as timely for us today as they were for believers in the first century.
The five regions of Asia Minor, home of the recipients of 1–2 Peter
# EXHORTATION TO SPIRITUAL MATURITY (2 PETER 1:1-21)
Staring out the second story window of his secret dwelling in Rome, the gray-haired Simon Peter looked west across the Tiber River toward the distant hill of Mount Vaticanus. If he squinted he could trace the outline of the arena of Caligula, where Nero had been making sport of Christians —torturing them, burning them, hanging them, crucifying them, even feeding them to wild beasts. So far the Lord had prevented his capture, but he knew it was only a matter of time. Though he wasn't yet sure when, where, or how it would happen, the Lord had revealed to him that he would soon depart this life. At any moment he would hear the door downstairs burst open, the clank of Roman armor, outbursts of coarse Latin slang, and the drawing of swords. Bound like a dangerous criminal, he would be dragged away for a sham trial and condemned to a torturous sentence that far outweighed his alleged "crimes."
He closed his eyes and recalled the quiet but somber words of his Lord, "Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were younger, you used to gird yourself and walk wherever you wished; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands and someone else will gird you, and bring you where you do not wish to go" (John 21:18). The Lord, of course, was right. Though Peter had grown old, he didn't want to go. Not because he didn't want to see His Lord again and to be reunited in glory with those who had already died for their faith. But as he looked around there was so much work left to be done!
With the persecutions under the now insane Nero rising in frequency and severity, many believers had already grown silent or even fallen away. Others, overburdened with worry and fear, bottomed out in their spiritual progress like a fishing boat weighed down in shallow water. They needed a nudge into deeper waters to dislodge their lives. He was haunted by the question. Who would provide that when he was gone? They needed a fresh gust of the Spirit's breath to push them along their original course.
Moreover, in recent years a few false teachers had weaseled their way into the Christian community. Some of these were easy to spot —like that scoundrel of Samaria, Simon the Magician, who was now claiming to be a god. In fact, he had snared so many followers by his devil-inspired magical arts that some Romans had erected a statue in his honor on the Tiber that read SIMONI DEO SANCTO —"To Simon, the holy god."[88] Peter knew Simon's form of "knowledge" was but the first trickle of a flood of heresy about to burst from the abyss. Again, the question: Who would protect the flock from such wolves when he was gone?
* * *
# KEY TERMS IN 2 PETER 1:1-21
_pistis_ **(πίστις)** [4102] "faith," "trust," "the [Christian] faith"
Though "faith" in the New Testament most often refers to assent, belief, and trust in Christ as the means of salvation, sometimes it refers to the whole _content_ of Christian belief —"the Christian faith." This latter sense is likely the meaning in 2 Peter 1:1. Faith is the foundation upon which every other virtue of the Christian life is built (1:5).
_prophētikos logos_ **(προφητικὸς λόγος)** [4397, 3056] "prophetic word," "message of the prophets"
The key phrase "prophetic word" appears only once in the New Testament —2 Peter 1:19, where Peter uses it in parallel with "prophecy of Scripture" (1:20). This parallelism indicates that the phrase "prophetic word" refers to the written Word of God —the Bible. The word "prophecy" does not necessarily mean foretelling the future; rather, it most often refers to divine revelation given through prophets (Rom. 12:6; 1 Cor. 13:2). So, the "prophetic word" is the message of accurate and reliable revelation from the prophets recorded in Scripture.
* * *
Peter sighed as he pulled out his scroll and stylus. Years ago the resurrected Lord had instructed him, "Simon, tend My lambs. Shepherd My sheep" (see John 21:15-16). With his departure near and the ravenous wolves and roaring lions on the prowl, Peter knew the fledgling flock would be in danger of deception after he was gone. With pen in hand, he began to write his last words to the sheep: "Simon Peter, a bond-servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who have received a faith of the same kind as ours . . ."
In the first major section of 2 Peter, the aging author addresses the coming moral corruption of the last days (1:4-21) —a condition he already perceives from his vantage point in the persecuted church in Rome. He answers the urgent question his readers would surely ask: "How can I avoid defilement?" He warns them to avoid the corruption of the world (1:4). Then he reminds them of the provision of power supplied to them as well as their need for active participation, which together result in usefulness and fruitfulness in the Christian life (1:5-13). Peter also extends the promise that holy living brings stability, the ability to stand against temptation and false teaching by the power of God (1:10). With these themes guiding his pen, the apostle Peter begins to exhort the scattered flocks of sheep to endure with diligence and persevere with hope (1:19). He would soon be taken from them, but by God's grace his words would remain long after his body lay cold in the ground.
# A Fruitful Faith
2 PETER 1:1-11
NASB
1[a]Simon Peter, a bond-servant and apostle of Jesus Christ,
To those who have received a faith of the same [b]kind as ours, [c]by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ: 2 Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord; 3 seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us [a]by His own glory and [b]excellence. 4[a]For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of _the_ divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust. 5 Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral [a]excellence, and in _your_ moral excellence, knowledge, 6 and in _your_ knowledge, self-control, and in _your_ self-control, perseverance, and in _your_ perseverance, godliness, 7 and in _your_ godliness, brotherly kindness, and in _your_ brotherly kindness, love. 8 For if these _qualities_ are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 For he who lacks these _qualities_ is blind _or_ short-sighted, having forgotten _his_ purification from his former sins. 10 Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about His calling and choosing you; for as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble; 11 for in this way the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied to you.
1:1 [a]Two early mss read _Simeon_ [b]Or _value_ [c]Or _in_ 1:3 [a]Or _to_ [b]Or _virtue_ 1:4 [a]Lit _Through which_ (things) 1:5 [a]Or _virtue_
NLT
1 This letter is from Simon[*] Peter, a slave and apostle of Jesus Christ.
I am writing to you who share the same precious faith we have. This faith was given to you because of the justice and fairness[*] of Jesus Christ, our God and Savior.
2 May God give you more and more grace and peace as you grow in your knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord.
3 By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence. 4 And because of his glory and excellence, he has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world's corruption caused by human desires.
5 In view of all this, make every effort to respond to God's promises. Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge, 6 and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with patient endurance, and patient endurance with godliness, 7 and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love for everyone.
8 The more you grow like this, the more productive and useful you will be in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 But those who fail to develop in this way are shortsighted or blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their old sins.
10 So, dear brothers and sisters,[*] work hard to prove that you really are among those God has called and chosen. Do these things, and you will never fall away. 11 Then God will give you a grand entrance into the eternal Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
[1:1a] Greek _Simeon._ [1:1b] Or _to you in the righteousness._ [1:10] Greek _brothers._
* * *
Just about every person I know wants the same two things in life. They want their lives to _matter to others_ and they want their lives to _make a contribution_. To put it another way, everybody feels the need to be significant, to have some kind of unique purpose to fulfill in this life rather than to take up space with a purposeless existence. They also want to leave behind a legacy for future generations. Once in a while I stumble upon exceptions to this general principle. There are those who are for some reason incessantly wicked or excessively depressed and have completely lost their way. But as a general rule, most people want to be _useful_ and _fruitful._
People crave purpose and meaning in their lives. It's like a nagging hunger or lingering thirst. Even when physical needs are met, their spiritual needs may be completely neglected. The result is disastrous for a person's mental and emotional states. Perhaps this is why chronic illness is so difficult to bear. Lying in bed can result in empty feelings of uselessness —as our bodies atrophy, our spirits wither. Or take elderly shut-ins who rarely, if ever, make it out of their homes. After just a short stint of feeling unproductive, they start to feel like prisoners of their own inactivity, and this can lead to regret, sadness, and bitterness.
The German poet Johann Goethe once said, "A useless life is only an early death." But this kind of living death isn't limited to those who are physically incapable of making a contribution to the lives of others. The bored student, the burned-out CEO, and the bone-weary mother may all slip into feelings of uselessness and fruitlessness. It happens to unbelievers who have embraced the empty philosophies of the world system, but it can also happen to believers who have lost track of their diligence in pursuing God's meaning and purpose for their lives.
The first section of Peter's letter provides clear counsel on how to keep from feeling useless and unfruitful. Written to people like you and me, this letter begins by focusing on the kind of lifestyle that will keep us from slipping into irrelevance. Pay close attention to Peter's words here. Nobody wants to look back over their years with regret, concluding that they lived useless and fruitless lives.
## — 1:1-3 —
Peter begins his letter with a simple identification: "Simon Peter, a bond-servant and apostle of Jesus Christ" (1:1). In this second letter, Peter doesn't merely emphasize his apostleship, he also identifies with his fellow Christians —bond-servants of Christ. Interestingly, he combines his birth name, Simon, with Peter, the name Christ gave him upon his confession of Jesus as the Messiah (Matt. 16:16-18). With this simple statement the old fisherman-turned-apostle points out the God-given new identity and significance he has through Christ, though this identity is accompanied by a humble calling.
In keeping with his humble introduction, Peter counts himself among the readers as having "a faith of the same kind" as theirs. That is, both Peter as a believing Jew and his readers as believing Jews and Gentiles have been equally called, saved, and equipped to live the Christian life because of the righteousness of Christ. They are together in all this: "fellow heirs," "fellow members," and "fellow partakers" of the same grace and peace that unites them in Jesus Christ (Eph. 3:1-6).
Christians experience ever-increasing grace and peace "in the knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord" (1:2). The word for "knowledge" here ( _epignōsis_ [1922]) refers not to mere intellectual awareness or theoretical knowledge but to "heart knowledge." Peter and his fellow believers do not merely know _about_ God and Jesus; they share an intimate relationship with their God —they literally _know_ God through Jesus Christ. The point is this: when intimate "heart knowledge" of God through Christ increases, our grace and peace increase and we become more like Christ.
Peter continues his thought of growing in grace, peace, and knowledge of God in 1:3, emphasizing that God's divine power —not our own effort at self-reformation —gives us everything we need for "life and godliness." When our lives are immersed in this God-given power, two things happen: Our relationships with others become more useful and fruitful, and our relationship with God abounds in godliness. That adds up to "everything we need for living a godly life!" (NLT). But note that God doesn't merely provide a spiritual seed that we need to water and cultivate by our own strength in order to develop it into a fruitful Christian life. No, God provides "everything" we need —from the seed to the sunlight, from the hoe to the harvesting tools. Through the indwelling Holy Spirit, all believers are fully equipped with the power of God when they first believe (see Eph. 3:16). What a wonderful thought!
This magnificent truth should not be an excuse for passivity but a motivation for participation. While God provides everything necessary for us, we must still act. The fact that we must use the power God has given us in no way negates the fact that God is completely responsible for the cause and the effects. Paul illustrates this important point about our spiritual growth when he writes, "I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth. So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth" (1 Cor. 3:6-7). Did you catch that? Paul and Apollos were active, not passive. They were doing real work, and had they not participated in the work of the ministry, growth would not have occurred. Yet at the same time, Paul acknowledged that through the process, God Himself caused the growth.
* * *
# EXCURSUS: IF JESUS IS "GOD," WHO'S THE FATHER?
2 PETER 1:1-2
Peter refers to Jesus as "our God and Savior" (1:1). This is one of a handful of places where the New Testament explicitly calls Jesus "God."[89] But Peter isn't replacing the God of the Old Testament with Jesus; in the very next verse, he distinguishes between God and Jesus by referring to the knowledge "of God and of Jesus our Lord" (1:2).
The apostle John makes the same distinction when he says that Jesus (the "Word") was both "with God" and "was God" (John 1:1), and that no one has ever seen God, but that "the only begotten God" has revealed Him (John 1:18). Paul, too, describes the Lord as "our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus" (Titus 2:13), but also makes the distinction between "God the Father" and "Christ Jesus our Savior" (Titus 1:4). The author of Hebrews applies the Old Testament name, Yahweh ("LORD"), to Jesus when he quotes Psalm 102:25 —"You, Lord, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth" (Heb. 1:10), but makes it a point to clarify that the divine Son of God is the one "through whom" God made the world (Heb. 1:1-2).
The solution to this string of apparent double-talk lies at the heart of the biblical doctrine of the Trinity. The Son of God —who took on true humanity in the Incarnation —is fully God, equal to God the Father, as is God the Holy Spirit. But this doesn't mean that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are the same _person_ with three different names. Rather, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three distinct (not separate) divine persons who have eternally existed in union with one another. Therefore, all three divine persons are properly called "God," "Lord," "Savior," and "Creator," though God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are distinct in their roles and activities in the history of creation and salvation.
* * *
You see, with our initial salvation, God has equipped us —by the indwelling Spirit —with an introductory packet that includes everything we need. We have access to resources which, when utilized, will result in usefulness and fruitfulness both horizontally —in our relationships with others —and vertically —in our relationship with God. But having the right equipment is no guarantee that we'll benefit from it. We must use that equipment properly. This leads directly into the thoughts Peter develops in 1:4-9.
## — 1:4-9 —
In light of God's powerful provision (1:3) and His precious promises (1:4), Peter calls us to step out in diligent participation (1:5-9). God has given us —at conversion —"precious and magnificent promises" (1:4). These promises became ours when we were spiritually united with Christ by the invisible yet dynamic work of the Holy Spirit. Becoming partakers of Christ, we inherit all the promises that go along with our union with Him. Paul wrote, "For as many as are the promises of God, in Him they are yes; therefore also through Him is our Amen to the glory of God through us. Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and anointed us is God, who also sealed us and gave us the Spirit in our hearts as a pledge" (2 Cor. 1:20-22). What are some of these promises?
* Forgiveness of all our sins —past, present, and future
* Spiritual adoption by God the Father
* Spiritual strength by the Holy Spirit
* Comfort through suffering and hardship
* Provision of our needs
* Hope of heaven when we die
* Bodily resurrection when He returns
* Reign with Him in His kingdom
The list of promises could go on and on. But this sampling gives us a handful of examples to help us understand how Peter can say that "by them" we can do two things: (1) become partakers of the divine nature and (2) escape the corruption of the world. Actually, these two outcomes are the positive and negative aspects of putting to use the provision God has given us, relying on the promises that accompany salvation. That is, as we put away the lust that causes corruption, we increasingly partake of the divine nature. We become, quite literally, more and more like Christ in both our inner beings and our outward actions. What has been once-for-all declared by grace through faith —our righteousness before God —becomes progressively manifest in our everyday lives —our righteous behavior before God and others. The former is called "justification" (when we are declared righteous); the other is called "sanctification" (when we are made increasingly more righteous).
How does this righteousness become a part of our lives? Peter answers this in 1:5. Because God has given us power and promises, our participation takes the form of "applying all diligence". The phrase is an idiom that literally means "to bring every effort to" some task.[90] It implies haste, eagerness, and determination. It means to apply ourselves as much as possible. Peter tells his readers to "supply" a number of things "in your faith" with this kind of diligence. Note that faith is already present. Faith is the foundation, the taproot of the Christian life. It means relying on what Peter has described as the provision and promises for spiritual growth. It means abandoning ourselves to our God —to His will, His strength, His wisdom. Upon this foundation of faith —focused on Christ and established by the Holy Spirit —we are to build. So, to "supply" to this foundation means to add to it, to build upon it. Peter then lists seven qualities we should add to this foundation of faith.
_Moral Excellence_ ( _aretē_ [703]; 1:5). Synonymous with "virtue," it implies moral fortitude, courage, the ability —based on internal motivators —to do what's right and to stand alone if necessary. Here the emphasis is on the inner disposition of moral correctness more than specific observable activities, which will come later in Peter's list.
_Knowledge_ ( _gnōsis_ [1108]; 1:5). This refers to practical knowledge —knowledge learned by keen observation and experience. Peter used the same word, _gnōsis_ , in 1 Peter 3:7, encouraging a husband to live with his wife "according to _knowledge_ " (my translation), meaning to know a wife personally and intimately. It's the same word used with reference to personal knowledge of Jesus Christ through an intimate relationship (Phil. 3:8).
_Self-Control_ ( _enkrateia_ [1466]; 1:6). As believers building on faith with moral excellence and knowledge, we must never allow anything to control us but the Master. Not money, sex, power, food, drink, drugs, habits, work, or personal goals. Self-control means maintaining a balanced life, even when the world encourages indulgence. It means saying "No" to the second helping —or the second glance.
_Perseverance_ ( _hypomonē_ [5281]; 1:6). Believers must keep on the narrow path even when everything around us tries to push us off. Remain steadfast, stable, clearheaded in the midst of distress or disaster. It requires a firm footing on the foundation of faith, a clear focus on the pursuit of hope, and an unparalleled patience.
_Godliness_ ( _eusebeia_ [2150]; 1:6). The term _eusebeia_ means authentic piety, and it runs in two directions. First, it refers to one who has the right perspective and attitude towards God, showing the proper reverence and worship due the Almighty. Second, it reflects itself in a right view towards others —a genuine servant's heart, giving others their proper honor and respect.
_Brotherly Kindness_ ( _philadelphia_ [5360]; 1:7). The word _philadelphia_ refers to treating others as if they were members of our own family. It includes living in such close relationship with others that we bear one another's burdens and feel each other's joys and pains. We make room for others' opinions, feelings, ideas, and suggestions. Brotherly love is the key to living in true and harmonious community.
_Love_ ( _agapē_ [26]; 1:7). The whole seven-step ladder from the foundation of "faith" leads to love — _agapē._ I can describe this kind of love as seeking the highest good for others, putting their needs above self —it's unconditional devotion. This is the kind of love demonstrated by God sending Jesus Christ (Rom. 5:8). In fact, like Peter does here, Paul marks this kind of love as the highest Christian virtue (1 Cor. 13:13).
What a list! If Peter hadn't prefaced these steps from faith to love with a reminder that God provides the power (1:3), these seven tiers might appear as insurmountable as Mt. Everest, even though they are built upon the foundation of faith. But accompanied by God's promises and presence through the Spirit, we can take Peter's instruction seriously and begin to apply diligence, having a firm hope that God will work in us and with us as we grow more like Christ.
Peter then reveals the purpose of cultivating these virtues. We don't engage in these things to earn salvation —that's already ours by grace through faith _plus nothin_ _g_! In fact, we wouldn't even have the necessary power if we weren't already saved. Rather, Peter promises we will be _useful_ and _fruitful_ in our Christian lives if these things are present in our lives and increasing through diligence (1:8).
Peter acknowledges that not everybody will maintain the diligence that leads to maturity. Some blind believers fail to look back on their conversion, when God purified them from their sins. Shortsighted believers cannot look far enough ahead to see the coming of Christ and His reward for those who are faithful. So, those who focus on the present life and live for themselves will lack these qualities and squander the power God has given them (1:9).
## — 1:10-11 —
Peter caps his exhortation to spiritual maturity with another appeal for diligence. He tells us to "make certain about His calling and choosing" (1:10). This doesn't mean that we must do these things to secure our salvation or to guarantee our places in heaven. Rather, this is an urgent and passionate appeal to live out our calling, to demonstrate the reality of our salvation to others. The entire context shows that Peter already regarded his readers as "brethren" who had been called and provided everything necessary for godly living. His appeal is to subjectively live out that objective calling through spiritual growth. One commentator writes, "One's godly behavior is a warranty deed for himself that Jesus Christ has cleansed him from his past sins and therefore that he was in fact called and elected by God."[91] The result of diligence is not salvation but stability, usefulness, and fruitfulness. With these things comes eternal reward upon Christ's return.
In fact, 1:11 speaks of God abundantly supplying us with a grand entrance into the kingdom of Jesus Christ. This target of hope at Christ's return should encourage us to press on, unwavering in diligence. If we do, we will receive great reward. But if we fail to grow in our faith, we will lose reward at the judgment seat of Christ, as Paul sternly warns: "If any man's work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. If any man's work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire" (1 Cor. 3:14-15).
We don't want to face the Lord Jesus Christ ashamed of uselessly and fruitlessly squandering the powerful provision and precious promises He bestowed upon us at salvation. Rather, we must heed Peter's warnings, reminders, and promises, and through diligence in spiritual growth, aim for the target of hope in Christ's return.
* * *
# APPLICATION: 2 PETER 1:1-11
A Secure Investment
In the world of financial investments, nothing is guaranteed. Even the lowest risk investment strategies could potentially result in loss —or in such a small gain that it was hardly worth the effort. The same can be true in pursuing education. Most of the time the hard work of achieving an advanced degree pays off, but sometimes graduates at every level will have a difficult time finding a job that makes the long years in the classroom feel worthwhile. Our careers can play the same trick on us. We can put in long hours, give one hundred percent, and do everything in the playbook to get ahead —but we may still fail to see a return on the investment of our time and energy as we keep hitting our head against a glass ceiling of opportunity.
None of this is true about investing our time, energies, and resources into spiritual growth. God has given us irrevocable promises that what we put into our spiritual lives will be duly rewarded. We never have to wonder or worry about whether our godliness, perseverance, and love are worth it. Hebrews 6:10-12 explains this beautifully:
For God is not unjust so as to forget your work and the love which you have shown toward His name, in having ministered and in still ministering to the saints. And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence so as to realize the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you will not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.
How should we respond to this great promise of a guaranteed return on our investment of diligence? Peter urges us to build a pyramid of Christian virtues upon the foundation of faith. Take a moment to review Peter's list of virtues, checking off those you feel are most developed in your life. Then circle any that you believe need cultivation.
Every one of us is unique. How we nurture each of these qualities will vary depending on our backgrounds, temperaments, personalities, and experiences. But take time to reflect on how you can strengthen the qualities that are lacking in your life. For everybody, this must begin with prayer, especially a prayer of thanksgiving to God for already providing us with everything we need to live the life He wants for us. Then petition Him to make that power evident in your life —He has promised to do it. Finally, participate! Take specific steps to put away behavior that doesn't build from faith toward love.
Will this take time? Yes. Will it take energy? Of course! But you can rest assured that your investment will be eternally secure —and your return on investment will be incredibly gratifying!
* * *
# Be Sure of Your Source
2 PETER 1:12-21
NASB
12 Therefore, I will always be ready to remind you of these things, even though you _already_ know _them,_ and have been established in the truth which is present with _you._ 13 I consider it right, as long as I am in this _earthly_ dwelling, to stir you up by way of reminder, 14 knowing that the laying aside of my _earthly_ dwelling is imminent, as also our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me. 15 And I will also be diligent that at any time after my departure you will be able to call these things to mind.
16 For we did not follow cleverly devised tales when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty. 17 For when He received honor and glory from God the Father, such an [a]utterance as this was [b]made to Him by the Majestic Glory, "This is My beloved Son with whom I am well-pleased" — 18 and we ourselves heard this [a]utterance made from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain.
19[a] _So_ we have the prophetic word _made_ more sure, to which you do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts. 20 But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is _a matter_ of one's own interpretation, 21 for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.
1:17 [a]Lit _voice_ [b]Lit _brought_ 1:18 [a]Lit _voice brought_ 1:19 [a]Or _We have the_ even _more sure prophetic word_
NLT
12 Therefore, I will always remind you about these things —even though you already know them and are standing firm in the truth you have been taught. 13 And it is only right that I should keep on reminding you as long as I live.[*] 14 For our Lord Jesus Christ has shown me that I must soon leave this earthly life,[*] 15 so I will work hard to make sure you always remember these things after I am gone.
16 For we were not making up clever stories when we told you about the powerful coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. We saw his majestic splendor with our own eyes 17 when he received honor and glory from God the Father. The voice from the majestic glory of God said to him, "This is my dearly loved Son, who brings me great joy."[*] 18 We ourselves heard that voice from heaven when we were with him on the holy mountain.
19 Because of that experience, we have even greater confidence in the message proclaimed by the prophets. You must pay close attention to what they wrote, for their words are like a lamp shining in a dark place —until the Day dawns, and Christ the Morning Star shines[*] in your hearts. 20 Above all, you must realize that no prophecy in Scripture ever came from the prophet's own understanding,[*] 21 or from human initiative. No, those prophets were moved by the Holy Spirit, and they spoke from God.
[1:13] Greek _as long as I am in this tent_ [or _tabernacle_ ]. [1:14] Greek _I must soon put off my tent_ [or _tabernacle_ ]. [1:17] Matt 17:5; Mark 9:7; Luke 9:35. [1:19] Or _rises._ [1:20] Or _is a matter of one's own interpretation._
* * *
I hear it often. Christians freely toss out phrases like "God told me" or "the Lord spoke to me." Those who give such testimony don't like to be cross-examined on exactly _how_ God spoke to them. Why? Because when you look at the source of their "messages from the Lord," quite frankly, it usually lacks biblical justification. In fact, sometimes it flat out contradicts God's written Word! Now, I'm not talking about people who sense God's leading through the orchestration of prayer, meditation on God's Word, guiding circumstances, and godly counsel. Often when people say "God led me" or "God showed me," that's what they mean. But sometimes when they claim God spoke to them or revealed something to them, they're making much bolder claims. They believe they've received a bona fide message directly from the Almighty! Occasionally I will ask if His voice is baritone or bass. (Folks don't like that question.)
During my lifetime I've seen all kinds of methods come and go, all claiming to be sure sources of revelation from God —or at least from the supernatural world. The kaleidoscope of claims is maddening —the zodiac, crystals, cards, beads, dreams, visions, voices from the dead, signs and symbols, inner feelings, aliens, angelic beings, cloud formations, and personal conversations with the Holy Spirit Himself! Not only do these sources of "truth" contradict each other; more often than not, they contradict what Scripture declares on the matter.
But how do we know the Bible can be trusted? Why is God's Word set apart from all other claims of divine revelation? Why does it stand above all other standards of divine truth? In 1:12-21, Peter reminds us of the only absolutely reliable source of truth —the Holy Scriptures —and tells us why we can and _must_ trust God's sacred Word as the sure standard for our beliefs and actions. This is a vital topic in a letter that was written to stir up believers' memories of sound teaching, to spur them on to diligence in the faith, and to shore up the biblical foundations of their beliefs and practices. In 1:12-18 Peter reminds us what the truth _is_ and _isn't_. Then, in 1:19-21, he gives us a rare description of the process by which God communicated his Word through human authors in the Holy Scriptures —and why we can be sure of our source.
## — 1:12-15 —
In light of present benefits and future rewards, Peter exhorted his readers to be diligent in developing Christian virtues in the upward journey from foundational faith to unconditional love (1:1-11). Peter then says that he will continue to remind them of these things as long as he is in his earthly dwelling —that is, physically alive (1:12-13). He is _reminding_ them, not announcing new revelations or radical principles they had never heard before. In fact, Peter clearly states they already know these things and have been "established in the truth" (1:12). So important are these things that Peter makes sure to reinforce them one last time, knowing by special revelation from the Lord (divine communication was not uncommon among apostles) that he would soon be suffering martyrdom (1:14).
So, basic Christian truth is something in which God's people are to be "established" and of which they are to be reminded (1:12). Truth isn't the answer to a cosmic guessing game we stumble upon if we're lucky or a mysterious riddle waiting to be solved by clever people. And it's not vague, uncertain, or indefinite —it doesn't change with the winds of culture or the whims of experience. The fact that Peter reminds them of the truth in which they were previously established underscores that it doesn't change.
Peter also says that truth is objective. God's objectively true revelation can be expressed in clear, unambiguous language (1:15). It establishes believers in the faith, regards God's own person and will, and reveals the reality of human life —past, present, and future.
## — 1:16-18 —
Having touched on what truth _is_ (1:12-15), Peter then describes what truth is _not_ (1:16-18). Drawing on his own experience as a chosen apostle of Jesus Christ, he answers the doubts of some who may not view Christian claims as reflecting dependable truth.
Truth is not myth. Peter's word "tales" comes from the Greek word ( _mythos_ [3454]) that gives us our English word _myth._ Myths are speculations, fables, or fictions dreamed up by people to illustrate life, compare analogies to spiritual truths, or simply entertain people by drawing them into a moving story. Peter was surrounded by ancient religions of the Romans, Greeks, Persians, and Egyptians who concocted all sorts of myths regarding the exploits of their gods. Fictional movies and novels might seem the modern equivalent of myths, but although _Star Wars_ might entertain, delight, move, and excite us, nobody in his or her right mind would believe these characters really existed somewhere in a galaxy far, far away! And though some epic stories like J. R. R. Tolkien's _The Lord of the Rings_ or C. S. Lewis's _The Chronicles of Narnia_ contain intentional parallels to Christian truths, nobody believes in the existence of Middle Earth or that a parallel universe exists in the spare closet! Such fantastic stories are easily discerned as mythological fictions.
Peter makes it perfectly clear that the foundational Christian claims about the coming of Christ, His death, and His resurrection do _not_ fall into the genre category of "myth." How could Peter make such a claim with certainty? Because he was an eyewitness! He and other disciples had seen the majesty of Christ with their own eyes (1:16). And Peter declares that he communicated the truth to his readers without any mixture of legend, myth, or fiction. Edwin A. Blum writes,
The [New Testament] always uses _mythos_ in a negative sense and in contrast to the truth of the gospel (1 Tim. 1:4; 4:7; 2 Tim. 4:4). . . . It is likely that the false teachers claimed that the Incarnation, Resurrection, and coming kingdom the apostles spoke about were only stories
Whereas false religions and false teachers in Peter's day rested their beliefs and practices on fabricated stories, everything Peter taught concerning Christ came from authentic, personal experience. Peter selects one such event that he, James, and John had witnessed —the Transfiguration on the "high mountain," likely Mount Hermon to the far north of Galilee (Matt. 17:1-8; Mark 9:2-8; Luke 9:28-36). Peter chose this particular account primarily because here he personally heard the voice of God testifying about Jesus from the cloud of glory, declaring, "This is My beloved Son with whom I am well-pleased" (2 Pet. 1:17). Peter could legitimately say that God Himself had validated the words and works of Jesus as something other than merely human (1:18). And besides hearing those divine words with his own ears, Peter saw with his own eyes Jesus' brilliance shining forth during a brief moment of transformation. So, with his eyes and ears, Peter saw and heard God confirm the truth of Jesus' person and work.
* * *
# GLORY ON THE MOUNT
2 PETER 1:16-18
Toward the end of His earthly ministry, Jesus began teaching His puzzled disciples that He was going to Jerusalem to suffer, die, and be raised to life (Matt. 16:21). Peter in particular took Jesus aside and rebuked Him for even suggesting things so unbecoming of the Messiah (Matt. 16:22). Six days after revealing this hidden plan, Christ brought three disciples with Him to a "high mountain" (Matt. 17:1). Peter simply calls this the "holy mountain" (2 Pet. 1:18), and no further identification is made in Scripture.
Though church tradition identifies it as Mount Tabor west of the Sea of Galilee in the direction of Nazareth, many scholars believe it was actually Mount Hermon north of Galilee in the direction of Caesarea Philippi. This makes sense, as Jesus was already in the far north when Peter uttered his Spirit-enabled confession of Jesus as "the Christ, the Son of the Living God" (Matt. 16:16). Mount Hermon is only about fifteen miles from Caesarea Philippi, whereas Mount Tabor was about a fifty mile journey.
Barry Beitzel
Mount Hermon, the likely location of Christ's transfiguration
* * *
Peter's point is that whereas the disciples previously had access to God's written word given at Mount Sinai centuries earlier, on Mount Hermon God spoke audibly in their own hearing, pointing to Jesus, the Word made flesh (John 1:14). And when Moses and Elijah appeared (Matt. 17:3) —the Old Testament representatives of the Law and the Prophets —Peter understood that in Jesus the Old Testament finds its words fulfilled (Luke 24:44; John 1:45). With such a stunning validation of Jesus' ministry, nobody could doubt that in Him we see truth personified.
Of course, not everybody has the privilege of seeing the spirits of departed saints and hearing God Himself confirming the truth of the Christian message. This is why Peter transitions from the reliability of the message of the apostles to the reliability of the enduring written Word of God —the Holy Scriptures.
## — 1:19-21 —
Peter begins his discussion of Scripture by saying that, through his personal witness of Christ's glory and the voice of God, we have the "prophetic word made more sure" (1:19a). The _prophetic word_ here refers to all Scripture, not just the books of prophecy. Peter himself clarifies this definition in 1:20 when he refers to "prophecy of Scripture." In Scripture, we have God's truth stated in written form, available for us to read, study, ponder, and apply by the guidance and power of the Holy Spirit. Its truth never changes. It never goes out of date. Though Old Testament saints relied upon their Scriptures as infallible witnesses, its trustworthiness was made even more sure when Peter saw prophecies that had been written regarding the Messiah actually come to pass. It is to this sure foundation of truth that Peter directs his readers.
Peter says that we would do well to pay attention to this prophetic word of Holy Scripture (1:19b). To "pay attention" ( _prosechō_ [4337]) means to focus our concern, care, and commitment to something (see Heb. 2:1). This means cultivating more than merely a casual familiarity with the Old Testament's characters or a superficial understanding of its stories. In very practical terms, it would mean we study, not merely read, the text. We ponder it, we don't simply peruse it. We memorize Scripture, we don't simply mutter it. And we apply it to our lives, rather than simply framing a few verses and hanging them on our walls.
In this way, we will handle the sure and authoritative written Word of God as it was meant to be handled, as "a lamp shining in a dark place" (1:19). Here "dark" ( _auchmēros_ [850]), literally means "murky." Peter describes the world we live in as a barren, squalid, dimly-lit place. It may be that he had in mind a tomb or dungeon from which there was little hope of escape. While we as believers are living in this realm, where even our own human wisdom and understanding are untrustworthy guides, we must rely on the sure guidance of God's Word to light our path. The psalmist said in Psalm 119:105, "Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path." It's easy to go astray and find ourselves neck-deep in the mire of the world's murky swamp if we don't follow the penetrating light of God's Word.
In keeping with his pattern, Peter injects a bright ray of hope in the midst of this desperate situation. He reminds his readers that a day will come when God's glory through Christ will shine, replacing the darkness of this world with the light of a new dawn. Jesus Christ, the Morning Star and the Light of the world, will return and raise us up with Him to share in His glory (John 8:12; Rev. 22:16). Until then we must adjust our eyes to the sure source of light in the darkness.
When Peter begins 1:20 with the phrase "know this first of all," we should perk up and give the following statement our full attention. What he's about to say is of utmost importance. The truth he wants us all to know is this: No prophecy of Scripture "is a matter of one's own interpretation." But what does Peter mean by this? Some might take this to mean that individuals shouldn't try to interpret Scripture on their own at all. But the word "interpretation" ( _epilysis_ 1955]) occurs in the Bible only here. The normal Greek words for interpreting the meaning of a biblical text are _dianoigō_ [1272] (Luke 24:32) and _diermēneuō_ [1329] (Luke 24:27). So, saying it isn't a matter of "one's own interpretation" doesn't mean that individual believers can't interpret Scripture through humble dependence on the Holy Spirit and diligent study of the biblical text.[[93]
Then what does Peter mean by "one's own interpretation"? A second possibility is that Peter is declaring that no passage of Scripture is meant to stand on its own —that is, that no prophet speaks or writes a word contrary to what has already been revealed. The implication of this idea is twofold: (1) a passage of Scripture will never contradict another passage, even when written by a different author; and (2) every individual passage must be understood in light of the whole of Scripture and in light of parallel or related passages.
A third view, which ties in best with the following verse, is that all prophecies of Scripture do not ultimately come from a prophet's personal interpretation or a merely human explanation of God's revelation; rather, the ultimate source of Scripture is God. Peter explains the process in 1:21: "For no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God." When we allow this verse to interpret what Peter means by "one's own interpretation," then this third view makes the best sense. Scripture is not a record of fallible human ideas and interpretations of God's revelation. It is God's actual inerrant and authoritative Word written through human authors, and the Holy Spirit providentially kept them from error as they wrote the original documents. By the way, if this third view is correct, the second view —that Scripture does not contradict itself and must be read as a whole —is also true, because one divine Author stands behind both the Old and New Testaments.
Second Peter 1:21 is one of the most significant verses in the Bible on the inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture. Peter clearly says that Scripture is not ultimately a result of human ideas or human will. Yes, humans are clearly involved in the process, but the product —Holy Scripture —has a character and quality that surpasses what a mere human could compose. Unlike all those "cleverly devised tales" of the world's myths, the Word of God has come about from God's direct involvement. This is described by a vivid word picture. Human authors were "moved by the Holy Spirit." In Greek the word "Spirit" ( _pneuma_ [4151]) is also the word for "wind." And the term "moved" ( _pherō_ [5342]) means to "bear" or "carry along," in this case, apart from one's own ability or power, since the form is passive. Luke used the same passive of _pherō_ in a nautical sense in Acts 27:15 and 17, referring to a ship being "driven along." In the same way, Scripture is God-breathed because in the process of writing the authors were under the unique control of the Holy Spirit —but nevertheless consciously involved in the process.
The doctrine of the inspiration of Scripture doesn't mean God audibly dictated the words they wrote, nor does it mean that the human authors went into some kind of hypnotic trance. Rather, in many cases they were probably unaware that they were being moved by the Holy Spirit to compose and record God's inspired words without error. The result of the process is an inspired, inerrant text of Scripture.
* * *
# From My Journal
# The Pastor and the Scholar
2 PETER 1:19-21
Near the beginning of my ministry I took a pastorate in Waltham, Massachusetts. I stepped in following a man who had been an interim pastor at that church for several months. His name is Dr. Bruce Waltke, the renowned Hebrew scholar and Bible teacher. Over the years we became good friends.
When Dr. Waltke led me down to the basement of the house where he lived, it looked like a library had exploded! Old Bibles in Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic, and Latin were strewn about, various editions and versions of the Bible covered long tables, and pages of notes lay everywhere.
"Bruce, what in the world is all this?" I asked, trying to figure out what kind of work he was doing. If this represented his sermon preparation, I would have probably developed a lifelong inferiority complex!
"Well," he said, "I'm helping in the cross-referencing of a new Bible that's coming out. It will be known as the New American Standard Bible."
I looked at all those books again. Remember, this was before Bible software or online search engines. If you wanted to cross-reference, you did the work by hand —agonizing, tedious, painstaking work. Only somebody like Bruce Waltke could do this sort of thing . . . and enjoy it. But the words that came from his mouth next had a profound impact on me, demonstrating that the common division between the pastor and the scholar can be overcome.
"Oh, Chuck," he said with a smile, "this has been absolutely life-changing. I've read every verse in the Bible at least five times."
Now that's passion for God's Word! In my years of ministry, I've come across Bible students and scholars who treat Scripture like a textbook —and that's about all. They read it for head knowledge without letting its truth get to their hearts. Some scan it simply to find a sermon text. Only rarely do I come across people like Bruce Waltke. I can't imagine anything more grueling (and potentially boring!) than cross-referencing every Bible verse. But in the midst of that kind of detailed, in-depth scholarship, Bruce never forgot that God gave us His inspired words for a reason: to point us to Christ and to change lives by the power of His Holy Spirit. What a model of careful, devoted scholarship he is!
* * *
When New Testament writers referred to "Scripture," they primarily had in mind the Old Testament writings, which the Jews and early Christians accepted as God's inspired Word. However, we'll see that Peter already knew that the writings of the New Testament apostles and prophets were of the same quality as the Old Testament and should be treated with the same kind of respect and obedience (2 Pet. 3:16).
How does Peter's technical description of the inspiration of Scripture fit with his overall purpose in writing this letter? Peter wrote to stir up his readers' memories regarding sound teaching, to spur them on to diligence in the faith, and to shore up the biblical foundations of their beliefs and practices. In all these areas, an understanding of Scripture's authority is essential. When the apostles departed this life, as Peter soon would, Scripture was to guide the church in sound teaching. His readers were to turn to Scripture to reaffirm their biblical foundations, not only for what they believed but for how they lived. Only by centering their faith on the Word of God would they be able to discern false doctrine and defeat the deceitful claims of heretics. Paul puts the importance of Scripture this way: "All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work" (2 Tim. 3:16-17).
* * *
# APPLICATION: 2 PETER 1:12-21
Drinking from the Purest Source
Peter's message to the first-century believers is just as relevant to us today. In fact, in our generation of growing skepticism, cynicism, agnosticism, and atheism, we need to heed this message as if Peter had written directly to us. Peter's words are meant to turn our minds to two vital truths.
First, _remember that when you turn to God's Word, you're consulting the most reliable of all sources_. The world is filled with conflicting truth claims, alternate sources of revelation, and competing philosophies. In our media-saturated world, any of us could drown in this ocean of worldly delusions and devilish distractions. In this dangerous deluge, the Bible provides a source of life-giving air. Scripture alone contains God's Word written, an objective and unchanging standard of truth. Just as a scuba diver wouldn't make it for more than a few minutes without a steady supply of air, Christians can't thrive spiritually without constantly breathing in God's spiritual words of truth.
How many of us, though, sip the Word of God like it's a cup of bad medicine! We might take in a spoonful during a Sunday sermon or taste a few drops when it's sweetened by an inspiring devotional. But if we take Peter's words about Scripture seriously, we won't sip. We'll _guzzle_ its life-giving truth, letting its cool, clean waters quench our famished souls, satisfy our longing hearts, and cleanse our polluted minds.
Second, _remember that when you make other sources —experiences, dreams, feelings, supernatural phenomena, or opinions —equal to or more reliable than the Scriptures, you'll fall into error._ Peter knows this all too well. His entire letter is filled with warnings against those who did just that. They placed a different source of knowledge above God's Word. The result was disastrous.
Today we need to counter the culture of lies and world of deception that threatens to undo our convictions and unravel our faith. When we aren't drinking from the pure source of God's Word, our opinions, ideas, and principles come from the world. Just think of the thousands of truth claims that bombard us from the moment we wake up to the minute we finally drift off to sleep! No matter how keen our discernment may be, many of those false or distorted claims make an impact on our perception of reality. To filter the good from the bad —and the better from the best —we _desperately_ need the one reliable source of Scripture alone as the final authority in all matters of faith and life.
Ask yourself: Are you among those who sip God's Word as the most reliable source of truth? Or do you draw on Scripture deeply and constantly to counter the claims of a world careening into doctrinal and moral chaos? Before going on, examine your own practice of reading, studying, and meditating on God's Word. Is it consistent with the high priority Peter places on it?
* * *
# DENUNCIATION OF FALSE TEACHERS (2 PETER 2:1-22)
Chances are we've all been victimized by a con artist at some time in our lives. Perhaps more than once! Maybe it's been years . . . or maybe it was only yesterday. It could be as harmless as losing your spare change playing a rigged game at a carnival. Or it may be as disastrous as losing your retirement in an investment scam. It's possible that the deception nearly cost you your sanity, as it did Christopher Edwards. In the forward of his book _Crazy for God,_ he describes his nightmare of deception.
My story began innocently enough when I was lured into a "fun" weekend in June of 1975 on a farm owned by a front group for Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church. . . .
I was transformed from an intelligent, independent human being into a completely subservient disciple of my new Messiah —terrified of questioning, dependent on my leaders for my every move, ready and willing to die or even kill to restore the world under the absolute rule of Reverend Moon.[94]
Of all the cons to which we might fall prey in this world, the most damaging is the deception of religious phonies. Swindlers of this kind deal in counterfeit truth, an imitation meant to fool the unsuspecting. Every day, peddlers of falsehood receive nodding approval on television, in bookstores, on the silver screen —and, yes, behind pulpits. Counterfeit truth is big business. Today whole ministries have formed to counter the counterfeits and challenge the charlatans. Books that catalogue and refute cults are often massive and can only treat their false teachings in a summary manner.
In 2 Peter 2, that rugged apostle candidly describes false teachers who traffic in religious things but lack authentic faith. Appearing to be resourceful and real, they are empty and deceitful. Claiming to offer answers and hope, they bring lies and despair. Pretending to proclaim reliable information, they use the same words as believers but use a different dictionary. And acting like those who have embraced Christian freedom, they are enslaved by corruption and seek to enslave others. They may look as though they are succeeding, that the heretics' score is much higher than that of the saints. But in reality they are merely heaping up judgment for themselves in the coming day of wrath.
* * *
# KEY TERMS IN 2 PETER 2:1-22
_apōleia_ **(ἀπώλεια)** [684] "perishing," "ruin," "loss," "destruction"
Closely associated with _krisis_ [2920], "judgment," this term emphasizes the sentence —destruction —as opposed to the verdict. Peter uses the term in reference to the final judgment of heretics (2:1, 3), which will come in the form of fire (3:7). Similarly, the book of Revelation describes the ultimate fate of the beast in the lake of fire as "destruction" (Rev. 17:8, 17). It does not necessitate total annihilation, but absolute ruin.
_hairesis_ **(αἵρεσις)** [139] "choice," "different opinion," "false doctrine"
This word was originally a neutral term that described various branches or "schools" of philosophy or theology —a "choice" among various "sects" (Acts 5:17; 15:5) or "factions" (1 Cor. 11:19; Gal. 5:20).[95] Peter is the first to use the term in a more technical sense of "false Christian teaching" (2 Pet. 2:1), a meaning that would become common in the second century.
_krisis_ **(κρίσις)** [2920] "decision," "judgment," "condemnation"
_Krisis_ was a legal term for rendering a decision in a court of law. In Peter, however, the word _krisis_ carries an almost technical sense, pointing to the final end-times sentence carried out against the wicked and including condemnation and destruction (2 Pet. 2:4, 9).
* * *
Peter wrote this letter to remind believers of sound teaching, to encourage diligence in the faith, and to strengthen biblical foundations of beliefs and practices. Chapter 2 explores the kinds of people who forget sound doctrine, turn away from the faith, and deviate from biblical belief and practice. As such, this sometimes gloomy but always truthful and ever-relevant section serves as a warning to us all.
# An Exposé of Counterfeit Communicators
2 PETER 2:1-3
NASB
1 But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves. 2 Many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of the truth will be maligned; 3 and in _their_ greed they will exploit you with false words; their judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.
NLT
1 But there were also false prophets in Israel, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will cleverly teach destructive heresies and even deny the Master who bought them. In this way, they will bring sudden destruction on themselves. 2 Many will follow their evil teaching and shameful immorality. And because of these teachers, the way of truth will be slandered. 3 In their greed they will make up clever lies to get hold of your money. But God condemned them long ago, and their destruction will not be delayed.
* * *
In 2 Corinthians 11:3 Paul writes about the world's first con artist: "But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ." A little later Paul describes the deceiver's disciples: "For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. No wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light" (2 Cor. 11:13-14). Don't miss the description of Satan's methods in these verses. He deceives, leads minds astray, clouds the simplicity of Christian devotion, disguises himself as good and glorious, and enrolls others in his mass deception.
False teachers often appear doctrinally sound, personally attractive and sincere, and logically compelling. But they are deceivers, mind-benders, and truth-twisters. In 2 Peter 2:1-3, Peter warns his readers to be aware of their wicked schemes.
## — 2:1 —
At the end of chapter 1, Peter pointed to the Holy Scriptures and the testimony of the apostles as the trustworthy source of truth through godly prophets. Scripture can be believed because true prophets, being moved by the Holy Spirit, spoke from God (1:21). But false prophets had worked their way into the ranks alongside the true prophets of God, peddling their cheap imitations of the truth. Peter says that in the same way, false prophets would rise up alongside the preachers of the truth in his own day. Just as God had sent true apostles and prophets of Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, Satan would send his own false apostles and prophets. The phrase "but false prophets" implies a black-and-white contrast between the words of true prophets and false prophets.
TRUE PROPHETS | FALSE PROPHETS
---|---
Words are faithful firsthand accounts. | Words are cleverly devised myths.
Words must be heeded. | Words must be rejected.
Words are light to shine in darkness. | Words are darkness to be driven out.
Words are inspired by the Holy Spirit. | Words are inspired by humans or wicked spirits.
In light of this contrast, Peter presents at least four specific characteristics of false teachers in 2:1-3.
* They deceitfully present heresy (2:1a).
* They openly deny the truth (2:1b).
* They unashamedly model sensuality (2:2).
* They selfishly represent greed (2:3).
First, the false prophets who will be among the Christians will "secretly introduce destructive heresies" (2:1a). The term "heresy" comes directly from the Greek word _hairesis_ , which conveys the idea of "making a choice."[96] With stealth and cleverness, the "heretics" offer up alluring alternatives to the truth. Often they do this by rejecting aspects of the truth that are difficult to accept either intellectually or emotionally. They create something much more appealing and seductive, urging others to "make a choice" as they consider an alternative way of thinking. This isn't always an offensive or obvious affront to the truth. Rather, they " _secretly_ introduce" their doctrines, camouflaging them in something that looks like the truth in form but denies it in substance.
Warren Wiersbe puts it well: "The false teachers use our vocabulary, but they do not use our dictionary."[97] They talk about "sin," "salvation," "inspiration," "God," "Jesus Christ," and "resurrection" —but they don't mean what the Bible means by these terms. _Sin_ may be simply failing to actualize our human potential. _Salvation_ might mean self-actualization or psychological well-being. To false teachers today Scripture is _inspired_ in the same way great poetry or literature is "inspired." _God_ is often seen as our personal higher power, a projection of our need for a belief in a transcendent reality beyond ourselves. _Jesus Christ_ is viewed as a great moral teacher who had a high degree of God-consciousness —or as a cosmic symbol for the highest in human potential. And _resurrection_ is just a metaphor for keeping Jesus "alive" through observing His teachings and following His ethics. False teachers rethink and redefine terms as they encourage us to question long-standing doctrines. They hate the "conservative" form of Christianity, preferring a "progressive" form that constantly modifies fundamental truths to "update" them.
* * *
# HISTORIC HERESIES
2 PETER 2:1
Jesus and the apostles predicted the coming of false prophets and teachers who would try to deceive Christians and snatch the truth from unbelievers (Matt. 24:11; 2 Pet. 2:1). Although they differ from one another in many ways, they all reject central truths of the Christian faith. Here are a few whose doctrines may have been around at the time of Peter or soon after.
**Simon the Magician.** Mentioned in Acts 8:9-24 as having a false faith, he was rebuked by Peter (8:20-23). Early Christian history tells us that he began claiming that he was the great God come down from heaven and that his accompanying prostitute, Helena, was his first creation.[98] Simon the Magician was in Rome during the reign of Claudius Caesar, the emperor preceding Nero. He made such an impact by his demon-inspired magical arts that the Romans apparently made a statue of him that bore the inscription SIMONI DEO SANCTO —"To Simon, the holy god."[99] The great infamy of Simon may explain why Luke chose to include his false conversion when he wrote the book of Acts in the 60s. Peter would have been aware of Simon's false teachings and may have had him and his followers partly in mind when he wrote against counterfeit communicators in 2 Peter.
**Cerinthus.** Toward the end of the first century AD in Asia Minor, Cerinthus denied the true incarnation of Christ, teaching that Christ was a heavenly spiritual being who descended and adopted the body of the purely human man, Jesus.[100] The apostle John may have written the fourth Gospel partly to refute Cerinthus's heresy. John made it clear that the divine Son of God did not merely adopt or take possession of a human body, but that "the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us" (John 1:14).
**Gnostics.** The diverse sects commonly labeled "Gnosticism" find their roots in the syncretistic and esoteric teachings of Simon the Magician's followers like Menander and Saturninus in the late first century AD. The Gnostics generally taught that Christ was only one of many spirit beings that sprang forth from the unknown God to bring salvation by special knowledge ( _gn_ _ō_ _sis_ ) to the spiritually elite through initiation and enlightenment. Many of these either wrote their own false scriptures to replace Holy Scripture, or they reinterpreted Scripture in a highly allegorical and spiritual sense to support their strange theologies.[101]
* * *
The second characteristic of false teachers is that _they openly deny the truth_ (2:1b). They will be known for what they deny about Jesus Christ's person and work even more than what they embrace. This is because they intentionally set themselves up against the true prophets, Scriptures, and church. They reject many —if not all —of the orthodox truths of historical Christianity set forth in the Bible and reaffirmed over and over again throughout history. From the earliest days of the church to the present day, Christians have held certain biblical doctrines of the faith as central, defining marks of orthodoxy. Those who have strayed from this center of orthodoxy have been regarded as outside the true Christian faith. These core truths include the following:
* the inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture
* one eternal, triune God in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
* the undiminished deity and true humanity of Jesus Christ
* Christ's virgin birth, sinless life, substitutionary death for sin, miraculous bodily resurrection, and literal future return
* the special creation and subsequent fall of humanity
* salvation by grace through faith
* the eternal life of believers and condemnation of unbelievers
Are such false teachers saved? According to what Peter writes in this chapter, we can conclude that those guilty of teaching doctrines at extreme odds with classic orthodoxy are not, in fact, Spirit-regenerated believers. Peter says they are "denying the Master who bought them" —rejecting Jesus Christ's payment for their sins. Christ paid a price for the sins of the world by dying in place of wicked humanity, taking our deserved punishment on Himself as a righteous substitute. Though Christ's death is sufficient payment for everybody's sins (1 Jn. 2:1-2), only those who believe in Him receive the benefit of this salvation (John 3:16-18). The false teachers are in a particularly problematic predicament, because although they had heard the preaching about Christ's salvation, they rejected it, replacing it with false teachings about the Master. Because of this rejection, clearly, they are lost.
Peter also says these counterfeit communicators face a "swift destruction" (2:1). In the rest of the New Testament, the term for destruction ( _apōleia_ [684]), often refers to the judgment and damnation of the unsaved (Matt. 7:13; Phil. 1:28; Heb. 10:39). More importantly, Peter himself certainly uses the term for the judgment of the unsaved (2 Pet. 2:3; 3:7, 16). True believers —those who have been saved by faith in Jesus Christ and forever sealed by the Holy Spirit —may doubt, be deceived, and sin. However, they can never utterly fall away and lose their salvation. Never! God, in His powerful grace, keeps them forever in His hand (John 10:29; Rom. 8:38-39; Jude 1:24). We must therefore conclude that those who appear to us to "fall away" from the faith, denying the essential truths of Christianity, were never truly saved, as the apostle John says regarding some counterfeit communicators in his own day: "They went out from us, _but they were not really of us_ ; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us" (1 Jn. 2:19, italics mine).
## — 2:2 —
The third characteristic of many false teachers is that _they unashamedly model sensuality_. The term for "sensuality" ( _aselgeia_ 766]) is an extremely vivid Greek word for blatant immorality. Commentator William Barclay says it "describes the attitude of a man who is lost to shame; he is past the stage of wishing to conceal his sin and of being ashamed of it."[[102] Here Peter gives us an insight into the underlying motivation for tampering with the truth. In order to be free to indulge their carnal appetites without restraint, they must redefine the standard of righteousness.
Let's face it. Religions that say, "Do what thou wilt," are much more appealing to our sinful desires than the one that teaches, "Thou shalt not." So, many follow the lure of sensuality, unbridled moral freedom, and their licentious behavior masked by a twisted doctrine of grace. You see, to deceivers, "grace" is freedom to do as they wish —when and where and with whom they wish. In contrast, for believers grace is freedom from the punishment of sin and the God-given power to freely love and serve Christ apart from legalistic dos and don'ts.
If you want to find a big following, all you need to do is develop a religion that removes the restraints on people's behavior and offers benefits that appeal to their base urges —pleasure, greed, selfishness. The result will be instant popularity. But at the same time, those teachers and followers will bring reproach on the name of Christ. Because such teachers refuse to abandon the name "Christian," their devious and deviant behaviors are associated with Christianity, which damages the cause of Christ and impedes the great commission.
## — 2:3 —
Finally, counterfeit communicators _selfishly represent greed._ The word "exploit" ( _emporeuomai_ 1710]) is a marketing term meaning to traffic or trade. How true it is that false teachers are so often motivated by unrestrained greed for money. And in order to fill their coffers, they are masters of what Peter calls "false words." The word "false" translates the Greek word _plastos_ [4112], which describes things that are false, fabricated, or counterfeit _._[[103] By replacing the truth with a cheap —but convincing —imitation, false teachers want to make it easy for us to adopt falsehood instead of the truth.
Our heresy meters should buzz loudly when we see an overwhelming emphasis on money. When the preacher's whole theology presents miraculous ways of acquiring financial blessing, alarms should go off in our minds. If the application of virtually every message is to sow a financial seed or reap a material harvest, _run_. If the only texts they teach from have to do with satisfying self-serving desires, _leave skid marks._ A true minister of the gospel preaches the whole counsel of God —even the parts that are uncomfortable, unappreciated, and unpopular. He may make a living preaching the gospel (1 Cor. 9:14), but he shouldn't make a killing. He serves others, not himself. He lives in a house, not an amusement park. He drives a car, not a limousine. He is accountable, not unaccountable. He's transparent with his finances, doesn't flatter or sell out, refuses to cater to the wealthy, and exhibits none of the attributes of unbridled greed. His private life is an open book, not a series of secrets.
Peter concludes his description of false teachers with a reminder of their fate. In case anybody might be tempted to trade in the truth for unhindered immorality and unlimited greed, Peter reminds us that the judgment of false teachers is imminent. It may appear for the time being that false prophets are getting away with their wicked deceptions, but God's judgment has been simmering for centuries. It's "not idle" —merely delayed. It's "not asleep," but prepared to pounce at the proper time. His judgments grind slowly yet exceedingly fine.
Peter wrote this letter to remind believers of sound teaching, to encourage diligence in the faith, and to strengthen biblical foundations of belief and practice. In Peter's day, counterfeit communicators represented a clear and present danger that threatened to undo orthodoxy, weaken faith, and lure people away from holy living. The same dark menace threatens the church today. Beware!
* * *
# APPLICATION: 2 PETER 2:1-3
Spotting the Spurious
Not to downplay the threat of false teachers in Peter's day, but with the advent of radio, television, and the internet, the early trickles of trickery in the first century have become a hurricane of heresy in the twenty-first. How can we avoid being swept away by the high-velocity winds and torrential rains of satanic deception? Let me give you three practical tips that can protect us from the acid rain of deception: _stop, look,_ and _listen_.
_STOP!_ Refuse to plunge into a certain person's teaching because it appears harmless on the surface. You could find yourself in a deep abyss of deception. It's never enough that others have been entertained, persuaded, inspired, or blessed by a charming person, church, or ministry. Put the brakes on long enough to compare the views being taught with the clear teaching of Holy Scripture and the central doctrines of the faith. Don't be afraid to turn and run if things don't feel right deep within your spirit.
_LOOK!_ Observe the life of the main spokespersons for any particular ministry or movement. Do they model Christlike values and virtues? Do they point to Christ or to themselves? Do you see accountability and transparency? Do they exhibit true humility? Authenticity? Love? Do they submit themselves to the authority of the Word of God? What do their followers look like? Never be swayed by somebody's apparent sincerity, intelligence, or charisma.
_LISTEN!_ Pay close attention to the words a teacher uses. Listen not only to _what_ they say, but _how_ they say it. Also note what's _not_ being said. Don't fall into the trap of judging something to be true because it makes you feel good. Often the real truth will feel like a slap in the face or a punch in the stomach. Real truth almost always brings conviction and obligation to change. But lies are often crafted to provide false security, freedom to sin, and emotional excitement. Listen closely. Think critically.
We all need to be more aware of the false teachings prevalent in our world. We need to identify errors, motives, and dangers. Why don't you begin to sharpen your discernment by keeping your eyes open over the next few days for various forms of falsehood? Stop, look, and listen —then seek to determine where these false teachers have gone wrong. By sharpening your skills in spotting deception on your own turf, you'll be better prepared when deceivers spring at you from unexpected corners.
* * *
# The God of Wrath and Rescue
2 PETER 2:4-11
NASB
4 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment; 5 and did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a [a]preacher of righteousness, with seven others, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; 6 and _if_ He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing _them_ to ashes, having made them an example to those who would live ungodly _lives_ thereafter; 7 and _if_ He rescued righteous Lot, oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men 8 (for by what he saw and heard _that_ righteous man, while living among them, felt _his_ righteous soul tormented day after day by _their_ lawless deeds), 9 _then_ the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from [a]temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment, 10 and especially those who [a]indulge the flesh in _its_ corrupt desires and despise authority.
Daring, self-willed, they do not tremble when they revile angelic [b]majesties, 11 whereas angels who are greater in might and power do not bring a reviling judgment against them before the Lord.
2:5 [a]Or _herald_ 2:9 [a]Lit _trial;_ or _temptation_ 2:10 [a]Lit _go after_ [b]Lit _glories_
NLT
4 For God did not spare even the angels who sinned. He threw them into hell,[*] in gloomy pits of darkness,[*] where they are being held until the day of judgment. 5 And God did not spare the ancient world —except for Noah and the seven others in his family. Noah warned the world of God's righteous judgment. So God protected Noah when he destroyed the world of ungodly people with a vast flood. 6 Later, God condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and turned them into heaps of ashes. He made them an example of what will happen to ungodly people. 7 But God also rescued Lot out of Sodom because he was a righteous man who was sick of the shameful immorality of the wicked people around him. 8 Yes, Lot was a righteous man who was tormented in his soul by the wickedness he saw and heard day after day. 9 So you see, the Lord knows how to rescue godly people from their trials, even while keeping the wicked under punishment until the day of final judgment. 10 He is especially hard on those who follow their own twisted sexual desire, and who despise authority.
These people are proud and arrogant, daring even to scoff at supernatural beings[*] without so much as trembling. 11 But the angels, who are far greater in power and strength, do not dare to bring from the Lord[*] a charge of blasphemy against those supernatural beings.
[2:4a] Greek _Tartarus._ [2:4b] Some manuscripts read _in chains of gloom._ [2:10] Greek _at glorious ones,_ which are probably evil angels. [2:11] Other manuscripts read _to the Lord;_ still others do not include this phrase at all.
* * *
Since we're still on the subject of heretics, let me introduce you to one of the greatest. Marcion arrived in Rome about eighty years after Peter wrote his words of warning regarding the coming false teachers. He had traveled from his native Pontus on the north side of Asia Minor along the Black Sea. Tradition tells us he was the son of the bishop of Pontus, so he likely knew his Christian doctrines and Scriptures well. He could no doubt quote verses from memory. He read the Bible closely. Very closely. And in the course of his study he decided that the strict, law-giving, wrathful, judgmental God of the Old Testament looked nothing like the loving, compassionate, gracious God who sent Jesus Christ to save us. He also concluded that this physical universe was so full of imperfection and corruption that the good, holy, and spiritual God could never have conceived of such a place. So, Marcion reasoned that the Old Testament God —Yahweh —was a different god from the God of the New Testament.
But what about all the clear New Testament connections between the God of Israel and the Father of Jesus Christ? To solve this problem, Marcion simply rejected the Old Testament Scriptures; then he selected and edited his own New Testament to accommodate his theology. He rejected all the Gospels except a pared-down Gospel of Luke. He then edited a handful of Paul's letters and rewrote them to really emphasize the disjunction between law and grace. The result? The Old Testament God of justice and judgment was a different God from the New Testament God of grace and salvation.
The early church reacted quickly and decisively against Marcion's madness in the second century, but the "problem" of the two sides of God's character still puzzles believers. Scripture does seem to present two sides of the same God —the attributes of justice, judgment, and wrath on the one side and the attributes of mercy, salvation, and blessing on the other. These two "sides" of God are reflected well in Exodus 34:6-7.
EXODUS 34:6-7A | EXODUS 34:7B
---|---
The LORD, the LORD God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin . . . | . . . yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.
The first part of this description is the kind of picture we all want to frame and hang over the mantle —the loving Father who sends forth kindness, who forgives our sins, who overflows in blessing. But the second part of this verse reminds us of the sobering reality that God refuses to wink at sin. In fact, His judgment is sometimes so severe that its blast waves ripple forward three or four generations!
The truth is, whether God appears as a kind, loving Father or a vengeful, wrathful Judge depends on our relationship with Him. Paul says, "Behold then the kindness and severity of God; to those who fell, severity, but to you, God's kindness" (Rom. 11:22). In fact, Paul says the message of the gospel itself can appear either sweet or sour, depending on whether a person believes or disbelieves: "For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; to the one an aroma from death to death, to the other an aroma from life to life" (2 Cor. 2:15-16).
These same two sides of God —His compassion and His judgment —come together in 2 Peter 2:4-11. For the false teachers, judgment is coming. But for those who are saved, God will rescue them from wrath. In this passage Peter shares a warning, a promise, and a hope —calling believers to persevere diligently in sound doctrine.
By the way, you may be startled to realize that 2:4-10a is one large sentence in Greek. In most English translations it reads like a massive run-on sentence. Structurally, though, it's quite simple. It follows a basic "if . . . then" structure in which Peter basically says: " _If_ God has historically established a pattern of reserving judgment of the wicked for the proper time while rescuing His righteous people, _then_ we can be confident that He will do the same in the future —rescue us from the coming wrath and leave the wicked false teachers behind for judgment."
Knowing the basic argument, let's look at how Peter builds his case in 2:4-10.
## — 2:4-8 —
We can divide the "if" side of Peter's "if . . . then" statement in 2:4-10 into two historical episodes —the judgment of the world in the days of Noah and the judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah in the days of Lot. The first episode included not only the judgment of wicked angels (2:4), but also the judgment of wicked men and women (2:5).
Who are the angels that sinned (2:4)? We have three options. First, some have held that Peter refers to the original fall of angelic beings that coincided with the fall of Satan (Ezek. 28:11-19). However, 2 Peter tells us that all of these sinning angels were cast into pits of darkness and reserved for judgment. By contrast, Satan and his angels are free and active in the world (Matt. 12:27-28; 1 Pet. 5:8).
As a second option, some have considered this to be a second fall of good angels that took place sometime after the first fall of Satan and his demons. However, we have no record of such a second fall, and it seems likely that those angels who did not fall with Satan were afterward sealed in their state of righteousness. Paul refers to "chosen angels" (1 Tim. 5:21), and this has often been understood to refer to angels who passed the test of Satan's fall and were sealed in their state of tested perfection, never able to fall.
The most likely option, then, is that the wicked angels in 2 Peter 2:4 were among the angels who fell with Satan, but that they then committed some subsequent sin —a sin so heinous that it necessitated a more severe judgment than what had already befallen them. In this particular passage, Peter did not tell us what sin the wicked angels had committed. It seems his readers would have already known to what event Peter referred. In fact, Peter does help clarify his meaning in this text when he talks about their judgment.
Peter says that God "cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness," reserving them for future judgment (2:4). He uses a unique word for "hell," different from the typical New Testament terms _hadēs_ 86] (Matt. 11:23) or _gehenna_ [1067] (Matt. 5:22). In fact, he says God cast the angels who sinned into _Tartarus_. In the Greek world, Tartarus was regarded as a place of torment and punishment beyond Hades. We might call it the "hellhole of Hell." Not only does Peter draw on Greek imagery to reinforce the severity of this judgment on sinning angels; he also refers to a popular book among Jews and Christians in the first century called _1 Enoch_. The writers of that book creatively recast the biblical account of the flood (Gen. 6), describing the sins of the angelic beings who cohabited with human women. For this heinous and unnatural crime, they were cast into the place of deepest darkness and reserved for the day of judgment. On that day the spirits of wickedness would be cast into fire ( _1 Enoch_ 10.6-9).[[104]
In this light, it seems that what Peter calls "Tartarus" is the same as the "abyss" ( _abyssos_ 12]), which the New Testament mentions several times.[[105] During Jesus' ministry, demons implore Him not to send them into the "abyss" (Luke 8:31). Satan himself is cast into the "abyss" for a thousand years after the return of Christ (Rev. 20:3) before he is finally consigned to the lake of fire (Rev. 20:10). This seems to be a deep, dark holding place for wicked spirits that prevents them from having any contact with or influence on the world. Like a cross between solitary confinement and death row, Tartarus is the place where the most wicked spirits await judgment. This interpretation fits Peter's argument best.
In 2:5, Peter connects the timing of this sin of the fallen angels to the period of time leading up to the Flood. All humanity had reached such a degree of wickedness that "everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil" (Gen. 6:5, NLT). Because of the depths of evil, God did not spare the ancient world but brought a flood upon the earth to destroy the ungodly (2 Pet. 2:5).
Yet in the midst of this judgment, God preserved eight people —Noah, "a preacher of righteousness," his wife, his three sons, and their wives. This salvation of the righteous in the midst of the judgment of the wicked angels and humans serves for Peter as an example of God's pattern of deliverance. In the coming judgment God will preserve Christians who preach righteousness in their own day, and at the same time, He will condemn the wicked false teachers.
The second historical episode Peter chose to illustrate the "if" side of his "if . . . then" argument was the judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 19). God did not overlook the wickedness of the inhabitants of those cities. Instead, He made them examples of just how serious He is about judging sin. These cities had not been given the Law, but God nevertheless held them accountable for their extreme wickedness and violence. Genesis 13:13 says, "the men of Sodom were wicked exceedingly and sinners against the LORD," and in Genesis 18:20 God told Abraham, "The outcry of Sodom and Gomorrah is indeed great, and their sin is exceedingly grave." Because of this, God condemned them to destruction.
Yet Abraham inquired, "Will You indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?" (Gen. 18:23). God's answer gives us an important picture of the mercy of God in the midst of His judgment and wrath. God will not destroy righteous inhabitants of the city together with the wicked (Gen. 18:25). In fact, even if there are ten righteous in the city, God will stay His hand of judgment (Gen. 18:32). So, because God is just and will not pour out His wrath on the righteous, He sent two angels into Sodom to retrieve Lot and his wife before judgment fell. This is the aspect of the illustration that Peter emphasizes. God "rescued righteous Lot" (2 Pet. 2:7) by removing him and his family from Sodom in order to pour out His judgment upon that wicked city. In many ways, Peter's original readers could relate to Peter's description of Lot, who lived among the wicked people of Sodom. He was oppressed by their sensual conduct, and his soul was constantly in anguish over their lawless deeds (2:7-8).
Peter uses this illustration of the salvation of the righteous in the midst of the judgment of the wicked men of Sodom and Gomorrah as an example to inspire hope among believers. In the coming judgment, God will preserve Christians who live righteous lives in the midst of the day-to-day immorality and lawlessness of the pagan world. And He will condemn the wickedness of unprincipled pagans in the judgments that precede the coming of Christ.
## — 2:9 —
Having illustrated the "if" side of his "if . . . then" argument with two well-known examples of God's pattern of rescuing the righteous before sending judgment, Peter presents the important "then" side of his statement: "The Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment" (2:9). Peter's point is that God's coming judgment will not sweep up the righteous with the wicked. Because God is just, He will spare the righteous believers in Christ, rescuing them from coming judgment. But the wicked stand condemned, awaiting future wrath.
The word translated "temptation" ( _peirasmos_ [3986]) can refer to tests that challenge the integrity of our faith (1 Pet. 1:6) or to "temptations" that challenge our moral integrity by appealing to our sinful tendencies (Luke 4:13). It can also refer specifically to the coming Tribulation period of the end times in Revelation 3:10. In that passage Jesus, like Peter, promises that believers will be kept from the coming judgment: "I also will keep you from the hour of testing [ _peirasmos_ ], that hour which is about to come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell on the earth." Paul refers to the same kind of rescue from the coming end-times judgment when he says that believers wait for the return of Jesus, "who rescues us from the wrath to come" (1 Thes. 1:10). And in the context of the Rapture, when believers will be transformed and caught up with Christ in the clouds (1 Thes. 4:17), Paul reiterated this promise: "God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Thes. 5:9).
Based on Peter's argument, we can conclude with confidence that, like Noah and Lot in the Old Testament, New Testament Christians are not going to suffer God's wrath at the coming end-times judgment. That judgment is meant for the ungodly false teachers. Instead, believers can look forward to God's rescue of the righteous. Peter does not clearly spell out how that rescue will take place, but his references to Noah and Lot suggest that God will remove believers from the place of wrath before His judgment falls upon the earth. In fact, Paul's teaching concerning the rescue of believers from the coming wrath in 1 Thessalonians 5:9 and Christ's promise to believers in Revelation 3:10 all point to the rapture of the church as the means God will use to rescue believers prior to the day of the Lord.
## — 2:10-11 —
Peter ends this section with a further description of the nature of the false teachers. He has already painted a disturbing picture in the first several verses of this chapter. These false teachers:
* deceptively introduce heresies
* deny the Master who bought them
* invite destruction upon themselves
* indulge in sensuality
* cause the truth to be maligned
* greedily exploit believers
To this list of already dismal descriptions, Peter now adds a number of other attributes. These false teachers stand under condemnation because they 1) indulge the flesh in corrupt desires and 2) despise authority (2:10). The first summarizes the kind of sinfulness illustrated by the sexual immorality of the days of Noah and the times of Lot. The second relates to the false teachers' general disposition toward those who have been placed in positions of authority.
The Greek word for "authority" ( _kyriotēs_ [2963]) generally refers to angelic authorities (Eph. 1:21; Col. 1:16), but in this context it appears to allow for both human authorities as well as angelic. Peter describes them as "daring" and "self-willed," dispositions opposite the humble and submissive spirit Peter elsewhere desires believers to exhibit. In his first letter, Peter exhorted his readers to submit to "every human institution" (1 Pet. 2:13). Yet the false teachers described in 2 Peter 2 do not even hesitate to revile angelic beings (2 Pet. 2:11).
We get the picture of cocky, defiant, indulgent, and out-of-control leaders willing to say or do anything to feed their own appetites of lust and greed. Such people are not among God's people. And such people, Peter says, can expect to receive wrath, not mercy, from the God of justice when Christ returns to rescue His people and judge the world.
* * *
# APPLICATION: 2 PETER 2:4-11
Rescued from Wrath
Is God a frightening Judge or a good and gracious Father? Is He the source of wrath and destruction or the fount of eternal blessing? The answer depends not on who God is, but on who you are. God does not change. Because He is holy, He stands against wickedness; because He is just, He will judge sinners justly. Yet God is also merciful and gracious, forgiving and blessing those who have placed their faith in Christ, whose death and resurrection bring forgiveness for their sins. God justly condemns sin and justly forgives it on the basis of Christ's death. This leads me to two important facts to remember.
First, _God's compassion will result in the rescue of all believers._ Because He is just and faithful, He will never forget even one of His children. This promise applies to all His children —the stubborn and the submissive, the weak and the strong, the mature and the adolescent. If you are a child of God by having placed your faith in Christ alone to save you from your sins —past, present, and future —then God's grace covers you. And if that's you, then God's promise to rescue you from the coming wrath applies to you. You won't be overlooked. He won't accidentally sweep you up with the wicked and send you into their judgment.
Second, _God's judgment will result in the punishment of all unbelievers._ Just as God is faithful in His compassion toward believers, whom He has declared "righteous" by His grace, He will be faithful in His judgment toward unbelievers, whose guilt remains on them because they have rejected Him and His gift of eternal life. Those who turn up their noses at God's gracious offer of forgiveness will not evade the consequences. Those who turn their backs on Christ's death and resurrection will endure the wrath of God.
How should we respond to these two truths? If you're a Christian, you should respond with both praise and prayer. Praise God for His great mercy toward you. Though we all deserve the same just punishment for our sinfulness, God has placed our sins on Christ, who bore the punishment for us. And He has credited Christ's righteousness to us so we can partake of His life and blessing. None of this has anything to do with your keen insight, personal holiness, or any earned merit. It is all because of His matchless grace. By God's grace we have been redeemed and can stand with humble confidence before Him as our loving heavenly Father. And what a day that will be!
But you should also pray. Pray for those who don't know Christ. Peter has vividly described their destination —judgment. Pray for friends, loved ones, coworkers —people you know who already stand before God as a just Judge. Petition God to intervene in their lives, to bring about the circumstances necessary to soften the hardness of their hearts, to break through the shackles of sin that bind them, to shine a light of hope in the darkness of deception. Then think of ways you can become the answer to your own prayer. Ask God to reveal ways you can help bring them closer to the cross and the good news of salvation.
* * *
# Disobedience Gone to Seed
2 PETER 2:12-22
NASB
12 But these, like unreasoning animals, born as creatures of instinct to be captured and killed, reviling where they have no knowledge, will in [a]the destruction of those creatures also be destroyed, 13 suffering wrong as the wages of doing wrong. They count it a pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are stains and blemishes, reveling in their [a]deceptions, as they carouse with you, 14 having eyes full of adultery that never cease from sin, enticing unstable souls, having a heart trained in greed, accursed children; 15 forsaking the right way, they have gone astray, having followed the way of Balaam, the _son_ of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness; 16 but he received a rebuke for his own transgression, _for_ a mute donkey, speaking with a voice of a man, restrained the madness of the prophet.
17 These are springs without water and mists driven by a storm, for whom the [a]black darkness has been reserved. 18 For speaking out arrogant _words_ of vanity they entice by fleshly desires, by sensuality, those who barely escape from the ones who live in error, 19 promising them freedom while they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by what a man is overcome, by this he is enslaved. 20 For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and are overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. 21 For it would be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn away from the holy commandment handed on to them. 22[a]It has happened to them according to the true proverb, "A DOG RETURNS TO ITS OWN VOMIT," and, "A sow, after washing, _returns_ to wallowing in the mire."
2:12 [a]Lit _their destruction also_ 2:13 [a]One early ms reads _love feasts_ 2:17 [a]Lit _blackness of darkness_ 2:22 [a]Lit _The thing of the true proverb has happened to them_
NLT
12 These false teachers are like unthinking animals, creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed. They scoff at things they do not understand, and like animals, they will be destroyed. 13 Their destruction is their reward for the harm they have done. They love to indulge in evil pleasures in broad daylight. They are a disgrace and a stain among you. They delight in deception[*] even as they eat with you in your fellowship meals. 14 They commit adultery with their eyes, and their desire for sin is never satisfied. They lure unstable people into sin, and they are well trained in greed. They live under God's curse. 15 They have wandered off the right road and followed the footsteps of Balaam son of Beor,[*] who loved to earn money by doing wrong. 16 But Balaam was stopped from his mad course when his donkey rebuked him with a human voice.
17 These people are as useless as dried-up springs or as mist blown away by the wind. They are doomed to blackest darkness. 18 They brag about themselves with empty, foolish boasting. With an appeal to twisted sexual desires, they lure back into sin those who have barely escaped from a lifestyle of deception. 19 They promise freedom, but they themselves are slaves of sin and corruption. For you are a slave to whatever controls you. 20 And when people escape from the wickedness of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and then get tangled up and enslaved by sin again, they are worse off than before. 21 It would be better if they had never known the way to righteousness than to know it and then reject the command they were given to live a holy life. 22 They prove the truth of this proverb: "A dog returns to its vomit."[*] And another says, "A washed pig returns to the mud."
[2:13] Some manuscripts read _in fellowship meals._ [2:15] Some manuscripts read _Bosor._ [2:22] Prov 26:11.
* * *
Think for a moment of the kinds of Scripture passages people hang on their walls.
* Psalm 23 —"The LORD is my Shepherd; I shall not want . . ."
* Matthew 6 —"Our Father which art in heaven . . ."
* Numbers 6 —"The LORD bless thee, and keep thee . . ."
* Romans 8 —"In all these things we are more than conquerors . . ."[106]
These and countless other scriptural scenes are lovely beyond description. We frame them in gold and set them against a background of peaceful gardens or natural landscapes, brilliant colors, gently rolling hills, fleecy clouds that bring us as much comfort as the words themselves. Such visual feasts leave us nourished with peace and hope.
But then there are the "unframable" Scriptures. Equally inspired. Just as packed with truth. Yet the paintings that would fit these passages would be unwelcome in any room. If they were a musical score, everything would be written in a minor key. Those verbal portraits make us frown, disturb our peace, cast dark shadows of rebuke over our lives. They vividly express the ugliness of unbelief and the dreaded results of shameless sin.
I love the fact that God doesn't fake, feign, or flatter. He is not a politically correct Being. When His Spirit moved various prophets and apostles to take up their pens and write the words we would one day read as inspired Scripture, God never once said, "Now go easy. Don't offend anybody. Keep it mild." Never! God shoots straight. If He paints the portrait of a person's life, He includes the warts and scars and scabs. From Noah's drunkenness to David's adultery, from Jacob's conniving to Peter's hypocrisy —God's Word presents people as they are, not as later myth-makers wish they would have been.
These aren't the Bible stories that fill the pages of our kids' Bible story books, are they? Noah's ark, David and Goliath, Jacob's ladder to heaven, and Peter walking on water —these all find a place in our polite retelling of biblical stories. But God's Word doesn't shy away from the bad or the ugly of biblical history.
So when God describes the condition of the human heart, He doesn't leave us with a one-sided presentation of its God-given potential for creativity, goodness, and love. Instead, God tells us, "The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick" (Jer. 17:9). The apostle Paul bluntly describes just how sinful and depraved we humans are:
"THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS, NOT EVEN ONE;
THERE IS NONE WHO UNDERSTANDS,
THERE IS NONE WHO SEEKS FOR GOD;
ALL HAVE TURNED ASIDE, TOGETHER THEY HAVE BECOME USELESS;
THERE IS NONE WHO DOES GOOD,
THERE IS NOT EVEN ONE." (Rom. 3:10-12)
Not the kind of words you'd highlight in a matte frame and hang in your study lounge, are they? As one of my mentors used to say, "If depravity were blue, we would be blue all over." The words of Romans 3 are "blue all over." Yet the truth they proclaim is just as vital to a balanced theology as "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son" (John 3:16).
As rough as these personal episodes and harsh passages may appear, the lurid details regarding false teachers in 2 Peter 2:12-19 seem even less sparing. Whereas the Bible's biographies present snapshots of human sin and Paul's words paint depravity with broad brush strokes, the apostle Peter projects a detailed and dramatic picture of human corruption. The scene is neither pleasant nor encouraging. Rather, it is dark and foreboding. The tone feels more like a walk through the sleazy back alleys of a foul-smelling ghetto —where shameless conditions accost our moral senses like putrid waste in a gutter.
Why does Peter delve so deeply into these depths of depravity? Remember that Peter wrote this letter to remind believers of the source of sound teaching, to encourage diligence in the faith, and to strengthen biblical foundations of beliefs and practices. To encourage the positive, Peter sets it against the black backdrop of the negative. In chapter 1, he described the useful and fruitful image of a growing believer in brilliant hues and pointed to the hope they have through embracing God's Word as their standard of unfailing truth. In chapter 2, he describes the useless and fruitless unbeliever in dark, drab colors, pointing to their future judgment for rejecting God's Word and God's Son and leading others astray.
## — 2:12-14 —
These next few verses present a desperate portrait of animal appetites taking full charge of human beings. When these subhuman impulses take control, the result is self-condemnation and destruction.
When God created Adam and Eve and placed them in the Garden of Eden, He gave them authority over all the animals (Gen. 1:26-27). This dominion over animals is part of what it meant for humans to be created in the image of God. At the Fall, Satan took the form of a serpent to communicate his deception. Instead of exercising their dominion over that animal, Adam and Eve submitted to the serpent, listened to his deceptive words, and abdicated their position (Gen. 3). Ever since that tragic fall, humans have continued to abandon their place of dignity over creation in exchange for behavior that put them on par with the very beasts they were meant to dominate.
Though divinely endowed with superior reason, they become, as Peter says, "like unreasoning animals." Instead of exercising dominion, they act like "creatures of instinct to be captured and killed." Instead of submitting to God and allowing His divine power to lift them up to a place of dignity and glory, they mock and revile things they don't understand. With their animalistic mentality, a corrupt morality follows. Such people are constantly on the prowl for fornication or adultery. They size up every situation for unseen opportunities to sin. They greedily bite at every baited hook, unconcerned about the disastrous consequences.
Like carnivorous predators, they hunt for naive, weak, and unstable victims to devour. In fact, Peter says they have "a heart trained in greed" —they're masters at conning, extorting, stealing, blackmailing. They know how to jerk at the heartstrings and sound so sincere. Jesus described such monstrous humans well: "Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves" (Matt. 7:15). It's no wonder Peter calls these false teachers "accursed children" (2 Pet. 2:14)!
## — 2:15-17 —
Although they knew God's straight way, the false teachers veered off to cut their own paths through the wilderness of wickedness. Instead of following Christ, the true Prophet, they followed in the footsteps of Balaam, the quintessential false prophet. Peter alludes to this Old Testament figure to illustrate a hireling prophet who peddled his gift (see Num. 22–24; 31:1-16). That man loved money, and because of his greed he led Israel into sin. He was eloquent, but used his giftedness to fulfill his own lusts rather than faithfully represent the truth. In a similar manner, the false teachers in Peter's day were leading people astray by persuasive false prophecy for personal gain.
False prophets today are no different. In fact, every modern-day Balaam has his or her price. They may appear to be in it for the ministry, but it doesn't take long to realize they're in it for the money. And when the price is right, make no mistake, they exchange principle for profit.
This reminds me of the story of a crooked bank officer who approached a junior clerk and whispered to him one quiet afternoon, "Hey, if I gave you $25,000, would you help me, well, let's just say 'fix' the books? You know, make a few lucrative adjustments?"
The clerk responded, "Yeah, I suppose I could do that for $25,000."
His boss leaned in. "Would you do it for $100?"
Insulted, the clerk replied, "No way! What do you think I am? A common thief?'
The bank officer answered, "We've already established that. Now we're just negotiating the price."
The point of this story is that every fake has a price. Lacking integrity, the charlatan will do anything to feed the greed. Peter calls this the "wages of unrighteousness" (2:15). But too often these false prophets forget that though their exploits can be profitable in the short term, the wages of wickedness will ultimately be met with the wages of sin —death (Rom. 6:23). God miraculously rebuked Balaam himself through a donkey, a sign of the depths of his animalistic madness. And Joshua 13:22 includes a brief note in its description of the conquest of the Promised Land that illustrates the ultimate end of false prophets who find themselves on the wrong side when judgment finally falls: "The sons of Israel also killed Balaam the son of Beor, the diviner, with the sword among the rest of their slain." The wages of sin was death.
Peter uses three vivid word pictures to describe such apostates (2 Pet. 2:17). First, as "springs without water," they appear to have something refreshing to offer, but when you get close, you realize it's just a spiritually barren mirage. Second, they are "mists driven by a storm." Normally storms drive rain clouds bursting with water to nourish crops and prevent drought. But apostates deceive people with thunderous claims and flashy appeal —bringing with them not spiritually nourishing doctrine but only useless mists. Third, they may claim to lead people into the light through their "enlightening" teachings, but those who follow them end up in the same place as the false prophets: "black darkness."
## — 2:18-19 —
Irenaeus of Lyons grew up in Polycarp's church in Smyrna before being sent to Rome, then to Lyons in what is now France. Throughout his life he encountered numerous false teachers and wrote a five-volume refutation of their teachings. Regarding the devious nature of false teachers' compelling yarn-spinning, Irenaeus wrote, "Error, indeed, is never set forth in its naked deformity, lest, being thus exposed, it should at once be detected. But it is craftily decked out in an attractive dress, so as, by its outward form, to make it appear to the inexperienced (ridiculous as the expression may seem) more true than the truth itself."[107] Indeed, false teachers entice others with arrogant, swelling words that leave quite an impression on unsuspecting victims. They have an answer for everything. They express bold criticisms against the "simple" truth, quote hidden or forgotten sources, provide clever arguments, and twist reason. The gullible gobble it up.
Peter makes the point that the impressive words of the false teachers don't point us to the truth. They point us to the teacher. We are wise to be suspicious of those who are too smooth, too polished, too attractive. Those are telltale signs that they promise more than they deliver. And be especially wary of preachers or teachers who constantly put down other ministers of the gospel and try to make themselves look like the best —or even the _only_ —source of truth.
Though they promise freedom, their lifestyles actually drag others into the enslavement of corruption (2:18). False teachers love to flaunt their freedom. To them, it means the liberty to sin as much as they want, unrestrained by truth, unafraid of repercussions in either this life or the life to come. Please don't misunderstand. I'm a preacher of grace. And I believe Christ has set us free from the Law and delivered us from man-made legalism. But the grace and mercy of God was never meant to provide us with a license to sin _nor_ deliver us into the bondage of legalism. As Paul says in Romans 6:1-2, "What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?" The false teachers, ripping the doctrine of grace from its larger context of truth, distorted the Christian faith into an unrecognizable monstrosity. In the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, they offered "cheap grace."[108]
## — 2:20-22 —
Throughout his description of the false teachers, Peter has hinted at the future judgments they would reap because of their actions (2:1, 3, 9, 12-13, 17, 19). In the last few verses of this chapter, Peter focuses on the state of those who, having known the way of righteousness through Christ, have nevertheless turned their backs on it and have gone their own way.
The false teachers Peter has in mind were not merely confused Christians, doubting Thomases, or backslidden believers. These were false professors —people who appeared for a time to be authentic but were, in fact, like counterfeit bills amidst a pocketful of the real thing. They could pass themselves off as true Christians for a while, but eventually their words and deeds gave them away.
These false teachers, Peter said, had "knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ" (2:20). By their fruit, however, we can discern that they didn't have a true saving knowledge of Christ that genuinely transformed their lives. Peter describes the kind of fruitful saving knowledge of Christ in other parts of this letter:
Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the **knowledge** of God and of Jesus our Lord (1:2)
His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the **true knowledge** of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. (1:3)
For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the **true knowledge** of our Lord Jesus Christ. (1:8)
In these passages we see the results of the true saving knowledge of Christ —grace and peace multiplied, life and godliness granted, fruitful and useful virtues increasing. This doesn't mean that every day, or every week, or even every month of a believer's life will be a bountiful harvest of quality spiritual fruit. But it does mean that the personal knowledge of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior will result in the bearing of fruit over the lifetime of a believer. It's helpful to remember that fruit bearing is seasonal. Peter writes to believers assuming that they all need encouragement in their spiritual growth to regain or remain fruitful and useful (1:8).
Peter has in mind the same kind of people Jesus referred to when he said that Satan would sow "tares among the wheat" —deceptive look-alikes that become evident only as the genuine wheat bears its grain (Matt. 13:25-26). These are also the caliber of false teachers John described as "antichrists" who "went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us" (1 Jn. 2:18-19). This doesn't mean that true believers can lose their salvation. In fact, just the opposite! It means that false believers never had salvation to begin with —a fact demonstrated by their failure to remain in the way of truth and their leaving to cut their own way in the world.
These people were intellectually aware of the truth but had never allowed it to transform their hearts. As a result, they were in a worse condition than those who had never heard (2 Pet. 2:20-21)! They knew enough about the Christian faith to conduct themselves in ways that appeared genuine. But eventually their cloaks of deception fell away and their malicious intentions became obvious to everybody.
How did it become obvious?
Returning to his earlier analogy of false teachers who conduct themselves like "unreasoning animals" (2:12), Peter likens their behavior to dogs and pigs. In Peter's day, dogs were regarded as unclean animals that ran in packs, wild and vicious. Don't think of the pampered, well-groomed pets of our day. Think of scavenging beasts no more appealing than giant rats. Peter says these false teachers who turn their backs on the truth are like dogs who return to their own vomit (2:22; quoting Prov. 26:11). He also says they are like a freshly-bathed pig who can't pass up the opportunity to return to its stinking muck. There's just something in the nature of animals to act like animals. No matter how well you treat them, no matter how you pretty them up, in the end their instincts kick in and their true natures as beasts will be revealed.
In this way, Peter makes the stunning argument that ignorance of the truth is better than apostasy from it. How can he say that? I can think of three reasons. First, somebody who is ignorant of the truth can be won to the Lord, but somebody who has rejected it is seldom open to correction and change. They think they've "been there, done that." It's not impossible, but it's difficult to remove the baggage, clear the confusion, and help them unlearn what they have chosen to believe.
Second, those who are ignorant of the truth don't have the influence over others that the "learned" have. Those who think they know it all teach as if they do. They influence others and lead them astray. In fact, in my experience the most damaging critics of Christianity are those who claim to have been believers, but were suddenly "enlightened" by a different religion —or by no religion at all. The testimonies of apostates can be very influential and extremely persuasive.
Third, in the final judgment, the severity of punishment will be less for the ignorant than for the apostates. The Bible states that those who die without having a true saving knowledge of Christ will be condemned to eternal separation from God. But according to Jesus' parable in Luke 12:41-48, there will apparently be a lesser degree of punishment for those who never knew Him than for those who were exposed to the truth but turned away from Him. Jesus said,
And that slave who knew his master's will and did not get ready or act in accord with his will, will receive many lashes, but the one who did not know it, and committed deeds worthy of a flogging, will receive but few. From everyone who has been given much, much will be required; and to whom they entrusted much, of him they will ask all the more. (Luke 12:47-48)
At this point in Peter's second letter we reach the bottom of a deep, dark pit. Peter has examined in great detail the problem of doctrinal compromise, addressing the critical question, "What should I expect from false prophets?" He has given us a stern _warning_ that false prophets are coming (2:1-3). He has also provided a _reminder_ that those false teachers will bring judgment upon themselves (2:21-22). Yet, in the midst of this gloomy chapter, he has injected a _promise_ that God will rescue the righteous from wrath (2:9). In light of his no-holds-barred attack on false prophets, Peter calls for _diligence_ to avoid their deceptive doctrines and alluring lifestyles. He then urges his readers to look forward to the _hope_ of deliverance at Christ's return.
* * *
# APPLICATION: 2 PETER 2:12-22
A Dose of Discernment
There's a Persian proverb my high school speech teacher made us memorize. It goes like this:
He who knows not, and knows not that he knows not is a fool; shun him.
He who knows not, and knows that he knows not, is a child; teach him.
He who knows, and knows not that he knows, is asleep; wake him.
He who knows, and knows that he knows, is wise; follow him.
Since high school I've learned the true meaning of those lines. I've discovered that all four "types" can be found on every campus, in any business, in all neighborhoods, and within every church. They don't wear badges marked "Fool," "Child," "Asleep," or "Wise." And you'll never have somebody walk up to you, shake your hand, and say, "Hi, I'm Donald. I'm a fool." Chances are, the last thing he will want you to discover is the deep-down truth that "he knows not that he knows not."
Then how in the world are we to know whom to shun, to teach, to awaken, or to follow? The answer in a word is _discernment_ —skill and accuracy in reading character and the ability to detect and identify the real truth —to see beneath the surface, to read between the lines, to sense by intuition that something is not right. Hebrews 5:14 identifies discernment as a mark of maturity. Discernment gives a person the proper frame of reference, a definite line of separating good and evil. It acts as an umpire in life and blows the whistle on the spurious. It's as particular as a pathologist peering into a microscope. Discernment doesn't fall for fakes, flirt with phonies, dance with deceivers, or kiss counterfeits goodnight. In fact, discernment would rather relax alone at night with the Good Book than mess around with the gullible gang. The reason? Because it's from that Book that discernment learns to distinguish the fools from the children and the sleeping from the wise.
Before you start in on the old bromide, "But that doesn't sound very loving!" you had better take a look at the apostle John's counsel. You remember John. He's the man known for his tender love for Jesus. He wrote, "Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world" (1 Jn. 4:1). In today's talk, "Stop believing everything you hear! Quit being so gullible. Be selective. Think!" Lack of discernment spawns and invites more heresy than any of us are ready to believe. One of the tactics of survival when facing "the flaming arrows of the evil one" (Eph. 6:16) is to make certain we have cinched up the belt of _truth_ rather tightly around our waists.
A Christian without discernment is like a submarine plowing full speed ahead without radar or periscope. Or a 747 trying to land in dense fog without instruments or radio. Lots of noise, a great deal of power, good intentions . . . _until._ I don't have another Persian proverb to describe the outcome, but who needs it? It happens day in, day out —with disastrous regularity.
Second Peter reminds us with vivid words that false teachers are on the prowl. The moment they find a chink in the armor of the unsuspecting believer, their hidden stiletto of heresy will strike. To keep your discernment high, go to your _knees_. James 1:5 promises wisdom to those who ask for it. Go to the _Word_. Psalm 119:98-100 offers insight beyond any earthly source. And go to the _wise_. Discernment is better caught than taught. Stay close to those seasoned saints, the proven men and women who overflow with wisdom.[109]
* * *
# ANTICIPATION OF CHRIST'S RETURN (2 PETER 3:1-18)
As the menacing clouds begin to break and Peter's stormy condemnation of false teachers subsides, a beam of light pierces the gloominess. This great apostle decides it's now time to inject a ray of hope into his otherwise frightening portrayal of the future. Though the threat of false teachers is real and imminent, he wants us to lift our eyes beyond the immediate landscape and see the bright horizon that is yet to come. It's important to remember that between the rough period of false prophets and the coming restoration of creation, two unforgettable events intervene —the Great Tribulation, by which the present world and all its wickedness will be destroyed, and the return of Christ, by which a new era of righteousness will begin.
Before we follow Peter forward through these important topics, let's take another quick look back at where he's led us. The first chapter addressed the issue of moral purity in the last days. Peter urged us to avoid the corruption of the world (1:4), reminding us of the fruitful Christian life expected of those who have been equipped with everything necessary for godliness (1:5-13). As the sure foundation for faith, Peter directed believers to Scripture as the Spirit-breathed, inerrant Word of God, encouraging us to stand strong in the truth (1:16-21). This exhortation for doctrinal and moral diligence was necessary as Peter transitioned to a stern warning about the presence of false teachers.
Chapter 2 shifted from a description of godliness and confidence in the truth to wickedness and peddlers of falsehood. The entire chapter described the moral and doctrinal horrors of deceitful heretics (2:1-3). Because of their cunning deception they would be formidable foes to the church. However, Peter reminded us that apostates who flirt with the truth, then turn their backs on it, will incur great judgment (2:21-22). But when this judgment comes upon the world in the future, true believers in Christ will be rescued from wrath (2:9) while false prophets find themselves caught in the fires of judgment. Behind this tirade against false teachers stands a warning to us all —avoid their deceptions by being discerning and remaining strong in the truth.
* * *
# KEY TERMS IN 2 PETER 3:1-18
_epangelia_ **(ἐπαγγελία)** [1860] "promise," "guarantee"
This term, often used in covenant contexts (Eph. 2:12; Heb. 6:17; 11:9), generally refers to various guarantees made by God that believers have not yet fully experienced, but in which they hope. Among these include the Holy Spirit (Gal. 3:14; Eph. 1:13) and eternal life (2 Tim. 1:1; 1 Jn. 2:25). Peter focuses on specific future events —the promise of Christ's return in judgment (2 Pet. 3:4, 9) and the following "new heavens and new earth" (3:13). We can be confident that God will not break His promises. His track record for keeping promises is impeccable.
_hēmera kyriou_ **(ἡμέρα κυρίου)** [2250+2962] "day of the Lord"
Though simple to translate, the biblical phrase "day of the Lord" is complicated and rather difficult to sort out. It is a general title for any time of judgment followed by blessing. It usually doesn't refer to a single twenty-four hour period, but to a distinct period of judgment. In the Old Testament, it referred to any period of time when God sent judgment on the wicked, so there have been many historical "days of the Lord." In Peter's usage, though, it refers specifically to the final judgment yet to come.
_makrothymeō_ **(μακροθυμέω)** [3114] "to persevere," "to be patient," "to wait long"
This word comes from two Greek words, _makros_ [3117], meaning "large," and _thymos_ [2372], meaning "intense anger," "burning wrath," or "explosive rage." Together these terms refer to the act of holding back one's anger. We might say such a person has a long fuse and can avoid sudden outbursts of rage. In 3:9, together with its noun form in 3:15, it refers to God's patience exhibited through holding back His wrath in order for more to be saved.
* * *
This leads to Peter's finale in chapter 3. He further develops the issue of the end times, which he mentioned several times in the first two chapters. In these, his final written words to the churches prior to his martyrdom, Peter answers the question, "How will all this end?" He gives us a final _warning_ : avoid worldly corruption and false teachers (3:11, 17-18). He presents a last _reminder_ : God's testimony is trustworthy (3:1-2). And he proclaims a glorious _promise_ : a new creation is coming in which righteousness dwells (3:13).
# A Warning to Skeptics and Sinners
2 PETER 3:1-7
NASB
1 This is now, beloved, the second letter I am writing to you in which I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder, 2 that you should remember the words spoken beforehand by the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior _spoken_ by your apostles.
3 Know this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with _their_ mocking, following after their own lusts, 4 and saying, "Where is the promise of His coming? For _ever_ since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation." 5 For [a]when they maintain this, it escapes their notice that by the word of God _the_ heavens existed long ago and _the_ earth was formed out of water and by water, 6 through which the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water. 7 But by His word the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.
3:5 [a]Or _they are willfully ignorant of this fact, that_
NLT
1 This is my second letter to you, dear friends, and in both of them I have tried to stimulate your wholesome thinking and refresh your memory. 2 I want you to remember what the holy prophets said long ago and what our Lord and Savior commanded through your apostles.
3 Most importantly, I want to remind you that in the last days scoffers will come, mocking the truth and following their own desires. 4 They will say, "What happened to the promise that Jesus is coming again? From before the times of our ancestors, everything has remained the same since the world was first created."
5 They deliberately forget that God made the heavens long ago by the word of his command, and he brought the earth out from the water and surrounded it with water. 6 Then he used the water to destroy the ancient world with a mighty flood. 7 And by the same word, the present heavens and earth have been stored up for fire. They are being kept for the day of judgment, when ungodly people will be destroyed.
* * *
After writing a torrential tirade against the despicable doctrines and practices of false teachers in chapter 2, I can imagine Peter taking a break to calm his Galilean fury. Standing up and taking a deep breath, he closes his eyes and reviews what he wrote in his first letter and considers the ground he already covered in this second. Then, with a bold resolve, he addresses his readers with a term of endearment, "beloved" ( _agapētos_ [27]). The word hasn't appeared in this letter since 1:17, but he will repeat it four more times in his final written words to the churches (3:8, 14, 15, 17).
Peter clearly states his purpose for writing this second letter: to stimulate our "sincere mind" by reminding us of things we should already know. Note that he writes to those who were already characterized by wholesome thinking, free from deception and corruption. They were "innocent" in thought and deed. But innocent doesn't imply impervious. These believers needed to stay on the alert.
This reminds me of the mood in the United States in the months following the horrific events of 9/11. You remember. Fighters patrolled the skies. Police were on constant alert. Nobody dared ignore suspicious activity. And airline security was at its all-time peak. Everybody knew the threat of unexpected attack was real —and pervasive. It could come at any time, anywhere, from anybody. But as months and years separated Americans from those devastating events, the original vigilance cooled —then virtually chilled. Few people knew what threat level the Department of Homeland Security had set, and later on, most didn't care. Countless grew tired of hearing about terrorist cells. And many grew weary of military actions against havens of terrorism worldwide. Though nobody wanted their country to be attacked again, few kept up the state of alert necessary to actually prevent it. Vigilance has waned. We're back to business as usual.
The same kind of thing was happening in Peter's day with regard to false teachers. Intellectually they knew the dangers, the risks, the threats. And they had kept themselves pure and undefiled. But they needed a reminder, a wake-up call —something to stir them up and sound the alarm again. Peter knew the first waves of deception had come —and his readers had maintained their sincerity. But a tidal wave of truth-twisters was about to arrive, and they needed to brace themselves for the devastating blow.
## — 3:1-2 —
Peter spells out exactly what he wants his readers to keep at the forefront of their minds in light of the lingering threat of false teachers. First, we should remember _the words spoken beforehand by the prophets_ (3:2). This includes all of the Old Testament writings. With this statement Peter returns to the topic he introduced in 1:19-21. There he urged his readers to "pay attention" to the prophetic word "as to a lamp shining in a dark place" (1:19). That shining lamp had been lit by the Holy Spirit, who moved the authors of Scripture to compose —without error —God's written and inspired Word. We are told that these prophetic writings looked forward to the coming of Christ. In fact, Christ Himself said, "You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me" (John 5:39). In fact, the writings of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms all point ahead to Jesus Christ (Luke 24:27, 44; John 1:45; Acts 28:23; Rom. 1:1-4; 1 Cor. 15:3-4).
Second, we should remember _the commands given by the Savior_ (3:2). Most of these words come to us through the written Gospels —Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Jesus called His hearers first and foremost to a belief in Him as equal to the Father: "Believe in God; believe also in Me" (John 14:1). In fact, because Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, no one can come to the Father except through Him (John 14:6). Jesus also reiterated the Old Testament command to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind (Matt. 22:37). He also commanded horizontal love for both our neighbors in general (Matt. 22:39) and fellow believers in particular (John 13:34).
Third, implied in Peter's reminder is a call to remember _the teaching of the apostles_ (2 Pet. 3:2). The apostolic doctrine formed the firm foundation of the church, of which Christ is the cornerstone (Eph. 2:20). So, their ministry was not to point to themselves, but back to Christ's person, work, and words. At the same time, Jesus' own words point forward to His second coming, when His work will be fulfilled and His glorious person will be universally revealed.
Peter's brief statement in 3:2 encompasses the entire canon of the Old and New Testaments —the prophets, Jesus, and the apostles. No other source of truth has the power to give us lasting stability and constant assurance. After this strong reminder for the godly to stand firm on the teachings of Scripture as the foundation for their faith, Peter offers a series of sober warnings to the ungodly. In 3:3-7, he communicates something to know about the _present_ (3:3-4), something to remember about the _past_ (3:5-6), and something to count on in the _future_ (3:7).
## — 3:3-4 —
First, Peter informs us of _something to know about the present_. He wrote, "In the last days mockers will come" (3:3). Now, from Peter's perspective, near the end of his earthly life, this statement was prophetic. Yes, false prophets had already begun to challenge the apostles and offer their own counterfeit christs. Yes, many believers had already abandoned the faith, being led astray by heresy, lust, or greed. But Peter had in mind a different class of contrarian —those who would reject the faith by mocking, teasing, and poking fun at its claims. Those mentioned in chapter 2 were the false brethren who claimed to be believers but were not. Those described in chapter 3 are the cynical scoffers who make fun of the faith from the outside. Sometimes these categories overlap, but much of the time they are two distinct forces to be reckoned with.
Though Peter cast this warning about mockers as a prophecy, within a few years the first wave of these mockers had already begun to arrive on the scene. In fact, it may be that Jude's brief letter, written just a few years later, quoted Peter's prophecy as already coming to pass:
But you, beloved, ought to remember the words that were spoken beforehand by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, that they were saying to you, "In the last time there will be mockers, following after their own ungodly lusts." These are the ones who cause divisions, worldly-minded, devoid of the Spirit. (Jude 1:17-19)
Beginning in the first century and continuing on to our own day, cynics have come and gone. Their shrill mockery and accusing fingers pointing at Christianity draw a lot of attention. The sum of their scoffing is, to paraphrase Peter, "How in the world can you believe this stuff? You think Jesus is going to come back? He lived, taught, and died. That's it. And everything stays just the same. Nothing's changed! In fact, history keeps plodding along just as it has for thousands of years."
You see, the mockers, observing the historical and natural events of the present, assume that everything that has been will continue to be. The fancy term for this is "uniformitarianism." Now that's a mouthful! It assumes that there is an unbroken continuity of cause-and-effect in history and that this chain of events will simply continue unbroken into the future. Wedded to this idea is the notion of _materialism,_ the belief that the physical universe is all that exists. Materialism goes hand in hand with another oversized word, _antisupernaturalism,_ which insists that no supernatural beings (especially God) have or will interrupt the course of human history to make changes, either large or small. This is often coupled with _atheism,_ the belief that such an active God doesn't exist anyway!
Today scoffers like this —atheists, materialists, antisupernaturalists, uniformitarians —have loud voices. They write popular and intellectual books, travel the talk show circuits, and influence the minds of the masses. The details may be new, and certainly the favorable media coverage has increased, but the basic tone and intention mirrors the scoffers of Peter's day. This condition of mockers challenging the claim that a day of reckoning is at hand describes our own day quite well.
## — 3:5-6 —
After telling us something to know about our present —the arrival of scoffers (3:3-4) —Peter addresses _something to remember from the past_ (3:5-6). Peter says that when these mockers maintain that Jesus will never return to transform this world through judgment and restoration, they forget that God has done this sort of thing before.
The camp of scoffers who volley insults and snide remarks at the Christian faith almost inevitably reject two bedrock foundations of a Christian view of history: creation out of nothing and a global flood. A brief summary statement in 3:5 reminds us that God not only created the earth's atmosphere ("heavens") by separating water from water, but that He also formed the inhabitable world ages ago by a process of separating water from land. Genesis 1 describes both acts:
Then God said, "Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters." God made the expanse, and separated the waters which were below the expanse from the waters which were above the expanse; and it was so. God called the expanse heaven. . . . Then God said, "Let the waters below the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear"; and it was so. God called the dry land earth, and the gathering of the waters He called seas; and God saw that it was good. (Gen. 1:6-10)
That was the original creation of heaven and earth. And this is the kind of special creative act of God that atheists, materialists, and other skeptics openly reject. In fact, Peter says that the truth of creation "escapes their notice." That phrase is best translated, "But they deliberately forget" (NIV). This is not simply a matter of having never heard that God ordered everything. Instead, they come up with all sorts of theories and reasons to push the notion of a sovereign Creator out of their minds. They banish Genesis 1 to the category of myth or an antiquated worldview, favoring a process of astronomical and geological evolution taking place over billions of years.
* * *
# From My Journal
# Scoffed Up
2 PETER 3:3-4
As a preacher in the public square, rarely do I hear firsthand the mocking I know is out there. For most preachers, it's the same. I know "preacher roasts" are usually held rather regularly on Sunday afternoons, but most of the time those snide remarks don't make it back to the pastor's ears. I say _most_ of the time because sometimes they do.
I'll never forget the first time I witnessed a bona fide mocker have his day during a sermon (it wasn't the last). I wasn't a preacher, just a member of the congregation sitting in the pew of a rather small church. And sitting behind me was a man who was obviously in disagreement with what the preacher was saying. After a while the fellow couldn't take it any longer. He actually stood up, shook his fist, and shouted, "That is ridiculous!" And he walked right out. And I must say to the credit of the preacher, he never blinked —he just kept right on preaching!
The first time I personally encountered public ridicule regarding the gospel of Christ was back in the early 60s when I was a seminary student. A friend of mine and I drove up to Norman, Oklahoma, where I stood on a free speech platform and spoke openly about the Lord Jesus Christ. Most people weren't interested in my message. But several took the opportunity to provide feedback —in the form of mocking jabs and sarcastic remarks directed not so much at me but at Jesus Christ. In fact, a few of them even threw things! (Up until that point in my life I thought that only happened in movies!) They delighted in mocking the Lord who died for them.
Those two episodes occurred decades ago. Since that time I've seen the tempo and volume of mocking intensify in America. On TV, in movies, over the airwaves, and on the internet, the scoffers have become bolder as American culture in general has become more secular (I'm tempted to say "pagan"). Atheism, humanism, materialism, and antisupernaturalism have become the norm among the intelligentsia, and it doesn't seem to be changing.
Not surprisingly, Peter was right. Mockers have come.
* * *
Peter emphasizes God's acts of separating water in creation of the sky and earth because the judgment of the earth by flood that followed at the time of Noah reversed that separation. The world at that time —that is, the world originally created in Genesis 1 —was destroyed by those very same waters. This judgment by flood is described in Genesis 7:11-12:
In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the same day all the fountains of the great deep burst open, and the floodgates of the sky were opened. The rain fell upon the earth for forty days and forty nights.
* * *
# FLOOD FOR THOUGHT
2 PETER 3:6
The Bible isn't the only ancient book describing a flood that destroyed the ancient world. From South America to Asia, from Africa to Australia, ancient peoples recall a disastrous flood in their songs, poems, traditions, and legends. Scholars have long been aware of flood stories from widespread ancient cultures —epics of gods flooding the world to destroy wicked or annoying humanity, with only a handful of humans surviving.
For example, the Sumerian account tells of a king, Ziusudra, who is told by the god Enki that the other gods plan to destroy humanity with a flood. The reason? Because people are too noisy and they keep the gods awake day and night To escape the destruction, Ziusudra promptly builds a great boat and loads it with his family and animals.[111] After the rain subsides, the king presents himself before the gods An and Enlil and kisses the ground before them to beg for his life to be spared.[112]
The Babylonian _Epic of Gilgamesh_ mentions an old man named Utnapishtim, who escaped a flood sent by the gods to destroy humanity. One of the gods, Ea, had alerted him to the plan and prompted him to build an ark. When the rain ceased and the ark had come to rest on a high mountain, Utnapishtim sent a raven and a dove to make sure he could leave the boat. At once he sacrificed to the gods to gain their favor.[113]
Further east, the Hindu flood myth follows the main character Manu, who is informed by a fish that he must build a boat to escape a coming flood that would destroy his region. Manu heeded the warning of the talking fish. When the rain began to fall, Manu entered the ark, and the fish towed the boat to the top of a mountain. The flood had destroyed all creatures except Manu, whose life was spared.[114]
These few examples of ancient flood stories suggest that the events described in Genesis 6–9 and reiterated by Peter in 2 Peter 3 rest on actual historical events. Yes, the various cultures modified the correct version of events recounted in Scripture. They speak of various gods (or a fish!) instead of Yahweh, and characters like Ziusudra, Manu, or Utnapishtim instead of Noah. But the basic story found in countless ancient cultures reminds us of a historical truth humanity often forgets: "the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water" (3:6).
* * *
I find it interesting that the same people who reject the evidence of God's design and creation of the world also reject the evidence of a global flood. They look at the same geological evidence and read the same ancient accounts of a flood found in almost every ancient culture around the world, but they conclude that it's all just legend or myth, or at most, an exaggerated account of a local calamity like a tsunami or hurricane.
But Peter makes it perfectly clear that the original heaven and earth were destroyed with the flood. The new order of things that remained after the floodwaters subsided was dramatically different from the former world of wickedness. Peter's point is that just as God catastrophically intervened with water during the Flood thousands of years ago, he would one day intervene again —but next time with fire.
## — 3:7 —
Peter told us something about our present —that mockers would come (3:3-4) —then reminded us something about ancient history —that God judged the world of mockers during the days of Noah (3:5-6). Now Peter puts these two facts together, pointing forward to _something to count on in the future_ —the coming judgment of the present world order (3:7).
Peter says that the present "heavens and earth," the world order in which humans have lived since the flood of Noah, "are being reserved for fire." This fire will come on the day of judgment, when God destroys the world and the works of ungodly people. No doubt this will include the false teachers of chapter 2, as well as the scoffers of chapter 3. It corresponds with Peter's repeated warnings of coming judgment, in which the wicked will perish and the righteous will be saved (2:1, 3, 9).
What comes after the judgment by fire? Peter will address this topic in 3:13: "New heavens and a new earth" will rise from the conflagration of the present order. Just as the world of Genesis 1 had been restored after the judgment by water, the present heavens and earth will be judged and restored after the fire. We can chart Peter's understanding of the various phases of the world in three distinct periods of "heaven and earth" —before the Flood, after the Flood, and after the fire.
It is interesting to note that in chapter 2, when Peter referred to biblical illustrations of God rescuing the righteous and judging the wicked, he used the examples of the flood of Noah and the fire of Sodom and Gomorrah. These correspond to Peter's reference to the past judgment by flood and the coming judgment by flame. In fact, Peter even said that God made the people of Sodom and Gomorrah "an example to those who would live ungodly lives thereafter" (2:6).
Peter's message couldn't be more clear: Regardless of the way things appear day in and day out, despite the mockery of scoffers poking fun at the idea of Christ's return and the coming judgments, _in the end, God wins_!
* * *
# APPLICATION: 2 PETER 3:1-7
Rethinking the Return
Yes, critics have denied it. Cynics have laughed at it. Scholars have ignored it. Liberal theologians have explained it away (they call it "demythologizing"), and fanatics have perverted it. "Where is the promise of His coming?" (3:4) many still sneer. Scoffers continue to attack, misapply, and deny the return of the Savior. But there it stands, solid as a stone, soon to be fulfilled, ready to offer us hope and encouragement amidst despair and unbelief.
"Okay, great. But what do I do in the meantime?" I can hear a dozen or more pragmatists asking that question in unison. Fair enough. If the doctrine of the second coming of Christ doesn't actually affect how we live, does it really matter if the mockers scoff at it? Shouldn't we just sweep that little embarrassing, irrelevant doctrine under the carpet and focus on more important things? What _should_ we do in light of Christ's sure return?
First, it might be best for you to understand what you _don't_ do. You don't dress up in a white robe and gather with like-minded fanatics in a commune or on some roof. You don't quit work and move to the highest mountains to be the first to meet the Lord when He descends. And you don't try to set dates for His return based on cockeyed calculations or harebrained interpretations of the "signs of the time!" In other words, don't join the unbiblical quacks who have overreacted and brought _deserved_ ridicule on themselves from those ever-ready scoffers poised with rotten fruit in hand.
However, you _do_ get your act together —and keep it together. You _do_ live every day for His glory —as if it's your last. You _do_ work diligently on your job and in your home for His name's sake —as if He isn't coming for another ten years. You _do_ shake salt out every chance you get, you _do_ shine the light, and you _do_ remain balanced, cheerful, winsome, and stable, expecting His return day by day. You _do_ continue sharing the good news with those who are "blue all over." Other than that, keep looking up with hope and don't be fazed by the hardened skeptics.
Oh, one more thing. If you're not absolutely ready to fly when Christ comes to snatch His own into the air (1 Thes. 4:17), you'd better get your ticket. _Fast._ As long as they are available, they're free. But don't wait. About the time you finally make up your mind, the whole thing could have happened, leaving you looking back instead of up. And instead of taking a high-speed trip to heaven to spend eternity with the Savior, you'll be left here. Surrounded by "wise" skeptics who suddenly look, well . . . pretty stupid.
* * *
# The Day of the Lord
2 PETER 3:8-13
NASB
8 But do not let this one _fact_ escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day. 9 The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.
10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and [a]its works will be [b]burned up.
11 Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, 12 looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt with intense heat! 13 But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.
3:10 [a]Lit _the works in it_ [b]Two early mss read _discovered_
NLT
8 But you must not forget this one thing, dear friends: A day is like a thousand years to the Lord, and a thousand years is like a day. 9 The Lord isn't really being slow about his promise, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent. 10 But the day of the Lord will come as unexpectedly as a thief. Then the heavens will pass away with a terrible noise, and the very elements themselves will disappear in fire, and the earth and everything on it will be found to deserve judgment.[*]
11 Since everything around us is going to be destroyed like this, what holy and godly lives you should live, 12 looking forward to the day of God and hurrying it along. On that day, he will set the heavens on fire, and the elements will melt away in the flames. 13 But we are looking forward to the new heavens and new earth he has promised, a world filled with God's righteousness.
[3:10] Other manuscripts read _will be burned up;_ still others read _will be found destroyed._
* * *
When I was a young believer, Bible prophecy was the hottest of all topics. If you wanted to increase attendance at the local church, you just scheduled a prophecy conference or announced your plan to start a sermon series on the book of Revelation. And it seemed like dozens of books on prophecy were coming out every year! It was sometimes hard to keep up. Interest has cooled over the decades, but you'll still find fervent fans of end-times teachers.
In light of this curiosity about prophecy and the tendency for some to go overboard on the issue, let me interject a few general facts about the future. I want briefly to share a few important points of counsel. First, while some things are revealed about the future, much still remains a mystery. One of the marks of immaturity in the Christian life is to read more into the biblical text than is actually there. We can be sure of the big picture when it comes to Bible prophecy, but a lot of the details remain shrouded in obscurity.
Second, when searching for answers, continue to leave room for questions. Try not to make agreement on the particulars of future events a basis for fellowship with other believers. If you agree on the fundamental saving truths of the faith related to the triune God and the person and work of Christ in His incarnation, death, resurrection, and ascension, then cut each other some slack on just how Christ's return is going to pan out. Be tolerant of those who don't see things as clearly as you do.
Third, though no one knows all the details, don't hesitate to stand firm on those clearly set forth in Scripture: Christ will physically return, there will be a final judgment, heaven and hell are real, and the resurrection of our bodies is a certainty. These things are set forth clearly in the Bible, so you can count on them. In recent years the pendulum seems to have swung from obsession with details to ignorance of even the big picture. Balance is needed here, as always. Ultra dogmatism is unhealthy, but endless indecision on doctrinal views is unwise. If we don't have at least tentative answers, the seekers will find cults that do.
Prophetic events never fail to pluck the strings of our imaginations. Curious about the future, we are forever on a search for what lies just beyond the visible horizon. Scientists, philosophers, historians, politicians, and even fortune-tellers all make their forecasts and gain their followers, but no source of information can be compared to the Bible. When it comes to trustworthy, inspired truth we can count on, this Book not only stands out, it stands absolutely alone.
Peter has already established the authority of the Bible as a source for truth about the past and present (1:19-21). And he has warned of the coming judgment that would catch unbelievers by surprise (2:1-22) and put scoffers in their places (3:1-7). Peter wrote this letter to remind believers of sound teaching, to encourage diligence in the faith, and to strengthen biblical foundations of beliefs and practices. Through his warnings, reminders, and promises, Peter urged diligence in light of the future hope of the coming of Christ and the glory that will come when the wicked are judged and the righteous rewarded. Now, in 3:8-13, Peter further develops this encouraging hope.
## — 3:8-9 —
Peter's readers were facing tough times in the present world order —persecuted by emperors and governors, threatened by false teaching, belittled by scoffers, tempted to sin, pushed to defect from the faith. Hoping to calm their spirits, Peter reassured them that just as God had put a stop to the wickedness of the world in the days of Noah, He will do so again (3:3-4). He reminds them that a day is coming when wrong will be righted, and the right will rule (3:4-7). The "present heavens and earth" are marked for judgment.
At the beginning of 3:8, Peter urges us to take note of one thing in response to the mocking of skeptics who doubt that God will judge them. When Peter says that for God a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like a day, he's not giving us some secret key to unlock prophecy in which we interpret every day as a thousand years and set some kind of date for the end of the world. Rather, he alludes to Psalm 90:4: "For a thousand years in Your sight are like yesterday when it passes by, or as a watch in the night." The idea is that as far as God is concerned, our finite perception of time is irrelevant. What comprises time on earth in no way impacts God's master plan. He is timeless —that is, He dwells above and apart from the cause-and-effect flow of time as we perceive it. It was Isaiah who wrote, "'For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,' declares the LORD. 'For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts'" (Isa. 55:8-9).
Why does Peter mention this theological truth? Because the scoffers rest their point on the basis of a human view of time, suggesting that a long delay in Christ's coming implies that God doesn't keep His promises. To be sure, from the perspective of finite human beings, God often appears to take His time to intervene. He often seems slow. We would love to push Him into fulfilling His promises or rush His plan. But God does things according to His own mysterious timetable. This doesn't mean that God doesn't care about rescuing and rewarding the righteous. Just the opposite! Peter actually claims that God's "delay" of judgment makes room for His mercy!
In 3:9, Peter refers to God's patient plan. God is not negligent about His promises. He is deliberately holding back the events of the end times in order to give as many people as possible an opportunity to turn to Christ and be saved. Seen from this perspective, the Lord is not slow . . . He's patient. He's not tardy . . . He's deliberately delaying. He's not indifferent . . . He's merciful. His plan is unfolding exactly as He has ordained it. The apostle Paul also wrote about this: God "desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth" (1 Tim. 2:4).
To make this personal, imagine if Christ had returned just two weeks before you came to faith. Or two days. You would have missed salvation before the fires of judgment fell! Now apply this fact to others you know who do not yet know Christ. Put their names in 3:9 instead of Peter's "any" and "all" —"[God] is patient toward _________, not wishing for _________ to perish but for _________ to come to repentance." That changes the perspective, doesn't it?
But God's patience isn't only a benefit for unbelievers. As He delays the coming judgment, it gives straying believers the opportunity to get their lives back on track. It leaves room for us to repent —not from damnation to salvation but from a spiritually barren life to a spiritually fruitful life. God is not only waiting patiently for non-Christians to believe, but He's also granting time for us to share the good news of salvation with the lost (see Rom. 10:17).
## — 3:10-13 —
God's delay is not eternal. There is an unrevealed limit to this present period of patience. It's true that God, in His generous mercy, is holding back judgment. But Peter assures us that this time of mercy will come to an abrupt end —"the day of the Lord will come like a thief" (3:10).
"The day of the Lord" is a general title for any time of judgment, but Peter uses it to refer specifically to the final judgment yet to come. It usually doesn't refer to a single twenty-four hour period. The term "day" is used figuratively, as we might say, "Back in Grandpa's day people didn't have computers." In the Old Testament, it referred to any period of time when God sent judgment on the wicked, so there were many historical "days of the Lord" —like the flood of Noah or the judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah. But they all had common features. Isaiah's words describe this well: "Behold, the day of the LORD is coming, cruel, with fury and burning anger, to make the land a desolation; and He will exterminate its sinners from it" (Isa. 13:9). Yet in the midst of the judgment, God promises that the righteous will be saved, as Peter preached on Pentecost: "The sun will be turned into darkness and the moon into blood, before the great and glorious day of the Lord shall come. And it shall be that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved" (Acts 2:20-21).
Peter answers several big-picture questions for us in 2 Peter 3:10-12, but not always in the precise detail we might want.
1. _When_ will the day of the Lord come?
2. _What_ will happen when the day of Lord comes?
3. _How_ will the day of the Lord come?
4. _So, what_ should we do in response to the coming day of the Lord?
First, _when?_ Peter doesn't say. In fact, he clearly avoids the question! Rather, he wants to warn that the day of the Lord will come "like a thief." This is a vivid word picture that Christ Himself used to describe His own arrival in judgment (Matt. 24:43). Paul uses the analogy, too: "For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night" (1 Thes. 5:2). Just as a thief comes suddenly and unexpectedly, without announcement or warning, so the end-times judgment will begin when people least expect it.
Second, _what_? Three phrases in 3:10 tell us what will happen when this judgment comes. The "heavens will pass away," the "elements will be destroyed," and "the earth and its works will be burned up." Peter provides further details of this devastating picture in 3:12, which describes the heavens burning and the elements melting with intense heat. That's not a pleasant picture. Just as the former world in the days of Noah was wiped clean with all-consuming floodwaters, the present world will endure greater purging by fire.
Third, _how_? Peter describes the coming destruction with three terms in 3:10: "roar," "destroyed," and "intense heat." The images all refer to the familiar sounds and sensations that come with a disastrous fire. As a forest fire builds from mere cracklings to an uncontrollable ocean of flames, it sounds like a violent wind roaring through the trees. But instead of stripping off leaves and branches or felling several trees, forest fires leave behind a charred, barren wasteland, devoid of life. With this familiar analogy, Peter pictures the obliteration of the present world. In fact, Peter describes the destruction of the "elements" melting (3:10, 12). In the ancient world, this didn't refer to atomic particles as it does in modern science, but to the basic building blocks of the perceivable, material world —the earth, water, wind. All of these things, Peter says, will be wiped clear to make way for something new.
Finally, _so what?_ What should we believers do in light of the end of all things? In 3:11-13 Peter answers this question. Because everything will be destroyed with fire, we should live "in holy conduct and godliness" (3:11). There is no room for becoming attached to the material things of this world —putting our hope in them, investing in them, relying upon them. They will all be burned to nothing!
At the same time, we should be "looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God" (3:12). In a certain sense, as we do the work of evangelism and share the gospel, we participate in speeding the return of Christ. God already knows how many and who will be saved, and when that number is fulfilled, the end will come (see Matt. 24:14; Rom. 11:24-25). Don't go overboard on this, though. There's no way for us to know who or how many, so even though it's true that our work of evangelism hastens the end, we may be doing our work in the middle of His timetable!
Peter also says we should be "looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells" (3:13). That is, our focus should be outside this present temporary world as we look forward to the perfect eternal state, free from wickedness. The term "new heavens and new earth" is first used in Isaiah to describe the new condition after the tribulation period, when Christ sets up His kingdom on earth (Isa. 65:17; 66:22). It also refers to the eternal state, after the Millennium and Great White Throne Judgment, when the new creation will replace the old (Rev. 21:1). Peter seems to refer generally to both, with an emphasis on the final, ultimate state of things, after the wicked of this world are judged in the Tribulation and after the dead are judged in the lake of fire. Peter compresses these two end-times events in a general description. His interest is not to set out a timeline but to assert that the present world is temporary and the future world is eternal.
Reflecting the same kind of thought as Peter, the apostle Paul sums up the Christian hope this way: "For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal" (2 Cor. 4:17-18).
* * *
# APPLICATION: 2 PETER 3:8-13
Clean Up, Look Up, Speak Up
Our marching orders as believers awaiting the Lord's return can be summed up in three commands: _Clean up_ your life. _Look up_ and expect His coming. _Speak up_ every chance you get. Let's spend a little time reflecting on each of these applications of the end times.
First, _what areas of your life require some cleanup?_ Don't rush through this; it's serious business. All of us have sin in our lives. In fact, John wrote, "If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us" (1 Jn. 1:8). Even the most mature believer has areas he or she needs to address. To help prick your conscience, study Paul's contrasting lists of the "deeds of the flesh" and the "fruit of the Spirit" in Galatians 5:19-23. Mark the fleshly deeds that are present in your life —and the spiritual fruit that is absent. Then go to God. The apostle John continued, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 Jn. 1:9). Confess your sin, seek forgiveness, and ask for strength to overcome sin in this particular area.
Second, _how can you live each day in constant expectation of Hisreturn?_ What can you do to remind yourself of the reality that this present world is temporary but that He will usher in an eternal kingdom of righteousness? You might test your perspective by examining how you spend your time and money. Do you invest in eternal things that will survive His coming and gain a reward? Or are you merely acquiring things that will burn up in the end? Study 1 Corinthians 3:10-15. I suggest you go through your checkbook, review your expenses, and take note of your donations to God's work. Take a close look at your calendar. Are the things you're building made of temporary stuff like wood, hay, and stubble that won't survive the flames? Or are they quality, spiritual elements that will survive the coming judgment? Don't stop there, though. How can you adjust your budget and your schedule to focus more often on the important things in anticipation of His return?
Finally, _with whom can you share Christ before it's too late?_ Imagine if Christ returned tomorrow and the judgment began. Who would you miss in heaven? Who would be left behind? Who would you be grieved to see at the Great White Throne Judgment because you failed to share the simple gospel that could have spared them from eternal condemnation? Pray for them. Swallow your pride and lovingly share the truth with them. Communicate your concern. They may not listen. They may mock you. On the other hand, your words may be just the thing that nudges them one step closer to God's eternal kingdom.
So, what should you do in light of the coming day of the Lord? Clean up. Look up. Speak up. These three commands alone will keep us plenty busy until the Lord returns.
* * *
# Living in Troubled Times
2 PETER 3:14-18
NASB
14 Therefore, beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, spotless and blameless, 15 and regard the patience of our Lord _as_ salvation; just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you, 16 as also in all _his_ letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as _they do_ also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction. 17 You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, be on your guard so that you are not carried away by the error of unprincipled men and fall from your own steadfastness, 18 but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him _be_ the glory, both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.
NLT
14 And so, dear friends, while you are waiting for these things to happen, make every effort to be found living peaceful lives that are pure and blameless in his sight.
15 And remember, our Lord's patience gives people time to be saved. This is what our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you with the wisdom God gave him —16 speaking of these things in all of his letters. Some of his comments are hard to understand, and those who are ignorant and unstable have twisted his letters to mean something quite different, just as they do with other parts of Scripture. And this will result in their destruction.
17 You already know these things, dear friends. So be on guard; then you will not be carried away by the errors of these wicked people and lose your own secure footing. 18 Rather, you must grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
All glory to him, both now and forever! Amen.
* * *
Beware! Be ready! Those two commands could summarize the theme of Peter's second letter. In chapter 1 Peter warned against moral corruption, exhorting believers to beware of temptations and be ready with a virtuous life. In chapter 2 he warned against false teachers, urging us to beware of their deceptive wickedness and be ready to stand against their lies. And finally, in chapter 3 Peter reminded us that scoffers would come, doubting the coming judgment. In light of this challenge, Peter encouraged us to beware of their persuasive skepticism and always be ready for the coming judgment.
Peter wrote this letter to remind believers of sound teaching, to encourage diligence in the faith, and to strengthen biblical foundations of beliefs and practices. As he transitions to his final words to believers everywhere, we see him emphasize the need to read Scripture rightly, rejecting the destructive heretical interpretations of the false teachers. Only in this way will we be stable in the face of false teaching and fruitful in our spiritual growth.
In these five verses, Peter leaves his readers with four pointed commands:
1. Be diligent (3:14).
2. Be confident (3:15).
3. Be on guard (3:17).
4. Be fruitful (3:18).
In that order, let's let Peter fill in the blanks and firm up his final words.
## — 3:14 —
The first thing we notice about Peter's clear command to _be diligent_ ( _spoudazō_ [4704]) is that he ties it in with the previous discussion. He begins with the logical connector, "therefore," pointing us back to his exhortation to live in light of the coming judgment and Christ's return. He just finished writing of the Christian hope for "new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells" (3:13). In light of our anticipation for these things, we should be diligent today.
The verb _spoudazō_ means to be zealous or to take great pains at accomplishing a task. In this case, Peter emphasizes the need for peace. Instead of squirming in panic and writhing in anxiety, we should be at peace. This kind of psychological tranquility comes through being "spotless and blameless" —being free from moral stains and without nagging guilt. When we have a clear conscience by keeping short accounts with God and applying ourselves at growing in our faith, we can face present troubles and future judgment with greater confidence. Peter specifically has in mind the condition in which Christ finds us when He returns. The apostle John echoes the same kind of exhortation: "Now, little children, abide in Him, so that when He appears, we may have confidence and not shrink away from Him in shame at His coming" (1 Jn. 2:28).
## — 3:15-16 —
Whereas scoffers and mockers had been saying that the Lord's delayed return implied that He wasn't coming at all, Peter said that His delay was actually an expression of His mercy (3:8-9). It gives unbelievers an opportunity for "salvation" (3:15). Peter's response is meant to encourage his readers to _be confident_ that Christ's delay was purposeful.
Now, this kind of response might appear to be a verbal dodge —an excuse for the Lord's tardiness. But to support his claim that this is what all Christians believe about the delay in Christ's return, Peter appeals to the parallel teaching of his counterpart, the apostle Paul. Peter reminds his readers that Paul also wrote them that the patience of the Lord meant salvation. Paul said that God "desires for all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth" (1 Tim. 2:4). And he asked, "Do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?" (Rom. 2:4).
Peter acknowledges that in some of Paul's letters we come across things that are "hard to understand" (2 Pet. 3:16). This can be encouraging to those of us who have spent a lifetime trying to decipher Paul's meaning in particular passages. If Peter himself noticed some difficult passages in his letters, how much more should we approach the Holy Scriptures with humility and patience!
But in the wrong hands, unclear passages in Paul's writings could have a disastrous effect. Peter says that some people —the "untaught and unstable" —distort Paul's writings, as well as the rest of the Scriptures, bringing destruction upon themselves (3:16). What does it mean to be "untaught" ( _amathēs_ 261])? The Greek word _amathēs_ appears only here in the New Testament. One lexicon defines the word as describing "one who has not acquired a formal education, and hence with the implication of being stupid and ignorant."[[115] And the term "unstable" ( _astēriktos_ 684]) refers to somebody who tends to change and waver in his or her views.[[116] These terms describe the false teachers Peter dealt with in detail in chapter 2. Now they're back on Peter's mind as he describes the way they mishandle the Old Testament Scriptures as well as the burgeoning New Testament writings. Because they lack the humility to submit to formal discipleship and because they are wavering in their beliefs, these false teachers "distort" the Scriptures.
The Greek word for "distort" ( _strebloō_ [4761]) means to twist, wrench, or torture. In fact, the noun form of this same word is used for the torture device known as "the rack." On this cruel device, a person would be fastened, then twisted and turned, often dislocating limbs as his interrogator attempted to draw information out of him. Peter's analogy is apt. The false teachers, Scripture in hand, would wrench and torture a text until it said what they wanted it to say. They ripped passages out of context, forced and twisted otherwise clear passages to conform to cloudy texts, concealed or exaggerated evidence, and used every other trick in the book to deceive people into thinking their teachings were biblical.
This should serve as a warning to us all. Before we jump on a bandwagon and follow somebody's clever treatment of Scripture, we need to take a closer look at what's being taught. Does their "new discovery" of some undiscovered doctrine fit with the central truths of the Christian faith? Do their novel insights mesh with the rest of Scripture? False teachers thrive on being unique, nuanced, and novel. They often claim to find things in the Bible nobody has ever noticed — _ever_! And they don't care that fine Christians and learned scholars disagree with them. In fact, they wear their deviant teaching and divisive doctrine as a badge of honor!
* * *
# THE EARLY NEW TESTAMENT CANON
2 PETER 3:15-16
Nowhere else in the New Testament do we find a passage like 2 Peter 3:15-16, where a New Testament writing refers to another New Testament writing as "Scripture" on the same level as the Old Testament. In the second generation of Christians, we see an increased awareness of apostolic writings as inspired Scripture, but in the first century, the term "Scripture" referred to the accepted canon of authoritative Jewish holy writings —the Old Testament. Peter's reference to Paul contains helpful insights about the apostle Paul and his letters.
First, Peter shows that Paul's letters had already begun to be collected by various churches. This is an indication of an early development of a "canon" or standard "collection" of New Testament writings within a decade of their being written. Of course, New Testament books were still in the process of being written, and no single church or teacher likely had a complete collection of everything composed to that date. In the ancient world, it took time for these books to be copied, collected, and confirmed as authentic. But Peter's reference to "all [Paul's] letters" indicates that Peter, in Rome around AD 66, was aware of a growing collection of Paul's writings.
Second, Peter clearly aligns Paul's writings with accepted Scripture. He says false teachers twist Paul's writings "as they do also the rest of the Scriptures." Peter saw Paul's writings as a smaller set of a larger category that included the Old Testament Scriptures. "Scriptures" translates _graph_ _ē_ [1124], the same Greek word Paul used in 2 Timothy 3:16, "All Scripture is inspired by God." This indicates a very early awareness that God was in the process of adding a New Testament to the Old —a collection of distinct but equally inspired and authoritative writings that would be used as a sure source of truth in the progress of revelation.
Some critics have alleged that the early Christians did not originally regard the writings of the apostles as "Scripture," and that this process of assembling a New Testament canon took several generations. What do they do with the clear evidence from 2 Peter 3:15-16 that shows even Peter assumed the scriptural authority of Paul's writings? Quite simply they assume 2 Peter must have been written much later —a classic case of forcing the evidence into one's preconceived conclusions!
The fact is that Peter's reference to Paul's writings is an early and important indication that already in the first century the concept of a "New Testament" was firmly established.[117]
* * *
This is why we must filter what we hear through the whole counsel of God —the unified voice of all the Scriptures, not just isolated texts. We can't allow a preacher's style or a teacher's charisma to lure us into concocted arguments and clever conclusions. We need to think critically, comparing a person's teaching with what Christians have believed from day one —and with the central truths that can be demonstrated clearly in Scripture. Unlike the flimsy flap of false prophets, reliable interpretations of Scripture will stand under God's Word, stand up to challenges, and stand the test of time.
## — 3:17 —
The third command in Peter's closing words is to _be on guard._ Because we know beforehand that false teachers are carrying Bibles, we must stand watch. Peter uses a military term for taking charge of a post ( _phylassō_ [5442]), keeping our eyes peeled for approaching enemy combatants. Because he warns us that they will sneak up on us through the dense fog of deception —wearing our uniforms, carrying our weapons, and speaking our language —we must be alert. From this day on, nobody can plead ignorance. Perhaps negligence, irresponsibility, and laziness —but not ignorance.
The price of failing to be on guard is twofold. First, we will be dragged away by the errors of the false teachers. Like a soldier who turns his back on his post, the enemy will pounce and take us captive. Second, we will fall from our steadfast position. Peter isn't referring here to losing salvation, but to losing _sanctification_ —stumbling backward from the progress made in spiritual growth. Recall that at the beginning of this letter, Peter listed the virtues we must develop between faith and love —godly habits that mark us as useful and fruitful believers in Christ (1:5-8). And with this exhortation to diligence in spiritual growth came a promise: "As you practice these things, you will never stumble" (1:10). Now, Peter acknowledges the possibility of slipping backward —losing spiritual stability and being rendered useless and unfruitful.
Don't let your guard down for one moment. The results could be disastrous.
## — 3:18 —
In contrast to slipping backward toward spiritual decline due to instability, Peter states his final command — _be fruitful_. He exhorts us to "grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." With this command, Peter returns to the opening blessing of the letter: "Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord" (1:2). The overall goal of Peter's letter is that believers will continue to grow, to multiply in grace, and to be fruitful in their spiritual lives.
In 3:18 Peter exhorted believers to grow in both grace and knowledge. The challenge for us is to keep these two in balance. They may sometimes appear to be mutually exclusive categories. It can be easy to take one to an unhealthy extreme, but they must both be maintained.
GRACE | KNOWLEDGE
---|---
Keeps you tolerant and loving | Keeps you strong and confident
Gives you mercy and compassion | Gives you discernment and discrimination
Helps you believe and accept | Helps you question and critique
Results in vulnerability | Results in stability
To monitor your own spiritual growth, continue to ask yourself some probing questions. Am I keeping grace and knowledge in balance? Do others notice a measurable change in my character? Have I come to the place where old temptations no longer have the same strong appeal? Am I demonstrating more discernment when it comes to counterfeit claims?
Peter's very last words recorded for Christians living in both the first century and the twenty-first century are words of praise to Jesus Christ. This final doxology to His Savior stands as a profound testimony from a man who had once fallen from his own steadfastness, only to be restored to a place of spiritual strength unmatched by most believers since. He grew from a headstrong Galilean to a humble apostle, from a simple fisherman to a legendary fisher of men. We, too, can follow him on his remarkable journey of spiritual growth as we heed his warnings, recall his reminders, and embrace his promises, applying diligence and hope, and relying on the provision of the Holy Spirit in our lives. When we do this, we will be able to defeat false doctrine and avoid moral compromise, joining Peter in his passionate praise of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ:
"To Him be the glory, both now and to the day of eternity. Amen."
* * *
# APPLICATION: 2 PETER 3:14-18
Living HOPE in Second Peter
Using each of the letters of the word _hope,_ let me share four important tips on how we can maintain the diligent, alert spirit Peter desires believers of every age to exhibit.
H — _Heed what you already know_ (1:12-13; 3:1-2). Many of us have learned enough truth in our lives to hold us strong and keep us faithful. For most of us, the problem isn't a lack of biblical knowledge but a lack of personal application. We can get so caught up in learning more biblical truth that we forget to heed the truth we already know. Because we so easily forget the basics, we must often return to these as the foundation of our Christian beliefs and practices. If you've gotten into the rut of acquiring biblical, theological, and historical knowledge without a lifestyle that reflects it, take a step back and give attention to the basic disciplines of the faith —prayer, confession, fellowship, and worship. Heed what you already know.
O — _Open your eyes and ears_ (2:1-3; 3:17). Discernment is a developed skill. New Christians sometimes soak up ideas and habits that have nothing to do with authentic Christian belief and practice. Part of the growing process involves developing a better ability to filter these things through a more mature grid. Pay attention to your sources of information. Give further attention not only to what teachers say but also to what they don't say. Study the life of preachers who claim to be teaching the Word of God. Are they living it? Do they affirm the authority of Scripture, or do they push their own or somebody else's authority above the Bible? Aids to help us interpret and apply Scripture are one thing, but replacing Scripture with a competing source of truth and motivation is something else. Open your eyes and ears and keep them open.
P — _Pursue a godly lifestyle_ (3:11, 14). Throughout the New Testament, whenever the subject of Christ's return or end times surfaces, almost without exception the emphasis in the Scriptures is on living a pure life. The Bible doesn't waste words on theory without practice. It doesn't indulge in ideas without action. So when we approach 2 Peter, we must be eager to put its words into action. We must be engaged in pursuing a godly lifestyle.
E — _Expect Christ's return_ (3:12). Live in light of the end. Begin the day with a recurring reminder that His coming could be today. Don't join ranks with the scoffers and skeptics who throw Christ's past and present works into doubt because He hasn't yet carried out His future promise. Instead, embrace the truth that He is coming when we least expect Him. It'll make a major difference. It will affect your priorities, purpose, and pursuits. It will change your attitudes and actions. It will transform your outlook and worldview. Expect Christ's return. Live on tiptoe.
* * *
# NOTES
[1] Stanley E. Porter, "Is _Dipsuchos_ (James 1,8; 4,8) a 'Christian' Word?" _Biblica_ 71 (1990): 469–498.
[2] Eusebius, _Ecclesiastical History_ 2.23.1–2. English translation is from Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, eds., _Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers_ , Second Series, vol. 1, _Eusebius: Church History, Life of Constantine the Great, and Oration in Praise of Constantine_ (New York: Christian Literature Publishing Company, 1890).
[3] Josephus, _Antiquities of the Jews_ , 20.9.1; Eusebius, _Eccl. Hist._ 2:23.3–18.
[4] Porter, " _Dispuchos_ ," 469–498.
[5] Attributed to Joseph Ernest Renan, quoted in Ernie Bradford, _Cleopatra_ (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1972), 130.
[6] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, _Creation and Fall/Temptation_ (New York: Collier Books, 1959), 116–117.
[7] A. W. Tozer, _The Root of the Righteous_ (Camp Hill, PA: Christian Publications, 1986), 51–53.
[8] Leonardo da Vinci, _Leonardo da Vinci's Note-books_ , ed. and trans. Edward McCurdy (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1906), 80.
[9] Charles Hodge, _Systematic Theology_ (New York: Charles Scribner, 1872; reprint, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1940), 3:471.
[10] Douglas J. Moo, _The Letter of James_ , Pillar New Testament Commentary, ed. D. A. Carson (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 188.
[11] Though we can't identify a specific Old Testament passage to which James referred, it may be that he was drawing on passages concerning God's just jealousy in the face of His people's spiritual unfaithfulness, e.g., Hosea; Isa. 57:3; Jer. 3:8-9; 5:7; 7:9; 9:2; 13:27; Ezek. 6:9; 16:32, 38; 23:37, 43, 45.
[12] Annie Johnson Flint, "He Giveth More Grace," in _The Hymnal for Worship and Celebration_ (Waco, TX: Word Music, 1986), no. 415.
[13] William Shakespeare, _Othello_ , 3.3.
[14] William Ernest Henley, "Invictus," in _Modern British Poetry_ , ed. Louis Untermeyer (New York: Harcourt, Brace, & Company, 1920), 10.
[15] Frances Ridley Havergal, "Take My Life and Let It Be," in _The Hymnal for Worship and Celebration_ (Waco, TX: Word Music, 1986), no. 379.
[16] Information adapted, with additional research, from Paul Lee Tan, _Encyclopedia of 7,700 Illustrations_ (Rockville, MD: Assurance Publishers, 1979), 824; and Walter B. Knight, _Knight's Master Book of New Illustrations_ (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1956), 572–573.
[17] Hugh Stowell, "From Every Stormy Wind That Blows," in _The Hymnal for Worship and Celebration_ (Waco, TX: Word Music, 1986), no. 432.
[18] This Excursus has been adapted from material originally published as "Healing" in Charles R. Swindoll, _Come Before Winter and Share My Hope_ (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1985), 313–315.
[19] Flavius Josephus, _The Life of Flavius Josephus_ in _The Complete Works of Josephus_ , trans. William Whiston (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1981), 5.
[20] William Barclay, _The Master's Men_ (New York: Abingdon, 1959), 18.
[21] Walter Bauer et al., _A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature_ , 2nd rev. ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), 726. Using the same Greek word, Paul called himself the "foremost" of sinners (1 Tim. 1:15), and Acts 13:50 refers to the "leading men" of the city with the same term.
[22] Antony to Roman Citizens in William Shakespeare, _Julius Caesar_ , 3.2.
[23] Peter H. Davids, _The First Epistle of Peter,_ The New International Commentary on the New Testament, ed. Gordon D. Fee (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), 198.
[24] Scholars often point out the difference in Greek style between 1 Peter and 2 Peter, suggesting that one or both of them have no relation to the disciple, Peter, but were later written pseudonymously in Peter's name. But if we acknowledge the assistance of Silas (Silvanus), a New Testament prophet and coauthor of other New Testament writings, then the differences in style are easily accounted for. First Peter is from Peter, written through Silvanus, while 2 Peter comes more directly from the pen of Peter himself (2 Pet. 1:1).
[25] J. Carl Laney, Jr., "God: Who He Is, What He Does, How to Know Him Better," in _Understanding Christian Theology_ , ed. Charles R. Swindoll and Roy B. Zuck (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2003), 206.
[26] C. S. Lewis, _The Problem of Pain_ (New York: Macmillan, 1962), 42–43.
[27] Peter may also be alluding to Leviticus 20:7, 26 or 21:8, which reiterate the exhortation in Leviticus 11:44-45.
[28] Charles Wesley, "And Can It Be?" in _The Hymnal for Worship and Celebration_ (Waco, TX: Word Music, 1986), no. 203.
[29] Bauer, _Lexicon,_ 245.
[30] Ibid., 397.
[31] Ibid., 203.
[32] Stuart Briscoe, _1 Peter: Holy Living in a Hostile World_ , rev. ed., Understanding the Book Series (Wheaton, IL: Harold Shaw, 1992), 73.
[33] Edward Gordon Selwyn, _The First Epistle of St. Peter,_ 2nd ed. (New York: St. Martin's, 1961), 153.
[34] Bauer, _Lexicon_ , 412.
[35] See William R. Schoedel, _Ignatius of Antioch: A Commentary on the Letters of Ignatius of Antioch_ , ed. Helmut Koester, Hermeneia —A Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), 66.
[36] Ignatius of Antioch, _Ephesians_ 9.1.
[37] Warren W. Wiersbe, _Be Hopeful_ (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1982), 57.
[38] See Robertson McQuilkin, _An Introduction to Biblical Ethics_ , rev. and updated ed. (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 1995), 483–486.
[39] Sam Tsang, _From Slaves to Sons: A New Rhetoric Analysis on Paul's Slave Metaphors in His Letter to the Galatians_ (New York: Peter Lang, 2005), 22.
[40] Mark Hassall, "Romans and Non-Romans," in _The Roman World_ , vol. 2, ed. John Wacher (London: Routledge, 2002), 685–700.
[41] Tsang, _From Slaves to Sons_ , 39.
[42] See Barclay M. Newman, Jr., _A Concise Greek-English Dictionary of the New Testament_ (Stuttgart, Germany: German Bible Society, 1993), 27; Bauer, Lexicon, 115–116.
[43] For example, see J. Ramsey Michaels, _1 Peter_ , Word Biblical Commentary 49 (Waco, TX: Word Book, 1988), 169.
[44] Ibid., 175–176.
[45] Bauer, _Lexicon_ , 569.
[46] In the Greek language, writers can express four different types of "conditional" phrases. That is, the "if . . . then" construction can imply different types of circumstances, each with varying degrees of likelihood depending on the words and grammatical forms used. A first class condition assumes the "if" part of the phrase is true. For example, Satan said to Jesus, "If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread" (Matt. 4:3). A second class condition assumes the "if" is not true —"If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bond-servant of Christ" (Gal. 1:10). The third class condition regards the "if" statement to be uncertain —only when the "if" statement occurs does the "then" statement prove true. This is the form used in 1 Peter 3:13. Peter is saying, "If you prove zealous for what is good, then who is there to harm you?" He emphasizes the unlikelihood of harsh treatment as long as we are living as we should. But then, in 3:14, Peter follows up the third class condition with a fourth "if . . . then" construction. The fourth class condition describes an unlikely "if" that results in an unlikely "then." "But even if you should suffer for the sake of righteousness (which is not common), then . . ."
[47] Bauer, _Lexicon_ , 863.
[48] Ibid., 805.
[49] "The Apostles' Creed," in _The Hymnal for Worship and Celebration_ (Waco, TX: Word Music, 1986), no. 716.
[50] Paul sometimes uses the terms "flesh" and "spirit" to contrast the physical body which dies and the spiritual part of a person that continues on (1 Cor. 5:5). Peter uses the same contrast in 1 Peter 4:6. It is also noteworthy that the apostle John uses the term "in the spirit" to refer to a translation to the "spirit realm," where he is able to perceive things unseen in the physical world (Rev. 4:2).
[51] R. H. Charles, ed., _The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament_ (Oxford: Clarendon, 1913), 191; available at <http://www.ccel.org/c/charles/otpseudepig/enoch/ENOCH_1.HTM>.
[52] Charles, ed., _The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha_ , 193–195.
[53] For alternative views on this passage, see Allen P. Ross, "Genesis," in _The Bible Knowledge Commentary: Old Testament_ , ed. John F. Walvoord and Roy B. Zuck (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985), 36–37.
[54] Bauer, _Lexicon_ , 431.
[55] See Eph. 6:11-13; Phil. 2:25; 2 Tim. 2:3-4; Phlm. 1:2.
[56] Kenneth Wuest, _Wuest's Word Studies from the Greek New Testament for the English Reader_ , 4 vols. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1973), 2.110.
[57] _Martyrdom of Polycarp_ , 9.1–10.1; 11.1–12.1. Translation from Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, _The Ante-Nicene Fathers: The Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus_ , vol. 1, ed. Philip Schaff (Grand Rapids: Christian Classics Ethereal Library), 117–118. The early Christians refused to honor all "the gods" of Rome, so the Romans called them "atheists."
[58] See, for example, Rom. 13:11; Heb. 1:2; Jas. 5:3; 1 Jn. 2:18; Rev. 1:3.
[59] Bauer, _Lexicon_ , 622–623.
[60] This "From My Journal" feature has been adapted from Charles R. Swindoll, _The Finishing Touch: Becoming God's Masterpiece_ (Dallas: Word, 1994), 550–552. Used by permission.
[61] "How Firm a Foundation," in _Hymnal for Worship and Celebration_ (Waco, TX: Word, 1985), no. 275.
[62] Lewis, _Problem of Pain_ , 106.
[63] Bauer, _Lexicon_ , 622–623.
[64] See J. E. Johnson, "Spurgeon, Charles Haddon," in _The Concise Evangelical Dictionary of Theology_ , ed. Walter A. Elwell (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1991), 488.
[65] Charles Haddon Spurgeon, _Lectures to My Students_ (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1954), 7–8.
[66] Bauer, _Lexicon_ , 683.
[67] See Gen. 48:15; Pss. 23; 100:3; Isa. 53:6-7; Luke 15:3-7; John 10:1-16.
[68] See Matt. 9:17; Mark 2:22; Luke 5:37-39; 1 Cor. 5:7; Heb. 12:24.
[69] See Luke 15:12-13; John 21:18; 1 Tim. 5:1-2, 11, 14; Titus 2:4, 6.
[70] Bauer, _Lexicon_ , 216.
[71] Wuest, _Word Studies_ , 2:127.
[72] Bauer, _Lexicon,_ 298.
[73] Ibid., 744–745.
[74] Ibid., 182.
[75] Ibid., 1. The Greek titles _Abaddōn_ [3] (transliterating ʾ _abaddon_ [H11]) and _Apollyōn_ [623] both mean "destroyer."
[76] J. Dwight Pentecost, _Your Adversary the Devil_ (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1969), 9.
[77] See Edwin M. Yamauchi, "Religions of the Biblical World: Persia," in _The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia_ , ed. Geoffrey W. Bromiley et al. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988), 4.123–129.
[78] See Robert P. Lightner, "Angels, Satan, and Demons: Invisible Beings that Inhabit the Spiritual World," in _Understanding Christian Theology_ , ed. Charles R. Swindoll and Roy B. Zuck (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2003), 572–573.
[79] See Roger M. Raymer, "1 Peter," in _The Bible Knowledge Commentary, New Testament Edition_ , ed. John F. Walvoord and Roy B. Zuck (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1983), 857.
[80] For discussions on the identification of "Babylon" in 1 Peter 5:13, see Edwin A. Blum, "1 Peter," in _The Expositor's Bible Commentary,_ vol. 12, ed. Frank E. Gaebelein (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1981), 253–254; Loenhard Goppelt, _A Commentary on 1 Peter_ , ed. Ferdinand Hahn, trans. and augmented by John E. Alsup (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 373–375; and R. C. H. Lenski, _The Interpretation of the Epistles of St. Peter, St. John, and St. Jude_ (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1966), 231–232.
[81] Acts 1:15-22; 2:14-40; 3:1-26; 4:8-12; 5:1-11.
[82] Papias of Hierapolis, _Fragments of Papias_ 6.1.
[83] Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, eds., _The Ante-Nicene Fathers: Translations of the Writings of the Fathers down to_ _325_ , vol. 1, _The Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus_ , American reprint ed. (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1899), 6.
[84] Tertullian, _Prescription against the Heretics_ 36.
[85] See introduction to 1 Peter for a discussion of Silvanus's involvement in the writing of the letter.
[86] See Kenneth O. Gangel, "2 Peter," in _The Bible Knowledge Commentary_ : _New Testament_ , ed. John F. Walvoord and Roy B. Zuck (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1983), 860.
[87] See Edwin A. Blum, "2 Peter," in _The Expositor's Bible Commentary,_ vol. 12, ed. Frank E. Gaebelein (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1981), 257–261.
[88] See Justin Martyr, _1 Apology_ 26.
[89] See also John 1:1, 18; Acts 20:28; Rom. 9:5; 2 Thes. 1:12; Titus 2:13; Heb. 1:8.
[90] Johannes E. Louw and Eugene A. Nida, eds., _Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains_ , vol. 1, _Introduction and Domains,_ 2nd ed. (New York: United Bible Societies, 1988), § 68.64.
[91] Gangel, "2 Peter," 867.
[92] Blum, "2 Peter," 273.
[93] See examples where individuals study and interpret Scripture in Deuteronomy 17:19, Daniel 9:2, and Luke 10:26. This does not mean, however, that believers should avoid studying Scripture with trained and gifted teachers or in community, a practice also prevalent in the Bible (Neh. 8:8; Acts 7:30-31; 1 Thes. 5:27).
[94] Christopher Edwards, _Crazy for God_ (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1979), ix–x.
[95] See Gerhard Kittel and Gerhard Friedrich, _Theological Dictionary of the New Testament: Abridged in One Volume_ , trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985), 28.
[96] Bauer, _Lexicon_ , 23–24.
[97] Warren Wiersbe, _Be Alert_ (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1984), 38.
[98] See Irenaeus, _Against Heresies_ 1.16; Tertullian, _On the Soul_ 34.
[99] Justin Martyr, _1 Apology_ 26. See discussion on this statue in Leslie William Barnard, ed., _St. Justin Martyr: The First and Second Apologies_ , Ancient Christian Writers, vol. 56 (New York: Paulist Press, 1997), 136n181.
[100] Irenaeus, _Against Heresies_ 1.26.1.
[101] See Oskar Skarsaune, _In the Shadow of the Temple: Jewish Influences on Early Christianity_ (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2002), 246–253.
[102] William Barclay, _The Letters of James and Peter,_ 2nd ed., Daily Study Bible (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960), 377.
[103] Bauer, _Lexicon_ , 666.
[104] See parallel in Jude 1:6 as well as the in-depth discussion of this understanding of Genesis 6 in my comments on 1 Peter 3:19-20, pages 222–225.
[105] Luke 8:31; Rom. 10:7; Rev. 9:1-2, 11; 11:7; 17:8; 20:1, 3.
[106] These four quotations are from the King James Version.
[107] Irenaeus, _Against Heresies_ 1.1.2. In Roberts et al., eds., _The Ante-Nicene Fathers_ , 1:315.
[108] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, _The Cost of Discipleship_ , rev. ed. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995), 44–45.
[109] This Application has been adapted from material originally published as "Think with Discernment" in Charles R. Swindoll, _Come Before Winter and Share My Hope_ (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995), 18–19.
[110] James D. G. Dunn and John W. Rogerson, eds. _Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible_ (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 36.
[111] Thorkild Jacobsen, "The Eridu Genesis," _Journal of Biblical Literature_ 100, no. 4 (1981): 524.
[112] Ibid., 525.
[113] John H. Tullock, _The Old Testament Story_ , 6th ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1981), 43.
[114] James George Frazer, _Folk-Lore in the Old Testament: Studies in Comparative Religion, Legend and Law_ , vol. 1 (New York: MacMillan, 1923), 183–184.
[115] Louw and Nida, eds., _Greek-English Lexicon_ , §27.24.
[116] Ibid., §31.79.
[117] On the history of the New Testament canon, see F. F. Bruce, _The Canon of Scripture_ (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1988); Bruce M. Metzger, _The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development, and Significance_ (Oxford: Clarendon, 1987).
| {
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Biografia
Primi anni
Bokassa ("figlio del macellaio" in lingua bantù) nacque a Bobangi, nella colonia francese dell'Ubangi-Sciari, oggi Repubblica Centrafricana. Il padre si chiamava Mindogon Mbougdoulou, era un capovillaggio ed insieme alla moglie Marie Yokowo ebbe dodici figli, che trascorsero l'infanzia nel borgo di M'Baka situato nella prefettura di Lobaye, a circa 80 chilometri a sud ovest di Bangui.
Nel 1927, Mbougdoulou, ascoltando i consigli del "santone" Karnu, decise di resistere alla dominazione francese: sconfitto, venne brutalmente ucciso il 13 novembre dello stesso anno e una settimana dopo anche la madre di Bokassa decise di suicidarsi perché incapace di sopportare il dolore della perdita del coniuge. Rimasto orfano, i suoi parenti decisero di assicurargli l'iscrizione in una scuola di missionari cattolici.
Si impegnò ad imparare bene la lingua francese ed un suo insegnante, vedendo che era molto attaccato ad un libro di grammatica scritto da Jean-Baptiste de La Salle (il cui cognome veniva comunemente abbreviato BDL) decise di chiamare il ragazzo Jean-Bedel (trascrizione fonetica francese della predetta abbreviazione). I suoi istitutori tentarono finanche di instradarlo verso l'ordinazione sacerdotale, ma ben presto desistettero in quanto non ravvisarono in lui né la cultura né la bontà d'animo per poter intraprendere il ministero pastorale cattolico: in ogni caso, Bokassa riuscì ad ottenere il diploma.
Dopo aver lavorato come cuoco a Brazzaville (e aver finanche progettato di emigrare in Francia per aprire un caffè a Fréjus), il 19 maggio 1939 si arruolò volontario (su suggerimento di suo nonno M'Balanga) nelle "Troupes coloniales" francesi. Iniziò così la sua carriera di soldato professionista, che alla fine della seconda guerra mondiale lo avrebbe portato ad ottenere il grado di sergente maggiore (novembre 1941) nonché due importanti decorazioni: la Legion d'onore e la Croce di guerra.
Successivamente, frequentò la scuola di formazione per ufficiali a Saint-Louis, in Senegal. Il 7 settembre 1950 Bokassa si trasferì in Indocina come esperto di trasmissioni e venne dislocato a Saigon; il militare centrafricano partecipò ad alcune battaglie della guerra d'Indocina ed il suo periodo di servizio si concluse nel marzo del 1953.
Continuò la sua carriera militare e il 1º luglio 1961 venne promosso al grado di capitano. Lasciò l'esercito francese nel 1962 per arruolarsi nell'esercito della neocostituita Repubblica Centrafricana: data la sua carriera pregressa e complice il fatto di essere cugino del presidente in carica David Dacko e nipote dell'ex primo ministro Barthélemy Boganda, si trovò automaticamente ad essere l'esponente più prestigioso di tale arma, sicché gli venne subito attribuito il grado di comandante e a stretto giro quello di colonnello con funzione di capo di stato maggiore delle forze armate.
Il governo, la dittatura e l'impero
Divenuto capo indiscusso delle forze armate centrafricane, il 1º gennaio del 1966, approfittando di un momento in cui la nazione versava in gravi difficoltà economiche, Bokassa esautorò l'autocratico Dacko con un colpo di Stato (grazie al decisivo appoggio del generale Alexandre Banza, comandante della base militare di Camp Kassaï, a nord-est di Bangui) ed assunse il potere come presidente della Repubblica e capo dell'unico partito politico legalmente ammesso, il Movimento per l'Evoluzione Sociale dell'Africa Nera (MESAN). Il 4 gennaio dello stesso anno Bokassa abolì la costituzione del 1959 ed iniziò a governare per decreto.
Bokassa si preoccupò immediatamente di legittimare il proprio potere a livello internazionale: il primo leader straniero a stringere alleanza con lui, in aprile, fu il presidente del Ciad François Tombalbaye, cui si accodarono presto altri capi di Stato africani. Il dittatore voleva soprattutto accreditarsi come alleato credibile della Francia, dichiarandosi ammiratore del presidente Charles de Gaulle e non perdendo occasione per ribadire di essere cittadino francese. Il governo di Parigi era però reticente ad accordare il proprio sostegno e a nulla valse, il 7 luglio 1966, l'incontro che Bokassa e Banza ebbero col primo ministro Georges Pompidou. Il governo di Bangui a quel punto minacciò di uscire dalla zona del franco CFA e di iniziare a battere la propria moneta, sicché la Francia, pur non credendo alla veridicità del proposito, decise di placare l'animo del dittatore invitandolo in visita ufficiale a Parigi il 17 novembre 1966, gesto che fu interpretato da Bokassa come un'implicita legittimazione del colpo di Stato.
La diffidenza della Francia verso Bokassa sfociava, nella persona di De Gaulle, in aperto disprezzo: il "padre della Quinta Repubblica" infatti si riferiva al dittatore chiamandolo soudard (villano) e couillon (coglione) e non sopportava che costui gli si rivolgesse, nella corrispondenza e durante gli incontri ufficiali, con l'appellativo papa. Nel corso della seconda visita ufficiale a Parigi, nel febbraio 1969, alla richiesta del generale di smetterla di chiamarlo così, Bokassa rispose «d'accord, père» («va bene, padre»). I rapporti non furono idilliaci nemmeno col successore, Pompidou, chiamato da Bokassa frère (fratello), mentre si rivelarono decisamente cordiali con Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, soprannominato cousin (cugino).
Nell'aprile del 1969 Banza tentò di deporre Bokassa con un colpo di Stato, ma il dittatore ne fu informato preventivamente e sgominò il piano tendendo un'imboscata alle forze del suo ministro, che venne subito messo a morte: la posizione del leader centrafricano ne uscì ulteriormente rafforzata. Nel marzo del 1972 si autoproclamò presidente a vita. Scongiurò un altro colpo di Stato nel dicembre del 1974 e sopravvisse ad un attentato alla sua vita realizzato nel febbraio 1976. Dopo l'incontro con il leader libico Gheddafi avvenuto nel settembre del 1976, Bokassa decise di convertirsi all'islamismo e cambiò il suo nome in Salah Eddine Ahmed Bokassa. Si ritiene che questa sia stata una mossa calcolata per avere gli aiuti finanziari libici e non certo dettata da motivi spirituali: a riprova di ciò, riabbracciò infatti il cattolicesimo dopo pochi mesi.
Nel settembre del 1976 Bokassa sciolse il governo e lo rimpiazzò con il Consiglio della rivoluzione centrafricana. Il 4 dicembre 1976, al congresso del MESAN, Bokassa dichiarò la trasformazione della repubblica in monarchia e la nascita dellImpero Centrafricano. Promulgò una costituzione imperiale, abiurò la fede islamica e il 4 dicembre del 1977, esattamente un anno dopo la trasformazione monarchica, si autoproclamò imperatore col nome di Bokassa I, attenendosi ad un solenne rituale: il titolo completo era Empereur de Centrafrique par la volonté du Peuple Centrafricain, uni au sein du parti politique national, le MESAN ("Imperatore del Centrafrica per volere del Popolo Centrafricano, unito nel seno del partito politico nazionale, il MESAN").
La cerimonia dell'incoronazione fu sfarzosa e Bokassa, con in mano lo scettro preziosissimo, emulo di Napoleone I e alla presenza del vescovo di Bangui, suo cugino, cinse la corona da solo: era d'oro massiccio, tempestata da 5000 diamanti e realizzata in Francia come tutti gli altri accessori. Il corteo imperiale era partito dal palazzo del Rinascimento, sede della corte, in direzione della cattedrale: il cocchio, color verde-oro con l'aquila araldica, era trainato da bianchi cavalli normanni e portava la coppia imperiale e il principe ereditario Jean-Bedel di quattro anni; Catherine sfoggiava un manto di ermellino, come il consorte, e un diadema aureo. Concluso il rito, Bokassa I si sedette sul gigantesco trono, a forma di aquila, di bronzo dorato, del peso di due tonnellate e costellato da perle e un milione di cristalli. Seguì, infine, il lauto banchetto con le più costose prelibatezze e il personale in costume ottocentesco. Deposta la pesante corona, il monarca indossava un diadema d'oro riproducente un ramoscello di lauro.
Bokassa tentò di giustificare la sua azione con la scusa che creare una monarchia avrebbe aiutato lo Stato centrafricano ad elevarsi dal resto del continente e guadagnarsi il rispetto del mondo. La sua mossa però ebbe solo conseguenze negative: ad esempio, furono spesi più di 20 milioni di dollari per l'incoronazione (che nelle forme volle rispecchiare quella di Napoleone, idolo di Bokassa) e tale perdita gettò sul lastrico le già esigue risorse del povero stato.
Inoltre, nonostante fossero stati diramati moltissimi inviti, quasi nessun leader straniero partecipò all'evento e pertanto il prestigio tanto agognato non fu affatto raggiunto: addirittura Bokassa desiderava che fosse il papa Paolo VI ad incoronarlo, ma ciò non avvenne. Molti ritengono che Bokassa fosse malato di mente e confrontano le sue stravaganze egoistiche con l'altro ben noto dittatore africano Idi Amin. Come su quest'ultimo, si hanno notizie non confermate che occasionalmente Bokassa avesse mangiato carne umana. Anche se il nuovo impero era nominalmente una monarchia costituzionale, non vennero fatte riforme democratiche di rilievo, ma in compenso rimase ampiamente praticata la soppressione con tutti i mezzi degli oppositori politici.
Le torture erano largamente praticate, con la precisazione che talvolta ci partecipava lo stesso Bokassa. Nonostante fosse una dittatura, la Francia rimase il principale sponsor internazionale di Bokassa. Il presidente francese Valéry Giscard d'Estaing fu un alleato fedele dell'impero e supportò il regime con aiuti finanziari e militari. In cambio Bokassa ospitò molte volte d'Estaing in safari e lo rifornì di uranio, un minerale vitale per il programma nucleare militare francese. Con il passare degli anni, comunque, crebbero le critiche al presidente francese, specie quando venne rivelato che Bokassa gli regalava frequentemente diamanti.
La caduta
A partire dal gennaio del 1979 l'aiuto della Francia a Bokassa si interruppe dopo la sommossa di Bangui che portò ad un massacro di civili. Dal 17 al 19 aprile molti studenti vennero arrestati per aver protestato per l'obbligo di utilizzare le costose uniformi scolastiche imposte dal governo ed un centinaio di loro venne ucciso: venne addirittura detto che lo stesso Bokassa avesse partecipato al massacro e che avesse anche mangiato alcuni dei corpi.
L'ex presidente Dacko riuscì ad ottenere l'aiuto del governo francese e riuscì ad organizzare un colpo di Stato il 20 settembre 1979 utilizzando truppe di Parigi mentre Bokassa era in Libia: l'operazione Barracuda (così venne chiamato l'intervento, definito da Bokassa: «l'ultima spedizione coloniale francese») venne diretta con successo dal diplomatico francese Jacques Foccart.
Dacko rimase in carica come presidente fino a quando non venne rovesciato il 20 settembre 1981 da André Kolingba. Bokassa, frattanto, si era rifugiato in Costa d'Avorio, dove sarebbe rimasto per quattro anni. Un tribunale nazionale lo condannò a morte in contumacia nel dicembre del 1980 e tale provvedimento venne sponsorizzato e approvato da molti ex rivali politici del tiranno.
Nel 1985 Bokassa si trasferì in Francia, a 40 km da Parigi, dove gli venne concessa ospitalità per i suoi trascorsi nell'esercito. Risiedette con la numerosa famiglia nel castello di Hardricourt, ricostruito nell'Ottocento, che aveva acquistato. Il 24 ottobre del 1986 Bokassa fece inaspettatamente ritorno nel suo Paese, lanciandosi in paracadute da un aereo: nelle settimane precedenti, alcuni oppositori di Kolingba lo avevano contattato, informandolo di un imminente colpo di Stato in Repubblica Centrafricana e proponendogli di ritornare al potere, a patto che avesse garantito il mantenimento di relazioni fra il nuovo governo e la Francia. L'operazione fu un fallimento e poco dopo Bokassa venne arrestato e processato per alto tradimento, assassinio, cannibalismo ed appropriazione indebita.
Seguì il processo. Dopo alcuni mesi, Bokassa fu scagionato dalle accuse di cannibalismo, ma fu comunque condannato a morte il 12 giugno 1987. La pena fu commutata in ergastolo nel febbraio del 1988 e poi ancora ridotta a venti anni di carcere.
Con il ritorno della democrazia nel 1993, Kolingba concesse un'amnistia generale per tutti i condannati come uno degli ultimi atti della sua presidenza e Bokassa fu rilasciato il 1º agosto dello stesso anno, vivendo i suoi ultimi anni da uomo libero in una villa alla periferia di Bangui. A coloro che vennero ad intervistarlo parlò di un incontro segreto con il Papa, che a suo dire lo aveva incaricato, negli anni in cui era regnante, di una nuova evangelizzazione del continente africano. Dichiarò anche di sentirsi tradito da quella Francia per la quale aveva combattuto da giovane.
Morì di infarto a Bangui il 3 novembre del 1996, all'età di 75 anni. L'ex imperatore fu sepolto tra le rovine del suo palazzo di Berengo, a Bobangui (suo villaggio natale, a 65 km da Bangui), sotto un padiglione di legno vigilato da una statua che lo ritrae. Il capo della casa imperiale Bokassa, in esilio in Francia, è il principe della corona e imperatore titolare Jean-Bedel Bokassa II, figlio dell'ex imperatrice Catherine, che, bambino in uniforme, aveva partecipato con i genitori alla spettacolare incoronazione del 1977.
Ascendenza
Il più remoto antenato di Bokassa era Dobogon Gbo Hosegoton Bokassa, un uomo vissuto probabilmente nel XVII secolo. Lo stesso imperatore Bokassa era figlio di Mindogon Mbougdoulou, un nobile tribale che regnava sul loro luogo di nascita e che era sposato con Marie Yokowo. Probabilmente altri lontani parenti esistono dal lato degli zii di Bokassa, gli altri figli di suo nonno Mbalanga che ha avuto un totale di 31 figli.
Discendenza
Bokassa ha avuto 40 figli dalle sue 19 mogli. Tra questi ci sono:
Georges Bokassa, 24 dicembre 1949. ma mai legittimato al trono perché considerato debole.Tra gli altri, è il padre di Romuald Bokassa e Estelle-Marguerite Bokassa.
Martine Bokassa, nata il 2 febbraio 1953. Lei stessa è madre di sei figli, tra cui Jean-Barthélémy Dédéavode-Bokassa e Marie Catherine Yokowo Dédéavode-Bokassa.
Jean-Serge Bokassa, nato il 25 febbraio 1971. Dal 2016 è Ministro dell'interno della Repubblica Centrafricana. e tra il 2012 e il 2013 è stato Ministro della gioventù e dello sport.
Jean-Bédel Bokassa Jr., nato il 2 novembre 1973, ex-principe della Corona ed attuale capo del Casato di Bokassa come Jean-Bédel Bokassa II. Fu scelto nonostante avesse diversi fratelli e fratellastri più grandi.
Kiki Bokassa, un artista.
Lucienne Bokassa-Barbier-Mueller.
Bokassa adottò anche diversi bambini, tre dei quali erano africani e uno vietnamita.
Onorificenze
Onorificenze centrafricane
Onorificenze straniere
Note
Bibliografia
J. B. Bokassa, Ma vérité, Paris, 1985.
J. B. Bokassa, Saga Bokassa, Paris, 2000.
P. Péan, Bokassa Ier, Paris, 1977.
C. Ruffo, Papaia, Longanesi, Milano, 1980.
S. Smith - G. Faes, Bokassa 1er, Paris, 2000.
Voci correlate
Impero Centrafricano
Echi da un regno oscuro
Altri progetti
Collegamenti esterni
Nati nella Repubblica Centrafricana
Gran croce della Legion d'onore
Decorati con la Médaille militaire
Decorati con la Croce di Guerra 1939-1945 (Francia)
Imperatori del Centro Africa
Presidenti della Repubblica Centrafricana
Decorati con la Croix de guerre (Francia)
Persone condannate per crimini contro l'umanità | {
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} | 76 |
Q: Python - Initialise randomly set of different length vectors I'm trying to initialize randomly a list of vectors (or 1D array). The vectors don't always have the same length.
I reproduce a small example of my problem:
import numpy
l_vec = [5, 6, 4]
n_vec = len(l_vec)
w = numpy.array((n_vec,)).astype(object)
for i in range(len(l_vec)):
w[i] = numpy.random.rand(l_vec[i])
print i, w[i]
If you run it, you'll see that for w[0], there are no problem:
0 [ 0.10584519 0.90833169 0.94235319 0.34320398 0.71796362]
However, I have this error for the next one (when i=1):
IndexError: index 1 is out of bounds for axis 0 with size 1
How can I correct my code to be able to initialize randomly my set of (different lengths) vectors ?
If you could just tell me what's wrong with this code, I will also appreciate.
A: Replace w=np.array(...) with w=np.empty(...).
import numpy
l_vec = [5, 6, 4]
n_vec = len(l_vec)
w = numpy.empty((n_vec,)).astype(object)
for i in range(len(l_vec)):
w[i] = numpy.random.rand(l_vec[i])
print(i, w[i])
Take a look at the docs of np.array and np.empty.
| {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaStackExchange"
} | 7,580 |
Q: Processing radio buttons in php I have a form which involves a number of inserts, including a number of radio button pairs, which for some reason when selected are showing no changes in the database. I am using the same method for the radio buttons as I would use for any other input.
HTML form
<form action="" method="post">
<input type="hidden" name="apartmentID" value="<?php get_text_byID("SELECT apartmentID from apartment_details WHERE apartmentID=?", "apartmentID"); ?>"/>
<input id="name" name="name" value="<?php get_text_byID("SELECT name from apartment_details WHERE apartmentID=?", "name"); ?>"/> <div id="amenities">
<table>
<tr>
<th>Y</th>
<th>N</th>
<th>Amenity</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><input type="radio" value="1" name="wifi"/></td>
<td><input type="radio" value="0" name="wifi"/></td>
<td>Wifi</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><input type="radio" value="1" name="phone"/></td>
<td><input type="radio" value="0" name="phone"/></td>
<td>Phone</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><input type="radio" value="1" name="TV"/></td>
<td><input type="radio" value="0" name="TV"/></td>
<td>Television</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><input type="radio" value="1" name="washing_machine"/></td>
<td><input type="radio" value="0" name="washing_machine"/></td>
<td>Washing machine</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><input type="radio" value="1" name="ac"/></td>
<td><input type="radio" value="0" name="ac"/></td>
<td>Air Conditioner</td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>
<button type="submit" name="apartment_details">Save Details</button>
</form>
PHP
if (isset($_POST['apartment_details'])) {
include 'connect.php';
$apartmentID = (isset($_POST['apartmentID']) ? $_POST['apartmentID'] : null);
$name = (isset($_POST['name']) ? $_POST['name'] : null);
$wifi = (isset($_POST['wifi']) ? $_POST['wifi'] : null);
$phone = (isset($_POST['phone']) ? $_POST['phone'] : null);
$TV = (isset($_POST['TV']) ? $_POST['TV'] : null);
$washing_machine = (isset($_POST['washing_machine']) ? $_POST['washing_machine'] : null);
$ac = (isset($_POST['ac']) ? $_POST['ac'] : null);
$stmt = $conn->prepare("INSERT INTO apartment_details (apartmentID, name, wifi, phone, TV, washing_machine, ac) VALUES (?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ? ,? ) ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE apartmentID = VALUES(apartmentID), name= VALUES(name), wifi = VALUES(wifi), phone = VALUES(phone), TV = VALUES(TV), washing_machine = VALUES(washing_machine), ac = VALUES(ac)");
$stmt->bind_param('sssssss', $apartmentID, $name, $wifi, $phone, $TV, $washing_machine, $ac);
$stmt->execute();
$conn->close();
}
A: You radio buttons are set as either value 0 or 1; they are not the same thing as check boxes. Try this instead (edited to set values:
if ($_POST['wifi'] == 0) {
$wifi = 0;
}
else {
$wifi = 1;
}
Note: you can set them as a default selected value in your form, or just pull the value from the database and have that as the selected value in the form.
| {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaStackExchange"
} | 9,344 |
Q: Silverlight DataGrid makes the first selection when ItemsSource is Set, how can turn this off? I am using Silverlight 4 DataGrid with DataPager.
When the DataGrid's ItemsSource is set, it selects the first row in the list.
PagedCollectionView _list = new PagedCollectionView(myDataCollection);
_dataPager.Source = _list;
_dataGrid.ItemsSource = _list;
The problem is that I have _dataGrid.SelectionChanged event, which I want to fire only when users makes a selection change. But it is firing that event because datagrid defaults select to the first item.
I would either switch the event to leftMouseButtonDown, but that also does not work very well. Any suggestions?
Thanks,
Voodoo
A: Try setting "DataGrid.IsSynchronizedWithCurrentItem" to false. I bet it has something to do with this. Since you're using a CollectionView, the selected item in the DataGrid will be in sync with the CollectionView's CurrentItem, which automatically gets set to the first item when the CollectionView gets initialized.
| {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaStackExchange"
} | 131 |
Sun Tzu and Sun Pin's timeless strategic masterpieces are constantly analyzed and interpreted by leaders worldwide. For the first time ever, author D.E. Tarver explains the classic texts, The Art of War by Sun Tzu and The Art of Warfare by Sun Pin, in plain English.
War is the perfect training ground for teaching Sun Tzu's ancient philosophies to attaining victory over an opponent. The Art of War outlines the steps for outwitting the enemy, be it an army of 10,000 or an unresponsive client.
Knowing when to stand up to an opponent, and when to back down.
How to be confident without being overly confident.
Considering the cost of the campaign before launching an attack.
Avoiding an opponent's strengths and striking his weaknesses.
"The one who is first to the field of battle has time to rest, while his opponent rushes into the conflict weary and confused. The first will be fresh and alert. The second will waste most of his energy trying to catch up." Be the first to the battlefield with The Art of War. | {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaC4"
} | 3,529 |
\section{Introduction}
In the membrane paradigm approach to black holes,
the horizon is replaced by a time-like surface (the stretched horizon)
located infinitesimally
close to the true mathematical horizon \cite{Thorne:iy},
\cite{Susskind:2005js}.
The stretched horizon behaves as an effective membrane endowed with
physical properties such as electrical conductivity and viscosity.
Furthermore, in the case of black branes
(black holes with translationally invariant horizons) it was shown
\cite{Kovtun:2003wp} that
the charge density $j^0$ defined on the
stretched horizon by the standard membrane paradigm construction
\cite{Parikh:1997ma} obeys
the diffusion equation
\begin{equation}
\partial_t j^0 = D \nabla^2 j^0
\label{deq}
\end{equation}
in the long-wavelength (hydrodynamic) limit. (The translational
invariance of the horizon guarantees the existence of the
hydrodynamic limit.)
The corresponding dispersion relation has the form
\begin{equation}
\omega = - i D q^2\,,
\label{disp}
\end{equation}
where $q$ is the momentum along the stretched horizon.
For a generic black brane metric,
the diffusion coefficient $D$ can be
determined explicitly in terms of the metric components \cite{Kovtun:2003wp}.
Moreover, for the so-called shear mode of the {\it metric} fluctuation,
one can write an effective Maxwell action and an effective charge density on the stretched horizon
satisfying Eq.~(\ref{deq}) with the shear mode damping constant determined by the ambient metric.
A number of examples considered in \cite{Kovtun:2003wp} suggested that 1) the membrane's
shear mode damping constant was equal to $1/4\pi T$ independently of the background metric and 2)
the membrane's diffusion and the shear mode damping constants coincided, respectively,
with the appropriate diffusion and damping constants
of the currents and stress-energy tensors in the dual theory computed via the AdS/CFT correspondence.
Using Einstein's equations, Buchel and Liu \cite{Buchel:2003tz} proved that the
suggestion 1) is universally true for the class
of metrics considered in \cite{Kovtun:2003wp}.
(An alternative proof of the universality of the membrane's coefficient employing the Lorentz boost of the black brane metric
can be found in Section 6 of the review \cite{Son:2007vk}.)
This proof, however, cannot be viewed as the proof of the universality
of the shear viscosity to entropy density ratio in the
dual field theory without the proof of the suggestion 2). One of the goals of the present Essay is to supply this
missing link by proving the suggestion 2).
To prove it, we need either to understand why the membrane paradigm
appears to ``know'' about the gauge/gravity duality or to derive the generic formulas of \cite{Kovtun:2003wp}
for the diffusion and damping constants by holographic means only, without appealing to membrane paradigm constructions.
In this Essay, we focus on the latter alternative.
More generally, our goal is to show that at least
some of the properties of the stretched horizon are encoded
in the quasinormal spectrum
of the corresponding black hole (brane). (For a review
on quasinormal modes see e.g. \cite{Kokkotas:1999bd}.)
We compute analytically the
lowest quasinormal frequency of
a vector-type
fluctuation
in the background of a black brane and show that
it is of the form (\ref{disp}) with the coefficient $D$ identical
to the diffusion coefficient computed in \cite{Kovtun:2003wp} using
the ``membrane paradigm'' approach. Since in the gauge/gravity duality
the quasinormal spectrum of bulk field fluctuations is identified with the poles of the retarded
correlators of operators dual to the fluctuations \cite{Son:2002sd}, our result
proves the suggestion 2) and, together with
Ref.~\cite{Buchel:2003tz} (or Ref.~\cite{Son:2007vk}), provides yet another
proof of the universality of the shear viscosity to entropy density ratio in
thermal field theories in the regime described by dual classical gravity.
(The other two proofs are Refs.~\cite{Kovtun:2004de}, \cite{Buchel:2004qq}. Clearly, all three approaches are interrelated.)
\section{Quasinormal spectrum of a $U(1)$ fluctuation in a black brane background}
\label{maxwell}
A black p-brane is represented by the metric
\begin{equation}
ds^2 = G_{tt}(r) dt^2 + G_{rr}(r) dr^2 + G_{xx}(r) \sum_{i=1}^{p}(d x^i)^2\,.
\label{metric}
\end{equation}
Such metrics typically result from a dimensional reduction of
higher-dimensional supergravity solutions.
As a guide, one can have in mind the near-extremal black three-brane
solution of type II supergravity dimensionally reduced on a five-sphere
\begin{equation}\label{exa}
ds^2 = \frac{r^2}{R^2}( -f d t^2 + d x^2 + d y^2 + d z^2)
+ \frac{R^2}{r^2f}d r^2, \qquad
f = 1 - \frac{r_0^4}{r^4}\,,
\end{equation}
but our discussion will be quite general.
We assume that the metric (\ref{metric}) has a translationally-invariant
event horizon at $r=r_0$ that extends in $p$ spatial dimensions
parametrized by the coordinates $x^i$.
It will be convenient to introduce a dimensionless coordinate
$u=r_0^2/r^2$ that maps the semi-infinite interval
$r\in [r_0,\infty)$ into a finite one, $u\in [0,1]$.
The metric becomes
\begin{equation}
ds^2 = g_{tt}(u) dt^2 + g_{uu}(u) du^2 + g_{xx}(u) \sum_{i=1}^{p}(d x^i)^2\,,
\label{metricu}
\end{equation}
where the components are related to the ones in Eq.~(\ref{metric})
by trivial redefinitions \cite{Kovtun:2003wp}.
We assume that near the horizon, i.e. in the limit $u\rightarrow 1$,
the components $g_{tt}$, $g_{uu}$, $g_{xx}$ behave as
\begin{subequations}
\begin{eqnarray}
g_{tt} & = & - (1-u)\,\Go + O(1-u)\,, \\
g_{uu} & = & \frac{\Gu}{1-u} + O(1)\,, \\
g_{xx} & = & O(1)\,,
\label{assumptions}
\end{eqnarray}
\end{subequations}
where $\Go$ and $\Gu$ are positive constants.
We also introduce a thermal factor function
\begin{equation}\label{factor}
f(u) = - g_{tt}(u)/g_{xx}(u)\,.
\end{equation}
The function $f(u)$ has a
simple zero at $u=1$.
The Hawking temperature associated with the
background
(\ref{metricu}) is
\begin{equation}
\label{eq:membrane T}
T=\frac{1}{4\pi} \sqrt{\frac{\Go}{\Gu}} \,.
\end{equation}
In our example of the black three-brane solution (\ref{exa}),
the metric in the new coordinates is given by
\begin{equation}
ds^2 =
\frac{(\pi T R)^2}u
\left( -f(u) dt^2 + dx^2 + dy^2 +dz^2 \right)
+{R^2\over 4 u^2 f(u)} du^2\,, \qquad
f = 1 - u^2\,.
\label{near_horizon_u}
\end{equation}
Consider now fluctuations of a $U(1)$ field $A_\mu (u,t,x)$ in the
background (\ref{metricu}). This field can be viewed e.g. as a graviphoton
of the dimensional reduction.
Translational invariance of the horizon implies that the fluctuation
can be taken to be proportional
to $e^{-i \omega t + i \bf{q}\bf{x}}$, and we choose the spatial momentum
to be directed along $x\equiv x^p$.
In the gauge $A_u=0$, Maxwell's equations
$\d_\mu \left( \sqrt{-g} \, F^{\mu\nu} \right) = 0$ for the components
$A_t(u,t,x)$ and $A_x(u,t,x)$ read
\begin{subequations}
\begin{eqnarray}
& & g^{tt}\, \omega \, A_t' - q \, g^{xx} \, A_x' =0\,,\label{max1}\\
& & \d_u \left( \sqrt{-g} g^{tt} g^{uu} A_t'\right) -
\sqrt{-g} g^{tt} g^{xx} \left( \omega q A_x + q^2 A_t \right) =0\,,
\label{max2}\\
& & \d_u \left( \sqrt{-g} g^{xx} g^{uu} A_t'\right) -
\sqrt{-g} g^{tt} g^{xx} \left( \omega q A_t + \omega^2 A_x \right) =0\,,
\label{max3}
\end{eqnarray}
\end{subequations}
where prime denotes the derivative with respect to $u$.
All other components of $A_\mu (u,t,x)$ decouple, and thus can be
consistently set to zero.
For a gauge-invariant combination $E_x = \omega A_x + q A_t$
(the component of the electric field
parallel to the brane)
the system (\ref{max1})-(\ref{max3})
yields the following equation
\begin{equation}
E_x'' + \Biggl[ {{\textswab{w}}^2 f'\over f ({\textswab{w}}^2 - {\textswab{q}}^2 f)} +
\d_u \log{\left( \sqrt{-g} g^{tt} g^{uu}\right) } \Biggr] E_x' +
{ (2\pi T)^2 g^{xx}\over f g^{uu}}\, \Biggl( {\textswab{w}}^2 - {\textswab{q}}^2 f \Biggr)\, E_x =0\,,
\label{gineq}
\end{equation}
where ${\textswab{w}} = \omega/2\pi T$, ${\textswab{q}} = q/2\pi T$.
The differential
equation (\ref{gineq}) has a singular point at $u=1$ with the exponents
$\alpha_{\pm} = \pm i {\textswab{w}}/2$ corresponding to the waves
emerging from and disappearing into the horizon.
Imposing the incoming wave boundary condition
at the horizon, one can write the solution as
\begin{equation}
E_x (u) = f^{-i {\textswab{w}}/2} F(u)\,,
\end{equation}
where $F(u)$ is regular at $u=1$.
At spatial infinity, $u=0$, we impose the Dirichlet boundary condition
$E_x(0)=0$.
We are interested in computing the quasinormal spectrum
of the fluctuation $E_x$ subject to the
boundary conditions stated above. Generically, we expect the spectrum
to consist of an infinite tower $\omega_n = \omega_n (q)$
of the discrete complex frequencies. The lowest frequency, $\omega_0(q)$,
can have a finite gap as $q\rightarrow 0$, or be gapless,
$\lim\limits_{q\rightarrow 0}\omega_0 (q)=0$.
We will now show that the frequency of the vector-like fluctuation
$E_x(u,t,x)$ is in fact gapless, and compute its value
in the limit of small $\omega$, $q$.
An analytic solution to Eq.~(\ref{gineq}) in the limit
${\textswab{w}} \ll 1$, ${\textswab{q}} \ll 1$ can be easily found.
Introducing a book-keeping parameter $\lambda$ and rescaling
${\textswab{w}} \rightarrow \lambda {\textswab{w}}$, ${\textswab{q}} \rightarrow \lambda {\textswab{q}}$,
one can obtain a perturbative solution
in the form
\begin{equation}
E_x (u, {\textswab{w}}, {\textswab{q}} )
= f^{-i {\textswab{w}}/2} \Biggl( F_0(u) + \lambda F_1(u) + O(\lambda^2)\Biggr)\,,
\end{equation}
where each of the functions $F_i(u)$ obeys an equation derived from
Eq.~(\ref{gineq}).
The equation for $F_0(u)$ has a generic solution
\begin{equation}
F_0 = C_0 + C_1 \int {({\textswab{w}}^2 -{\textswab{q}}^2 f) d u\over f\sqrt{-g}
g^{tt} g^{uu}}\,,
\label{fo}
\end{equation}
where $C_0$, $C_1$ are integration constants.
The integral in Eq.~(\ref{fo}) is logarithmically divergent at $u=1$.
Since
by construction $F_0$ is a regular function, we must put $C_1=0$.
The function $F_1(u)$ obeys an inhomogeneous equation whose
regular at $u=1$
solution is given by
\begin{equation}
F_1 (u) = - {i {\textswab{w}} C_0\over 2} \log{f} - {i C_0 \sqrt{-g(1)}f'(1)\over
2 {\textswab{w}} \gamma_0 \gamma_u} \int {({\textswab{w}}^2 -{\textswab{q}}^2 f) d u\over f\sqrt{-g}
g^{tt} g^{uu}}\,.
\label{f1}
\end{equation}
Given these explicit solutions, we use the Dirichlet condition
$E_x(0)=0$ to obtain the following equation for ${\textswab{w}}$
\begin{equation}
{\textswab{w}} - i {\textswab{q}}^2 { \sqrt{-g(1)}f'(1)\over
2 \gamma_0 \gamma_u} \int_{0}^{1} { d u\over \sqrt{-g}
g^{tt} g^{uu}}\, + O ({\textswab{w}}^2) =0\,.
\label{d1}
\end{equation}
Solving Eq.~(\ref{d1})
for $\omega$ and taking into account Eqs.~(\ref{assumptions}), (\ref{factor}),
we find the lowest quasinormal frequency
\begin{equation}
\omega = - i D q^2 + O(q^4)\,,
\label{q1}
\end{equation}
where the diffusion constant is given by
\begin{equation}
D = {\sqrt{-g(1)} \over g_{xx}(1) \sqrt{- g_{tt}(1)g_{uu}(1)}}
\int_{0}^{1} d u { - g_{tt}(u) g_{uu}(u)\over \sqrt{-g(u)}}\,.
\label{dc}
\end{equation}
The formula (\ref{dc}) coincides precisely with the result obtained
using the
membrane paradigm approach to the diffusion on stretched horizons
\cite{Kovtun:2003wp}.
As a simple application, consider computing a $U(1)$ charge diffusion constant
in a $p+1$-dimensional conformal field theory at strong coupling. The dual gravitational
AdS-Schwarzschild background is given by the metric
\begin{equation}
ds^2 = \frac{r^2}{R^2}( -f d t^2 + d \vec{x}^2_p )
+ \frac{R^2}{r^2 f}d r^2, \qquad
f = 1 - \frac{r_0^{p+1}}{r^{p+1}}\,.
\end{equation}
Changing variables to $u=r_o^2/r^2$ and using Eq.~(\ref{dc}) we
find\footnote{Formula (\ref{diffco}) was independently obtained in Ref.~\cite{Kovtun:2008kx}.}
\begin{equation}
D = \frac{p+1}{p-1}\, \frac{1}{4\pi T}\,.
\label{diffco}
\end{equation}
For strongly coupled CFT$\,_{2+1}$, CFT$\,_{3+1}$, CFT$\,_{5+1}$, Eq.~(\ref{diffco}) gives $D=3/4\pi T$,
$D=1/2\pi T$ and $D=3/8\pi T$, respectively
which coincides with the R-charge diffusion constants found by
computing the poles of the retarded correlators in AdS/CFT \cite{Policastro:2002se}, \cite{Herzog:2002fn}.
Other applications of the result (\ref{dc}) in AdS/CFT context can be found in \cite{Kovtun:2003wp}, \cite{Myers:2007we}.
\section{The shear mode gravitational perturbation and universality}
Gravitational perturbations $h_{\mu\nu}$ of the black brane background metric (\ref{metricu})
can be classified according to their transformation properties into
the scalar (sound mode), vector (shear mode)
and tensor types \cite{Kovtun:2005ev}. The vector type fluctuations $h_{ty}(u,t,x)$, $h_{xy}(u,t,x)$, $y\neq x$
can be treated as components of an effective $U(1)$ field $A_t = (g_{xx}^{-1})\, h_{ty}$, $A_x = (g_{xx}^{-1})\, h_{xy}$
satisfying the equation
$$
\partial_\mu \left( \sqrt{-g} \, g_{xx}^{\frac{p}{p-1}} \, F^{\mu\nu} \right) = 0
$$
in the black brane background \cite{Kovtun:2003wp}.
Thus the computation of the shear mode lowest quasinormal frequency and the damping constant
is essentially identical to the one presented in Section \ref{maxwell}. For $\omega\ll T$, $q\ll T$, the
frequency is given by $\omega = - i {\cal D} \, q^2 + O(q^4)$, where the shear mode damping constant is given by
\begin{equation}
{\cal D} = {\sqrt{-g(1)} \over \sqrt{- g_{tt}(1)g_{uu}(1)}}
\int_{0}^{1} d u { - g_{tt}(u) g_{uu}(u)\over g_{xx}(u) \sqrt{-g(u)}}\,.
\label{dampc}
\end{equation}
Again, the quasinormal mode
coefficient ${\cal D}$ coincides with the membrane's shear mode coefficient
obtained from the membrane paradigm \cite{Kovtun:2003wp}.
Buchel-Liu theorem \cite{Buchel:2003tz} or the argument presented in \cite{Son:2007vk}) show that
the membrane's shear mode coefficient \ref{dampc} is universal and equal to
to $1/4\pi T$ for all metrics of the form (\ref{metricu}).
We immediately conclude that all black brane metrics
of the form (\ref{metricu}) possess a universal,
purely imaginary gravitational quasinormal frequency
\begin{equation}
\omega = -i q^2/4\pi T + O(q^4)\,,
\label{universal}
\end{equation}
where $T$ is the Hawking temperature
associated with the metric (\ref{metricu}).
Moreover, since the gauge/gravity duality dictionary \cite{Son:2002sd},
\cite{Kovtun:2005ev} identifies the quasinormal frequency
(\ref{universal}) as the pole $\omega = - i \eta q^2 / s T + ...$
of the correlator of the shear components of the stress-energy tensor
in a finite temperature field theory dual to the background (\ref{metricu}), the universality of the quasinormal mode
implies the universality of the ratio of the shear viscosity $\eta$ to the entropy density $s$ in the dual theory.
\section{Discussion}
We have computed analytically the lowest quasinormal frequencies of the electromagnetic and
the shear mode gravitational fluctuations in a black brane background.
The spectrum of gravitational perturbations exhibits a universal, purely imaginary quasinormal frequency.
In the context of the gauge/gravity duality, this implies the universality of the viscosity to entropy
density ratio in the dual finite-temperature field theory. Transport coefficients of field theories
with gravity duals are completely determined (in the regime where the gravity dual description is valid)
by the lowest quasinormal frequencies of the dual gravity backgrounds.
On the one hand, at this point we can completely ignore any connection with the black hole membrane paradigm and
concentrate of computing the zero-frequency limits of relevant quasinormal spectra.
The simplest of such calculations is presented in this Essay. Along the same lines, one can show that the
tensor gravitational mode in a black brane background is not gapless (as expected from the absence
of a relevant conserved current in a dual theory). Computing the sound mode spectrum for a generic
gravitational background would be of great interest as it would provide formulas for the bulk viscosity
and the speed of sound similar to the expression for the charge diffusion coefficient in Eq.~(\ref{dc}).
Finding such formulas would be more difficult since the diagonal metric perturbations couple to fluctuations of
other background fields.
On the other hand, the fact that the membrane's diffusion coefficients are encoded in the quasinormal
spectrum is intriguing. In particular, universality of the lowest gravitational mode may reflect
horizon properties independently of any AdS/CFT interpretation. As noted in \cite{Kovtun:2003wp},
the ``shear viscosity'' of a stretched horizon of an asymptotically flat Schwarzschild black hole computed
in the ``old'' membrane paradigm framework \cite{Damour},
\cite{Parikh:1997ma}, still obeys $\eta/s = 1/4\pi$, despite the apparent absence
of a holographic dual theory and the fact that the ``bulk viscosity'' and the specific heat are negative.
Perhaps new approaches \cite{Hod:2006jw,Saremi:2007dn, Fujita:2007fg, Konraad, Bhattacharyya:2008jc,
Bhattacharyya:2008xc,Bhattacharyya:2008ji,Eling:2008af} will help to clarify these issues.
From a ``holographic'' perspective, it is clear that the stretched horizon is a slice
of an asymptotically AdS background located in the ``deep infrared''.
The imaginary part of the retarded correlators (whose zero-frequency limit gives transport coefficients via Green-Kubo
formulas) is independent of the background radial coordinate \cite{Son:2002sd}.
It is thus conceivable that the membrane paradigm and holography are intimately related to each other.
However, further work is required to quantify these philosophical sentiments.
\vspace{0.25cm}
\noindent
{\bf Acknowledgments}
\noindent
Research at Perimeter Institute is supported by the Government of Canada
through Industry Canada and by the Province of Ontario through
the Ministry of Research \& Innovation.
\vspace{0.5cm}
\noindent
{\bf Note added:}
{\small The original version of this note was submitted as an Essay to
2006 Gravity Research Foundation competition (see also Theory Canada II
conference http://pirsa.org/06060018). It has never appeared in print.
In 2007 and 2008, respectively, I was informed by Anshuman Maharana and by
Hong Liu that they independently obtained the same analytic result for the
lowest quasinormal frequency of the vector fluctuation.}
| {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaArXiv"
} | 5,727 |
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| {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaGithub"
} | 9,344 |
Q: Multi Level Summary of Unique Values Is there any way to take multi level summary of data, only choosing observations corresponding to unique values of a certain variable in sas?
I want to run something like a proc summary, but in each segment defined by TYPE i only want to sum the values corresponding to unique values of an identifier variable.
I'm giving below a mock data, and a template of the desired output.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1c-IsQpgtNR0EEKCdKZkU6WC6TBGNfUaiiS5ZYZJumkQ/edit?usp=sharing
A: I'm not sure I understand your question, but I suppose you need proc means.
proc means data=sashelp.class n sum;
class sex age;
var weight;
run;
| {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaStackExchange"
} | 7,752 |
Q: What is a decent beginner graph puzzle? I'm trying to get more acquainted with problems that require Graphs to be solved (are are best solved by graphs).
If someone has an old ACM Programming Competition problem that utilized graphs, or have another problem that they found particularly enlightening as they worked it out I would appreciate it. I want to familiarize myself with graphs, identifying graph-type problems easily and be able to utilize basic graph traversal algorithmns.
Anyone have a sweet problem they can send my way?
A: To get a better grasp of operations on graph, you might want to just implement some known Graph algorithms.
Try implementing a Nurikabe solver or generator. It would need quite a bit of classical graph operations.
A: You should be familiar with the Konigsberg Bridge Problem. You should also get really familiar with the types of data structures that often come up in graph theory problems.
A: Graphs can literally be used to model almost any problem. Topcoder.com Marathon Matches often lend themselves to graph-based solutions.
*
*The ProcessorScheduling problem could be solved with graphs.
*The GraphBuilder problem.
*The Distance problem.
*The MapMaker problem (weighted k-coloring problem, which is a classic computer science problem).
You might checkout some of these problems - and there are more where they came from.
A: I found this book to be extremely useful (Amazon Link):
Programming Challenges
Not only does it give a pretty indepth explanation of graphs, trees, basic data structures it gives a handful of programming challenges involving each type! This document is more useful to me than my textbook!
Here are some of the Graph Problems in it:
Problems involving Graph Traversal:
*
*Bicoloring : pg 203
*Playing With Wheels : pg 204
*The Tourist Guide : pg 206
*Slash Maze : pg 208
*Edit Step Ladders : pg 210
*Tower of Cubes : pg 211
*From Dusk Till Dawn : pg 213
*Hanoi Tower Troubles (Again!) : pg 215
Problems involving Graph Algorithms (Dijkstra's, Min Spanning Tree, etc):
*
*Freckles : pg 231
*The Necklace : pg 231
*Fire Station : pg 234
*Railroads : pg 235
*War : pg 237
*The Grand Dinner : pg 241
A: You don't say what language you are using (thinking of using). If I may, I'd suggest Lisp or Python. They're both good for easy graph manipulation. If you want to be really fancy, you might want to create a pretty output using PyGame.
As for problem, have a look at a simple program and convert it into a graph. Tip, each token is a node. Assuming that you have some loops and equations, then you could traverse the graph and identify what could be moved outside of the loop. Equations could be rearranged to be more "efficient".
My rationale for this problem is that it will help you as a programmer by seeing the sort of processes that might be going on inside the optimisation phases of a compiler.
BTW, if you give the above a go, have a look at Plex, it will save you a lot of time with parsers.
A: http://codekata.pragprog.com/2007/01/kata_nineteen_w.html
Hint: a DAWG is a pretty good method.
| {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaStackExchange"
} | 9,152 |
Sounds promising. Will those mags also do away with misaligned mag catch holes?
Shipping costs would make it quite the expensive item. So, I stick to filing for now.
Same here. WOC + Ra-Tech BGC for the win.
@elitesniper: issues with G&P mag? first of all, hard to come by Second, it has the same cool down as the WA mag. At least with a pro-win you get 40 shots on full auto before serious drop in fps and rps.
Hey Tinydata, I happen to have an aluminum 14.5" outer barrel that I don't use. It came with my M4A1. PM me if you are interested.
Alrighty, I just got confirmation that these G&P mags ARE actually Green Gas ready: Now if I had 200 USd to spare on 4 of these babies.
... and those new mags are already sould out on redWolf and WGCshop. | {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaC4"
} | 7,104 |
\section{Introduction}
Topological order \cite{PhysRevB.41.9377} is a gapped quantum phase of matter beyond the description of the Landau-Ginzburg theory of symmetry breaking. Many of the early examples of topological orders (which we will refer to as conventional topological orders) share the following properties: robust ground state degeneracy which depends on the topology of the manifold \cite{PhysRevB.41.9377}, the ground states are locally indistinguishable \cite{PhysRevB.41.9377,bravyi2010topological,bravyi2011short}, the existence of integer dimensional condensates and logical operators that can be topologically deformed \cite{PhysRevB.71.045110}, nontrivial braiding statistics of anyons or other \emph{topological excitations} (or topologically charged excitations) e.g., excitations which could not be created alone by local operators \cite{bravyi2011topological, Haah2013}, they are effectively described by topological quantum field theory (TQFT) at low temperatures \cite{PhysRevB.41.9377}, and they can be used to do fault-tolerant quantum information processing \cite{Kitaev20032}. And it is well known that, in 2D, a suitable linear combination of entanglement entropy with local contributions canceled is a topological invariance called the topological entanglement entropy \cite{PhysRevLett.96.110404,PhysRevLett.96.110405}. Topological entanglement entropy is a property of the ground state wave function and it has been used to identify quantum spin liquid phases \cite{isakov2011topological}. It also contains information about the ground state degeneracy \cite{PhysRevLett.111.080503} and the forms of low-energy excitations \cite{2015PhRvB..92k5139K}. Generalizations of topological entanglement entropy into 3D bulk \cite{PhysRevB.84.195120} and boundary \cite{2015PhRvB..92k5139K} are studied.
On the other hand, there are recently discussed 3D exotic topological ordered models \cite{PhysRevLett.94.040402,bravyi2011topological,PhysRevA.83.042330,PhysRevB.88.125122,PhysRevB.92.235136,PhysRevB.94.235157,2016PhRvB..94o5128W,Pretko2017,Vijay2017,Ma2017,Hsieh2017,Slagle2017} that do not fit very well into the pictures above. These models have recently been classified into fracton topological orders \cite{PhysRevB.94.235157}.
While fracton models have locally indistinguishable ground states when placed on nontrivial manifolds and the ground state degeneracy is robust under local perturbations \cite{bravyi2010topological,bravyi2011short}, the ground state degeneracy depends on the system size (geometry) rather than merely the topology of the manifold \cite{bravyi2011topological,Haah2013,PhysRevB.88.125122}. While fracton models possess topological excitations \cite{bravyi2011topological, Haah2013}, these topological excitations are constrained to move in lower dimensional submanifolds rather than the whole system \cite{PhysRevB.92.235136,PhysRevB.94.235157}. The condensates and logical operators can be fractal dimensional \cite{PhysRevB.88.125122,PhysRevB.94.235157} instead of integer dimensional. These models are beyond the description of TQFT.
There are type \Rom{1} and type \Rom{2} fracton topological orders. The type \Rom{1} fracton models include the Chamon-Bravyi-Leemhuis-Terhal (CBLT) model \cite{PhysRevLett.94.040402,bravyi2011topological}, the Majorana cubic model \cite{PhysRevB.92.235136}, and the X-cube model \cite{PhysRevB.94.235157}, etc.; they have integer dimensional condensates and logical operators. The type \Rom{2} fracton models include Haah's code \cite{PhysRevA.83.042330} and many of the fractal spin liquid models \cite{PhysRevB.88.125122} (see Sec.\ref{fractal model}). Type \Rom{2} fracton models possess fractal condensates and logical operators and the excitations are fully immobile \cite{PhysRevB.94.235157}.
For the ground state entanglement properties of fracton models, a relation to the ground state degeneracy is implied in \cite{PhysRevLett.111.080503} and the entanglement renormalization group transformation of Haah's code is studied in \cite{haah2014bifurcation}. In this work, we construct a direct analogy of topological entanglement entropy by doing linear combinations of entanglement entropies of different subsystems in such a way that the local contributions (from each boundary or corner of the subsystems) are canceled, and we call the linear combination $S_{nonlocal}$, the \emph{nonlocal entanglement entropy}. While $S_{nonlocal}$ is topologically invariant for conventional topological orders, it is geometry-dependent for fracton models.
Explicitly, we choose a conditional mutual information form used by Kim and Brown \cite{2015PhRvB..92k5139K} and define the nonlocal entanglement entropy $S_{nonlocal}\equiv (S_{BC}+S_{CD}-S_C-S_D)\vert_{\rho}=I(A:C\vert B)\vert_{\rho}$. Where $\rho=\vert\psi\rangle\langle \psi\vert$ with $\vert \psi\rangle$ being a ground state. The whole system is the union of subsystems $A$, $B$, $C$, and $D$ with $A$ and $C$ separated by distance $l\gg \xi$, the correlation length. One can check that the local contributions from the boundaries are canceled, and this is why we use the name ``nonlocal entanglement entropy." This construction can be used in any dimensions and an example in 2D is shown in Fig.\ref{ABCD}. With several assumptions about the condensates and topological excitations, a lower bound of $S_{nonlocal}$ is derived.
When applied to known conventional Abelian topological orders e.g. the 2D toric code model and the 3D toric code model \cite{2002JMP....43.4452D}, the lower bound is topologically invariant and it is identical to the exact result, i.e. the lower bound is saturated. When applied to fracton models \cite{PhysRevLett.94.040402,bravyi2011topological,PhysRevA.83.042330,PhysRevB.88.125122,PhysRevB.92.235136,PhysRevB.94.235157}, the lower bound depends on the sizes and relative locations of the subsystems. For fracton models, there exist choices of subsystems for which the lower bound is nonzero and extensive. It is possible to have $S_{nonlocal}>0$ for subsystem choices, that are expected to have $S_{nonlocal}=0$ if TQFT holds.
\begin{figure}[h]
\centering
\includegraphics[scale=0.350]{S_ABCD}
\caption{A system is divided into subsystems $A,B,C$ and $D$. Geometrically and topologically distinct choices will be used throughout the paper. They share the following features:
$\partial A\cap\partial C=0$ and other pairs of subsystems have shared boundaries.}\label{ABCD}
\end{figure}
This method observes an intimate relation between $S_{nonlocal}$ and topological excitations created in $D$ by a unitary operator $U$ stretched out in $CD$ which could be ``deformed" into a unitary operator $U^{def}$ in $AD$, and since deformable $U$ is intimately related to condensate operator $W$ (for more details of $U$, $U^{def}$ and condensate operator $W$ see Sec.\ref{The main result.}), this method observes an intimate relation between $S_{nonlocal}$ and ground state condensates as well.
This method allows a lower bound of $S_{nonlocal}$ to be obtained without calculating the entanglement entropy of any individual subsystem.
Furthermore, it provides us with a unified viewpoint to understand the topology-dependent $S_{nonlocal}$ in the conventional topological orders and the geometry-dependent $S_{nonlocal}$ in fracton topological orders. Also discussed is the stability of the lower bound under local perturbations.
Two additional papers appeared after our work which also study the entanglement entropy of fracton phases, using explicit computation \cite{2017arXiv171001744M} and tensor network \cite{2017arXiv171004220H}.
For non-Abelian models, some of our assumptions breakdown, and our original method does not apply. Nevertheless, a variant of our lower bound is applicable to non-Abelian models \cite{2018arXiv180101519S}.
The structure of the paper is as follows: In Sec.\ref{Sec.1} we provide a derivation of the lower bound from some assumptions about topological excitations and condensates; In Sec.\ref{Sec.2} we apply our lower bound to several exactly solved Abelian stabilizer models of 2D, 3D conventional topological orders and type \Rom{1}, type \Rom{2} fracton topological orders. In Sec.\ref{Sec.3} we discuss the stability of the lower bound under local perturbations. Sec.\ref{Sec.4} is discussion and outlook.
\section{The lower bound}\label{Sec.1}
\subsection{A few notations and definitions}
We will consider a infinite system without boundaries. The system is divided into subsystems $A$, $B$, $C$, $D$ (nonoverlapping regions in real space, the union of which is the whole system). Each subsystem has a size large compared to the correlation length $\xi$, and the subsystems $A$ and $C$ are separated by a distance much larger than the correlation length. One example is shown in Fig.\ref{ABCD}, and similar constructions can apply to any dimensions. For all the examples in this paper, we have chosen $B$, $C$, $D$ to be local subsystems while $A$ is not, but there exist other possible choices, say $A$, $B$, $C$ local. A local subsystem is a subsystem which can be contained in a ball-shaped subsystem of finite radius. $\partial A$, $\partial B$ are the boundaries of the subsystems. We use $\bar{A}$ to denote the complement of $A$.
We will use $\rho$, $\sigma$ to represent density matrices. In this paper we always use $\rho$ for the ground state density matrix, $\rho=\vert\psi\rangle\langle \psi\vert$, and $\vert\psi\rangle$ is the ground state. We use $\rho_{ABC}$, $\sigma_{BC}$ when we want to specify the subsystems. The entanglement entropy is defined in terms of the (reduced) density matrix as usual
$S=-\textrm{tr} [\sigma\ln \sigma]$.
We use $S_{ABC}\vert_\rho$ and $S_{ABC}\vert_\sigma$ to distinguish the entanglement entropy on region $ABC$ with different density matrices $\rho$, $\sigma$.
Define conditional mutual information
\[
I(A:C\vert B)\equiv S_{AB}+S_{BC}-S_B-S_{ABC}
\]
and we use $I(A:C\vert B)\vert_\rho$ when we want to specify a density matrix. It is known that the conditional mutual information is always nonnegative $I(A:C\vert B)\ge 0$. We say $\sigma_{ABC}$ is conditionally independent if $I(A:C\vert B)\vert_\sigma=0$.
For unitary operators $U$ and $U'$ which create excitations in $D$ when acting on the ground state $\vert\psi\rangle$, we say $U\sim U'$ or $U$ is similar to $U'$ if the states $U\vert \psi\rangle$ and $U'\vert \psi\rangle$ have identical reduced density matrices on $ABC$, i.e. $tr_D [U\rho U^\dagger]= tr_D [U'\rho U'^\dagger]$. Otherwise, we say $U$ and $U'$ are \emph{distinct}.
\subsection{Prepare for the lower bound}
If there is a density matrix $\sigma$ which is related to the ground state density matrix $\rho$ by $\rho_{AB}=\sigma_{AB}$ and $\rho_{BC}=\sigma_{BC}$, then we have:
\begin{equation}
I(A:C\vert B)\vert_\rho\ge S_{ABC}\vert_\sigma-S_{ABC}\vert_\rho \label{the key}
\end{equation}
and the ``$=$" happens if and only if $I(A:C\vert B)\vert_\sigma= 0$. For a proof, observe that $I(A:C\vert B)\vert_\rho$ and $I(A:C\vert B)\vert_\sigma$ has only a single different term, and that $I(A:C\vert B)\vert_\sigma\ge 0$.
For a pure state, the entanglement entropy of a subsystem equals the entanglement entropy of its complement, e.g. $S_{\Omega}=S_{\bar{\Omega}}$ for any subsystem $\Omega$. Therefore:
\[
I(A:C\vert B)\vert_{\rho}= (S_{BC}+S_{CD}-S_B-S_D )\vert_{\rho}.
\]
Observe that the local contributions of the entanglement entropy get canceled due to the fact that $A$ and $C$ are separated. Let us define the nonlocal entanglement entropy (of the ground state)
\begin{equation}
S_{nonlocal}\equiv (S_{BC}+S_{CD}-S_B-S_D)\vert_{\rho}. \label{the local form}
\end{equation}
The nonlocal entanglement entropy is just another way to write down the conditional mutual information, $S_{nonlocal}=I(A:C\vert B)\vert_\rho$, and therefore $S_{nonlocal}\ge 0$.
The form in Eq.(\ref{the local form}) has the advantage that it involves only local systems $B$, $C$, $D$. When the system is placed on a torus or other nontrivial manifolds instead of a infinite manifold, the system may have several locally indistinguishable ground states, this form of $S_{nonlocal}$ in terms of local subsystems is more convenient, and even if $\rho$ is a mixed state density matrix of different locally indistinguishable ground states, $S_{nonlocal}$ still has the same value.
\subsection{The key idea about the lower bound}\label{the key idea}
The discussion above suggests a way to obtain a lower bound of $S_{nonlocal}$. For any $\sigma$ satisfying $\sigma_{AB}=\rho_{AB}$ and $\sigma_{BC}=\rho_{BC}$,
\begin{equation}
S_{nonlocal} \ge S_{ABC}\vert_\sigma-S_{ABC}\vert_\rho. \label{the lower bound}
\end{equation}
The density matrix $\sigma$ does not have to be a density matrix of a pure state.
If we could find a $\sigma$ satisfying the above requirement and $S_{ABC}\vert_\sigma>S_{ABC}\vert_\rho$, a nonzero lower bound is obtained, and then the existence of nonzero nonlocal entanglement entropy is established.
Now, let us assume that we could find a set of $\sigma_I$ with $I=1,\ldots,N$ such that $\sigma_{I\,AB}=\rho_{AB}$ and $\sigma_{I\,BC}=\rho_{BC}$. Then we can do superpositions and define ${\sigma}\equiv \sum_{I=1}^N p_I \sigma_I$ with $\{p_I \}$ being a probability distribution, i.e. $p_I\in[0,1]$ and $\sum_{I=1}^N p_I=1$. The ${\sigma}$ is a new density matrix which satisfies ${\sigma}_{AB}=\rho_{AB}$ and ${\sigma}_{BC}=\rho_{BC}$. So we have a whole parameter space of ${\sigma}$ to try.
If lucky, we may even be able to find a $\sigma^\ast_{ABC}$ which is conditionally independent (satisfying $I(A:C\vert B)\vert_{\sigma^\ast}=0$) and we have an exact result
\begin{equation}
S_{nonlocal}= S_{ABC}\vert_{\sigma^\ast}-S_{ABC}\vert_\rho.
\end{equation}
Or, if we find the lower bound is saturated, we know the $\sigma$ we used to obtain the lower bound is conditionally independent.
We note that, in the quantum case (unlike the classical case), it is not always possible to find a conditionally independent $\sigma^\ast$ such that $\sigma^\ast_{AB}=\rho_{AB}$ and $\sigma^\ast_{BC}=\rho_{BC}$ for $\rho$ being a general density matrix \cite{Ibinson2008}.
Therefore, the existence of such $\sigma^\ast$ in some system might be interesting by itself. On the other hand, the conditional independent state $\sigma^\ast$ is known to exist for models satisfying simple conditions (\Rom{1})(\Rom{2}) in \cite{2016PhRvA..93b2317K}.
\subsection{Calculate the lower bound for Abelian models employing assumptions}\label{The main result.}
We make a few assumptions about the condensates and operators creating topological excitations
in order to develop a way to find $\sigma_I$ and calculate a lower bound of $S_{nonlocal}$. These assumptions are applicable to Abelian models with commuting projector Hamiltonians (with each term acting on a few sites localized in real space), including conventional models e.g. the toric code model in various dimensions \cite{2002JMP....43.4452D}, quantum double models with any Abelian finite group, and fracton models \cite{PhysRevLett.94.040402,bravyi2011topological,PhysRevA.83.042330,PhysRevB.88.125122,PhysRevB.92.235136,PhysRevB.94.235157} of type \Rom{1} and type \Rom{2} which we will be focusing on in this work. In the context of fracton models, Abelian means no protected degeneracy associated with excitations.
Our way of employing the operators is inspired by a method by Kim and Brown \cite{2015PhRvB..92k5139K}, where an interesting connection between conditional mutual information and deformable operator $U$ is obtained.
While the subsystems we choose have only an unimportant difference from \cite{2015PhRvB..92k5139K}, our result is different. The result in \cite{2015PhRvB..92k5139K} shows that if $S_{nonlocal}=0$, there will be no topological excitations, and therefore, $S_{nonlocal}>0$ is needed for the existence of topological excitations. The result is very general since very small amount of assumptions was used. Nevertheless, the result was not powerful as a lower bound for $S_{nonlocal}$. In this work, on the other hand, we use more detailed properties of topological excitations and condensates to obtain a powerful lower bound of $S_{nonlocal}$. Our method shows that the key to have $S_{nonlocal}>0$ in these models is the nonlocal nature of the ground state condensates and the operators creating topological excitations. $S_{nonlocal}$ can be extensive in the subsystem size and it is not necessarily topologically invariant. Whether $S_{nonlocal}$ is topologically invariant or not depends on whether the operators can be deformed topologically.
\begin{figure}[h]
\centering
\includegraphics[scale=0.310]{Truncation}
\caption{Condensate operators from different topological orders $W$, $W'$, $W''$ (in orange color), and the truncations of corresponding operators give us deformable operators $U$, $U'$, $U''$ (in blue color) which create topological excitations (in red color) when acting on the ground state. The operators $W$, $U$ are from the 2D toric code model; the operators $W'$, $U'$ are from the 3D toric code model; the operators $W''$, $U''$ are from a fractal spin liquid model (note that $W''$ is not a precise depiction). The support of $W$ is a closed loop; the support of $W'$ is a closed membrane, i.e. the 2D boundary of the box; the support of $W''$ has fractal structure. The picture only shows part of $W''$ explicitly, the rest of $W''$ is embedded in the dotted 2D surfaces with dashed 1D edges, and it may contain fractal parts or 1D parts.}\label{Truncation}
\end{figure}
Before rigorously stating the assumptions and deriving the lower bound, here are a few words about the physical picture.
The ground states of topological orders condense extended objects. If a unitary operator $W$ (which has an extended support) acting on the ground state $\vert\psi\rangle$ gives you $W\vert\psi\rangle =e^{i\varphi}\vert\psi\rangle$, we call the operator $W$ a \emph{condensate operator} with eigenvalue $e^{i\varphi}$. Whenever confusion can be avoided, we may call $W$ a \emph{condensate} for short. Let us further assume $W$ to be a tensor product of operators acting on each site.
Then, a suitably defined ``truncation" of a condensate operator $W$ onto a subsystem $\Omega$ gives you a new operator $U$. $U\vert\psi\rangle$ is an excited state with topologically excitations located around $\partial \Omega\cap W$, and $U$ can be deformed in the sense that you could choose a ``truncation" of $W^\dagger$ onto $\bar{\Omega}$ and call it $U^{def}$, which creates the same topological excitations and satisfies $U\vert\psi\rangle= U^{def}\vert\psi\rangle$. One the other hand, if we have unitary operators $U$ and $U^{def}$ satisfying $U\vert\psi\rangle= U^{def}\vert\psi\rangle$, then $[U^{def}]^\dagger U\vert\psi\rangle =\vert\psi\rangle$, and therefore $[U^{def}]^\dagger U$ is a condensate operator with eigenvalue $+1$. Intuitively, a condensate operator $W$ can be ``truncated" into a deformable operator $U$ which creates topological excitations, and a pair of deformable operators $U$ and $U^{def}$ can be ``glued together" into a condensate operator $W$. Therefore $U$ and $W$ are closely related.
Some examples of condensate operator $W$ and deformable operator $U$, are shown in Fig.\ref{Truncation}.
Once we have condensate operators $W_i$ and deformable operators $U_j$, we use $U_j$ to create topological excitations in $D$ which result in some states $\sigma_I$ which is identical to the ground state $\rho$ on $AB$ and $BC$. If the excitations created in $D$ are topological excitations, they can not be created by an operator supported on $D$, and $\sigma_{I\,ABC}$ and $\rho_{ABC}$ will have some difference. The difference is detected by a change of the eigenvalue of condensate operator $W_i$ supported on $ABC$. Then, we use $\sigma_I$ to obtain a lower bound of $S_{nonlocal}$.
The following are our assumptions $\mathbf{U}$-1, $\mathbf{U}$-2, $\mathbf{U}$-3; $\mathbf{W}$-1, $\mathbf{W}$-2:
\emph{Assumption} $\mathbf{U}$-1: There exists a set of unitary operators $\{U_i\}$ supported on $CD$ and a set of unitary operators $\{ {U}_{i}^{def} \}$ supported on $AD$, with $i=1,\cdots, M$. See Fig.\ref{deform} for an example.
When acting on the ground state $\vert \psi\rangle$, $U_i$ can be ``deformed" into $U_{i}^{def}$, i.e.:
\begin{equation}
U_i\vert\psi\rangle =U_{i}^{def}\vert\psi\rangle. \label{algebra1}
\end{equation}
\emph{Assumption} $\mathbf{U}$-2: For any subsystem $\Omega$, the unitary operator $U_i$ can always be written as a direct product of unitary operators $U_{i\, \Omega}$ and $U_{i\,\bar{\Omega}}$ which act on the subsystem $\Omega$, $\bar{\Omega}$ respectively:
\begin{equation}
U_i=U_{i\,\Omega}\otimes U_{i\,\bar{\Omega}}. \label{algebra p}
\end{equation}
\emph{Assumption} $\mathbf{U}$-3: There are integers $n_i$ such that $U_i^{n_i}=1$, and when multiple $U_i$ act on a ground state $\vert\psi\rangle$, we have the following:
\begin{equation}
\bigg(\prod_{i=1}^M U_i^{k_i} \bigg)\vert \psi\rangle =e^{i\delta(\{k_i\})} \bigg(\prod_{i=1}^M [U_{i}^{def}]^{k_i}\bigg)\vert\psi\rangle, \label{algebra2}
\end{equation}
where integer $0\le k_i\le n_i-1$, and we allow possible phase factors $e^{i\delta(\{k_i \})}$.
\emph{Assumption} $\mathbf{W}$-1: There exists a set of unitary operators \{$W_i$\} supported on subsystem $ABC$ such that
\begin{equation}
W_i \vert\psi\rangle= \vert\psi\rangle\qquad\qquad i=1,\ldots,M. \label{algebra3}
\end{equation}
\emph{Assumption} $\mathbf{W}$-2: The following relation between $W_i$ and $U_j$ holds:
\begin{equation}
W_iU_j=U_jW_i e^{i\theta_{ij}}\qquad \textrm{with}\qquad \theta_{ij}=\frac{2\pi}{n_i}\delta_{ij}, \label{algebra4}
\end{equation}
where $\delta_{ij}$ is the Kronecker delta.
\begin{figure}[h]
\centering
\includegraphics[scale=0.54]{S_deform}
\caption{An illustration of the support of different operators: $W_i$ (in orange color) is supported on $ABC$; $U_i$ (in blue color) is supported on $CD$; $U_i^{def}$ (in blue color) is supported on $AD$. The topological excitations created by $U_i$ or $U_i^{def}$ are shown in red color. The color setting of the operators and excitations will be used throughout the paper.
We do not assume these operators to be integer dimensional and the construction applies to models in different dimensions.}\label{deform}
\end{figure}
Comments about the assumptions:
1) $\mathbf{U}$-1 implies that when $U_i$ is acting on the ground state, it can create excitations only in $D$, but not in $ABC$.
2) We do not assume $U_i$, $W_i$ to be string operators and not even assume $U_i$, $W_i$ to be integer dimensional operators. In fact, we will apply this method to fractal operators later.
3) In $\mathbf{U}$-1 we assumed $U$ can be deformed without changing the excitations. Nevertheless, we do not assume $U$ can be deformed into all topologically equivalent configurations, and we do not assume $U$ can be deformed continuously. As we will see below, in fracton models, deformations exist in weird form, $U$ may not be topologically deformed (i.e. deformed continuously into any topologically equivalent configuration), and $U$ can sometimes be deformed in discontinuous ways into topologically inequivalent configurations.
4) $\mathbf{U}$-2 is not true when a local perturbation is added. We will address the stability of the lower bound under local perturbations separately in Sec.\ref{Sec.3}.
5) For the non-Abelian case, the entanglement entropy of an excited state could depend on the quantum dimension of the anyon \cite{PhysRevLett.96.110404,2018arXiv180101519S}, and $\mathbf{U}$-2 does not apply. On the other hand, the idea in Sec.\ref{the key idea} still holds, a saturated lower bound for non-Abelian models is recently discussed in \cite{2018arXiv180101519S}.
6) For systems with boundaries, one may choose $D$ being region attached to boundaries, as is done in \cite{2015PhRvB..92k5139K}. An alternative way is to identify $D$ with a boundary region $\partial \Omega$; in this case, $\mathbf{U}$-1 should be understood as: $U_i$ being an operator supported on $C$ and attached to $\partial C\cap\partial \Omega$, and $U_{i}^{def}$ being an operator supported on $A$ and attached to $\partial A\cap\partial\Omega$.
7) According to $\mathbf{W}$-2, $\vert\psi\rangle$ and $U_i\vert\psi\rangle$ are eigenstates of $W_i$ with different eigenvalues, where $\vert\psi\rangle$ is the ground state. Since $W_i$ is supported on $ABC$, this implies that $U_i$ is distinct from the identity operator. Similarly, $U_i$ and $U_j$ are distinct for $i\ne j$. We will refer to this change of eigenvalue of $W_i$ as a \emph{detection}, e.g. $U_i$ is detected by $W_i$. The requirement $\theta_{ij}=\frac{2\pi}{n_i}\delta_{ij}$ is not crucial, and it can be replaced by other numbers as long as the operator set $\{ W_i \}$ can detect the difference among the set of operators $\{U_i \}$.
8) For a relatively simple class of models, which has the Hamiltonian $H=-\sum_k h_k$, $[h_i,h_j]=0$ and $h_k^2=1$, there is an obvious class of operators that satisfy Eq.(\ref{algebra3}) in $\mathbf{W}$-1, namely $W_i=\prod_{k\in \mathcal{E}_i} h_k$, where $\mathcal{E}_i$ is a subset of the stabilizer generators. For the ground state $\vert \psi\rangle$, we have $h_i\vert \psi\rangle =\vert\psi\rangle$, it follows that $W_i\vert\psi\rangle=\vert\psi\rangle$. As $U_i$ could not flip stabilizers in $ABC$, $\mathcal{E}_i$ must contain some $h_j$ in $D$. It turns out that this simple observation applies to all the Abelian stabilizer models we will use as examples in Sec.\ref{Sec.2}. However, we do not provide a general procedure to find the subset $\mathcal{E}_i$ for fracton models.
On the other hand, our method works for models not in this simple class also, such as quantum double models \cite{Kitaev20032,bombin2008family} with Abelian finite groups.
Define the set of states
\[
\vert \{k_i\};\psi\rangle\equiv \prod_{i=1}^{M}U_i^{k_i}\vert\psi\rangle \qquad\textrm{with}\qquad 0\le k_i \le n_i-1
\]
with $k_i$ being integers. Define $\sigma(\{k_i\})\equiv \vert \{k_i\};\psi\rangle \langle\{k_i\};\psi\vert $. Note the total number of $\sigma(\{ k_i\})$ is $\prod_{i=1}^M n_i$. Relabel $\sigma(\{ k_i\})$ using a new index $I=1,\cdots, N$ with $N=\prod_{i=1}^M n_i$ and call them $\sigma_I$. One immediately varifies that \\
1) $\mathbf{U}$-1, $\mathbf{U}$-3 $\Rightarrow$ $\sigma_{I\,AB}=\rho_{AB} $ and $\sigma_{I\,BC}=\rho_{BC}$;\\
2) $\mathbf{W}$-1, $\mathbf{W}$-2 $\Rightarrow$ $\sigma_{I\, ABC}\cdot\sigma_{J\,ABC}=0$ for $I\ne J$;\\
3) $\mathbf{U}$-2 $\Rightarrow$ $\sigma_{I\,ABC}=V_I \rho_{ABC}V_I^\dagger$ and $S_{ABC}\vert_{\sigma_I}=S_{ABC}\vert_{\rho}$.
Where $V_I$ is some unitary operator acting on subsystem $ABC$ and recall that $\rho$ is the ground state density matrix.
Let ${\sigma}=\sum_{I=1}^N p_I \sigma_I$ with probability distribution $\{p_I \}$, one derives that
\[
S_{ABC}\vert_{{\sigma}}-S_{ABC}\vert_\rho=-\sum_{I=1}^N p_I\ln p_I \le \ln N \nonumber
\]
``=" if and only if $p_I=\frac{1}{N}$ for all $I$. From Eq.(\ref{the lower bound}) we find
\begin{equation}
S_{nonlocal}\vert_\rho \ge \ln N =\sum_{i=1}^M \ln n_i. \label{the N bound}
\end{equation}
\subsection{When is the lower bound topologically invariant?}\label{topological invariant}
It is instructive to think of the conditions under which our lower bound of $S_{nonlocal}$ is topologically invariant.
Consider a chosen set of subsystems $A$, $B$, $C$, $D$ and the operator sets $\{U_i \}$, $\{U_{i}^{def} \}$ and $\{W_i\}$.
Let us do ``topological deformations" of the subsystems and the operator sets.
Here, by ``topological deformation" of the operator sets we mean that we can topologically deform the support of each operator to get new operator sets which preserve the algebra in Eq.(\ref{algebra1},\ref{algebra p},\ref{algebra2},\ref{algebra3},\ref{algebra4}). Note that, these deformations generally change the positions of the excitations, which should be contrasted with the type of deformation in $\mathbf{U}$-1, in which the positions of the excitations never change. When these conditions are satisfied, the lower bound for the two topologically equivalent choices of subsystems are the same. If such conditions are satisfied for each pair of topologically equivalent choices of subsystems, then our lower bound will be topologically invariant.
As is shown in the examples below in Sec.\ref{Sec.2}, $S_{nonlocal}$ can be either topologically invariant or not, and it is instructive to think of how the conditions above are violated in fracton models \cite{PhysRevLett.94.040402,bravyi2011topological,PhysRevA.83.042330,PhysRevB.88.125122,PhysRevB.92.235136,PhysRevB.94.235157} in which $S_{nonlocal}$ depends on the geometry of subsystems.
\section{Applications}\label{Sec.2}
In this section, our lower bound is applied to several stabilizer models of Abelian phases: the 2D and 3D conventional topological orders and type \Rom{1}, type \Rom{2} fracton phases.
\subsection{The 2D Toric Code Model}
For a 2D topological order, choose the subsystems $A$, $B$, $C$, $D$ of the same topology as is shown in Fig.\ref{ABCD}. From the well-known results \cite{PhysRevLett.96.110404,PhysRevLett.96.110405}, one derives $S_{nonlocal}=2\gamma$ where $-\gamma$ is the topological entanglement entropy.
\begin{figure}[h]
\centering
\includegraphics[scale=0.30]{Toric_code}
\caption{Deformable operators $U_1$, $U_2$ supported on open strings and condensate operators $W_1$, $W_2$ supported on closed strings. $U_1$, $U_2$ create topological excitations around their endpoints. In other words, $U_1$ flips two plaquettes and $U_2$ flips two stars. }\label{toric code}
\end{figure}
For the 2D toric code model \cite{Kitaev20032}: On a square lattice with a qubit on each link, the Hamiltonian is
\[
H=-\sum_s A_s -\sum_{p} B_p,
\]
where $A_s$ is a product of $X_r$ of a ``star" or vertex, $B_p$ is a product of $Z_r$ of a plaquette.
\[
A_s=\prod_{r\in s}X_r \qquad B_{p}=\prod_{r\in p} Z_r,
\]
where $X_r$, $Z_r$ are Pauli operators acting on the qubit on link $r$.
The ground state of toric code model condenses two types of closed string operators, and the corresponding open string operators (which could be regarded as truncations of closed string operators) create topological excitations at the endpoints.
We find the following unitary operators $U_1$, $U_2$, $W_1$, $W_2$ as is shown in Fig.\ref{toric code}. $U_1$ and $W_2$ are products of $X_r$; $U_2$ and $W_1$ are products of $Z_r$. Also notice the feature that the closed string operators $W_1$ ($W_2$) can be written as a product of stabilizers $B_p$ ($A_s$) on a 2D disk region surrounded by the corresponding closed strings.
$\mathbf{U}$-1, $\mathbf{U}$-2, $\mathbf{U}$-3, $\mathbf{W}$-1, $\mathbf{W}$-2 can be checked.
The operators satisfy:
\begin{eqnarray}
&&U_1^2=U_2^2=W_1^2=W_2^2=1\nonumber\\
&&W_iU_j=U_jW_i e^{i\pi\delta_{ij}}\qquad\qquad i,j=1,2.\nonumber
\end{eqnarray}
Therefore $M=2$, $n_1=n_2=2$ and $N=n_1n_2=4$. Using the result in Eq.(\ref{the N bound}), one derives $S_{nonlocal}\ge 2\ln 2$. By comparing with the known result $\gamma=\ln 2$, $S_{nonlocal}=2\gamma=2\ln 2$, we find that our lower bound is saturated.
A by-product of a saturated lower bound is an explicit construction of a conditionally independent $\sigma^\ast$. In the toric code case:
\begin{equation}
\sigma^\ast =\frac{1}{4}(\rho +U_1 \rho U_1^\dagger + U_2 \rho U_2^\dagger + U_1 U_2 \rho U_2^\dagger U_1^\dagger)
\end{equation}
and $\sigma^\ast$ satisfies:\\
1) $\sigma^\ast_{AB}=\rho_{AB}$, $\sigma^\ast_{BC}=\rho_{BC}$; \\
2) $I(A:C\vert B)\vert_{\sigma^\ast}=0$.\\
Where $\rho=\vert\psi\rangle\langle \psi\vert$ is the ground state density matrix.
The observation in Sec.\ref{topological invariant} explains why the lower bound is topologically invariant in the toric code model: the operators $U_i$ and $W_i$ can be topologically deformed together with the subsystems $A$, $B$, $C$ and $D$, without changing the algebra in Eq.(\ref{algebra1},\ref{algebra p},\ref{algebra2},\ref{algebra3},\ref{algebra4}).
This method can be applied to other 2D Abelian topological orders, e.g., quantum double models with Abelian finite groups, and the lower bounds are saturated. For a variant of the method for non-Abelian models, see \cite{2018arXiv180101519S}.
\subsection{The 3D Toric Code model}
The 3D toric code model \cite{hamma2005string} is defined on a cubic lattice, with one qubit on each link. The Hamiltonian is of exactly the same form as the one of the 2D toric code model:
\[
H=-\sum_s A_s -\sum_{p} B_p;
\]
\[
A_s=\prod_{r\in s}X_r;\qquad B_{p}=\prod_{r\in p} Z_r.
\]
Here a star $s$ includes the 6 links around a vertex, and a plaquette $p$ is a square consistent of 4 links.
The ground state of the 3D toric code model condenses one type of closed string and one type of closed membrane. There is one type of open string operator that creates point-like topological excitations at the endpoints and one type of open membrane operator which creates loop-like topological excitations at the edge of the membrane, see Fig.\ref{3D Toric Code}.
\begin{figure}[h]
\centering
\includegraphics[scale=0.340]{3D_Toric_Code}
\caption{Topological excitations in the 3D toric code model and their detection using condensates. }\label{3D Toric Code}
\end{figure}
\subsubsection{Subsystem types for 3D models}
The 3D toric code model is the first 3D model we discuss, and it is a good place to introduce subsystem types for 3D models which will be discussed for all 3D models. We focus on the following three topologically distinct subsystem types, i.e. the type-$\alpha$,$\beta$,$\gamma$ shown in Fig.\ref{3 types}, although other choices are possible. We will use the notation $S^{(\alpha)}_{nonlocal}$, $S^{(\beta)}_{nonlocal}$, $S^{(\gamma)}_{nonlocal}$ to distinguish the nonlocal entanglement entropy for the three topological types.
\begin{figure}[h]
\centering
\includegraphics[scale=0.320]{three_types}
\caption{Three topologically distinct choices of subsystems, e.g. type-$\alpha$, type-$\beta$ and type-$\gamma$. We make subsystem $B$ transparent in order to see $C$ and $D$ more clearly. It is understood that $B\cup CD$ is the box with blue edges and $A$ is the complement of the box. We also apply this convention to pictures below.}\label{3 types}
\end{figure}
Type-$\alpha$ has $D$, which consists of two disconnected boxes, while $C D$ is connected, and it can be used to detect open string-like $U_i$, which is attached to the two boxes of $D$.
Type-$\beta$ has $D$ of the topology of a solid torus (and therefore $D$ is not simply connected), while $C D$ is simply connected.
It can be used to detect open membrane-like $U_i$ supported on $C D$ which create excitations in $D$ as noncontractible loops.
Type-$\gamma$ has $C$ and $CD$ of the same topology, e.g. the topology of a solid torus, and $B$ is simply connected.
Type-$\alpha$ and type-$\beta$ have already been implied in paper by Kim and Brown \cite{2015PhRvB..92k5139K}, in which, similar subsystems types are used to study different types of boundaries of 3D models.
For type-$\gamma$, $S_{nonlocal}^{(\gamma)}=0$ for models satisfying the assumptions in \cite{PhysRevB.84.195120}, e.g. the entanglement entropy of a general subsystem $\Omega$ (which has large size compared to correlation length) can be decomposed into local plus topological parts:
\[S_{\Omega}= S_{\Omega,local} +S_{\Omega,topological}\quad \Rightarrow \quad S_{nonlocal}^{(\gamma)}=0.\]
Therefore, a model with $S_{nonlocal}^{(\gamma)}>0$ is a model beyond the description of \cite{PhysRevB.84.195120}. Fractal models do have $S^{(\gamma)}_{nonlocal}>0$ for some choices of the subsystems and the value can be extensive. Furthermore, the contribution of $S^{(\alpha)}_{nonlocal}$ ($S^{(\beta)}_{nonlocal}$) is not necessarily from open string-like (open membrane-like) $U$.
\subsubsection{The 3D Toric Code model has saturated lower bounds for each subsystem type}
Let us go back to the 3D toric code model.
For type-$\alpha$, we find $M=1$, $n_1=2$ where the operator $U_1$ is an open string operator which creates a point-like topological excitation in each box of $D$ and $W_1$ is a closed membrane operator. Therefore $N=2$ and $S_{nonlocal}^{(\alpha)}\ge \ln 2$.
For type-$\beta$, we find $M=1$, $n_1=2$ where the operator $U_1$ is an open membrane operator which creates a loop-like topological excitation at the edge of the membrane (the loop could not continuously shrink within $D$ into a point), and $W_1$ is a closed string operator. Therefore $N=2$ and $S_{nonlocal}^{(\beta)} \ge \ln 2$.
For type-$\gamma$, operators supported on $CD$, which create excitations in $D$, could always be deformed into $D$. This is because, for 3D toric code, the operators that create topological excitations can be topologically deformed keeping the excitations fixed. Therefore we obtain a lower bound $S_{nonlocal}^{(\gamma)}\ge 0$.
Comparing with the known entanglement properties \cite{PhysRevB.84.195120,2015PhRvB..92k5139K} of the 3D toric code model, our lower bounds are identical to the exact results:
\[ S^{(\alpha)}_{nonlocal}=S^{(\beta)}_{nonlocal}=\ln 2;\qquad S^{(\gamma)}_{nonlocal}=0.
\]
\subsection{The X-Cube Model}\label{X-Cube}
The X-cube model is a 3D exactly solved stabilizer model, and it is an example of type \Rom{1} fracton phase \cite{PhysRevB.94.235157}.
The model is defined on a cubic lattice with one qubit on each link. The Hamiltonian is
\begin{equation}
H=-\sum_{c} A_c -\sum_s (B^{(xy)}_s + B^{(yz)}_s +B^{(zx)}_s),
\end{equation}
where $A_c$ is a product of $Z_r$ on a cube (which includes 12 links), and $B^{(xy)}_s$, $B^{(yz)}_s$, and $B^{(zx)}_s$ are products of $X_r$ of 4 links around a vertex which are parallel to the $xy$-plane, $yz$-plane, $zx$-plane respectively.
\begin{figure}[h]
\centering
\includegraphics[scale=0.430]{string2}
\caption{Type-$\alpha$ subsystem choices: The two boxes of $D$ are of the same size $l_D\times l_D \times l_D$, and they are separated by a displacement vector $\vec{d}=(d_x,d_y,d_z)$. $\partial D \cap \partial A$ contains two 2D pieces parallel to the $xz$-plane. (a) $d_x=0$, $\vert d_y\vert,\vert d_z\vert >l_D$. (b) $d_x=d_z=0$, $\vert d_y\vert >l_D$. (c) $\vert d_x\vert ,\vert d_y\vert , \vert d_z\vert >l_D$.}\label{string2}
\end{figure}
Here we focus on type-$\alpha$ and consider the geometry dependence of $S_{nonlocal}$, see Fig.\ref{string2}.
We find the following lower bounds:
Fig.\ref{string2}a, $S^{(\alpha)}_{nonlocal}\ge (2l_D +O(1))\ln 2$;
Fig.\ref{string2}b, $S^{(\alpha)}_{nonlocal}\ge (4l_D +O(1))\ln 2$;
Fig.\ref{string2}c, $S^{(\alpha)}_{nonlocal}\ge 0$.\\
Where $O(1)$ denotes order one contributions which dependent on the detailed shapes of the subsystems, which is not crucial for our discussion.
The types of $U_i$ that contribute to the $S^{(\alpha)}_{nonlocal}$ in Fig.\ref{string2}a are illustrated in Fig.\ref{X Cube String}a, each $U_i$ stretches out in directions parallel to the $yz$-plane and creates a pair of ``dimension-2 anyons." The translations of the operators $U_i$ in Fig.\ref{X Cube String}a in $(1,0,0)$ direction give you distinct operators (while translations in $(0,1,0)$ or $(0,0,1)$ directions do not give you distinct operators). This gives $M=2l_D +O(1)$.
\begin{figure}[h]
\centering
\includegraphics[scale=0.400]{X_Cube_String}
\caption{About $U$ and $W$ in the X-cube model: (a) The two types of $U$ and their translations in $(1,0,0)$ direction contribute to $S_{nonlocal}$ for the configuration in Fig.\ref{string2}a. (b) A product of $A_c$ gives you a $W$ that is a product of $Z_r$ on the 1D edges of a cuboid. (c) $U$ is a product of $Z_r$ on a line parallel to $z$-axis and it creates point-like excitations in $D$. $U_{T_1}$, $U_{T_2}$, and $U_{T_1+T_2}$ are translations of $U$ by vectors $\vec{T}_1=(-a,0,0)$, $\vec{T}_2=(0,b,0)$, and $\vec{T}_1+\vec{T}_2=(-a,b,0)$, and $a$ and $b$ are positive integers in unit of lattice spacing. }\label{X Cube String}
\end{figure}
Translations can produce distinct operators, this indicates a breakdown of topological deformation: in the X-cube model, $U_i$ is deformable but not topologically deformable. Another nice example of the breakdown of topological deformation is shown in Fig.\ref{X Cube String}c, in which $U$ and its translations $U_{T_1}$, $U_{T_2}$, and $U_{T_1+T_2}$ are distinct; nevertheless, by thinking of the condensate in Fig.\ref{X Cube String}b, one can show $U\sim U_{T_1}\cdot U_{T_2}\cdot U_{T_1 +T_2}$.
The result $S^{(\alpha)}_{nonlocal}\ge (4l_D +O(1))\ln 2 $ for Fig.\ref{string2}b can be understood by thinking of contributions from operators parallel to the $yz$-plane and the $xy$-plane, which gives $M=4l_D +O(1)$. The result $S^{(\alpha)}_{nonlocal}\ge 0$ in Fig.\ref{string2}c comes from the fact that the types of $U_i$ discussed above could not connect the two boxes of $D$ separated by a displacement vector $\vec{d}=(d_x,d_y,d_z)$ with $\vert d_x\vert, \vert d_y\vert, \vert d_z\vert >l_D$ and the inability to find $U_i$ gives $M=0$.
These results for $S^{(\alpha)}_{nonlocal}$ may also be calculated using the method in \cite{PhysRevA.71.022315} and an independent estimation agrees with our lower bounds up to $O(1)$ contributions.
The lower bounds of $S^{(\alpha)}_{nonlocal}$ for all the cases in Fig.\ref{string2} depend on the length scale $l_D$ and the displacement vector $\vec{d}$ but are not sensitive to other details. This is due to the fact that we have chosen ``big enough" $A,B,C$, so that they do not block any $U_i$. If we consider another extreme, say the subsystem $C$ has a very narrow neck, then $S^{(\alpha)}_{nonlocal}$ will be sensitive to the geometry of the neck which determines how many $U_i$ could pass through.
One may also apply the same idea to subsystems of type-$\beta$ and type-$\gamma$ and find extensive values of $S^{(\beta)}_{nonlocal}$ and $S^{(\gamma)}_{nonlocal}$ for certain choices of subsystems.
\subsection{Fractal spin liquids}\label{fractal model}
Fractal spin liquids \cite{PhysRevB.88.125122} is a generalization of Haah's code \cite{PhysRevA.83.042330}. A common feature of fractal spin liquid models is the existence of fractal condensates. Fractal structures have discrete scale symmetries, and this results in a more complicated dependence of the ground state degeneracy on the system size \cite{Haah2013,PhysRevB.88.125122} compared to the type \Rom{1} fracton models.
Some of the fractal models possess ``hybrid" condensates $W_i$ having both 1D parts and fractal parts, and the truncations of the condensates give you $U_i$ which can be either a string-like operator or a fractal operator. Note that, they do not fit into the definition of type \Rom{1} due to the existence of fractal operators. On the other hand, they do not fit into type \Rom{2} because the excitations created by the string-like operator are mobile excitations. Some fractal models have only fractal condensates, and no string-like $U_i$ exists. These models are type \Rom{2} fracton models.
Discussed in the following are ways to detect string-like $U_i$ and fractal $U_i$ using condensates. Then, $S_{nonlocal}$ is shown to be extensive for certain choices of subsystem geometry.
\subsubsection{The Sierpinski Prism Model}
\begin{figure}[h]
\centering
\includegraphics[scale=0.380]{Fractal_Condensates}
\caption{Examples of condensates in the Sierpinski prism model: (a) The fractal structures (here are Sierpinski triangles) contained in the upper and lower surfaces parallel to the $xy$-plane are products of $Z_r^B$. The three strings parallel to the $z$-axis are products of $Z_r^A$. (b) A condensate that can be thought of as a ``deformed version" of Fig.\ref{Fractal Condensates}a, and now the upper surface is a Sierpinski triangle perpendicular to (1,-1,1) direction and it is a product of both $Z^A_r$ and $Z_r^B$, its lower surface is the same as that in Fig.\ref{Fractal Condensates}a, i.e. a product of $Z_{r}^B$. (c) A condensate different from the former two, its upper and lower surfaces parallel to the $xy$-plane are products of $X^A_r$ and the strings parallel to $z$-axis are products of $X^B_r$.}\label{Fractal Condensates}
\end{figure}
As an example, we consider the model (d) in Yoshida's paper \cite{PhysRevB.88.125122}. Let us call this model the \emph{Sierpinski prism model}, named after the shape of the condensate in Fig.\ref{Fractal Condensates}a, which looks like a prism with three legs decorated with Sierpinski triangles. This model lives on a 3D cubic lattice with two qubits ($A$ and $B$) on each site. The Hamiltonian can be written as
\begin{equation}
H=-\sum_{i,j,k} h^Z_{(i,j,k)}-\sum_{i,j,k} h^X_{(i,j,k)},
\end{equation}
where $i,j,k$ are integers labeling the sites on cubic lattice, and the Hamiltonian involves all the translations of the operator $h^Z_{(0,0,0)}$ and $h^X_{(0,0,0)}$. Explicitly, in terms of Pauli operators acting on each $A$ and $B$ qubit on different sites, we have
\begin{eqnarray}
h^Z_{(0,0,0)}&=&Z^A_{r=(0,0,0)}Z^A_{r=(0,1,0)}Z^A_{r=(1,1,0)}\nonumber
\\&&\times Z^B_{r=(0,0,0)}Z^B_{r=(0,0,1)}\nonumber\\
h^X_{(0,0,0)}&=& X^A_{r=(0,0,0)}X^A_{r=(0,0,-1)}\nonumber
\\&&\times X^B_{r=(0,0,0)}X^B_{r=(0,-1,0)}X^B_{r=(-1,-1,0)}. \nonumber
\end{eqnarray}
It is easy to check that all terms in the Hamiltonian commute and $[h_{(i,j,k)}^Z]^2=[h^X_{(i,j,k)}]^2=1$.
Using Yoshida's notation:
\[
h^Z_{(0,0,0)}= Z \left(\begin{array}{c}
1+y+xy\\ 1+z
\end{array}\right) ;\quad
h^X_{(0,0,0)}= X \left(\begin{array}{c}
1+\bar{z}\\ 1+\bar{y}+\bar{x}\bar{y}
\end{array}\right).
\]
Where $\bar{x}\equiv x^{-1}$, $\bar{y}\equiv y^{-1}$ and $\bar{z}\equiv z^{-1}$.
In terms of polynomials $f(x)$, $g(x)$ with coefficients over $\mathbf{F}_2$, i.e. the coefficients can take 0 or 1:
\[
h^Z_{(0,0,0)}= Z \left(\begin{array}{c}
1+f(x)y\\ 1+g(x)z
\end{array}\right) ;\quad
h^X_{(0,0,0)}= X \left(\begin{array}{c}
1+\bar{g}(x)\bar{z}\\ 1+\bar{f}(x)\bar{y}
\end{array}\right).
\]
Here $f(x)=1+x$ and $g(x)=1$ for the Sierpinski prism model. The polynomials with $\mathbf{F}_2$ coefficients indicate the locations and the numbers of Pauli $Z$ or $X$ operators in the product; the upper row is for $A$ qubits and the lower row is for $B$ qubits.
Choosing other polynomials $f(x)$, $g(x)$ or changing $\mathbf{F}_2$ into $\mathbf{F}_p$ ($p>2$ prime number) will generally give you other fractal models.
The Sierpinski prism model possesses hybrid condensates which consist of 1D parts and fractal parts, see Fig.\ref{Fractal Condensates}. The condensates in Fig.\ref{Fractal Condensates}a and Fig.\ref{Fractal Condensates}b can be constructed as a product of $h^Z_{(i,j,k)}$ and the condensate in Fig.\ref{Fractal Condensates}c can be constructed as a product of $h^X_{(i,j,k)}$. As is suggested by the discrete scaling symmetry of fractal structure and the continuous scaling symmetry of a 1D line: the upper and lower surfaces can be separated by an arbitrary distance in $z$-direction (without changing the size of upper/lower surfaces), and under a rescaling $l\to 2^m l$ the condensates look similar. Under other rescaling factors, the condensates look different but they could be constructed using a product of condensates that looks similar to the ones in Fig.\ref{Fractal Condensates}.
While this model does not have any logical qubits under periodic boundary conditions on an $L_x\times L_y\times L_z$ lattice, i.e. $x^{L_x}=y^{L_y}=z^{L_z}=1$, it does have logical qubits under some ``twisted" boundary conditions (say $x^{L_x}=1$, $y^{L_y}=x$, $z^{L_z}=1$ with $L_x=2^m+1$, $L_y=2^m$, $\forall\, L_z$ and integer $m$), or under open boundary conditions.
Despite the fact that the Sierpinski prism model is one of the simplest fractal models, it nicely illustrates all the important ingredients needed in order to understand how our method works in fractal models. To be specific, it illustrates the following three types of detections:\\
1) The detection of a string-like $U$ using a fractal $W$.\\
2) The detection of a fractal $U$ using a string-like $W$.\\
3) The detection of a fractal $U$ using a fractal $W$.
\subsubsection{The detection of sting-like $U$ by fractal $W$}
\begin{figure}[h]
\centering
\includegraphics[scale=0.360]{Fractal_String}
\caption{A string-like $U$ which can be thought of as a truncation of the condensate in Fig.\ref{Fractal Condensates}c. It creates point-like excitations at its endpoints. (a) Translating $U$ by vectors $\vec{T}_1$, $\vec{T}_2$, which naturally appear in the fractal structure, to get $U_{T_1}$ and $U_{T_2}$, where $\vec{T}_1=(-2^m,0,0)$ and $\vec{T}_2=(0,2^m,0)$ with an integer $m$. (b) The detection of $U$ using the fractal part of a condensate of the same type as Fig.\ref{Fractal Condensates}a.}\label{Fractal String}
\end{figure}
As is shown in Fig.\ref{Fractal Condensates}, we have condensates with string-like parts and fractal parts. String-like $U_i$ can be obtained from a truncation of the condensates. In Fig.\ref{Fractal String}a, translations of a string-like $U$, e.g. $U_{T_1}$ and $U_{T_2}$ (with $\vec{T}_1=(-2^m,0,0)$, $\vec{T}_2=(0,2^m,0)$ and an integer $m$) are distinct from $U$, but $U\sim U_{T_1}\cdot U_{T_2}$. It is different from what happens in conventional topological orders but similar to what happens in type \Rom{1} fracton models, see Fig.\ref{X Cube String}.
The distinctness of a string-like $U$ and its translations indicates a lower bound of $S_{nonlocal}$ extensive in the subsystem size, and indeed we can use the fractal part of $W_i$ to detect different string-like $U_i$, see Fig.\ref{Fractal String}b, and get an extensive lower bound.
\subsubsection{The detection of fractal $U$ by string-like $W$ }
\begin{figure}[h]
\centering
\includegraphics[scale=0.420]{Fractal_Fractal}
\caption{The fractal $U$ comes from a truncation of the condensate in Fig.\ref{Fractal Condensates}c, and it creates point-like excitations at the three vertices of the Sierpinski triangle. (a) Detecting $U$ using the string-like part of $W$ of the type in Fig.\ref{Fractal Condensates}a. (b) Detecting $U$ using the fractal part of a $W$ similar to the upper surface of Fig.\ref{Fractal Condensates}b. The fractal structure of $U$ and $W$ lie in different planes and the dashed line is the intersection of the two planes. Shown in yellow color is a choice of subsystem $D$ for type-$\beta$ or type-$\gamma$.}\label{Fractal Fractal}
\end{figure}
Very similarly, fractal $U$ can be detected by string-like parts of $W$, see Fig.\ref{Fractal Fractal}a. It is clear that a translation of a fractal $U$ will be a distinct operator if it anticommutes with a different $W$. Therefore, by suitably choosing the geometrical shapes of subsystems $A, B, C, D$, it is possible to get an extensive lower bound of $S_{nonlocal}^{(\alpha)}$. $S_{nonlocal}^{(\beta)}$ and $S_{nonlocal}^{(\gamma)}$.
\subsubsection{The detection of fractal $U$ by fractal $W$}
Another way to detect fractal $U$ is to use a fractal part of a condensate $W$, see Fig.\ref{Fractal Fractal}b, and it is the only way to detect $U$ for those fractal models without string operators i.e., when the condensates contain only a fractal structure without string-like parts (i.e., type \Rom{2}). Therefore, it is important to understand this case.
The key features, which can be observed in Fig.\ref{Fractal Fractal}b are the following.
1) The fractal condensates are supported on 2D surfaces with ``holes" of different (discrete) length scales, in other words it is less than 2D.
2) Fractal $U$ and fractal (part of) $W$ lie in distinct intersecting surfaces, and it is possible to make the operators intersecting at a point. Certain translation of $U$ has a non-overlapping support with $W$ and therefore it commutes with $W$. This implies that translations of $U$ can give you distinct operators.
After some thought, one finds it is possible to get an extensive lower bound of $S_{nonlocal}^{(\alpha)}$, $S_{nonlocal}^{(\beta)}$ and $S_{nonlocal}^{(\gamma)}$ by suitably choosing the geometrical shapes of the subsystems $A, B, C, D$. A choice of $D$ for type-$\beta$ or type-$\gamma$ is shown in yellow color in Fig.\ref{Fractal Fractal}b.
\subsubsection{Further comments}
1) One may consider other subsystem types, for example: type-$\delta$ with $D$ consists of three disconnected boxes, and suitably chosen $A,B,C$. When putting the three boxes on the positions of the three excitations of a $U$ in Fig.\ref{Fractal Fractal}, $S^{(\delta)}_{nonlocal}>0$.
2) When rescaling the subsystem sizes according to the discrete scale symmetries (for the Sierpinski prism model, it is $L\rightarrow 2^m L$), the change of $S_{nonlocal}$ could be investigated using entanglement renormalization group transformation \cite{haah2014bifurcation}. For a rescaling by a factor which is not in the discrete scaling group, $S_{nonlocal}$ may change in more complicated way.
3) It is possible to have a fractal model with a unique ground state on a $T^3$, in which case, there still exists nonzero $S_{nonlocal}$. This indicates that $S_{nonlocal}$ is in some sense more universal than the ground state degeneracy.
4) For models with only fractal condensates (i.e. type \Rom{2}), although it is possible to find $S_{nonlocal}^{(\alpha)}> 0$ for some choices of $A, B, C, D$, we get a lower bound $0$ when, for example, the two boxes of $D$ of length $l_D\times l_D\times l_D$ are separated by a displacement vector $\vec{d}$ satisfying $\vert\vec{d}\vert>\lambda l_D$ with some constant $\lambda$ depending on the model. It might be a general exact result that $S^{(\alpha)}_{nonlocal}=0$ when $\vert\vec{d}\vert>\lambda l_D$ no matter how you choose $A,B,C$ but we do not have a proof. The case for Haah's code is a conjecture by Kim \footnote{I. H. Kim, private communication. }. If the conjectured results are true, this may be used to make a clear distinction between type \Rom{1} and type \Rom{2} fracton models.
\section{Perturbations}\label{Sec.3}
The stability of quantities under local perturbations is an extremely important topic. If some property of an exactly solved model is totally changed when a tiny local perturbation is added, this property could never be observed in real systems.
The ground state degeneracy of topological orders is robust (stable) to arbitrary local perturbations. It is known that the toric code model is stable under arbitrary local perturbations \cite{Kitaev20032}. The stability of ground state degeneracy is proved \cite{bravyi2010topological,bravyi2011short} for a very general class of models which satisfy assumptions TQO-1 and TQO-2. In the proof, Osborne's modification \cite{osborne2007simulating} of the quasi-adiabatic continuation \cite{hastings2005quasiadiabatic} is employed. This proof is applicable to both conventional and fracton topological orders.
We would like to understand the stability of $S_{nonlocal}$ under local perturbations. It turns out that the stability of $S_{nonlocal}$ is a trickier problem compared to the stability of the ground state degeneracy. The corresponding problem for the conventional topological orders, e.g. the stability of topological entanglement entropy is not solved completely without additional assumptions. It is known from Bravyi's counterexample (see \cite{zou2016spurious} for a published reference) that the arguments provided in the original works \cite{PhysRevLett.96.110404,PhysRevLett.96.110405} about the invariance of the topological entanglement entropy under perturbation are not complete. Kim obtained a bound of the change of topological entanglement entropy with a $1$st order perturbation \cite{PhysRevB.86.245116} assuming the conditionally independence of certain subsystems.
Here we study the stability of our lower bound of $S_{nonlocal}$ under a finite depth quantum circuit for simplicity, since it is known from the viewpoint of quasi-adiabatic evolution \cite{hastings2005quasiadiabatic} that local perturbations for gapped systems can be approximated by finite depth quantum circuit \cite{chen2010local,haah2016invariant}.
\emph{Assumption} $\mathbf{S}$: For subsystems $A$, $B$, $C$ as is shown in Fig.\ref{S condition}. $\delta Q$ is a unitary operator which has support intersecting with $A$ and $C$. $B$ is separated from $\delta Q$ by a distance $d$. $\sigma$ is a density matrix of a state with correlation length $\xi$ and replica correlation length \cite{zou2016spurious} $\xi_\alpha$ and $\sigma'\equiv \delta Q\sigma \delta Q^\dagger$. And $\sigma$ is a density matrix such that
\begin{equation}
\big(S_{AB}-S_A \big)\vert_{\sigma'}\simeq \big(S_{AB}-S_A \big)\vert_{\sigma}, \label{S equation}
\end{equation}
where ``$\simeq$" means there is a correction that is negligible when $d$ is large compared to $\xi$ and $\xi_{\alpha}$.
The assumption $\mathbf{S}$ should be understood as an assumption about the density matrix $\sigma$.
It is trivial to check that ``$\simeq$" can be replaced by ``$=$" when $\sigma_{AB}=\sigma_A\otimes\sigma_B$, and it may seem intuitive that the difference between the left-hand side and the right-hand side of Eq.(\ref{S equation}) should decay as $e^{-d/\xi}$.
Nevertheless, the original suggestion \cite{PhysRevLett.96.110404} that $\mathbf{S}$ is true for $\xi \ll d$ is violated in Bravyi's counterexample. It is observed in \cite{zou2016spurious} that this is due to the fact that the replica correlation length $\xi_\alpha$ is infinity for the cluster state in Bravyi's counterexample. When the cluster state is deformed, $\xi_\alpha$ becomes finite. For generic local perturbations without symmetry requirement, it is fine-tuned to have $\xi_{\alpha}=+\infty$ but $\xi_\alpha$ can be arbitrarily large compared to $\xi$.
Judging from a recent conjecture \cite{zou2016spurious} , $\xi_\alpha\ll d$ may be the condition required for $\mathbf{S}$ to be true.
\begin{figure}[h]
\centering
\includegraphics[scale=0.4]{KP_condition}
\caption{Subsystems $A$, $B$, $C$ and the unitary operator $\delta Q$ (in purple color) which appears in assumption $\mathbf{S}$. $\delta Q$ is separated from $B$ by a distance $d$.}\label{S condition}
\end{figure}
In the following, we discuss the stability of our lower bound of $S_{nonlocal}$ under a depth-$R$ quantum circuit $Q$ which creates a perturbed ground state $\bar{\rho}$ satisfying $\mathbf{S}$. We take $R\sim \xi$, and assume $\xi$ and $\xi_\alpha$ much smaller than the length scales of the subsystems. This analysis does not cover all possible local perturbations (especially those with $\xi_{\alpha}\to +\infty$), but we believe it covers a large class of interesting local perturbations.
Let $Q$ be the depth-$R$ quantum circuit ($Q Q^\dagger=1$) which is responsible for the local perturbation. In other words, we assume the following objects in the perturbated model are related to the corresponding objects in the unperturbed model by
1) The new Hamiltonian: $\bar{H}=QHQ^\dagger$;
2) The new (dressed) operators: $\bar{U}_i=Q U_i Q^\dagger$, $\bar{U}_{i}^{def}=Q \bar{U}_{i}^{def}Q^\dagger$, and $\bar{W}_i = Q W_i Q^\dagger$;
3) The new ground state: $\vert\bar{\psi}\rangle = Q \vert\psi\rangle$;
4) The new density matrices: $\bar{\sigma}_I=Q \sigma_I Q^\dagger$ and $\bar{\rho}=Q\rho Q^\dagger$.
\begin{figure}[h]
\centering
\includegraphics[scale=0.240]{dressed_operators}
\caption{Dressed operators $\bar{W}_i$ and $\bar{U}_i$. Compare with the operators $W_i$ and $U_i$ shown in Fig.\ref{deform}, the width of the support of dressed operators can increase at most by $2R$ due to the depth-$R$ quantum circuit.}\label{dressed}
\end{figure}
The dressed operators typically have a ``fatter" support than the corresponding operators in the unperturbed stabilizer model, see Fig.(\ref{dressed}) for an illustration. It is possible that the support of some $\bar{U}_i$ will overlap with $AB$, the support of some $\bar{U}_{i}^{def}$ will overlap with $BC$ and the support of some $W_i$ will overlap with $D$. For those operators, we need to throw them away, and supply with other operators if possible. We label the remaining operators using $\bar{i}$, $\bar{i}=1,\cdots \bar{M}$, where $\bar{M}\le M$, and we call the remaining density matrices $\bar{\sigma}_{\bar{I}}$, with $\bar{I}=1,\cdots, \bar{N}$, where $\bar{N}=\prod_{\bar{i}=1}^{\bar{m}}\bar{n}_{\bar{i}}$.
With $\mathbf{U}$-1, $\mathbf{U}$-2, $\mathbf{U}$-3, $\mathbf{W}$-1, $\mathbf{W}$-2 satisfied for the unperturbed system, we supply with $\mathbf{S}$ in order to complete a result about the stability of the lower bound. With these assumptions, one could verify the following results:\\
$1'$) $\mathbf{U}$-1, $\mathbf{U}$-3 $\Rightarrow$ $\bar{\sigma}_{\bar{I}\, AB}=\bar{\rho}_{AB}$ and $\bar{\sigma}_{\bar{I}\, BC}=\bar{\rho}_{BC}$;\\
$2'$) $\mathbf{W}$-1, $\mathbf{W}$-2 $\Rightarrow$ $\bar{\sigma}_{\bar{I}\, ABC}\cdot \bar{\sigma}_{\bar{J}\,ABC}=0$ for $\bar{I}\ne \bar{J}$;\\
$3'$) $\mathbf{U}$-1, $\mathbf{U}$-2, $\mathbf{U}$-$3$, $\mathbf{S}$ $\Rightarrow$ $S_{ABC}\vert_{\bar{\sigma}_{\bar{I}}}\simeq S_{ABC}\vert _{\bar{\rho}}$.
The derivation of $1'$) and $2'$) are parallel to what is done in Sec.\ref{The main result.}. The derivation of $3'$) follows. There exists a unitary operator $\delta Q$ supported on a region within a distance $R$ around $\partial C\cap \partial D$, See Fig.\ref{deltaQ}, such that $\bar{\rho}=\delta Q \bar{\rho}' \delta Q^\dagger$, $\bar{\sigma}_{\bar{I}}=\delta Q \bar{\sigma}'_{\bar{I}}\delta Q^\dagger$ and $\bar{\sigma}'_{\bar{I}\,ABC}=\bar{V}_{\bar{I}}\bar{\rho}'_{ABC}\bar{V}^\dagger_{\bar{I}}$. $\bar{V}_{\bar{I}}$ is some unitary operator supported on $ABC$. It is always possible to find such $\delta Q$ and $\bar{V}_{\bar{I}}$ given that $\mathbf{U}$-2 is satisfied for the unperturbed case.
Therefore, $S_{ABC}\vert_{\bar{\sigma}'_{\bar{I}}}=S_{ABC}\vert_{\bar{\rho}'}$. \\
Then, by applying $\mathbf{U}$-$1$, $\mathbf{U}$-$3$, and $\mathbf{S}$ we find that
\begin{eqnarray}
\mathbf{U}\textrm{-}1, \mathbf{U}\textrm{-}3 &\Rightarrow& S_{BC}\vert_{\bar{\sigma}'_{\bar{I}}}=S_{BC}\vert_{\bar{\rho}'}\nonumber\\
&& S_{BC}\vert_{\bar{\sigma}_{\bar{I}}}=S_{BC}\vert_{\bar{\rho}}\,;\nonumber\\
\mathbf{S} &\Rightarrow& (S_{ABC}-S_{BC})\vert_{\bar{\rho}}\simeq (S_{ABC}-S_{BC})\vert_{\bar{\rho}'}\nonumber\\ &&(S_{ABC}-S_{BC})\vert_{\bar{\sigma}_{\bar{I}}}\simeq (S_{ABC}-S_{BC})\vert_{\bar{\sigma}'_{\bar{I}}}\,.\nonumber
\end{eqnarray}
After simple algebra one arrives at the result $3'$) i.e.
$ S_{ABC}\vert_{\bar{\sigma}_{\bar{I}}}\simeq S_{ABC}\vert _{\bar{\rho}}$.
\begin{figure}[h]
\centering
\includegraphics[scale=0.26]{deltaQ}
\caption{The support of the operator $\delta Q$ (in purple color) is within a distance $R$ around $\partial C \cap \partial D$.}\label{deltaQ}
\end{figure}
Assuming the error caused by ``$\simeq$" could be neglected, one could apply the same method as Sec.\ref{The main result.} to arrive at a lower bound
\begin{equation}
S_{nonlocal}\vert_{\bar{\rho}} \ge \ln \bar{N} =\sum_{\bar{i}=1}^{\bar{M}} \ln {\bar{n}}_{\bar{i}}.
\end{equation}
For models with topologically deformable $U_i$ operators, like the 2D, 3D toric code models, our lower bound is invariant under perturbation. Because we can always move the excitations deep inside $D$, such that the distance from any excitation to the boundary $d_e\gg \xi\sim R$. For large subsystems, we would have $M=M'$ and we do not lose any $U_i$, $U_{i}^{def}$ and $W_i$.
For models with $U_i$ not topologically deformable, e.g. the X-cube model and fractal spin liquids. There is usually some excitation that could not be moved deep inside subsystem $D$. Therefore, after adding perturbations, we typically lose a few $U_i$ and $U_{i}^{def}$ , such that $\bar{M}<M$ and $\bar{N}<N$. But for large subsystems which possess extensive $S_{nonlocal}$ before perturbation is added, this modification is small comparing to the leading contribution.
To summarize, for local perturbations satisfying assumption $\mathbf{S}$, and subsystem sizes much larger than $\xi$ and $\xi_{\alpha}$ we expect:
\begin{equation}
S_{nonlocal}{(\textrm{perturbed})}\simeq
S_{nonlocal}{(\textrm{unperturbed})}-\mu\xi.
\end{equation}
For conventional topological orders $\mu=0$, and for fracton topological orders $\mu>0$ being a number depends on the model and subsystem geometry.
\section{Discussion and Outlook}\label{Sec.4}
In this paper, we have obtained a lower bound of the nonlocal entanglement entropy $S_{nonlocal}$ from assumptions about the topological excitations and the ground state condensates of Abelian topological orders and applied our method to several examples.
For conventional topological orders, e.g. the 2D toric code model and the 3D toric code model, our lower bounds are saturated and topologically invariant. Whenever the lower bound is saturated, we get an explicit construction of a conditionally independent density matrix $\sigma^\ast$.
For fracton topological orders \cite{PhysRevLett.94.040402,bravyi2011topological,PhysRevA.83.042330,PhysRevB.88.125122,PhysRevB.92.235136,PhysRevB.94.235157}, e.g. the X-cube model and the Sierpinski prism model, our lower bound depends on the geometry of the subsystems and $S_{nonlocal}$ is extensive for certain subsystem choices.
This method observes an intimate relation between $S_{nonlocal}$ and the topological excitations and the ground state condensates, and it obtains a lower bound of $S_{nonlocal}$ without calculating the entanglement entropy of any subsystem. A nonzero lower bound of $S_{nonlocal}$ is a result of the nonlocal nature of topological excitations, i.e. the fact that topological excitations could not be created alone by local operators. This nonlocal nature of topological excitations does not guarantee the operators which create the topological excitations to be topologically deformable and $S_{nonlocal}$ is not necessarily a topological invariance. Geometry-dependent $S_{nonlocal}$ is what appears in fracton models. It is beyond an established paradigm, i.e., the topological entanglement entropy, and should be treated as its generalization.
The stability of the lower bound is discussed for local perturbations satisfying assumption $\mathbf{S}$, which should cover a large class of interesting local perturbations.
The different behaviors of $S_{nonlocal}$ may be used to distinguish fracton topological orders from conventional topological orders. Together with other methods being developed so far \cite{PhysRevLett.111.080503,haah2014bifurcation}, our result provides a better understanding of the entanglement properties of fractal models. Furthermore, the lower bound suggests (but not prove) different behaviors of $S_{nonlocal}$ between type \Rom{1} and type \Rom{2} fracton models. These different behaviors may be proven or disproven by later works.
Some of the assumptions in our method do not apply to non-Abelian models, a variant of our lower bound of $S_{nonlocal}$ for non-Abelian models is presented in \cite{2018arXiv180101519S}. Also, it might be interesting to investigate possible implications of our method on relations among topological order, topological entanglement entropy and quantum black holes \cite{McGough2013,rasmussen2017gapless}.
\section*{Acknowledgement}
B.S. would like to thank Fuyan Lu for a comment on one assumption, Jeongwan Haah for providing a reference about Bravyi's counterexample, Isaac H. Kim for a discussion and sharing one conjecture, and Michael Levin for a discussion about the entanglement in non-Abelian phases. This work is supported by the startup funds at OSU and the National Science Foundation under Grant No. NSF DMR-1653769 (BS,YML).
| {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaArXiv"
} | 6,922 |
Q: How do I average one field while grouping by another in using RDDs with pyspark? I am getting wrapped around the axle between groupBy, aggregate, reduceByKey, map, etc. My goal is to average out field 16 (the last field) for each unique value of field 2.
So the output might look something like:
NW -8
DL -6
OO -1
Given an RDD with the following elements:
[u'2002-04-28,NW,19386,DTW,MI,42.21,-83.35,MSP,MN,44.88,-93.22,1220,1252,32,1316,1350,34', u'2012-05-04,OO,20304,LSE,WI,43.87,-91.25,MSP,MN,44.88,-93.22,1130,1126,-4,1220,1219,-1', u'2002-08-18,NW,19386,BDL,CT,41.93,-72.68,MSP,MN,44.88,-93.22,805,804,-1,959,952,-7', u'2004-07-29,NW,19386,BDL,CT,41.93,-72.68,MSP,MN,44.88,-93.22,800,757,-3,951,933,-18', u'2008-07-21,NW,19386,IND,IN,39.71,-86.29,MSP,MN,44.88,-93.22,1143,1140,-3,1228,1222,-6', u'2007-10-29,NW,19386,RST,MN,43.9,-92.5,MSP,MN,44.88,-93.22,1546,1533,-13,1639,1609,-30', u'2012-12-24,DL,19790,BOS,MA,42.36,-71,MSP,MN,44.88,-93.22,1427,1431,4,1648,1635,-13', u'2010-04-22,DL,19790,DTW,MI,42.21,-83.35,MSP,MN,44.88,-93.22,930,927,-3,1028,1008,-20', u'2010-06-01,DL,19790,DTW,MI,42.21,-83.35,MSP,MN,44.88,93.22,835,846,11,930,946,16', u'2003-09-04,NW,19386,BUF,NY,42.94,-78.73,MSP,MN,44.88,-93.22,900,852,-8,1017,955,-22']
A: Here is a solution :
data = [u'2002-04-28,NW,19386,DTW,MI,42.21,-83.35,MSP,MN,44.88,-93.22,1220,1252,32,1316,1350,34', u'2012-05-04,OO,20304,LSE,WI,43.87,-91.25,MSP,MN,44.88,-93.22,1130,1126,-4,1220,1219,-1', u'2002-08-18,NW,19386,BDL,CT,41.93,-72.68,MSP,MN,44.88,-93.22,805,804,-1,959,952,-7', u'2004-07-29,NW,19386,BDL,CT,41.93,-72.68,MSP,MN,44.88,-93.22,800,757,-3,951,933,-18', u'2008-07-21,NW,19386,IND,IN,39.71,-86.29,MSP,MN,44.88,-93.22,1143,1140,-3,1228,1222,-6', u'2007-10-29,NW,19386,RST,MN,43.9,-92.5,MSP,MN,44.88,-93.22,1546,1533,-13,1639,1609,-30', u'2012-12-24,DL,19790,BOS,MA,42.36,-71,MSP,MN,44.88,-93.22,1427,1431,4,1648,1635,-13', u'2010-04-22,DL,19790,DTW,MI,42.21,-83.35,MSP,MN,44.88,-93.22,930,927,-3,1028,1008,-20', u'2010-06-01,DL,19790,DTW,MI,42.21,-83.35,MSP,MN,44.88,93.22,835,846,11,930,946,16', u'2003-09-04,NW,19386,BUF,NY,42.94,-78.73,MSP,MN,44.88,-93.22,900,852,-8,1017,955,-22']
current_rdd = sc.parallelize(data)
rdd = current_rdd.map(lambda x : (x.split(","))).map(lambda x : (x[1],x[-1])) \
.groupByKey() \ # group by key
.map(lambda x : (x[0], map(int, list(x[1])))) \ # convert resultiterable to list
.map(lambda x : (x[0], float(sum(x[1]))/len(x[1]))) # compute average on list for each key
# output
rdd.take(10)
# [(u'DL', -5.666666666666667), (u'NW', -8.166666666666666), (u'OO', -1.0)]
A: Ok this is a shot in the dark as I don't have any environment to try this on (and it sucks)
I assume you have a RDD in data already splitted
mappedData = data.map(lambda d : (d[1], d[-1])).cache // (NW,34), (OO,-1), (NW,-7)
groupedData = mappedData.groupByKey().mapValues(len) // (NW, (34, -7)) -> (NW, 2)
sumData = mappedData.groupByKey().mapValues(sum) // (NW, (34, -7)) -> (NW, 27)
sumData.join(groupedData).map(lambda (x,y) => (x, y[0] / y[1] )) (NW, (27,2)) -> (NW, 27/2)
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Johnson and Romney need to talk
Posted on June 14, 2016 by Fritz Pettyjohn
I always thought Mitt Romney had some serious Daddy issues. His father was a better man than he is, and he wanted the Presidency, at least in part, to redeem his father's good name. George Romney had a good shot at the '68 nomination, but then he said he was brainwashed by what American officials told him in Vietnam, and it was over for him. He was made to look foolish, and somehow unqualified. Son Mitt would erase that memory.
Romney lost the election in the second debate, when he allowed the female moderator to interrupt and contradict him. Maybe he was too much of a gentleman, or maybe he lacked self-confidence, but that moment of weakness sank him. Candidates matter. No statistical model in the world can factor in a critical moment like that.
But after Perry's back gave out on him, Romney was the best we had in 2012. I think he earned a lot of good will in that campaign. He has a wonderful family, and he did a damn good job, all in all. Then came the hurricane and the Christie hug, and it was over, just like that, almost as though it wasn't meant to be. Most Republicans think well of Romney, in my opinion.
So when he told CNN that he's open to voting Libertarian this year, it's worth noticing. The VP pick, Weld, has a special appeal to him, as a predecessor Republican Governor of Massachusetts. Potentially, this is a big deal. How often does the previous Presidential nominee of a major political party endorse a different party's candidate in the following election? Like, never.
So it would be news, especially in Utah, which should be the initial target of the Johnson campaign. How about a presser in Salt Lake making the announcement of a Romney endorsement?
Romney may feel, as I do, that both Clinton and Trump would continue the degradation of the Constitution. If he feels as strongly about constitutionalism as I do, that's a major reason to go with Johnson, who is also softer on immigration than Trump, which might also appeal to Romney. And Johnson is an honorable man. I'll bet that means a lot to Romney. Clinton's a criminal, and Trump's a nut, so Johnson looks pretty good in comparison.
The hangup might be NATO, and hawkishness in general. Romney's an Atlanticist, with close ties to the British. His wife is the daughter of Welsh immigrants. But, then again, he'd probably take anybody over the unpredictable Trump.
Now that Putin has seen the oppo research on Trump from the DNC, will he share it with the Donald? Inquiring minds want to know.
"Free Trade is Dead" according to Clyde Prestowitz in the Washington Monthly. This guy's an old pro, and what he says makes sense. During the Cold War we gave away a lot in trade deals, for geopolitical reasons. Our number one national priority was defeating the Communists, and we allowed that to interfere with what normally would have been our self interest. We've continued to do it, even though the Cold War is over. In other words, these one way trade deals are an artifact of the 20th century, just like NATO.
What I want is Trumpism without Trump. The son of a bitch just happens to be right on the big stuff, like unfair free trade, NATO, and immigration. But, unfortunately , he's a fruitcake. When he goes down, we've got to make sure it's understood that it was not because of what he said. He'll lose because of who he is, not what he thinks.
I have a tendency to pronouncement. Back in 1846, when we were in the process of taking California, the local Mexican government was divided between two caudillos, who had no real resources at their disposal. All they had was hot air, which they let out in what was called a Pronunciamento, proclaiming their latest orders to the people. It was all a joke. Many, if not most, of the Californio estate owners were in favor of becoming American. People like Vallejo. So there really wasn't much to the whole thing.
Except the Battle of San Pascual, where Kearny's remnant of an army was surrounded, and Kit Carson and another guy slipped through the Californio lines and walked barefoot across thirty miles of rough country to San Diego, where help was summoned.
I don't live far from the Carson Pass over the Sierras, which I think is cool.
← Mi casa no es su casa
The teaching of the Church → | {
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A Kyrgyz militant injured in a U.S. drone strike against Al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra has "regained consciousness from a coma," according to Nusra's Russian-language media wing White Minaret.
An Armenian businessman was hospitalized over the weekend after being beaten up in an attack he blamed on Ruben Hayrapetian, the wealthy and well-connected head of the Football Federation of Armenia (FFA).
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov is embroiled in yet another controversy over his expensive tastes.
Former Astrakhan police officer Elshad Babayev thought he was helping society by taking drunk drivers off the streets. But some of the police officers and other officials that he caught on video driving drunk think he's just a menace. | {
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/* -*- Mode: C++; tab-width: 2; indent-tabs-mode: nil; c-basic-offset: 2 -*- */
/* ***** BEGIN LICENSE BLOCK *****
* Version: MPL 1.1/GPL 2.0/LGPL 2.1
*
* The contents of this file are subject to the Mozilla Public License Version
* 1.1 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
* the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at
* http://www.mozilla.org/MPL/
*
* Software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" basis,
* WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License
* for the specific language governing rights and limitations under the
* License.
*
* The Original Code is JavaScript Engine testing utilities.
*
* The Initial Developer of the Original Code is
* Mozilla Foundation.
* Portions created by the Initial Developer are Copyright (C) 2008
* the Initial Developer. All Rights Reserved.
*
* Contributor(s): Jason Orendorff
*
* Alternatively, the contents of this file may be used under the terms of
* either the GNU General Public License Version 2 or later (the "GPL"), or
* the GNU Lesser General Public License Version 2.1 or later (the "LGPL"),
* in which case the provisions of the GPL or the LGPL are applicable instead
* of those above. If you wish to allow use of your version of this file only
* under the terms of either the GPL or the LGPL, and not to allow others to
* use your version of this file under the terms of the MPL, indicate your
* decision by deleting the provisions above and replace them with the notice
* and other provisions required by the GPL or the LGPL. If you do not delete
* the provisions above, a recipient may use your version of this file under
* the terms of any one of the MPL, the GPL or the LGPL.
*
* ***** END LICENSE BLOCK ***** */
var gTestfile = 'regress-452498-052-a.js';
//-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
var BUGNUMBER = 452498;
var summary = 'TM: upvar2 regression tests';
var actual = '';
var expect = '';
//-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
test();
//-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
function test()
{
enterFunc ('test');
printBugNumber(BUGNUMBER);
printStatus (summary);
// ------- Comment #52 From Jason Orendorff
// Assertion failure: pn_arity == PN_FUNC || pn_arity == PN_NAME, at ../jsparse.h:444
// Here the function node has been morphed into a JSOP_TRUE node, but we're in
// FindFunArgs poking it anyway.
if (typeof timeout == 'function')
{
expectExitCode(6);
timeout(3);
while(function(){});
}
reportCompare(expect, actual, summary);
exitFunc ('test');
}
| {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaGithub"
} | 1,277 |
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;
namespace OpenQA.Selenium
{
/// <summary>
/// Defines the interface through which the user can execute JavaScript.
/// </summary>
public interface IJavaScriptExecutor
{
/// <summary>
/// Gets a value indicating whether JavaScript is enabled for this browser.
/// </summary>
bool IsJavaScriptEnabled { get; }
/// <summary>
/// Executes JavaScript in the context of the currently selected frame or window.
/// </summary>
/// <param name="script">The JavaScript code to execute.</param>
/// <param name="args">The arguments to the script.</param>
/// <returns>The value returned by the script.</returns>
/// <remarks>
/// <para>
/// The <see cref="ExecuteScript"/>method executes JavaScript in the context of
/// the currently selected frame or window. This means that "document" will refer
/// to the current document. If the script has a return value, then the following
/// steps will be taken:
/// </para>
/// <para>
/// <list type="bullet">
/// <item><description>For an HTML element, this method returns a <see cref="IWebElement"/></description></item>
/// <item><description>For a number, a <see cref="System.Int64"/> is returned</description></item>
/// <item><description>For a boolean, a <see cref="System.Boolean"/> is returned</description></item>
/// <item><description>For all other cases a <see cref="System.String"/> is returned.</description></item>
/// <item><description>For an array,we check the first element, and attempt to return a
/// <see cref="List{T}"/> of that type, following the rules above. Nested lists are not
/// supported.</description></item>
/// <item><description>If the value is null or there is no return value,
/// <see langword="null"/> is returned.</description></item>
/// </list>
/// </para>
/// <para>
/// Arguments must be a number (which will be converted to a <see cref="System.Int64"/>),
/// a <see cref="System.Boolean"/>, a <see cref="System.String"/> or a <see cref="IWebElement"/>.
/// An exception will be thrown if the arguments do not meet these criteria.
/// The arguments will be made available to the JavaScript via the "arguments" magic
/// variable, as if the function were called via "Function.apply"
/// </para>
/// </remarks>
object ExecuteScript(string script, params object[] args);
}
}
| {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaGithub"
} | 761 |
{% extends 'admin/layout/base.html' %}
{% load staticfiles %}
{% block 'css' %}
{% endblock %}
{% block 'content' %}
<!-- Content Header (Page header) -->
<section class="content-header">
<h1>
Category
<small>Update</small>
</h1>
<ol class="breadcrumb">
<li><a href="/admin"><i class="fa fa-dashboard"></i> Home</a></li>
<li><a href="/admin/category">Category</a></li>
<li class="active">Update</li>
</ol>
</section>
<!-- Main content -->
<section class="content">
<div class="row">
<div class="col-md-12">
<form action="" method="POST">
<div class="box box-danger">
<div class="box-header with-border">
<div class="pull-left">
<a class="btn btn-xs btn-warning" href="/admin/category/">Back</a>
</div>
</div>
<!-- /.box-header -->
<div class="box-body">
{% csrf_token %}
<div class="form-group {% if form.name.errors %} has-error {% endif %}">
<label for="{{ form.name.id_for_label }}">Name:</label>
<input name="{{ form.name.name }}" type="text" class="form-control" value="{{ form.name.value|default_if_none:"" }}" placeholder="Enter name">
<span class="help-block">{{ form.name.errors }}</span>
</div>
<div class="form-group">
<label for="{{ form.description.id_for_label }}">Description:</label>
<textarea class="form-control" name="{{ form.description.name }}" placeholder="Enter {{ form.description.name }}">{{ form.description.value|default_if_none:"" }}</textarea>
</div>
</div>
<!-- /.box-body -->
<div class="box-footer">
<button type="submit" class="btn btn-primary pull-right">Save</button>
</div>
</div>
</form>
</div>
</div>
</section>
<!-- /.content -->
{% endblock %}
{% block 'js' %}
<script src="{% static 'admin/plugins/input-mask/jquery.inputmask.js' %}"></script>
<script src="{% static 'admin/plugins/input-mask/jquery.inputmask.date.extensions.js' %}"></script>
<script src="{% static 'admin/plugins/input-mask/jquery.inputmask.extensions.js' %}"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
$(function() {
$(".datemask").inputmask("mm/dd/yyyy", {"placeholder": "mm/dd/yyyy"});
})
</script>
{% endblock %}
| {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaGithub"
} | 9,808 |
Home > AI Main > Neural Networks > SOM
Back-
Elman
Kohonen Self-Organizing Maps.*;
Kohonen SOM Main
Example 1: A Kohonen self-organizing network with 4 inputs and a 2-node linear array of cluster units.
Example 2: Linear cluster array, neighborhood weight updating and radius reduction.
Example 3: Character Recognition
Example 4: Traveling Salesman Problem
based on articles by Laurene Fausett, and T. Kohonen.
Self-organizing neural networks are used to cluster input patterns into groups of similar patterns. They're called "maps" because they assume a topological structure among their cluster units; effectively mapping weights to input data. The Kohonen network is probably the best example, because it's simple, yet introduces the concepts of self-organization and unsupervised learning easily.
Each weight is representative of a certain input. Input patterns are shown to all neurons simultaneously.
Self-organizing networks can be either supervised or unsupervised. Unsupervised learning is a means of modifying the weights of a neural network without specifying the desired output for any input patterns. The advantage is that it allows the network to find its own solution, making it more efficient with pattern association. The disadvantage is that other programs or users have to figure out how to interpret the output.
The structure of a self-organizing map involves m cluster units, arranged in either a one- or two-dimensional array, with vectors of n input signals.
Figure 1. Example self-organizing network with five cluster units, Yi, and seven input units, Xi. The five cluster units are arranged in a linear array.
The weight vectors define each cluster. Input patterns are compared to each cluster, and associated with the cluster it best matches. The comparison is usually based on the square of the minimum Euclidean distance. When a best match is found, the associated cluster gets its weights and its neighboring units updated.
Weight vectors are arranged into lines or various grid structures. Some neighborhoods closer to the ends or edges will have fewer weights, because the algorithm doesn't wrap around.
Figure 2. Neighborhoods (R) for a linear array of cluster units: R = 0 in black brackets, R = 1 in red, and R = 2 in blue.
Figure 3. Neighborhoods (R) for a rectangular matrix of cluster units: R = 0 in black brackets, R = 1 in red, and R = 2 in blue.
Figure 4. Neighborhoods (R) for a hexagonal matrix of cluster units: R = 0 in black brackets, R = 1 in red, and R = 2 in blue.
The learning rate α alpha is a slowly decreased with each epoch.
The size or radius of the neighborhood around a cluster unit can also decrease during the later epochs.
The formation of a map occurs in two stages:
the initial formation of the correct order
and the final convergence
The second stage takes much longer, and usually occurs when the learning rate gets smaller.
The initial weights can be random values.
nodes are Dj.
set decay rate.
set alpha
set minimum alpha
while alpha is > minimum alpha
for each input vector
for each node x
compute:
find index j such that Dj is a minimum.
update the weights for the vector at index j and its neighbors:
wij(new) = wij(old) +α[xi - wij(old)]
reduce alpha
optionally, reduce radius of topological neighborhoods at specific times.
Fausett, Laurene. (1994). Fundamentals of neural networks: Architectures, algorithms, and applications. New Jersey: Prentice Hall. pp. 169-175.
Kohonen, T. (1989). Self-organizing and associative memory. (3rd ed.), Berlin: Springer-Verlag.
Kohonen, T. (1989). "A self-learning musical grammar, or 'Associative memory of the second kind'." International Joint Conference On Neural Networks. Washington, DC. Chap. 1: 1 - 5. | {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaCommonCrawl"
} | 6,443 |
{"url":"https:\/\/handwiki.org\/wiki\/Chemistry:Thorium","text":"# Chemistry:Thorium\n\nThorium,\u00a090Th\nThorium\nPronunciation\/\u02c8\u03b8\u0254\u02d0ri\u0259m\/\nAppearancesilvery, often with black tarnish\nStandard atomic weight Ar,\u00a0std(Th)232.0377(4)[1]\nThorium in the periodic table\n Hydrogen Helium Lithium Beryllium Boron Carbon Nitrogen Oxygen Fluorine Neon Sodium Magnesium Aluminium Silicon Phosphorus Sulfur Chlorine Argon Potassium Calcium Scandium Titanium Vanadium Chromium Manganese Iron Cobalt Nickel Copper Zinc Gallium Germanium Arsenic Selenium Bromine Krypton Rubidium Strontium Yttrium Zirconium Niobium Molybdenum Technetium Ruthenium Rhodium Palladium Silver Cadmium Indium Tin Antimony Tellurium Iodine Xenon Caesium Barium Lanthanum Cerium Praseodymium Neodymium Promethium Samarium Europium Gadolinium Terbium Dysprosium Holmium Erbium Thulium Ytterbium Lutetium Hafnium Tantalum Tungsten Rhenium Osmium Iridium Platinum Gold Mercury (element) Thallium Lead Bismuth Polonium Astatine Radon Francium Radium Actinium Thorium Protactinium Uranium Neptunium Plutonium Americium Curium Berkelium Californium Einsteinium Fermium Mendelevium Nobelium Lawrencium Rutherfordium Dubnium Seaborgium Bohrium Hassium Meitnerium Darmstadtium Roentgenium Copernicium Nihonium Flerovium Moscovium Livermorium Tennessine Oganesson\nCe\n\nTh\n\n(Uqq)\nactiniumthoriumprotactinium\n90\nGroupgroup\u00a0n\/a\nPeriodperiod\u00a07\nBlock\u00a0 f-block\nElement category\u00a0 f-block\nElectron configuration[Rn] 6d2 7s2\nElectrons per shell2, 8, 18, 32, 18, 10, 2\nPhysical properties\nPhase at\u00a0STPsolid\nMelting point2023\u00a0K \u200b(1750\u00a0\u00b0C, \u200b3182\u00a0\u00b0F)\nBoiling point5061\u00a0K \u200b(4788\u00a0\u00b0C, \u200b8650\u00a0\u00b0F)\nDensity (near\u00a0r.t.)11.7\u00a0g\/cm3\nHeat of fusion13.81\u00a0kJ\/mol\nHeat of vaporisation514\u00a0kJ\/mol\nMolar heat capacity26.230\u00a0J\/(mol\u00b7K)\nVapour pressure\nP\u00a0(Pa) 1 10 100 1\u00a0k 10\u00a0k 100\u00a0k\nat\u00a0T\u00a0(K) 2633 2907 3248 3683 4259 5055\nAtomic properties\nOxidation states+1, +2, +3, +4 (a\u00a0weakly basic oxide)\nElectronegativityPauling\u00a0scale: 1.3\nIonisation energies\n\u2022 1st:\u00a0587\u00a0kJ\/mol\n\u2022 2nd:\u00a01110\u00a0kJ\/mol\n\u2022 3rd:\u00a01930\u00a0kJ\/mol\nSpectral lines of thorium\nOther properties\nNatural occurrenceprimordial\nCrystal structureface-centred cubic (fcc)\nSpeed of sound thin\u00a0rod2490\u00a0m\/s (at\u00a020\u00a0\u00b0C)\nThermal expansion11.0\u00a0\u00b5m\/(m\u00b7K) (at\u00a025\u00a0\u00b0C)\nThermal conductivity54.0\u00a0W\/(m\u00b7K)\nElectrical resistivity157\u00a0n\u03a9\u00b7m (at\u00a00\u00a0\u00b0C)\nMagnetic orderingparamagnetic[2]\nMagnetic susceptibility132.0\u00b710\u22126\u00a0cm3\/mol (293\u00a0K)[3]\nYoung's modulus79\u00a0GPa\nShear modulus31\u00a0GPa\nBulk modulus54\u00a0GPa\nPoisson ratio0.27\nMohs hardness3.0\nVickers hardness295\u2013685\u00a0MPa\nBrinell hardness390\u20131500\u00a0MPa\nCAS Number7440-29-1\nHistory\nNamingafter Thor, the Norse god of thunder\nDiscoveryJ\u00f6ns Jakob Berzelius (1829)\nMain isotopes of thorium\nIso\u00adtope Abun\u00addance Physics:Half-life (t1\/2) Decay mode Pro\u00adduct\n227Th trace 18.68\u00a0d \u03b1 223Ra\n228Th trace 1.9116\u00a0y \u03b1 224Ra\n229Th trace 7917\u00a0y \u03b1 225Ra\n230Th 0.02% 75400 y \u03b1 226Ra\n231Th trace 25.5\u00a0h \u03b2 231Pa\n232Th 99.98% 1.405\u00d71010\u00a0y \u03b1 228Ra\n234Th trace 24.1\u00a0d \u03b2 234Pa\nCategory: Thorium\n| references\nTh\nin calc from C diff report ref\nC 1750\nK 2023 2020 3 delta\nF 3182 3180 2 delta\nmax precision 0\nWD\n\ninput C: 1750, K: 2023, F: 3182\ncomment\nTh\nin calc from C diff report ref\nC 4788\nK 5061 5061 0\nF 8650 8650 0\nmax precision 0\nWD\n\ninput C: 4788, K: 5061, F: 8650\ncomment\n\nThorium is a weakly radioactive metallic chemical element with the symbol Th and atomic number 90. Thorium is silvery and tarnishes black when it is exposed to air, forming thorium dioxide; it is moderately soft and malleable and has a high melting point. Thorium is an electropositive actinide whose chemistry is dominated by the +4 oxidation state; it is quite reactive and can ignite in air when finely divided.\n\nAll known thorium isotopes are unstable. The most stable isotope, 232Th, has a half-life of 14.05\u00a0billion years, or about the age of the universe; it decays very slowly via alpha decay, starting a decay chain named the thorium series that ends at stable 208Pb. On Earth, thorium and uranium are the only significantly radioactive elements that still occur naturally in large quantities as primordial elements.[lower-alpha 1] Thorium is estimated to be over three times as abundant as uranium in the Earth's crust, and is chiefly refined from monazite sands as a by-product of extracting rare-earth metals.\n\nThorium was discovered in 1828 by the Norwegian amateur mineralogist Morten Thrane Esmark and identified by the Swedish chemist J\u00f6ns Jacob Berzelius, who named it after Thor, the Norse god of thunder. Its first applications were developed in the late 19th century. Thorium's radioactivity was widely acknowledged during the first decades of the 20th century. In the second half of the century, thorium was replaced in many uses due to concerns about its radioactivity.\n\nThorium is still being used as an alloying element in TIG welding electrodes but is slowly being replaced in the field with different compositions. It was also material in high-end optics and scientific instrumentation, used in some broadcast vacuum tubes, and as the light source in gas mantles, but these uses have become marginal. It has been suggested as a replacement for uranium as nuclear fuel in nuclear reactors, and several thorium reactors have been built. Thorium is also used in strengthening magnesium, coating tungsten wire in electrical equipment, controlling the grain size of tungsten in electric lamps, high-temperature crucibles, and glasses including camera and scientific instrument lenses. Other uses for thorium include heat-resistant ceramics, aircraft engines, and in light bulbs. Ocean science has utilised 231Pa\/230Th isotope ratios to understand the ancient ocean.[4]\n\n## Bulk properties\n\nThorium is a moderately soft, paramagnetic, bright silvery radioactive actinide metal. In the periodic table, it lies to the right of actinium, to the left of protactinium, and below cerium. Pure thorium is very ductile and, as normal for metals, can be cold-rolled, swaged, and drawn.[5] At room temperature, thorium metal has a face-centred cubic crystal structure; it has two other forms, one at high temperature (over 1360\u00a0\u00b0C; body-centred cubic) and one at high pressure (around 100\u00a0GPa; body-centred tetragonal).[5]\n\nThorium metal has a bulk modulus (a measure of resistance to compression of a material) of 54\u00a0GPa, about the same as tin's (58.2\u00a0GPa). Aluminium's is 75.2\u00a0GPa; copper's 137.8\u00a0GPa; and mild steel's is 160\u2013169\u00a0GPa.[6] Thorium is about as hard as soft steel, so when heated it can be rolled into sheets and pulled into wire.[7]\n\nThorium is nearly half as dense as uranium and plutonium and is harder than both.[7] It becomes superconductive below 1.4\u00a0K.[5] Thorium's melting point of 1750\u00a0\u00b0C is above both those of actinium (1227\u00a0\u00b0C) and protactinium (1568\u00a0\u00b0C). At the start of period 7, from francium to thorium, the melting points of the elements increase (as in other periods), because the number of delocalised electrons each atom contributes increases from one in francium to four in thorium, leading to greater attraction between these electrons and the metal ions as their charge increases from one to four. After thorium, there is a new downward trend in melting points from thorium to plutonium, where the number of f electrons increases from about 0.4 to about 6: this trend is due to the increasing hybridisation of the 5f and 6d orbitals and the formation of directional bonds resulting in more complex crystal structures and weakened metallic bonding.[7][8] (The f-electron count for thorium metal is a non-integer due to a 5f\u20136d overlap.)[8] Among the actinides up to californium, which can be studied in at least milligram quantities, thorium has the highest melting and boiling points and second-lowest density; only actinium is lighter. Thorium's boiling point of 4788\u00a0\u00b0C is the fifth-highest among all the elements with known boiling points.[lower-alpha 2]\n\nThe properties of thorium vary widely depending on the degree of impurities in the sample. The major impurity is usually thorium dioxide ThO\n2\n); even the purest thorium specimens usually contain about a tenth of a percent of the dioxide.[5] Experimental measurements of its density give values between 11.5\u00a0and\u00a011.66\u00a0g\/cm3: these are slightly lower than the theoretically expected value of 11.7\u00a0g\/cm3 calculated from thorium's lattice parameters, perhaps due to microscopic voids forming in the metal when it is cast.[5] These values lie between those of its neighbours actinium (10.1\u00a0g\/cm3) and protactinium (15.4\u00a0g\/cm3), part of a trend across the early actinides.[5]\n\nThorium can form alloys with many other metals. Addition of small proportions of thorium improves the mechanical strength of magnesium, and thorium-aluminum alloys have been considered as a way to store thorium in proposed future thorium nuclear reactors. Thorium forms eutectic mixtures with chromium and uranium, and it is completely miscible in both solid and liquid states with its lighter congener cerium.[5]\n\n## Isotopes\n\nMain page: Physics:Isotopes of thorium\n\nAll but two elements up to bismuth (element 83) have an isotope that is practically stable for all purposes (\"classically stable\"), with the exceptions being technetium and promethium (elements 43 and 61). All elements from polonium (element 84) onward are measurably radioactive. 232Th is one of the two nuclides beyond bismuth (the other being 238U) that have half-lives measured in billions of years; its half-life is 14.05\u00a0billion\u00a0years, about three times the age of the earth, and slightly longer than the age of the universe. Four-fifths of the thorium present at Earth's formation has survived to the present.[9][10][11] 232Th is the only isotope of thorium occurring in quantity in nature.[9] Its stability is attributed to its closed nuclear subshell with 142 neutrons.[12][13] Thorium has a characteristic terrestrial isotopic composition, with atomic weight 232.0377(4). It is one of only four radioactive elements (along with bismuth, protactinium and uranium) that occur in large enough quantities on Earth for a standard atomic weight to be determined.[1]\n\nThorium nuclei are susceptible to alpha decay because the strong nuclear force cannot overcome the electromagnetic repulsion between their protons.[14] The alpha decay of 232Th initiates the 4n decay chain which includes isotopes with a mass number divisible by 4 (hence the name; it is also called the thorium series after its progenitor). This chain of consecutive alpha and beta decays begins with the decay of 232Th to 228Ra and terminates at 208Pb.[9] Any sample of thorium or its compounds contains traces of these daughters, which are isotopes of thallium, lead, bismuth, polonium, radon, radium, and actinium.[9] Natural thorium samples can be chemically purified to extract useful daughter nuclides, such as 212Pb, which is used in nuclear medicine for cancer therapy.[15][16] 227Th (alpha emitter with an 18.68 days half-life) can also be used in cancer treatments such as targeted alpha therapies.[17][18][19] 232Th also very occasionally undergoes spontaneous fission rather than alpha decay, and has left evidence of doing so in its minerals (as trapped xenon gas formed as a fission product), but the partial half-life of this process is very large at over 1021\u00a0years and alpha decay predominates.[20][21]\n\nThe 4n decay chain of 232Th, commonly called the \"thorium series\"\n\nThirty radioisotopes have been characterised, which range in mass number from 209[22] to 238.[20] After 232Th, the most stable of them (with respective half-lives) are 230Th (75,380\u00a0years), 229Th (7,340\u00a0years), 228Th (1.92\u00a0years), 234Th (24.10\u00a0days), and 227Th (18.68\u00a0days). All of these isotopes occur in nature as trace radioisotopes due to their presence in the decay chains of 232Th, 235U, 238U, and 237Np: the last of these is long extinct in nature due to its short half-life (2.14\u00a0million\u00a0years), but is continually produced in minute traces from neutron capture in uranium ores. All of the remaining thorium isotopes have half-lives that are less than thirty days and the majority of these have half-lives that are less than ten minutes.[9]\n\nIn deep seawaters the isotope 230Th makes up to 0.04% of natural thorium.[1] This is because its parent 238U is soluble in water, but 230Th is insoluble and precipitates into the sediment. Uranium ores with low thorium concentrations can be purified to produce gram-sized thorium samples of which over a quarter is the 230Th isotope, since 230Th is one of the daughters of 238U.[20] The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) reclassified thorium as a binuclidic element in 2013; it had formerly been considered a mononuclidic element.[1]\n\nThorium has three known nuclear isomers (or metastable states), 216m1Th, 216m2Th, and 229mTh. 229mTh has the lowest known excitation energy of any isomer,[23] measured to be 7.6\u00b10.5\u00a0eV. This is so low that when it undergoes isomeric transition, the emitted gamma radiation is in the ultraviolet range.[24]Cite error: Closing <\/ref> missing for <ref> tag The isotope 229Th is expected to be fissionable with a bare critical mass of 2839\u00a0kg, although with steel reflectors this value could drop to 994\u00a0kg.[25][lower-alpha 3] 232Th is not fissionable, but it is fertile as it can be converted to fissile 233U by neutron capture and subsequent beta decay.[25][26]\n\nTwo radiometric dating methods involve thorium isotopes: uranium\u2013thorium dating, based on the decay of 234U to 230Th, and ionium\u2013thorium dating, which measures the ratio of 232Th to 230Th.[lower-alpha 4] These rely on the fact that 232Th is a primordial radioisotope, but 230Th only occurs as an intermediate decay product in the decay chain of 238U.[27] Uranium\u2013thorium dating is a relatively short-range process because of the short half-lives of 234U and 230Th relative to the age of the Earth: it is also accompanied by a sister process involving the alpha decay of 235U into 231Th, which very quickly becomes the longer-lived 231Pa, and this process is often used to check the results of uranium\u2013thorium dating. Uranium\u2013thorium dating is commonly used to determine the age of calcium carbonate materials such as speleothem or coral, because uranium is more soluble in water than thorium and protactinium, which are selectively precipitated into ocean-floor sediments, where their ratios are measured. The scheme has a range of several hundred thousand years.[27][28] Ionium\u2013thorium dating is a related process, which exploits the insolubility of thorium (both 232Th and 230Th) and thus its presence in ocean sediments to date these sediments by measuring the ratio of 232Th to 230Th.[29][30] Both of these dating methods assume that the proportion of 230Th to 232Th is a constant during the period when the sediment layer was formed, that the sediment did not already contain thorium before contributions from the decay of uranium, and that the thorium cannot migrate within the sediment layer.[29][30]\n\n## Chemistry\n\nMain page: Chemistry:Compounds of thorium\n\nA thorium atom has 90 electrons, of which four are valence electrons. Four atomic orbitals are theoretically available for the valence electrons to occupy: 5f, 6d, 7s, and 7p.[31] Despite thorium's position in the f-block of the periodic table, it has an anomalous [Rn]6d27s2 electron configuration in the ground state, as the 5f and 6d subshells in the early actinides are very close in energy, even more so than the 4f and 5d subshells of the lanthanides: thorium's 6d subshells are lower in energy than its 5f subshells, because its 5f subshells are not well-shielded by the filled 6s and 6p subshells and are destabilized. This is due to relativistic effects, which become stronger near the bottom of the periodic table, specifically the relativistic spin\u2013orbit interaction. The closeness in energy levels of the 5f, 6d, and 7s energy levels of thorium results in thorium almost always losing all four valence electrons and occurring in its highest possible oxidation state of +4. This is different from its lanthanide congener cerium, in which +4 is also the highest possible state, but +3 plays an important role and is more stable. Thorium is much more similar to the transition metals zirconium and hafnium than to cerium in its ionization energies and redox potentials, and hence also in its chemistry: this transition-metal-like behaviour is the norm in the first half of the actinide series.[32][33]\n\nThorium dioxide has the fluorite crystal structure.\nTh4+: __\u00a0\u00a0\/\u00a0\u00a0O2\u2212: __\n\nDespite the anomalous electron configuration for gaseous thorium atoms, metallic thorium shows significant 5f involvement. A hypothetical metallic state of thorium that had the [Rn]6d27s2 configuration with the 5f orbitals above the Fermi level should be hexagonal close packed like the group 4 elements titanium, zirconium, and hafnium, and not face-centred cubic as it actually is. The actual crystal structure can only be explained when the 5f states are invoked, proving that thorium is metallurgically a true actinide.[8]\n\nTetravalent thorium compounds are usually colourless or yellow, like those of silver or lead, as the Th4+ ion has no 5f or 6d electrons.[7] Thorium chemistry is therefore largely that of an electropositive metal forming a single diamagnetic ion with a stable noble-gas configuration, indicating a similarity between thorium and the main group elements of the s-block.[34][lower-alpha 5] Thorium and uranium are the most investigated of the radioactive elements because their radioactivity is low enough not to require special handling in the laboratory.[35]\n\n### Reactivity\n\nThorium is a highly reactive and electropositive metal. With a standard reduction potential of \u22121.90\u00a0V for the Th4+\/Th couple, it is somewhat more electropositive than zirconium or aluminium.[36] Finely divided thorium metal can exhibit pyrophoricity, spontaneously igniting in air.[5] When heated in air, thorium turnings ignite and burn with a brilliant white light to produce the dioxide. In bulk, the reaction of pure thorium with air is slow, although corrosion may occur after several months; most thorium samples are contaminated with varying degrees of the dioxide, which greatly accelerates corrosion.[5] Such samples slowly tarnish, becoming grey and finally black at the surface.[5]\n\nAt standard temperature and pressure, thorium is slowly attacked by water, but does not readily dissolve in most common acids, with the exception of hydrochloric acid, where it dissolves leaving a black insoluble residue of ThO(OH,Cl)H.[5][37] It dissolves in concentrated nitric acid containing a small quantity of catalytic fluoride or fluorosilicate ions;[5][38] if these are not present, passivation by the nitrate can occur, as with uranium and plutonium.[5][39][40]\n\nCrystal structure of thorium tetrafluoride\nTh4+: __\u00a0\u00a0\/\u00a0\u00a0F: __\n\n### Inorganic compounds\n\nMost binary compounds of thorium with nonmetals may be prepared by heating the elements together.[41] In air, thorium burns to form ThO\n2\n, which has the fluorite structure.[42] Thorium dioxide is a refractory material, with the highest melting point (3390\u00a0\u00b0C) of any known oxide.[43] It is somewhat hygroscopic and reacts readily with water and many gases;[44] it dissolves easily in concentrated nitric acid in the presence of fluoride.[45]\n\nWhen heated in air, thorium dioxide emits intense blue light; the light becomes white when ThO\n2\nis mixed with its lighter homologue cerium dioxide (CeO\n2\n, ceria): this is the basis for its previously common application in gas mantles.[44] A flame is not necessary for this effect: in 1901, it was discovered that a hot Welsbach gas mantle (using ThO\n2\nwith 1% CeO\n2\n) remained at \"full glow\" when exposed to a cold unignited mixture of flammable gas and air.[46] The light emitted by thorium dioxide is higher in wavelength than the blackbody emission expected from incandescence at the same temperature, an effect called candoluminescence. It occurs because ThO\n2\n: Ce acts as a catalyst for the recombination of free radicals that appear in high concentration in a flame, whose deexcitation releases large amounts of energy. The addition of 1% cerium dioxide, as in gas mantles, heightens the effect by increasing emissivity in the visible region of the spectrum; and because cerium, unlike thorium, can occur in multiple oxidation states, its charge and hence visible emissivity will depend on the region on the flame it is found in (as such regions vary in their chemical composition and hence how oxidising or reducing they are).[46]\n\nSeveral binary thorium chalcogenides and oxychalcogenides are also known with sulfur, selenium, and tellurium.[47]\n\nAll four thorium tetrahalides are known, as are some low-valent bromides and iodides:[48] the tetrahalides are all 8-coordinated hygroscopic compounds that dissolve easily in polar solvents such as water.[49] Many related polyhalide ions are also known.[48] Thorium tetrafluoride has a monoclinic crystal structure like those of zirconium tetrafluoride and hafnium tetrafluoride, where the Th4+ ions are coordinated with F ions in somewhat distorted square antiprisms.[48] The other tetrahalides instead have dodecahedral geometry.[49] Lower iodides ThI\n3\n(black) and ThI\n2\n(gold-coloured) can also be prepared by reducing the tetraiodide with thorium metal: they do not contain Th(III) and Th(II), but instead contain Th4+ and could be more clearly formulated as electride compounds.[48] Many polynary halides with the alkali metals, barium, thallium, and ammonium are known for thorium fluorides, chlorides, and bromides.[48] For example, when treated with potassium fluoride and hydrofluoric acid, Th4+ forms the complex anion ThF2\u22126, which precipitates as an insoluble salt, K\n2\nThF\n6\n.[38]\n\nThorium borides, carbides, silicides, and nitrides are refractory materials, like those of uranium and plutonium, and have thus received attention as possible nuclear fuels.[41] All four heavier pnictogens (phosphorus, arsenic, antimony, and bismuth) also form binary thorium compounds. Thorium germanides are also known.[50] Thorium reacts with hydrogen to form the thorium hydrides ThH\n2\nand Th\n4\nH\n15\n, the latter of which is superconducting below 7.5\u20138\u00a0K; at standard temperature and pressure, it conducts electricity like a metal.[51] The hydrides are thermally unstable and readily decompose upon exposure to air or moisture.[52]\n\nSandwich molecule structure of thorocene\n\n### Coordination compounds\n\nIn an acidic aqueous solution, thorium occurs as the tetrapositive aqua ion [Th(H\n2\nO)\n9\n]4+\n, which has tricapped trigonal prismatic molecular geometry:[53][54] at pH\u00a0<\u00a03, the solutions of thorium salts are dominated by this cation.[53] The Th4+ ion is the largest of the tetrapositive actinide ions, and depending on the coordination number can have a radius between 0.95\u00a0and\u00a01.14\u00a0\u00c5.[53] It is quite acidic due to its high charge, slightly stronger than sulfurous acid: thus it tends to undergo hydrolysis and polymerisation (though to a lesser extent than Fe3+), predominantly to [Th\n2\n(OH)\n2\n]6+\nin solutions with pH 3 or below, but in more alkaline solution polymerisation continues until the gelatinous hydroxide Th(OH)\n4\nforms and precipitates out (though equilibrium may take weeks to be reached, because the polymerisation usually slows down before the precipitation).[55] As a hard Lewis acid, Th4+ favours hard ligands with oxygen atoms as donors: complexes with sulfur atoms as donors are less stable and are more prone to hydrolysis.[32]\n\nHigh coordination numbers are the rule for thorium due to its large size. Thorium nitrate pentahydrate was the first known example of coordination number 11, the oxalate tetrahydrate has coordination number 10, and the borohydride (first prepared in the Manhattan Project) has coordination number 14.[55] These thorium salts are known for their high solubility in water and polar organic solvents.[7]\n\nMany other inorganic thorium compounds with polyatomic anions are known, such as the perchlorates, sulfates, sulfites, nitrates, carbonates, phosphates, vanadates, molybdates, and chromates, and their hydrated forms.[56] They are important in thorium purification and the disposal of nuclear waste, but most of them have not yet been fully characterized, especially regarding their structural properties.[56] For example, thorium nitrate is produced by reacting thorium hydroxide with nitric acid: it is soluble in water and alcohols and is an important intermediate in the purification of thorium and its compounds.[56] Thorium complexes with organic ligands, such as oxalate, citrate, and EDTA, are much more stable. In natural thorium-containing waters, organic thorium complexes usually occur in concentrations orders of magnitude higher than the inorganic complexes, even when the concentrations of inorganic ligands are much greater than those of organic ligands.[53]\n\nPiano-stool molecule structure of (\u03b78\u2212C\n8\nH\n8\n)ThCl\n2\n(THF)\n2\n\n### Organothorium compounds\n\nMost of the work on organothorium compounds has focused on the cyclopentadienyl complexes and cyclooctatetraenyls. Like many of the early and middle actinides (up to americium, and also expected for curium), thorium forms a cyclooctatetraenide complex: the yellow Th(C\n8\nH\n8\n)\n2\n, thorocene. It is isotypic with the better-known analogous uranium compound uranocene.[57] It can be prepared by reacting K\n2\nC\n8\nH\n8\nwith thorium tetrachloride in tetrahydrofuran (THF) at the temperature of dry ice, or by reacting thorium tetrafluoride with MgC\n8\nH\n8\n.[57] It is unstable in air and decomposes in water or at 190\u00a0\u00b0C.[57] Half sandwich compounds are also known, such as 8\u2212C\n8\nH\n8\n)ThCl\n2\n(THF)\n2\n, which has a piano-stool structure and is made by reacting thorocene with thorium tetrachloride in tetrahydrofuran.[32]\n\nThe simplest of the cyclopentadienyls are Th(C\n5\nH\n5\n)\n3\nand Th(C\n5\nH\n5\n)\n4\n: many derivatives are known. The former (which has two forms, one purple and one green) is a rare example of thorium in the formal +3 oxidation state;[57][58] a formal +2 oxidation state occurs in a derivative.[59] The chloride derivative [Th(C\n5\nH\n5\n)\n3\nCl]\nis prepared by heating thorium tetrachloride with limiting K(C\n5\nH\n5\n) used (other univalent metal cyclopentadienyls can also be used). The alkyl and aryl derivatives are prepared from the chloride derivative and have been used to study the nature of the Th\u2013C sigma bond.[58]\n\nOther organothorium compounds are not well-studied. Tetrabenzylthorium, Th(CH\n2\nC\n6\nH\n5\n), and tetraallylthorium, Th(C\n3\nH\n5\n)\n4\n, are known, but their structures have not been determined. They decompose slowly at room temperature. Thorium forms the monocapped trigonal prismatic anion [Th(CH\n3\n)\n7\n]3\u2212\n, heptamethylthorate, which forms the salt [Li(tmeda)]\n3\n[ThMe\n7\n]\n(tmeda=Me\n2\nNCH\n2\nCH\n2\nNMe\n2\n). Although one methyl group is only attached to the thorium atom (Th\u2013C distance 257.1\u00a0pm) and the other six connect the lithium and thorium atoms (Th\u2013C distances 265.5\u2013276.5\u00a0pm), they behave equivalently in solution. Tetramethylthorium, Th(CH\n3\n)\n4\n, is not known, but its adducts are stabilised by phosphine ligands.[32]\n\n## Occurrence\n\nMain page: Chemistry:Occurrence of thorium\n\n### Formation\n\n232Th is a primordial nuclide, having existed in its current form for over ten billion years; it was formed during the r-process, which probably occurs in supernovae and neutron star mergers. These violent events scattered it across the galaxy.[60][61] The letter \"r\" stands for \"rapid neutron capture\", and occurs in core-collapse supernovae, where heavy seed nuclei such as 56Fe rapidly capture neutrons, running up against the neutron drip line, as neutrons are captured much faster than the resulting nuclides can beta decay back toward stability. Neutron capture is the only way for stars to synthesise elements beyond iron because of the increased Coulomb barriers that make interactions between charged particles difficult at high atomic numbers and the fact that fusion beyond 56Fe is endothermic.[62] Because of the abrupt loss of stability past 209Bi, the r-process is the only process of stellar nucleosynthesis that can create thorium and uranium; all other processes are too slow and the intermediate nuclei alpha decay before they capture enough neutrons to reach these elements.[60][63][64]\n\nEstimated abundances of the 83 primordial elements in the Solar system, plotted on a logarithmic scale. Thorium, at atomic number 90, is one of the rarest elements.\n\nIn the universe, thorium is among the rarest of the primordial elements, because it is one of the two elements that can be produced only in the r-process (the other being uranium), and also because it has slowly been decaying away from the moment it formed. The only primordial elements rarer than thorium are thulium, lutetium, tantalum, and rhenium, the odd-numbered elements just before the third peak of r-process abundances around the heavy platinum group metals, as well as uranium.[60][62][lower-alpha 6] In the distant past the abundances of thorium and uranium were enriched by the decay of plutonium and curium isotopes, and thorium was enriched relative to uranium by the decay of 236U to 232Th and the natural depletion of 235U, but these sources have long since decayed and no longer contribute.[65]\n\nIn the Earth's crust, thorium is much more abundant: with an abundance of 8.1\u00a0parts per million (ppm), it is one of the most abundant of the heavy elements, almost as abundant as lead (13\u00a0ppm) and more abundant than tin (2.1\u00a0ppm).[66] This is because thorium is likely to form oxide minerals that do not sink into the core; it is classified as a lithophile under the Goldschmidt classification, meaning that it is generally found combined with oxygen. Common thorium compounds are also poorly soluble in water. Thus, even though the refractory elements have the same relative abundances in the Earth as in the Solar System as a whole, there is more accessible thorium than heavy platinum group metals in the crust.[67]\n\nThe radiogenic heat from the decay of 232Th (violet) is a major contributor to the earth's internal heat budget. Of the four major nuclides providing this heat, 232Th has grown to provide the most heat as the other ones decayed faster than thorium.[68][69][70][71]\n\n### On Earth\n\nThorium is the 41st most abundant element in the Earth's crust. Natural thorium is usually almost pure 232Th, which is the longest-lived and most stable isotope of thorium, having a half-life comparable to the age of the universe.[20] Its radioactive decay is the largest single contributor to the Earth's internal heat; the other major contributors are the shorter-lived primordial radionuclides, which are 238U, 40K, and 235U in descending order of their contribution. (At the time of the Earth's formation, 40K and 235U contributed much more by virtue of their short half-lives, but they have decayed more quickly, leaving the contribution from 232Th and 238U predominant.)[72] Its decay accounts for a gradual decrease of thorium content of the Earth: the planet currently has around 85% of the amount present at the formation of the Earth.[43] The other natural thorium isotopes are much shorter-lived; of them, only 230Th is usually detectable, occurring in secular equilibrium with its parent 238U, and making up at most 0.04% of natural thorium.[20][lower-alpha 7]\n\nThorium only occurs as a minor constituent of most minerals, and was for this reason previously thought to be rare.[74] Soil normally contains about 6 ppm of thorium.[75]\n\nIn nature, thorium occurs in the +4 oxidation state, together with uranium(IV), zirconium(IV), hafnium(IV), and cerium(IV), and also with scandium, yttrium, and the trivalent lanthanides which have similar ionic radii.[74] Because of thorium's radioactivity, minerals containing it are often metamict (amorphous), their crystal structure having been damaged by the alpha radiation produced by thorium.[76] An extreme example is ekanite, (Ca,Fe,Pb)\n2\n(Th,U)Si\n8\nO\n20\n, which almost never occurs in nonmetamict form due to the thorium it contains.[77]\n\nMonazite (chiefly phosphates of various rare-earth elements) is the most important commercial source of thorium because it occurs in large deposits worldwide, principally in India, South Africa, Brazil, Australia, and Malaysia. It contains around 2.5% thorium on average, although some deposits may contain up to 20%.[74][78] Monazite is a chemically unreactive mineral that is found as yellow or brown sand; its low reactivity makes it difficult to extract thorium from it.[74] Allanite (chiefly silicates-hydroxides of various metals) can have 0.1\u20132% thorium and zircon (chiefly zirconium silicate, ZrSiO\n4\n) up to 0.4% thorium.[74]\n\nThorium dioxide occurs as the rare mineral thorianite. Due to its being isotypic with uranium dioxide, these two common actinide dioxides can form solid-state solutions and the name of the mineral changes according to the ThO\n2\ncontent.[74][lower-alpha 8] Thorite (chiefly thorium silicate, ThSiO\n4\n), also has a high thorium content and is the mineral in which thorium was first discovered.[74] In thorium silicate minerals, the Th4+ and SiO4\u22124 ions are often replaced with M3+ (where M= Sc, Y, or Ln) and phosphate (PO3\u22124) ions respectively.[74] Because of the great insolubility of thorium dioxide, thorium does not usually spread quickly through the environment when released. The Th4+ ion is soluble, especially in acidic soils, and in such conditions the thorium concentration can reach 40\u00a0ppm.[43]\n\n## History\n\nThor's Fight with the Giants (1872) by M\u00e5rten Eskil Winge; Thor, the Norse god of thunder, raising his hammer Mj\u00f6lnir in a battle against the giants.[79]\n\n### Erroneous report\n\nIn 1815, the Swedish chemist J\u00f6ns Jacob Berzelius analysed an unusual sample of gadolinite from a copper mine in Falun, central Sweden. He noted impregnated traces of a white mineral, which he cautiously assumed to be an earth (oxide in modern chemical nomenclature) of an unknown element. Berzelius had already discovered two elements, cerium and selenium, but he had made a public mistake once, announcing a new element, gahnium, that turned out to be zinc oxide.[80] Berzelius privately named the putative element \"thorium\" in 1817[81] and its supposed oxide \"thorina\" after Thor, the Norse god of thunder.[82] In 1824, after more deposits of the same mineral in Vest-Agder, Norway, were discovered, he retracted his findings, as the mineral (later named xenotime) proved to be mostly yttrium orthophosphate.[26][80][83][84]\n\n### Discovery\n\nIn 1828, Morten Thrane Esmark found a black mineral on L\u00f8v\u00f8ya island, Telemark county, Norway. He was a Norwegian priest and amateur mineralogist who studied the minerals in Telemark, where he served as vicar. He commonly sent the most interesting specimens, such as this one, to his father, Jens Esmark, a noted mineralogist and professor of mineralogy and geology at the Royal Frederick University in Christiania (today called Oslo).[85] The elder Esmark determined that it was not a known mineral and sent a sample to Berzelius for examination. Berzelius determined that it contained a new element.[26] He published his findings in 1829, having isolated an impure sample by reducing KThF\n5\nwith potassium metal.[86][87][88] Berzelius reused the name of the previous supposed element discovery[86][89] and named the source mineral thorite.[26]\n\nJ\u00f6ns Jacob Berzelius, who first identified thorium as a new element\n\nBerzelius made some initial characterizations of the new metal and its chemical compounds: he correctly determined that the thorium\u2013oxygen mass ratio of thorium oxide was 7.5 (its actual value is close to that, ~7.3), but he assumed the new element was divalent rather than tetravalent, and so calculated that the atomic mass was 7.5 times that of oxygen (120 amu); it is actually 15 times as large.[lower-alpha 9] He determined that thorium was a very electropositive metal, ahead of cerium and behind zirconium in electropositivity.[90] Metallic thorium was isolated for the first time in 1914 by Dutch entrepreneurs Dirk Lely Jr. and Lodewijk Hamburger.[lower-alpha 10]\n\n### Initial chemical classification\n\nIn the periodic table published by Dmitri Mendeleev in 1869, thorium and the rare-earth elements were placed outside the main body of the table, at the end of each vertical period after the alkaline earth metals. This reflected the belief at that time that thorium and the rare-earth metals were divalent. With the later recognition that the rare earths were mostly trivalent and thorium was tetravalent, Mendeleev moved cerium and thorium to group IV in 1871, which also contained the modern carbon group (group 14) and titanium group (group 4), because their maximum oxidation state was +4.[93][94] Cerium was soon removed from the main body of the table and placed in a separate lanthanide series; thorium was left with group 4 as it had similar properties to its supposed lighter congeners in that group, such as titanium and zirconium.[95][lower-alpha 11]\n\n### First uses\n\nWorld War II thorium dioxide gas mantle\n\nWhile thorium was discovered in 1828 its first application dates only from 1885, when Austrian chemist Carl Auer von Welsbach invented the gas mantle, a portable source of light which produces light from the incandescence of thorium oxide when heated by burning gaseous fuels.[26] Many applications were subsequently found for thorium and its compounds, including ceramics, carbon arc lamps, heat-resistant crucibles, and as catalysts for industrial chemical reactions such as the oxidation of ammonia to nitric acid.[96]\n\nThorium was first observed to be radioactive in 1898, by the German chemist Gerhard Carl Schmidt and later that year, independently, by the Polish-French physicist Marie Curie. It was the second element that was found to be radioactive, after the 1896 discovery of radioactivity in uranium by French physicist Henri Becquerel.[97][98][99] Starting from 1899, the New Zealand physicist Ernest Rutherford and the American electrical engineer Robert Bowie Owens studied the radiation from thorium; initial observations showed that it varied significantly. It was determined that these variations came from a short-lived gaseous daughter of thorium, which they found to be a new element. This element is now named radon, the only one of the rare radioelements to be discovered in nature as a daughter of thorium rather than uranium.[100]\n\nAfter accounting for the contribution of radon, Rutherford, now working with the British physicist Frederick Soddy, showed how thorium decayed at a fixed rate over time into a series of other elements in work dating from 1900 to 1903. This observation led to the identification of the half-life as one of the outcomes of the alpha particle experiments that led to the disintegration theory of radioactivity.[101] The biological effect of radiation was discovered in 1903.[102] The newly discovered phenomenon of radioactivity excited scientists and the general public alike. In the 1920s, thorium's radioactivity was promoted as a cure for rheumatism, diabetes, and sexual impotence. In 1932, most of these uses were banned in the United States after a federal investigation into the health effects of radioactivity.[103] 10,000 individuals in the United States had been injected with thorium during X-ray diagnosis; they were later found to suffer health issues such as leukaemia and abnormal chromosomes.[43] Public interest in radioactivity had declined by the end of the 1930s.[103]\n\nGlenn T. Seaborg, who settled thorium's location in the f-block\n\n### Further classification\n\nUp to the late 19th century, chemists unanimously agreed that thorium and uranium were the heaviest members of group 4 and group 6 respectively; the existence of the lanthanides in the sixth row was considered to be a one-off fluke. In 1892, British chemist Henry Bassett postulated a second extra-long periodic table row to accommodate known and undiscovered elements, considering thorium and uranium to be analogous to the lanthanides. In 1913, Danish physicist Niels Bohr published a theoretical model of the atom and its electron orbitals, which soon gathered wide acceptance. The model indicated that the seventh row of the periodic table should also have f-shells filling before the d-shells that were filled in the transition elements, like the sixth row with the lanthanides preceding the 5d transition metals.[93] The existence of a second inner transition series, in the form of the actinides, was not accepted until similarities with the electron structures of the lanthanides had been established;[104] Bohr suggested that the filling of the 5f orbitals may be delayed to after uranium.[93]\n\nIt was only with the discovery of the first transuranic elements, which from plutonium onward have dominant +3 and +4 oxidation states like the lanthanides, that it was realised that the actinides were indeed filling f-orbitals rather than d-orbitals, with the transition-metal-like chemistry of the early actinides being the exception and not the rule.[105] In 1945, when American physicist Glenn T. Seaborg and his team had discovered the transuranic elements americium and curium, he proposed the actinide concept, realising that thorium was the second member of an f-block actinide series analogous to the lanthanides, instead of being the heavier congener of hafnium in a fourth d-block row.[95][lower-alpha 12]\n\n### Phasing out\n\nIn the 1990s, most applications that do not depend on thorium's radioactivity declined quickly due to safety and environmental concerns as suitable safer replacements were found.[26][108] Despite its radioactivity, the element has remained in use for applications where no suitable alternatives could be found. A 1981 study by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the United States estimated that using a thorium gas mantle every weekend would be safe for a person,[108] but this was not the case for the dose received by people manufacturing the mantles or for the soils around some factory sites.[109] Some manufacturers have changed to other materials, such as yttrium.[110] As recently as 2007, some companies continued to manufacture and sell thorium mantles without giving adequate information about their radioactivity, with some even falsely claiming them to be non-radioactive.[108][111]\n\n### Nuclear power\n\nMain pages: Physics:Thorium-based nuclear power\u00a0and Physics:Thorium fuel cycle\nThe Indian Point Energy Center (Buchanan, New York, United States), home of the world's first thorium reactor\n\nThorium has been used as a power source on a prototype scale. The earliest thorium-based reactor was built at the Indian Point Energy Center located in Buchanan, New York, United States in 1962.[112] China may be the first to have a shot at commercializing the technology.[113] The country with the largest estimated reserves of thorium in the world is India , which has sparse reserves of uranium. In the 1950s, India targeted achieving energy independence with their three-stage nuclear power programme.[114][115] In most countries, uranium was relatively abundant and the progress of thorium-based reactors was slow; in the 20th century, three reactors were built in India and twelve elsewhere.[116] Large-scale research was begun in 1996 by the International Atomic Energy Agency to study the use of thorium reactors; a year later, the United States Department of Energy started their research. Alvin Radkowsky of Tel Aviv University in Israel was the head designer of Shippingport Atomic Power Station in Pennsylvania, the first American civilian reactor to breed thorium.[117] He founded a consortium to develop thorium reactors, which included other laboratories: Raytheon Nuclear Inc. and Brookhaven National Laboratory in the United States, and the Kurchatov Institute in Russia.[118]\n\nIn the 21st century, thorium's potential for reducing nuclear proliferation and its waste characteristics led to renewed interest in the thorium fuel cycle.[119][120][121] India has projected meeting as much as 30% of its electrical demands through thorium-based nuclear power by 2050. In February 2014, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), in Mumbai , India, presented their latest design for a \"next-generation nuclear reactor\" that burns thorium as its fuel ore, calling it the Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR). In 2009, the chairman of the Indian Atomic Energy Commission said that India has a \"long-term objective goal of becoming energy-independent based on its vast thorium resources.\"\n\n### Nuclear weapons\n\nWhen gram quantities of plutonium were first produced in the Manhattan Project, it was discovered that a minor isotope (240Pu) underwent significant spontaneous fission, which brought into question the viability of a plutonium-fueled gun-type nuclear weapon. While the Los Alamos team began work on the implosion-type weapon to circumvent this issue, the Chicago team discussed reactor design solutions. Eugene Wigner proposed to use the 240Pu-contaminated plutonium to drive the conversion of thorium into 233U in a special converter reactor. It was hypothesized that the 233U would then be usable in a gun-type weapon, though concerns about contamination from 232U were voiced. Progress on the implosion weapon was sufficient, and this converter was not developed further, but the design had enormous influence on the development of nuclear energy. It was the first detailed description of a highly enriched water-cooled, water-moderated reactor similar to future naval and commercial power reactors.[122]\n\nDuring the Cold War the United States explored the possibility of using 232Th as a source of 233U to be used in a nuclear bomb; they fired a test bomb in 1955.[123] They concluded that a 233U-fired bomb would be a very potent weapon, but it bore few sustainable \"technical advantages\" over the contemporary uranium\u2013plutonium bombs,[124] especially since 233U is difficult to produce in isotopically pure form.[123]\n\nThorium metal was used in the radiation case of at least one nuclear weapon design deployed by the United States (the W71).[125]\n\n## Production\n\nLower-bound estimates of thorium reserves in thousand tonnes, 2014[123]\nCountry Reserves\nIndia 1070\nBrazil 632\nAustralia 595\nUnited States 595\nEgypt 380\nTurkey 374\nVenezuela 300\nRussia 155\nSouth Africa 148\nChina 100\nNorway 87\nGreenland 86\nFinland 60.5\nSweden 50\nKazakhstan 50\nOther countries 1,725\nWorld total 6579.5\n\nThe low demand makes working mines for extraction of thorium alone not profitable, and it is almost always extracted with the rare earths, which themselves may be by-products of production of other minerals.[126] The current reliance on monazite for production is due to thorium being largely produced as a by-product; other sources such as thorite contain more thorium and could easily be used for production if demand rose.[127] Present knowledge of the distribution of thorium resources is poor, as low demand has led to exploration efforts being relatively minor.[128] In 2014, world production of the monazite concentrate, from which thorium would be extracted, was 2,700 tonnes.[129]\n\nThe common production route of thorium constitutes concentration of thorium minerals; extraction of thorium from the concentrate; purification of thorium; and (optionally) conversion to compounds, such as thorium dioxide.[130]\n\n### Concentration\n\nThere are two categories of thorium minerals for thorium extraction: primary and secondary. Primary deposits occur in acidic granitic magmas and pegmatites. They are concentrated, but of small size. Secondary deposits occur at the mouths of rivers in granitic mountain regions. In these deposits, thorium is enriched along with other heavy minerals.[36] Initial concentration varies with the type of deposit.[130]\n\nFor the primary deposits, the source pegmatites, which are usually obtained by mining, are divided into small parts and then undergo flotation. Alkaline earth metal carbonates may be removed after reaction with hydrogen chloride; then follow thickening, filtration, and calcination. The result is a concentrate with rare-earth content of up to 90%.[130] Secondary materials (such as coastal sands) undergo gravity separation. Magnetic separation follows, with a series of magnets of increasing strength. Monazite obtained by this method can be as pure as 98%.[130]\n\nIndustrial production in the 20th century relied on treatment with hot, concentrated sulfuric acid in cast iron vessels, followed by selective precipitation by dilution with water, as on the subsequent steps. This method relied on the specifics of the technique and the concentrate grain size; many alternatives have been proposed, but only one has proven effective economically: alkaline digestion with hot sodium hydroxide solution. This is more expensive than the original method but yields a higher purity of thorium; in particular, it removes phosphates from the concentrate.[130]\n\n#### Acid digestion\n\nAcid digestion is a two-stage process, involving the use of up to 93% sulfuric acid at 210\u2013230\u00a0\u00b0C. First, sulfuric acid in excess of 60% of the sand mass is added, thickening the reaction mixture as products are formed. Then, fuming sulfuric acid is added and the mixture is kept at the same temperature for another five hours to reduce the volume of solution remaining after dilution. The concentration of the sulfuric acid is selected based on reaction rate and viscosity, which both increase with concentration, albeit with viscosity retarding the reaction. Increasing the temperature also speeds up the reaction, but temperatures of 300\u00a0\u00b0C and above must be avoided, because they cause insoluble thorium pyrophosphate to form. Since dissolution is very exothermic, the monazite sand cannot be added to the acid too quickly. Conversely, at temperatures below 200\u00a0\u00b0C the reaction does not go fast enough for the process to be practical. To ensure that no precipitates form to block the reactive monazite surface, the mass of acid used must be twice that of the sand, instead of the 60% that would be expected from stoichiometry. The mixture is then cooled to 70\u00a0\u00b0C and diluted with ten times its volume of cold water, so that any remaining monazite sinks to the bottom while the rare earths and thorium remain in solution. Thorium may then be separated by precipitating it as the phosphate at pH\u00a01.3, since the rare earths do not precipitate until pH\u00a02.[130]\n\n#### Alkaline digestion\n\nAlkaline digestion is carried out in 30\u201345% sodium hydroxide solution at about 140\u00a0\u00b0C for about three hours. Too high a temperature leads to the formation of poorly soluble thorium oxide and an excess of uranium in the filtrate, and too low a concentration of alkali leads to a very slow reaction. These reaction conditions are rather mild and require monazite sand with a particle size under 45\u00a0\u03bcm. Following filtration, the filter cake includes thorium and the rare earths as their hydroxides, uranium as sodium diuranate, and phosphate as trisodium phosphate. This crystallises trisodium phosphate decahydrate when cooled below 60\u00a0\u00b0C; uranium impurities in this product increase with the amount of silicon dioxide in the reaction mixture, necessitating recrystallisation before commercial use. The hydroxides are dissolved at 80\u00a0\u00b0C in 37% hydrochloric acid. Filtration of the remaining precipitates followed by addition of 47% sodium hydroxide results in the precipitation of thorium and uranium at about pH\u00a05.8. Complete drying of the precipitate must be avoided, as air may oxidise cerium from the +3 to the +4 oxidation state, and the cerium(IV) formed can liberate free chlorine from the hydrochloric acid. The rare earths again precipitate out at higher pH. The precipitates are neutralised by the original sodium hydroxide solution, although most of the phosphate must first be removed to avoid precipitating rare-earth phosphates. Solvent extraction may also be used to separate out the thorium and uranium, by dissolving the resultant filter cake in nitric acid. The presence of titanium hydroxide is deleterious as it binds thorium and prevents it from dissolving fully.[130]\n\n### Purification\n\nHigh thorium concentrations are needed in nuclear applications. In particular, concentrations of atoms with high neutron capture cross-sections must be very low (for example, gadolinium concentrations must be lower than one part per million by weight). Previously, repeated dissolution and recrystallisation was used to achieve high purity. Today, liquid solvent extraction procedures involving selective complexation of Th4+ are used. For example, following alkaline digestion and the removal of phosphate, the resulting nitrato complexes of thorium, uranium, and the rare earths can be separated by extraction with tributyl phosphate in kerosene.[130]\n\n## Modern applications\n\nNon-radioactivity-related uses of thorium have been in decline since the 1950s[131] due to environmental concerns largely stemming from the radioactivity of thorium and its decay products.[26][108]\n\nMost thorium applications use its dioxide (sometimes called \"thoria\" in the industry), rather than the metal. This compound has a melting point of 3300\u00a0\u00b0C (6000\u00a0\u00b0F), the highest of all known oxides; only a few substances have higher melting points.[43] This helps the compound remain solid in a flame, and it considerably increases the brightness of the flame; this is the main reason thorium is used in gas lamp mantles.[132] All substances emit energy (glow) at high temperatures, but the light emitted by thorium is nearly all in the visible spectrum, hence the brightness of thorium mantles.[46]\n\nEnergy, some of it in the form of visible light, is emitted when thorium is exposed to a source of energy itself, such as a cathode ray, heat, or ultraviolet light. This effect is shared by cerium dioxide, which converts ultraviolet light into visible light more efficiently, but thorium dioxide gives a higher flame temperature, emitting less infrared light.[132] Thorium in mantles, though still common, has been progressively replaced with yttrium since the late 1990s.[133] According to the 2005 review by the United Kingdom's National Radiological Protection Board, \"although [thoriated gas mantles] were widely available a few years ago, they are not any more.\"[134] Thorium is also used to make cheap permanent negative ion generators, such as in pseudoscientific health bracelets.[135]\n\nDuring the production of incandescent filaments, recrystallisation of tungsten is significantly lowered by adding small amounts of thorium dioxide to the tungsten sintering powder before drawing the filaments.[131] A small addition of thorium to tungsten thermocathodes considerably reduces the work function of electrons; as a result, electrons are emitted at considerably lower temperatures.[26] Thorium forms a one-atom-thick layer on the surface of tungsten. The work function from a thorium surface is lowered possibly because of the electric field on the interface between thorium and tungsten formed due to thorium's greater electropositivity.[136] Since the 1920s, thoriated tungsten wires have been used in electronic tubes and in the cathodes and anticathodes of X-ray tubes and rectifiers. Thanks to the reactivity of thorium with atmospheric oxygen and nitrogen, thorium also acts as a getter for impurities in the evacuated tubes. The introduction of transistors in the 1950s significantly diminished this use, but not entirely.[131] Thorium dioxide is used in gas tungsten arc welding (GTAW) to increase the high-temperature strength of tungsten electrodes and improve arc stability.[26] Thorium oxide is being replaced in this use with other oxides, such as those of zirconium, cerium, and lanthanum.[137][138]\n\nThorium dioxide is found in heat-resistant ceramics, such as high-temperature laboratory crucibles,[26] either as the primary ingredient or as an addition to zirconium dioxide. An alloy of 90% platinum and 10% thorium is an effective catalyst for oxidising ammonia to nitrogen oxides, but this has been replaced by an alloy of 95% platinum and 5% rhodium because of its better mechanical properties and greater durability.[131]\n\nYellowed thorium dioxide lens (left), a similar lens partially de-yellowed with ultraviolet radiation (centre), and lens without yellowing (right)\n\nWhen added to glass, thorium dioxide helps increase its refractive index and decrease dispersion. Such glass finds application in high-quality lenses for cameras and scientific instruments.[37] The radiation from these lenses can darken them and turn them yellow over a period of years and it degrades film, but the health risks are minimal.[139] Yellowed lenses may be restored to their original colourless state by lengthy exposure to intense ultraviolet radiation. Thorium dioxide has since been replaced in this application by rare-earth oxides, such as lanthanum, as they provide similar effects and are not radioactive.[131]\n\nThorium tetrafluoride is used as an anti-reflection material in multilayered optical coatings. It is transparent to electromagnetic waves having wavelengths in the range of 0.350\u201312\u00a0\u00b5m, a range that includes near ultraviolet, visible and mid infrared light. Its radiation is primarily due to alpha particles, which can be easily stopped by a thin cover layer of another material.[140] Replacements for thorium tetrafluoride are being developed as of the 2010s,[141] which include Lanthanum trifluoride.\n\nMag-Thor alloys (also called thoriated magnesium) found use in some aerospace applications, though such uses have been phased out due to concerns over radioactivity.\n\n## Potential use for nuclear energy\n\nMain pages: Physics:Thorium-based nuclear power\u00a0and Physics:Thorium fuel cycle\n\nThe main nuclear power source in a reactor is the neutron-induced fission of a nuclide; the synthetic fissile[lower-alpha 3] nuclei 233U and 239Pu can be bred from neutron capture by the naturally occurring quantity nuclides 232Th and 238U. 235U occurs naturally and is also fissile.[142][143][lower-alpha 13] In the thorium fuel cycle, the fertile isotope 232Th is bombarded by slow neutrons, undergoing neutron capture to become 233Th, which undergoes two consecutive beta decays to become first 233Pa and then the fissile 233U:[26]\n\n23290Th + 3n \u2192 23390Th + \u03b3 + 2n 23391Pa + n 23392U\n 237Np \u2191 231U \u2190 232U \u2194 233U \u2194 234U \u2194 235U \u2194 236U \u2192 237U \u2193 \u2191 \u2191 \u2191 231Pa \u2192 232Pa \u2190 233Pa \u2192 234Pa \u2191 \u2191 230Th \u2192 231Th \u2190 232Th \u2192 233Th (Nuclides before a yellow background in italic have half-lives under 30\u00a0days;nuclides in bold have half-lives over 1,000,000\u00a0years;nuclides in red frames are fissile)\n\n233U is fissile and can be used as a nuclear fuel in the same way as 235U or 239Pu. When 233U undergoes nuclear fission, the neutrons emitted can strike further 232Th nuclei, continuing the cycle.[26] This parallels the uranium fuel cycle in fast breeder reactors where 238U undergoes neutron capture to become 239U, beta decaying to first 239Np and then fissile 239Pu.[144]\n\nThorium is more abundant than uranium, and can satisfy world energy demands for longer.[145] It is particularly suitable for being used as fertile material in molten salt reactors.\n\n232Th absorbs neutrons more readily than 238U, and 233U has a higher probability of fission upon neutron capture (92.0%) than 235U (85.5%) or 239Pu (73.5%).[146] It also releases more neutrons upon fission on average.[145] A single neutron capture by 238U produces transuranic waste along with the fissile 239Pu, but 232Th only produces this waste after five captures, forming 237Np. This number of captures does not happen for 98\u201399% of the 232Th nuclei because the intermediate products 233U or 235U undergo fission, and fewer long-lived transuranics are produced. Because of this, thorium is a potentially attractive alternative to uranium in mixed oxide fuels to minimise the generation of transuranics and maximise the destruction of plutonium.[147]\n\nThorium fuels result in a safer and better-performing reactor core[26] because thorium dioxide has a higher melting point, higher thermal conductivity, and a lower coefficient of thermal expansion. It is more stable chemically than the now-common fuel uranium dioxide, because the latter oxidises to triuranium octoxide (U\n3\nO\n8\n), becoming substantially less dense.[148]\n\nThe used fuel is difficult and dangerous to reprocess because many of the daughters of 232Th and 233U are strong gamma emitters.[145] All 233U production methods result in impurities of 232U, either from parasitic knock-out (n,2n) reactions on 232Th, 233Pa, or 233U that result in the loss of a neutron, or from double neutron capture of 230Th, an impurity in natural 232Th:[149]\n\n23090Th + n \u2192 23190Th + \u03b3 23191Pa \u00ad 23191Pa + n \u2192 23291Pa + \u03b3 23292U\n\n232U by itself is not particularly harmful, but quickly decays to produce the strong gamma emitter 208Tl. (232Th follows the same decay chain, but its much longer half-life means that the quantities of 208Tl produced are negligible.)[150] These impurities of 232U make 233U easy to detect and dangerous to work on, and the impracticality of their separation limits the possibilities of nuclear proliferation using 233U as the fissile material.[149] 233Pa has a relatively long half-life of 27\u00a0days and a high cross section for neutron capture. Thus it is a neutron poison: instead of rapidly decaying to the useful 233U, a significant amount of 233Pa converts to 234U and consumes neutrons, degrading the reactor efficiency. To avoid this, 233Pa is extracted from the active zone of thorium molten salt reactors during their operation, so that it does not have a chance to capture a neutron and will only decay to 233U.[151]\n\nThe irradiation of 232Th with neutrons, followed by its processing, need to be mastered before these advantages can be realised, and this requires more advanced technology than the uranium and plutonium fuel cycle;[26] research continues in this area. Others cite the low commercial viability of the thorium fuel cycle:[152][153][154] the international Nuclear Energy Agency predicts that the thorium cycle will never be commercially viable while uranium is available in abundance\u2014a situation which may persist \"in the coming decades\".[155] The isotopes produced in the thorium fuel cycle are mostly not transuranic, but some of them are still very dangerous, such as 231Pa, which has a half-life of 32,760\u00a0years and is a major contributor to the long-term radiotoxicity of spent nuclear fuel.[151]\n\n## Hazards\n\nExperiment on the effect of radiation (from an unburned thorium gas mantle) on the germination and growth of timothy-grass seed\n\nNatural thorium decays very slowly compared to many other radioactive materials, and the emitted alpha radiation cannot penetrate human skin. As a result, handling small amounts of thorium, such as those in gas mantles, is considered safe, although the use of such items may pose some risks.[156] Exposure to an aerosol of thorium, such as contaminated dust, can lead to increased risk of cancers of the lung, pancreas, and blood, as lungs and other internal organs can be penetrated by alpha radiation.[156] Internal exposure to thorium leads to increased risk of liver diseases.[157]\n\nThe decay products of 232Th include more dangerous radionuclides such as radium and radon. Although relatively little of those products are created as the result of the slow decay of thorium, a proper assessment of the radiological toxicity of 232Th must include the contribution of its daughters, some of which are dangerous gamma emitters,[158] and which are built up quickly following the initial decay of 232Th due to the absence of long-lived nuclides along the decay chain.[159] As the dangerous daughters of thorium have much lower melting points than thorium dioxide, they are volatilised every time the mantle is heated for use. In the first hour of use large fractions of the thorium daughters 224Ra, 228Ra, 212Pb, and 212Bi are released.[160] Most of the radiation dose by a normal user arises from inhaling the radium, resulting in a radiation dose of up to 0.2\u00a0millisieverts per use, about a third of the dose sustained during a mammogram.[161]\n\nSome nuclear safety agencies make recommendations about the use of thorium mantles and have raised safety concerns regarding their manufacture and disposal; the radiation dose from one mantle is not a serious problem, but that from many mantles gathered together in factories or landfills is.[157]\n\n### Biological\n\nThorium is odourless and tasteless.[162] The chemical toxicity of thorium is low because thorium and its most common compounds (mostly the dioxide) are poorly soluble in water,[163] precipitating out before entering the body as the hydroxide.[164] Some thorium compounds are chemically moderately toxic, especially in the presence of strong complex-forming ions such as citrate that carry the thorium into the body in soluble form.[159] If a thorium-containing object has been chewed or sucked, it loses 0.4% of thorium and 90% of its dangerous daughters to the body.[111] Three-quarters of the thorium that has penetrated the body accumulates in the skeleton. Absorption through the skin is possible, but is not a likely means of exposure.[156] Thorium's low solubility in water also means that excretion of thorium by the kidneys and faeces is rather slow.[159]\n\nTests on the thorium uptake of workers involved in monazite processing showed thorium levels above recommended limits in their bodies, but no adverse effects on health were found at those moderately low concentrations. No chemical toxicity has yet been observed in the tracheobronchial tract and the lungs from exposure to thorium.[164] People who work with thorium compounds are at a risk of dermatitis. It can take as much as thirty years after the ingestion of thorium for symptoms to manifest themselves.[43] Thorium has no known biological role.[43]\n\n### Chemical\n\nPowdered thorium metal is pyrophoric: it ignites spontaneously in air.[5] In 1964, the United States Department of the Interior listed thorium as \"severe\" on a table entitled \"Ignition and explosibility of metal powders\". Its ignition temperature was given as 270\u00a0\u00b0C (520\u00a0\u00b0F) for dust clouds and 280\u00a0\u00b0C (535\u00a0\u00b0F) for layers. Its minimum explosive concentration was listed as 0.075\u00a0oz\/cu ft (0.075\u00a0kg\/m3); the minimum igniting energy for (non-submicron) dust was listed as 5\u00a0mJ.[165]\n\nIn 1956, the Sylvania Electric Products explosion occurred during reprocessing and burning of thorium sludge in New York City , United States. Nine people were injured; one died of complications caused by third-degree burns.[166][167][168]\n\n### Exposure routes\n\nThorium exists in very small quantities everywhere on Earth although larger amounts exist in certain parts: the average human contains about 40\u00a0micrograms of thorium and typically consumes three micrograms per day.[43] Most thorium exposure occurs through dust inhalation; some thorium comes with food and water, but because of its low solubility, this exposure is negligible.[159]\n\nExposure is raised for people who live near thorium deposits or radioactive waste disposal sites, those who live near or work in uranium, phosphate, or tin processing factories, and for those who work in gas mantle production.[169] Thorium is especially common in the Tamil Nadu coastal areas of India, where residents may be exposed to a naturally occurring radiation dose ten times higher than the worldwide average.[170] It is also common in northern Brazil ian coastal areas, from south Bahia to Guarapari, a city with radioactive monazite sand beaches, with radiation levels up to 50 times higher than world average background radiation.[171]\n\nAnother possible source of exposure is thorium dust produced at weapons testing ranges, as thorium is used in the guidance systems of some missiles. This has been blamed for a high incidence of birth defects and cancer at Salto di Quirra on the Italian island of Sardinia.[172]\n\n## Explanatory notes\n\n1. Bismuth is very slightly radioactive, but its half-life (1.9\u00d71019 years) is so long that its decay is negligible even over geological timespans.\n2. Behind osmium, tantalum, tungsten, and rhenium;[5] higher boiling points are speculated to be found in the 6d transition metals, but they have not been produced in large enough quantities to test this prediction.Template:Fricke1975\n3. A fissionable nuclide is capable of undergoing fission (even with a low probability) after capturing a high-energy neutron. Some of these nuclides can be induced to fission with low-energy thermal neutrons with a high probability; they are referred to as fissile. A fertile nuclide is one that could be bombarded with neutrons to produce a fissile nuclide. Critical mass is the mass of a ball of a material which could undergo a sustained nuclear chain reaction.\n4. The name ionium for 230Th is a remnant from a period when different isotopes were not recognised to be the same element and were given different names.\n5. Unlike the previous similarity between the actinides and the transition metals, the main-group similarity largely ends at thorium before being resumed in the second half of the actinide series, because of the growing contribution of the 5f orbitals to covalent bonding. The only other commonly-encountered actinide, uranium, retains some echoes of main-group behaviour. The chemistry of uranium is more complicated than that of thorium, but the two most common oxidation states of uranium are uranium(VI) and uranium(IV); these are two oxidation units apart, with the higher oxidation state corresponding to formal loss of all valence electrons, which is similar to the behaviour of the heavy main-group elements in the p-block.[34]\n6. An even number of either protons or neutrons generally increases nuclear stability of isotopes, compared to isotopes with odd numbers. Elements with odd atomic numbers have no more than two stable isotopes; even-numbered elements have multiple stable isotopes, with tin (element 50) having ten.[9]\n7. Other isotopes may occur alongside 232Th, but only in trace quantities. If the source contains no uranium, the only other thorium isotope present would be 228Th, which occurs in the decay chain of 232Th (the thorium series): the ratio of 228Th to 232Th would be under 10\u221210.[20] If uranium is present, tiny traces of several other isotopes will also be present: 231Th and 227Th from the decay chain of 235U (the actinium series), and slightly larger but still tiny traces of 234Th and 230Th from the decay chain of 238U (the uranium series).[20] 229Th is also been produced in the decay chain of 237Np (the neptunium series): all primordial 237Np is extinct, but it is still produced as a result of nuclear reactions in uranium ores.[73] 229Th is mostly produced as a daughter of artificial 233U made by neutron irradiation of 232Th, and is extremely rare in nature.[20]\n8. Thorianite refers to minerals with 75\u2013100\u00a0mol%\u00a0ThO\n2\n; uranothorianite, 25\u201375\u00a0mol%\u00a0ThO\n2\n; thorian uraninite, 15\u201325\u00a0mol%\u00a0ThO\n2\n; uraninite, 0\u201315\u00a0mol%\u00a0ThO\n2\n.[74]\n9. At the time, the rare-earth elements, among which thorium was found and with which it is closely associated in nature, were thought to be divalent; the rare earths were given atomic weight values two-thirds of their actual ones, and thorium and uranium are given values half of the actual ones.\n10. The main difficulty in isolating thorium lies not in its chemical electropositivity, but in the close association of thorium in nature with the rare-earth elements and uranium, which collectively are difficult to separate from each other. Swedish chemist Lars Fredrik Nilson, the discoverer of scandium, had previously made an attempt to isolate thorium metal in 1882, but was unsuccessful at achieving a high degree of purity.[91] Lely and Hamburger obtained 99% pure thorium metal by reducing thorium chloride with sodium metal.[92] A simpler method leading to even higher purity was discovered in 1927 by American engineers John Marden and Harvey Rentschler, involving the reduction of thorium oxide with calcium in presence of calcium chloride.[92]\n11. Thorium also appears in the 1864 table by British chemist John Newlands as the last and heaviest element, as it was initially thought that uranium was a trivalent element with an atomic weight of around 120: this is half of its actual value, since uranium is predominantly hexavalent. It also appears as the heaviest element in the 1864 table by British chemist William Odling under titanium, zirconium, and tantalum. It does not appear in the periodic systems published by French geologist Alexandre-\u00c9mile B\u00e9guyer de Chancourtois in 1862, German-American musician Gustav Hinrichs in 1867, or German chemist Julius Lothar Meyer in 1870, all of which exclude the rare earths and thorium.[93]\n12. The filling of the 5f subshell from the beginning of the actinide series was confirmed in 1964 when the next element, rutherfordium, was first synthesised and found to behave like hafnium, as would be expected if the filling of the 5f orbitals had already finished by then.[106] Today, thorium's similarities to hafnium are still sometimes acknowledged by calling it a \"pseudo group 4 element\".[107]\n13. The thirteen fissile actinide isotopes with half-lives over a year are 229Th, 233U, 235U, 236Np, 239Pu, 241Pu, 242mAm, 243Cm, 245Cm, 247Cm, 249Cf, 251Cf, and 252Es. 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The Book of Non-electric Lighting: The classic guide to the safe use of candles, fuel lamps, lanterns, gaslights, & fire-view stoves. Countryman Press. p.\u00a060. ISBN\u00a0978-1-58157-829-4.\n128. Shaw, J.; Dunderdale, J.; Paynter, R.A. (2005-06-09). \"A review of consumer products containing radioactive substances in the European Union\".\n129. Pridham, G.J. (2016) (in en). Electronic Devices and Circuits. The Commonwealth and International Library: Electrical Engineering Division. Elsevier. p.\u00a0105. ISBN\u00a0978-1-4831-3979-1.\n130. Uttrachi, J. (2015). Weld Like a Pro: Beginning to advanced techniques. CarTech Inc.. p.\u00a042. ISBN\u00a0978-1-61325-221-5.\n131. Jeffus, L. (2016). Welding: Principles and Applications. Cengage Learning. p.\u00a0393. ISBN\u00a0978-1-305-49469-5.\n132. \"Thoriated Camera Lens (ca. 1970s)\". Oak Ridge Associated Universities. 2021.\n133. Rancourt, J.D. (1996). Optical Thin Films. User Handbook. SPIE Press. p.\u00a0196. ISBN\u00a0978-0-8194-2285-9.\n134. Kaiser, N.; Pulker, H. K. (2013) (in en). Optical Interference Coatings. Springer. p.\u00a0111. ISBN\u00a0978-3-540-36386-6.\n135. Ronen, Yigal (March 2006). \"A Rule for Determining Fissile Isotopes\". Nuclear Science and Engineering 152 (3): 334\u2013335. doi:10.13182\/nse06-a2588.\n136. Ronen, Y. (2010). \"Some remarks on the fissile isotopes\". Annals of Nuclear Energy 37 (12): 1783\u20131784. doi:10.1016\/j.anucene.2010.07.006.\n137. \"Plutonium\". World Nuclear Association. 2017.\n138. Greenwood & Earnshaw 1997, p.\u00a01259.\n139. \"Thorium test begins\". World Nuclear News. 2013.\n140. \"IAEA-TECDOC-1450 Thorium Fuel Cycle \u2013 Potential Benefits and Challenges\". International Atomic Energy Agency. 2005.\n141. Langford, R. E. (2004). Introduction to Weapons of Mass Destruction: Radiological, Chemical, and Biological. John Wiley & Sons. p.\u00a085. ISBN\u00a0978-0-471-46560-7.\n142. Stoll 2005, p.\u00a030.\n143. Nakajima, Ts.; Groult, H. (2005). Fluorinated Materials for Energy Conversion. Elsevier. pp.\u00a0562\u2013565. ISBN\u00a0978-0-08-044472-7.\n144. Sovacool, B. K.; Valentine, S. V. (2012). The National Politics of Nuclear Power: Economics, Security, and Governance. Routledge. p.\u00a0226. ISBN\u00a0978-1-136-29437-2.\n145. Findlay, T. (2011). Nuclear Energy and Global Governance: Ensuring Safety, Security and Non-proliferation. Routledge. p.\u00a09. ISBN\u00a0978-1-136-84993-0.\n146. \"Thorium: Radiation Protection\". United States Environmental Protection Agency.\n147. \"Radioactivity in Lantern Mantles\". Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency.\n148. Stoll 2005, p.\u00a035.\n149. Luetzelschwab, J. W.; Googins, S. W. (1984). \"Radioactivity released from burning gas lantern mantles\". Health Phys. 46 (4): 873\u2013881. doi:10.1097\/00004032-198404000-00013. PMID\u00a06706595.\n150. Huyskens, C. J.; Hemelaar, J. T.; Kicken, P. J. (1985). \"Dose estimates for exposure to radioactivity in gas mantles\". Sci. Total Environ. 45: 157\u2013164. doi:10.1016\/0048-9697(85)90216-5. PMID\u00a04081711. Bibcode1985ScTEn..45..157H.\n151. \"Toxicological Profile for Thorium\". Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry U.S. Public Health Service. 1990. p. 4.\n152. Merkel, B. et al. (1988) (in de). \ufeffUntersuchungen zur radiologischen Emission des Uran-Tailings Schneckenstein\ufeff (Report). S\u00e4chsisches Staatsministerium f\u00fcr Umwelt und Landesentwicklung.\n153. Stoll 2005, p.\u00a034.\n154. Jacobson, M.; Cooper, A. R.; Nagy, J. (1964). \ufeffExplosibility of metal powders\ufeff (Report). United States Department of the Interior. Retrieved 29 September 2017.\n155. \"Nine Injured in Atomic Lab Blasts\". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Associated Press: p.\u00a02. 1956.\n156. \"No Radiation Threat Seen in A-laboratory Blast\". The St. Petersburg Times. Associated Press: p.\u00a02. 1956.\n157. Harrington, M. (2003). \"Sad Memories of '56 Sylvania Explosion\". New York Newsday.\n158. \"Thorium ToxFAQs\". Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.\n159. Pfeiffer, W. C.; Penna-Franca, E.; Ribeiro, C. C.; Nogueira, A. R.; Londres, H.; Oliveira, A. E. (1981). \"Measurements of environmental radiation exposure dose rates at selected sites in Brazil\". An. Acad. Bras. Ci\u00eanc. 53 (4): 683\u2013691. PMID\u00a07345962.\n160. Alberici, Emma (29 January 2019). \"Italian military officials' trial ignites suspicions of links between weapon testing and birth defects in Sardinia\". Australian Broadcasting Corporation.","date":"2022-05-25 13:13:09","metadata":"{\"extraction_info\": {\"found_math\": true, \"script_math_tex\": 0, \"script_math_asciimath\": 0, \"math_annotations\": 0, \"math_alttext\": 0, \"mathml\": 0, \"mathjax_tag\": 0, \"mathjax_inline_tex\": 0, \"mathjax_display_tex\": 0, \"mathjax_asciimath\": 1, \"img_math\": 0, \"codecogs_latex\": 0, \"wp_latex\": 0, \"mimetex.cgi\": 0, \"\/images\/math\/codecogs\": 0, \"mathtex.cgi\": 0, \"katex\": 0, \"math-container\": 0, \"wp-katex-eq\": 0, \"align\": 0, \"equation\": 0, \"x-ck12\": 0, \"texerror\": 0, \"math_score\": 0.7178754210472107, \"perplexity\": 7861.01355811258}, \"config\": {\"markdown_headings\": true, \"markdown_code\": true, \"boilerplate_config\": {\"ratio_threshold\": 0.18, \"absolute_threshold\": 10, \"end_threshold\": 15, \"enable\": true}, \"remove_buttons\": true, \"remove_image_figures\": true, \"remove_link_clusters\": true, \"table_config\": {\"min_rows\": 2, \"min_cols\": 3, \"format\": \"plain\"}, \"remove_chinese\": true, \"remove_edit_buttons\": true, \"extract_latex\": true}, \"warc_path\": \"s3:\/\/commoncrawl\/crawl-data\/CC-MAIN-2022-21\/segments\/1652662587158.57\/warc\/CC-MAIN-20220525120449-20220525150449-00255.warc.gz\"}"} | null | null |
The corporate community makes use of different terms in talking about business planning - business strategy, sales planning, marketing strategy, business plans, and marketing schemes. But as different as these terms sound or spell, they cover same principles -- how to improve sales and getting the company "out there".
Efficient business plan writers turning marketing schemes to become strong, cost-effective, and most of all, realistic. As such, an efficient business plan considers several important factors: products, services, market size, competitor activity, marketing, and production costs.
Since a business's' selling point and source of income are the kind of products and service it offers, it is logical to pay these much attention. Product and service evaluation should be part of all business plans and marketing schemes a company formulates. Product evaluation involves product testing, improving quality control, product design, and marketing.
In product testing and quality control, it is important to ensure that the company's product is all it claims to be. For example, if company A wants to claim that its product washes off stains in less time than the leading brand B, it must test and improve its product A against product B. Doing this allows company A to adjust the formulation of product A to beat product B.
The testing process can also serve as proof if the company A puts advantage of product A in their advertisements.
Business plans and marketing schemes are not complete without including service assessment. A company's employees can make or break the business by attracting or turning consumers and possible clients off. The company may consider hiring the services of a mystery shopper who can pretend to be a customer to get a more objective service evaluation.
The mystery shopper has the advantage of anonymity and the staff would treat him as an ordinary customer. The company's head honcho will not get the same results because, naturally, the staff would act their best with the big boss around.
Let us again take the example of A and B and make them competing groceries. If company A hires a mystery shopper to visit both stores, A gets the benefit of assessing its own store and that of its competitor. Company A, with the help of the evaluation, can fire unproductive employees, reward the good ones, and implement new courtesy policies that beat that of B's.
Statistics show that customers are more likely to support business with efficient and courteous staff over a competing business that offers the same products. Thus, by improving service, a company has the benefit of being more cost-effective (firing unproductive employees) and increasing sales.
Expansion is one goal of entrepreneurs. It could be physical expansion or putting up new stores, or an expansion in terms of market size. Market size expansion has a great deal to do with effective marketing. It is essential for business plans and marketing schemes to have provisions for advertisements.
There are several ways in which a company can advertise its services and products: paid email-reading sites, promos, print ads, radios, televisions, and other audio and visual media. Consulting statistics about the media habits of its target market, a company can identify what medium is more effective. Though taking risks is part of business, it helps to be realistic and supported by fact. | {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaC4"
} | 9,085 |
<?php
namespace AppBundle\Entity;
use Doctrine\ORM\Mapping as ORM;
/**
* ReadersAdmin
*
* @ORM\Table(name="readers_admin", indexes={@ORM\Index(name="fkc_readers_admin_to_fosuser", columns={"fk_fosuser"})})
* @ORM\Entity(repositoryClass="AppBundle\Entity\Repository\ReadersAdminRepository")
*/
class ReadersAdmin
{
/**
* @var string
*
* @ORM\Column(name="name", type="string", length=40, nullable=false)
*/
private $name;
/**
* @var string
*
* @ORM\Column(name="last_name", type="string", length=50, nullable=false)
*/
private $lastName;
/**
* @var string
*
* @ORM\Column(name="email", type="string", length=255, nullable=false)
*/
private $email;
/**
* @var integer
*
* @ORM\Column(name="id", type="integer")
* @ORM\Id
* @ORM\GeneratedValue(strategy="IDENTITY")
*/
private $id;
/**
* @var \AppBundle\Entity\FosUser
*
* @ORM\ManyToOne(targetEntity="AppBundle\Entity\FosUser")
* @ORM\JoinColumns({
* @ORM\JoinColumn(name="fk_fosuser", referencedColumnName="id")
* })
*/
private $fkFosuser;
/**
* Set name
*
* @param string $name
*
* @return ReadersAdmin
*/
public function setName($name)
{
$this->name = $name;
return $this;
}
/**
* Get name
*
* @return string
*/
public function getName()
{
return $this->name;
}
/**
* Set lastName
*
* @param string $lastName
*
* @return ReadersAdmin
*/
public function setLastName($lastName)
{
$this->lastName = $lastName;
return $this;
}
/**
* Get lastName
*
* @return string
*/
public function getLastName()
{
return $this->lastName;
}
/**
* Set email
*
* @param string $email
*
* @return ReadersAdmin
*/
public function setEmail($email)
{
$this->email = $email;
return $this;
}
/**
* Get email
*
* @return string
*/
public function getEmail()
{
return $this->email;
}
/**
* Get id
*
* @return integer
*/
public function getId()
{
return $this->id;
}
/**
* Set fkFosuser
*
* @param \AppBundle\Entity\FosUser $fkFosuser
*
* @return ReadersAdmin
*/
public function setFkFosuser(\AppBundle\Entity\FosUser $fkFosuser = null)
{
$this->fkFosuser = $fkFosuser;
return $this;
}
/**
* Get fkFosuser
*
* @return \AppBundle\Entity\FosUser
*/
public function getFkFosuser()
{
return $this->fkFosuser;
}
}
| {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaGithub"
} | 9,097 |
{"url":"https:\/\/www.albert.io\/ie\/statistics-and-probability\/identifying-continuous-random-variables","text":"?\n\nFree Version\nModerate\n\n# Identifying Continuous Random Variables\n\nSTATS-AG1X1Y\n\nHow many of the following $X$'s are continuous Random Variables?\n\ni. $X=$ The number of people enter a store between 1pm and 2pm.\n\nii. $X=$ The price of an iPhone 6 being sold at Best Buy on 07\/01\/2016.\n\niii. $X=$ Time.\n\niv. $X$ is a random variable with probability density function $f(x)= 2x$ for $0< x< 1$.\n\nv. $X$ is the variance of a sample of size 50 that is to be collected from some infinitely-large population.\n\nvi. $X$ is the investment return of a portfolio over a 1-month period.\n\nA\n\n$1$\n\nB\n\n$2$\n\nC\n\n$3$\n\nD\n\n$4$\n\nE\n\n$5$\n\nF\n\n$6$","date":"2016-12-04 06:02:09","metadata":"{\"extraction_info\": {\"found_math\": true, \"script_math_tex\": 0, \"script_math_asciimath\": 0, \"math_annotations\": 0, \"math_alttext\": 0, \"mathml\": 0, \"mathjax_tag\": 0, \"mathjax_inline_tex\": 1, \"mathjax_display_tex\": 0, \"mathjax_asciimath\": 0, \"img_math\": 0, \"codecogs_latex\": 0, \"wp_latex\": 0, \"mimetex.cgi\": 0, \"\/images\/math\/codecogs\": 0, \"mathtex.cgi\": 0, \"katex\": 0, \"math-container\": 0, \"wp-katex-eq\": 0, \"align\": 0, \"equation\": 0, \"x-ck12\": 0, \"texerror\": 0, \"math_score\": 0.2685951888561249, \"perplexity\": 725.6075700420918}, \"config\": {\"markdown_headings\": true, \"markdown_code\": false, \"boilerplate_config\": {\"ratio_threshold\": 0.18, \"absolute_threshold\": 10, \"end_threshold\": 15, \"enable\": true}, \"remove_buttons\": true, \"remove_image_figures\": true, \"remove_link_clusters\": true, \"table_config\": {\"min_rows\": 2, \"min_cols\": 3, \"format\": \"plain\"}, \"remove_chinese\": true, \"remove_edit_buttons\": true, \"extract_latex\": true}, \"warc_path\": \"s3:\/\/commoncrawl\/crawl-data\/CC-MAIN-2016-50\/segments\/1480698541214.23\/warc\/CC-MAIN-20161202170901-00443-ip-10-31-129-80.ec2.internal.warc.gz\"}"} | null | null |
Louis Guillaume Mouttet (6 October 1857 – 8 May 1902) was a French colonial official who served as Governor of Cote d'Ivoire in 1898 and Governor of French Guiana from 1898 till 1901. Appointed Governor of Martinique in 1901, he was killed along with his wife in the eruption of Mount Pelee on 8 May 1902, which completely destroyed the city of St. Pierre.
Origins and early colonial career
Born into a French Huguenot farming family of modest origins in Marseille, Mouttet espoused extremely radical socialist views in his early years. His parents were Jean Louis Victor Mouttet (†1884) and Augustine Rosalie (née Chandellier) (†1881).
Classified as an extreme leftist, he contributed articles to the Socialist Review and rubbed shoulders with Benoît Malon. He studied law in Paris, and worked briefly as a sub-editor on the staff of La Patrie before becoming secretary of the Historical Society of Paris.
In 1886, Mouttet joined the French Colonial Service with the support of Félix Faure and was sent to Senegal in May 1887 as a deputy bureau chief, second class. Owing to his initiative and abilities, he quickly gained promotion to Secretary of the Interior for the colony. He was transferred to French Indochina in May 1889 as chief of staff to the Governor-General, Jules Picquet. The following year, he married Marie de Coppet (1867–1902), the niece of the deputy of Le Havre, and was appointed a Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur that September. In 1892, he was appointed minister of internal affairs for Guadeloupe and appointed to the same position in Senegal in 1894. Becoming acting Governor of Senegal in 1895, he oversaw the amalgamation of Senegal, French Sudan, Guinea and the Ivory Coast into the union of French West Africa.
Mouttet was promoted acting governor of Ivory Coast in 1896 and promoted to governor, fourth class (roughly equivalent to the British commissioner) of Cote d'Ivoire in 1897. During his brief tenure, he organized the local educational authority for the colony. Highly rated by his superiors, he received a promotion to governor, third class (roughly equivalent to chief commissioner) of French Guiana in late 1898. Although he disliked the climate and poor infrastructure of the penal colony, his tenure there was noteworthy in itself, as he supervised the release of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, implicated for treason in the controversial Dreyfus Affair. Owing in part to his actions in the case, Mouttet was appointed governor, second class (lieutenant-governor) of Martinique in October 1900. Since his assignment to Guadeloupe in 1892, Mouttet and his family had long held an affection for the Caribbean, and Mouttet saw his new appointment as the culmination of a distinguished civil service career.
Personal life
Mouttet married Marie Henriette Hélène de Coppet (born 27 January 1867), a minister's daughter, on 27 September 1897, in Étretat, Normandy. They went on to have three children, daughters Lucie Alice on 19 November 1891 and Hélène Renée Louise on 5 October 1895, and son Jacques Louis Jean Henri on 9 June 1901.
Prelude to disaster
After taking up his appointment in June 1901 and settling with his family in Fort-de-France, Mouttet was immediately caught up in the turmoil of local politics. Although the white colonial oligarchy had managed to retain their economic power after the abolition of slavery in 1848 and the subsequent extension of voting rights to all French citizens in 1871, tensions between them and the middle-class coloured bourgeoisie yet remained. An election to the French Chamber of Deputies was due to be held on 11 May, and the campaigning leading up to the election demanded much of the new governor's attention. However, awareness of a more serious problem was slowly beginning to arise.
The 2,500-foot volcanic peak of Mount Pelee had dominated the north island of Martinique for thousands of years. Although the early colonists were made aware that it was a volcano, previous eruptions in 1792 and 1851 had been minor. However, in 1900 and 1901, sulphurous fumes were observed issuing from vents near the mountain. In early 1902, the volcano reawakened, sending plumes of smoke and steam into the skies. Earth tremors began in February, becoming more frequent over the next two months. In April, hosts of insects, snakes and rodents left the slopes of the rumbling volcano, causing a nuisance in the villages below. Dogs barked continually; cattle became skittish. On 23 April, Mount Pelee sent up great clouds of dark ash and smoke, causing the ground to rumble for miles. Ash began to fall in St. Pierre and its environs. Tremendous detonations began on 24 April.
On 5 May, a lahar broke loose, destroying a rum refinery and killing some 150 people. Already, hundreds of residents in the area had abandoned their homes, taking refuge in St. Pierre. The previous day, Mouttet, watching the eruption from Fort-de-France, had decided to appoint a commission to discuss whether or not it was advisable to evacuate St. Pierre. As volcanology and seismology were still in their infancy in 1902, he felt it advisable to get other opinions. As well, evacuating nearly 30,000 people was not a simple task.
On 7 May, Mouttet handed over his authority to Georges L'Heurre, secretary-general of the colony and acting governor in the governor's absence. He expected to be gone for but a few days. Around 4 p.m. he and his wife kissed their three children good-bye, leaving them in the care of their nurses, and boarded the SS Topaze for St. Pierre.
Upon their arrival in St. Pierre, around 5 that afternoon, Marie settled into their suite at the Hotel Intendance, while Mouttet met the members of the scientific commission in the hotel dining room. Apart from Mouttet himself, the commission included Gaston Landes and Eugene Doze, professors of natural science at the local Lycée (high school), Lieutenant-Colonel Jules Gerbault of the artillery and William Leonce, a civil engineer of St. Pierre. Paul Mirville, chief chemist and pharmacist for the colonial garrison in Fort-de-France, was also a member of the commission; however, he did not attend the meeting. After deliberating for some time, the commission decided that any danger from Mount Pelee was negligible.
Catastrophe
At 7:15 the following morning, 8 May, Ascension Day, Mouttet boarded a steam launch along with three other members of his commission, excepting Gaston Landes. He set off at 7:40 for Precheur, a small town a mile south of St. Pierre, where he and the other members of the commission would decide if it needed to be evacuated. Around the same time, witnesses observed a strange hiccuping sound from the volcano and a drifting cloud of ash; one observer noted that the summit of the volcano was glowing bright red.
At 8:02, Mount Pelee exploded. Two simultaneous eruptions issued from the volcano; a cloud of ash and steam billowed seven miles into the sky. At the same instant, a tremendous pyroclastic surge exploded down the southwestern flanks of the mountain, obliterating two villages in its path, but just missing Precheur. At a speed of 120 miles per hour and at temperatures of 700 F, the surge struck St. Pierre with devastating force. All buildings in its path, as well as the city walls, were instantly demolished. In an instant, some 30,000 people were crushed, burned or asphyxiated to death by the superheated clouds of gases and steam. Gaston Landes, who had remained at his home just outside the surge cloud, was badly burnt and died a few hours later. The cloud spread through the ruins of the city for three minutes, engulfing it in a sea of fire. The cloud then struck the waterfront with terrific force, setting several ships afire.
According to eyewitness accounts, the steam launch carrying Mouttet and the commission members, which was just about to leave the waterfront, was crushed and set afire, sinking instantly. None on board survived. It is likely that Mouttet was drowned in the water. His wife, 35-year-old Hélène, still at the hotel, had been killed a few moments earlier when the pyroclastic surge demolished the building. Mouttet was 44.
Legacy
Mouttet's legacy suffered after the disaster. Many blamed him for his poor handling of the situation. Some historians have criticised his refusal to evacuate the city in order not to alarm public opinion or give arguments to the local opposition, who were calling for urgent measures.
Today, the analysis is more nuanced. Firstly, Louis Mouttet had rather limited means to anticipate the severity of an eruption that scientists now term "Peléan" — named after the mountain itself, due to the lack of historical precedents. Secondly, the rapid evacuation of the entire population of St. Pierre — 30,000 people — was beyond the capabilities of the authorities, and the willingness of the residents might have been a stumbling block. Finally, the Governor believed what he said and fully owned the choices that he made, laying down his own life and that of his wife as proof of his sincerity.
Notes
References
Dossier de Légion d'honneur de Louis Mouttet.
Gabriel Hanotaux, « Mon Temps », 1938, Paris, Plon, Tome 2.
1857 births
1902 deaths
Governors of French Guiana
Colonial heads of Ivory Coast
Deaths in volcanic eruptions
People from Marseille
Natural disaster deaths in France | {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaWikipedia"
} | 6,100 |
#include <cstdio>
#include <dlfcn.h>
#include <exception>
#include <glog/logging.h>
#include <lua.hpp>
#include "folly/String.h"
namespace facebook { namespace deeplearning { namespace torch {
namespace {
int wrapExceptions(lua_State* L, lua_CFunction f) {
try {
return f(L);
} catch (const std::exception& e) {
lua_pushstring(L, folly::exceptionStr(e).c_str());
}
// Do not catch (...) as that ends up catching Lua errors, which
// causes problems if wrapExceptions is on the stack multiple times.
return lua_error(L); // Rethrow as a Lua error
}
} // namespace
// There is no way to hook on module unloading, but if the module containing
// wrapExceptions() gets unloaded (and dlclose()d) during Lua shutdown, all
// future calls to C library functions (from other finalizers) will segfault!
//
// This is a bug in LuaJIT 2.0.2.
//
// First, I (tudorb) tried to work around this by creating a global userdata
// object that we use as a sentinel. When that object gets GCed, we turn off
// wrapping. It didn't work; that ensures that future code generated
// by LuaJIT won't call the wrapper, but code that's already compiled
// still does.
//
// This is a horrible hack: we want to prevent unloading the current shared
// library. We'll reopen it to bump the reference count and leak the reference.
void initWrappedExceptions(lua_State* L) {
Dl_info thisLib;
int r = dladdr(reinterpret_cast<void*>(&wrapExceptions), &thisLib);
CHECK(r != 0 && thisLib.dli_fname);
void* leakedHandle = dlopen(thisLib.dli_fname, RTLD_NODELETE | RTLD_NOW);
CHECK(leakedHandle);
lua_pushlightuserdata(L, reinterpret_cast<void*>(&wrapExceptions));
luaJIT_setmode(L, -1, LUAJIT_MODE_WRAPCFUNC | LUAJIT_MODE_ON);
lua_pop(L, 1);
}
}}} // namespaces
| {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaGithub"
} | 7,422 |
package com.joshng.util.concurrent;
import com.joshng.util.exceptions.UncheckedInterruptedException;
import com.joshng.util.blocks.SideEffect;
import com.joshng.util.context.TransientContext;
import java.time.Instant;
import java.util.concurrent.Semaphore;
import java.util.concurrent.TimeUnit;
/**
* User: josh
* Date: 9/25/13
* Time: 1:48 PM
*/
public class SemaphoreContext implements TransientContext {
private final Semaphore semaphore;
private final Releaser singlePermitReleaser = new Releaser(1);
private final long shutdownPollNanos;
private volatile boolean shutdown;
public SemaphoreContext(int permits, long shutdownPollPeriod, TimeUnit shutdownPollUnit) {
this(permits, false, shutdownPollPeriod, shutdownPollUnit);
}
public SemaphoreContext(int permits, boolean fair, long shutdownPollPeriod, TimeUnit shutdownPollUnit) {
semaphore = new Semaphore(permits, fair);
this.shutdownPollNanos = shutdownPollUnit.toNanos(shutdownPollPeriod);
}
public void shutdown() {
shutdown = true;
}
@Override
public Releaser enter() {
try {
return acquireOnePermit();
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
throw UncheckedInterruptedException.propagate(e);
}
}
public class Releaser implements SideEffect, State {
private final int permits;
private Releaser(int permits) {
this.permits = permits;
}
@Override
public void run() {
exit();
}
@Override
public void exit() {
semaphore.release(permits);
}
}
public Releaser acquireOnePermit() throws InterruptedException {
return acquirePermits(1);
}
public Releaser acquirePermits(int permits) throws InterruptedException, ShutdownException {
acquire(permits);
return permits == 1 ? singlePermitReleaser : new Releaser(permits);
}
public void acquire(int permits) throws InterruptedException {
int tryCount = 0;
Instant blockedSince = null;
do {
ShutdownException.throwIf(shutdown);
if (++tryCount == 1) {
if (semaphore.tryAcquire(permits)) return;
blockedSince = Instant.now();
} else {
onBlocked(tryCount, blockedSince);
}
} while (!semaphore.tryAcquire(permits, shutdownPollNanos, TimeUnit.NANOSECONDS));
onUnblocked(tryCount, blockedSince);
}
protected void onBlocked(int tryCount, Instant blockedSince) {
}
protected void onUnblocked(int tryCount, Instant blockedSince) {
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{"url":"https:\/\/chem.libretexts.org\/Bookshelves\/Physical_and_Theoretical_Chemistry_Textbook_Maps\/Statistical_Thermodynamics_(Jeschke)\/07%3A_Macromolecules\/7.02%3A_Entropic_Elasticity","text":"# 7.2: Entropic Elasticity\n\n\n## Ideal Chain Model\n\nMost polymer chains have rotatable bonds as well as bond angles along the polymer backbone that differ from 180$$^\\circ$$. This leads to flexibility of the chain. Even if the rotations are not free, but give rise to only $$n_\\mathrm{rot}$$ rotameric states per rotatable bond, the number of possible chain conformations becomes vast. For $$N_{rot}$$ rotatable bonds, the number of distinct conformations is $$n_\\mathrm{rot}^{N_\\mathrm{rot}}$$. The simplest useful model for such a flexible chain is the freely jointed chain model. Here we assume bond vectors that all have the same length $$l = |\\vec{r}_i|$$, where $$\\vec{r}_i$$ is the bond vector of the $$i^\\mathrm{th}$$ bond. If we further assume an angle $$\\theta_{ij}$$ between consecutive bond vectors, we can write the scalar product of consecutive bond vectors as\n\n$\\vec{r}_i \\cdot \\vec{r}_j = l^2 \\cos \\theta_{ij} \\ . \\label{eq:fjc_cons}$\n\nThis scalar product is of interest, as we can use it to compute the mean-square end-to-end distance $$\\langle R^2 \\rangle$$ of an ensemble of chains, which is the simplest parameter that characterizes the spatial dimension of the chain. With the end-to-end distance vector of a chain with $$n$$ bonds,\n\n$\\vec{R}_n = \\sum_{i=1}^n \\vec{r}_i \\ ,$\n\nwe have\n\n\\begin{align} \\langle R^2 \\rangle & = \\langle \\vec{R}_n^2 \\rangle \\\\ & = \\langle \\vec{R}_n \\cdot \\vec{R}_n \\rangle \\\\ & = \\left\\langle \\left( \\sum_{i=1}^n \\vec{r}_i \\right) \\cdot \\left( \\sum_{j=1}^n \\vec{r}_j \\right) \\right\\rangle \\\\ & = \\sum_{i=1}^n \\sum_{j=1}^n \\langle \\vec{r}_i \\cdot \\vec{r}_j \\rangle \\ .\\end{align}\n\nBy using Equation \\ref{eq:fjc_cons}) we find\n\n$\\langle R^2 \\rangle = l^2 \\sum_{i=1}^n \\sum_{j=1}^n \\langle \\cos \\theta_{ij} \\rangle \\ . \\label{eq:fjc_double_sum}$\n\nIn the freely jointed chain model we further assume that there are no correlations between the directions of different bond vectors, $$\\langle \\cos \\theta_{ij} \\rangle = 0$$ for $$i \\neq j$$. Then, the double sum in Equation \\ref{eq:fjc_double_sum}) has only $$n$$ non-zero terms for $$i=j$$ with $$\\cos \\theta_{ij} = 1$$. Hence,\n\n$\\langle R^2 \\rangle = n l^2 \\ . \\label{eq:eer_fjc}$\n\nThis again appears to be a crude model, but we shall now rescue it by redefining $$l$$. In an ideal polymer chain we can at least assume that there is no interaction between monomers that are separated by many other monomers,\n\n$\\lim\\limits_{|i-j| \\rightarrow \\infty} \\langle \\cos \\theta_{ij} \\rangle = 0 \\ .$\n\nFurthermore, for a given bond vector $$\\vec{r}_i$$ the sum over all correlations with other bond vectors converges to some finite number that depends on $$i$$,\n\n$\\sum_{j=1}^n \\langle \\cos \\theta_{ij} \\rangle = C'(i) \\ .$\n\nTherefore, when including the correlations, Equation \\ref{eq:fjc_double_sum}) can still be simplified to\n\n$\\langle R^2 \\rangle = l^2 \\sum_{i=1}^n C'(i) = C_n n l^2 \\ ,$\n\nwhere Flory\u2019s characteristic ratio $$C_n$$ is the average value of $$C'(i)$$ over all backbone bonds of the chain.\n\nIn general, $$C_n$$ depends on $$n$$, but for very long chains it converges to a value $$C_\\infty$$. For sufficiently long chains, we can thus approximate\n\n$\\langle R^2 \\rangle \\approx n C_\\infty l^2 \\ ,$\n\nwhich has the same dependence on $$n$$ and $$l$$ as the crude model of the freely jointed chain, Equation \\ref{eq:eer_fjc}). Hence, we can define an equivalent freely jointed chain with $$N$$ Kuhn segments of length $$b$$. From\n\n$\\langle R^2 \\rangle = N b^2 \\approx n C_\\infty l^2 \\label{eq:Kuhn_R2}$\n\nand the length of the maximally stretched equivalent chain, the contour length $$R_\\mathrm{max}$$,\n\n$R_\\mathrm{max} = N b \\ ,$\n\nwe obtain\n\n$N = \\frac{R_\\mathrm{max}^2}{C_\\infty n l^2}$\n\nand the Kuhn length\n\n$b = \\frac{\\langle R^2 \\rangle}{R_\\mathrm{max}} = \\frac{C_\\infty n l^2}{R_\\mathrm{max}} \\ .$\n\nTypical values of $$C_\\infty$$ for synthetic polymers range from 4.6 for 1,4-poly(isoprene) to 9.5 for atactic poly(styrene) with corresponding Kuhn lengths of 8.2 \u00c5 to 18 \u00c5, respectively.\n\nAt this point we have found the mean-square end-to-end distance as a parameter of an equilibrium macrostate. If we stretch the chain to a longer end-to-end distance, it is no longer at equilibrium and must have larger free energy. Part of this increase in free energy must come from a decrease in entropy that stretching induces by reducing the number of accessible chain conformations. It turns out that this entropic contribution is the major part of the increase in free energy, typically 90%. The tendency of polymer chains to contract after they have been stretched is thus mainly an entropic effect. To quantify it, we need a probability distribution for the end-to-end vectors and to that end, we introduce a concept that is widely used in natural sciences.\n\n## Random Walk\n\nThe freely jointed chain model explicitly assumes that the direction of the next Kuhn segment is uncorrelated to the directions of all previous Kuhn segments. Where the chain end will be located after the next step that prolongs the chain by one segment depends only on the location of the current chain end. The freely jointed chain thus has aspects of a Markov chain. Each prolongation step is a random event and the trajectory of the chain in space a random walk.\n\nMany processes can be discretized into individual steps. What happens in the next step may depend on only the current state or also on what happened in earlier steps. If it depends only on the current state, the process is memoryless and fits the definition of a Markov chain. A Markov chain where the events are analogous steps in some parameter space can be modeled as a random walk. A random walk is a mathematically formalized succession of random steps. A random walk on a lattice, where each step can only lead from a lattice point to a directly neighboring lattice point is a particularly simple model. [concept:random_walk]\n\nWe can use the concept of a random walk in combination with the concepts of statistical thermodynamics in order to solve the problem of polymer chain stretching and contraction. The problem is solved if we know the dependence of Helmholtz free energy on the length of the end-to-end vector. This, in turn, requires that we know the entropy and thus the probability distribution of the length of the end-to-end vector. This probability distribution is given by the number of possible random walks (trajectories) that lead to a particular end-to-end distance $$\\sqrt{\\vec{R}^2}$$.\n\nFor simplicity we start with a simpler example in one dimension that we can later extend to three dimensions. We consider the standard example in this field, a drunkard who has just left a pub. We assume that, starting at the pub door, he makes random steps forth and back along the road. What is the probability $$P(N,x)$$ that after $$N$$ steps he is at a distance of $$x$$ steps up the road from the pub door? The problem is equivalent to finding the number $$W(N,x)$$ of trajectories of length $$N$$ that end up $$x$$ steps from the pub door and dividing it by the total number of trajectories.\n\nAny such trajectory consists of $$N_+$$ steps up the road and $$N_-$$ steps down the road, with the final position being $$x = N_+ - N_-$$. The number of such trajectories is, again, given by a binomial distribution (see Section [binomial_distribution])\n\n$W(N,x) = \\frac{\\left( N_+ + N_-\\right)!}{N_+! N_-!} = \\frac{N!}{\\left[ \\left(N+x\\right)\/2\\right] ! \\left[ \\left(N-x\\right)\/2\\right] !} \\ ,$\n\nwhereas the total number of trajectories is $$2^N$$, as the drunkard has two possibilities at each step. Hence,\n\n$P(N,x) = \\frac{1}{2^N} \\cdot \\frac{N!}{\\left[ \\left(N+x\\right)\/2\\right] ! \\left[ \\left(N-x\\right)\/2\\right] !} \\ ,$\n\n$\\ln P(N,x) = -N \\ln 2 + \\ln(N!) - \\ln \\left(\\frac{N+x}{2}\\right)! - \\ln \\left(\\frac{N-x}{2}\\right)! \\ .$\n\nThe last two terms on the right-hand side can be rewritten as\n\n\\begin{align} \\ln \\left(\\frac{N + x}{2}\\right)! = \\ln \\left(\\frac{N}{2}\\right)! + \\sum_{s=1}^{x\/2} \\ln \\left( \\frac{N}{2} + s \\right) \\ \\textrm{and} \\\\ \\ln \\left(\\frac{N - x}{2}\\right)! = \\ln \\left(\\frac{N}{2}\\right)! - \\sum_{s=1}^{x\/2} \\ln \\left( \\frac{N}{2} + 1 - s \\right) \\ ,\\end{align}\n\n$\\ln P(N,x) = -N \\ln 2 + \\ln(N!) - 2\\ln \\left(\\frac{N}{2}\\right)! - \\sum_{s=1}^{x\/2} \\ln \\left( \\frac{N\/2 + s}{N\/2 + 1 - s} \\right) \\ . \\label{eq:P_N_X_0}$\n\nWe now assume a long trajectory. In the range where $$x \\ll N$$, which is realized in an overwhelming fraction of all trajectories, the numerator and denominator logarithms in the last term on the right-hand side of Equation \\ref{eq:P_N_X_0}) can be approximated by series expansion, $$\\ln(1+y) \\approx y$$ for $$|y| \\ll 1$$, which gives\n\n\\begin{align} \\ln \\left( \\frac{N\/2 + s}{N\/2 + 1 -s} \\right) & = \\ln \\left( \\frac{1 + 2s\/N}{1 -2s\/N + 2\/N} \\right) \\\\ & = \\ln \\left( 1 + \\frac{2s}{N} \\right) - \\ln\\left( 1 - \\frac{2s}{N} + 2\/N \\right) \\\\ & \\approx \\frac{4s}{N} - \\frac{2}{N} \\ . \\label{eq:Gauss_approx_0}\\end{align}\n\nHence,\n\n\\begin{align} \\sum_{s=1}^{x\/2} \\ln \\left( \\frac{N\/2 + s}{N\/2 + 1 - s} \\right) & = \\sum_{s=1}^{x\/2} \\left( \\frac{4s}{N} - \\frac{2}{N} \\right) \\\\ & = \\frac{4}{N} \\sum_{s=1}^{x\/2} s - \\frac{2}{N} \\sum_{s=1}^{x\/2} 1 \\\\ & = \\frac{4}{N} \\cdot \\frac{(x\/2)(x\/2+1)}{2} - \\frac{x}{N} \\\\ & = \\frac{x^2}{2N} \\ . \\label{eq:Gauss_approx}\\end{align}\n\nInserting Equation \\ref{eq:Gauss_approx} into Equation \\ref{eq:P_N_X_0}) provides,\n\n$P(N,x) \\approx \\frac{1}{2^N} \\cdot \\frac{N!}{(N\/2)!(N\/2)!} \\cdot \\exp\\left( - \\frac{x^2}{2N} \\right) \\ ,$\n\nwhere we recognize, in the last factor on the right-hand side, the approximation of the binomial distribution by a Gaussian distribution that we discussed in Section [binomial_distribution]. Using the improved formula of Stirling, Equation \\ref{eq:Stirling_better}), for expressing the factorials, we have\n\n$\\frac{1}{2^N} \\cdot \\frac{N!}{(N\/2)!(N\/2)!} = \\frac{1}{2^N} \\frac{\\sqrt{2 \\pi N} N^N \\exp(-N)}{\\left(\\sqrt{\\pi N} (N\/2)^{N\/2} \\exp(-N\/2)\\right)^2} = \\sqrt{\\frac{2}{\\pi N}} \\ ,$\n\nwhich leads to the exceedingly simple result:\n\n$P(N,x) = \\sqrt{\\frac{2}{\\pi N}} \\exp\\left( - \\frac{x^2}{2N} \\right) \\ .$\n\nThe drunkard, if given enough time and not falling into sleep, perfectly simulates a Gaussian distribution.\n\nWe may even further simplify this result by asking about the mean square displacement $$\\langle x^2 \\rangle$$, which is given by\n\n$\\langle x^2 \\rangle = \\int_{-\\infty}^{\\infty} x^2 P(N,x) \\mathrm{d}x = \\sqrt{\\frac{2}{\\pi N}} \\int_{-\\infty}^{\\infty} x^2 \\exp\\left( - \\frac{x^2}{2N} \\right) \\mathrm{d}x = N \\ .$\n\nBefore we go on, we need to fix a problem that occurs when we interpret the discrete probabilities computed at this point as a continuous probability density distribution of $$x$$. In the discrete case, $$W(N,x)$$ can be non-zero only for either even or odd $$x$$, depending on whether $$N$$ is even or odd. Thus, to arrive at the proper probability distribution we need to divide by 2. Hence, we can express the probability density distribution for a one-dimensional random walk as\n\n$\\rho_\\mathrm{1d}(x) = \\frac{1}{\\sqrt{2\\pi \\langle x^2 \\rangle}} \\exp\\left( - \\frac{x^2}{2\\langle x^2 \\rangle} \\right) \\ .$\n\nThis result does no longer depend on step size, not even implicitly, because we have removed the dependence on step number $$N$$. Therefore, it can be generalized to three dimensions. Since the random walks along the three pairwise orthogonal directions in Cartesian space are independent of each other, we have\n\n$\\rho_\\mathrm{3d}(x,y,z) \\mathrm{d}x \\mathrm{d} y \\mathrm{dz} = \\rho_\\mathrm{1d}(x) \\mathrm{d}x \\cdot \\rho_\\mathrm{1d}(y) \\mathrm{d}y \\cdot \\rho_\\mathrm{1d}(z) \\mathrm{d}z \\ .$\n\nAt this point we relate the result to the conformational ensemble of an ideal polymer chain, using the Kuhn model discussed in Section [subsection:ideal_chain]. We pose the question of the distribution of mean-square end-to-end distances $$\\left\\langle \\vec{R}^2 \\right\\rangle$$ with the Cartesian components of the end-to-end vector $$\\vec{R}$$ being $$x = R_x$$, $$y = R_y$$, and $$z = R_z$$. According to Equation \\ref{eq:Kuhn_R2}), we have\n\n\\begin{align} \\left\\langle \\vec{R}^2 \\right\\rangle & = \\left\\langle R_x^2 \\right\\rangle + \\left\\langle R_y^2 \\right\\rangle + \\left\\langle R_z^2 \\right\\rangle \\label{eq:R2_xyz} \\\\ & = N b^2 \\ .\\end{align}\n\nFor symmetry reasons we have,\n\n$\\left\\langle R_x^2 \\right\\rangle = \\left\\langle R_y^2 \\right\\rangle = \\left\\langle R_z^2 \\right\\rangle = \\frac{N b^2}{3} \\ ,$\n\n$\\rho_\\mathrm{1d}(N,x) = \\sqrt{\\frac{3}{2 \\pi N b^2}} \\exp \\left( -\\frac{3R_x^2}{2N b^2} \\right)$\n\nand analogous expressions for $$\\rho_\\mathrm{1d}(y)$$ and $$\\rho_\\mathrm{1d}(z)$$. We have reintroduced parameter $$N$$, which is now the number of Kuhn segments. Yet, by discussing a continuous probability density distribution, we have removed dependence on a lattice model. This is necessary since the steps along dimensions $$x$$, $$y$$, and $$z$$ differ for each Kuhn segment. By using Equation \\ref{eq:R2_xyz}), we find\n\n$\\rho_\\mathrm{3d}(N,\\vec{R}) = \\left( \\frac{3}{2 \\pi N b^2} \\right)^{3\/2} \\exp \\left(-\\frac{3 \\vec{R}^2}{2 N b^2} \\right) \\ . \\label{eq:rho3d_chain}$\n\nThe probability density attains a maximum at zero end-to-end vector.\n\nFinally, we can pose the following question: If we let all chains of the ensemble start at the same point, how are the chain ends distributed in space? This is best pictured in a spherical coordinate system. Symmetry dictates that the distribution is uniform with respect to polar angles $$\\theta$$ and $$\\phi$$. The polar coordinate $$R$$ is equivalent to the end-to-end distance of the chain. To find the probability distribution for this end-to-end distance we need to include area $$4\\pi R^2$$ of the spherical shells. Hence,\n\n$\\rho_\\mathrm{3d}(N,R) \\cdot 4 \\pi R^2 \\mathrm{d} R = 4 \\pi \\left( \\frac{3}{2 \\pi N b^2} \\right)^{3\/2} \\exp \\left(-\\frac{3 R^2}{2 N b^2} \\right) R^2 \\mathrm{d} R \\ .$\n\nBecause of this scaling with the volume of an infinitesimally thin spherical shell, the probability density distribution (Figure $$\\PageIndex{1A}$$) for the end-to-end distance does not peak at zero distance. As seen in Figure $$\\PageIndex{1B}$$ it is very unlikely to encounter a chain with $$R > 2b\\sqrt{N}$$. Since the contour length is $$R_\\mathrm{max} = Nb$$, we can conclude that at equilibrium almost all chains have end-to-end distances shorter than $$2 R_\\mathrm{max} \/ \\sqrt{N}$$.\n\nWe need to discuss validity of the result, because in approximating the discrete binomial distribution by a continuous Gaussian probability distribution we had made the assumption $$x \\ll N$$. Within the ideal chain model, this assumption corresponds to an end-to-end distance that is much shorter than the contour length $$N b$$. If $$R$$ approaches $$Nb$$, the Gaussian distribution overestimates true probability density. In fact, the Gaussian distribution predicts a small, but finite probability for the chain to be longer than its contour length, which is unphysical. The model can be refined to include cases of such strong stretching of the chain . For our qualitative discussion of entropic elasticity not too far from equilibrium, we can be content with Equation \\ref{eq:rho3d_chain}).\n\n## Conformational Entropy and Free Energy\n\nWe may now ask the question of the dependence of free energy on chain extension $$\\vec{R}$$. With the definition of Boltzmann entropy, Equation \\ref{eq:Boltzmann_entropy}), and the usual identification $$k = k_\\mathrm{B}$$ we have\n\n$S(N,\\vec{R}) = k_\\mathrm{B} \\ln \\Omega(N,\\vec{R}) \\ .$\n\nThe probability density distribution in Equation \\ref{eq:rho3d_chain}) is related to the statistical weight $$\\Omega$$ by\n\n$\\rho_\\mathrm{3d}(N,\\vec{R}) = \\frac{\\Omega(N,\\vec{R})}{\\int \\Omega(N,\\vec{R}) \\mathrm{d} \\vec{R}} \\ ,$\n\nbecause $$\\rho_\\mathrm{3d}$$ is the fraction of all conformations that have an end-to-end vector in the infinitesimally small interval between $$\\vec{R}$$ and $$\\vec{R} + \\mathrm{d}\\vec{R}$$. Hence,22\n\n\\begin{align} S(N,\\vec{R}) & = k_\\mathrm{B} \\ln \\rho_\\mathrm{3d}(N,\\vec{R}) + k_\\mathrm{B} \\ln \\left[ \\int \\Omega(N,\\vec{R}) \\mathrm{d} \\vec{R} \\right] \\\\ & = -\\frac{3}{2} k_\\mathrm{B} \\frac{\\vec{R}^2}{N b^2} + \\frac{3}{2} k_\\mathrm{B} \\ln \\left( \\frac{3}{2 \\pi N b^2} \\right) + k_\\mathrm{B} \\ln \\left[ \\int \\Omega(N,\\vec{R}) \\mathrm{d} \\vec{R} \\right] \\ . \\label{eq:s_N_R_ideal_chain}\\end{align}\n\nThe last two terms do not depend on $$\\vec{R}$$ and thus constitute an entropy contribution $$S(N,0)$$ that is the same for all end-to-end distances, but depends on the number of monomers $$N$$,\n\n$S(N,\\vec{R}) = -\\frac{3}{2} k_\\mathrm{B} \\frac{\\vec{R}^2}{N b^2} + S(N,0) \\ .$\n\nSince by definition the Kuhn segments of an ideal chain do not interact with each other, the internal energy is independent of $$\\vec{R}$$. The Helmholtz free energy $$F(N,\\vec{R}) = U(N,\\vec{R}) - T S(N,\\vec{R})$$ can thus be written as\n\n$F(N,\\vec{R}) = \\frac{3}{2} k_\\mathrm{B} T \\frac{\\vec{R}^2}{N b^2} + F(N,0) \\ .$\n\nIt follows that the free energy of an individual chain attains a minimum at zero end-to-end vector, in agreement with our conclusion in Section [subsection:random_walk] that the probability density is maximal for a zero end-to-end vector. At longer end-to-end vectors, chain entropy decreases quadratically with vector length. Hence, the chain can be considered as an entropic spring. Elongation of the spring corresponds to separating the chain ends by a distance $$R \\ll N b$$. The force required for this elongation is the derivative of Helmholtz free energy with respect to distance. For one dimension, we obtain\n\n$f_x = -\\frac{\\partial F\\left( N, \\vec{R} \\right)}{\\partial R_x} = -\\frac{3 k_\\mathrm{B} T}{N b^2} \\cdot R_x \\ .$\n\nFor the three-dimensional case, the force is a vector that is linear in $$\\vec{R}$$,\n\n$\\vec{f} = -\\frac{3 k_\\mathrm{B} T}{N b^2} \\cdot \\vec{R} \\ ,$\n\ni.e., the entropic spring satisfies Hooke\u2019s law. The entropic spring constant is $$3 k_\\mathrm{B} T\/(Nb^2)$$.\n\nPolymers are thus the easier to stretch the larger their degree of polymerization (proportional to $$N$$), the longer the Kuhn segment $$b$$ and the lower the temperature $$T$$. In particular, the temperature dependence is counterintuitive. A polymer chain under strain will contract if temperature is raised, since the entropic contribution to Helmholtz free energy, which counteracts the strain, then increases.\n\nThis page titled 7.2: Entropic Elasticity is shared under a CC BY-NC 3.0 license and was authored, remixed, and\/or curated by Gunnar Jeschke via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform; a detailed edit history is available upon request.","date":"2022-08-11 06:05:47","metadata":"{\"extraction_info\": {\"found_math\": true, \"script_math_tex\": 0, \"script_math_asciimath\": 0, \"math_annotations\": 0, \"math_alttext\": 0, \"mathml\": 0, \"mathjax_tag\": 0, \"mathjax_inline_tex\": 1, \"mathjax_display_tex\": 1, \"mathjax_asciimath\": 0, \"img_math\": 0, \"codecogs_latex\": 0, \"wp_latex\": 0, \"mimetex.cgi\": 0, \"\/images\/math\/codecogs\": 0, \"mathtex.cgi\": 0, \"katex\": 0, \"math-container\": 0, \"wp-katex-eq\": 0, \"align\": 6, \"equation\": 0, \"x-ck12\": 0, \"texerror\": 0, \"math_score\": 0.9920359253883362, \"perplexity\": 395.0139520028654}, \"config\": {\"markdown_headings\": true, \"markdown_code\": true, \"boilerplate_config\": {\"ratio_threshold\": 0.18, \"absolute_threshold\": 10, \"end_threshold\": 15, \"enable\": true}, \"remove_buttons\": true, \"remove_image_figures\": true, \"remove_link_clusters\": true, \"table_config\": {\"min_rows\": 2, \"min_cols\": 3, \"format\": \"plain\"}, \"remove_chinese\": true, \"remove_edit_buttons\": true, \"extract_latex\": true}, \"warc_path\": \"s3:\/\/commoncrawl\/crawl-data\/CC-MAIN-2022-33\/segments\/1659882571234.82\/warc\/CC-MAIN-20220811042804-20220811072804-00488.warc.gz\"}"} | null | null |
Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Ladies, Diamond Bezel, Black Dial - Stainless Steel on Strap.
From the famous Royal Oak collection with the immediately recognizable hexagon design bezel secured by 8 steel screws.
Crown set with 1 translucent cabochon (not a diamond) weighing approximately 0.40 carats.
Metallic black colored dial with an engraved tapestry "waffle" design. | {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaC4"
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\section{Introduction}
Full Counting Statistics (FCS) in fermion systems \cite{Levitov_Lesovik} have attracted attention recently for their connection with entanglement entropy \cite{KL_noise,lehur}. Specifically, it has been shown that the von Neumann entanglement entropy associated with the coupling between two conductors may be expressed as a series involving the cumulants of conserved charge in one of the conductors \cite{KL_noise,lehur}. In some sense, noise in an unbiased junction between two conductors may be thought of as the propagation of entanglement after the junction is closed. In a gapless, disorder-free fermionic system, it appears that the rate of propagation is effectively the Fermi velocity, $v_F$. It is natural, then, to ask if entanglement propagates when there is strong disorder and the fermions are completely localized?
Consider a situation where the conductors are 1-dimensional and the barrier between them reflectionless. In the unbiased case, the second cumulant of charge and entanglement entropy are simply proportional (all higher cumulants vanish). For two 1-dimensional noninteracting fermion systems of length $L$, connected at time $t=0$, the charge variance increases logarithmically in $t$, following the universal expression $\langle \delta N^2\rangle \approx \frac{1}{\pi^2}\log{t}$, for $t$ much shorter than the ballistic time to encounter the boundary, $t_{b} \sim L$ \cite{Levitov_Lesovik}. However, the equilibrium charge variance, at zero temperature, for a length $l$ region where $l<<L$ is given by a similar result: $\langle \delta N^2\rangle \approx \frac{1}{\pi^2}\log{l}$. These results may be roughly interpreted in the following way: after time, $t$, charge fluctuations only reflect the participation of those fermions within a distance $l = v_F t$ of the junction \cite{cardy_quench}. Entanglement entropy, $S$, of the half-chain exhibits the same scaling in space and time but with a different universal prefactor: $S = \frac{\pi^2}{6} \langle \delta N^2\rangle$ \cite{KL_noise}. Whether calculating noise or entropy, these result reflects the underlying relativistic or conformal invariance and dynamical exponent $z=1$.
Although the calculations of entropy and noise are quite different, both results express underlying universality unique to 1-dimensional (critical) systems. It is also well known that some features of universality extend to entanglement entropy computed in 1-dimensional disordered systems. Disorder is strongly relevant in 1-dimension and in the case of noninteracting fermions it results in complete localization, described by the Infinite Disorder Fixed Point (IDFP) ) \cite{RSP}. Remarkably, entanglement entropy retains its universal logarithmic form but with a modified central charge $c_{\rm eff} = c\log{2}$ \cite{Refael_Moore}. Similarly the equilibrium charge variance of a size $l$ region is given by $\langle \delta N^2\rangle \approx \frac{\log{2}}{\pi^2}\log{l}$.
Since even fully localized fermions exhibit $\log{l}$ entropy and noise in equilibrium---similar to delocalized ones---one might expect that given enough time the system would relax to a state resembling the IDFP with long range entanglements straddling the junction after it is closed. If nothing else, the fermion wavefunction must maintain antisymmetry as fermions cross the junction, which is generally a sufficient condition for entanglement.
In this manuscript we computationally explore the temporal development charge fluctuations when strong disorder is present. Questions similar to these have been addressed in an interesting analytical study of Lieb-Robinson type bounds in spatially disordered systems \cite{light_cone} and in computational works on entanglement after a quench \cite{Igloi_disorder,dis_dynamics}. Very recently, the growth of entanglement after a quench has been studied in connection with the role of interactions \cite{moore_disorder}. We also note that for strictly 1-dimensional conductors, disorder is always relevant and one would expect the long time limit of FCS to be controlled by IDFP physics. For this reason a numerical analysis of FCS in a disordered 1-dimensional lattice might be relevant for experiments on noise in quasi 1-dimensional conductors. These results may also be relevant to recent experiments on cold atom gases in random lattices \cite{CAG_disorder}.
\section{The model}
Consider two one-dimensional noninteracting systems of spinless fermions (subsystems $A$ and $B$), connected by a weak link at one site (fig. 1). The model hamiltonian is:
\begin{eqnarray}
\label{ham}
H &=& -\sum_{\< x,y \> \alpha=A,B}{\kappa_{xy}(c^{\alpha \dagger}_{x}c^\alpha_{y} + c^{\alpha \dagger}_{y}c^\alpha_{x}})\\
\nonumber&-& w (c^{A \dagger}_{0}c^B_{0} + c^{B \dagger}_{0}c^A_{0})\\
&=& H_0 + H_w
\end{eqnarray}
where $x$ and $y$ are one-dimensional site indices and $A$ and $B$ denote the two systems with nearest-neighbor hopping amplitudes $\kappa_{xy}$ and weak link amplitude, $w$. Each subsystem consists of $L$ sites and is taken to have fixed boundary conditions at its ends. Furthermore, we will restrict our considerations to the case of $L$ fermions in $2L$ sites. $c_{x}^{\alpha}$ ($c^{\alpha \dagger}_x,$) destroys (creates) fermions at site $x$ in subsytem $\alpha$ and obeys the conventional fermion algebra.
\begin{figure}[ht]
\includegraphics[width=8.0cm]{weak_link.eps}
\caption{\label{fig2} Two fermion lattices with random hopping amplitudes $\kappa_{xy}$, coupled by a weak link with amplitude $w$.}
\end{figure}
Without disorder, all $\kappa_{xy}$ will be set to $\kappa = 1$. When disorder is included in our calculation, the set $\{\kappa_{xy}\}$ will be chosen from a uniform random distribution over the interval $[\kappa - \delta \kappa, \kappa + \delta \kappa]$. If the $\{\kappa_{xy}\}$ are chosen independently for the two subsystems, $A$ and $B$ will be at different chemical potentials. Given exactly $L/2$ fermions occupying each subsystem initially, there will be a net particle flux in some direction as the system evolves away from its initial condition. To study solely the fluctuation in the number of particles in one subsystem, we adopt identical realizations of disorder in $A$ and $B$ subsystems. Although unphysical, this simplifies the analysis of the fluctuations.
At time $t<0$, the two subsystems $A$ and $B$ are disconnected and prepared in the ground state of noninteracting fermions:
\begin{equation}
|\psi\rangle = \prod_{k=1}^{L/2}{c_k^{A\dagger}c_k^{B\dagger}|0\rangle}
\end{equation}
where (without disorder) the operator $c^\dagger_k $ is related to $c^\dagger_x$ in the usual way:
\begin{equation}
\label{unperturbed}
c^\dagger_x = \sqrt{\frac{2}{L+1}} \sum_{k=1}^L{\sin{\frac{k\pi x}{L+1}} c^\dagger_k} = \sum_{k=1}^L{\phi_k(x)
c^\dagger_k}
\end{equation}
With disorder, $\phi_k(x)$ will be an eigenfunction of the $L \times L$ matrix $\kappa_{xy}$:
\begin{equation}
\sum_{y=1}^L\kappa_{xy} \phi_k(y) = \epsilon_k \phi_k(x)
\end{equation}
It will be useful later to rewrite $H$ in the momentum basis
\begin{eqnarray}
\label{mom_ham}
H &=& \sum_{k=1}^L{\epsilon_k(c^{A \dagger}_{k}c^A_{k} + c^{B\dagger}_{k}c^B_{k}})\\
\nonumber&+& \sum_{k,k^\prime = 1}^L{M_{k k^\prime} (c^{A\dagger}_k c^B_{k^\prime} + c^{B\dagger}_k c^A_{k^\prime} )}\\
&=& \sum_{kk^\prime=1; \alpha\alpha^\prime=A,B}^L{h_{kk^\prime}^{\alpha\alpha^\prime}c^{\alpha\dagger}_k c^{\alpha^\prime}_{k^\prime}}
\end{eqnarray}
where $M_{kk^\prime} \equiv w \phi_k(1)\phi_{k^\prime}(1)$. In the last equality, $h_{kk^\prime}^{\alpha\alpha^\prime}$ may be thought of as unfolded into a $2L$-dimension single particle hamiltonian matrix.
At time $t=0$, the subsystems are connected with amplitude, $w$. The probability, $b_N(t)$, that $N$ particles are found in system $A$ at time $t$ is commonly expressed in terms of a generating function:
\begin{equation}
\chi(\lambda,t) \equiv \sum_{N=1}^{L}{b_N(t)e^{i \lambda N}}
\end{equation}
Following Klich \cite{Klich_trace}, the generating function $\chi(\lambda,t )$ corresponds to the following quantum expectation value,
\begin{eqnarray}
\chi(\lambda,t) &=& \langle \psi| U^\dagger e^{i \lambda \sum_{k=1}^L{c_k^{A\dagger}c_k^A}} U |\psi\rangle\\
&=& \langle \psi| U^\dagger e^{i \lambda \sum_{\alpha\alpha^\prime kk^\prime}{P_{kk^\prime}^{\alpha\alpha^\prime}c_k^{\alpha\dagger}c_{k^\prime}^{\alpha^\prime}}} U |\psi\rangle\\
&=& \langle \psi| e^{i \lambda \sum_{\alpha\alpha^\prime kk^\prime}{P_{kk^\prime}^{\alpha\alpha^\prime}(t)c_k^{\alpha\dagger}c_{k^\prime}^{\alpha^\prime}}} |\psi\rangle
\end{eqnarray}
where $U \equiv e^{-i H t}$ is the full many body evolution operator. In the second equality, $P_{kk^\prime}^{\alpha\alpha^\prime}$ is the $2L$-dimension projection operator, written in momentum space, onto the $A$ subsystem. $\chi(\lambda,t )$ is then expressed (the third equality) in terms of the time evolution of the projection operator in the single particle Hilbert space (dropping indices for clarity): $P(t) = e^{i h t} P e^{-i h t}$.
Now the expectation value with respect to $|\psi\rangle$ is replaced with a trace over an initial density matrix, $\rho = \frac{1}{Z}e^{-\beta H_0}$, corresponding to two independent Fermi systems ($A$ and $B$), at inverse temperature, $\beta$, where $Z \equiv {\rm tr }{e^{-\beta H_0}} $. The Klich trace formula is then applied in the zero temperature limit yielding,
\begin{eqnarray}
\chi(\lambda,t) &=&\lim_{\beta \rightarrow \infty} \frac{1}{Z}{\rm tr } (e^{-\beta H_0}e^{i\lambda P(t)})\\
&=& {\rm det}[1 - N + Ne^{i \lambda P(t)} ]
\end{eqnarray}
where $N$ is the projector onto the Fermi sea of the two subsystems; in matrix form, $N = \delta_{\alpha \alpha^\prime} \delta_{k k^\prime} \theta(k-L/2)$.
Using the property $P^2(t) = P(t)$, $\chi(\lambda,t)$ may be expressed in terms of the $L$ nonzero eigenvalues of $NP(t)$ denoted by $\{ p_m(t)\}$.
\begin{equation}
\label{fcs}
\chi(\lambda,t) = \prod_{m=1}^{L}{(1-p_m(t) + p_m(t)e^{i\lambda})}
\end{equation}
The probabilities $\{b_N(t)\}$ may be computed from eq. (\ref{fcs}) using a clever recursive scheme described by Schonhammer in \cite{Schonhammer_num1,Schonhammer_num2}.
\begin{figure}[ht]
\includegraphics[width=7.5cm]{figa.eps}
\caption{\label{fig2} (Color online) Natural logarithm of the probability distribution $b_N(t)$ for times $t = 1, 9, 18$ ($\circ, \diamond, \sqcap$, respectively). For $t=18$, the probability distribution is very close to a Gaussian distribution in agreement with the known behavior for a reflectionless barrier as reported in \cite{Levitov_Lesovik}. }
\end{figure}
\section{results for full counting statistics without disorder}
In the $L \rightarrow \infty$, continuum limit of the disorder free model described above exact results are known for the FCS generating function. When the junction between $A$ and $B$ is reflection-less and unbiased, the generating function is exactly Gaussian with a variance that depends logarithmically on time \cite{Levitov_Lesovik}:
\begin{equation}
\label{gaussian_fcs}
\chi(\lambda,t) = e^{-\frac{\lambda^2}{2\pi^2}\log{\kappa t}}
\end{equation}
Since the probability distribution $b_N(t)$ is related to $\chi(\lambda,t)$ by Fourier transform, $b_N(t)$ follows a Gaussian distribution with respect to $N$ for all times. Fig. 2 shows results for $\log{b_N(t)}$ computed on an $L=100$ site, ordered lattice. For the representative times shown, the distribution is Gaussian with a variance that increases in time. Noting the vertical scale of the graph, the variances all involve fluctuations of $O(1)$ fermions.
\begin{figure}[ht]
\includegraphics[width=7.5cm]{figc.eps}
\caption{\label{fig2} (Color online) Variance as a function of time, $t$, for an $L=600$ lattice. Calculation for variance in translation invariant lattice ($\circ$) exhibits universal $\frac{1}{\pi^2}\log{t}$ behavior. Variance computed for disordered lattices with disorder strength $\delta \kappa = 0.3$ ($\sqcap$) and $\delta \kappa = 0.5$ ($\diamond$) shown for comparison. }
\end{figure}
To examine the Gaussian probability distribution given by eq. (\ref{gaussian_fcs}), we calculate the variance,
\begin{equation}
\langle \delta N^2(t) \rangle \equiv \sum_{N=1}^L{N^2 b_N(t)} - (\sum_{N=1}^L{N b_N(t)})^2
\end{equation}
For a system without disorder, we first look in the regime $1<< t << \kappa L$ where the ballistic propagation of fermions to the boundary is irrelevant. The topmost data in fig. 3 shows the time development of the variance in an $L=600$ site system for $t \le 100$. A least squares fit yields
\begin{equation}
\label{logt}
\langle \delta N^2(t) \rangle \approx 0.282 + 0.0985 \log{t}
\end{equation}
agreeing within less than $3\%$ of the universal value for the prefactor of the logarithmic term: $1/\pi^2 \approx 0.1013$.
\begin{figure}[ht]
\includegraphics[width=7.5cm]{figb.eps}
\caption{\label{fig2} Variance as a function of time for an $L =100$ site lattice showing features of conformal invariance. Solid line is graph of equation (\ref{FCS_CFT}).}
\end{figure}
When the variance is computed in the regime $t\in[0, \kappa L]$ (fig. 4), where the counting statistics are affected by the boundaries, the variance reaches a maximum at the subsystem half-size, $L/2$. In terms of the relationship between noise and entanglement entropy, this result might be anticipated from the CFT expression for entropy after a local quench \cite{stephan_quench}. Klich and Levitov \cite{KL_noise} showed that for a reflectionless barrier, entanglement entropy at time $t$ after the channel is closed is given simply by the second cumulant of the FCS for same geometry. Fig. 4 shows the variance computed for an $L = 100$ lattice; the data is well fit by an expression,
\begin{equation}
\label{FCS_CFT}
\langle \delta N^2(t) \rangle \equiv 0.273 + \frac{1}{\pi^2}\log{|\frac{L}{\pi}\sin{\frac{\pi t}{L}}|}
\end{equation}
This result agrees with the analytical time dependence for entanglement entropy after a local quench in \cite{stephan_quench} and earlier numerical results that anticipated the CFT result (second reference of \cite{stephan_quench}). We also note that this expression may be identified with equation (21) of reference \cite{KL_noise} by replacing the the spatial interval $L$ with the time window, $T$, as defined in the reference.
\section{equilibrium charge fluctuations}
To help frame our results about FCS with disordered fermions we will first discuss equilibrium charge fluctuations. It has been noted that the logarithmic behavior of the variance, illustrated in eq. (\ref{logt}), is a reflection of the underlying 1-d nature (in time) of the FCS problem in any dimension \cite{Levitov_Lesovik}. Due to relativistic invariance, the time scale, $t$, sets a maximum length scale, $l = v_F t$ outside of which number fluctuations are uncoupled. Since number fluctuations in a length $l$ segment of a 1-d channel are proportional to $\frac{1}{\pi^2}\log{l}$, the charge fluctuations in a channel closed for a period of time $t$ cannot exceed $\frac{1}{\pi^2}\log{t} + c^\prime$, where $c^\prime$ is a nonuniversal constant. Equation (\ref{FCS_CFT}) is also a reflection of the same space/time symmetry through the stronger constraint of conformal invariance.
\begin{figure}[ht]
\includegraphics[width=7.5cm]{static_charge_fluctuation.eps}
\caption{\label{fig2} Equilibrium charge fluctuations for a disordered half-chain of length $l$ with disorder strength $\delta \kappa = 1.0$ averaged over 2000 realizations ($\circ$) and disorder-free half chain ($\sqcap$) . }
\end{figure}
Although it is a well known result, in Figure 5 (lower data set) we compute the charge variance of the $A$ subsystem in an $L$-site disorder free system. The equilibrium charge fluctuations are computed from the fermion correlation function, $g(xy) = \langle c(x) c^\dagger(y)\rangle$ evaluated in the ground state of $L/2$ fermions in an $L$ site system:
\begin{equation}
\langle N^2\rangle - \langle N\rangle^2 = \frac{l}{2} - \sum_{x,y\in C}{g(xy)^2}
\end{equation}
A least squares fit of the data yields the dependence on $l$, the number of sites in subsystem $A$,
\begin{equation}
\label{spatial_fluct}
\langle \delta N^2 \rangle = a + \frac{b}{\pi^2} \log{l}
\end{equation}
close to the universal result $\frac{1}{2\pi^2}\log{l}$ ($a \approx 0.10, b \approx 0.53$). The factor of $1/2$ appears in front of the logarithm because there is only a single boundary.
For one dimensional noninteracting fermions, disorder is a relevant perturbation and leads to the IDFP corresponding to localized fermions. It is known that entanglement entropy of a conformally invariant system becomes modified with disorder, the entropy following the same logarithmic behavior but with a modified central charge $c_{\rm eff} = c\log{2}$ \cite{Refael_Moore}. It was shown in \cite{refael_numberfluct} that the variance of the $z$-component of spin in the Random Singlet Phase (RSP)\cite{refael_numberfluct} is proportional to the entanglement entropy; based on this result, the charge variance for fermions follows equation (\ref{spatial_fluct}) with $b=\frac{1}{2}\log{2} \approx 0.347$. Our small disordered lattice calculation, averaging over $2000$ realizations of disorder (upper data set of figure 5), agrees reasonably well with the known result yielding $a \approx 0.20$ and $b \approx 0.365$. Since charge fluctuations at the fixed point should be independent of the microscopic disorder strength, we used a strong disorder parameter $\delta \kappa=1.0$; presumably our close agreement reflects that we are close to the fixed point with this choice.
\section{results for FCS with disorder}
The IDFP corresponds to completely localized fermions. Therefore, one would expect that the heuristic argument for the $\frac{1}{\pi^2}\log{t}$ dependence of the variance---specifically, that FCS corresponds to the number fluctuations in a $L = v_F t$ size spatial window---should fail. Since the gate time $t$ sets an effective ballistic length scale $L = v_F t$ for fermions in a translation invariant lattice, for weak disorder one might expect a ballistic regime wherein the variance behaves as $\frac{1}{\pi^2}\log{t}$ for $v_F t < \xi$ where $\xi$ is the elastic mean free path or localization length. Beyond this ballistic regime, at $v_F t > \xi$, the variance would saturate to a value proportional to $\log{\xi}$.
For a system with disorder, we first look in the regime $1<< t << \kappa L$ where propagation of fermions to the boundary is believed to be irrelevant based upon our prior results without disorder. The two lower data sets in fig. 3 shows the time development of the variance in an $L=600$ lattice for two different disorder strengths, $\delta \kappa = 0.3, 0.5$. Clearly there is a large reduction in the variance and a deviation from the universal result for the disorder-free system (upper data set).
The results of a disorder FCS calculation for an $L=600$ lattice with $\delta \kappa = 1.0$) extended to $t=10^4$ is shown in figure 6. We will discuss the data by fitting it to an expression of the form:
\begin{equation}
\label{variance_disorder}
\langle \delta N^2(t) \rangle = a + \frac{b}{\pi^2} \log{t}
\end{equation}
with $b=1$ corresponding to the variance without disorder. ($\kappa=1$ has been suppressed in the argument of the logarithm.)
In the presence of strong disorder, the charge variance appears to be logarithmic in time, but with a prefactor significantly smaller than that of the disorder-free result. A least squares fit to the data of figure 6 gives $a=0.27, b=0.138$.
\begin{figure}[ht]
\includegraphics[width=7.5cm]{disorder_dt1.eps}
\caption{\label{fig2} FCS computation of charge variance for a disordered $L=600$ lattice with $\delta \kappa = 1.0$. Results were averaged over $1000$ realizations of disorder.}
\end{figure}
Figure 7 shows a comparison of the time dependence of the variance for three disorder strengths, $\delta \kappa = 0.5,0.75$ and $1.0$. Although it is difficult to make a definitive interpretation, for weak disorder there appears to be a ballistic regime for $t < 10$. At longer times the variance for the weakest disorder strength, $\delta \kappa = 0.5$, seems to show logarithmic behavior with an initial slope corresponding to $b \approx 0.394$ and $a \approx 0.301$. At longer times, $t \approx 100$, there appears to be a crossover to the logarithmic behavior associated with the strong disorder of figure 6.
\begin{figure}[ht]
\includegraphics[width=7.5cm]{disorder_three_strengths.eps}
\caption{\label{fig2} Comparison of variance for an $L=600$ lattice with three disorder strengths $\delta \kappa =0.5$ ($\diamond$), $0.75$ ($\sqcap$) and $1.0$ ($\circ$). }
\end{figure}
We first attempt to interpret this result by associating a dynamical exponent $z$ with the space and time scaling for the charge variance of disordered fermions. Taking the universal relation for the equilibrium charge variance at the IDFP ($b = \frac{1}{2} \log{2}$ in equation (\ref{spatial_fluct}), corresponding to the single boundary case) as the nominal spatial behavior, we write the temporal charge variance as follows:
\begin{equation}
\label{dynamical_exponent}
\langle \delta N^2(t) \rangle = a + \frac{\log{2}}{2\pi^2} \log{t^{1/z}}
\end{equation}
If systems $A$ and $B$ are connected at time $t=0$, $t^{1/z}$ represents the average distance to which fermion entanglements have propagated; $z=2$ would correspond to diffusive behavior, perhaps indicating diffusive propagation of the underlying entangled quanta. Using the fit to the data of figure 6, we find $z \approx 2.5$. However there is a reasonable question about our association single boundary RSP results for entanglement and noise (see the discussion in reference \cite{cardy_quench}). Comparing equations (\ref{FCS_CFT}) and (\ref{spatial_fluct}) we see that in the clean case, dynamic fluctuations must be compared to the double boundary static case to yield dynamical exponent $z=1$. This feature is a consequence of the relevant conformal map used in the quench calculation. With disorder and the breakdown of conformal invariance, it is not clear that comparison with the double boundary case is appropriate.
Recently, Igloi and coworkers \cite{Igloi_disorder} have proposed a dynamical scaling at the IDFP to explain their results on entanglement entropy after a quench. Rather than replacing the spatial scale $l$ with $t^{1/z}$ as in equation (\ref{dynamical_exponent}), they proposed $l\sim (\log{t})^{1/\psi}$. This scaling may be understood in terms of the Random Singlet Phase: bonds spanning a length $l$ have an exponentially small energy scale $E \sim \exp{(-l^\psi)}$, where $\psi = 1/2$. Associating the quench time, $t$, with an inverse energy reproduces the proposed scaling. Combining $l\sim (\log{t})^{1/\psi}$ with equation (\ref{spatial_fluct}), the variance is then expected to behave as:
\begin{equation}
\label{loglog}
\langle \delta N^2(t) \rangle = a + \frac{1}{\pi^2}\frac{b}{\psi}\log{\log{t}}
\end{equation}
Looking at figure 6, the variance appears logarithmic over four decades; however extending our calculation out to double exponentially long times (as in reference \cite{Igloi_disorder}) and performing more disorder averaging over fewer points reveals a deviation from $\log{t}$ behavior.
\begin{figure}[ht]
\includegraphics[width=7.5cm]{cumulant2_lnlnt.eps}
\caption{\label{fig2} (Color online) Variance as a function of $\log\log{t}$, for a series of lattice sizes: (from bottom to top; number of realization shown in parentheses) $L = 48 \,(10000), 64 \,(10000), 96 \,(5000),128 \,(5000),192 \,(3000),$ $256 \,(3000), 600 \,(3000)$. In all calculations the disorder strength was $\delta \kappa =1.0$. Dashed line is a visual fit to the data envelope: $0.26+0.062\log\log{t}$.}
\end{figure}
Figure 8 shows the variance as a function of $\log\log{t}$ computed for several lattice sizes ranging from $L=48$ to $L=600$. The envelope defined by these data sets is approximately linear and saturation of the variance appears to occur at doubly exponentially long times. The saturation values appear to increase linearly in $\log{L}$. To extract the IDFP exponent, $\psi$, $b$ appearing in equation (\ref{loglog}) must be independently determined. Direct analysis of the variance versus $\log{l}$ for a disordered half-chain of length $l$ yielded a value of $b \sim 0.365$ (equation (\ref{spatial_fluct}) and figure 5) close to the analytical result $b=\log{2}/2$. Following \cite{Igloi_disorder} we have also determined $b$ from the saturations values of the variance implied by figure 8.
\begin{figure}[ht]
\includegraphics[width=7.5cm]{saturation_lnL.eps}
\caption{\label{fig2} (Color online) Saturation values of variance. Dependence of the variance at the three longest time values for the lattice sizes from figure 8 upon $\log{L}$. Dashed line is least squares fit: $0.218 + 0.0385\log{L}$ }
\end{figure}
Figure 9 shows the variance for three largest time values plotted against $\log{L}$ for the system sizes, $L$, considered in figure 8. Fitting the data in figure 9 to equation (\ref{spatial_fluct}) yields a value of $b \approx 0.380$, a value close to that determined from figure 5. Finally, $\psi$, from equation (\ref{loglog}) is determined to be $\psi \approx 0.621$. Using the value of $b$ from figure 5, $\psi \approx 0.596$; using the value of $b$ from the exact IDFP ($b=\log{2}/2 \approx 0.347$), $\psi \approx 0.566$. These values of $\psi$ appear to be close to the analytical value $\psi=1/2$ but systematically larger, a result also found in reference \cite{Igloi_disorder}.
We note that there appears to be systematic variations, independent of lattice size, in the variance for small times and for times larger than the saturation time, $t_{\rm sat}$. For instance, there is a peak/dip structure at $t \sim 4.7 - 6.9$ and another at $t \sim 42 - 106$ that appears in all the lattice sizes studied. There is also a systematic decrease in the variance at $\log\log{t} \sim 3.3-3.8$, beyond the saturation time for each lattice. We speculate that the feature at $t \sim 4.7 - 6.9$ has to do with our choosing identical realizations of disorder for the $A$ and $B$ subsystems. As discussed in section II, this was necessary to equalize the Fermi levels in both subsystems. The only reasonable explanation of the systematic feature at $t \sim 42 - 106$ is the presence of some ballistic fermions. Consistent with earlier computational work on 1-d localization, we believe there may be a substantial fraction of delocalized states with localization lengths in the range $\xi \sim 50 - 100$ lattice sites \cite{1d_disorder}.
\begin{figure}[ht]
\includegraphics[width=7.5cm]{cum1_bias_clean.eps}
\caption{\label{fig2} (Color online) Fermions transferred to subsystem $A$ ($L=600$) as a function of time, $t$, for several weak link amplitudes, $w = \kappa, 0.5\kappa, 0.3\kappa$ (top to bottom.) Subsystems were prepared at $t=0$ with an initial bias $N_B - N_A = \Delta N = 24$. The average number of fermions (first cumulant) is seen to increase linearly in time up to $t=t_b=L$, the ballistic time to encounter the boundary. For a transparent boundary $w=\kappa =1$, the first cumulant reaches a maximum $\langle \delta N \rangle = \Delta N$ at $t=t_b=L$ and then linearly returns to zero at $t = 2L$. Because of partial reflection ($w \ne \kappa$), $\langle \delta N \rangle$ does not reach its maximum until several ballistic time periods, $t_b$, have passed. }
\end{figure}
\section{Finite bias voltage}
Since the fermions in the present study are completely localized, applying a bias voltage across the junction does not result in a constant current. Nonetheless it is interesting to determine the rate of charge transfer and the resulting shot noise in the 1-d strong insulating regime. Based upon our results for an unbiased junction, one might expect that the time dependent variance of localized fermions described by the IDFP would follow a double logarithmic law whether or not there is a bias. In contrast, we have found that applying a bias significantly changes the dynamic resulting in a time dependent variance that is proportional to $\log{t}$ rather than $\log \log{t}$.
\begin{figure}[ht]
\includegraphics[width=7.5cm]{cum2_bias_clean.eps}
\caption{\label{fig2} (Color online) time dependent variance for the same parameters as figure 10. For $w=\kappa=1$, there is only the residual universal noise analogous to equation (\ref{FCS_CFT}) describing the unbiased case (compare with figure 4). For $w=0.5\kappa$ and $w=0.3\kappa$ the agreement of our computation with equation (\ref{noise_power}) is quite good. $\langle \delta N^2 \rangle$ should be linear in $t$ and achieve a maximum value of $|w^*|^2(1-|w^*|^2)\Delta N$.}
\end{figure}
Our numerical calculations employ open boundary conditions, as opposed to scattering boundary conditions, so a closed circuit bias voltage cannot be applied in the same way as analytical calculations on FCS. Instead a bias voltage is effected by preparing the A and B sides with different initial numbers of fermions and watching the system relax. As a benchmark we first consider the disorder-free case.
For the results shown in Figure 10, two $L=600$ subsystems were prepared at time $t=0$ with different numbers of fermions: $N_A = L/2-\Delta N/2$ and $N_B = L/2+\Delta N/2$. The initial fermion number difference $\Delta N$ was chosen to be $\Delta N = 24$ and the time evolution was studied for three different values of the weak link amplitude, $w$. Figure 10 shows that the average number of fermions transmitted to subsystem $A$ (the first cumulant) increases linearly in time up to $t=t_b=L$, the ballistic time to encounter the boundary. For a transparent boundary $w=\kappa =1$, the first cumulant reaches a maximum $\langle \delta N \rangle = \Delta N$ at $t=t_b=L$ and then linearly returns to zero at $t = 2L$. Because of partial reflection ($w \ne \kappa$), $\langle \delta N \rangle$ does not reach its maximum until several ballistic time periods, $t_b$, have passed.
To make connections with the Landauer formula for conductance \cite{Landauer} and the Lesovik formula for non-equilibrium noise power \cite{Lesovik}, we denote accumulated charge by $q \langle \delta N \rangle$. From figure 10 the initial current in the $w=\kappa$ case is $I = q \Delta N/L$. Noting that the density of states for the half filled lattice is $L/2 \pi \kappa$, we arrive at the lattice I-V relation:
\begin{equation}
\label{IV}
I =|w^*|^2 \frac{q^2}{2\pi \kappa}V = g^*V
\end{equation}
where $|w^*|^2$ is the effective transmission coefficient at the Fermi level for the weak link and $g^*$ is the corresponding quantized conductance. Referring to figure 10, when $w=\kappa$ the effective transmission coefficient, $|w^*|^2 = 1$, as expected. When $w=0.5\kappa$ and $w=0.3\kappa$ the transmission coefficients are found to be $|w^*|^2=0.64$ and $|w^*|^2 = 0.3$, respectively. The detailed analytical relationship between lattice parameters and the transport parameters in equations (\ref{IV}) and (\ref{noise_power}) may be found in reference \cite{Schonhammer_num1}.
Adapting the Lesovik formula for noise power \cite{Lesovik} to our lattice calculation, we expect:
\begin{equation}
\label{noise_power}
\langle \delta N^2 \rangle =|w^*|^2(1-|w^*|^2)\frac{qV}{2\pi\kappa}t
\end{equation}
Figure 11 shows the time dependent variance for the same parameters as figure 10. For $w=\kappa=1$, the shot noise predicted by equation (\ref{noise_power}) is zero and there is only the residual universal noise analogous to equation (\ref{FCS_CFT}) describing the unbiased case (compare with figure 4). For $w=0.5\kappa$ and $w=0.3\kappa$ the agreement of our computation with equation (\ref{noise_power}) is close. $\langle \delta N^2 \rangle$ should be linear in $t$ and achieve a maximum value of $|w^*|^2(1-|w^*|^2)\Delta N$ (converting voltage $V$ to equivalent $\Delta N$). Using the values for $w^*$ found from figure 10 for the $w=0.5\kappa$ and $w=0.3\kappa$ cases, the maximum values of $\langle \delta N^2 \rangle$ are $5.53$ and $5.04$, respectively, in close agreement with figure 11.
\begin{figure}[ht]
\includegraphics[width=7.5cm]{cum1_bias_disorder_inset.eps}
\caption{\label{fig2} First cumulant $\langle \delta N \rangle$ as a function of $\log{t}$ for a strongly disordered set of $L = 600$ lattices with (bottom to top) $\Delta N=4,8,12,16,20,24,28$. Each data set represents an average over $3000$ realizations of disorder ($\delta \kappa = 1$). Saturation appears at similar exponentially long times as in the unbiased case (figure 8). Inset: log-log plot of the data for the three largest $\Delta N$ to determine exponent $\psi$ in equation (\ref{cum1_bias}). Solid line is a visual fit to the linear portion of the data with slope $\psi^{-1} = 1.25$.}
\end{figure}
We have computed the Full Counting Statistics of disordered lattices at finite bias using the same scheme as described before in section II. Two identical realizations of an $L$-site disordered lattice are prepared with different numbers of fermions: $N_A = L/2-\Delta N/2$ and $N_B = L/2+\Delta N/2$ and connected at time $t=0$. As discussed in section II, choosing {\sl different} realizations of disorder for $A$ and $B$ subsystems would introduce a random bias voltage, $V_{\rm r}$, in effect. To systematically study the effect of a bias voltage given the random fluctuations of $V_{\rm r}$, we would have had to bin our multiple realization results by the different values of $V$ requiring many more realizations to overcome the large statistical fluctuations inherent in a small bin size.
\begin{figure}[ht]
\includegraphics[width=7.5cm]{cum2_bias_disorder.eps}
\caption{\label{fig2} (Color online) Variance as a function of $\log{t}$ for the same parameters as in figure 12. Data suggests a $\log\log{t}$ behavior for $\log{t} < \log{L}$ analogous to the unbiased case shown in figures 6 and 8. The variance appears to be proportional to $\log{t}$ for large times and saturate at exponentially long times consistent with the unbiased case (figure 8). $\langle \delta N \rangle$ (figure 12) and $\langle \delta N^2 \rangle$ appear to saturate at the same value of $\Delta N/4$ suggesting that the saturation counting distribution is a poisson distribution.}
\end{figure}
Figures 12 and 13 show $\langle \delta N \rangle$ and $\langle \delta N^2 \rangle$ as a function of $\log{t}$ for a strongly disordered set of $L = 600$ lattices with several different $\Delta N$. Saturation in both $\langle \delta N \rangle$ and $\langle \delta N^2 \rangle$ appears to occur at exponentially long times, similar in magnitude to the unbiased case. Using IDFP scaling obtained from the unbiased case, we expect the saturation time, $t_{\rm sat} \sim \exp{L^\psi}$. Therefore $\log{t_{\rm sat}} = 53$ or $\log{t_{\rm sat}} = 45$ using the two numerically determined values of the exponent $\psi = 0.621$ and $\psi=0.596$ from the unbiased variance data. These saturation times are in reasonable agreement with figures 12 and 13. Both $\langle \delta N \rangle$ and $\langle \delta N^2 \rangle$ appear to saturate at the value of $\Delta N/4$ suggesting that the saturation counting distribution is a Poisson distribution:
\begin{equation}
\log{\chi(\lambda,t\rightarrow \infty)} \approx \frac{\Delta N}{4}(e^{i\lambda}-1)
\end{equation}
Using the scaling at the IDFP, one might expect that at a time $t$ after the junction is closed, fermions at a distance of $l \sim (\log{t})^{1/\psi}$ from the boundary are able to make a fluctuation bringing them to the boundary. Then the number of charges accessible for tunneling would be:
\begin{equation}
\label{cum1_bias}
\langle \delta N \rangle \sim \Delta N \frac{l}{L} \sim \Delta N \frac{(\log{t})^{1/\psi}}{(\log{t_{\rm sat}})^{1/\psi}}
\end{equation}
The curvature evident in figure 12 supports a power law interpretation. The inset of figure 12 is a log-log plot of the data for the three largest voltages in figure 12, however a linear fit gives an estimate of $\psi = 0.8$, systematically larger than the earlier values determined by saturation data.
The variance $\langle \delta N^2 \rangle$, shown in figure 13, appears to have two regimes. At large times running from approximately $\log{t}=8$ to $\log{t_{\rm sat}}$, $\langle \delta N^2 \rangle$ is proportional to $\log{t}$. At short times, $\log{t} < \log{L}$, is nearly constant and independent of voltage. The variance in this regime is very close to the unbiased case (see figure 6). Figure 14 shows the variance for an $L=300$ lattice with a comparable range of $\Delta N$; the time at which the crossover takes place appears to be smaller---possibly proportional to $\log{L}$.
Using the saturation value of the variance, $\Delta N/4$, and the linearity in $\log{t}$ we can formulate an empirical law for $\langle \delta N^2 \rangle$:
\begin{equation}
\label{variance_bias}
\langle \delta N^2 \rangle \sim \frac{1}{4} \Delta N \frac{\log{t}}{\log{t_{\rm sat}}} = L^{1-\psi}\frac{qV}{8\pi\kappa}
\end{equation}
In forming the first equality, we have ignored the short time ($\log{t} < \log{L}$) behavior. In the second equality we have used the IDFP scaling for $t_{\rm sat}$ and expressed $\Delta N$ in terms of a voltage, $V$ using the density of states for the ordered lattice. We note that the true density of states for a 1-d disordered lattice has a complicated singularity at the Fermi level and this second equality cannot be strictly true for $V\rightarrow 0$ \cite{Eggarter}.
\begin{figure}[ht]
\includegraphics[width=7.5cm]{cum2_bias_disorder_L300.eps}
\caption{\label{fig2} (Color online) Variance as a function of $\log{t}$ for the same parameters as in figure 13 except $L=300$ and $\Delta N = 4,8,16$ have been changed to to effect similar voltages as figure 13. The crossover to linear behavior now occurs at smaller times, suggesting a crossover at $\log{t} \sim \log{L}$. }
\end{figure}
\section{Conclusion}
In this manuscript we have made a computational study of charge fluctuations across a junction of two strongly disordered 1-dimensional fermion systems. At zero bias, we have analyzed the variance as a function of time using a dynamical exponent, and using a recently proposed dynamical scaling at the IDFP \cite{Igloi_disorder}. By comparing to the known results for static charge fluctuations at the IDFP, we have computed the dynamical exponent and found $z \approx 2.5$. However upon examining doubly exponential time scales, we come to the same conclusion as Igloi, et al concerning the dynamics of entanglement in reference \cite{Igloi_disorder}: a region of spatial scale $l$ relaxes with a time scale $t \sim \exp{l^\psi}$ correspondent with the exponentially small energy scales characteristic of the IDFP. This, in turn, leads to the $\log \log {t}$ behavior of equation (\ref{loglog}). We have also concluded that the saturation of the variance in a clean system appears to be well described by the universal CFT expression developed in references \cite{stephan_quench}.
We have also studied the charge transfer and variance with an initial population imbalance, effecting an initial bias voltage. For clean systems our results closely follow Landauer formula for conductivity and Lesovik formula for noise, modified for our open boundary condition lattice geometry. With disorder the fermions are localized and charge transfer may be thought of as activated by quantum fluctuations after the connection of the two subsystems. Similar to the zero bias case, charge and variance are seen to saturate at doubly exponential times reflecting the IDFP. However, in contrast with the $\log \log {t}$ behavior for zero bias, charge and variance relax towards their saturation values as $(\log t)^{1/\psi}$ and $\log t$ respectively. It is interesting to note, even with fully localized fermions, our results for FCS with an applied voltage involves the Fermi statistics implicit in the organization of the disordered fixed point.
GL wishes to thank Sasha Abanov for useful discussions and pointing out references \cite{Schonhammer_num1,Schonhammer_num2}.
This research was supported by the Department of Energy DE-FG02-08ER64623---Hofstra University Center for Condensed Matter and Research Corporation CC6535 (GL).
| {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaArXiv"
} | 1,877 |
[_Praise for_
THE MINDFUL WAY THROUGH STRESS](contents.html#fmm1)
"Alidina has written a very practical and engaging guide to stress reduction! Extracting much of the essence of the well-known and researched mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) program, he shows how to begin practicing and experiencing the benefits of mindfulness. For those who don't have the opportunity (or time) to take the full program in person, following the wisdom of this fun-to-read guide can jump-start the integration of mindfulness into today's hectic and fast-paced lifestyles. Do yourself a favor and pause to really take in the message of this book and make room in your day to practice what is taught, and you'll definitely be glad you did."
_—Steven D. Hickman, PsyD, Executive Director, Center for Mindfulness, University of California, San Diego_
"Do you want to learn mindfulness without leaving home? If so, this is an ideal place to start. Written in an exceptionally clear and encouraging style, it is chock-full of practical wisdom, supportive research, and opportunities for self-reflection. Alidina creatively presents the gold standard of mindfulness training: MBSR. Included is a mini-course for those with little time, as well as downloadable meditations. This book is a welcome companion for anyone wishing to lead a more stress-free life."
_—Christopher K. Germer, PhD, author of_ The Mindful Path to Self-Compassion
"Drawing on decades of experience with the highly successful MBSR program, this clear, practical, step-by-step guide can help anyone use mindfulness practices to feel less stressed—even in difficult circumstances."
_—Ronald D. Siegel, PsyD, author of_ The Mindfulness Solution
"Everyone deserves to reduce stress—not only will you feel better, but you'll also be surprised by how MBSR unleashes your creativity and productivity. Shamash is a wonderful teacher."
_—Chade-Meng Tan, Jolly Good Fellow of Google and author of_ Search Inside Yourself
"Internationally recognized mindfulness teacher and writer Shamash Alidina has written a wonderfully practical, easy-to-read book helping us to recognize the many different elements of stress and how to cope. Full of examples and step-by-step guidance, this book offers a clear path to a calmer mind and life. A gift of wisdom to help us in our busy and stressful lives."
_—Paul Gilbert, PhD, FBPsS, OBE, Head, Mental Health Research Unit, University of Derby, United Kingdom_
# THE
MINDFUL
WAY
THROUGH
STRESS
# **The Proven 8-Week Path to Health,
Happiness, and Well-Being**
# SHAMASH ALIDINA
#
THE GUILFORD PRESS
New York London
Epub Edition ISBN: 9781462518821; Kindle Edition ISBN: 9781462518838
© 2015 Shamash Alidina
Published by The Guilford Press
A Division of Guilford Publications, Inc.
72 Spring Street, New York, NY 10012
www.guilford.com
All rights reserved
The information in this volume is not intended as a substitute for consultation with healthcare professionals. Each individual's health concerns should be evaluated by a qualified professional.
Except as indicated, no part of this book may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.
Last digit is print number: 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
**Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data**
Alidina, Shamash.
The mindful way through stress : the proven 8-week path to health, happiness, and well-being / Shamash Alidina.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4625-0940-9 (paperback) — ISBN 978-1-4625-1793-0 (hardcover)
1. Stress management. 2. Meditation—Therapeutic use. 3. Health. I. Title.
RA785.A43 2015
613—dc23
2014032834
Illustrations by Christopher Reinke
_This book is dedicated to all those suffering
from stress. May you discover the freedom and joy
of living mindfully in the present moment._
# _Acknowledgments_
WRITING IS a great privilege. Your willingness to purchase this book helps to support me. I'd like to thank you personally for that.
I would like to thank Jon Kabat-Zinn, Saki Santorelli, and their colleagues at the Center for Mindfulness in Massachusetts for originally developing the mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) program upon which this book is based. I'd particularly like to thank them for the training they've offered many others, including me. Without their team's hard work, this book wouldn't exist. I'm also grateful for the teachers at the Centre for Mindfulness Research and Practice at Bangor University, United Kingdom. Additionally, many hundreds of researchers have worked tirelessly to build the evidence base of the program, and I'm grateful for their work.
I'd like to thank all my friends and family for their kindness and support. I'm especially grateful for their readiness to put up with my silly jokes and frequent absence while writing. I'd probably be stressed out without them!
I'd like to give a big thank you to Kitty Moore and Chris Benton of the fantastic Guilford Press. They really make a wonderful team and have played a massive part in producing this book, as well as making mindfulness more accessible through many other publications. I'd like to thank Kitty for her trust in me, her guidance, and for our wonderful meetings in San Francisco. And thanks to Chris for her meticulous eye for detail, many hours of editing the manuscript, and her sound advice. I'm forever grateful for their wisdom and compassion.
I'm also aware of the many other people working behind the scenes at Guilford to produce this book. I'd like to acknowledge and thank the part they've played to develop this work.
And last, but not least, I'd like to thank Christopher Reinke for all the illustrations in this book. I'm immensely grateful for his generosity and patience with the many high-quality drawings he produced. Thank you.
# _Contents_ | Cover
---|---
|
Praise for THE MINDFUL WAY THROUGH STRESS
|
Title Page
|
Copyright Page
|
Dedication Page
|
Acknowledgments
|
Introduction
ONE | How Mindfulness Helps with Stress
TWO | Discovering Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction
THREE | Getting the Most Out of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction
FOUR | Week 1: There's More Right with You Than Wrong with You
FIVE | Week 2: From Automatic Reacting to Creative Responding
SIX | Week 3: The Joy and Value of Living in the Present
SEVEN | Week 4: Understanding and Managing Stress
EIGHT | Week 5: Taking a Stand—Responding to Stress
NINE | Week 6: Mindful Communication
TEN | A Day of Mindfulness: Deepening Your Awareness
ELEVEN | Week 7: Taking Care of Yourself
TWELVE | Week 8: The Rest of Your Life
THIRTEEN | Mindful Stretching and Yoga
|
Resources
|
References
|
Index
|
About the Author
|
List of Audio Tracks
|
About Guilford Press
|
Discover Related Guilford Books
Purchasers can download audio files and select practical tools from this book at _www.guilford.com/alidina-materials._
# _Introduction_
SARAH WAS a typical busy working mom. Her first marriage didn't work out the way she had hoped. After the divorce, she couldn't face looking for someone else on top of everything else she had to do. She was assistant manager at a small hotel and had a 6-year-old son to look after on her own. He was a lovely boy, but certainly a handful. Teachers often called her in to discuss his aggressive behavior toward the other children. She also had to juggle helping her mother, who lived 2 hours away. If she didn't make that trip every Sunday, she was filled with pangs of guilt. Her father had died last year, and her mother was feeling terribly lonely. Sarah didn't really have time to process the emotions of losing her father, and she continued to find herself crying out of the blue.
But these were just the external pressures. Internally, she had to deal with the challenges of feeling frustrated and angry at her boss, constantly worrying about her little boy and whether he was going to be okay, and feeling sad about how life seemed so difficult at the moment.
Sarah felt like she hadn't slept well for months. She felt tired all the time, and life seemed like an enormous struggle. She couldn't see a way out of this negative cycle. She tried exercising more, but that didn't seem to help much. Then she started to have stomach pains. After a checkup, her doctor said he thought they might be due to stress. Sarah was skeptical that a physical pain could be caused by stress, and she was even more doubtful when the doctor recommended a mindfulness class. How could that possibly eliminate all the problems she was wrestling with?
Still, she didn't have any other ideas, so she decided to try it. At first she thought the classes were doing more harm than good. She couldn't relax in the class and in fact started noticing just how negative her thoughts were, which made her feel even worse. She had to admit it was nice meeting some different people, though, so she decided to take it one class at a time and keep going as long as "one more class" sounded bearable. She did the mindfulness homework, or "experiments" as the teacher called them, and gradually she began to feel different.
The real breakthrough came to Sarah in the third week, when the instructor was guiding one of the meditations. She realized that her stomach pain had almost disappeared. And more than that, she felt like she was regaining some control in her life, even though the outer circumstances hadn't changed. The following week she was far more aware of the thoughts that popped up in her mind, and they didn't get hold of her like they used to. Her sleep improved, and she learned new ways to deal with her difficult emotions in the weeks that followed. By the end of the course, she felt like she had learned not just a set of techniques but a way of living— _mindful living_ —that seemed life saving in some ways.
IS THIS BOOK FOR YOU?
Sarah's story is not a fantasy; these are the kinds of results that thousands of people all over the world are finding from practicing mindfulness. Mounting scientific evidence from hundreds of universities—including dedicated centers at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in the United States and the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom—strongly suggests that mindfulness not only reduces stress but also gently builds an inner strength so that future stressors have less impact on our happiness and physical well-being.
By reading this book and practicing the exercises, you will learn approaches that are ancient yet profoundly beneficial in our modern world. Even brain scans have revealed helpful changes taking place in just 8 weeks of regular practice—a program that is outlined in this book. You can learn the same approaches that Sarah learned in her class so you can explore the possibility of a life with a better resilience against stress. The journey will not always be easy, but I will do my best to encourage you to keep taking the next step.
First, however, is stress the problem you're struggling with?
_Have you been thinking in any of the following ways?_
• Constant worrying
• Predicting the worst
• Racing mind
• Negative thinking
_Have you had any of the following feelings?_
• Low mood
• Sense of inadequacy
• Anxiety
• Frustration
• Panic
_Have you had any of the following physical symptoms?_
• Headaches
• Stomach or bowel problems
• Sweating
• Feeling dizzy
• Breathlessness
• Sexual problems
_Have you been acting in any of the following ways?_
• Forgetful or clumsy
• Unsociable
• Eating more or less than usual
• Always busy
• Smoking or drinking more
• Exploding with anger
All of these are the symptoms of too much stress, a phenomenon that affects your thoughts, emotions, physical well-being, and behavior. However, there may be a medical reason for your symptoms, so some caution is required. Stress can creep up on you gradually and end up weighing heavily on you, to the point where every day feels like a struggle. You may intuitively know that there are two ways to relieve the burden of stress: eliminate the stressors in your life or reduce their effects on you. **This book can help you with both, by helping you adopt the new way of life Sarah learned, called _mindful living._**
Mindfulness can help you reduce stress by developing a new level of awareness of:
• the **thoughts** that trigger the stress response
• the **emotions** (yours and others') that can bubble into conflict
• the **physical signs** that your body is in distress
• the **behaviors** that might be contributing to heightened stress as well as those that help you relax.
The stress response is complicated, and mindfulness is profoundly nuanced and powerful. Chapter 1 explains in more detail how mindfulness is ideally suited to help control the stress in your life. This book takes advantage of these benefits by presenting a self-help version of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), an 8-week mindfulness course originated in 1979 and usually done in a group setting with an MBSR teacher that has now been completed by hundreds of thousands of people. MBSR is the most well-researched mindfulness course in the world, so it makes sense to start there if stress is a problem for you.
The aim of the course is to teach a range of different mindfulness exercises and meditations to help reduce your stress in the long term. The course also offers a chance to explore mindful attitudes and values so you can meet future life challenges in a way that reduces rather than increases your stress. Finally, MBSR offers you a way of living so you can notice and take pleasure in the simple things in life that we all take for granted, and, in doing so, focus on what's going well in your life, not just what's going wrong, no matter how bad things seem.
When Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn and colleagues at the University of Massachusetts Medical School designed MBSR, the goal was to make the benefits of traditional Buddhist mindfulness meditation accessible in a secular way to people suffering from chronic pain and other long-term health conditions. The program was designed to include not only meditation but also yoga, models about stress, group discussion, and ways of integrating mindfulness into daily life. All of these except the group discussion are offered in this book, and throughout, you'll read composite stories about and quotes representative of what I've heard from people who have reduced their stress levels using MBSR to replicate the group experience.
I discovered MBSR when I was researching the scientific basis of meditation. I attended an MBSR class in London and was impressed by the format and secular approach. I longed to share this course with others, and so I began my training in MBSR with Jon Kabat-Zinn and Saki Santorelli through the Center for Mindfulness at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. I then studied how to teach MBSR for several years at Bangor University's Centre for Mindfulness in the United Kingdom. I began teaching MBSR to people suffering from stress in my local area, both in small groups and one on one. Over several years, I taught many MBSR groups, mainly to members of the public who wanted to discover a different way of handling their stress. Then I published my first book on the subject. This led to invitations to give talks and workshops in mindfulness around the world—a real privilege. I now also run online mindfulness teacher training programs and various other online offerings. I also continue to deliver workshops when offered the opportunity.
HOW TO USE THIS BOOK
This book is not a workbook but a practical manual. Eight chapters take you through the 8-week program with full instructions for what to do and when to do it. I encourage you to use a journal—whether a book to write in or your tablet, phone, or computer—to record your reflections about your experiences with the program and how it affects your stress levels. Having a written record gives you something to refer back to to refine your practice in the days and years to come. Your journal can also shift your mindful living in ways that will work even better for you than what you tried first. Finally, keeping a written record can remind you of all the good things in your life that mindfulness helps you recognize, along with the challenges.
I've also provided downloadable audio tracks for the meditation practices, available at _www.guilford.com/alidina-materials_. (If at any time you feel the need to practice the mindfulness meditations without guidance, there is a set of tracks, numbers 21–24, with only intermittent bells every 5 or 10 minutes to remind you to be mindful. Use these tracks whenever you prefer them to a guided mindfulness audio.)
After reading about exactly how mindfulness reduces stress in Chapter 1, Chapters 2 and will help you look more closely at your own stress levels right now (including whether your stress is severe enough that it would be wise to get professional help) and lay out how to work through the program. But please don't take the word "work" too seriously. I've offered two routes through the course—a mini-version and a full version —so that you can adapt the program to your own needs and desires and ensure that the program actually reduces your stress rather than adds to it. I've also included an illustrated chapter of mini and full mindful yoga exercises that I will refer to throughout the book. At the back of the book you'll find a lot of resources that will lead you to more information, more help, and allow you to read the full reports of the research studies discussed in the book if you like.
Life can be tremendously stressful, and there are many ways to cope with that pressure. I'm honored that you're considering "walking" with me to understand and develop greater mindful awareness. Thank you for your attention so far, and I sincerely hope that you find that the flexible course in this book eases your stress and enriches your life.
# ONE
# _How Mindfulness Helps with Stress_
_There is a saying in Tibetan: "Tragedy should be utilized as a source of strength." No matter what sort of difficulties, how painful experience is, if we lose our hope, that's our real disaster._
—DALAI LAMA
AS SARAH began to practice mindfulness exercises, she became more aware of how wild her mind was. All kinds of thoughts, many unconnected to what she was attempting to focus on, entered and exited her mind. She also noticed how negative many of these thoughts were: "I'm useless" and "What's wrong with me?" and "I can't cope with this job and all the other stuff going on." These thoughts kept going around and around in her head. Through mindfulness, she learned to step back from the thoughts in her mind so that they gradually had less of an impact on her feelings of stress.
As her head began to feel a bit clearer, she felt more in control. She found herself less reactive when her son didn't do as he was told. She could see why he was acting out—he hadn't eaten for hours or was tired after school. She felt more compassion for him, and he responded more positively to her calmer tone of voice.
Sarah also felt less tired at work due to an improved ability to focus, and so managed to work more efficiently and leave the office earlier.
In the evenings, when she got home from work, she did a short mindfulness exercise. This helped her shift out of work mode and be more calm and relaxed at home. She learned not to feel so guilty when doing nothing; just sitting down and resting or playing with her son was okay, she realized. In fact, it was essential.
Everyone has a wild mind. We all overreact to the demands of our lives when stretched to our limits. Our world collapses in on itself and we lose empathy for others who are struggling just as we are when stress has us in its grip. It's not our fault—it seems to be the way nature made us. Fortunately, we need not lose hope that things can get better. Sarah's story illustrates that, although mindfulness begins slowly and it's not a quick, smooth ride to an instant stress-free life, if you practice, mindfulness can slowly and steadily soothe your mind and heart, positively nourishing all parts of your life. It's a bit like gentle rain soaking into a land of drought. The rain is mindfulness. The drought is the constant doing of modern living.
To understand how mindfulness can relieve stress, we need to take a closer look at what stress is.
WHAT EXACTLY IS STRESS?
Here's a definition:
Stress is the feeling of being
under too much pressure.
Pressure can be classified as external (in the world around you) or internal (your thoughts, emotions, and attitudes).
Examples of external pressures include:
• Having to complete work
• Having to do chores and take care of other tasks at home
• Taking care of yourself and those around you
• Having to travel to work or social events
• Managing your own illness or the illness of others
• E-mails, phone calls, and other communications
• Child rearing
• Needing to exercise
• Lacking money
Examples of internal pressures include:
• Negative, judgmental thoughts about yourself
• Negative, judgmental thoughts about others
• Negative thoughts or ideas about the world
• Low self-esteem or low self-compassion
• A tendency toward perfectionism
• Difficult emotions such as depression, anxiety, anger, guilt, or shame that linger for weeks
• Discomfort or pain in your body
You need some external pressure to motivate and excite you. If the pressure is too low for you, you'll feel bored or useless. If the pressure is too high for you, you'll experience high levels of stress. In some ways, your life is a balancing act of finding activities that offer the right level of pressure for _you_. Everyone's different and at any one time we all require different levels of pressure, whether it's internal or external, to live optimally.
If the pressure is too high for you and lasts for long
periods of time, it can cause chronic stress, and that's
where the danger lies.
The pressures you experience may not be much higher than you can cope with. But over long periods of time, they can cause problems. For example, imagine I asked you to hold a glass of water out in front of you. If you had to hold the glass of water for a minute, you'd have no problem. You could easily smile at the same time. If you had to hold the glass for 10 minutes, the task becomes trickier, and you may not be smiling so much, but you could manage. But if I asked you to hold that glass of water all day and all night, I'd probably have to call an ambulance by the end of the day.
The glass of water represents the pressure you face. As you can see, the pressure in itself wasn't the issue; the issue was how long you were subjected to it. The duration of the pressure raised its level to the point where it caused stress. This shows how peaks of pressure now and then are not harmful, but long-term pressure can turn to stress.
Having the right level of pressure leads to a life of greater happiness. If you're reading this book, I assume that you're currently under too much pressure rather than too little and will offer you ways to help ease that pressure.
WHAT TOLL DOES STRESS TAKE ON US?
Stress, or more accurately the stress response, causes changes to take place in your brain and body. These changes can cause various kinds of harm when stress becomes chronic:
• Persistent stress can cause a range of **physical diseases**. Some estimate up to 75% of visits to the physician are stress related. Stress can cause high blood pressure, leading to heart problems including heart attacks. Stress can also cause migraines, back pain, and ulcers. Stress also weakens your immune system, making you susceptible to a range of diseases.
• Chronic stress affects your **mental well-being**. Stress can lead to clinical depression, anxiety, and burnout. Stress also reduces your ability to focus effectively.
• Stress affects your **family life**. When your stress levels are high, you're more likely to snap at your partner or children. If this happens too regularly, the quality of your relationship will diminish. Stress weakens your emotional intelligence, making it difficult to see things from other people's point of view.
• **Addiction** to illicit drugs, alcohol, or nicotine can be linked to chronic stress. You may be using these substances to help relieve the feeling of stress, although the relief is short lived and the addiction raises the overall level of stress.
• **Society as a whole** suffers from stress. The cost to each nation due to reduced efficiency or missing work because of stress runs into hundreds of billions of dollars. And that doesn't touch on the reduced levels of creativity and communication issues due to excessive stress levels.
HOW CAN MINDFULNESS REDUCE STRESS?
Stress is a complex subject, and so the path to relieving it is not straightforward either, as Sarah discovered. However, for the sake of simplicity, here are some ways mindfulness helps you with stress.
• You become more **aware of your thoughts**. You can then step back from them and not take them so literally. That way, your stress response is not initiated in the first place.
• **You don't immediately react** to a situation. Instead, you have a moment to pause and then use your "wise mind" to come up with the best solution. Mindfulness helps you do this through the mindful exercises.
• **Mindfulness switches on your "being" mode** of mind, which is associated with relaxation. Your "doing" mode of mind is associated with action and the stress response.
• You are more **aware and sensitive to the needs of your body**. You may notice pains earlier and can then take appropriate action.
• You are **more aware of the emotions of others**. As your emotional intelligence rises, you are less likely to get into conflict.
• **Your level of care and compassion for yourself and others rises**. This compassionate mind soothes you and inhibits your stress response.
• Mindfulness practice **reduces activity in the part of your brain called the amygdala**. The amygdala is central to switching on your stress response, so effectively, your background level of stress is reduced.
• **You are better able to focus**. So you complete your work more efficiently, you have a greater sense of well-being, and this reduces the stress response. You are more likely to get into "the zone" or "flow," as it's termed in psychology by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.
• **You can switch your attitude to the stress**. Rather than just seeing the negative consequences of feeling stressed, mindfulness offers you the space to think differently about the stress itself. Observing how the increased pressure helps energize you has a positive effect on your body and mind.
Later in this chapter I describe in detail how mindfulness can benefit you physically, mentally, emotionally, and in your relationships. First, however, it's important to understand the difference between our typical mental state, mindlessness, and mindfulness.
**"The mindfulness course made me realize I'd been sleepwalking my whole life. Stress reduction was just one of the many benefits of mindfulness for me."**
MINDLESSNESS: THE USUAL MODE OF MIND
Your normal state of mind during routine activities is probably a state of mindlessness. I don't mean to be accusatory or rude—it's just what the brain defaults to. In the mindless state, you are living a life of unconscious habits. You don't give full attention to every activity you do, but just go through the motions.
Your brain is designed to form habits. This process can help you complete tasks more efficiently. A habit is actually the process of the neurons in your brain connecting to each other due to regular firing down a particular pathway. You can think of each habit as a computer program. It takes place automatically and quickly and doesn't require any conscious awareness. The habits are formed through a process of repetition. Each time you repeat an activity, you're beginning to create that habitual program. Habits have several benefits:
• The activity can be done unconsciously so you use up less energy in your conscious awareness. You do not need to think "move left leg, move right leg" when walking. It just happens.
• You don't need to waste energy making choices. You wake up and brush your teeth—you don't need to decide to brush your teeth today.
• Habitual activities can be done much more quickly. Doing something new, like playing the piano, is far more difficult and slow at the beginning.
• You feel more relaxed. You're not trying hard to engage in the habit—it happens by itself. If you have a habit of eating an apple a day, you don't need to try hard to force yourself to eat the healthy fruit.
• You can be more effective in your activity. When you first try to juggle, it's difficult and you keep dropping the balls. Once it's an automatic action, you can hop on one leg and tell a joke at the same time.
However, there are several disadvantages of habits too:
• As habits are normally unconscious, you're not awake to the experience. If you're playing with your child habitually, you miss the special and precious moment of being together. The experience can't be savored if habitual.
• You lose choice. How can you make a choice if you're acting automatically and habitually? If you've always traveled from San Francisco to Chicago by plane, you book the ticket automatically. You don't consider a train journey or a road trip with friends.
• When your thoughts, emotions, and attitudes are both habitual and negative, you're much more likely to experience stress. Persistent unmindful, negative thinking turns on your stress response.
Habitual negative thoughts about yourself, others,
and the world are at the root of a lot of stress.
Mindfulness helps you undo those unhelpful habits
and to rewire your brain to generate greater happiness
and less chronic stress.
PRACTICE: Two-Minute Mindfulness Exercise
_Audio track 1: 2 minutes_.
Try this exercise right now.
1. Set a timer for 2 minutes.
2. Begin by taking a deep, slow breath in and out.
3. Now pay attention to the **feeling** of your breathing. Just breathe naturally. Each time you notice your mind drift to other thoughts, gently bring your attention back to your breath.
4. After 2 minutes, you can stop.
**Reflection**
Give yourself a few moments to reflect on the following questions. If you feel like writing them down, you can enter your answers in your smartphone or tablet (if you have one). Once you start the 8-week program, you'll be encouraged to acquire a journal or start recording these reflections electronically in one place, so you can get a jump on the journaling now if you like.
1. What did you notice?
2. Were you able to focus your attention on your breathing?
3. Where else did your attention wander to?
4. How did you feel at the end of the exercise?
5. Was it easy or difficult?
**Remember** : Your mind will drift to other thoughts. This is normal. It doesn't mean you're doing anything wrong. In fact, if you noticed that your mind drifted, it means you're doing the exercise correctly.
Now repeat the experiment, but this time try sitting or standing up straight and close your eyes if they were open the first time. Then reconsider the questions above. Which of the two exercises was it easier to focus in?
UNDERSTANDING MINDFULNESS
Mindfulness is the opposite of habitual, automatic living. Mindfulness teaches you to live more consciously. You still have your habits, because that is the nature of the brain, but you notice them more and gain greater choice in your life.
Here's my definition of mindfulness, which brings together the essence of the many different definitions that mindful teachers have shared:
Mindfulness means intentionally paying attention
to your present-moment experience
with mindful attitudes such as acceptance, curiosity,
self-compassion, and openness.
Let's break this definition down to make better sense of its meaning.
Intentionally
Mindfulness isn't usually an automatic process. You don't often find yourself being mindful. Mindfulness is a process that requires a decision; you need to choose to be mindful. And then you exert a certain kind of effort, at least initially. Once you begin to get into the flow of mindful awareness, your level of effort may decrease, but at least initially, there is a purposeful decision to pay attention.
Interestingly, you're paying attention to something almost all the time. The question is what you're paying attention to. While reading this book, your mind may be on the television on in the background. Or thinking about what's going to happen at work today. Or replaying what happened yesterday. This is passive attention. Passive attention is involuntary. Mindfulness is more than just paying attention passively to wherever your attention goes.
Mindfulness is an active rather than passive attention. An active, or purposeful, attention requires choice and a certain degree of effort. We get into intention in more detail later in this chapter.
Paying Attention
You can think of attention as a focused awareness. The word attention comes from the Latin _attendere,_ meaning literally "to stretch toward." When you pay attention to a lecture, you're stretching your awareness toward the speaker's voice.
Attention is about taking notice—being aware of what's happening while it's happening. We use our senses to pay attention to external experiences: sights, sounds, smells, tastes, touch. You can pay attention to, for example, the sight of this book, the sound of a baby crying in the distance, the smell of oil from a deep fryer in a fast-food restaurant, the taste of your morning orange juice, and the sensation of the weight of your body on your chair, or tension in your shoulders. When you pay attention to these experiences purposefully, you're being mindful.
But you're not restricted to your outer senses in mindfulness. Consciously focusing on your internal experiences such as your thoughts and emotions without being swept away by them, as best you can, is mindfulness. You can pay attention to thoughts like "I can't be bothered to do this job" or "Why is that woman shouting?" or emotions like boredom, excitement, or frustration. To notice these internal experiences rather than just **unconsciously having** them, is mindfulness. That little sense of separation between you and your thoughts or emotions is key.
You may think, "So what? Okay, so I'm not 100% aware all the time. I daydream. I think about other stuff. What's wrong with that?" Well, here's a typical example of an experience I had last week. Imagine you were on this business trip: You wake up ready to get a flight back home from a business trip, from Chicago to London. You check the weather and discover the forecast is not good. Twelve inches of snow is predicted. The report says lots of flights will either be delayed or canceled. You think, "Oh no! My flight's gonna be canceled. I was really looking forward to getting back home and spending some time with the kids before going back to work. Why does this always happen to me? It's so annoying. Will I be able to get a hotel for an extra night? This airline always gives poor service when these things happen." You begin to feel tense and stressed.
Now consider an alternative scenario: You wake up, ready to get a flight back home from a business trip, from Chicago to London. You check the weather and discover the forecast is not good. Twelve inches of snow is predicted. The report says lots of flights will either be delayed or canceled. You think, "Oh no, my flight's gonna be canceled." Then you actually notice that you've had that particular thought. You recognize it as a prediction, not a fact. You then check your flight online and discover that it is actually flying and, with a bit of luck, you may take off on time. As you spend the morning in a coffee shop, you enjoy the beauty of the snow while sipping your cup of tea. You know that how much or little you worry will make no difference.
This is one example of mindfulness in action. By being aware of your thoughts, you're able to take action rather than allow your mind to run away with itself. The example shows the following key principle:
Being unmindful actually causes you to suffer, often
more than you think.
In the Present Moment
Most young children have their attention drawn to the present moment. They are intensely curious. Children notice the sound of the plane, the bird in the tree, and the taste of the grapes. As they grow up, their memory is filled with experiences of the past, and they are able to project into the future. With this unique human ability, as we grow up, we tend to be less connected with the present moment.
Your mind seems to naturally replay past incidents and worry about the future. While reading this, you may find yourself thinking about that comment your friend made: Was she being rude?
Just as a swinging pendulum moves from left to right, spending little time in the middle, so your mind spends a lot of time in the past and future. In fact, research in 2010 by Killingsworth and Gilbert at Harvard University suggested the typical human brain spends about 50% of its time thinking about the past and future and only 50% in the here and now, the present moment.
Why is present-moment living important? The great leader Gandhi once said: "The future depends on what we do in the present moment." If your attention is excessively in the past and future, you can't perform effectively in the here and now, the present moment. But tomorrow never comes; there is only today. What you do today and how you focus now matters.
The following example illustrates this point. I was chatting with one of my clients, Katie, the other day. She told me that before she did a mindfulness course she was constantly worrying about her children and their future. Was she a good mother? Was she bringing up her children well, using the right parenting approach? She read websites and books, and they all seemed to give different advice. She felt lost and confused and very tired. After practicing mindfulness, Katie decided to let all those thoughts go and be present with her child. She gave her little boy her full attention, and her time with him felt so much more special. Her worrying receded, and she felt she was a much better mother when she was living in the present moment rather than worrying about what was right and wrong all the time.
Without conscious effort, your mind wanders to thoughts about the past or the future. And the thoughts about the past can easily end up being about negative interactions. You think about the argument you had with your brother for the tenth time or consider all the different reasons your new girlfriend isn't calling you.
Of course, there's nothing wrong with thinking. In fact, thinking is essential for survival as a human being in the modern age. The problem is the constant worrying that leads to unhappiness. Mindfulness helps to bring some balance back from relentless thinking, worrying, and planning.
Mindful Attitudes of Acceptance, Curiosity, Self-Compassion, and Openness
Mindfulness is more than just paying attention. It's also about paying attention with the right attitude. If your attention is infused with negativity, self-criticism, and judgment, it's not likely to be beneficial. You need to bring certain attitudes, what I call mindful attitudes, so that you build your attention on a positive foundation. All these attitudes don't have to be cultivated perfectly and don't need to be kept in your conscious awareness all the time. They are the flavoring in the soup of mindful awareness that you're cooking. Any one of them is more than satisfactory in a mindfulness exercise that you do. You'll learn a lot more about each of these attitudes as you read through this book.
**Tales of Wisdom: The Anger-Eating Monster**
Once upon a time, there was a king who lived in a beautiful palace. The king had to go away for a while, and while he was away, a monster approached the gates of the palace. The monster was so ugly and smelly, and his words so disgusting, that the guards froze in shock. He passed the guards and sat on the king's throne. The guards soon came to their senses, went in, and shouted at the monster, demanding that he get off the throne. With each foul word they used, the monster grew more smelly, ugly, and disgusting. The guards got even angrier—they began to brandish their swords and use violence to remove the monster. But the monster just grew bigger and bigger, eventually taking up the whole room. He grew more smelly, ugly, and disgusting than ever. He was smellier than the restrooms in the roughest bar on a drunken Saturday night.
Eventually the king returned. He was wise and kind and saw what was happening in the confrontation. He knew what to do. He smiled and said "Welcome to my palace!" to the monster. He then asked the monster if anyone had offered him a cup of coffee. The monster began to grow smaller as he sipped the drink. The king offered him some take-out pizza and fries. The guards immediately called for pizza. The monster continued to shrink with the king's kind gestures. The king then offered the monster a full body massage, and as the guards helped with the relaxing massage, the monster became tiny. With a final act of kindness to the monster, he just disappeared.
The source of your stress may be an anger-eating monster. Do you think your anger is making your anger-eating monster bigger? With some stressful circumstances, the more negative thoughts, words, or actions you have, the more difficult the situation becomes. Perhaps this story may help you open your heart to your challenge and see the value of a more friendly approach? Just being friendly toward yourself may be what's required.
THE PHYSICAL BENEFITS OF MINDFULNESS
Although mindfulness is often referred to as a form of mind training, the approach has many physical benefits. This is often because mindfulness reduces excessive stress, and stress is associated with many physical ailments.
Here are some of the key positive effects of practicing mindfulness exercises and meditations on a regular basis.
More Relaxed Muscles
When you become stressed, your muscles tighten up. There's a reason for this. Stress engages your body's fight-or-flight response. Your muscles are preparing to work hard to enable you to run away or fight. Mindfulness helps you notice the tension in your body as one sign that your stress levels are rising. With this awareness you can begin taking action to reduce the stress. In addition, the very awareness of the tension often reduces it.
I remember working with a woman who suffered from what she called chronic tension. Her whole body was so tense that moving was painful and sometimes impossible. Traditional relaxation exercises didn't seem to help her. But by learning mindfulness she learned to become aware of that physical tension without trying to change it. She learned to be a little less judgmental and a little more accepting of the sensations. This led to an easing and reduction in that tension and a reduction in pain.
A Healthier Heart
When you're stressed, your heart beats faster and your blood pressure rises to prepare you to run or fight. Your body reacts as if you're under attack. Heart disease is the number-one cause of death in Americans each year, and anxiety is one of the contributing factors. Initial indications showed that for a group suffering from heart disease, mindfulness helped. The group had a reduction in anxiety, improved ability to manage emotions, and a better style of coping with stress and took more effective control of their health.
An Improved Relationship with Food
Do you have trouble digesting your food? Another problem with the stress response is your digestive system stops working effectively. Your body is reacting as if it's about to be eaten by a tiger. If you're going to end up as someone else's lunch, there's no point wasting your energy digesting your own breakfast. Lowering stress through efforts like mindfulness can ease digestive distress. Applying mindfulness specifically to eating also prepares your body to digest: being more conscious as you eat, you taste your food and avoid multitasking, and your brain sends the appropriate messages to your digestive system to begin its work. This is mindful eating. Studies have shown mindful eating can reduce bingeing and overeating, can help you lose weight, can reduce chronic conditions like anorexia and bulimia, and help with the symptoms of Type 2 diabetes.
A Longer Life—through Protection of Your DNA
This is an incredible finding. Just as the ends of shoelaces have a tip to protect them from fraying, so the chromosomes in your cells have a cap on them to stop them from fraying. These protective caps are called telomeres. Before it was thought that the wearing out of these caps was inevitable, resulted in cells dying, eventually leading to death of the cell due to "old age." But in 2009, Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn won the Nobel Prize for discovering that a substance in the body called telomerase protects the telomeres. More telomerase would mean a longer life. And here comes the good news: mindfulness increases the amount of telomerase. This helps to effectively reduce or perhaps reverse the aging of your cells. So be mindful and look young and vibrant!
Better Immune Function
One other key function that gets almost shut down when you're stressed is your immune system. Your immune system is a long-term protective system but gets overridden by the stress response, which is your short-term survival mechanism. If you're chronically stressed, you're much more likely to get sick. Research by Professor Richard Davidson from the University of Wisconsin and colleagues found that, following an 8-week mindfulness course, participants produced more antibodies to fight flu compared with those who hadn't gone through the mindfulness course. Other research has shown mindful practitioners miss fewer days of work due to respiratory infections and have milder symptoms for a shorter time.
A 2009 study of 48 people who tested HIV positive showed mindfulness may be very beneficial. The group that did an 8-week meditation course had no reduction in the number of white blood cells—a key part of the immune system. However, the nonmeditating group's level of white blood cells went down.
Pain Relief—More Than Morphine
A small study published in _Journal of Neuroscience_ in 2011 found mindfulness reduced pain intensity by 40%. That's even more effective than morphine! The research found this pain relief seemed to be due to a different way your brain works after becoming more mindful. The researchers trained the participants in mindfulness for 1 hour and then asked them to practice mindfulness while they heated a small part of their skin to 120°F for 5 minutes—a painful experience for most people! Several other studies have found that mindfulness helped people manage not only acute pain but also chronic pain.
Improved Sleep
I find this is one of the first benefits that people mention when they begin practicing mindfulness, and there's research to back up their claims. Research from the University of Utah found mindfulness helped people regulate their emotions during the day and experience "lower activation" at bedtime, which may boost the quality of sleep.
Considering that you spend about a third of your life asleep, practicing mindfulness just to sleep better makes sense, but it also can help reduce stress. Mindfulness reduces your stress and thereby improves your sleep. The improvement in sleep in turn makes you feel even less stressed. The mindfulness begins a positive feedback loop.
BENEFITS FOR YOUR BRAIN AND MIND
These are the benefits of mindfulness that most people are familiar with, particularly the way mindfulness improves focus and helps to calm your mind. But there's more to mindfulness than that! Here's what the research shows.
A Clearer Mind
Several studies have shown that mindfulness practice reduces rumination or worrying. Research in 2009 published in the _Journal of Science and Healing_ found participants of an 8-week MBSR course had greater levels of well-being and reduced rumination. In my experience, one of the beneficial side effects is creativity. When I practice mindfulness, I often end up having ideas that help in my daily work or home life. The title for this very book came up for me in a meditation while attending a retreat.
A Calmer Mind
Many studies have proven the stress reduction effects of mindfulness. That's obviously what this book is all about. Exactly why mindfulness reduces stress is actually unknown. One fascinating study, published in 2010 in the journal _Emotion_ , explored the subject through the use of film. Two groups were asked to watch a sad movie. One group had completed an MBSR course, and the other had not. Brain scans reveal that the meditators had less brain activity compared to the nonmeditators, and the brain activity was distinctly different compared to the brain activity before doing the mindfulness training. This seems to suggest that mindfulness enables emotions to be processed differently in the brain and may be one way stress is reduced through mindfulness practice.
Better Memory
In particular, mindfulness boosts a type of memory that we all have called _working memory._ Think of your working memory as being like a little whiteboard. You use the whiteboard to make notes about what people are saying to you and what you need to do at the moment. A weak working memory is like having a very small whiteboard. You easily forget what you're doing and get distracted by other things. A larger whiteboard means you can remember what you're doing and remain less distracted by other people or thoughts. Stress has been shown to reduce working memory capacity, and mindfulness has been shown to increase working memory capacity. So mindfulness makes your little whiteboard a bit bigger. Improved working memory is associated with improved learning ability, focus, and skill in regulating emotions.
Improved Focus
As you may have guessed, mindfulness improves your ability to focus. In fact, it improves focus a lot. Research in 2009 at Liverpool John Moores University found mindfulness meditators perform significantly better than nonmeditators in all measures of attention. When you focus better, you are more likely to get into a "flow" state of mind, an absorbed mental mode associated with high levels of well-being—the opposite of excessive stress. Improved focus also leads to a greater sense of achievement and greater efficiency, so more time for friends and family. You feel more in control rather than out of control.
EMOTIONAL BENEFITS
Happiness!
Call it happiness, well-being, or flow—mindfulness helps to raise it. The sense that you are happy is linked to so many other benefits, including improved relationships, longer life, and better performance and outcomes at work. Plus, being happy feels good. The effect of mindfulness on happiness was found in research published in the _Journal of Behavioral Medicine_ in 2008. The scientists found higher levels of well-being for those who participated in the MBSR course. Those who did more meditation and yoga practice at home had higher levels of mindfulness and well-being. The previously mentioned research by Killingsworth and Gilbert also found that people whose minds wandered less were happier.
Protection against Depression
One of the problems with chronic stress is the emergence of depression. The link between stress and depression is complex, but there's certainly a link. Chronic stress changes the hormones in your bloodstream, making depression more likely. And when you're under too much pressure, you're less likely to socialize, eat healthily, or exercise—you can end up not looking after yourself. According to the World Health Organization, more than 350 million people suffer from depression and it's the leading cause of disability worldwide. Here in the United Kingdom, mindfulness is used to treat recurring clinical depression by the National Health Service (NHS). A group course in mindfulness called mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, which is similar in many ways to the course in this book, has been found to be 50% more effective than the usual treatments. Mindfulness helps you stop fighting the feeling of sadness. Instead you learn to accept the feeling, notice the associated thoughts and physical sensations, with compassion toward yourself. This shift helps to prevent sadness from being prolonged and intensified and becoming depression.
Reduction in Loneliness
One of the key factors that raises stress in older adults is loneliness. Humans are social beings, and without social contact feelings of loneliness can become overwhelming. Programs designed to increase social contact in older adults have so far been unsuccessful. Recent research at Carnegie Mellon University has found mindfulness meditation helped to reduce loneliness. Interestingly, they also found a reduction in the expression of a gene associated with inflammation. So mindfulness was affecting their genes. Inflammation is associated with cancer, cardiovascular diseases, and neurodegenerative diseases, so a reduction in this gene expression is a very promising finding too.
Less Anxiety
Anxiety is the feeling of fear, tension, or worry often caused by a stressful event. Stress isn't a diagnosable mental disorder, but anxiety can be. An anxiety disorder develops when your fight-or-flight system is switched on most of the time and you feel fear to an extent that it affects your everyday ability to function. In the past, treatment involved trying to change thoughts. But with mindfulness, the idea is to change your _relationship_ to thoughts and move from avoiding feelings to approaching them. In 2012, researchers at the University of Bergen in Norway looked at 19 different studies and found mindfulness-based approaches to offer robust and substantial reductions in anxiety.
Lower Anger Levels
Anger arises when things are not going the way you want them to. Sometimes that anger is unnecessary and unhelpful. Frequent anger can be very destructive to your work and home life, increasing your stress. When you're feeling stressed, you're much more likely to get angry too. It's been found that anger is fueled by "hot thoughts"—negative, aggressive thinking patterns. Mindfulness helps you notice and reduce unhelpful thinking patterns and so can reduce your feelings of anger when appropriate. This research was published in the journal _Aggressive Behavior_ back in 2010.
RELATIONSHIP BENEFITS
Relationships matter—a lot. Human relationships have been shown in study after study to be the number-one factor that increases happiness. People with lots of good-quality relationships, and that includes friends or family members, are likely to have a higher resilience toward stress. This is because when difficulties arise in their lives, they have someone to talk to.
Mindfulness gives you a chance to increase the quality of your relationships with your friends, family, and colleagues via the mechanisms described below. And by increasing the quality of those relationships, you increase your resilience to stress—and that of the other people in your life, because you give them someone to talk to as well!
A Present-Moment Awareness
When others are talking to you, how present are you? You may be with them physically, but are you with them mentally and emotionally?
I remember a manager I once had who was rarely focused when I spoke to him. At work parties, he would be looking over my shoulder. In meetings, he wouldn't acknowledge what I said to him. And he seemed to have his favorites on the team and others whom he didn't seem to care much about. This made him rather unpopular in the office, and his team felt unmotivated and frustrated as a result.
Being more present means you listen more effectively and the other person feels heard. And being heard is what others really want. You strengthen the relationship each time you are present.
Making Conscious Choices in the Heat of the Moment
"Autopilot is the big enemy of relationships," according to Marsha Lucas, author of _Rewire Your Brain for Love._ The way we behave in relationships often flows from the way our brain was wired in early childhood. If you allow yourself to behave automatically in your relationships, you're likely to repeat unhelpful patterns. Mindfulness rewires your brain—including parts of the brain responsible for emotional regulation and self-awareness. Through this rewiring, you're less likely to react in knee-jerk fashion when faced with a difficult emotion. By being mindful, you can manage your emotions in the heat of the moment, as your brain would be better wired to manage that. Imagine the amount of stress that can be reduced by being less reactive and to make a more controlled choice of words and action when upset by a partner, family member, or colleague.
Kindness
Bringing a sense of kindness, compassion, or friendliness to your dealings with others is bound to increase the quality of your relationship. This will make you and the other person feel happier and more relaxed, reducing your levels of stress too. However, you need to balance kindness toward others with kindness toward yourself.
Last week a friend and colleague asked me to give a lecture on using mindfulness to overcome depression. Mindfulness is a wonderful, drug-free way of managing depression, and I was delighted to share my passion for this boon. However, I already had several other deadlines to meet that week. I had to be kind to myself on this occasion and say no to my friend. It wasn't easy. I don't like to say no to opportunities to speak about mindfulness, but if I didn't say no, I'd be denying myself rest. And by resting I was giving myself time to reduce my own stress, thereby preparing to offer a better service to others in the future.
**Reflection**
Consider your own life. Think about the last three things you said yes to. Were you being kind to yourself or to others? Then think about the last three things you said no to. Were you being kind to yourself or others? Record your answers in a print or electronic journal if you like.
Ideally, you want to have a balance. If you're always giving and too kind to others to the detriment of your own stress levels, think about saying no more often. And if you always look out for yourself and rarely care for others, consider reaching out and performing an act of kindness for someone else.
Being Nonjudgmental
Letting go of judgment is a great way to improve your relationships and reduce your stress. The key, if you do need to judge, is to judge the _action_ and not the person. I like to think of the essence of all humans as pure and complete—just as they were as babies. But due to misunderstandings, past experiences, brain chemicals, or other influences, the other person doesn't always behave reasonably or compassionately.
Here's an example of how I've tried to apply this. I had a friendship for a couple of years that didn't end well. Mike and I used to go to the movies or theater together, meet up every week, share ideas, and generally support each other. Mike and I were good friends. Then one day, out of the blue, he accused me of not being a friend. He claimed I had ignored him at a party. Described how I had offered a new project to another friend before I offered it to him. He said he wanted to get things out in the open rather than hold them in. This was all out of the blue. A bit shocked, I accepted the criticisms and apologized. I had no idea he was having these feelings. Yet I still never heard from him again. No more e-mails, phone calls, or texts. He didn't reply to anything. At first I felt sad and confused. Then I felt frustrated that he would do this to me. Eventually, however, I accepted the situation. The way I did this was by letting go of my judgment of him and also applying this personal principle of mine:
People are always doing the best they can, with the level
of understanding and motivation they have,
at any given moment.
There was no point in my judging Mike as wrong or bad. He did what he did because of what he thought of me. He didn't want to discuss it further. By letting go of my judgment of him, I could relax and release the stress I had when I thought of him. I forgive him, because _he did what he thought was right_. That's understandable. That doesn't mean what he did was right or fair or even wise—but he did what he did for a reason. I can now feel grateful that he gave me the opportunity to practice forgiveness and wish him a more fulfilling experience with his other friendships.
**Reflection**
Is there someone in your life whom you feel you should stop judging? Is there someone causing you stress just as you think about him or her? Would it be helpful if you forgave the person but not the action? Could you consider appreciating the chance they've given you to practice the act of forgiveness?
Write your thoughts in your smartphone, tablet, or journal if you like. This is not easy and you may disagree with this approach to offenses you've suffered. But it's certainly worth reflecting on.
MINDFULNESS IS BIGGER THAN MEDITATION
There are only two ways to become more mindful:
1. Mindfulness meditation
2. Everyday mindfulness
Mindfulness meditation, a particular type of meditation, is where you make time to make your brain more mindful. Mindfulness meditation can be done for less than 5 minutes all the way up to about 45 minutes. The meditation involves practicing a particular technique, such as focusing on your breath, body, or sounds.
Mindfulness meditation creates positive changes in your brain. It actually rewires your brain so that you're more happy, focused, clear-headed, and open—in other words, more mindful! Meditation is the most powerful way to enhance your brain's ability to be mindful.
Yoga, tai chi, or other mind–body disciplines that are done with a full mindful awareness can also be classified as a mindfulness meditation.
Everyday mindfulness involves _living_ in a mindful way. Each time you do an activity, if you _intentionally_ give the process your full attention with mindful attitudes like curiosity and openness (this can also be called detachment or stepping back), you also enhance your brain's mindfulness.
Everyday mindfulness can be practiced at any time in your daily life. You can do mindful eating, mindful walking, and even simply mindful breathing while you're waiting in line somewhere. These types of everyday mindfulness are described in full throughout the 8-week program.
**"I'm not the kind of person that likes to sit down and meditate. The fact that mindfulness can be practiced while I'm walking, cooking, or gardening makes it so portable and accessible for me."**
This is why mindfulness is bigger than meditation. Meditation can be practiced only at particular times in the day, when you make time to meditate. But you have the choice to be mindful at any moment in the day by giving full attention to whatever you're engaged in. Ready to discover what's so special about the 8-week mindfulness course in this book?
# TWO
# _Discovering Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction_
_Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor._
—THICH NHAT HANH
OMAR WAS lying in bed. He was in the hospital following a car accident. The nurse was doing a regular checkup and was watching his heart rate and blood pressure. Suddenly the nurse looked concerned. Her eyes locked onto the green computer screen connected to Omar by a spaghetti junction of wires. She looked back at Omar's face. He didn't seem pale; his eyes were closed, and he seemed like he was almost smiling. The nurse grew perplexed and decided to wake him up. She shook Omar's arm, and he calmly opened his eyes. "Your blood pressure just dropped a lot," she said. "I'm a bit worried. That doesn't normally happen so quickly. How are you feeling?" Omar smiled and said, "I'm listening to a mindfulness meditation from my old MBSR class" as he removed his earphones. "Your what class?" asked the nurse, smiling but confused. "It's a meditation course I did years ago. I still listen to the audio to help reduce my stress. That's probably why my blood pressure dropped!"
Although Omar had done the MBSR course years ago, he regularly practiced mindfulness. Over time, he became more skilled at being mindful and used the guided audio whenever he felt his stress levels rising. The MBSR program teaches you to identify moments in life when your stress levels are rising and offers simple exercises to help reduce that stress.
That's MBSR in a nutshell: learning through mindfulness to catch mounting stress and lower it before it takes hold. In this chapter I'll tell you a little about the history of the program and how it's structured.
UNDERSTANDING MBSR
If you read Chapter 1, you know a bit about what mindfulness is and what the benefits of regular practice are, but it might be helpful to know how MBSR arose and how the group model on which this self-help book is based works. MBSR was designed to be taught as an 8-week course so that participants had the chance to try out the mindfulness exercises during the week. At the end of each session, the group would be given mindfulness experiments to try out. Then they could return for the next week's session and discuss what worked for them and what didn't seem to work. The same format is used today, and the course in this book takes 8 weeks too.
All MBSR teachers follow a standardized curriculum but teach the sessions in their own way. Some MBSR teachers may be a little more didactic; others prefer to open up for questions. Some MBSR teachers include lots of mindful yoga practice in their class; others may use other forms of mindful movement.
Regardless of these variations, all trained MBSR teachers are asked to include four fundamental mindfulness meditation practices. They are the body scan meditation, the expanding awareness meditation (sometimes just called _sitting_ _meditation_ ), a mini-meditation (about 3 minutes), and mindful movement meditations (mindful walking, mindful yoga, or simply mindful stretching).
Each session of the MBSR course starts with a guided mindfulness meditation that lasts about 30 minutes. This is followed by a chance for participants to discuss and explore their experience, called "inquiry." Following the inquiry, the particular theme of the session is explained. Themes include topics like "living on automatic pilot," "dealing with difficulties," and "discovering acceptance." The emphasis is on learning through experience rather than just giving participants information to discuss intellectually.
MBSR was originally offered to people with a range of physical and psychological health conditions. The program has now been adapted for different contexts, such as the workplace or schools, and for different health conditions such as eating disorders or cancer. At its core, however, the MBSR course has changed very little from the time it was initially developed a few decades ago. The main change is probably the addition of the 3-minute mini-meditation, which many people find useful.
Although MBSR was initially designed for those suffering from a health condition, it is now offered to anyone who is suffering from stress and wants to learn mindfulness. With the current way the world seems to work, that means pretty much everyone! Even if you don't suffer from stress, MBSR can help protect you from future stressors too. Although the kind of stressors faced by people in the 1970s and '80s may be different from those faced by you and me today, the mindfulness exercises and meditations remain the same. In fact, the mindfulness meditations shared in MBSR are thousands of years old. Learning MBSR from this book is a different experience from being in a class. You can't discuss your ideas with a teacher or with other members of the group, nor can you easily be encouraged by classmates. However, with this book you can work at your own pace, you don't need to travel to learn the program, and if you feel too shy to learn mindfulness in a group setting, this book can be a great approach. (This book can be used not just as a standalone course, however, but also in conjunction with a teacher, therapist, or coach.)
In writing this book, I've done my best to capture the spirit of an MBSR class. I've included all the core mindfulness meditations and exercises that you'd encounter in a real class, and I've included a Q-and-A section to answer the typical questions that arise. I've also made one fundamental addition to the MBSR program.
TWO DIFFERENT ROUTES THROUGH THIS BOOK
This book contains two versions of the mindfulness exercises in MBSR. The first version, what I call " **mini** ," consists of short mindfulness exercises I've developed for busy people who want the flavor of mindfulness in their life but don't have too much time. Doing this version of the program is like a mini-MBSR. The other version, labeled " **full** ," has the deep mindfulness practices for those who have the time to do them. The full program is the typical MBSR program. You can pick and choose what sort of mindfulness exercise you want to do as you go through the book or decide to take one route or the other throughout.
Besides basing your choice on the time you have available, your lifestyle, and what you hope to get from the approach—and it's important to consider these factors; after all, you're trying to reduce stress, not add to it—you can select the mini or full course depending on your level of stress. If your ongoing stress level is generally mild yet persistent, the mini-course may be for you. If it's more serious, I recommend the full course. (Again, however, you can use exercises from both courses as desired and your other obligations allow.)
Dealing with Low-Level, Persistent Stress: Watch for the MINI Symbol
This is for the majority of people in our modern society. If you have a demanding job, or have a family to care for, you're likely to have very little spare time for yourself. With this kind of busy lifestyle, you're probably looking for mindfulness to help take the edge off the relentless stress that you're facing. Here's what I'd recommend:
• Work through the 8-week course by reading the material and practice the shorter meditations for the home practice.
• Focus on living in a mindful way. See Chapter 6, which gives examples of mindful walking. You could also practice mindful driving, mindful cleaning, or mindful working. This is the everyday mindfulness I mentioned earlier and takes up no extra time, so it may be ideal for you. See more in Chapter 6.
• Consider using alarms on your phone, apps, or setting an appointment with yourself to be mindful. For you, the main challenge will be to remember to practice mindfulness and finding and making the necessary time and finding the motivation to practice, however short that may be.
Dealing with Chronic, High Levels of Stress: Watch for the FULL Symbol
You may be suffering from high levels of stress. Perhaps you even have clinical anxiety or depression. You may currently be on medication or have taken medication in the past to manage your health. Or maybe you have been diagnosed with an illness or a medical condition like high blood pressure and want to use mindfulness to deal with the stress associated with the disease. Whatever the reason, for you stress is significantly affecting your ability to engage in your daily activities or has become an almost life-threatening situation, and you are willing to make the time to fully reduce your stress using mindfulness.
Here's what I recommend, with permission from your health professional:
• Complete the full 8-week mindfulness course outlined in this book. Do the daily 30-minute meditations and other recommended exercises.
• Practice everyday mindfulness. Integrate mindfulness into all you do at work, at home, and while traveling. This may also include avoiding all forms of multitasking and slowing down your actions so they are more mindful. This will deepen your mindful awareness. You will probably find you'll get more done because the quality of your work will be more focused and attentive.
• Consider finding a mindfulness group or doing an online mindfulness course (I offer one at _www.livemindfulonline.com_ ) to supplement your learning and be part of an online community if you can't find one in your area.
Not sure how severe your stress is? Here's a self-assessment you can start with:
Assessing Your Stress Level
You can use the questionnaire below to get a rough idea of your current level of stress and guide you in how to use this book. If you want a more detailed assessment, for which we didn't have space in this book, visit _www.guilford.com/alidina-materials_.
Answer the questions below with 0 = never, 1 = sometimes, or 2 = often.
**1.** In the last month, how often have you been upset because of something that happened unexpectedly?
Never/Rarely (0) Sometimes (1) Often (2)
**2.** In the last month, how often have you felt out of control?
Never/Rarely (0) Sometimes (1) Often (2)
**3.** In the last month, how often have you felt stressed?
Never/Rarely (0) Sometimes (1) Often (2)
**4.** In the last month, how often have you felt unable to cope with what you had to do?
Never/Rarely (0) Sometimes (1) Often (2)
**5.** In the last month, how often have you felt angry because things were happening that were out of your control?
Never/Rarely (0) Sometimes (1) Often (2)
Now add up your scores and record the total.
**0–3** = You seem to have low levels of stress at the moment. Mindfulness could be used to build your resilience to protect your from future stress. The mini version of the course in this book should be sufficient, although there is no reason you can't do the full version if you find yourself benefiting greatly from learning mindfulness.
**4–6** = Your level of stress is moderately high. Mindfulness is likely to help you manage your feeling of stress and perhaps reduce the chance of ill health. At this level you probably should let other factors dictate which practices you do—mini or full. You can probably benefit from either program or a mix of the two.
**7–10** = Your stress level appears to be high. Mindfulness could help you manage your stress. **If you feel your stress has been at a very high level for some time, I'd recommend you visit a physician** or take action to reduce the source of your stress as soon as possible, if you can. Your physician could help you determine whether your symptoms are due to stress or some other condition and offer you the best treatment. Also consider the online stress questionnaires for a more accurate assessment. Consider doing the full MBSR program described in this book.
**Reflection**
What are the main symptoms you've been suffering in the last couple of weeks? Would it be helpful for you to talk to a physician or other health professional to clarify the best next step for you? Write your thoughts down in a paper or electronic journal if you like.
Complete the test again after completing the mindfulness program in this book and see if your stress has gone down. If not, do consider continuing to practice mindfulness—the process takes time but can be long lasting if you take the time to do the practices.
**Tales of Wisdom: "What Are You?"**
When the Buddha achieved the state of enlightenment, people were amazed at his presence. There was a radiance about him that seemed so mysterious and beautiful. "Are you God?" someone asked. "No," he replied. "Are you a saint?" asked another. "No," came the response, in a serene voice. "Then what are you?" they asked, deeply curious. He answered: "I'm awake."
The word _Buddha_ actually means "awake."
WHEN SHOULD YOU START?
Now that you have an idea of how high your stress level is, you know whether you should see your physician before starting this course and what path you might want to take through the practices. But knowing how much stress you are feeling can also help you figure out exactly when to start the course to get the most out of it. You may think mindfulness is the best thing to learn if you're really stressed out or in the middle of moving or dealing with a very recent breakup. Well, perhaps, not actually. It's a question of timing.
Learning mindfulness can be a challenging practice for three reasons:
1. Mindfulness is about learning a skill, and any skill involves a certain amount of time, effort, and challenge. Think about the last time you learned a new skill—painting, driving, or parenting. I'm sure it wasn't a quick acquisition. The mini-exercises may make it easier for you to learn, but they still take some time.
2. Mindfulness requires a daily discipline that can be difficult for people to follow. Think back to the last time you had to study for a test or exam—it's not always easy to sit down and actually do the work.
3. Mindfulness is about turning your attention inward, and although doing so is healthy, it can initially be unsettling if you're currently going through a lot of difficulties and aren't ready to deal with the emotions that may come up at first.
I'm obviously not trying to put you off doing mindfulness. I'd love everyone to learn mindfulness right away! But that's just not realistic. Being prepared for the challenges and picking the right time to learn is key to your success with mindfulness.
So when is a good time to go through a mindfulness course? Well, consider the following points to help you decide whether right now is the best time for you:
• **When you are not going through a major life change.** You need your life to be relatively stable before you start to learn mindfulness. If you are in the process of moving, changing jobs, or ending a relationship, this is probably not a great time to learn mindfulness. You're probably better off focusing your attention on sorting things out practically, so that when things are a little more settled, you have the time available to do the daily practices.
• **When you are in a relatively good state of mind.** Because mindfulness is a challenging practice, it's not recommended if you are in the midst of an episode of depression or high anxiety. If you wait for the episode to pass, you are more likely to be able to stick to the discipline of daily mindfulness and to finish the course. If you're not in a great place mentally, you may not finish the course and may classify your experience with mindfulness as another failure. Increase your chances of success by taking the course when you feel strong enough to do so. Of course, if your therapist or other health professional recommends a mindfulness course and will support you through it, using the right mindful exercises may be just what you need.
**"I really enjoyed doing the mini MBSR course in this book. The short meditations helped me to nip stress in the bud before it got out of control."**
• **When you're fed up with the stress you're experiencing and ready to make a change.** You are, of course, welcome to simply read this book out of curiosity, without doing any of the practical exercises. If you're eager to reduce your stress, you'll need to do the recommended mindfulness exercises and meditations. If that sounds daunting, try the mini-exercises, which can help you dip your toe in to see if it's your sort of thing.
| If you really want to just read the book before doing any practices, that's fine. Do whatever you feel is right for you—my recommendations are just suggestions. You know what works best for you!
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| If you think you're ready to try this course but not really feeling it fully, maybe all you need is a bit of a motivation boost. In that case you might opt for an in-person mindfulness course (see the Resources at the back of the book to find one near you), where you'll get encouragement and support from the other group members, or find a coach or mindfulness buddy. More on mindfulness buddies is in the section Finding a Mindfulness Buddy.
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WHAT CAN YOU EXPECT?
Following is an outline of the MBSR course in this book. This will give you a little idea of the journey you can take as you go through the program.
Week 1: There's More Right with You Than Wrong with You
In this session, you begin by discovering no matter how challenging your life circumstances are at the moment, there's more right than wrong with you. The session teaches you what mindfulness is, and you learn to practice the mindful body scan meditation. You also learn about automatic pilot—your mind's tendency to be unmindful and habitual for much of the day—and ways to turn it off (or at least tone it down).
Week 2: From Automatic Reacting to Creative Responding
You explore the role of personal responsibility and interpretation in stress in this session. In addition to practicing the body scan again, you learn the mindful pause—a mini-meditation. You discover the link between thoughts and emotions and find some new ways of dealing with stressful thoughts.
Week 3: The Joy and Value of Living in the Present
In this session, you discover the true value of living in the present moment. You try the expanding awareness meditation, the body scan, and mindful movement practices to bring you into the here and now. You also discover how to enjoy mindful walking. Why your brain gets lost in stories, and how to come back to the present moment without judging yourself when this happens, is also covered.
Week 4: Understanding and Managing Stress
Now you discover the physiology of stress. You find out how mindfulness helps you deal with stress and explore how to maintain peace in the face of unpleasant experiences. You continue to learn more mindful movement practices.
Week 5: Taking a Stand—Responding to Stress
Here you discover four key ways of dealing with stressors. You explore what it means to honor emotions rather than fight them. The session continues to teach ideas to help deepen your mindfulness meditation experience.
Week 6: Mindful Communication
You explore mindfulness and its role in communication—different ways to apply mindfulness to listen deeply and speak effectively. You also discover the role of emotions and stress in communication and how to manage them using mindful attitudes and practices.
Between Weeks 6 and 7: A Day of Mindfulness
You find out the reasons for a day of mindfulness practice and explore the best ways to prepare for the day. You'll have the opportunity to decide what to do on your day of mindfulness, practicing the different mindfulness meditations you've learned. You'll also find out how to overcome common challenges that arise, such as dealing with emotions when practicing over an extended period of time.
Week 7: Taking Care of Yourself
This session teaches you the importance of taking care of yourself when managing high levels of stress and how to use mindfulness to achieve this. You'll discover how to adjust your lifestyle to reduce stress, identifying the nourishing and depleting activities that can affect your stress levels, developing a mindful stress management action plan for dealing with stress, and discovering the mindful action step—a process of catching and overcoming stress before it spirals out of control.
Week 8: The Rest of Your Life
The final session is an opportunity for reflection. You reflect on what you discovered in this course and how to continue practicing mindfulness. You uncover how to set your vision for a more mindful life with clear intentions for both the short and long term.
| If reading this has made you feel overwhelmed, please don't worry. Just take the course one day at a time and one practice at a time. The whole point is to be kind and gentle with yourself rather than feeling as if you're facing lots of things to "do."
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Inside a Session
Here's what to expect in a typical session in this book:
1. Some mindfulness meditation practices to do
2. An explanation of the key themes of the session
3. Opportunities to reflect on your mindfulness meditation practice and the theme and to write about it in a journal (paper or electronic)
4. Some mindfulness home experiments to try out that week
Many of the practices that you'll be doing also give you the chance to do things a bit differently if you like.
VARIATION. These sections offer a different way of practicing the mindfulness exercise or meditation. You could experiment with these variations if you feel like trying something different.
GOING DEEPER. These sections give tips for more experienced mindfulness practitioners to do the meditations at a deeper level. You could use these tips if you choose to repeat this course on a second reading, for example, if you've already had some experience with mindfulness before applying it in MBSR.
HOW TO USE THIS BOOK
I'd recommend you use this book in the following way:
1. Decide when you're ready to start your 8-week MBSR course, and when you're ready, read the next chapter to learn how to get the most out of the program.
2. As you read each week's chapter you'll be offered certain mindfulness practices. Do them before reading on for maximum benefit. It will probably take you 1–2 hours a week to read each chapter and do the exercises contained within the chapter.
3. You'll also be given certain reflective exercises to complete. Write down your answers in a journal or wherever you prefer.
4. In the week that follows, practice the mindfulness "home experiments" listed in the chart at the end of the chapter on a daily basis. This can range from 10 minutes to 30 minutes a day depending on what you prefer and your current stress levels and available time.
5. After a week of doing the home experiments, you're ready to move on to the next chapter.
6. If you didn't manage to do at least half of the daily practices for whatever reason, repeat that week before moving on to the next chapter.
| While I think you'll get the most out of each week's chapter if you stop and try the meditations while you're reading, feel free to read the whole chapter first and then go back and do the exercises. Whatever works best for you _is_ best for you. You will definitely be better prepared to do the week's home experiments if you've already tried the practices during or right after reading the chapter.
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Complete the Course in Order
In the MBSR course there are specific reasons that certain meditations come before others. For example, the first few sessions include meditations with more guidance, because that's easier for beginners to do. Each session does not stand fully on its own. The sessions are built on the learning and development of the sessions before. In my experience, working through the program sequentially will make the course easier for you to follow and improve your understanding of mindfulness.
The next chapter offers a number of additional ideas for getting the most out of the program. Read on when you're ready.
# THREE
# _Getting the Most Out of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction_
_The Chinese use two brushstrokes to write the word "crisis." One brushstroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity. In a crisis, be aware of the danger—but recognize the opportunity._
—JOHN F. KENNEDY
RANI WAS relentlessly rushing at work as she prepared for a big event. She had lots of e-mails to get through each day, as well as phone calls and long meetings. She'd just moved to a new house, and her husband was away working on a project. She wanted to get everything done in preparation for a vacation in California in a couple of weeks.
With too much to do and too little time, Rani's back started to hurt. This was a familiar experience. Whenever she got too stressed, her back acted up—probably due to the physical tension in her muscles. She knew that if she didn't do something about it, things would get worse. In the past, she'd been laid up for weeks with back pain.
She had done one of my MBSR programs a year ago and still had the guided meditation audio but had somehow gotten out of the habit of regular meditation. She decided to listen to the body scan meditation every day before work. This immediately seemed to help ease the pain. In the quiet of meditation, she also realized exercise could help and made time to walk briskly and mindfully to the train station each morning. She made sure to cut down on her multitasking and focused fully on one task at a time.
The back pain began to melt away within a couple of weeks. She was better enough to go on the vacation she'd planned and then return to work refreshed. Since then, Rani has managed to keep up with the daily mindfulness meditation practice. She realized how important the regular discipline was for her well-being.
The actual MBSR course is an 8-week commitment. If you're doing the full course, you commit to doing the home practice of 30 minutes a day for 8 weeks. If you're doing the mini-course, you need only about 10 minutes a day, which should be easier to fit into a busy schedule. After the 8 weeks, if you don't feel you've gained any benefit from the mindfulness, you can stop. There are, however, a number of ways to boost your chances of emerging from the program with significantly reduced stress.
THE IMPORTANCE OF DAILY PRACTICE
Probably the most important thing you can do during the MBSR course is to do your best to practice mindfulness every day. Why is daily mindfulness practice so important? Because mindfulness is about training the brain. And if you want to rewire your brain, the key is repetition. Each time you repeat a process, the neural connections involved in that activity are strengthened. Learning mindfulness is like learning any new skill. Let's say you want to learn to ride a bike. If you try every day, even for just 10 minutes, you'll soon get the hang of it. And getting the hang of it simply means you're forming new neural pathways in your brain so the new skill becomes easier for you. Just as physical exercise is not something you do for a few weeks and stop if you want to be fit, mindfulness is a mental exercise that works through daily practice.
Take, for example, being aware of your breathing. Mindfulness of breath (described in Chapter 5) is one of the simplest and yet most powerful forms of meditation. When you first try this, you may find that your mind wanders a lot. You may feel very agitated. With daily practice, however, you can get better at it. At least you won't feel quite so agitated when your mind wanders. And your brain will become more mindful, which means you may begin to notice more about your surroundings and your own thoughts and emotions. You won't be on automatic pilot so often. The daily mindfulness practice has taught your brain to be more awake and conscious in the present moment, rather than just allowing your mind to wander all the time. Without a daily practice, your brain goes back to those old habits, which are simply the effect of your old neural pathways in your brain.
You may find the mindfulness practices easy and enjoyable. If so, great! But you may find yourself facing challenges when trying to instill mindfulness into your life.
Mindfulness is simple in theory
but can be challenging in practice.
Here are some of the challenges that have come up for my past participants:
• Finding time to practice
• Remembering to practice
• Overcoming resistance
And here are some tips for overcoming those challenges.
Finding Time to Practice
There are two main ways to apply mindfulness that you need to remember to practice every day during the course in this book:
• **Mindfulness meditations** —the daily meditation itself, which you make time to practice for either 10 minutes a day (mini-course) or 30 minutes a day (full course).
• **Everyday mindfulness** —being mindful in your routine activities such as brushing your teeth or walking to work, which encourages you to do one thing at a time and with full mindful attention.
Everyday mindfulness is a matter of remembering, rather than having the time. I'll say more about this later in the chapter.
The mindfulness meditations demand your time. As with anything worthwhile, you do need to find some time, even just a few minutes to reap the benefits of mindfulness. Here are some ways you could do this.
• **Schedule your mindfulness practice first thing in the morning.** I like to practice mindfulness as soon as I wake up. That way it's done and I can get on with the rest of my day. It also helps to set the tone for the day. Many of my students prefer to meditate first thing too.
If your morning is already full of activity, you could wake up earlier to carve out time to practice. This may seem like a drag, but the meditation could prove more deeply restful than your sleep.
• **Practice mindfulness when unoccupied during the day.** You probably have lots of short moments during the day when you're not fully engaged in a task—waiting for a train, sitting on a bus, waiting for a colleague to arrive at a meeting or for your child to finish playing in the park. These moments can easily be wasted, lost in thought. Instead, use them to practice a short mindfulness exercise.
For example, if you commute to work on a train, you may be able to do some of your meditations on that journey. One of my clients continues to practice all his meditations on his train ride to work and arrives fresh and energized.
• **Focus on your high-priority tasks.** Make an inventory of your daily activities. Label the activities as high, medium, and low priority. Just a few minutes away from any low-priority task can be used to practice mindfulness.
• **Make finding time a game.** Instead of thinking of meditation as a chore, see it as a game.
Take a few minutes to meditate while your computer starts up. Catch a mindful minute as you walk down the stairs. Be proud of yourself when you find 5 unexpected minutes to meditate—and tell others about it too. That will help remind you to keep an eye out for a few mindful minutes.
**Reflection**
What are you going to do to ensure you find time to practice your mindfulness? Jot down some possibilities in your journal as a reminder.
Finding a Mindfulness Buddy
If you're doing this mindfulness program without a teacher, one way to ensure you find time to do the practices is to acquire a mindfulness buddy. Someone who is experienced in mindfulness meditation would be a good choice. If you can find someone to meditate with, even if it's just once a week, that's going to help motivate you tremendously. But even if this person can't do the mindfulness practices with you, you can make yourself accountable to someone else by telling him or her about your commitment to complete this 8-week course. And when you start to doubt yourself, your mindfulness buddy can encourage you.
Your mindfulness buddy can be your partner, a son or daughter if one of them is old enough, or even one of your parents. Alternatively, one of your friends or a coach would make an ideal mindfulness buddy.
By the time you finish this chapter you will probably know what you need the most help with and how your mindfulness buddy could encourage you to stick to your commitment. But you can also offer the following guidelines.
A mindfulness buddy:
• Contacts you at least once a week.
• Asks you how your mindfulness practice is going.
• Encourages you to keep going in a positive way.
• Asks open-ended questions like "What happened this week in your mindfulness practice?" or "What aspects of the mindfulness do you find enjoyable or challenging?"
• Listens without judgment, especially without negative judgment.
• Meditates with you whenever possible.
Remembering to Practice
One of the biggest challenges that my clients face is remembering to practice. They want to be aware, focused, and in the moment, but just keep forgetting! This is quite normal and very much part of the experience of learning mindfulness. In truth, no one is perfectly mindful—everyone forgets to be mindful and gets lost in daydreams, worries, and concerns at some point.
**"I practiced the mindfulness audio together with my husband and young son after work, lying in our bed. They were so supportive. Even our dog joined in sometimes!"**
The best way to remember to be mindful in your everyday life is to practice the mindfulness meditations. If you're willing to carve out some time to meditate every day, your brain will change and make you more likely to be present in your everyday life.
But how do you remember to practice your mindfulness meditation? Planning ahead is often the best way to remember to practice. Consider deciding where and when you are going to practice beforehand. If you plan each week of mindfulness meditation practice and make a commitment in your mind, you're more likely to be mindful. To increase the chances of sticking to the daily meditation even further, consider all the different things that could happen to prevent you from doing the practice and consider some ways of overcoming them.
You can choose to fill out the table Schedule for Mindfulness Meditation Practice (also available to download and print from _www.guilford.com/alidina-materials_ ) to help you decide when and where you could do your daily meditations. These are the times of day you wish to do your meditation—it could be right after waking up every morning, just before breakfast, during your midmorning break, just before or after lunch, while you sit on the train to work or once you arrive home from work. You can choose whatever fits best in your schedule. Just don't pick a time when you feel sleepy.
From _The Mindful Way through Stress._ Copyright 2015 by The Guilford Press.
Being Consistent: Overcoming Resistance
We all resist doing things we're "supposed to" do. Mindfulness can be like that too. It happens to me as well. I know I need to practice mindfulness because I'm highly aware of all the benefits, and yet I sometimes feel a certain resistance. You may also feel this resistance from time to time.
Mindfulness meditation practice may be a lovely, pleasant experience on some days but a pain on others. That doesn't mean mindfulness isn't working. To go back to the gym analogy, if you want to build up muscles, lifting up the weight is going to hurt. That doesn't mean you stop! "Ah, the gym thing isn't working," you may say. "Lifting those weights hurts—something must be wrong." That's almost the point. By working through the resistance, you discover a newfound strength. With mindfulness, practicing even though you feel annoyed or tired or agitated is working through an inner resistance. And although that may not be enjoyable, the long-term outcome will be worth it.
In my experience, the best way to deal with this inner resistance is by following these steps:
1. **Recognize that you feel a resistance** to do the mindfulness practice. Say the word "resistance" in your mind. This process of labeling helps to engage the more intelligent, wiser part of your brain.
2. **Identify what form that resistance takes.** Is it a thought like, "I can't be bothered to meditate!" or "I don't have time!" or "I don't feel like meditating!"? Or is it a feeling, such as a sensation in the pit of your stomach, a furrowing of your brow, or tightness in your chest? Where in your body do you feel the emotion?
3. **Now recognize that you're already practicing mindfulness!** By being aware of the resistance to practice, you're _being mindful_. You're noticing and acknowledging an experience in the present moment with a sense of curiosity.
4. You can develop this by seeing if you can **accept that resistance just as it is.** Be with the feeling or thought rather than fighting it. Be nice to yourself, using words like, "It's okay and natural to feel like this." Try to use a comforting tone of voice within your thoughts. Speak softly within your own mind, as if you're talking to someone you care about.
5. **Add to this experience a few deep breaths.** Feel your in and out breath, no matter what you're doing, such as washing the dishes, reading yet another e-mail, or watching TV. As you feel your breaths, **put a slight smile on your face** , recognizing and smiling at that familiar inner resistance and how you're being mindful of it.
Try this exercise when you feel some resistance to practicing mindfulness meditation, or whenever you feel resistance to do anything. Then write down in your journal what you noticed. What did you learn from this process?
A few months ago I started checking my phone in the morning as soon as I woke up. I was watching for a particular e-mail. But then, within a week or so, checking my phone first thing in the morning instead of meditating had become a habit. To counteract this habit, when I notice myself doing this, I continue to hold my phone in my hand and take a few deep breaths. I close my eyes and notice any resistance to meditate. I keep breathing. Then I usually feel the desire to meditate as stronger than the desire to use my phone. I sit up and do my meditation, knowing my e-mails can certainly wait another 20 minutes if they've been waiting all night. This is a nice way to let go of an unhelpful habit, notice resistance, and engage in meditation all at the same time!
_Put Mindfulness on Your "To-Be" List_
I don't wish mindfulness to be the cause of more stress for you. You have plenty of things that stress you out, I'm sure. Mindfulness is not another thing for your "to-do" list. Mindfulness is more than just a set of techniques that you need to integrate into your busy schedule. Yes, making time for mindfulness meditation is important, but it's more than that.
I meet many people who say, "Oh, I really _should_ be meditating. It's so frustrating. I can't do it because. . . . " I can see that meditation is actually the cause of their stress. If this happens to you, I suggest you stop beating yourself up about it and just forget trying to meditate for a while. Yes, stop trying to meditate. Take a break from the relentless need to improve your life. Instead, just watch what's happening in your life, without the _should_ s and _must_ s. To really watch what's happening in your life and what thoughts and emotions you're going through is meditating—it's meditating on your own life, the most important meditation of all.
Mindfulness is a way of being. Mindfulness offers a way of working through that to-do list without frantically multitasking, panicking, or worrying. If mindfulness just sits on top of that list as another thing to check off and forget, you have something exciting to learn.
Mindfulness is a way of navigating through life knowing there's more to life than completing that to-do list. Life is far too mysterious to be limited to getting things done. It's about learning to take a break when you need it. It's about noticing the feeling of guilt or agitation when you do something nice for yourself and doing it anyway, knowing it's beneficial in the long run for you and those you care for. It's about doing nothing from time to time.
Think of mindfulness as underlying all your life experience, rather than another thing to do. See mindfulness as the soil from which you grow your life. Or as an anchor that you drop when it's time to stop the ship of your life. Just as your body needs air to breathe and food to eat, so your heart and mind need mindfulness and self-compassion to work harmoniously. This leads not only to a life with less stress but also to a life with greater joy.
There is more to mindfulness than just doing the practices, though. Studying and exploring concepts of mindfulness with others helps to keep the process exciting, fresh, and fun.
For example, if I wanted you to get enthusiastic about cooking, I wouldn't just tell you to start cooking. I'd give you a few good books on the subject, maybe a magazine, and get you to join a local class where you could learn more about cooking from others. With all these factors, your interest and skill in cooking would grow rapidly.
Think of mindfulness as being made up of three strands: mindfulness practice, studying mindfulness, and exploring mindfulness with other people.
• **Mindfulness practice.** This is the meditations and the everyday mindfulness exercises. Practices include expanding awareness meditation, body scan meditation, mindful movement such as yoga or tai chi, mindful walking, and even mindful conversations.
• **Studying about mindfulness.** This includes reading books on mindfulness or meditation in general and poetry about mindfulness, attending lectures or workshops, and listening to mindfulness talks online.
• **Exploring mindfulness with others.** This can be with a friend, a mindfulness group, a mindful workshop, or even online. My mindful online community is at _www.facebook.com/shamashalidina_ or on twitter @ _shamashalidina_. Feel free to say hello or to ask me a question on there—I'm happy to help.
Of the three processes, mindfulness practice is the most important. That is the process that rewires your brain to be more mindful and resilient to stress. But the other two paths can help you remain consistent and overcome resistance to the practice of mindfulness.
| If you don't have time to study mindfulness or explore mindfulness with others, just stick with doing the mindfulness practice you learn in this book. To continue the cooking analogy, although reading more cookbooks and talking to friends who are skilled cooks can be helpful, it's not essential. Just practicing cooking is the important bit.
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KEEPING A RECORD OF YOUR PRACTICE
I'd recommend you keep a record of your mindfulness practices and reflections in a journal. Keeping a record of your experiences of practicing mindfulness has several benefits, especially if you're working through this book on your own. They are:
• **Directly reducing your stress.** By writing down your thoughts and feelings, you are able to take a step back, to decenter, from them. This is an important aspect of mindfulness. The act of writing down your thoughts and feelings has a stress-reducing effect in itself. Journaling has been shown in several studies to reduce stress.
• **Identifying patterns.** By regularly recording your experiences in a journal, you're able to notice patterns in your behavior. For example, when you practice mindful exercises in the morning, you may have less stressful experiences during the day, whereas afternoon meditations make you feel sleepy. Mindfulness is about observing yourself and others so that you can gain insight—the writing process is a mindfulness practice in itself, giving you insight into patterns of behavior that could reduce your stress.
• **Discovering solutions.** Writing down your experiences helps you work out solutions to your stressful problems. Thoughts have a habit of circling around and around in your head. Getting them down on paper reduces the spiraling thoughts and gives you a clearer perspective about the situation.
One of my clients, who had a stressful time in the recent economic downturn, kept a regular record of his mindfulness practice. Whenever he came to see me, he handed over his worksheets showing me what arose for him that week. During the first week, he seemed to be enjoying the meditations and exercises. But after a few weeks, the number of meditations started to reduce. I asked him why. He realized that as soon as his stress levels went up, when he had an important meeting coming up, he would stop meditating—just when he needed it most! He redressed this balance and felt much better for it. It may seem obvious to you reading this now, but if you don't write down records of your practice, you can miss the most clear patterns and links.
**"Journaling is something that I hadn't tried before. I found it surprisingly relaxing and therapeutic. I use it whenever I have time or am feeling stressed. I do a short mindful exercise and then start writing!"**
_Research Corner: Journal Away Your Stress_
Philip Ullrich, MA, and Susan Lutgendorf, PhD, of the University of Iowa, researched the effect of journaling on stress levels for 122 college students. They asked one group to journal about their thoughts and emotions of stressful events, one group to just focus on the emotions of stressful events, and one group to write about general news events. They discovered the students who were asked to write about their thoughts and emotions developed a greater awareness of the positive aspects of the stressful events. The group that just focused on writing about the negative emotions seemed to feel worse by the end of the study.
SO, ARE YOU READY?
Now that you know what to expect from the course in this book and how to get the most out of it, how do you feel? Excited? Hesitant? Anxious?
You can never be 100% prepared for this or any other course. You can only do your best and see what happens. The perfect time will probably never arrive. As long as you are interested in trying the course, and aren't currently in the middle of a major life change, give mindfulness a proper try. You never know what you'll discover until you commit to the mindful exercises. And if you slip with your mindfulness practice once in a while, that's okay. These things happen. How many times do you think you fell over when learning to walk? To make mistakes is inherent in any learning process. So have a go and see what happens. And remember, there are lots of people who will be willing to support and encourage you along the way if you ask. Asking for help when you need it is a sign of strength, not weakness. Good luck!
# FOUR
# _Week 1_
# There's More Right with You Than Wrong with You
_What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us._
—HENRY DAVID THOREAU
INTENTIONS
_To begin exploring what mindfulness actually is._
_To experience the mindful body scan meditation to gently train your attention, to learn about the nature of your mind to wander, and to become more familiar with bodily sensations._
_To understand the concept of automatic pilot through some mindful eating._
WHEN CHENG first started learning mindfulness, he was suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome. He was unhappy, and life was not going well. His relationship with his wife was in tatters, and he felt completely inadequate and guilty about how he struggled to make enough money to support his two daughters. He felt so stressed that he couldn't even put it into words.
His doctor suggested a course in MBSR, and he didn't understand what mindfulness was but was willing to try anything. When he first meditated in class, he found it so difficult. His mind was all over the place. He felt he wasn't getting anywhere. It felt like a complete waste of time. His meditations ended with feelings of tearful anxiety. Sometimes the meditation left him feeling angry too. His teacher encouraged him to continue, telling him that the mix of emotions rising to the surface of his awareness was actually a good thing and a part of letting go of inner emotions that he had trapped within him. Cheng felt this was true, and a deep longing for inner calm encouraged him to persevere despite the challenges.
Fast-forward a few years later, and Cheng's life has totally changed. His chronic fatigue syndrome is gone. He occasionally sees his doctor for a checkup, but that's it. He has been meditating diligently since the MBSR course and loves it with a passion. High levels of stress truly are a thing of the past for him. His family life seems a thousand times better, and he is able to live a full life with his kids and wife. Cheng is grateful for every day that he lives. Although he can't be sure that the meditation alone caused this transformation, he certainly feels it was central to his healing process. Needless to say, he's a big fan of mindfulness for reducing stress and healing.
You may or may not be suffering from the huge challenges that Cheng did when he first started MBSR. But I hope this story gives you a sense of the potential of meditation. And although you may not heal dramatically from an ailment like Cheng did, you are likely to find a healthier way of coping with your stressful challenges, whatever they may be, with greater mindfulness.
So I'd like to warmly welcome you on this journey toward living your life more mindfully. If you like what you discover, you're encouraged to continue to practice indefinitely into the future, in any way that fits with your lifestyle and needs.
In this chapter, you begin the first part of the MBSR course. Remember, you have two routes available to you and two ways to go through the chapter:
• You can follow either the full or the mini-course.
• You can begin reading and trying each mindfulness exercise as it comes up (preferable but not essential) or you can read through the chapter first, to get a feel for what it's all about, and then go back and try the mindfulness exercises.
DISCOVER: A MIRACLE IS TAKING PLACE
You may be reading this book and considering learning mindfulness for a range of different reasons. Perhaps you or a loved one suffers from stress due to a health condition such has heart disease, cancer, chronic pain, depression, or anxiety. Maybe the stress is linked to your circumstances, such as an overly demanding job, exams, family circumstances, or living space.
With high levels of stress and disease comes a feeling of being broken, hurt, or damaged. However, you're still breathing. And if you're breathing, we're exploring the following possibility:
There's more right with you than wrong with you, no
matter what you're going through.
Your body is achieving something incredible. It's nourishing itself with a finely balanced level of oxygen and breathing out excess, unwanted gases. No matter how much of a failure or how broken you feel, you can breathe. And as long as breathing is happening, a miracle is taking place, and it's right under your nose. (Sorry for that breathtaking pun.)
Your body is a piece of engineering that no scientist can come close to fully understanding, even today. Each of your senses has evolved to work so efficiently, accurately, and sensitively, you are unlikely to fully value them until they stop working. And your brain is considered the most complex piece of engineering in the known universe.
Mindfulness is an invitation. An invitation to turn inward. An invitation to discover the pattern and wisdom of your thoughts and emotions. To explore the range of physical sensation that you may be so quick to judge. To make the time and space to stop, for just a moment, and see with fresh eyes. It's a radical act of waking up. You may find this inner journey a little scary because you're not sure of what you'll find in there. But you don't need to leap into the deep end. Just start by dipping your toe in and, step by step, discover the most precious treasures that were so much closer than you ever imagined.
So let's begin together. Dip your toe in with a short yet powerful mindfulness exercise.
PRACTICE: Opening Awareness Meditation
| _Audio track 2: 10 minutes._
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| Here's a short exercise to give you the flavor of mindfulness. Give the exercise a try and see what happens. Spend about 10 minutes doing the Opening Awareness Meditation—the exact timing is not important at all. Make a note of your feeling of stress before and after this exercise, just out of curiosity. In mindfulness, the idea is to be curious about your stress rather than fixated on lowering it.
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1. Sit in a comfortable posture so you can be relatively still. Take a few deep **breaths**. Feel the sensation of each breath as you inhale and exhale.
2. Notice the **colors** , shapes, and patterns that are entering your eyes, without judging them as likes or dislikes. You may think "carpet," "ant," or "I've never noticed that pattern before." Whatever thought arises, acknowledge it and turn your attention back to just looking and noticing the colors.
3. **Now** close your eyes if you wish and turn your attention to sounds. Become aware of sounds entering your ears. Allow the sounds to be registered just as they are. Again, you don't have to purposefully identify the sound—just listen to the quality of the sound itself.
4. Move your attention to **sensations within your body**. You don't need to find pleasant or strong sensations—whatever sensation you notice in the body is absolutely fine. See if you can feel the sensations in your body as a whole.
5. When you're ready, shift your attention to your **emotions** , if that's okay with you. Become aware of how you're feeling, right now. Does the feeling stay the same or change from one breath to the next? Can you notice where the emotion rests in your body?
6. Finally, become aware of your **thoughts**. What thoughts are arising in your mind in this moment? What are you thinking? Just notice the thoughts passing by, like clouds that float across the sky. If you get caught up in a train of thought, that's okay. Just step back again when you can.
7. Now let go of focusing your attention on anything in particular. Just notice whatever is predominant in your awareness, without making any choices. Practice **choiceless awareness**. It may be sounds, thoughts, your bodily sensation, or something else. Just step back and observe your moment-by-moment experience. You don't need to do this perfectly—whatever happens is absolutely fine.
8. Bring this exercise to a close by taking a few deep breaths and gently opening your eyes and noticing your surroundings again.
Congratulations. That may have been your first experience of mindfulness. It is also quite special because it includes all the different forms of mindfulness meditation at once.
In some ways, the whole course and everything you'll learn is contained in the Opening Awareness Meditation. This is because it includes an awareness of your breath, body, all your senses, and the inner world of thoughts, emotions, and even awareness itself. There's nothing else you can be mindful of, so you covered them all in that exercise!
| If you ever feel stressed and aren't sure of what meditation to do, just do the Opening Awareness Meditation.
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**Reflection**
1. What did you notice in this short exercise? Consider your thoughts, feelings, sensations, and anything else.
2. What did you find easy and/or difficult about the exercise?
3. Do you find yourself judging or criticizing yourself for not performing well in the experimental practice? Can you let that go, as you are a beginner just starting this mindfulness course?
DISCOVER: YOUR BEST SELF
When you're under stress, you're much more likely to focus on what's going wrong. This is the way your brain works when stressed. Your brain looks for threats and usually overestimates them. Recall the last time you saw someone stressed out: was the person calm when something went wrong, or did she overestimate the negatives, creating a mountain out of a molehill?
I think it's helpful to begin this course in a positive frame of mind. You may be going through considerable difficulties and not want to even consider anything positive. But I gently encourage you to have a little go at it.
I've been reading a book called _Winning without Losing._ It was co-authored by Jordan Milne, who talks about ways of being successful in your work but making time for family, friends, and whatever else you love. He recalls one sentence that his mother repeated to him every day. She used to say to him every morning, while looking him in the eye, just before he set off for school:
"Look for the good things."
She then gave him a warm smile and watched him walk to school until he was out of sight. This sentence is now ingrained in his brain, and he's always looking for the good things in life, even when things go wrong. If you want to take a shot at looking for the good things in your life right now, try the following exercise.
EXERCISE: What Is Your Best Self?
Answer the following questions and try coming up with at least one answer for each. Resist turning your answers into negatives by following what you say with "but . . . " That negates any positives that you've written down. Be honest and realistic and see what arises. Enter your answers in your journal if you like.
This exercise is not intended to get you to see life through rose-colored glasses. But if you have too much stress in your life, you may be wearing dark glasses. As you're reading this book, you have a choice—a choice to see things in a different light.
1. What are you like when you are at your best?
2. What are you like when you're relaxed?
3. What are you grateful for in your life right now?
4. What makes you happy, either now or in the past?
5. What gets you excited?
6. What's going well in your life right now?
By doing this exercise, you're shifting your perspective on your own life. And this is one of the keys to managing stress. You'll learn more about this in Chapter 5.
DISCOVER: WHY ARE YOU REALLY HERE? IT MATTERS
One of the first things I do when I'm running an MBSR group is to go around and ask the participants to share their names and, if they're willing, to share _what_ they hope to get from mindfulness.
Following is an exercise you can do to help you explore your innermost desires for doing the program. This is important, because knowing your own motivation helps to deepen your discipline—you're more likely to wake up those few minutes early to meditate when you are clear in your mind as to what you hope to get from the course.
In addition, being clear about what you hope to get from mindfulness illuminates your _intentions._ And your intention is intimately related to the quality of your mindfulness practice.
Dr. Shauno Shapiro, Associate Professor of Psychology at Santa Clara University, together with colleagues, has suggested that mindfulness is built on three dimensions: intention, attitude, and attention.
1. **Intention** is about why you're doing the mindfulness in the first place. What do you hope to get from it? What benefit would it have on others around you?
2. **Attitude** is how you cultivate that mindfulness—attitudes like being nonjudgmental, curious, and accepting. Your attitude is like your viewpoint or frame of mind when practicing mindfulness.
3. **Attention** is what you focus on. Your attention develops through repeated practice, built on your intentions and attitudes.
You will learn more about attention and attitudes as you work through this course. The following ocean visualization is one way of clarifying your intentions.
EXERCISE: Uncovering Your Intention—Mindful Ocean Visualization
_Audio track 3: 10 minutes._
This is a mindful visualization that takes about 10 minutes. You don't have to be good at visualization to be able to do this. The idea is to just try your best and see what happens. The purpose of the visualization is to reflect a little deeper about what you hope to get out of learning and practicing mindfulness. You may think you already know, and that's fine, but by doing this exercise you never know—you may discover something new.
1. **Get comfortable.** Find a relaxed posture for this exercise. Get comfortable on your favorite sofa or chair. You could even lie down if you want. Just try not to fall asleep if you can!
2. **Think of a beautiful and peaceful beach**. It could be a beach you've visited in the past, or you can make one up, or you could combine the two. At this point you may be filled with indecision. "Which beach shall I choose? I must choose the perfect beach!" Choose any nice beach—the important point is not the perfect beach, but to choose one beach and stick with it for the duration of the exercise if you can.
3. **Imagine you're sitting on the beach** , near the water. You could be sitting on a deck chair or on the sand, whatever you prefer.
4. **Notice what you see**. Become aware of what you are able to see as you sit by the side of the ocean. Notice the color of the sky. Is it sunny or cloudy? Is the sun rising or setting? Is the horizon clear? What can you see along the beach? Is it deserted, or are there other people around? Are there palm trees or other trees behind or to the side of where you're sitting? Can you see any cliff edges? Are there any birds flying around, near or far? You don't need to be able to visualize it perfectly. Just notice what you can see without trying too hard.
5. **Be aware of what you can hear**. Can you hear the sound of the ocean as the waves come gently rolling in? Take time to hear it if you can. What about the sound of the breeze against the trees or the birds as they call out? Enjoy the sounds. Notice whether you find it easier to see or hear the experience within you.
6. **Notice the scent.** You may be able to smell the ocean or just a familiar scent of being on the beach. What's it like to notice that scent? Rest your attention on the scent of your experience for a few moments.
7. **Be aware of any taste in your mouth.** Perhaps the taste of the saltiness of the water or maybe no taste at all.
8. **Be mindful of how your body feels.** How does your physical body feel as you sit peacefully by the side of this beautiful ocean? Does it feel relaxed, tense, or somewhere in between? Notice the light touch of the breeze against your face, arms, hands, or feet. Is the gentle breeze warm or cool?
9. **Pick up a pebble.** As you sit on the beach, you notice a pebble. This pebble represents the question, "What do I hope to get from mindfulness?" You ask yourself the question as you pick up the pebble. While you hold the pebble in your hand, you once again reflect on the question, "What do I hope to get from mindfulness?" without forcing any answers.
10. **Throw the pebble.** You look at the pebble and look out at the ocean. You are able to throw the pebble into the ocean, and you do so. You're able to see the pebble move in slow motion. It rises up high and gradually falls into the ocean. The pebble creates some ripples and begins to sink into the water.
11. **You can follow the pebble and reflect as it sinks.** You are able to see this beautiful pebble as it slowly sinks deeper and deeper into the ocean. The deeper the pebble sinks into the ocean, the deeper you reflect within your own being, "What do I hope to get from mindfulness?"
12. **Reflect.** As the pebble sinks deeper toward the ocean floor, you reflect deeper within yourself, asking "What do I really, _really_ hope to get from practicing mindfulness?" You don't need to force any answers. You may get a word, phrase, image, feeling, or sensation. Or you may not get anything at all. That's okay. Just see if you can reflect on the question and accept whatever happens. Keep gently bringing your attention back to the visualization if your mind wanders off, noticing what your mind was thinking about.
13. **Ocean floor.** Eventually your pebble comes to rest on the ocean bed. You are somehow able to see the pebble resting on the ocean floor. You reflect back on your experience.
14. **Gently ending the visualization.** When you're ready, you can come back to sitting on the beach, looking out at the ocean. You notice the scenery and leave it behind for now, but know that you can come back to it anytime you wish. You now return from this inner world to the outer world but can bring with you any insights you wish to bring.
| You can use this as a daily mindfulness practice if you want. You can just use the imagery and leave out the reflection part if you prefer.
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Here's an example of what happened to Jane, a student of mine, when she did this exercise. When Jane joined a mindfulness group, she was suffering from anxiety. That's why she'd signed up to do the class. She'd had some anxiety her whole life, but now, with the frantic nature of work, it was getting unbearable. She thought the only reason she was doing the course was to get rid of the anxiety. But after doing this mindful visualization, the word _clarity_ kept arising for her. She realized that running away from the anxiety was a fear-based desire that led to confusion. What she really wanted in her heart was to move toward greater clarity in her life. That's why she was doing the course. This put her in a good starting place to begin her mindful journey within.
What was your experience of the visualization like? What do you want from mindfulness—deeply in your heart?
Explore your experience in the following reflection. If you didn't really engage well with the practice, try again later on today or some other time this week.
**Reflection**
Write down what you noticed at each of the following stages. Remember, there's no right or wrong—whatever experience you had is correct.
• Looking out at the ocean
• Listening
• Scent
• Taste
• Touch—how your body felt
• Experience of pebble dropping into the ocean
• Effect of reflecting on the question, "What do I hope to get from practicing mindfulness?"
• Any other reflections on your overall experience
Processing Your Experience with the Visualization
The idea of this mindful visualization is to see whether it helps you discover something deeper within yourself about your motivation for practicing mindfulness. You may discover that you wish to practice mindfulness for:
• Greater clarity
• A deeper sense of peace
• More calm
• Better focus
• A deeper sense of spirituality or religion
• More enjoyment in life
• Happiness
However, it may not be any of these.
It doesn't matter if you can't come up with the reason at the moment. By practicing mindfulness, your intentions will become clearer. Mindfulness is about accepting the outcome of your efforts rather than fighting with your present-moment experience. So bring to it a lighthearted attitude and an open mind if you can.
If you did discover your deep intention for practicing mindfulness, you could find an object, painting, or photo to represent this discovery. For example, if you wish to gain a sense of calm through the practice of mindfulness, you may place a picture of a beautifully still and crystal-clear lake surrounded by gorgeous mountains up on your bedroom wall. Then, each time you see the image, you'll be reminded of your deep intention. My clients have used pictures of their loved ones at work to remind them to be mindful there too—a great idea. With mindfulness, you'll probably discover that remembering to be mindful is the tricky part; any reminder is helpful.
DISCOVER: MINDFULNESS IS NOT SIMPLY RELAXATION
Mindfulness is not just a relaxation exercise. This is an important point to understand. **Relaxation is certainly a desirable side effect of mindfulness,** but relaxation may or may not arise in any one mindfulness exercise. Relaxation is about easing the tension in your muscles and lowering your heart rate. You can relax by taking a hot bath, by doing deep breathing exercises, or by allowing yourself just to daydream.
The intention of mindfulness is not simply relaxation. And there's a good reason for this. If your goal is to relax, you begin to look for that outcome. Every time you don't achieve relaxation, your mind can start racing with thoughts like, "Why am I not relaxing? I can't relax. I wish my mind would just shut up!" and so on. Making relaxation or a calm mind into a goal can increase stress levels.
Mindfulness works by releasing habitual ways of thinking and reacting to the world around you. Your mind is always creating automatic ways of dealing with life, and those habitual patterns are old, and sometimes negative, unhelpful, and cause stress.
For example, let's say you want your son to mow the lawn. He just wants to watch television. Your habitual automatic thoughts may start saying, "Why is he so lazy? He should do more in the house!" Your heart starts beating faster, and you feel angry and start an argument rather than reasoning with him. Your stress levels rise.
Mindfulness takes a different approach. Mindfulness is about developing greater present-moment awareness. In the preceding example, you may pause before reacting, noticing your rising anger. You take a few mindful breaths and think about the most effective way to motivate your son. You may also remember that he has had a busy day or is watching his favorite TV program of the week. You can see how this process of mindful living has nothing to do with just relaxation.
By practicing mindfulness meditation, you're not just trying to relax either. You learn not to _react_ to whatever experience arises within you, and this gets translated to the outside world. You learn to stop automatically reacting to challenging people, situations, and circumstances. Instead, you take your time to choose and _respond_ more wisely, using the lens of mindfulness rather than past habits. In this way, your stress reduces.
_Research Corner: Want to Relax?
Then Don't Try to Relax_
In 2007, Shamini Jain of UCSD, Shauna Shapiro of Santa Clara University, and colleagues compared mindfulness meditation to relaxation training. They found both approaches beneficial in reducing stress and increasing positive mood. The interesting finding was that mindfulness meditators reduced cyclical negative thoughts (rumination), which relaxation didn't seem to do. Rumination deepens the grooves of negative thinking in your brain and also doesn't solve the problem you're faced with. And rumination is linked to anxiety and depression. So mindfulness seems to be a great way to help you reduce stress by decreasing your ruminative thinking patterns.
Through long-term practice, mindfulness leads to lower levels of stress, but in any given mindfulness practice it's about cultivating a kind, warm, caring awareness rather than just trying to relieve muscle tension or calm your mind.
Mindfulness is not just a relaxation exercise. Mindfulness
reduces stress by teaching you to respond consciously
rather than react automatically to challenging thoughts,
emotions, bodily sensations, or life situations.
EXERCISE: Mindfully Eating an Apple
_Audio track 4: 10 minutes_.
Here's a simple exercise that I'd recommend you to try out with a bite-sized piece of apple. To do this, you just need to sit down and reduce any potential distractions for the next 10 minutes or so. If you don't have an apple, you can use any small piece of food—experiment with raisins, bananas, chocolate, or even a marshmallow!
1. Begin by noticing what the apple actually looks like. Notice the color of the skin and the flesh. Explore the patterns in the skin and the subtle variations in color and the indentations. How does the light reflect off the apple? How smooth or rough does this piece of apple feel? What else can you notice as you continue to look at the apple? And what judgment comes to mind—thoughts about liking and disliking? Be as curious as you can.
2. Now close your eyes, if that's okay, and become aware of the sense of touch as you hold the apple. What does it weigh? How does it actually feel to have the apple in your hand? What is its temperature? Does it feel soft and delicate or quite firm? Do the muscles in your hands or arms feel tense or relaxed as you hold it? Take your time as you do this.
3. While keeping your eyes closed, _slowly_ bring your apple toward your nose. Notice at what point you're able to actually pick up the scent of the apple. What does it smell like? Is the scent strong or subtle? Does it cause salivation as you smell it? Do you find yourself liking or disliking the scent?
4. Keep your eyes closed, allowing your arm to move downward and rest for a few moments. Then, slowly and attentively, bring the apple toward your mouth. Notice whether any salivation is happening. Touch the apple gently against your lips to feel the sensation of that. Then place the piece inside your mouth. Be aware of what this feels like. Slowly place the apple piece between two teeth and notice which teeth you chose. Do you always chew with those teeth? Then slowly take your first bite into the apple. Connect with any sounds, tastes, and smells. What's the experience like? How does the flavor of the apple spread around your mouth? How does the texture of the apple change as you chew it? Continue chewing as slowly as you can, experiencing the apple as it gets broken down and swallowed.
5. Eventually, once you've finished eating the apple, notice any sense of an aftertaste in your mouth. Become aware of how your body feels.
VARIATION: If you find it difficult to focus in this practice, try labeling your experience. Say to yourself "picking up the apple," "green color," "feels cold," "smells sweet and fresh," and so on. Labeling experiences in your mind can help sharpen your focus.
**Reflection**
Now answer the following questions:
1. How was this experience of eating an apple?
2. How was it different from your normal experience of eating?
3. What did you like or dislike about the experience?
4. Why do you think this is not the normal way you experience eating?
5. How can you bring a greater element of mindful eating into your life?
DISCOVER: AUTOMATIC PILOT
Mindful eating is a great exercise to show how often you eat without really tasting your food—and what happens when you stop to eat more consciously. You notice tastes, flavors, and experiences you may never have been aware of before.
You're probably too busy to eat each meal as slowly as that. But perhaps you could reduce the multitasking you do when you sit down to eat? And what about other activities? Do you walk to work automatically, lost in your own world of thoughts, or do you notice the other people, the trees, the sky? And what about your interactions with your children, partner, or friends? Is that another habitual process, or are you conscious of their behavior, their body language, tone of voice, and what they're saying to you?
There are certain problems with living in an automatic way that lead to higher levels of stress:
1. You have **thoughts** popping into your head that may be causing you stress. For example, you may be thinking a particular project needs to be done perfectly because that's what you've always done. However, this is both impossible and unrealistic for the time frame you have available. So, unconscious, automatic thoughts can cause you stress.
2. You may be dealing with your **emotions** automatically. For example, you're feeling a bit nervous about your next date or about the fact that you don't even have a date. Instead of reassuring yourself, or talking to a friend about it, you may begin to fight with the emotion or deny it, leading the anxiety to grow unnecessarily out of control.
3. You may react to **bodily sensations** automatically. Every time your body feels tired, you may start to criticize yourself for being unhealthy or not looking after yourself. Or you don't even notice the tension in your shoulders or jaw until it's so painful that you have to stop. Taking earlier action, such as a short mindful break when you initially notice bodily tension, would reduce your stress.
4. Your **behavior** may lead to greater levels of stress. For example, whenever you're driving and someone cuts in front of you, you immediately get angry and start shouting and cursing. This makes you feel more stressed before you've even gotten to work or to school to pick up your child. You're on autopilot, and your stress levels are rising.
So, in all these different ways, you're living automatically, and these habitual tendencies are operating all the time.
Mindfulness is about giving yourself a choice. When you have choices, rather than automatically **reacting** to life with its challenges, you **respond** wisely. I use the word _reacting_ to mean an automatic knee-jerk-type action or thought. I use the word _response_ to mean more reflective, thoughtful, and conscious choices that you make. You'll learn more about how to do this as you go on with this course. For now, in this session, you just need to understand what automatic pilot is and how to identify when you're operating on automatic and when you're more conscious and mindful.
In the diagram below, you can see how living automatically and responding in a habitual way leaves you no choice when faced with life's challenges. And without choice, your thoughts, words, and actions could lead to higher levels of stress.
**Mindful living leads to conscious, wise choices and restoration of balance.** The diagram below shows a more mindful approach to living. As you are faced with a life challenge such as a demanding job or an angry partner, by being more mindful you create space in your mind to make a choice. That choice can lead to wise decisions and therefore higher levels of well-being and lower levels of stress.
As Viktor Frankl, author of the inspiring book called _Man's Search for Meaning,_ famously said:
"Between stimulus and response there is a space. In
that space is our power to choose our response. In our
response lies our growth and our freedom."
Mindfulness is about finding that space and choosing your response.
EXERCISE: How Unmindful Can We Be?
To show you just how unmindful our brains can be in everyday life, check out this amusing video: _www.shamashalidina.com_.
PRACTICE: Mindful Belly Breathing
| _Audio track 5: 10 minutes_.
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This is a nice simple exercise for switching off your stress response. If you've been suffering from stress or anxiety for some time, chances are you breathe in a shallow way. One easy way to start easing your stress is to learn how to do deep belly breathing. Once you get the hang of it, you can do it at any time you remember. Eventually it may even become a habit for you to breathe more deeply, using your belly. This is likely to lead to deeper levels of relaxation for you.
Have you ever seen a baby breathing? The baby's belly usually expands on the inhalation and contracts on the exhalation. Belly breathing is a natural and comforting way to breathe.
1. Lie down on the floor, mat, carpet, or bed. Close your eyes if you wish. Place your feet on the floor with your knees bent.
2. Notice how stressed you're feeling. Assign a rating of 1–10 (10 for the highest stress) to your current stress level if you want.
3. Loosen any tight clothing, especially around your waist and neck. This ensures your breathing is not restricted.
4. Begin by just noticing the feeling of your breathing for about a minute.
5. Place one hand gently on your belly, in your navel area. Place your other hand on your chest.
6. Now as you naturally breathe in and out, notice which hand is moving: is it the hand on your belly or the one on your chest?
7. If your belly is rising and falling, and not your chest, you're already doing belly breathing. Continue to feel your breathing in the area of your belly for the next few minutes.
8. If you find your chest is rising and falling and not your belly, your breathing has some potential for improvement and, with that, a reduction in your feeling of stress. Simply see if you can get your belly to rise as you breathe in and not your chest. And when you breathe out, see if you can feel your belly dropping down, rather than your chest.
9. Try rubbing your hands together to warm them and gently massaging your belly area. Notice any feeling of relaxation around the belly area.
10. If this doesn't work for you, take a deep breath, and as you breathe out, gently apply pressure to your belly as if you're pushing the air out of your lungs. Then, on your next in-breath, you may find yourself drawing air much more deeply into your lungs and doing some belly breathing.
11. Continue to practice for 5–10 minutes. If you feel dizzy at any point, just go back to your normal, natural rate of breathing for a while, until you feel better.
12. Notice how stressed you feel on a scale of 1–10 again. Do you feel more or less stressed? Remember, please don't think you must feel more relaxed—just be curious and notice what's happening.
You can practice this exercise at any time of day or night. It's a nice exercise to do before you go to sleep and just after you wake up. And you can do the practice in a seated posture when at work or home. You can even try it while standing or walking. Belly breathing is also an exercise you can purposely engage in, whenever you feel anxious or tense.
**Reflection**
What did you discover about your breathing? What effect did the mindful belly breathing have on your feeling of stress?
**Tales of Wisdom:
Live in the Moment for Stress-Less Living**
I was recently in San Diego to give a talk on mindfulness at a conference. I had a couple of spare days in town after the conference, and was told that I should visit an aircraft carrier, which had been turned into a museum. So, together with a friend, I parked my rental car in the parking lot and went onto the aircraft carrier. The size of the carrier was amazing. We spent several hours walking all over and taking pictures. At the end of my visit, I reached for my pocket but couldn't find my car keys. We went to the lost property office, but they didn't have them either. I retraced my steps to the sleeping quarters, the deck, even checked on the actual planes that were on the carrier—but no luck. I'd lost the keys! And we had to catch our flight back to London the next day. All our bags and clothes were inside this rental car. Then I noticed a couple of sneaky thoughts in my head: "What if someone finds the keys and steals the car? How can I fly home without my passport?" But I caught these thoughts just in time, and smiled. I decided there's no point worrying about this—it won't help me find the keys. Instead, I asked where the nearest nice restaurant was, and we walked over to have lunch, overlooking the beautiful Pacific Ocean. We soon began to laugh—of all the places to lose the keys, an aircraft carrier. It looked like one of the biggest ships in the world! After staying present, smiling and enjoying our sandwiches and fruit juice, I called up the lost property office. Good news! Someone had found the keys and had handed them in.
This ended up being one of the best stories of the trip. Just goes to show, when you're in the present moment, you can stop worries from sneaking up on you, and let them go. Even if we didn't find the keys, we could have called the rental company and gotten new keys. And if the car was stolen, it's possible to get new passports. For these everyday problems, there's often a solution if you pause and reflect for a few moments.
PRACTICE: Body Scan Meditation
| _Audio track 6: 10 minutes_.
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| _Audio track 7: 30 minutes_.
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Now you're going to learn your first, main meditation. It's called the body scan. The course starts with the body scan meditation for several reasons. First, because the meditation is normally done lying down, you don't need to worry about managing any pain in your back or other parts of your body. You can just let the ground support the weight of your body. Second, the practice involves quite a lot of guidance, so you are not left on your own with long periods of silence. As a beginner, this is usually quite helpful.
How does this body scan meditation reduce stress?
• When stress levels rise, your body often tenses, or an emotion is felt in your body. The purpose of the body scan is to train your mind to focus your attention on your body sensations. Awareness of your body will help you notice when your stress levels rise so you can take suitable action, rather than allowing it to spiral out of control.
• The body scan meditation may also relax your muscles, one of the side effects of mindfulness. Many people report the process to be relaxing after long-term practice. Some of my clients call it "a massage from the inside out."
• Habitual, automatic negative thoughts are one of the causes of stress. Through the body scan, you learn to notice and let go of these thoughts and shift your attention to your body. This is one way of controlling your stress. The body scan teaches you to notice your body, without judgment.
• You learn that by being mindful of stress and the feelings of anxiety within your body, you can process the emotion without a need to react to your stress in any way.
• You may not like or respect your body. That can be stressful. The body scan teaches you to be friends with your body—you're going to be together for life, so you may as well be friends! The body scan meditation can help create a more positive relationship between you and your body.
This mindfulness practice is designed to last 10 minutes if you're doing the mini-course or 30 minutes for the full course. The exercise involves methodically resting and moving your attention from one body part to the next and noticing what sensations are present with a sense of nonjudgmental curiosity.
The drawing below is the typical posture used in the body scan meditation. The posture is called the corpse pose. The practice is a great, easy way to relieve stress, lower blood pressure, and encourage relaxation and can help with insomnia, tiredness, and headaches.
|
Ask a friend to check the alignment of your head in this pose. It's common for heads to be tilted to one side; your friend can help by carefully and _very_ gently lifting your head and realigning so it is equidistant between your shoulders, with your nose pointing toward the ceiling.
If you have lower-back issues or it just feels more comfortable, you can raise your knees toward the ceiling and put your feet flat on the floor or use any posture you prefer, including sitting on a relaxed chair.
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**Script for Full Body Scan Meditation**
_To do the mini-body scan, simply spend less time on each body part._
1. Begin this meditation by finding a time and place that's right for you. Turn off any potential distractions and ensure your room is not too hot or cold for you.
2. Lie down on the floor, mat, or firm mattress with your legs straight and your feet falling slightly away from each other.
3. Begin by noticing your breathing. The breath is such an essential part of being alive and yet is so often forgotten. Notice the whole cycle of the in-breath and out-breath, without trying to judge or control it if possible. Just be aware of it from moment to moment. If you wish, feel your breathing down in your belly, your lower abdomen. If you can't feel any sensation there, you could try placing your hands gently on your belly if you wish.
4. As you practice this body scan, if at any time you feel overwhelmed by sensations or emotions, remember you can shift your attention back to your breath if that feels comforting for you. You can think of your breath as a refuge from any sensations that seem too much for you at this time. That is probably the kindest and most helpful thing you can do at that time and is totally fine.
5. Now, when you're ready, shift your attention from your breathing, down your body, down your left leg, and all the way down to the big toe in your left foot. Feel any sensation that's present for you. If you can't feel anything, just feel the lack of sensation—that's perfectly fine. Then move your attention to your little toe and the toes in between. Then the sole of the left foot and the heel; the sensation of the heel touching the floor. Now feel your left ankle and any sensation there. And around to the upper part of your left foot with all its bone and muscles and tendons inside. Feel the left foot as a whole now. To help develop your awareness, you may like to play with the idea that your breath can go down and into and out of your left foot. Imagine or feel your breathing carrying a mindful awareness into your left foot. If breathing in and out of your feet doesn't mean anything to you, just let it go. It's fine to do that. Then, when you're ready, let the sensations in your left foot fade into the background of your awareness.
6. As you practice this mindfulness exercise, your mind is going to get distracted and lost in other thoughts. That's totally normal and nothing to get disheartened about. Mindfulness is not about banning thoughts.
7. In this way, move your mindful awareness into your lower left leg, upper left leg, then start with your right foot and move all the way up your right leg.
8. Let your attention rest in the area of your hips, pelvis, buttocks, and all the sensitive organs in this part of your body. Be aware of how the sensations shift and change from breath to breath. Again, imagine your breath being able to go into and out of this part of your body if you find it helpful. Then, when you're ready, allow this part of your body to fade into the background of your awareness.
9. Continue to work through your body in this mindful way, up to your lower torso. Be aware of and sensitive to the rising and falling of your belly and any emotions that may be present in that area of your body.
10. Move up to the upper part of your torso. Feel the contact of your back against the surface you are resting on. Feel your chest area and the movement of your rib cage as you breathe in and as you breathe out. You may be able to feel your heart beating. Get in touch with any emotional signals or sensations in your emotional heart, if that feels okay for you to do. Imagine or feel your breathing going into each body part to increase your sense of awareness. Feel sensations with an attitude of affection or kindness, the way you may look at something precious or someone or something you love. If possible, reflect on how fortunate you are for the parts of your body that are working okay, that are ensuring that in this very moment you are not only alive but also present and mindful of them.
11. Continuing to move through your body with a kindly awareness, feel and accept the sensations in your shoulders, including any tensions that don't release. Then down your arms into your hands and fingers. Take a moment to feel the intricate sensations present in the tips of your fingers.
12. Then move your awareness gently up through your neck, including the back of your neck, your throat, and your voice box and into your face. Feel the surface skin of the face and the muscles underneath. Begin with the forehead and move down into eyebrows, eyes, cheeks, lips, mouth, teeth, tongue, jaw, sides of face, ears. Then feel the weight of your head against the surface it rests on. See if you can go inside your head to feel the presence of your brain. Notice how it feels. And last, but not least, the top of your head.
13. Notice what it feels like now that you've mindfully scanned through your entire body. Rest for a few moments, whatever that means for you.
14. Now, this is an optional extra process that some people find helpful: Imagine that your breath can sweep up and down your body. As you breathe in, you can imagine your breath sweeps up your body, and as you breathe out, your breath sweeps back down again. You can get a sense of your breath feeding each of the living cells in your body with nourishing and wholesome oxygen. This may seem a bit strange to you, but just play with the idea and visualization or feeling and see what happens for a few minutes.
15. Now, letting go of all effort to practice mindfulness, just rest in your own inner sense of presence, of aliveness. Rest in your innate sense of _being._ You have nothing else you have to do, nowhere else to go, and nothing you need to achieve. Simply being.
16. Finish by gently congratulating yourself for having practiced this mindfulness meditation. It doesn't actually matter how it went—what's important is you made the time to practice. Each practice, no matter how you judge it, is beneficial.
VARIATION: If you keep falling asleep when you do the body scan, don't worry about it. You can try keeping your eyes open, or try sitting up on a chair.
GOING DEEPER: At the end of the body scan meditation, continue to practice for a further 15 minutes or so. Rest in open awareness like at the end of the expanding awareness meditation (see Chapter 8).
**Remember:** No matter what your experience was, keep practicing. You may have fallen asleep, felt more anxious, found it boring, discovered you couldn't concentrate, or just felt uncomfortable. Just try to make yourself as comfortable as possible next time and keep practicing. Know that the human mind is very wild, and if it takes you in directions you didn't plan on while trying to meditate, welcome to the club—and see the box below.
_Dealing with a Wild Mind_
Almost all the clients I see say their mind just can't focus in the mindfulness practice, and they feel they're doing something wrong. The fact is, your mind is going to wander off into other thoughts; it happens to the most experienced practitioners. That's just something you have to accept. These are some of the things that you can expect to happen as you practice mindfulness meditation:
• You find you were thinking about other things for most of the meditation.
• You felt like you were doing nothing at all even though you wanted to focus on the meditation.
• You feel as if your mind became more active, having done the meditation.
• You didn't enjoy the meditation because of all of your thoughts.
These are all quite normal experiences. The key is not to ban thoughts, but to accept them as part and parcel of mindfulness practice. Mindfulness is about being aware of the thoughts, and then gently guiding your attention back to the focus point.
Think of your point of focus like a puppy. As you take a puppy for a walk along a path, she will naturally get interested in someone off the path. Her attention will get captured and she'll wander off. Once you notice, you don't jerk your puppy back—that would hurt her. Instead, you gently pull the lead back to the path. Then before long, the puppy will wander off again. That's okay; you just guide her back to the path. In the same way, expect your mind to wander off, and gently, kindly, affectionately guide your attention back to the point of focus. You may even like to congratulate yourself for noticing that your mind has drifted off, rather than criticizing yourself for a wandering mind. The key to mindfulness is plenty of patience and trust in the process.
The body scan meditation is not an easy practice for many people, especially at the beginning. Persevere with the exercise in the week to come with an open mind and just keep noticing what happens. And if you found the process easy, that's great!
**Reflection**
1. What bodily sensations did you notice in the body scan most strongly? Which parts of your body had no sensation?
2. Did you notice your mind wandering? What sort of thoughts did you have?
3. How did the experience feel for you? What emotions arose and passed away during the process?
DISCOVER: THINKING OF PROBLEMS DIFFERENTLY
Consider whatever is causing your distress at the moment. The death of a loved one, a challenging work situation, or being under financial pressure is not easy to handle. In this mindfulness course, we are not asking you to run away or deny that challenge at all. But you are encouraged to explore the possibility of seeing it in a different way.
Mindfulness helps you see things differently because:
• You're practicing the skill of stepping back and seeing the big picture.
• You're learning to pay attention to other things rather than your problem.
Take a stab at trying to solve some of these puzzles, which require "thinking outside the box." See if you can think about your own problem in the same way and notice what happens, if anything.
**1.** What could this represent?
TO CH
U
**2.** A woman pushes her car up to a hotel and immediately realizes she's bankrupt. Why is that?
**3.** The nine-dot puzzle:
Look at the nine dots arranged on the facing page. Your challenge is to draw four straight lines through all the dots, without taking your pencil off the paper. Each line begins where the last line ends. You can start anywhere. Give it a try.
Give it some time and don't give up too easily. You could try a bit of mindful breathing before you start, or halfway through if you find yourself getting frustrated.
See the answers, but give yourself at least 5 minutes to try to solve it, and most important, observe what strategy you adopt to solve the problems.
There are three main things to learn from these puzzles, which you may be able to apply to the challenges in your own life.
1. Work Smarter, Not Just Harder
If you keep trying the same strategy or approach, you won't necessarily get an answer. You need to let go of current ideas and take a step back. More effort may just lead to frustration rather than a solution. Stress arises when you keep trying the same strategies and don't get the result you're looking for. Use mindfulness to take a step back and see things in the opposite way. Many people talk about working smarter rather than harder, but mindfulness gives you a practical way of achieving a smarter mindset.
For example, I was really struggling with a deadline for a presentation I was preparing. Trying to fit that in with my other role of mindfulness coach and having lots of meetings, I couldn't get my presentation done. It felt stressful to be juggling so many balls. I did a short mindfulness exercise and decided to look for a more radical solution. The answer came: to completely rearrange my schedule. By taking a week off from meetings and working on my presentation full-time, I finished the preparation and felt much more energized and excited.
2. Explore the Boundaries
Are the boundaries of the solution something you have created artificially in your mind? What would happen if you changed those limits? Are the boundaries based on your perception, or are they reality? Be clear about the rules you've set yourself. By being mindful of the limits you've placed on yourself or the situation, you can release stress.
When I first began teaching meditation, I didn't think I was good at all. That thought had an impact on my teaching. After listening to the positive feedback from my students and letting go of this stress-inducing thought, I began to relax and enjoy teaching meditation much more. Now I've discovered a much more enjoyable attitude to teaching: I just make sure that I'm having fun as I teach! If the students enjoy and benefit from the class, that's a bonus. That's a much better way to live and the students seem to love it.
3. Look Beyond the Limits of the Problem
If you're not clear about the problem, no matter how hard you try, you won't come to a solution. Try to think of your problem in different ways.
One of my colleagues was really stressed about her financial situation. She was struggling to pay all her bills even though she owned several businesses. She saw her problem as the need to pay the bills and felt stuck for not having enough money. Then, after talking to a friend, she realized her problem was actually being too attached to her businesses. She sold one, had more cash available, and felt freer. With a calmer and more creative mind, her other businesses began to flourish. The problem was not lack of money but of attachment.
EXERCISE: Finding a New Way to See a Problem as a Challenge
Now consider one of your problems that you're willing to explore and see it as a challenge to be solved in a different way. Consider the tips above and write down what your challenge is (use your journal or jot some notes here) and any new or unique ways of coming up with solutions.
Problem/challenge:
Different ways of seeing the challenge:
Possible unique solutions:
MINDFULNESS MEDITATION FAQs
**Q: Am I doing it right? How do I know if I'm doing the meditation correctly?**
A: As long as you're doing the practice, you're doing it right. All that you need to learn will arise in the meditation practice—you just need to learn to trust in yourself. So whenever you have the thought, "What if I'm not doing this right?" just say to yourself "thinking," and bring your mind back to wherever you were focusing your attention. How did you learn to walk as a child? You just go for it. It's the same with meditation.
**Q: I felt restless in the meditation. How can I stop that?**
A: Perhaps cut down on your caffeine intake or other stimulants during the day. And try to do your daily activities with more mindfulness; that may reduce the feeling of restlessness in the meditation. Try going for a short, slow walk, noticing the feeling of your breath. A few deep, slow breaths at the beginning of the meditation can also help to switch on your relaxation response and calm your restlessness. But beyond that, see if you can "work through" the restlessness. This means to allow the restlessness to be there as you meditate. Try noticing which part of your body feels most restless and feel the physical sensation together with your breathing. Be interested in the feeling rather than trying to work out how to get rid of the feeling. It will pass.
**Q: I couldn't focus on my body. My mind was wandering all over the place. What's wrong?**
A: Nothing. The very fact that you know that your mind was wandering is mindfulness. Not knowing that your mind was wandering is mindlessness. So first, remember that you have been mindful. Second, in meditation, as in the rest of your life, your mind wanders. It's the way your mind works. Expect your mind to wander, and when you notice, bring your attention back. That whole process _is_ mindfulness. Nobody has ever done a full body scan meditation or any other meditation without the mind wandering—it's impossible and not the aim of the practice. Try smiling when you notice your mind has wandered; many of my students love this practice.
**Q: I felt really relaxed. Is that okay?**
A: Yes, absolutely! Just don't expect relaxation every time. Sometimes it comes; sometimes it doesn't. You just need to bring a gentle awareness to whatever you're focusing on. If you feel relaxed, enjoy the feeling of relaxation.
**Q: I didn't find it relaxing at all. Why is that?**
A: Relaxation may or may not happen. Avoid making relaxation a goal. Instead, just try to be aware of your bodily sensations or breathing as best you can. The benefits arise from that and from bringing your attention back again and again when your mind wanders.
Home Experiments: Week 1
Here are the mindfulness experiments for this week. The table at the end of this section spells out what you need to try, depending on whether you're doing the mini or full course.
_Body Scan_
Try practicing the body scan every day at a time that suits you. You'll probably find it easier to make use of the audio to help guide you in the practice.
_Mindful Belly Breathing_
This is an additional activity for those doing the full course. You simply need to take 5–10 minutes, sit in a chair or on a meditation cushion on the floor, and feel the sensation of your breath. You can feel your breath around your nose, chest, belly, or wherever else you prefer. Expect your mind to drift to other thoughts, and when you notice, guide your attention back to your breath.
_Mindful Booster_
As you go through your week, you'll be forgiven for not being mindful all the time—it's so easy to forget. One way to creatively counteract this automatic tendency for habitual living is to use a mindful booster, an activity that you do as mindfully as possible to help raise your level of mindful awareness.
This week's mindful booster is taking a shower (or bath) mindfully. To do this, you take a few conscious breaths before your shower and set an intention to be mindful. You probably have a particular shower routine—try mixing your routine up. If you normally wash your hair first, wash your hair last. Changing your routine will increase your mindful awareness. Be mindful by connecting with your senses in each moment. There's the sound of the water splashing against your skin, the scent of the soap, the warmth of the water, and the physical sensation as the water hits your body. It can be very enjoyable! As with any other meditation, when your mind wanders, bring your attention back to the present moment.
**Reflection**
Jot down your experience of the mindfulness home experiments every day. You may like to use these questions to help you reflect on your experience. Taking time to reflect in this way helps you grow in wisdom and discover your own personal habits and attitudes.
• What effect did the practice have on your thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations?
• How motivated did you feel to practice before and during the process?
• What did you discover through the mindfulness exercise?
• What could you change or adapt next time you practice, if anything?
Week 1
**Day** | **Mini-Course** | **Full Course**
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1 | Mini-body scan
Mindful booster | Body scan
Mindful belly breathing
Mindful booster
2 | Mini-body scan
Mindful booster | Body scan
Mindful belly breathing
Mindful booster
3 | Mini-body scan
Mindful booster | Body scan
Mindful belly breathing
Mindful booster
4 | Mini-body scan
Mindful booster | Body scan
Mindful belly breathing
Mindful booster
5 | Mini-body scan
Mindful booster | Body scan
Mindful belly breathing
Mindful booster
6 | Mini-body scan
Mindful booster | Body scan
Mindful belly breathing
Mindful booster
**Answers to the questions:**
1. | "You're out of touch."
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2. |
She's playing the board game "Monopoly."
3. |
# FIVE
# _Week 2_
# From Automatic Reacting to Creative Responding
_A busy person is not someone who has lots to do. A busy person is someone who does too many things at the same time._
—AJAHN BRAHM
INTENTIONS
_To explore the role of personal responsibility and interpretation in stress._
_To learn the mindful pause._
_To try some new ways of dealing with stressful thoughts._
ANASTASIA WAS a successful banker in the city with a stressful job and a busy family life. She loved her husband and two children dearly. In recent years, she hadn't enjoyed her job at the corporate bank, but it paid the bills—and they had a lot of bills. Her mind was often quite fuzzy, as if she was looking through a smoke screen all the time. With all her responsibilities, she felt like she was juggling lots of balls. Multitasking was an everyday occurrence. Constant busyness was her way of living. She had worked long hours as far back as she could remember. Almost everything seemed to run habitually, on automatic pilot.
On a Monday morning, and without warning, Anastasia experienced her first panic attack. This wasn't a butterflies-in-the-stomach-before-an-interview type of feeling—this was more like being on the edge of a cliff, as if her life was threatened. She thought she was having a heart attack and felt extremely shaken up. Anastasia was rushed to the hospital, but the tests came back negative; her heart was fine.
Her doctor explained that the panic attack was linked to her high levels of stress and recommended that she do an MBSR course to learn to use mindfulness to manage her stress levels. Anastasia was willing to try anything to avoid a recurrence of that awful feeling, so she quickly signed up.
The experience of the meditations in the MBSR course was extremely challenging for Anastasia at first. She couldn't feel much in her body at all. And then she started to feel anxious in the meditations and begin crying for no apparent reason. Was crying normal? she asked. Her teacher reassured her that people do sometimes cry at some point in meditation and it was perfectly normal. He had a kindness about him and offered encouragement and support, so she persevered. Anastasia really wanted this to work.
Within weeks Anastasia found the mindfulness meditations deeply nourishing for her in some ways. The anxiety began to diminish, and she discovered a feeling of peace she hadn't felt for a very long time. Meditation was like coming home to herself after a long, arduous journey away. She was starting to feel more complete and whole. She felt like she'd be running at full speed on a treadmill and had exhausted herself. There were now moments in the day when she could slow down or stop that treadmill without fear that things would fall apart.
Fast-forward several years, Anastasia practices mindfulness regularly and feels fully rejuvenated from the daily meditation practice. She's able to enjoy a much happier family life. But the biggest impact is the way she deals with challenges in life. Rather than her old, negative pattern of constantly worrying, she is calmer and more reflective.
This chapter explores how to go from automatically reacting to people and situations in life to consciously responding and making wise choices about the best way to deal with any given situation, just as Anastasia learned to do in her life.
In mindfulness, **reacting** means to not notice the choice you have made. To immediately go from facing a difficult situation or thoughts to taking automatic, habitual reflex action. This could be arguing, shouting, thinking negatively again and again, or any number of different actions. Reactions tend to be negative, because you don't give the wise part of your brain time to work properly.
**Responding** means to make a conscious choice about your thoughts, words, and actions in any given circumstance. For example, noticing that you're judging yourself as stupid and letting it go. Being aware that you're feeling sad and not fighting or running away from the emotion. Or when a colleague says something hurtful, taking a few moments to reply rather than starting a heated exchange.
Mindfulness is about responding to life's challenges
with wisdom and self-compassion.
Going from habitually reacting to consciously responding to life's difficulties isn't easy. But the principles and shifts of mind required are not as difficult as you may think. With a little bit of patience and determination, you can learn to take small steps toward mindfulness. And small steps are all that is required of you—nothing more and nothing less.
PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY: GETTING YOUR STRESS UNDER CONTROL
You may think of responsibilities as increasing your level of stress. The typical image of someone who is under too much stress is someone who has taken on too many responsibilities. And this may be true. You can take on too much work—more than you feel you can handle.
But self-responsibility is different. I'm talking about being responsible for your _response_ to your stress. If you just blame outer circumstances for your stress, you may feel a little better in the short term but are probably setting yourself up for higher levels of stress in the future by not taking appropriate action. Although taking responsibility for your stress may feel like a burden at first, it's actually the first step to reducing stress in your life. Anastasia eventually took responsibility for her stress and used mindfulness to respond in a more healing way to her illness, family, and working life.
You can see the effect of lack of self-responsibility when dealing with habits. For example, let's say you have a habit of biting your nails. If you think nail biting is just part of your personality or due to your parents also biting their nails, there's no chance that you can reduce or stop your habit of biting your nails, even if you want to. Not until you think, "I'm responsible. I'm doing the nail biting, and I am determined to stop it," do you have a chance. The same goes for your response to your stressors—you need to trust in your own inner ability to manage them better.
There are some things that you can't control. If, for example, you are faced with a major stressor such as the serious illness or death of a loved one, your stress levels will shoot up—you can't easily change that. However, you can slowly begin to manage the way you respond to that stress. You need to allow yourself to go through the natural process of grieving, sadness, and anger before you come to terms with the loss or change in circumstances. Mindfulness offers you the space to do that. You can learn to manage the stress itself with wisdom, awareness, and self-compassion.
Taking responsibility for your own stress doesn't mean you need to judge or condemn yourself for feeling stressed. Quite the opposite. Self-responsibility offers hope, giving you ways to use mindfulness to recognize when your stress is high, and discover new and powerful ways of responding to that stress. Mindfulness encourages you to be kind to yourself, to treat yourself as you would treat a friend who was under stress.
Here are some mindful ways to shift toward taking control of your stress:
• **Remembering that you always have a choice in life**. If you don't have a choice about the external situation that's causing you stress, you can still choose your attitude. There are even examples of people in Nazi concentration camps who used this approach to deal with the stress by remembering that they could still control their attitude.
• **Practicing mindfulness meditation.** This will show you how your thoughts affect your feelings and bodily sensations and vice versa. You therefore see that much of stress is an internal experience.
• **Watching out for thoughts like "I have no choice" or "There's nothing I can do about this."** Step back from these thoughts rather than entertaining or believing them to be true.
**Reflection**
Think back to a time when you were experiencing some stress but felt in control. What was your attitude toward the stress? What happens when you apply that attitude toward the stress in your current situation?
INTERPRETATION AND STRESS
One major part of controlling your response to stress is to control your interpretations of events.
Not every potentially stressful event—your angry boss, your whining child, or your inbox full of e-mails, to name a few—is felt as stress by all people (or even by each individual all the time). You could interpret your angry boss as "He's just in a bad mood today," your child's whining as a passing phase—"He'll get over it"—and your inbox as "That's just the way things are in modern life. I'll sort it out when I have more time tomorrow morning."
In truth, the emergence of stress is a complex interaction of many factors, but your interpretation of the stressor is a very important one. Your interpretation of a stressor determines whether your stress response is engaged, which may be felt as anxiety or tension or in some other way. Consider the following example.
I was watching a series of comedy clips the other day. In one clip, someone put a moving toy snake on the floor in a hallway. When the unsuspecting owner opened her front door, she saw the toy snake and jumped in fright. Her cheeky family members immediately burst out laughing, and within seconds her fear was turned into laughter as she realized the snake was just a toy. This seemingly silly example can explain why some people suffer from high levels of stress whereas others don't.
When the lady first perceived the image of a snake, she thought it was real. So she thought, "Oh my goodness, a snake!" or perhaps even stronger words. With that thought, her stress response was switched on. Within a second, stress hormones were released to make her heart beat faster and muscles tense up.
If she continued to believe that the toy was a snake, she would continue to feel stressed and under threat. The same is true for your stressors. As long as you interpret them as threatening, you'll continue to feel stressed.
This story illustrates the three steps that produce the stress response:
1. **Perception** of situation—see a wriggly thing on the floor.
2. **Interpretation** of situation—thought: "It's a snake!"
3. **Reaction** to the situation—stress response switched on, heart races, jump with fright, tense up.
The key point here is that your interpretation is required before you find yourself stressed.
You interpret a situation as threatening before your
stress response is switched on.
If the person who saw the snake actually worked at the zoo with snakes all day, she probably wouldn't be scared at all. Interpretation makes all the difference.
Optical illusions are a great example of how your brain interprets what it experiences. Look at the central circle in the diagrams below.
Which one appears bigger?
Most people say the central circle in the second diagram looks bigger. But if you measure it, you'll find they are both exactly the same size. Why were you deceived?
The illusion works because of the circles that surround the central circle. In Diagram 1, the circle is small relative to the surrounding circles, so it looks small. In Diagram 2, the surrounding circles are smaller, so it looks _relatively_ bigger. Your brain uses this comparison to assume the central circle in Diagram 1 is smaller than in Diagram 2.
Your stressor is not _directly_ the cause of your stress. The level of stress you experience is actually linked to how much you believe your thoughts about the stressor. I don't mean to diminish the very real feeling of stress you are experiencing. Nor am I saying that your stressful life is a product of your thinking alone. But interpretation plays a bit part.
Shakespeare takes this to an extreme, as he states in _Hamlet_ :
"For there is nothing either good or bad,
but thinking makes it so."
Now that you know that interpretation can lie at the root of stress, your next questions may be, "Why do I interpret situations in this way? Why do I see things as threatening and end up stressing myself out unnecessarily?" This is actually the nature of the human mind, and intimately links to human evolution, as I explain below.
The Negativity Bias: You're Wired to Focus on the Negative
If you find yourself being more pessimistic than optimistic, it's because your brain is wired that way, as it is for most humans. This theory is called the **negativity bias** —the tendency to give more attention and weight to negative experiences and information.
The reason is thought to be evolutionary. Consider life in early human history. Some humans probably took risks and wandered around the jungle hunting for food. They didn't worry too much about getting eaten by the local tiger. Other humans took minimal risks. They worried more. They got stressed more easily, and any suspicious movement in the bushes would send them running, energized by their stress response. They probably would have felt more stressed and anxious. Which one was more likely to survive and therefore able to have children? Obviously, the more cautious ones. The humans who took fewer risks and remembered the dangers lurking outside survived. They reproduced, and their genes got passed on to the next generation.
**"Before mindfulness, I never knew my thoughts affected my feelings. And I didn't know that I could step back from my thoughts. I just reacted to life and lived on autopilot. Now I know I have a choice. Why didn't they teach me this at school?!"**
That's why, in the earlier example of the snake, the lady jumped up with fright almost instantly—her mind immediately registered the negative, that it was a snake, and reacted accordingly. This is a built-in survival mechanism called the fight-or-flight response. (In Week 4, you'll read more about the physiological response involved in this primal alarm system in the brain.)
The following examples may show your tendency to focus naturally on the negative news:
• Your car doesn't start in the morning, and you tell all your friends that evening about that fact. You don't mention the sunny weather, the fact that you didn't have a car accident, or that your colleagues were friendly to you that day.
• You receive bad service at a restaurant. You don't consider that the food was fine, that the view of the lake beside the restaurant was stunning, or that your health was excellent that day. Noticing the positive aspects of the restaurant experience would take conscious effort.
• You feel lonely and lethargic today. You focus on your low mood rather than the fact that you're spending time in the countryside later that week, that your children are perky and cheerful, or that you have time for a long and refreshing walk if you choose to take one.
• You're much more likely to pick up a newspaper with a negative headline rather than a positive one. Bad news hijacks your attention and sells more. Interestingly, this wasn't the case on April 18, 1930. The BBC announced, "There is nothing newsworthy worth broadcasting," and played piano music instead! This would be unheard of nowadays and gives a little insight into why our current levels of stress may be higher than they used to be: a constant stream of mostly negative news, available on TV and online 24 hours a day.
All these typical examples just show how easy it is to focus on the negative experiences rather than positive ones. And constant focusing on the negative can cause an excessive buildup of stress.
_Research Corner: Three Tricks Your Brain Plays on You_
Neuroscientist Rick Hanson says there are three ways your brain tricks you to ensure your stress levels are heightened, which doesn't improve the quality of your life in modern society:
• Overestimating threats
• Underestimating opportunities
• Underestimating your ability to manage opportunities
These tendencies often increase your stress levels unnecessarily. You can use mindfulness to manage them by:
• Being mindful when you feel threatened. Ask yourself to consider or write down all the things that are actually going well at the moment. This helps to shift things to the positive.
• Being mindful of the actual risk of taking the opportunity in front of you. For example, getting on a plane may feel scary, but in reality it's one of the safest modes of transport.
• Noticing when you think, "I can't do it," and questioning yourself. Is that actually true? Is it most likely your negativity bias at work? Think about times when you thought you couldn't achieve something and you did. For example, if you're going for an interview, think about past interviews that were successful.
Dancing Mindfully with Your Brain's Interpretations
So your brain has a tendency to focus on the negative due to the negativity bias—but can you do anything about it?
Practicing mindfulness meditation has been shown to shift the negativity bias, rewiring people's brains after even just a few weeks of daily practice. And the shifts from more negative, fear-based thinking to more holistic, open, and optimistic ways of meeting daily life can be seen in brain scans.
In addition to mindfulness, here are five main areas you can work on. Let's say you're finding it very stressful to sit in a traffic jam for the purpose of illustration:
1. **Flex your attentional muscles to reinterpret the stressor**. Mindfulness trains your brain to be able to move your attention from one place to another, instead of just focusing on worries. For example, rather than seeing the traffic jam as making you late, you can see it as a chance to listen to your favorite music, to do some mindful breathing, or to listen to an audiobook. To do this, you need to be mindful that you're seeing the situation negatively and then consciously shift attention to more positive outcomes.
2. **Practice gratitude.** Think about all the things that are going well in your life. Use mindfulness to really become aware of what you're grateful for. So in a traffic jam, you could consider five things that are going really well in your life and the reasons that they make you feel good. And you could even send a text or e-mail, or call, once you arrive at your destination to thank whomever you were thinking of. Expressing gratitude is even more powerful than just thinking about it.
3. **See the big picture.** Although your stressor is causing you anguish at the moment, will it make a difference in the long run? With the traffic jam example, will this really matter in the next week, month, or year? Does this really matter in the great scheme of things? One of the key aspects of mindfulness is the ability to step back and put things in perspective. Most things in life are never as bad as they seem; that's worth remembering.
4. **Be kind to yourself instead of self-enforcing perfection.** If you set very high standards for yourself, you're setting yourself up to fail. Continuing the example of the traffic jam, notice whether you always want to be on time. You can aim to be on time, but being on time 100% is impossible. The mindful way of dealing with perfectionism requires you to see that each present moment is the only way it could be, right now. Focusing your attention on the present moment rather than trying to create an idealized future helps to slowly release perfectionism. Another tip is to try to achieve 80% of perfection in any task and notice that the world doesn't end when your outcome isn't perfect.
5. **Mind your language.** Be mindful of the language you use in your thoughts. Words like _always_ , _never_ , _should_ , and _must_ are signs that you're thinking in extreme ways that could be feeding your stress. Step back from those thoughts and see them as thoughts rather than facts. Or ask yourself questions like "Is that true? Am I _always_ late?" or "Why _should_ I rush to get there on time and risk my safety and that of others on the road?" More on this in Chapter 8.
**Reflection**
These reflections are helpful whenever you feel overwhelmed by stress. Try them out now and use them again whenever you feel overly stressed.
Consider a current source of stress for you at the moment—not your biggest source of stress, but something significant. This gives you an opportunity to practice interpreting stressors differently. Enter it in your journal if you like, along with the answers to these questions:
1. What's going well for you at the moment? (This could be simply that you have a roof over your head or have had enough to eat today.)
2. How can you see the stressor differently? Can you see the stressor as a challenge? If so, does this challenge have any benefits?
3. Will this stressor be such a concern in a few months' time? Or a few years' time?
4. Are you setting very high standards for yourself? Can you aim for 80% perfection instead? Consider doing a simple task less than perfectly and practice being with the uncomfortable emotion rather than acting on it. The emotion will pass.
**Remember** : Some stressors may seem too big for this type of viewpoint. If the particular stressor for you is divorce or a loved one's terminal illness, or perhaps you yourself are threatened in this way, this is of course very challenging. In these circumstances, kindness toward yourself, giving yourself space to grieve, and plenty of rest are all important. You need to find someone with empathy to listen and support you. And you may find that mini-mindfulness meditations help you get through each day, moment by moment. Changing your interpretation is not appropriate when a major stressor is fresh in your mind, but perhaps, in time, you can consider such an approach.
_Research Corner: Posttraumatic Growth_
Stephen Joseph is a pioneering psychologist at the University of Nottingham who has spent the last 20 years working with trauma survivors. He has discovered something incredible. For _most_ people, traumatic events like illness, divorce, assault, bereavement, accidents, natural disasters, and even terrorism can lead to positive changes in the long run. In other words, traumatic events act as catalysts to personal growth! This doesn't mean that the trauma didn't cause stress, difficulties, nightmares, and other challenging experiences. What it does show is that the experience can often lead to growth, rather than a disorder.
Joseph's book, _What Doesn't Kill Us: The New Psychology of Post-Traumatic Growth,_ includes a range of examples of people who grew in wisdom in the aftermath of disaster. He says hundreds of studies confirm that 30–70% of people experience a positive outcome in the aftermath of trauma—posttraumatic growth is almost the norm. People report that their relationships become deeper, they feel more mature and wise, and they often reprioritize their lives for what's truly important to them, rather than chasing status and wealth as they may have previously.
Posttraumatic growth is an excellent example of how many people reinterpret stressors to help reduce their stress and increase their resilience for future stressors they may face.
EXERCISE: Reacting and Responding to Your Own Thoughts
Here's an exercise to show you how your brain interprets situations and how that interpretation can lead to stress if you react to it. Take a few moments to imagine the following scenario happened to you. Be aware of how you'd think and feel in the situation. Take your time as you read this:
Imagine you're in a local café . . . You sit down . . . The waiter comes over to take your order . . . You order a cup of coffee and a croissant . . . The waiter takes the order . . . You wait to get your drink and snack . . . 5 minutes pass . . . 10 minutes pass . . . still no sign of the order . . . 15 minutes pass and you don't receive your order . . . there's no sign of the waiter . . .
What thoughts pop into your mind in that situation?
How do you feel (e.g., sad, angry, calm, annoyed, not bothered, scared, bored)?
When I do this exercise with different people, I get different answers. But the situation is the same: a waiter doesn't deliver an order. Here are some possible thoughts (interpretations) and feelings.
_Interpretation_
"This waiter hates me. This always happens to me. I should be more assertive. This isn't going to be a good day."
_Feeling_
Sad. Dejected.
_Interpretation_
"The waiter's probably really busy. It's not an easy job being a waiter. I think I'll go and remind him of my order."
_Feeling_
Calm.
_Interpretation_
"Typical waiter. He's pathetic. So lazy. I'm gonna have a real go at him. Let me find him."
_Feeling_
Anger.
Notice the pattern between the interpretation and the feeling? When you blame yourself for the situation, the result is a low mood and dejection. When you blame the other person, the result is anger and frustration. And when you don't place the blame on anyone, but just circumstances, the feeling is neutral, or perhaps concern.
This exercise shows that thoughts play a part in shaping your feelings. Or more accurately, **the thoughts you believe to be true** affect your feelings. In the past, psychologists encouraged people to change their thinking to be more realistic. But a new, mindful approach is emerging to deal with difficult emotions. You just need to train your brain to see the thoughts as just that, thoughts or interpretations. Mindfulness exercises and meditations train your brain to respond to your thoughts and emotions rather than react automatically.
**"After I got burned out due to stress, I started reading self-help books. I didn't even know self-help books existed! I realized that my thoughts played a big part in the stress I experienced. I'm far more mindful of my thoughts now. I practice a short mindful exercise as soon as I begin to get too stressed out."**
Here's another little experiment you can do. Try thinking, "I can walk through walls." Say that to yourself a few times. Have the thought in your head. Do you believe it to be true? Of course not. And so you're not going to even try walking through a wall. In the same way, when you notice your thoughts as just an interpretation rather than a fact, you learn to give those thoughts less importance because you don't _believe_ them to be true.
Stress is not caused just by thoughts, but the thoughts
that _you believe to be true_.
**Reflection**
The next time you feel stressed, notice what's causing the stress. Then notice what thoughts are causing the stress.
Write down the stress-inducing thoughts. Are these thoughts absolute fact, or are they an interpretation?
| Body posture and movement do affect thinking and interpretation. Experiment with sitting up straight, going for a brisk walk, holding a smile on your face for 20 seconds, or taking 10 deep, mindful breaths.
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Now see if you can interpret the situation differently. What effect did these little techniques have?
PRACTICE: The Mindful Pause Meditation
| _Audio track 8: About 2 minutes._
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|
This week you're going to learn an important mini-meditation called the mindful pause. This is a meditation that I recommend you practice daily from now on.
The purpose of the mindful pause is:
• **To turn off automatic pilot mode.** This is the habitual mode your brain defaults to. This mini-meditation switches that off so you can be more conscious and create a change in the way you react to your experiences.
• **To become more aware of your thought patterns.** This mini-meditation helps you stop in your everyday life and become aware of your thoughts. Destructive thought patterns could be the cause of your stress. You can notice and step back from them using this mindful exercise.
• **To become aware of your stress.** By stopping to do the mini-meditation, you notice what your stress level is like. You can then begin to work out what's causing the stress. Stopping your everyday activities can reduce your stress too.
• **To become aware of your body sensations.** Your body is like a barometer for your stress levels. To notice how your body feels will help you tune in to what's going on within you. For example, a pain in your neck can remind you to take a break from working on your computer before that turns into a migraine.
• **To notice your emotions.** Lack of awareness of your emotions can be a stressor in itself. If you're feeling angry, you can work out why. If you don't know you're feeling angry, it may just continue to build until you explode at whomever seems to be nearby.
• **To take a step back from whatever you're doing.** The mini-meditation is an opportunity to take a step back. You can then interpret things from this bigger picture. For example, if you're really stressed about an upcoming exam, the mini-meditation may remind you that you can only do your best. The exam is important, but doing badly isn't the end of the world.
The mindful pause has three steps. Allow about a minute for each step.
**Step 1. Awareness of Body Sensations, Feelings, and Then Thoughts**
Become aware of your body. Try to sit up straight if you're slouching. Gently open up your chest if your posture is closed. Hold your head up if you can. Notice what your body feels like, without judging yourself, as best you can. Which parts are tense? Which parts hurt? Which parts feel fine?
Then become aware of your feelings. How do you feel right now? You don't need to judge your feeling. Just notice the emotion and label it with a single word in your mind, like _sad_ , _tired_ , or _anxious_.
Next, turn your attention to your thoughts. Try imagining your mind as the sky and your thoughts like clouds. Place your thoughts on the clouds. Notice them come and go.
**Step 2. Breath Awareness**
Become conscious of the natural flow of your own breathing. Notice your breathing wherever you can—your nose, chest, or belly. See if you can totally accept your breathing just as it is.
Is your breathing shallow or deep? Is it smooth or not? How does the temperature of the air you breathe in differ from the air you breathe out?
**Step 3. Connecting Your Awareness with Breath and Body**
Now allow your attention to open up. Be aware of your whole body as you sit or stand here. Include your breathing, which of course is another sensation in your body. Get a sense of your whole body breathing if you can. Maybe play with feeling your breathing flowing up and down your body. Notice whether any tensions in your body stay the same or soften. Finish with holding a gentle smile on your face for a few seconds.
Consider how fortunate you are to have this time to practice a mindful pause for your own health and well-being. Congratulate yourself for having taken the time to pause.
| Just think _ABC_ to remember the steps in the mindful pause. _A_ stands for awareness of body, thoughts, and feelings; _B_ stands for breath awareness; and _C_ stands for connecting breath and body awareness together.
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VARIATION: You can do this mindful pause while walking slowly or lying down.
GOING DEEPER: Begin by being clear about your intention for the practice. Set a timer for three times a day to practice the mindful pause. See if you can stop whatever you're doing to do the practice. And try doing the pause without an audio guide to see what effect that has. When practicing, see if you can keep your body absolutely still, including your eyes behind your eyelids. Keep your body relaxed yet upright and dignified in its posture. You can extend the practice for 10 minutes or longer if you have time.
**Reflection**
What did you notice about the mindful pause? What effect did the mindful pause have?
DISCOVERING AND RESPONDING TO YOUR STRESS SIGNS
Angela worked for a furniture company. Her work was demanding, involving driving all over the country. It wasn't unusual for her to drive hundreds of miles each week, sometimes away from home for days at a time. The year she was burned out from stress, she'd driven more than 100,000 miles.
"I loved the buzz of the job," she said. "It was stressful, but I loved it." At first she just worked during the week, but as her responsibilities grew, she started working on weekends too.
Angela didn't have a social life, but that didn't seem to matter to her. Then she found a boyfriend. Making time for him on top of all the work proved to be really difficult. The pressure started to feel overwhelming. She started to feel lethargic all the time. Then, on a Monday morning, she just couldn't get out of bed. She could move her fingers and toes, but that was about it. She had no energy to move her arms and legs at all.
When she managed to get to the doctor, Angela was told that she was "burned out with stress." She found that hard to believe at first. Yes, life was stressful, but she enjoyed it for the most part. On further reflection, however, she discovered she didn't have a balance between work and the rest of her life. Work had taken over her whole life. She'd been living habitually, automatically, without stopping to notice what was going on.
She spent a lot of time over the next few months at home, sleeping in bed. Gradually things started to improve. But when things did get better, she would push herself too much, like she did before, and ended up shattered, in bed for days.
Before she ended up seeing her doctor, there had been signs that Angela was under too much stress: a long-term lack of sleep, an unwillingness to socialize with friends and family, worrying thoughts going around and around in her head, and a constant feeling of being driven to work. Her body was completely tense. Unfortunately, she wasn't aware (mindful) enough to notice them—she just didn't know what to look for.
After joining a local mindfulness class and practicing the meditations for a number of months, she began to feel better. She began to be more sensitive to the needs of her body; she could actually notice her stress signs. The mindfulness revealed that when her stress rose there was a slight tightening in her throat. That was a signal for her to slow down and take a little mindful pause. Before, without mindfulness of her bodily sensations, she didn't even notice this sign, let alone the other tension all over her body. Angela felt meditation was for her one of the key factors in her path back to well-being.
You may see a commonality between this story of Angela's experience and what Anastasia experienced at the beginning of this chapter. They both were working hard with a lower level of awareness of their own emotions and bodily sensations. Without this awareness, the danger signs of excessive stress can't be seen.
**Reflection**
Take a few minutes to reflect on the last time you were under too much pressure and felt high levels of stress. Then answer the questions that follow, which may help give greater clarity about your stress.
1. What was the cause of your high level of stress?
2. What were the physical sensations that you felt when your stress levels rose? Where exactly in your body did you feel the sensations (e.g., tension, tightness, tingling, throbbing)?
3. How did you feel emotionally when your stress levels got too high (e.g., anxious, sad, frustrated, shy)?
4. What thoughts did you have when your stress levels got too high (e.g., "I can't cope"; "Why is he acting like this?")?
5. How do you react toward other people when your stress levels rise too much (e.g., ignore them, get angry, avoid them)?
6. What did you do when your stress levels became too high (e.g., took a break, worked harder, went to sleep, ate lots of chocolate, ignored it)?
As you go through this course, you'll continue to identify that your stress levels are beginning to get too high and learn ways to deal with rising stress levels. In this way, you can respond to your stress before it gets too high using mindfulness.
For example, consider Jay, who'd been struggling to get a new contract. He worked in the brand promotion business, and January was always a quiet time for him. After all the expenses of Christmas, money was tight. Living alone in London and not having enough money to heat his house felt increasingly frustrating. He woke up one Monday morning feeling extremely stressed. The stress kept rising as he thought about his situation and what could happen if he didn't manage to find any work over the next few weeks. Then he remembered what he'd learned in an MBSR class. He stopped and took a mindful pause. Rather than allowing the stress to rise higher, he caught the feeling early. He repeated this several times during the day, and with a more centered, grounded state of mind, he called up some old contacts and managed to find work. As you can see, Jay was able to spot his stress signs and then use mindfulness to take control of it.
_Research Corner: Mindfulness Could Help with Many Diseases by Reducing Inflammation_
Many different diseases are associated with chronic inflammation in the body, including rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, inflammatory bowel disease, and asthma.
An exciting piece of research carried out in 2013 on about 60 people compared one half, who did an MBSR course like the one in this book, with the other half, who did a health enhancement program (HEP) that included walking, balance, agility, core strength, nutritional education, and music therapy. The study was carried out by Melissa A. Rosenkranz, PhD, and colleagues at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and published in the journal _Brain, Behavior, and Immunity._
Both groups were then stressed by being asked to give a 5-minute on-the-spot speech on a given topic and then challenged to 5 minutes of mental arithmetic. Both groups had a reduction in the stress hormone cortisol, but the group that trained in MBSR had a significantly lower inflammation response too. This suggests mindfulness could be an important approach to managing lots of diseases.
BREATH AS AN ANCHOR FOR YOUR EXPERIENCE
If your mind is chattering out of control, and your feelings are swirling around like a spicy soup on the boil, rest assured you're not alone. In a busy, modern 24/7 society, the constant stimulation, choices, and challenges whip up your thoughts and emotions. And when you're in this state of mind, you're much more likely to react automatically and unhelpfully to the stressors in your life.
One excellent way of managing your thoughts is to make use of your breathing. Using mindfulness of your breath to cope with stress can sound overly simplistic, but I'd urge you to try it before judging the approach. The calming effect occurs through use of your breath to anchor you in the present moment. And the more you use your breath to come to the present, the easier and more effective it becomes.
Take a moment to consider an anchor: the function of an anchor is to stop a ship from drifting aimlessly in the ocean. The anchor is always available on the ship, and wherever the ship goes, the anchor goes with it. Whenever the ship needs to stop, someone simply drops the anchor.
In the same way, wherever you go, your breath goes! Fortunately, you can't run away from your breathing, or leave your breathing at home when you go out for the day. Your breathing is with you, day and night. What you may forget is to actually pay attention to the feeling of your breathing from time to time. But whenever you want to stop, you can focus your attention on your breathing as an anchor to bring you into the here and now.
Breathing is a fascinating part of being human, one of those unique functions that can be both automatic and partially controlled. Your heartbeat is different, for example. Your heart is beating day and night, tirelessly. But you can't stop your heart beating for even a few seconds, as you can with your breathing. You can't instantly stop digestion or your immune system, either. Breathing is both automatic and under your control. There are very few other systems in the body that are so automated and yet under your control too.
Relaxation techniques often make use of deep breathing. This is because your breathing is intimately linked to the system in your body responsible for relaxation. Feelings of relaxation often occur when you breathe slowly and deeply. Mindfulness of breath is slightly different. In mindful breathing, you don't need to control the rate or depth of your breath. Instead, you simply turn your attention to your breathing just as it is, without judgment.
**Tales of Wisdom:
The Meditator Who Aced His Final Exams**
Here's a story I heard from a Buddhist monk. Before he became a monk, he was studying science at a top university in England. He had his final exams in the last year—and they were final! Everything that he'd learned in all the years at university was tested in six consecutive days. Each day he had a 3-hour exam in the morning and another 3-hour exam in the afternoon. It was grueling—a torture! Everyone kept telling him his whole future depended on the results of these exams, which didn't help. The pressure was seriously on. He had already learned meditation, and so he decided to have a big breakfast every morning and a nice dinner in the evening, but no lunch. Instead of lunch he went home and meditated for about half an hour. Every day when he did this, first the thoughts about the past exam came up. He let them go; no point thinking about that now. Then worries about the exam to come kept arising; he let them go. Worrying about it wouldn't help. And then he became aware of something incredible: as he became more present, he noticed his whole body was literally shaking with nervousness! His mind had been so full of thoughts, he hadn't noticed this at all. With a bit more meditation, his body began to settle down. He realized something amazing that day: it's possible for the body to be completely stressed and not to notice due to a barrage of thoughts. And a kind, caring, mindful awareness can relax and ease the body. Without this bodily awareness, stress can turn into something more serious, like an emotional burnout.
Needless to say he aced his exams. In fact, he was the only person who was smiling as he walked in to do the final exam on the final day; everyone else was completely mentally drained. So if you're facing a bunch of exams, try this approach!
PRACTICE: Mindfulness of Breath Meditation
| _10 minutes_.
This is the simplest and perhaps most powerful meditation practice of them all. By simple, I don't mean that being aware of your breathing is an easy thing to sustain. But the idea is very simple. Become aware of your breathing. When your mind wanders, bring your attention back. That's it! No need to judge or criticize or anything else. Just awareness of breath. Try practicing this without a guided audio and see how you do.
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1. Find a chair and sit up relatively straight, away from the back of the chair if you can. No need to be rigid or too uncomfortable. At the same time, avoid slouching. Adopt a dignified, yet comfortable posture. (See the drawing below.) Set a timer for about 10 minutes. Gently close your eyes if that feels okay with you.
2. Take a deep, full breath. Feel the air filling your lungs and being released.
3. Allow your breathing to be natural now. Feel the sensation of your breathing around your nose, throat, chest, or down in your belly area; wherever is easy for you.
4. Keep your attention on the feeling of your breath as best you can.
5. Each time your mind wanders, notice what sort of thought you were having. And identify it as _planning,_ or _worrying,_ or _past,_ or _ruminating,_ or however you wish to label the thought stream. You could just use the label _thinking_ if you prefer.
6. Then, without a need for criticism or self-judgment, gently guide your attention once again to the sensation of your breathing. Be friendly with yourself when you bring your attention back rather than criticizing yourself.
7. When the timer sounds, slowly open your eyes if they've been closed.
**"I find mindful breathing deeply nourishing for my body and mind. It took a while to accept that my mind will wander, but now I love practicing mindfulness of breath—that's my favorite practice."**
VARIATION: You can also try the meditation while standing up or lying down to see what affect this has.
GOING DEEPER: Try to keep your body and eyes as still as possible while you do the meditation. If you normally do the practice with eyes closed, keep them open and softly gaze downward to see what effect that has. And if you normally have your eyes open, try closing them. Notice how each breath may be slightly different from the next one. Try feeling the breath with an attitude of affection and warmth, as if you're watching a baby or beautiful sunset or a loved one. And notice your intention for the practice before you start. Ask yourself, "What is my intention for practicing mindfulness?"
**Reflection**
What did you notice in your body, mind, and emotions in this practice?
The most common response people have is: "My mind was all over the place. I can't meditate." Remember, as I've mentioned before, a wandering mind is quite normal and natural. The aim of mindfulness is not to quiet the mind. The aim is to gently raise your level of awareness. So your wandering mind is a stepping-stone for you to notice the patterns with which your mind works.
To _notice_ that your mind was wandering really is a
positive experience—it's a moment of mindfulness.
You may find mindfulness of breath a particularly challenging practice. Being mindful of your breathing may bring up feelings of anxiety, and perhaps your breathing starts to get more rapid or uncomfortable. If the exercise was not a pleasant experience, you may want to stop the practice or think you're doing the meditation wrong. That's totally understandable. But I would urge you to persevere with the technique. If you avoid the practice because you're trying to avoid feelings of anxiety, this may work in the short term, but in the long term you're avoiding your feelings, and this just makes the emotion more likely to return. If you can kindly and gently and curiously continue to move toward the uncomfortable feeling, your breathing is likely to settle and become a more comfortable and soothing experience.
| If you find your mind wanders continuously and you feel frustrated, you can try labeling each breath to give you a clearer focus. You can do this in three ways. Either you can say to yourself "in" or "in-breath" each time you breathe in, and "out" or "out-breath" each time you breathe out. Or you can say to yourself "breathing" each time you breathe in, and "smiling" as you breathe out. Or you can do this by saying "one" on the first in breath, "two" on the next out-breath, "three" on the next in-breath, and so on, until you get to 10. If you get to 10. Most likely, your mind will wander off to your shopping list or that argument you had with someone. When your mind comes back, begin again from 1.
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**Reflection:
Discoveries from Week 1 Mindfulness Experiments**
Now's the time to reflect on how your mindfulness experiments have been going in the last week.
What did you discover in the week that's just passed? Did you do the mindful experiments? What's going well? What's not going well? Do you have a mindfulness buddy, and if so, are you in touch? What needs to change this week, if anything?
**Note:** This is not a chance to beat yourself up if you didn't do the meditations; it's a chance to explore what happened. What thoughts got in the way? How can you _encourage_ yourself rather than just force or discipline yourself?
MINDFULNESS MEDITATION FAQs
**Q: I kept falling asleep in the body scan. Is that wrong?**
A: Nope! There's no right or wrong, no matter what happens. If you keep falling asleep in the body scan, try doing it at a different time of day and ensure you've had enough sleep. And try a different posture, like sitting or perhaps even briefly standing! Also notice what your mind is doing. Sometimes your mind makes you fall asleep to avoid the experience of the body scan. But don't worry if you keep falling asleep; the most important thing is to keep practicing.
**Q: I felt anxious/more pain/depressed/worried—what do I do?**
A: All sorts of different thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations can come up as part of meditation. (Remember Anastasia's confusion when she found herself crying?) You can't control that. What you can control is how you respond to them. So bring a quality of curiosity and openness to these experiences and see what happens. No experience lasts forever, so watch the experience arise and pass away.
**Q: I started to cry in my meditation. What's going on?**
A: It's perfectly normal for tears to come up in meditation practice. Some teachers even go as far as to say you haven't ever experienced a deep meditation if you've never cried in a meditation. Sometimes, emotions that you haven't addressed in your past or hurts that haven't been processed come to the surface. It can bring tears to your eyes. And that's a very healthy experience. Be kind to yourself, try placing your hand on your heart, and keep going if you can. It will pass.
**Q: I couldn't feel my feet/legs/anything. What's happening?**
A: If you can't feel a sensation, that's perfectly okay. That's quite normal, especially at the beginning. The idea is to just notice the absence of sensation. If it's too frustrating for you, you could try slightly tensing or moving that body part to see if you can feel that sensation. But if you can, just accept the experience as it is. You may find yoga easier, as there are more sensations available when you're stretching your body.
**Q: I found it boring. What can I do about that?**
A: Boredom is a normal reaction to this practice. Even if you feel bored, keep going. Boredom is just an emotion, and it will pass. Try not to _react_ to the emotion of boredom, but instead see if you notice where you feel it in your body, how powerful it is, and when it eventually passes. You can only "progress" in meditation when you can embrace the fact that boredom will come and go from time to time. Eventually you'll find your daily activities less boring, as well as your meditation.
Home Experiments: Week 2
Here are the daily mindfulness experiments for Week 2.
_Body Scan_
You are also invited to continue practicing the body scan meditation, whether you're doing the mini or full exercise. Continue to use the audio to guide you in the practice.
_Pleasant Experience_
This week you can experiment with recording one "pleasant experience" that you have on a daily basis. This doesn't have to be anything huge or life changing. Simply hearing a bird singing, someone holding a door open for you, enjoying the taste of your dinner, or someone smiling at you in a coffee shop is a pleasant experience. The key is to note down your thoughts, feelings, and body sensations at the time. For example, if the server smiled at you in a coffee shop, you may record: "Thought—'that's nice that she's smiling.' Feeling—'happy.' Body sensation—'smile on my own face, opening and warmth in my chest.' "
_Mindful Pause_
You're also invited to try the mindful pause three times a day. If you're doing the mini-course, you can do the mindful pause once a day. You'll probably find it easier if you decide when you'll do your mindful pauses. You can remember to do the practice by putting an alarm on your phone or setting an appointment with yourself in your journal.
_Mindful Booster_
This week's mindful booster is to brush your teeth with the opposite hand. If you are right-handed, use your left hand. And if you're left-handed, use your right hand. Simple!
You may be thinking, how is brushing with my left hand helping me with my stress?! Remember, by doing something different from your normal routine, you're becoming less automatic and more mindful. And greater mindfulness creates a greater awareness of not only the act of brushing your teeth but also your thought and emotional patterns, which may be currently wired to compound your stress.
**Week 2**
**Day** | **Mini-Course** | **Full Course**
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1 | Mini-body scan
1 × Mindful pause
Mindful booster: brush your teeth with your other hand | Body Scan
1 × Mindfulness of breath meditation
3 × Mindful pause
Write down a pleasant experience you had today. Record thoughts, feelings, and body sensations.
Mindful booster: brush your teeth with your other hand
2 | Mini-body scan
1 × Mindful pause
Mindful booster: brush your teeth with your other hand | Body scan
1 × Mindfulness of breath meditation
3 × Mindful pause
Write down a pleasant experience you had today. Record thoughts, feelings, and body sensations.
Mindful booster: brush your teeth with your other hand
3 | Mini-body scan
1 × Mindful pause
Mindful booster: brush your teeth with your other hand | Body scan
1 × Mindfulness of breath meditation
3 × Mindful pause
Write down a pleasant experience you had today. Record thoughts, feelings, and body sensations.
Mindful booster: brush your teeth with your other hand
4 | Mini-body scan
1 × Mindful pause
Mindful booster: brush your teeth with your other hand | Body scan
1 × Mindfulness of breath meditation
3 × Mindful pause
Write down a pleasant experience you had today. Record thoughts, feelings, and body sensations.
Mindful booster: brush your teeth with your other hand
5 | Mini-body scan
1 × Mindful pause
Mindful booster: brush your teeth with your other hand | Body scan
1 × Mindfulness of breath meditation
3 × Mindful pause
Write down a pleasant experience you had today. Record thoughts, feelings, and body sensations.
Mindful booster: brush your teeth with your other hand
6 | Mini-body scan
1 × Mindful pause
Mindful booster: brush your teeth with your other hand | Body scan
1 × Mindfulness of breath meditation
3 × Mindful pause
Write down a pleasant experience you had today. Record thoughts, feelings, and body sensations.
Mindful booster: brush your teeth with your other hand
# SIX
# _Week 3_
# The Joy and Value of Living in the Present
_"What day is it?"_
_"It's today," squeaked Piglet._
_"My favorite day," said Pooh._
—A. A. MILNE
INTENTIONS
_To discover the true value of living in the present._
_To explore mindfulness of breath meditation, the body scan, and mindful stretching approaches to bringing you into the here and now._
_To uncover how to enjoy mindful walking._
_To understand why your brain gets lost in stories and how to come back to the present moment._
WHEN MIGUEL first learned meditation, about 10 years ago, he _thought_ he was a focused person, living in the present. During the day he worked as a magazine editor, and in the evening he spent his time writing for various websites and other magazines. His mind was always on several things at the same time; he was a "multitasker."
He began to use mindfulness meditation to help with his sleep. He'd always been a bit of an insomniac, and he slotted a daily 10-minute mindfulness meditation into his busy schedule to see if it would help. He began to sleep longer and wake up more refreshed. The meditation was the only "downtime" that he had during his day. But he didn't apply mindful living to the rest of his life.
Miguel had an ongoing issue with his weight—it went up and down like a yo-yo. He was often on the latest fad diet, and exercise was like a military regimen for him. However, during his time at his last stressful job, Miguel had gained an extra 70 pounds, far more than he'd ever gained before. This shocked him. No matter how much effort and willpower he mustered, his weight just kept rising this time. He felt scared, confused, and frustrated.
Then one day, after one of his meditations, he thought, "What if I'm gaining this weight because I'm not really paying attention to what I'm doing?" This was a huge lightbulb moment for him! He began to watch himself very carefully and discovered he was absolutely right. Rarely did he actually taste his food, and everything was done in a rush. Practically all activities he engaged in involved multitasking. He had completely lost touch with his senses. He never looked up to see the clouds in the sky, feel the breeze against his skin, or take in his partner's smile. He had become disengaged with life, living a habitual, automatic, goal-driven, future-focused life. The incessant thinking in his brain sucked up all his attention.
He decided to be more present and to end an endless cycle of shame and self-criticism that he could now hear in his head. All the usual diet plans he'd tried seemed to use self-criticism to motivate the dieter, which was incredibly stressful. His meditation had taught him to live from one moment to the next, without judgment. He'd also noticed with his own dog that effective training is based on praising small, good behaviors rather than punishing undesirable behavior. So he decided to use the same approach in his own life, and to stop adopting the constant cycle of diet fads and punishments when he failed. He was going to be kind to himself and take small, positive steps to manage his weight, with mindfulness.
When Miguel meditated, his intention shifted to one based on self-kindness and respect. He deserved this time. And he balanced self-acceptance with a clear need to change his habits and behavior.
As he became more present with himself, he naturally also became more present with his food. His reactive, mindless eating began to dissolve, and the almost childlike joy of living in the present returned. He noticed that a lack of presence had meant there was no gap between the desire to eat something and actually eating that food. Now, when he saw a piece of cake, there was a space. Time for him to reflect and decide what to do. Time to take a mindful pause and make a choice. Time to be grateful that he had a meal available to him in the first place.
And most important, on the days he slipped up, Miguel didn't have to mentally punish himself. Instead, he remembered that self-compassion and presence are more important: not berating himself for an action that had already happened. He took a deep breath, came back to the present moment, and resolved to try again with a smile. He was awake to those moments of stress and took mindful action to reduce them.
Miguel's weight began to drop, pound by pound, week by week. He lost all the weight he had gained, this time at a healthy rate. Several years later his weight is still down, and he often shares the benefits of living in the present moment with anyone interested to listen.
THE VALUE OF BEING PRESENT
For Miguel, turning his attention to the present moment was critical to helping him manage his weight. He was then able to notice his eating habits and the overly self-critical commentary from his mind. He then took action, being kind to himself whether or not he was successful with his eating plan. It all started with being present in his own life.
As a human being, your brain is wired to think about the past and predict the future, as well as to connect with the present moment. But in our modern society, living in the present moment isn't really valued. It's easy to become a constant planner, forever thinking about your schedule for this week, this month, this year, and even this decade. But what about now? If you're constantly planning, you never arrive. This constant planning but lack of actually connecting with the moment is an easy mistake to make. If you're in this boat, you're certainly not alone.
Here's one of my favorite quotes, which I keep up on my noticeboard to remind me to live in the now:
First, I was dying to finish my high school and start
college. And then I was dying to finish college and start
working. Then I was dying to marry and have children.
And then I was dying for my children to grow old
enough so I could go back to work. But then I was dying
to retire. And now I am dying . . . And suddenly I realized
. . . I forgot to live. Please don't let this happen to you.
Appreciate your current situation and enjoy each day.
—AUTHOR UNKNOWN
Sound familiar? I'm not advocating every second of your life be lived in the here and now; that's unrealistic and thinking in a perfectionistic way. But a better balance needs to be found. Researchers have discovered that people spend only about half of their time paying attention in the present moment and the other half in thoughts about the past and future. So, if you lived to age 80, you'd have spent 40 years of your waking life thinking about what happened yesterday or last month or planning and worrying about the future. That's a lot. It's more enjoyable and valuable to spend the precious few years you have on this planet actually living in the moment. I often joke that there's a new, free technique to double your lifespan: it's called mindfulness.
Mindfulness offers a set of practical tools, exercises, and attitudes to help you live in the present and make the present moment a more enjoyable and interesting place to be in. After all, the present moment is the only place where you can think, create, learn, grow, and take action.
THOUGHT IS NOT THE ENEMY
If you're thinking, that doesn't mean you're not mindful. If you are consciously choosing to think and reflect on what happened yesterday, and you know that you're thinking about yesterday, that's mindfulness. If you're consciously deciding to plan and choose what to do next month, and you know that you're doing so, that's mindfulness too. Mindful thinking is a conscious, deliberate observation of your thinking happening, without getting caught up in the thought process.
There is a time to deliberately think and plan and a time to connect with your senses. If you're at work, you probably need to spend a good deal of time thinking and taking action. But if you're walking along the beach, in a forest, or even walking home from work, that's the time to be present. To feel the gentle breeze against your skin, to notice the rose in a front yard, to hear a plane in the distance and the crunching of leaves under your feet.
Thoughts will always arise and pass away, just like the sun always rises and sets. You don't fight with the sunrise or sunset—you accept that that's the nature of the sun. In the same way, you don't need to fight your thoughts. It's the nature of thoughts to arise and pass away in your mind. In mindfulness, you learn to step back and watch the thoughts.
**"Suddenly, the penny dropped. I don't need to battle with my thoughts. What a relief! I had always thought I was a failure at meditation because I couldn't shut my brain up. Now I focus on my breathing and let my mind carry on—and strangely, it seems to be quieter!"**
Even judgment and self-criticism can be mindful. If you are _aware_ that your mind is judging, criticizing, or feeling anxious, then you're not lost in that feeling. That's what Miguel did in the earlier example: he saw how his mind was criticizing him. That's mindfulness. He then began to use a more friendly approach to himself to help reduce his stress and increase his sense of well-being, giving him the strength to manage his weight.
_Research Corner:
A Wandering Mind Is an Unhappy Mind_
A study by Matthew Killingsworth at Harvard University tracked the thoughts, feelings, and actions of 2,250 volunteers on their smartphones. They found people's minds wander 47% of the time. People reported that they are happiest when they are in the present, and higher levels of happiness are linked to lower levels of excessive stress. The study was aptly titled "A wandering mind is an unhappy mind." This seems to add further evidence for what many meditation practitioners in the East have been recommending: spend more time paying attention to whatever you're doing in the present moment rather than letting your mind go and wander wherever it pleases.
By learning to live in the present, you're able to step back from your thoughts and see them as just that: thoughts. And your feelings of anxiety arising from stress can also be seen as an experience that arises and passes away, like all other emotions. By dissociating from the feeling, you're able to stop reacting and compounding the emotion.
The first time I learned the value of living in the present moment in an Eastern philosophy class, I was hooked! Before learning to be mindful, I was a constant thinker, and I wasn't aware of it. I was lost in thinking when I was driving, when I was walking, and when in conversation. I didn't think paying attention to my surroundings or my own bodily sensations was useful in any way. Why would I? I had never thought of cultivating that background quality that makes us all human but is so easily forgotten: awareness itself. My belief was life was short and shouldn't be wasted—and by spending all my time planning for the future, I'd have a better life, as would those around me. I didn't _value_ present-moment living because I didn't know its importance.
All of life is experienced in the present moment. The here and now. There is no other place to live a fulfilling life. The past was in the present moment. The future will be in the present moment. So use mindfulness to make the moment a more fully experienced one, where you can make conscious decisions for both you and those you come in contact with.
Every experience you've ever had, every thought that's
popped into your mind, every trip, every success
and failure, all your hopes and dreams happen
in the present moment.
DEALING WITH MULTITASKING STRESS
One of the main ways you may be missing out on present-moment living is through multitasking. Everyone multitasks, some more and some less. Modern technology encourages it. You may text while driving, watch TV while eating, and check your e-mail while speaking on the phone.
You probably multitask out of habit. The idea is you try to get more things done in less time. After a while, it becomes a powerful habit that's hard to break. My friend told me yesterday that he recently realized, after losing his job and starting a business that isn't taking off, that he's checking his e-mail and Twitter account about 20 times an hour! This is draining his energy and focus, and he knows it is making him more inefficient but is struggling to break the habit.
What's the Problem?
Rapidly switching attention from one thing to another actually diminishes your ability to do one thing at a time. So you have a greater chance of distracting yourself in the future with yet more multitasking.
What's the Solution?
If you're really addicted to multitasking, start small. Set aside a period of time where you will just focus on the task at hand. Make sure you turn off any possible distractions. As your ability to single-task increases, try longer periods of time. Each time your mind wanders, simply and kindly bring your attention back, just like in meditation. In this way, your life becomes a meditation!
When working on my computer, I set a timer on my phone for 30 minutes. I do one task during that time and then take a 5-minute break to have a mindful stretch, drink some water, and take a mental step back from my work. This has hugely improved my productivity, and I feel my stress is much lower. Stretching every half hour is better for my body, too. Try once every hour if every 30 minutes sounds impossible to you.
I use an online calendar and have set times to check my e-mail and phone. I need to check e-mail only once or twice a day, and that's what I do—your job may require more. I save my most productive time of the day to do the most important tasks (the morning for me) and check e-mail when I'm less creative and need a break from tasks that require a lot of thought (early afternoon).
**Reflection**
To help you decide how often you need to check your messages, practice the mindful pause (see Chapter 5) and then ask yourself the following question: "If I'm totally honest with myself, what is the minimum number of times I can check my messages in a day?"
Allow yourself some time to reflect on the question before writing down your answer. If it's fewer times than you currently check, begin to implement this new habit by scheduling time to check. Your ability to be mindful and focused will improve as a result.
Here are a few more tips for using technology mindfully. They are all based around taking control by setting boundaries:
• **Switch off the alerts sent when you get a new e-mail or instant message**. You'll be distracted by the sound and will be tempted to stop your current task to meet someone else's need, which may not be important. If this is not possible due to the nature of your work, see if you can find a solution by discussing it with your manager. A study in 2012 by researchers at the University of California found that employees who had their e-mail switched off had a lower heart rate variability (and therefore lower stress) and increased the amount of single-tasking. This led to greater productivity and well-being.
• **Turn off your phone for chunks of the day.** If your phone is on all day, it's like you're on call all day. Anyone can distract you from your task whenever they wish. Designate periods of the day to just focus on your task if you can.
_Research Corner:
Enhance Your Brain by Reducing Multitasking_
At Stanford University, Clifford Nass carried out a study on multitasking on 262 college students. He expected that regular multitaskers would be better able to complete a multitasking experiment than others.
He found the opposite. Chronic multitaskers were terrible at multitasking! And more interestingly, even when they were given one task to do, they did it less effectively. So the moral is, practice mindfully doing one task at a time to maximize your efficiency and minimize your stress.
• **Avoid taking your work back home.** If you're checking e-mail at home, you're at work. Find time to separate work from your home life. Checking your work messages will raise your stress levels. If you have to check messages at home, do so earlier rather than later in the evening to prevent the stress from affecting your sleep.
• **Turn off your phone when driving.** Research by transport authorities and others have found speaking on the phone while driving is as dangerous as driving while drunk. And having a hands-free phone is not safer. Driving mindfully can and does save lives.
BODILY SENSATIONS: A POWERFUL WAY TO BE PRESENT
Your mind can pay attention fully to only one thing at any time, so one of the easiest ways to be in the present is to become aware of your bodily sensations. This is because your body is always in the present. If you're fully paying attention to your bodily sensations, you're not lost in thinking about what happened in the past or worrying about the future. You can't be both lost in thoughts and fully paying attention to your bodily sensations.
What do I mean by bodily sensations? Here are some examples:
• Aches
• Heat or cold
• Itching, tingling, or throbbing
• Lightness or heaviness
• Numbness
• Pressure
• Sharp or dull pain
• Tension or tightness
• An absence of sensation altogether
These sensations may not sound like a very exciting place to keep your attention. But once you focus your attention on bodily sensations, you discover a range of interesting aspects.
• You experience and notice that **bodily sensations are always changing** —they are temporary. They never stay exactly the same. They tend to rise and pass away, just as a wave gradually rises and falls. And if you seem to have a permanent sensation of pain, for example, even then the pain disappears when you fall asleep and there are moments in the day when the pain diminishes. Many people with chronic pain find mindfulness helps them notice times in the day when the pain is diminished or completely absent.
• **Feeling bodily sensations can be a pleasant experience.** People often describe the process as grounding or nourishing. Some people say tuning in to bodily sensations gives them a feeling of wholeness or completeness. There is pleasure to be discovered in simply being mindful of your bodily sensations at any time during the day.
• **Bodily sensations can accurately signal your current levels of stress.** You discover your bodily sensations are intimately linked to your emotional state. Pretty much all emotions have a component linked to sensation in your body. The body sensations that are linked to emotions are slightly different for different people. For you, anxiety may involve a tingling in the stomach and tightness in the shoulders, sadness may be a tightening in the chest and weakness in the muscles, happiness may involve a sense of opening in the chest area and a smile on the face and a sense of relaxation in your forehead. Stress may make you feel anxious or sad or angry, and you'll be able to sense these emotions in your body if you're mindful. You can then decide what you need to best take care of yourself.
• You find that **mindfulness seems to have a long-term positive effect on bodily sensations.** For example, when you feel tension in your body with a kindly, curious, open, nonjudgmental awareness, the tension tends to ease. And if it doesn't, you are more accepting of the tension and so it's not so much a problem. Emotions also seem to process more effectively with mindful awareness. By noticing the dimension of bodily sensations when you're experiencing a difficult emotion, you're less likely to get lost in the "story" of the emotion and instead can allow the e- _motion_ to do just that—keep moving!
• **You actually experience how thoughts affect your bodily sensations, for better or worse.** As emotions are linked to your thoughts, your thoughts affect your bodily sensations. When your attention dwells on stressful thoughts such as all the things on your to-do list, you're more likely to feel anxiety rising and have the bodily sensations that typically come with it. And even when you're not meditating but going about your everyday activities, whatever your senses take in is judged by your thoughts, and this affects your emotions and then bodily sensations. Just consider what effect the flavor of your favorite food has on your body. Or the smell of something unpleasant. Or the sight of a beautiful sunrise over a lake.
The truth is, many different factors affect your bodily sensation at any one moment, as can be seen in the diagram below. You can see how being aware of exactly how your body feels gives you a "report" of how things are going for you. So now you know why mindfulness often emphasizes awareness of your bodily sensations and how useful this can be in your everyday life, giving you information about how you're feeling and so helping you decide what you need to do to take care of yourself and reduce your stress.
**"After doing the body scan for a couple of weeks, I was walking down the stairs and actually felt my legs. I know it sounds crazy, but normally I don't feel them unless I'm hurt. Instead I was feeling my body and for the first time in literally years it felt good to just be alive and feel my body."**
For example, I just practiced a mindful pause. Before the pause I had a feeling of a little headache and a need to get my work done. After doing the pause and tuning in to my bodily sensations, I noticed that the back of my neck was tense—and it released itself as I felt it along with a deep breath. I then noticed that my thoughts were going to a mini-workshop that I'm teaching this afternoon and haven't had time to plan yet. That little bit of stress was causing anxiety and probably my headache; the headache was not due to a lack of water or fresh air. So now I shall get on with planning that session, which I'm sure will lower my level of stress. This is a small example of a mindful way through stress.
**Tales of Wisdom: The Three Questions**
Once upon a time, an interesting thought came to a king. He thought if he could answer three questions, he wouldn't fail at anything he did. The questions were:
• When is the best time to do each thing?
• Who are the most important people to work with?
• What is the most important thing to do?
So he decided to consult a hermit, widely renowned for his wisdom. The king walked through a forest to find the hermit. The hermit was digging. The king asked the hermit his questions, but the hermit just kept digging. The king noticed the hermit was old and tired, so he offered his help. The king kept digging, until evening came. Tired, he stopped and asked the hermit for his advice again. The hermit said "Look, there's someone running—see who it is!"
A man came running through the woods and collapsed. He was bleeding around his stomach. The king rushed to look after him, washing and bandaging his wound, looking after him for hours. He then carried him to the hermit's hut, as the sun had set and it was getting cold. By this time the king was so exhausted that he fell asleep next to the wounded man.
The next morning, the king woke up and found the wounded man awake and smiling at him. "Forgive me!" said the man. "I was planning to kill you in revenge. I'm your enemy because you executed my brother. I was wounded by one of your bodyguards when I tried to enter the forest. But without your kindness last night, I would have surely died. Forgive me. I'm no longer your enemy. I'm your humble servant!"
The king was pleased to hear an enemy had turned into an ally.
The king still didn't have the answers to his questions. So he begged the hermit one more time to answer his three questions.
The hermit said: "You already have your answers. By being mindful of my needs in the present moment and helping, you met the wounded man. Being kind to him turned a potential killer into a friend."
1. The most important time is now. The present is the only time over which we have power.
2. The most important person is whomever you are with.
3. The most important thing is to do good to the person you are with.
And I'd like to add, if you happen to be on your own at any time, _you're_ the most important person you're with, and the most important thing to do is to do good to _yourself_!
PRACTICE: Mindful Yoga
| _10 minutes_.
---|---
| _30 minutes_.
_Audio tracks 9 (mini) and (full)._
At this point in your reading, consider practicing some mindful stretching and yoga. See Chapter 13 for an introduction to yoga and then carry out the mini or full yoga sequence, depending on which course you've chosen to do or which sequence you have time for right now. Alternatively, you can try out one of the sequences after reading the whole chapter (if you try both mini and full sequences, you can figure out which you want to try for the week's practices). You can also use the audio download to guide you in the practice. That's the easiest way for most people.
PRACTICE: Mindfulness of Breath Meditation
| _10 minutes_.
---|---
| _10 minutes_.
_Audio track 12_.
Let's now finish the yoga practice with mindfulness of breath meditation, ideally in an upright sitting posture. Sitting upright makes staying awake and in the moment a little easier. Traditionally the stretches in yoga were designed to help relax the body so that you could then practice meditation in a sitting posture comfortably. If you have time and space, practice some yoga stretches before engaging in this meditation. This meditation fits into either the mini or the full course, although it takes only 10 minutes. The instructions for the meditation are in Week 2.
Whenever you feel your bodily sensations, you're taking a step into the present moment. In this short sitting meditation, you can practice feeling your body sensations for 10 minutes.
DISCOVERING MODES OF MIND: DOING AND BEING MODE
Chronic stress can generate difficult emotions like anxiety and sadness. When these emotions are fleeting, they are not a problem. But if the emotions stay with you for long periods, with high levels of intensity, you can find getting on with your daily activity more challenging. How can you let these emotions go?
To answer this question, you need to understand two different modes of mind, studied by researchers over the last 10 years: doing and being mode.
**Doing mode** is an important everyday mode of mind. Doing mode involves setting goals in your mind and taking action to achieve those goals. Working actively to finish the tasks on your to-do list is a classic example of doing mode.
**Being mode** is not about goals or change, but about allowing and accepting your present-moment reality. Being mode involves a connection with your senses. If you're fully in being mode, you don't get any of your tasks done. Watching a sunset with your attention fully focused, even for a few moments, is an example of pure being mode.
Some activities in life require more doing mode, and others require more being mode. Mindfulness offers you the ability to see whether you're in doing mode, being mode, or somewhere in between. You are then able to switch from one mode of mind to another. The diagram below shows how you can shift between using doing mode to achieve goals and using being mode to manage emotions. In this way, you are better able to handle the emotions that can arise from stress.
Don't think of doing as bad and being as good. _They
both have to be balanced for a full and satisfying life._
Let's take an example.
Stuck in Doing Mode
You think, "My child is misbehaving, yet again." You feel anxious. You think, "What can I do? What if she behaves badly for the next 10 years? How can I cope with that?" You get angry with your child, really trying to make her stop kicking the sofa. She starts crying. You grab her, tell her not to misbehave, and get into a fight. You keep trying to think of action you can take to banish your anxiety.
Moving between Being and Doing Mode
You feel anxiety about your relationship with your husband. Rather than ignoring the feeling or trying to fix anything, you notice the sensation in your belly. You feel the tingling. You hear thoughts in your head but watch them like clouds passing through the sky, not engaging with them. You take a deep breath. You notice the sound of the tree in the breeze in your garden and a plane flying in the distance. Your shoulders start to relax, which makes you smile. The anxiety naturally lessens. You are living in the present with being mode.
You then engage doing mode and start thinking about how you can make things better between you and your husband tonight by treating yourselves to your favorite restaurant.
Doing mode is for getting things done. Being mode is
for resting and dealing with emotions.
There is no such thing as a "bad" emotion. Emotions are just emotions. You're a human being, and human beings naturally have emotions. And emotions are not all pleasant—it's unrealistic to feel happy and stress-free _all_ the time. You can cultivate a mind that is less likely to feel stressed, but this comes through learning and accepting all emotions that can come and visit you.
Emotions are not problems to be solved.
They are experiences to be felt.
Once you stop seeing emotions as all bad, you're less judgmental and self-critical. The emotions no longer need to be fixed. And so thoughts like "Why am I feeling so anxious? What's wrong with me?" don't come up so much. And if they do, you don't take those thoughts so seriously. You live in the present moment with your feeling, accept the emotion for what it is, and move on.
So another benefit of living in the present is a greater ability to process difficult emotions so they don't get stuck to you so much.
Walking Mindfully: A Way into Being Mode
I love teaching mindful walking in my classes, especially to people who have never tried mindful walking before. Most people either find it funny or gasp with amazement at how little they knew about their own process of walking.
Normally you walk for a reason: you want to get somewhere. You walk to get a glass of water from downstairs or to pick up the milk from your local store. And so your attention is rarely on the process of walking itself; your focus is on the destination.
Mindful walking is different. When you practice mindful walking, your attention is in the present moment, not on what you're trying to do. Here are the aspects of the present moment that you could notice when doing mindful walking:
• Your breathing
• The sensations in your feet
• The sensations in your legs
• The air against your skin
• The sounds you hear
• The colors that you see
• The smells
**"I felt really silly when I first tried mindful walking in the session. But once I actually gave my full attention to the process of walking and not my worries, it was freeing—it was like I was walking on the moon! I managed to give full attention to the moment and totally forgot about my work worries!"**
Have you ever watched a young child walking? She is walking mindfully, fully connected with her senses. She sees the puddle and marvels at the color and usually jumps in! She's curious, enchanted, and not at all worried about how late she is. If she spots a beautiful flower, she will pluck it. If she hears a plane, she'll gaze and smile and say, "Wow." Imagine living like that? Well, you probably did live in that way as a child, at least some of the time, and so you do know how to live that way. Mindfulness is about rekindling that enthusiasm for the here and now. Exciting, isn't it?
PRACTICE: Mindful Walking
| _5 minutes_.
---|---
| _10 minutes_.
_Audio track 11_.
This practice takes 5–10 minutes. As a beginner of mindful walking, I recommend you walk very slowly, somewhere you'll feel comfortable and safe. Most people start in their own homes or perhaps their yard. Here's how to do mindful walking:
1. **Set your intention**. Begin by being clear that for the next 5 minutes or so you're going to give your full attention to mindful walking. Ensure any potential distractions are reduced.
2. **Take three deep, mindful breaths.** This little ritual helps to send a signal to your brain that you're engaging in the mindful exercise now. The deep breaths also help to reduce the stress response in your body.
3. **Stand upright.** To begin with, you simply need to stand upright, and if you can balance, close your eyes for a few moments. Notice whether your body is tense or relaxed. Feel the distribution of weight on your feet and sway to the left and right, front and back, to find a central, balanced point so your weight is evenly spread between your feet.
4. **Lift, move, place.** As you walk, the process is made of three steps: lifting a foot, moving it in front of the other foot, and placing the foot. Then the process of lifting, moving, and placing switches to the other foot. So notice this cycle of lifting, moving, and placing. You can even say to yourself, "lifting, moving, placing" as you do so.
5. **Stop when your mind wanders.** As with any other meditation, your mind wanders—that's part of the experience. When you notice that your mind is lost in thoughts, stop walking, take three deep, mindful breaths, and then restart the process.
6. **Stop and turn around.** Once you reach the end of your room or yard, stop. Take a few moments to notice how you feel emotionally, as well as how your body feels physically. Then turn around slowly. Experience the process of turning around. Notice all the different muscles involved and how you twist your body around. Then pause for a few moments before beginning your walk back.
7. **End the practice.** You can bring this gentle practice to an end with three mindful deep breaths again. Then see if you can be mindful with whatever you need to do next but giving the task your full attention. This is an example of a mindful transition from one activity to another.
|
Start with a slow speed, but remember, mindful does not equal slow. You can even practice mindfulness when sprinting!
If you walk in a circle, you don't need to stop and turn around when practicing at home or in a park or yard.
When you go for a normal walk in your everyday life, just give attention to one aspect of the experience. This could be your feet, your breathing, or the beauty of your surroundings. Whatever you like! There are no rules to mindful walking, as long as your intention is to be in the present moment and experience whatever happens unfold.
You can use this as a mindful booster whenever you like.
GOING DEEPER: See if you can go even slower. Take twice as long to take each step and see what else you can notice. Perhaps you'll observe how the rate of your breathing changes or discover new muscles that are involved when walking, such as your back muscles. Also, experiment with adding a little smile on your face to see what affect that has.
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WALKING MEDITATION FAQs
**Q: I lose my balance when walking. What can I do?**
A: Keep your eyes open, first of all! Some people mistakenly think they need to keep their eyes closed, but this isn't necessary. If you lose your balance because you're walking slowly, this is _very_ common. Try walking near a wall when doing slow mindful walking so you don't fall over—that's important. You will get better at it once you have more practice; your brain is relearning to walk at a slower pace.
**Q: I get overwhelmed by all the things I can notice and see. Help!**
A: Many people have this issue when they walk outside, as there's so much to see! Try focusing on something simple, like the sensations of your feet on the ground. When your attention is drawn to your other senses, just softly bring your awareness back to the soles of your feet as you walk.
**Q: Can I do mindful walking when walking briskly to work?**
A: Yes! You can't notice the finer details of your bodily sensations when you walk quickly, but that's okay. See if you can stay in the moment instead of worrying about what's going to happen once you get to work. Or if you have a lot to think about, give yourself 10 minutes to think about the issues, but then make your intention to live in the moment and walk with mindfulness.
**Q: Is mindful walking the same as walking meditation?**
A: Yes, they are different terms for the same thing.
**Q: I don't have time for mindful walking, as I'm so busy. What can I do?**
A: Mindful walking doesn't take up any extra time. Whenever you walk, simply walk with mindful awareness of your moment-to-moment experience rather than constantly planning or worrying. There's a time to plan and a time to be mindful.
**Q: Most of my day is spent at the office. How could I do some mindful walking there without looking stupid?**
A: Just walk as you normally do and give your attention to the moment. Nobody will know that you're walking mindfully. That's undercover mindfulness!
**Q: Is mindful walking really as good as normal meditation?**
A: Yes. Meditation doesn't mean you need to be still. In the Buddhist tradition, for example, they consider four "postures" in meditation: sitting, lying down, standing, and walking. In retreats and workshops, often plenty of time is given to walking meditation.
IS YOUR BRAIN LOST IN A STRESSFUL STORY?
You now know that one key aspect of stress is the thoughts that you believe to be true, that pop into your head. If your thoughts suggest all is well and you're in control, your stress levels stay balanced. However, if your thoughts dwell on the negative and make you feel out of control, your stress levels rise.
Thoughts usually come in the form of stories in your head. The human brain loves stories. Since ancient times, stories have been passed on from generation to generation. Literature is filled with stories, from Aesop's fables to the plays of Shakespeare. Historians often conjure up images of ancient cultures sitting around a fire telling each other stories.
Consider the brain a story-telling machine. From the moment you wake up in the morning, you're telling yourself the story of your own life. In the initial second or so of waking up, you're just present, without your story. Perhaps you've noticed this? And then your personal story comes rushing into awareness, usually without your awareness. Your brain reminds you who you are, where you live, and what you need to do. This is all an automatic process.
You're telling yourself stories about all sorts of people, situations, events, and challenges all the time. By becoming aware that you're telling yourself a story about a particular stressful situation, you can consider whether that story is actually true. By definition, being a story, it may not be totally true. Everyone sees stories differently.
Your sense of self is constructed in two ways: either using stories created over time, or through your present-moment experiences. If I asked, "Who are you?" you'd probably tell me your name. If I asked again, you would start telling me your story—where you were born, what you do for work, what you do in your spare time, and so on. But you can also _sense_ who you are without your story. And you do this by connecting with your senses. That's where mindfulness comes in.
The story-telling brain, activating the default network, includes activity in the part of your brain responsible for memory. Waiting in a line at the local mall, your mind wanders, daydreams, and worries. But this network can also easily engage when you're taking a stroll through your local park. Rather than seeing the beauty, you can become caught up in your little world of concerns and worries. It is the story you tell yourself about your own life, the lives of other people you know, and how you all interact with each other.
There's nothing wrong with the narrative-based part of your brain. But you don't want to limit your life to your personal narrative, as it's easy to get lost in negative thoughts and emotions if you're not mindful. Evidence is mounting that the more you are continually lost in stories in your mind, the more susceptible you are to excessive stress and anxiety.
Fascinating research in 2007 by Norman Farb and colleagues at the University of Toronto tested one group that had completed an 8-week course in mindfulness meditation and a novice group that hadn't. The researchers discovered another network in the brain that activates when you connect with your senses—direct experience. This involves parts of the brain responsible for bodily sensations and for switching attention. This direct experience activation is a mindful state. You're living in the present moment—it is _being mode_ in operation. As you walk through the park you notice the scent of the trees, the color of the flowers, and the sensations in your body.
The researchers found the mindfulness course group was more aware when they were lost in a narrative. The neural activity for the story-telling brain and the direct experience in their brains were more distinctly separated in the new meditators. They could therefore switch from the story-telling brain to a present-moment focus more easily.
You can't have both the narrative and direct-experience networks of your brain activated at the same time. So as you're strolling through the park, if you're lost in your default narrative network, you're more likely to dwell on your stressors. But there's good news. As soon as you begin to activate the direct-experience network part of your brain—which can be as simple as feeling your breath or the gentle breeze against your face—your narrative network calms down and the direct-experience network in your brain activates. You notice an old friend you've been meaning to talk to, a new path back home from the woods, and your stress levels begin to ease.
**Reflection**
Enter your answers in your journal if you like.
1. Try completing the following sentences to discover what the story-telling brain is telling you about yourself right now. Just note the first word or sentence that comes to mind; no need to think too much about it.
I am . . .
I am also . . .
I live in . . .
Today I need to . . .
My childhood was . . .
I'm grateful for . . .
Life is . . .
The world is . . .
In the future I will . . .
I like myself because . . .
Other people are . . .
The purpose of life is . . .
I will be mindful by . . .
My stress is caused by . . .
I will reduce my stress by . . .
Here is an important question to consider: **Do you think your answers would change if you were in a really happy mood right now?** If so, are the answers absolute facts or just your current story?
2. Consider something that's causing you stress at the moment. What is the story you're telling yourself about the situation?
_Now practice the Mindful Pause from Week 2 for a few minutes._
3. Now think about the wisest person you know. It may be someone you know personally and have respect for like your grandmother, an uncle, or a colleague at work. Or it could be someone you admire, like the Dalai Lama, Socrates, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., or Nelson Mandela.
How would that person see this story if he or she were in your shoes?
What action would this person take to overcome the challenge?
_Now practice the Mindful Pause for a few minutes again._
Recalling your stressor, does it still cause as much stress? Do you have any ideas or solutions to help reduce the stress, even just a tiny bit?
Invictus
This is a poem that famously inspired the late Nelson Mandela during his decades of incarceration in South Africa. He used to read the poem to lift the spirits of fellow prisoners.
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
—WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY (1875)
**Reflection**
What effect did this poem have on you? Write your thoughts in your journal if you like.
**Reflection:
Discoveries from Week 2 Home Experiments**
Here's an opportunity for you to reflect on how your meditation practice and experiments have been going over the last week. Consider each one in turn and make good use of your journal to reflect on how things have gone for you.
**Body scan:** You've been practicing the body scan for a couple of weeks now. Some people start to feel really bored with the practice; other people start to enjoy it. Neither is right or wrong. What has your experience been like in the last week?
**Mindful pause:** Did you remember to practice the mindful pause? If not, what can you do this week to remind yourself? If you did remember, what effect did the mindful pause have? For many of my students, the mindful pause is their most valuable practice.
**Pleasant events calendar:** Did you have a go at filling in this calendar? If not, can you schedule time to complete it this week? What patterns did you notice? You'll get a chance to explore the calendar in greater detail in a week's time.
**Mindful booster:** What did you discover when brushing your teeth with your other hand? Did the process make you feel more present and conscious rather than automatic? Some people find the process fascinating, whereas others get frustrated or just give up. What happened to you?
Home Experiments: Week 3
The recommended home experiments for you alternate this week. One day it's the body scan and the other day it's mindful yoga.
_Body Scan_
As you're alternating between the body scan and mindful yoga every day, notice what effect this is having on your practice. Around Week 3, I often find people getting particularly frustrated with the meditation as the novelty has worn off. So don't be surprised if you experience this with the body scan, and I warmly encourage you to persevere, despite what your mind is telling you!
_Mindful Yoga_
For the yoga, you can also either do 10 minutes or the full 30 minutes. If you're doing 10 minutes, try the exercises outlined in the mini-yoga sequence in Chapter 13. If you're doing 30 minutes, use both tracks from the yoga audio download—the mini followed by the full. Remember to do the exercises slowly and with kindly attention to your body and pay special attention to your breathing. Set a timer so you know when you've practiced for long enough or stop if you feel your body needs to stop.
_Unpleasant Experience_
As you recorded your pleasant experiences last week, this week you can try recording unpleasant experiences! Keep an attitude of curiosity and openness when you do this and remember to record your body sensations, thoughts, and emotions around the unpleasant experience. This may begin to reveal personal patterns that you haven't noticed before.
_Mindful Booster_
This week's booster is based on your daily walk. If you walk on the same route every day, try taking a different path this week. This may involve walking a little farther, or maybe just walking on the other side of the road. If you can't do that, just try walking in a really mindful way. Simply feel the sensations of your feet as you walk. Give attention to the soles of your feet, just as you focused on your breathing in the mindfulness of breath meditation—with curiosity, care, and patience.
| Walk a tiny bit slower than you normally do, to help get you out of your habitual way of moving and make you more conscious of your actions.
---|---
_Mindful Pause_
Continue to do the three mindful pauses every day. Or just once a day if that's all you can manage. That's great practice, and you'll be learning how to use the Mindful Pause to catch stress and meet it mindfully before it rises up too much.
Week 3
**Day** | **Mini-Course** | **Full Course**
---|---|---
1 | Mini-yoga practice
Note an unpleasant experience you had today and record thoughts, feelings, and body sensations.
Mindful booster: take a different route home or simply walk mindfully | Full yoga practice
1 × Mindfulness of Breath Meditation
3 × Mindful Pause
Note an unpleasant experience you had today and record thoughts, feelings, and body sensations.
Mindful booster: take a different route home or simply walk mindfully
2 | Mini-body scan
Note an unpleasant experience you had today and record thoughts, feelings, and body sensations.
Mindful booster: take a different route home or simply walk mindfully | Full body scan
1 × Mindfulness of Breath Meditation
3 × Mindful Pause
Note an unpleasant experience you had today and record thoughts, feelings, and body sensations.
Mindful booster: take a different route home or simply walk mindfully
3 | Mini-yoga practice
Note an unpleasant experience you had today and record thoughts, feelings, and body sensations.
Mindful booster: take a different route home or simply walk mindfully | Full yoga practice
1 × Mindfulness of Breath Meditation
3 × Mindful Pause
Note an unpleasant experience you had today and record thoughts, feelings, and body sensations.
Mindful booster: take a different route home or simply walk mindfully
4 | Mini-body scan
Note down an unpleasant experience you had today and record thoughts, feelings, and body sensations.
Mindful booster: take a different route home or simply walk mindfully | Full body scan
1 × Mindfulness of Breath Meditation
3 × Mindful Pause
Note down an unpleasant experience you had today and record thoughts, feelings, and body sensations.
Mindful booster: take a different route home or simply walk mindfully
5 | Mini-yoga practice
Note an unpleasant experience you had today and record thoughts, feelings, and body sensations.
Mindful booster: take a different route home or simply walk mindfully | Full yoga practice
1 × Mindfulness of Breath Meditation
3 × Mindful Pause
Note an unpleasant experience you had today and record thoughts, feelings, and body sensations.
Mindful booster: take a different route home or simply walk mindfully
6 | Mini-body scan
Note an unpleasant experience you had today and record thoughts, feelings, and body sensations.
Mindful booster: take a different route home or simply walk mindfully | Full body scan
1 × Mindfulness of Breath Meditation
3 × Mindful Pause
Note an unpleasant experience you had today and record thoughts, feelings, and body sensations.
Mindful booster: take a different route home or simply walk mindfully
# SEVEN
# _Week 4_
# Understanding and Managing Stress
_It's not stress that kills us, it is our reaction to it._
—HANS SELYE
INTENTIONS
_To discover the physiology of stress._
_To find out how mindfulness helps you deal with stress._
_To explore how to maintain peace in the face of pleasant and unpleasant experiences._
_To practice some new mindful yoga sequences._
SOFIA HAD suffered with anxiety since high school, and now, in her mid-twenties, she felt like she was reaching the breaking point. She wasn't sure how much more negativity her brain could take. She was always scared of spending time with other people, thinking how they were probably judging her for looking stupid and constantly frightened of saying the wrong thing. She was exhausted by the relentless fear of socializing with others that held a firm grip on her mind and body.
She'd tried some counseling, read countless books on reducing anxiety, and out of desperation decided to give meditation a try, having read about the benefits on an Internet forum. She didn't like the idea of meditation at all, first because it sounded religious and spiritual and she didn't believe in that stuff, and second because she had lost all hope of being able to help herself.
She got a mindfulness meditation CD and began to listen to the guidance for doing mindfulness of breath meditation. Through the exercise, she began to realize that by feeling her breath she could allow her negative thoughts about herself and others to dissolve gradually. Yes, her mind did keep coming back to her worries, but as the mindfulness audio advised, she repeatedly returned her attention to her breath. The more she practiced the more her anxiety diminished, as her awareness was more focused on breathing than her ruminating, self-defeating thoughts. She realized that these worries about what other people were thinking were just stories in her mind—they weren't necessarily true at all. She was just feeling anxious about false ideas her own mind had made up.
Sofia was hooked. She committed to practicing meditation every morning. The peace of mind she accessed through mindful breathing prevented her mind from getting into its habitual negative cycles at the start of the day. With that positive start, she felt less stress during the day and was more focused and present for the tasks she had to do.
Sofia's key discovery was that the human mind can fabricate stories that seem so real and frightening and yet actually are completely untrue. The wild mind can come up with hopeless ideas, and the low mood they generate creates a cycle of despair. She found that once you start to cultivate a greater level of self-awareness, you begin to naturally access those deep resources of inner serenity—a wellspring of hope.
DISCOVER: THE PHYSIOLOGY OF STRESS
In Chapter 1 you learned a little about the difference between pressure and stress. Medium levels of pressure can be energizing and motivating. But as the pressure rises to higher levels, as for Sofia, your body fully engages the stress response. What exactly is the stress response, and what happens in your body when the stress response is triggered? You'll find out in this section. If you feel stress is something that you experience more than others, I hope the following information will show you how universal the effects of stress are, and how understanding them can help us all reduce stress.
This doesn't mean all experts see stress in the same way. But, in fact, understanding stress from different perspectives can help you form a more complete picture of what stress is, its underlying causes, and the best ways of responding mindfully rather than reacting automatically. See which ideas resonate with you.
I've had a personal fascination with the subject of stress from a young age. When I first experienced a significant amount of stress, in college, I began to read about the subject. What I found most interesting was that stress is not just a casual word but a highly complex biological mechanism that has evolved over millions of years as a mode of living.
There are two key ways of looking at stress:
1. As the short-term **fight-or-flight response.**
2. According to the long-term effects of stress— **general adaptation syndrome.**
Fight or Flight
The stress response is often called the fight-or-flight response—the automatic, primitive reaction that prepares your body to attack or run away from a perceived threat to your survival. (Sometimes it's called the fight, flight, or freeze response because it can also make you freeze.) As described in Week 3, this mechanism has evolved over millions of years to protect you from harm and increase your chances of survival, with one result being an innate negativity bias among today's humans.
When you experience an external threat or just internal worries and concerns, the part of the brain called the hypothalamus is activated, which initiates a series of nerve cell firings as well as releasing chemicals like cortisol, adrenaline, and noradrenaline into your bloodstream. This combination of nerve cell activation and chemical release causes many changes. Your breathing rate and blood pressure increase, energy is directed away from your digestive and immune system and toward your muscles, and your reflexes quicken. Mentally, the more wise, intelligent, and rational part of your brain is shut down.
Essentially, this mechanism puts you into attack mode both physically and mentally to prepare you for the threat. If you were a prehistoric human and spotted a tiger, the fight-or-flight response could make the difference between life and death. Then and now, the surge of stress hormones gives you the strength to run away or fight an aggressor, to lift a car off your loved one, or to escape a burning building.
When you are in fight-or-flight mode, your brain scans the environment and perceives everything in your surroundings as a threat to survival. As if a thief has entered your home, you perceive every moment or sound as a sign of danger—even if it's just the wind blowing the curtains. A harmless comment is seen as an attack. You overreact to feedback. Your thoughts are irrational. Your fear becomes a filter though which you see the world around you.
When stuck in the stress response, you can't think positively. Your attentional resources are focused on negativity. Fear is the focus, not friendliness. You are unable to make rational decisions. Choices are made on a short-term basis. Long-term consequences of choices can't be processed. If your fight-or-flight response is turned on continuously, you are in constant emergency mode and can only make short-term emergency decisions.
Nowadays, the same mechanism to prepare you to run from a tiger is switched on when you get stuck in a long line at the bank, are running late for work, dealing with a screaming child, or have to deal with your aggressive boss. Your body is preparing for a physical threat where none exists.
In modern society, rather than physically exerting yourself when your stress response is on, you're expected to control yourself. Waiting in a line, you're expected to just wait, no matter how late you are. When your boss makes unreasonable demands, you're expected to just listen, not fight or run away.
But fight or flight makes you more aggressive, hypervigilant, and overreactive. This is what ultimately leads to photocopiers being kicked, road rage in major cities, and fights.
Balancing Your Nervous System: The Key to Managing Stress
I've mentioned that the stress response is hardwired into your brain and body to protect you from physical dangers. But fortunately, the ability to reduce your stress is also hardwired. Both of these systems work largely unconsciously. It's automatic and so is called the autonomic nervous system. But through mindfulness you can learn to spot when your stress response is activated and take action to reduce it.
This autonomic nervous system is made of two main parts:
1. **Sympathetic nervous system (stress response)** —the main function of this is to activate the fight-or-flight response.
2. **Parasympathetic nervous system (relaxation response)** —the main function is to activate the "rest and digest" system and to bring your body back to balance after the stress response has been triggered.
To show you just how physical the stress response is designed to be, look at the diagram below.
Have you ever had a dry mouth when giving a presentation? Noticed your heart beating rapidly or breathing rate increase? Felt the need to visit the bathroom? All these are the physical effects of the stress response created by greater activity of your sympathetic nervous system. That's what people call "feeling stressed," and these effects are shown on the right-hand side of the diagram. Your emergency mode is on.
The actions of your stress response can be balanced by your parasympathetic nervous system, which is your relaxation response. The relaxation response is sometimes called "rest and digest" mode because more of your resources are focused on digestion and immunity when activated. When you're stressed, your digestion doesn't work well. And over the long term, your immune system is severely affected too.
Although mindfulness is not a relaxation technique, one of the beneficial long-term side effects is relaxation. Mindfulness helps you notice when you're getting too stressed. Then you can do a short mindfulness exercise or meditation. This engages your prefrontal cortex, the wiser part of your brain. With access to your more rational brain, you can make better choices.
For example, let's say you're driving to see a new client. The roads are unfamiliar and narrow. It starts getting late, and you find the drive quite scary as there are no streetlights and others are driving so fast. You're running late and begin to feel stressed. You're mindful and notice your stress levels rising. So you stop by the side of the road and take a few mindful breaths. You start to relax a bit. You remember that driving safely is far more important than getting there on time. So you send a text to say you're running late and drive at a speed that is right for you, continuing to feel your breathing as you do so, rather than worrying. As shown in the seesaw diagram below, some activities engage your relaxation response and others engage your stress response. But these are not fixed.
**Reflection**
Consider the last time you felt really stressed. What changes did you notice in your body? How do they correspond to what you've discovered about the effects of the sympathetic nervous system?
General Adaptation Syndrome: The Three Stages of Stress
Walter Cannon discovered the fight-or-flight response in the 1920s, but it wasn't until 1936 that Hans Selye discovered the long-term response of the body to stress: the general adaptation syndrome. Essentially, Selye found that when something stressful happens, you go through three stages if the stress doesn't go away, shown in the graph below. He found stress to be a major cause of disease because of the long-term chemical changes it wreaks on the body.
Stage 1: Alarm
In the alarm phase, you're in a state of shock. Imagine having lots of pressure at work and realizing that you can't get all the tasks done. You're initially less effective in your shock state. Your sympathetic nervous system is activated, and stress hormones are released into your blood system—the fight-or-flight response is working. If the stress is removed, you will return to a healthy balance.
At this initial stage, your body is working as it should, alerting and preparing you for a source of stress. And if you've been practicing mindfulness, you'll be aware that your stress response has been switched on. You can then take action to reduce the stress when you have time, by practicing a mindfulness exercise such as a mini body scan or mindful walking. This will help you get back into balance.
Stage 2: Resistance
If the stress continues to be present, however, or you experience additional stressors, you increase your fight against the challenge. This is the resistance phase.
At this stage, if you manage to cope with the stress in some way, your body can repair the damage caused by the alarm phase and your levels of stress hormones can return to normal. But problems begin if you don't have enough time to recover from this phase.
Mindfulness is very helpful to cope in Stage 2 as well; it can prevent you from reaching burnout. As you're under a significant amount of stress, you need to practice mindfulness meditations daily, if possible. Physically, the meditations give you the time required to feel the tension in your body, and paradoxically, that mindful awareness slowly begins to ease the tightness. Mentally, the mindfulness offers you the space to distance you from concerns and demands that may be driving the stress. Your relaxation response starts to get engaged, rebalancing your stress to a level that feels right for you.
If the stress continues, your immune system stops working well and you're less able to fight infection. Continued stress may eventually lead to Stage 3.
Stage 3: Exhaustion
The exhaustion phase occurs when the long-term stress does not go away. You can no longer resist the stressor because your coping resources have run out. Your levels of adrenaline, the stress hormone, are depleted. Selye found that animals, such as rats, just die in this state.
**"Once I understood the way stress can lead to resistance and finally exhaustion, my burnout made sense. I knew at that moment in the class, reducing my stress was now my number-one priority."**
People call this burnout, adrenal fatigue, or stress overload. Ideas for identifying and dealing with it are in the box below. At this point your stress levels are sky high and stay that way, and your health is at its greatest risk.
At this stage, you may not be ready to practice mindfulness because it's too hard for you to focus on anything. Once you've had some time to fully rest and recover, and after seeing a health professional, you can learn mindfulness to cope with stress more effectively.
**Tales of Wisdom:
The Wise Sailor and the Intellectual Professor**
There was once a professor traveling on a boat. He spotted an old sailor on the deck and decided to ask about marine science, a subject he had studied before. But the sailor said, "Sorry, I know nothing about marine science!" "You fool!" replied the professor.
The next day, the professor was on the deck looking at the stars. He thought the sailor must know about astronomy, to help with navigation. "I know absolutely nothing about astronomy," said the sailor. "You're a complete fool!" exclaimed the professor.
The next day, the professor felt the breeze against his skin. He thought the sailor must know about meteorology, the study of the weather. But alas, the sailor admitted he knew little about that science. "You complete idiot!" said the professor, vowing never to speak to the sailor again.
The next day, the boat faced rough winds and huge waves. The hull cracked and the boat started to sink. The sailor saw the professor and asked him, "Do you know how to swim?" "No!" exclaimed the professor. "Who's the fool now?" said the sailor as he dived in to swim to safety.
This story links well to managing stress mindfully. You can know all you want about the theory of dealing with stress, but until you put that knowledge into practice, it's of little benefit. Try out the meditations and learn to surf the waves generated by the stressors of life—the small effort will pay dividends.
_Understanding Burnout_
Burnout is a state of physical, mental, and emotional exhaustion due to long-term and excessive stress. You may be on the way to burnout if every day seems like a bad day, you're always tired, and you feel nothing you do makes a difference. Burnout is usually caused by overwork, but it can also result from not sleeping enough, lack of supportive relationships, perfectionism, or pessimism.
If you feel you're close to burnout, or are burned out, try the following tips:
• Start each day with mindfulness meditation or yoga.
• Eat healthily. Ensure you go to bed on time. Exercise a few times a week.
• Learn to say no, so you're setting your boundaries and not taking on too much extra work.
• Have some fun time every day or at least once a week. Do something that gets your creative juices flowing.
• Slow down the pace of your life.
• Get support from friends and family. You may feel you don't want to, but seek social support despite that—talking is very important.
Consider reevaluating your goals in life. Burnout is a sign that it's probably time to take a different approach.
**Reflection**
Are you currently suffering from the effects of long-term stress? How can you best take care of yourself over the coming weeks and months? If you think you're reaching the point of exhaustion, how can you make stress reduction your number-one priority?
Your body is designed to manage stress like a sprint, not a marathon. A mindful way through stress means finding small slots of time in your day to rest, recharge, or meditate—even a few deep mindful breaths will have a positive effect.
Occasional moderate levels of stress with periods of rest
is healthy—just ensure enough time for recuperation.
**Reflection**
In 1914, 67-year-old inventor Thomas Edison's lab caught fire and burned down, destroying all his equipment and research. He lost $2 million in one night. Rather than think of the many negatives, he said, "There is great value in disaster. All our mistakes are burned up. Thank God we can start anew." That's a great example of turning distress into eustress. A few weeks later Edison delivered the first phonograph.
Consider a small or medium stress you're suffering from and write down how you could change your distress into eustress. Mindfully step back from your thoughts and see things from a bigger picture.
Stress and Life Circumstances
Different events in your life are bound to have a different effect on your stress. Moving to a similar neighborhood is not going to have as big an effect as a hostile divorce. The fewer major life events you experience in a relatively short period of time, the less likely you'll suffer the consequences of chronic stress.
_Research Corner:
Stress Can Be Good for You—Discovering Eustress_
Most people don't know that there are two types of stress: eustress and distress. Eustress is a positive form of stress, whereas distress is a negative form.
The actual stressor doesn't determine whether it would cause eustress or distress. Instead it depends on whether you see the situation as a positive challenge or a negative hassle.
Examples of eustress could be a roller coaster ride. If you look forward to the challenge of the experience, you'll have the stress response but feel positive about the experience. However, the same roller coaster ride is a source of distress if you think you won't be able to cope with the experience.
Even seeing stress itself as a positive experience is transformative. I'd like to share with you one of my favorite studies. In a major piece of research on almost 29,000 people over eight years, researchers Keller and colleagues at the University of Wisconsin–Madison found that people's attitude toward stress had a massive impact on how long they lived. If people saw stress itself in a positive way, believing it to be enhancing, they were among the least likely to die. However, those who believed stress was debilitating had a 43% increased risk of death. So think of stress as energizing or exciting rather than just harmful. Reading the paragraphs below may help you do this.
There is evidence that stress in short bursts actually boosts body function. In an interesting study in 2013 by Kirstin Aschbacher and colleagues at the University of California, two groups of women were asked to give a speech. The first group of women were already under chronic stress in their lives, but the other group were not. For the already stressed-out group, the extra stress caused extra damage in cells, as expected. But the next result surprised the researchers: the normally relaxed women were found to have less damage in their cells following the short burst of stress. A little bit of stress appeared to be helpful.
When you do physical exercise in short bursts and have periods of rest, your health improves. In the same way, short bursts of stress could have health benefits. Short bursts of stress release adrenaline, which increases alertness and awareness, just like a cup of coffee, as well as improving memory and sharpness of thought.
EXERCISE: Stressful Events in Your Life
See the list of 43 "stressful life events" later in the chapter. Psychiatrists Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe asked people to record how many of these life events they had experienced in the last year. Each event was given a score, and they found a link between the score and the likelihood that the person would suffer an illness.
Now you try it. Check off every life event you've experienced in the last year. If you experienced the event twice in the same year, enter two checkmarks. Then add up your score.
| If you found you got a high score, use this information as notification that you could make extra stress-reducing efforts. The practice of mindfulness could be particularly important for you at this time.
---|---
I've been fortunate in not having suffered too many changes in any one year. The most stressful was probably back in 2010, when a long-term relationship ended, I had some trouble with my boss, I changed my social activities, I published and launched my first book, I moved, I went traveling for a month, and quit my job all within a few months. Some of those changes were positive and refreshing rather than a burden—they were a source of eustress. However, I did get the flu and felt out of control. Without mindfulness things could have been much worse. I made sure I meditated every day, exercised regularly, kept a journal, and found time for some fun activities every week.
**Reflection**
So, what do you do if your score says you're at moderate or high risk of illness? The key is to minimize any further changes in your life if you have a choice. So if you've recently suffered the death of a close family member, perhaps you should hold off on relocating. If you've just retired and had a change in your financial position, it may not be advisable to also change your social and recreation activities right now. Write down what changes you can avoid making this year.
HOW CAN MINDFULNESS REDUCE STRESS?
Consider Jodie. She was living with three roommates. One of them, Danielle, decided to let her boyfriend stay with her, even though this wasn't permitted in the lease. With an already overcrowded flat, Jodie felt annoyed when the boyfriend prevented her from using the bathroom in the morning and hogged the living room in the evenings. Her stress levels began to rise each day, but she ignored it. In the diagram below, she moved down the right-hand column.
**Stressful Life Events**
**Life Event** | **Life Change Units** |
---|---|---
Death of a spouse |
100
|
Divorce |
73
|
Marital separation |
65
|
Imprisonment |
63
|
Death of a close family member |
63
|
Personal injury or illness |
53
|
Marriage |
50
|
Loss of job |
47
|
Marital reconciliation |
45
|
Retirement |
45
|
Change in health of family member |
44
|
Pregnancy |
40
|
Sexual difficulties |
39
|
Gain a new family member |
39
|
Business readjustment |
39
|
Change in financial state |
38
|
Death of a close friend |
37
|
Change to different line of work |
36
|
Change in frequency of arguments |
35
|
Major mortgage |
32
|
Foreclosure of mortgage or loan |
30
|
Change in responsibilities at work |
29
|
Child leaving home |
29
|
Trouble with in-laws |
29
|
Outstanding personal achievement |
28
|
Spouse starts or stops work |
26
|
Begin or end school |
26
|
Change in living conditions |
25
|
Revision of personal habits |
24
|
Trouble with boss |
23
|
Change in working hours or conditions |
20
|
Change in residence |
20
|
Change in schools |
20
|
Change in recreation |
19
|
Change in church activities |
19
|
Change in social activities |
18
|
Minor mortgage or loan |
17
|
Change in sleeping habits |
16
|
Change in number of family reunions |
15
|
Change in eating habits |
15
|
Vacation |
13
|
Christmas |
12
|
Minor violation of law |
11
|
**Total:** |
_____
|
---|---|---
**Score** | **Chance of Illness**
---|---
Less than 150 | Low to medium chance of illness in the near future
150–300 | Medium to high chance of illness in the near future
Over 300 | High to very high chance of illness in near future
From Holmes, T. H., & Rahe, R. H. (1967). The Social Readjustment Rating Scale. _Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 11_ (2), 213–218. Copyright 1967. Reprinted with permission from Elsevier.
Jodie confronted her roommate but wasn't sure she could handle the situation. Danielle was a lawyer and friends with the landlord. Following an argument with Danielle, and after the problem had gone on for several months, she started to get headaches, an upset stomach, and had trouble sleeping. The stress was affecting her.
One of Jodie's friends guided her in a mindfulness meditation and taught her the mindful pause. Jodie was then better able to spot the signs of stress; tension in her shoulders and a locked jaw were her signs. Taking a mindful pause helped. But not for long. Jodie was using the pause just to relax and then going straight back to her normal way of thinking.
After reading more about mindfulness, Jodie started to take more responsibility for her own stress. Yes, Danielle wasn't being fair, but there was no point in making herself stressed and ultimately ill over the issue. With this attitude together with the mindfulness practice, she felt more confident. She asked herself what else she could do apart from argue with Danielle. In a calmer state, the solution was obvious: to contact the landlord. She gave him a call, and he immediately took action. Danielle's boyfriend was told to move out within a week, which he did. Danielle moved out with him.
**Reflection**
Consider something that's causing you stress at the moment. Think about how you are reacting to that stress. For example, are you working even harder, shouting at your partner, or trying to zone out through several hours of TV every night? At this stage, just write down how you're reacting. To observe this is mindfulness and is the first stage of making a positive change.
Tend and befriend explains why women are less likely to be aggressive compared to men when under stress—aggression being fueled by the fight-or-flight response. Women have a greater tendency to reach out to others when feeling stressed. This desire to be with others rather than immediately fight or flee may have evolved to protect children. Women in early history were the primary caregivers, and fighting or fleeing when in a stressful situation would put their children at greater risk of harm.
_Research Corner:
How Men and Women React Differently to Stress_
The fight-or-flight response has been known about for many years. But the research has focused too much on males. There is now a new theory around: that women deal with stress through an additional and different mechanism, called "tend and befriend," first discovered by Shelley Taylor, a psychology professor at the University of California, together with her colleagues.
The reason for the difference in behavior is a hormone called oxytocin. Women have more oxytocin than men and so rather than have a fight or escape the stressful situation, the hormone encourages women to nurture and seek companionship. Research shows that when under stress, women seem to talk through their emotional experiences and explore the situation and what may happen next. Men prefer to react or flee—escaping the situation by going for a run, playing a sport, or watching television.
Obviously these are generalizations and every individual is different. But knowing these tendencies may help you better understand reactions to stress, both your own and those of friends and family.
Be mindful next time you see yourself getting stressed and notice whether you are engaging your fight-or-flight response or your tend-and-befriend response. If you feel excessive physical energy, you may benefit from a brisk mindful walk to ease your stress. If you feel like being with others, call or meet up with a friend for a chat. And be mindful of what they have to say—listen with mindful awareness.
EXPLORING PLEASANT, UNPLEASANT, AND NEUTRAL EXPERIENCES
Life is made up of a wide variety of experiences that are automatically judged by your mind. In mindfulness, we classify experiences as pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral; see the diagram below.
Over the last 2 weeks, you've been recording situations in your life that are pleasant or unpleasant and your associated thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations. If you haven't done this, start this week and read this section after you've recorded them.
Pleasant experiences are those that you like and are enjoyable for you. Eating some chocolate, taking a warm bath, or feeling excited may be pleasant for you. Unpleasant experiences are those that you don't like. Eating spinach, waking up early, or feeling anxious may be unpleasant for you. Neutral experiences are those that you neither like nor dislike. For example, the color of the pavement, the coolness of a glass of water, or the feeling of your body against the back of your chair may be neutral for you—you zone out.
Over time, you become conditioned. You learn what's pleasant and seek to repeat the experience. And also learn what you find unpleasant and avoid it. This constant chasing after the pleasant and avoiding unpleasant or neutral leads to a feeling of stress. You're in a state of mind of constantly running toward or away from experience.
Research in the field of positive psychology, the meticulous study of human happiness, has revealed many times that chasing pleasant experiences leads to a very fleeting happiness, whereas cultivating the practice of mindfulness meditation leads to a longer-lasting and deeper sense of well-being and peace.
He who binds to himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy;
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity's sun rise.
—WILLIAM BLAKE
Remember to keep this insight in perspective. I'm not saying all pleasures are bad or unhelpful—there's absolutely nothing wrong with having a delicious chocolate, a deep massage, or a long, hot bath. But evidence shows chasing sensual pleasures is not the royal road to a stress-free or happy life; it's just one way.
Mindfulness offers a way of releasing yourself from relentlessly chasing pleasant experiences and avoiding unpleasant or neutral ones. You simply need to be aware of the feeling of your daily experience and your experience in meditation. Each time you feel an experience is pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral, notice that as such. You'll begin to notice how your reaction to feeling dominates your everyday experience. In this way, you begin to step back from your conditioning. You notice your desire to cling or push away an experience. By watching the nature of your mind, with friendliness rather than self-judgment, you begin to break the chains of conditioning. As this happens, you are better able to enjoy the peace in the present moment.
| One of the best ways to let go of clinging to pleasant and running away from unpleasant experiences is to remember and notice that all experiences are impermanent. Using a sentence like "This will soon pass" helps you step back and ride the wave of the feeling without reacting to it.
---|---
**Reflection**
Look back at your pleasant and unpleasant events calendars. What patterns do you notice? For example, always avoiding the feeling of sadness by eating cookies (and feeling self-loathing after you do) or always seeking to talk to your partner even when he's too busy at work to chat (and feeling frustrated when he doesn't answer). Jot your observations down. In mindfulness, just noticing yourself nonjudgmentally is often enough to begin the shift in changing your habit patterns.
PRACTICE: Mindful Yoga
| _Audio track 9 or _.
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| Now's the time to try some mindful yoga as part of this session. Do the mini (10-minute) or full (30-minute) yoga sequence using the audio or the instructions in Chapter 13.
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PRACTICE: Mindfulness of Breath and Body Meditation
| _Audio track 13: 10 minutes_.
---|---
| _Audio track 14: 20 minutes._
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Having stretched your body, now you may feel ready for some mindfulness meditation in a seated posture. Remember, if your body is unable to sit for whatever reason, just choose whatever posture you can manage. Your intention and attitude of mindfulness is more important than anything else. Listen to the audio track, which guides you through awareness of breath and body as described below.
1. If you can, sit in an upright, dignified posture on a chair, with your feet firmly on the floor and back relatively straight. Ensure you've switched off any potential distractions and it's relatively quiet; that's helpful for beginners. Set a timer if you're not using the accompanying audio.
2. Let go of ideas like trying to relax, wanting to calm your mind, or getting rid of tension. Instead, bring an attitude of accepting whatever arises, a sense of open, nonjudgmental receptivity to your moment-to-moment experience, as best you can.
3. Start the meditation with three deep, full breaths. If you can, breathe down into the base of your lungs, allowing your belly to gently expand on the in-breath and contract on the out-breath. If you can't feel this, try placing your hand around the area of your navel.
4. Now allow your breathing to return to its normal, natural rate. Allow your body to breathe on its own, rather than trying to do the breathing.
5. Each time your mind wanders and you've noticed that it has wandered, be pleased that you've noticed, rather than frustrated that your mind wandered. Bring your attention back to the physical feeling of your breath around your nose, chest, or belly—wherever is easiest for you.
6. After 5 minutes or so, open your awareness to your body as a whole. Feel the sensation of your physical body as you sit here. Include both the pleasant and unpleasant sensations. Both those that feel warm or cool and those that have a sense of discomfort. You may notice tingling, itching, heat, or some other sensations. There may also just be the feeling of your body, alive and present.
7. Remember, the feeling of your breathing is also a bodily sensation, so include the feeling of your body breathing too. Notice what effect your breathing has on your bodily sensations from moment to moment. Does your breathing increase or reduce muscle tension, or does it stay the same? Do other sensations stay exactly the same, or do they change from moment to moment?
8. After your time is up, gently bring your attention back to your surroundings. Take a few moments to notice this transition from meditating to being in your everyday life. See if you can bring a sense of mindful awareness to the next moments of your day.
GOING DEEPER: When you feel a "difficult" sensation in your body, see if you can let go of all effort to get rid of the sensation. Just be completely attentive to the sensation itself—a complete feeling of acceptance to the sensation, knowing that it will eventually pass away, as all sensations do. You can even try to welcome the sensation, as if it's a feeling you actually like.
PRACTICE: Mindful Pause
You learned how to do the mindful pause in Week 2. At this stage of reading, I'd recommend you try that practice again. Remember, the aim is greater awareness of your state of body and mind, rather than a break or just relaxation.
**Reflection: Discoveries about the Mindful Pause**
1. What did you notice during your mindful pause this time around?
In my experience, people generally tend to fall into two categories. Either they regularly practice the mindful pause without an issue, or they find the practice really hard to do.
Those who have trouble don't have trouble with the technique. Rather, they have difficulty either finding the time or motivating themselves to do the practice. There's some sort of inner resistance.
The best way to overcome this resistance is to become aware of it in your body. Notice the sensations that the resistance brings. Feel the emotion of the resistance in your body and tune in to the thoughts that feed this resistance. Then take a few mindful, deep breaths and—guess what?—you're already doing a mindful pause by noticing the resistance.
The mindful pause reduces stress by switching off your habitual mind. You then step back from your usual thinking patterns, which may be feeding the stress. Awareness of your breathing begins to engage your parasympathetic nervous system and you begin to relax. You are then able to step back and see your stressor from a bigger perspective and might come up with a solution to deal with your stress.
2. How has the mindful pause been going for you over the last 2 weeks? What's working for you? What changes do you need to make to integrate the practice into your life—for example, setting a timer or putting the exercise in your calendar?
MINDFULLY MANAGING STRESS FAQs
**Q: Is it possible for me to be stressed and not actually know that I'm stressed?**
A: I've been asked this question a few times. Yes, it is possible to be under stress without knowing. That's what being unmindful is all about. But through the practice of mindfulness, you become more aware of your body, emotions, thoughts, and actions, and so you're better able to notice when your stress levels get too high. You can then take appropriate action to manage that stress, such as by practicing the mindful pause.
**Q: My mind is worrying all the time. How can I stop it?**
A: One of the powerful effects of mindfulness is that it reduces rumination. This doesn't happen instantly. Gradually, you will notice your circular thoughts earlier and have a greater ability to step back from them. The key is not to fight the thoughts but to have a laid-back attitude and keep stepping back from them. Label them as "worry" and give attention to whatever you need to focus on.
**Q: I felt quite tearful after the yoga. Is that okay?**
A: Yes, that's fine. It's a good sign; it shows that you're practicing the yoga in a mindful way and are letting go of emotions that may have been suppressed and pushed out of your conscious awareness.
**Q: I prefer to do the sitting meditation compared to the body scan. Can I do that instead?**
A: I recommend you stick to the weekly home experiments. This way you overcome your mind's desires to do the mindful exercises you find pleasant and avoid the exercises that you find unpleasant. For example, I often find students don't like the body scan meditation for the first week or two, but after a while they really enjoy it.
**Q: I feel like I'm becoming less mindful as I go through this course! What's happening?**
A: This is a common response. Like most people, you may not have realized just how unmindful you normally are. By doing the mindful exercises and meditations, you're noticing just how easy it is to get lost in thoughts, emotions, and habits. So don't worry if you feel you're getting less mindful—in reality, the opposite is probably true. It's a bit like learning to ride a bike. It looks easy, but when you try, you just keep falling off. You may look as if you're getting worse, but actually, you're getting better.
Home Experiments: Week 4
Your home experiments are set out in the table below, as usual.
_Mindful Booster: Kindness_
This week, try doing a very small favor for someone every day. You could send a friendly e-mail praising someone for his good work, offer a cup of tea or coffee to someone different at work, or help someone out with her project.
Your daily act of kindness doesn't have to take long. Even 5 minutes helping someone out not only makes you more mindful as you're stepping out of your usual routine, but also allows you to experience the act of giving. By limiting it to 5 minutes, you won't end up burdening yourself too much either.
These acts of kindness can be very beneficial both for you and for the recipient of your generosity. Research suggests acts of kindness can make you happier (because they release dopamine in your brain), healthier (because they drop your blood pressure due to the release of oxytocin), improve relationships (people like kind people), and most exciting of all, can help to spread kindness—your friends will be naturally inspired to perform an act of kindness. All these benefits will reduce your stress, so give it a try; spend up to 5 minutes a day doing an act of kindness for someone else. Find out more at _www.randomactsofkindness.org_.
**Week 4**
**Day** | **Mini-Course** | **Full Course**
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1 | Mini-body scan
Mindful booster: kindness | Full body scan
Mindful pause × 3
Mindful booster: kindness
2 | Mini-mindfulness of breath and body meditation
Mindful booster: kindness | Mindfulness of breath and body meditation
Mindful pause × 3
Mindful booster: kindness
3 | Mini-body scan
Mindful booster: kindness | Full body scan
Mindful pause × 3
Mindful booster: kindness
4 | Mini-mindfulness of breath and body meditation
Mindful booster: kindness | Mindfulness of breath and body meditation
Mindful pause × 3
Mindful booster: kindness
5 | Mini-body scan
Mindful booster: kindness | Full body scan
Mindful pause × 3
Mindful booster: kindness
6 | Mini-mindfulness of breath and body meditation
Mindful booster: kindness | Mindfulness of breath and body meditation
Mindful pause × 3
Mindful booster: kindness
# EIGHT
# _Week 5_
# Taking a Stand—Responding to Stress
_The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another._
—WILLIAM JAMES
INTENTIONS
_To discover four key ways of dealing with stressors._
_To understand how to relate to the thoughts and emotions that cause or arise from stress._
_To explore how to honor emotions that arise from stress so you find some relief._
MINDFULNESS HAS become an incredibly important part of Fatima's life. She didn't like to sit down and purposefully meditate—she found that level of mindfulness incredibly difficult—but she willingly embraced mindfulness in her life. As someone who has struggled with anxiety for many years, she is no stranger to negative automatic thoughts that just won't go away.
In the past she found solace in planning for the future—escaping thoughts of the past and placing all her hopes and dreams in a place that didn't exist. This kind of thinking created a false idea of comfort because when the future did not happen—when her plans did not realize themselves—she felt lost.
Eventually she had to face the reality of her situation. What did she have? What could she possibly do now? She was terrified at the realization that she no longer knew how to plan for her future. Initially she felt hopeless and worthless, but slowly she began to accept that _right now_ she couldn't plan for the future and that was okay, because what she did have was _right now_. Once she knew this, once she had accepted this, she felt at peace because she knew that right now was all she needed. That was incredibly empowering, as it enabled her to pick herself up from a very dark and empty place and find comfort in the acceptance of _right now_.
Fatima handled her difficult emotions by living in the moment and accepting what she couldn't change. This viewpoint helped to dissipate her stress and anxiety.
Fatima also made a choice—a radical choice. A choice to look at her problems in a different way rather than be driven by the whims of the mind. And although meditation is what usually causes such a shift, just a more mindful way of looking at her problems helped. This chapter will look at how you can use a variety of ways to deal with stress and make yourself more resilient to future stressors too.
**Reflection**
You're halfway through: How's the course going?
Use the following questions to help you reflect on where you are right now with this mindfulness course. Jot your answers in your journal if you like.
1. What's going well for you?
2. Which practices have you tried?
3. Why are you doing this course? Remind yourself of your motivation.
4. Who is supporting you as you do this course? If the answer is no one, and you're finding the course challenging, whom could you ask? Even someone online or by phone could be useful.
5. Is there an area that you wish to improve on? If so, write it down. Focus on just one thing. What small steps can you take to improve that area?
| What's happened for you in the last 4 weeks is no indication of what'll happen next. In mindfulness, changes are not linear. You may not notice any significant changes so far, but that doesn't mean the next 4 weeks will be the same. Human beings are far too complex to be able to predict what will happen and when, so I urge you to try to keep an open mind and heart as you practice.
---|---
If you had trouble thinking about what's going well for you in the reflection exercise, consider that you've been reading this book, tried some of the meditations, tried a few of the home experiments, or any experience of living in the now. These are all examples of some progress, so you can record them as positive steps.
The one area that people often struggle with is actually doing the daily home experiments in mindfulness. If you're not doing them at all, consider what's getting in the way. Go back to Chapter 3 and reread the section on home practice. You may pick up some ideas to help rekindle your enthusiasm. Avoid self-criticism if you can—notice whether that's happening. And remember that noticing is a mindful act in itself. Just come back to right now, the present moment, and start afresh, as Fatima did. Look after the present moment and the future will look after itself.
This week, let's go straight into yoga and meditation practice. That helps to put you in a mindful state and makes you better able to focus on the theme of the session.
PRACTICE: Mindful Yoga
| _10 minutes_.
---|---
| _30 minutes_.
---|---
_Audio tracks 9 and ._
As usual, use the audio or instructions in Chapter 13 to do your mindful yoga practice today.
**Reflection**
1. What did you discover when exploring your edge in the yoga practice today?
2. What thoughts and emotions arose for you as you approached your edge in yoga?
3. Think about your life at home, at work, and how much you socialize and exercise. Are you pushing beyond the edge of your capacity? Or not challenging yourself at all? What choices are you able to make to redress the balance this week?
PRACTICE: Expanding Awareness Meditation
| _10 minutes._
---|---
| _30 minutes_.
---|---
_Audio tracks 15 and _.
This week, you're going to practice the "expanding awareness" meditation. In other books on mindfulness, this is called the sitting meditation. The meditation is normally practiced in a sitting position, but that's not absolutely necessary. You could practice lying down, standing, or even walking (although that's tricky for beginners).
I'd recommend you do the meditation in a seated posture if you can, as it's usually easier to focus that way. As you may have been doing lots of body scan meditations lying down, now's a good chance to experiment with being in an upright posture and noticing how that affects your mindful awareness. Just be curious!
If you're doing the mini-course, spend just under 2 minutes on each part. Use the guided audio for 10 minutes. If you're doing the full program, spend about 5 minutes on each stage. Use the guided audio for 30 minutes.
**Preparation**
1. Eliminate any potential distractions.
2. Bring an attitude of friendliness and kindness toward yourself. Remember the reason you're practicing mindfulness and the importance of not trying too hard but being gentle with yourself.
3. Sit with an upright, dignified posture, on a chair that's right for you. Either close your eyes or softly gaze downward.
**Stage 1: Breath**
4. Take a few deep, full breaths. With each out-breath, have a sense of your body sinking a little deeper into your chair. Check your body for any obvious tensions and release them if you can. If you can't, that's fine. Just accept them as they are.
5. Now allow your breathing to be natural. Feel the physical sensation of your breath wherever you prefer. Notice how the sensation of the in-breath is different from the out-breath. Experience the natural rhythm of your breathing. Be aware of the brief pauses between each in- and out-breath. If your breathing pattern changes, notice that too.
6. As always, expect your mind to wander. When you notice that your mind wanders, whether it's for a few seconds or many minutes, just notice briefly what your train of thought was about and then very gently bring your attention back to your breathing. Remember: you can imagine your attention wanders like a puppy that wanders off a path. Bring your attention back with the same gentleness that you would pull the lead for the puppy to return to the path.
**Stage 2: Bodily sensations**
7. Open up your attention to all your bodily sensations. Be aware of how your focused attention on your breathing has the flexibility to open up to your body as a whole.
8. Notice how an open attention is different from a narrow, focused attention. If you can't seem to open your attention to your whole body, just do your best. With experience and practice you'll get better at it.
9. Be aware of your sensation of breathing as part of your bodily sensations. As you breathe in and out, notice what effect it has on your body. Be aware of the effect of your in-breath and out-breath. You may notice that the out-breath has more of a tension-releasing effect than your in-breath because your out-breath engages your parasympathetic nervous system (the relaxation response).
10. Keep your body and eyes still, as best you can. If you feel an itch or slight discomfort, see if you can tune in to that sensation without immediately reacting to the sensation. Become curious about the sensation by gently asking yourself questions like, "I wonder how the sensation's intensity increases or decreases as I observe and breathe?" or "Can I feel this sensation with a sense of care and affection rather than reacting to it?" Or simply label it as "itch" or "pain" in your mind. If the discomfort increases and you feel you need to move, that's fine. You don't need to torture yourself in meditation. Simply be aware of how sensations in your body shift and change as you move from one posture to another. For example, if your back hurts, you may notice that pain, then gently stretch, feeling the muscles contract and relax, and again noticing the feelings in your back as you come back to sitting. The idea is to carry out the whole process consciously and mindfully rather than automatically and reactively.
**Stage 3: Sounds**
11. The next stage is to open up the attention even further. This time, turn your attention to sounds. Begin by noticing the sounds in the room you're sitting in and then open up to the sounds in the building as a whole and finally include the sounds outside too.
12. Normally, when you listen to sounds, you attach a meaning to them, classify them, and judge them with a like, dislike, or neutral attitude. This meditation is an opportunity to open your attention to all sounds and let go of your judgment or labeling. If your mind still labels the sound and judges it, that's fine; just notice that as a process of your mind from your perspective of awareness. For example, if you hear the sound of traffic and think, "That's traffic; I hate that noise," you can notice that as just a thought and actually listen to the sound of the traffic as it is.
13. Instead of feeling you need to reach out and grasp the sound, just allow the sounds to come to you. Be like a microphone, picking up sounds, no matter what they are, from all directions. This is really opening up your attention.
**Stage 4: Thoughts**
14. Now turn your attention to the thoughts in your head. You can either hear the thoughts in your mind or perhaps see images if you're more of a visual person.
15. Step back from the thoughts. Take the viewpoint of an observer, watching your thoughts happen, rather than doing the thinking, as if you don't actually do the thinking yourself, but watch your brain thinking by itself.
16. You may find it helpful to imagine clouds passing through the sky. Think of the open space as your awareness and the clouds as your thoughts. You can place your thoughts on those clouds and watch them come and go.
17. If you find you're not having any thoughts, that's okay. Notice the silence. You don't need to force yourself to have thoughts. If you find you're having lots of thoughts, that's okay too. Again, take the stance of an impartial observer.
18. This is not an easy process for most people. Just practice as best you can and see what happens.
**Stage 5: Emotions**
19. Turn your attention to how you're feeling emotionally, right now.
20. If you know what the emotion is, gently label it. For example, if you're feeling fearful, say "fearful" in your mind.
21. Bring a mindful attitude to your emotion. This means there's no need to judge your emotion as bad or criticize yourself for having the emotion. Instead, welcome the feeling if you can and notice as much as you can about it.
22. Notice where in your body you feel the emotion. If you find it in your body, be aware of the size and shape of the sensation. Notice your attitude toward the emotion (e.g., "I like it" or "I wish it would go away"). Make an inner space for the emotion rather than blocking the feeling.
23. Watch the emotion from the safe distance and security of your awareness. Awareness both heals emotions and helps you create distance from the emotion as an observer, so you don't get quite so swept up in rises and falls of an emotional roller coaster.
24. Feel the emotion together with your breathing to help soothe the sensation and anchor you in the now.
**Stage 6: Open Awareness**
25. Now practice an open attention—sometimes called choiceless awareness. In this process, you can open your attention and be aware of whatever is predominant in your awareness. This can be anything, from each of your senses to your breathing, your thoughts, or your emotions.
26. If you find your mind gets caught up in a train of thought, bring your attention back to your breathing for a few breaths. Then try stepping back to your open awareness again. Just do the best you can.
27. When your time is up, bring the meditation gently to a close by taking a few deep, slow breaths and gradually opening your eyes and stretching your body. Bring a mindful awareness to whatever you need to do next.
GOING DEEPER: With experience, you don't need the guided audio. You could set a bell to ring every 5 minutes and go through each stage in silence.
PRACTICAL WAYS OF RESPONDING TO STRESS
The mindful way through stress doesn't limit you to just using mindfulness meditation to cope with stress. Mindfulness is offered as the first step to give you greater choice—a chance to step back from any conditioned reactivity you may have to stress and gain the space to choose a better response.
Practicing mindfulness meditation and yoga, as you've been doing so far, is changing your brain so you're not so automatically reactive to your stress. But how do you cope with stress? What are your options? This week you'll be learning the different ways to handle stress.
**"I was really getting annoyed by the traffic noise in the class. Then we did mindfulness of sounds and it immediately stopped being annoying! That's a big breakthrough for me. The traffic, in my nonjudgmental awareness, sounded like the ocean."**
Common Unhealthy Ways of Reacting to Stress
It's useful to be honest with yourself and clear in your mind about how you currently deal with stress. This may be your "shadow side," and you may not like what you see. But looking clearly at how things are at the moment is the best starting point with the mindful approach to stress.
Most common strategies for dealing with stress result in short-term relief. But unfortunately, in the long term they increase your level of stress.
Excessive smoking, drinking alcohol, and taking illicit drugs are common choices for people under too much stress. If you use these methods to calm yourself after a stressful day, begin by noticing your feelings when you do this. Just asking yourself how you feel before lighting a cigarette is an act of mindfulness. Be aware of thoughts like "I've _got_ to have a drink" or "I'm _dying_ for a smoke." Mindful awareness of your thought patterns can help to break the habit. Look out for any self-critical thoughts too—thoughts like, "I can never control myself" or "I'm an idiot to get into drugs."
Be as mindful as you can while using your habitual coping strategy. For example, if you smoke too much when you're stressed, try this: Feel the weight of the pack of cigarettes in your hand. Then slowly open the pack, remove the cigarette, and notice its weight and color. Really look carefully at it. Smell the cigarette. After a few minutes of careful mindful observation of your cigarette, light it. Hold the cigarette in your opposite hand to help you be less automatic and more mindful. Keep noticing your own thoughts and feelings. Sense the smoke entering your lungs. Fully notice any feelings of pleasure or disgust as you smoke. Feel each in- and out-breath. Be aware of your physical tension or relaxation. Research has found taking 15–30 minutes to mindfully smoke one cigarette greatly increases your ability to reduce the amount you smoke in the weeks that follow such an exercise.
There are other ways you may be dealing with stress too, not just cigarettes or alcohol. Perhaps you start eating loads or eat far less. Maybe you're constantly procrastinating, surfing the Web, or watching TV when overwhelmed with stress. Or perhaps you get really busy, using work as a distraction from stress. Avoiding friends and family is another common behavioral pattern.
No matter what you end up doing, be as mindful as you can, even while engaging in the unhelpful habit. If you know you're avoiding your friends because you feel really stressed, notice the emotion that's driving you to do that. Allow yourself to slowly open up to the feeling of wanting to avoid others. Feel a few breaths together with the emotion. Notice how tense or tight your body feels.
Mindfulness and compassion are just as important when you make the wrong choice—learning to be kind to yourself, to forgive yourself (see Chapter 10) makes it more likely you'll make a better choice next time. Work by Chris Germer from Harvard Medical School and Kristin Neff from the University of Texas have found this to be true in their work with self-compassion—being self-compassionate lowers stress and helps you make better choices.
As best you can, avoid self-criticism and replace those thoughts with curiosity and acceptance. Say to yourself:
"I'm going through a tough time at the moment. That's
why I'm coping with the stress in this way. No one's
perfect when it comes to dealing with stress. Let me be
kind and understanding toward myself."
| Write this statement down on a little card and carry the card with you or put it on a smartphone you have with you, if you think it would work for you. Refer to the card or phone whenever you feel your stress rising.
---|---
I'm a work in progress, just like everyone else. I sometimes react to stress by eating more, procrastinating, surfing online, and avoiding my friends and family instead of calling them. Knowing this can help me watch out when I react in this way, and after taking a few mindful breaths, or more, I can make a better choice. It's not always easy, and sometimes that choice can take some time.
Finding Healthy Ways to Respond to Stress
If your current strategies for dealing with stress aren't working, or you feel you're not dealing with your stress at all, don't worry. You're now going to discover a variety of different ways of managing stress. Your job is to try them out and see what works for you. Everyone is different, and so each person will use a different combination of stress management approaches that works for him or her.
Mindfulness lies at the heart of all the various ways of managing stress. When you're under stress, you need to be aware (mindful) that your stress levels are too high and then find a space to make a wise choice as to what's the best option for you. Always start your stress management strategy with a small, mindful exercise; the mindful pause is a great idea. Even one full, deep, conscious breath can work wonders as a starting point for making a mindful choice.
The Four A's of Stress Management
A popular model to remember the range of ways to reduce stress is the four A's of stress management: avoid, alter, accept, or adapt (see the diagram below). Avoid and alter are about changing the actual stressor itself—the cause of your stress. That's the first thing to try. You may be able to cut out the stress altogether. Accept and adapt are about changing your _response_ to the stressor. One more thing you can do is to try to maintain a healthy lifestyle; see the box later in the chapter.
Avoid the Stressor
Often, you don't actually need to deal with the stress. There are ways of eliminating the stressor in the first place. For example, when I was offering too many coaching sessions to my clients, my workload became too heavy. So I learned to limit the number of people I see every week to give me more time for writing and other work. Another example: I've had a couple of friends in the past who started off by being very friendly and nice but ended up being overly demanding and causing far more stress than I needed. Although it's never nice to have to end a relationship, after some time agonizing over the decision, I opted to distance myself from them.
Here are a few suggestions, but before you decide where to cut stress by cutting out stressors, try to determine whether the change you're considering will exert even more stress than the original obligation. Saying no, for example, might seem like it will be a huge relief—until you find yourself losing sleep over who will take over the task. Mindfulness can help you stay aware of and even anticipate your reactions to changes.
• **Say no.** Just because someone asks you to do something, you don't have to agree. If you do that, you'll end up with too much to do in too little time. The result is almost always stress.
• **Manage external factors.** If e-mail causes you stress, check it less often. If cooking is stressful for you, eat out from time to time. If commuting is stressful, see if you can work from home.
• **Stay away from negative people.** If certain people make you feel more stressed, just spend less time with them or end the relationship.
• **Reduce your to-do list.** Cut your daily tasks down to only the highest-priority items.
Alter the Stressor
If you can't cut out the cause of your stress altogether, you may be able to modify it, making it smaller and easier to handle. Here are some ideas:
• **Manage your time.** The cause of your stress may be having too much to do and too little time. Remember that Da Vinci, Einstein, and JFK had the same 24 hours that you do—you probably can find ways to be more efficient. I achieved better time management in the following way: First I became more mindful of what I was doing every 30 minutes by writing down what I was doing and how efficient I was being (e.g., writing e-mails 7/10 efficient, writing chapter 5/10 efficient). Then I discovered times in the day I was most efficient and times when I just needed a break. I shifted my most challenging and high-priority tasks in my most efficient time block (usually mornings) and left other errands for the afternoon. You could give this approach a try.
• **Express feelings to find a solution.** If you let others know how you feel about your situation, they may have a way of finding a solution. Be mindfully present with your emotions and express them gently when you can. Several research studies show writing things down in a journal can help too.
• **Set boundaries.** You need to be mindful of how much time and energy you're going to put into each task. If it's open-ended, other people can take advantage of you. Let other people know where the limit is, with both politeness and firmness.
• **Make compromises.** Often you can't fully get your own way. For example, agree to take your son to football only if he cleans his room every week—that's one less thing for you to do.
Accept the Stressor
One key to stress management is knowing what you can control and what you can't. If you can't control the stressor, you need to find a way to accept what's happening. Here's how:
• **Practice mindfulness meditation.** By meditating, your wisdom grows as you see how thoughts and feelings are constantly in flux. You learn to accept these changes rather than struggle to control them. This ability to accept is then translated to other areas of your life.
• **Let go of grudges.** Forgiving isn't always easy, but it can save years of unnecessary stress. By forgiving, you let go of grudges that usually cause you much more pain than the other person. And remember that forgiving doesn't mean what the other person did was right or fair. Forgiveness is for you, not for them.
• **Manage your inner control freak.** To manage stress, you need to be clear about what you can control; you need to be able to accept the rest. If you don't accept what you can't control, that's a recipe for a stress-filled life.
• **Express your feelings.** By verbalizing your feelings to others, your brain turns down your stress response and you feel better. Sharing your problems helps to take a weight off your shoulders and makes acceptance a little easier.
_Adopt a Healthy Lifestyle_
Beyond the four A's for managing your stressor, it's a great idea to adopt a healthy lifestyle. Here are a few tips:
• **Exercise.** Aim for 30 minutes of physical activity, 5 days a week. Even a brisk walk counts. Make your exercise mindful by paying attention to your bodily sensations, your breathing, or your senses.
• **Socialize.** Try spending time with others regularly. It'll often make you feel calmer and keep things in perspective. Practice mindful listening by letting go of your own judgments while listening to your friend.
• **Balanced diet.** Taking the time and effort to eat well will make you feel good about yourself and boost your energy and resilience against stress. And if you end up eating a package of cookies, see if you can be kind to yourself rather than berate yourself. Self-compassion is an important, mindful attitude.
• **Sleep.** Aim for 7½–9 hours a night if you want optimal health. If you can't do this during the week, catching up on the weekend doesn't actually work that well. If you struggle to sleep, try using the body scan meditation at night to see if that helps.
• **Have fun every day.** Doing things just for fun isn't a luxury, but necessary for your sanity. Watch your favorite comedy, take a quiet stroll in nature, play a sport, or go to a party—whatever works for you. Be mindful while you're there rather than playing on your phone to fully take the experience in.
• **Relaxation.** Having a hot bath, getting a massage, savoring a delicious meal, and doing some light gardening are some of the many ways you could relax. And many of these activities can be enhanced by being mindful of them.
Adapt to the Stressor
Acceptance isn't the only way of dealing with stressors that you can't control. You can also change your mind-set—your attitude toward the stressor. This is called adapting to stressors. Here are some key attitude shifters that I often use:
• **See problems as opportunities.** Life will always be filled with problems. See them as challenges and opportunities and you'll feel less stressed and more excited.
• **Be grateful for what's going well.** Your brain isn't designed to remember positive events. So make a daily effort to consider what's going well in your life. Small things like a meal on the table, a view of some trees outside, and your ability to walk are all fine. If your boss is causing you stress, remember to be grateful for aspects of the work you enjoy—the salary, benefits, or colleagues.
• **Lower your standards.** Do you set yourself very high standards? Have a tendency toward perfectionism? Find out ways to reduce this way of living to make life less stressful and more productive and enjoyable.
• **Think big picture.** Consider whether your stressor will be an issue in a year's time. And how important is it, compared to the rest of your life? Practice stepping back to see things in perspective.
**Reflection**
Bring to mind a source of stress for you at the moment. Which of the four A's most appeals to you to respond most effectively to that stress? Try it out and write down what effect it had on your stress levels.
DIFFERENTIATING THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS
You've discovered some ways of managing stress. But you may not be clear about the difference between thoughts and feelings. For example, you may say:
"I feel useless."
"I feel pathetic."
"I feel ugly."
These are not emotions but thoughts. Examples of emotions include happiness, sadness, anger, boredom, fear, joy, excitement, and despair.
It's important to distinguish between thoughts and emotions because you can question your thoughts but not your feelings. Thoughts are sentences in your mind. You can step back from them, question them, or see them as simply sounds that are passing in your mind. Emotions are different. They are an inner experience usually including a bodily sensation. They are an experience that can't be questioned.
Ugliness is not a feeling—it's a thought. You probably feel sad and think, "I'm ugly." You can now question the thought. There may be many times when people found you beautiful. You may feel sad, but when you question the thought, the intensity of the feeling dissipates.
Thoughts affect emotions, and emotions affect thoughts. They interact with each other, together with sensations in your body. For example, when you feel lonely, you may start thinking, "I'm a loser," and your body may feel a bit weaker. This may then result in your feeling sad, and then you may think, "What's wrong with me?" and so on. The good news is you can make a positive difference. By labeling the emotion and changing your relationship to your thought, you start to take greater control of your emotions. The key way to shift your relationship to thoughts is explained next.
Thoughts Are Just Thoughts
Try saying the following sentence in your head:
"I'm a pink banana."
You obviously don't believe that to be true, but why not? After all, you had it as a thought in your head. As you know, just because you have a thought in your head doesn't make it a fact.
But what if you had the following thought in your head:
"I'm useless."
That's just another thought. But you may be more inclined to believe it, especially after a day when everything seemed to go wrong. (We talked about the negativity bias, which makes us all more inclined to interpret things negatively than positively, in Week 2.) If that thought has popped into your head before, or any other negative sweeping statement about yourself, your body's stress response would turn on. But if you see the thought for what it is—just another thought—then it can have far less power over you.
_Research Corner: De-stress Your Brain by Labeling_
In mindfulness, labeling emotions means stating in your mind what your experience is. For example, if you're feeling angry, you state in your mind, "I'm feeling angry" or simply "angry."
In 2007, J. David Creswell and colleagues from UCLA wanted to see whether this labeling had any effect on the brain, so they took a group of 27 people and showed them images of faces that were angry or fearful while in a brain scan. These images usually create the stress response in the brain, which includes increased activity in a part of the brain called the amygdala.
When the participants labeled the emotion with the word _angry_ or _fearful_ , they found that the activation in the amygdala reduced. Instead, they activated a part of the brain called the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, which is thought to help us deal with emotions and manage behavior. If they labeled the faces with any other name, they didn't get the same effect.
The study also found those who were more mindful had greater activity in the prefrontal cortex as a whole—the part of the brain intended to manage emotions, do problem solving, and make wise choices.
So, if you're feeling a difficult emotion, label it in your mind. Doing so can help you reduce your stress response and the intensity of the emotion. You could also write the emotion down in a journal or talk to a friend about how you're feeling to verbalize your emotions.
I know for me personally, thoughts were the cause of a lot of stress. When I taught my first lesson as a science teacher, I didn't think I was a good teacher at all. My hands were shaking, and each sentence I spoke was meticulously planned. I was so nervous while demonstrating a laser that I accidentally left the laser switched on and pointing toward the class! Luckily no one was hurt. But what was the cause of my stress? It was thoughts in my head saying things like "You can't teach," or "You're going to lose control of the class." And at first I believed those thoughts to be true. It was only after practicing mindfulness that I learned the adage:
Thoughts are simply thoughts—not necessarily facts.
This insight did change my life. I know that sounds cliché, but it did. I no longer believed the thoughts in my head have to be true. They are just that: thoughts. I learned to watch my thoughts and let them go, or question them, and went on to become a successful schoolteacher for 10 years! If I had believed those negative thoughts about myself all those years ago, I would have stopped teaching before I had really started.
You may argue, what if the thoughts are actually true? To help you check whether a thought is true, ask yourself the following question:
"Can I be 100% sure this thought is a fact?"
If you have any doubt about the thought's validity, just see it as merely a passing thought for the time being, especially if it's a judgmental thought.
Thoughts to watch out for are sentences with the words _always_ , _never_ , _should_ , or _must_. They indicate that you're thinking in absolutes, which is rarely the reality. Life is not black or white. For example, when I have a heavy workload, my brain sometimes thinks, "I must finish this"—the strong word creates an unnecessary extra pressure on my mind. Here are some more examples of thinking in extremes:
"I always mess up."
"I should be working."
"She must get there on time."
"He never does anything nice for me."
**Reflection**
The next time you think a negative thought about yourself, follow it by saying, "Thoughts are just thoughts." Then take a mental step back from the thought. Record what effect this has.
Awareness as a Container for Experience
One of the ways of seeing thoughts as merely thoughts rather than facts is to learn the concept of awareness as a huge container for experience. In this way you're able to see thoughts, emotions, and all other experiences in a larger and more spacious way.
When I was first taught meditation, I found the process so exciting that I spent as much time as I could meditating. Sometimes I would meditate for hours. I was studying for my university degree in chemical engineering at the time and remember meditating instead of revising for my exams! Anyway, in those extended meditation sessions, I sometimes had a very unusual experience. The physical sensation in my body completely dissolved. I knew I was sitting there of course, but the physical limitations of my body disappeared. It was like my body wasn't there. Simultaneously my mind was completely open, and if I had a thought, it was completely clear in my consciousness and didn't hook me into a train of thought at all. The feeling was deeply restful, peaceful, and lasted for 10 minutes or so at a time, and when I ended the meditation my brain felt extremely wide awake, serene, and energized. I felt like I was resting in pure awareness itself.
**"I never felt the deep peace in the meditations that some others did. I thought I was doing it wrong. But then, one day, while in the shower, I felt happy for no reason. Just happy to be alive. I hadn't felt that for years. I knew it was the meditation that caused that."**
Awareness is like a container for all experiences. All my senses, my thoughts and my emotions, my hopes and desires, dreams and fears are held within awareness. Without awareness, they have no existence.
Through regular mindfulness meditation, you'll discover this for yourself. Awareness is both lighting up all your experiences in the meditation and making you the observer of the experience rather than the experience itself. It's not an objective experience, but a subjective one. It can be described as "being," "presence," "aliveness." I like to simply think of it as pure awareness and that it lies at the heart of my being—always available and always free.
There are three main advantages of becoming familiar with awareness as a container for experience:
• You are able to step back from everyday negative experiences more easily. Therefore they don't cause so much stress.
• You are able to live with greater equanimity and therefore peace, because the rise and fall of thoughts and emotions are just seen as little events in the vast container that is awareness.
• You can feel satisfied with yourself just as you are. You don't need to keep striving to improve yourself, as your true nature is already pure and perfect just as it is.
The concept of a container is just an analogy. Some would say it's not even a container, as that creates a limit. You could think of awareness as open space, pure potential, or like the ocean, with the waves at the surface representing your thoughts and emotions and the calm and peacefulness at the bottom of the ocean.
Most people intuitively know there is a sense of deep peace within them. Meditation offers a way to dive down and access those precious inner resources and rise up refreshed and renewed.
| Avoid trying to chase any kind of "experience" in meditation. All experiences have a beginning and an end. Mindfulness is about letting go of all experiencing and just practicing the various exercises. Even if you do happen to experience "pure awareness," acknowledge it, enjoy it, and then turn your attention back to the meditation practice once the experience passes. Live in the moment rather than trying to relive past experiences.
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MINDFULNESS AND RESILIENCE
Resilience is the process of effectively coping with adversity—it's about bouncing back from difficulties. The great thing about resilience is that it's not a personality trait; it involves a way of paying attention, thinking, and behaving that anyone can learn.
World-renowned neuroscientist Richard Davidson has found evidence that mindfulness does increase resilience, and the more mindfulness meditation you practice, the more resilient your brain becomes. The emotional soup that follows a stressful event can whip up negative stories about yourself or others that goes on and on, beyond being useful. For example, if you have an argument with your partner before leaving for work, you can end up replaying that conversation all day, which continues to proliferate anxiety or low mood far more than is necessary. Mindfulness reduces this rumination and, if practiced regularly, changes your brain so that you're more resilient to future stressful events.
There are several key aspects of resilience:
• Positive relationships—this is the most important factor.
• The ability to make plans and take action to solve problems.
• The capacity to manage difficult emotions—mindfulness is an important aspect here.
• Effective communication skills.
Here are five ways to build resilience:
1. **Nurture relationships.** Have a range of positive, supportive connections within and outside your family. If you don't, take steps to improve the situation. Join a club, local group, religious organization, volunteer group, or an evening class.
2. **Find meaning in difficulties.** When faced with adversity, see if you can discover some positive way in which you've dealt with the challenge. People often report improved relationships, greater spirituality, or appreciation of life in the face of great difficulties.
3. **Be optimistic.** Use mindfulness to shift your attention from negative rumination to more positive thoughts about the future. Hope and optimism is a choice. Avoid seeing crises as insurmountable. You can't change the fact that very stressful events happen, but you can learn to change your response to that. The tiniest of changes counts, and meditation can help.
4. **Be decisive.** Make decisions and take action rather than hoping things will get better one day. If you're not good at this, read about how to improve this skill or ask a trusted friend to help. Not making a decision is in itself a decision.
5. **Accept that change is part of living.** Expect things to change and adversity to occur, rather than pretend all will always be well. Change is part of life. Your goal is to cope effectively rather than avoid loss or pain.
When it comes to resilience, flexibility is the name of the game. Discovering ways to adapt to the changes that life throws at you makes you more able to cope.
**Reflection**
What simple action can you take to begin increasing your resilience? It can be as simple as picking up the phone and making a call every day.
HONORING EMOTIONS
One powerful way of managing difficult emotions that arise in adversity is to honor all your emotions. It's okay to have emotions—all emotions. In fact, it's essential. The wide spectrum of emotions that humans experience is there for a reason. Research continues to show that people who use emotion and reason together make the wisest decisions. Reason can't operate effectively without emotion.
Emotions are like messengers. They exist to tell you something. When you experience a pleasant emotion, you're being informed to move toward something. When you feel an unpleasant emotion, you're being advised to move away. At their extreme, these emotions help you keep your hand out of a flame (fear) and spend time with other people (love). An emotion like depression may indicate you are criticizing yourself too much. The feeling of anger may be telling you someone is stepping beyond your boundaries.
The first step toward honoring emotions is to actually notice them. If you're feeling sad, notice where you feel the emotion in your body, as precisely as you can. The more you practice locating the feeling, the more mindful you become. Labeling the emotion in your mind is helpful too. Meticulous research by world-renowned expert on emotion Paul Ekman, across different cultures, found that there are only six core emotions: happiness, anger, fear, sadness, disgust, and surprise. Learning to identify these emotions is an important part of honoring them.
The second step is to stop judging your emotions. You may think of some emotions as good and others as bad. Or you may see all emotions as bad and irrational. That's just not true. Emotions have evolved within humans over thousands of years for a reason. Judging yourself for having certain emotions just leads to a negative feedback loop locking you deeper into the emotion itself.
The third step, and one of the most powerful ways of honoring your emotions, is to discover how to be compassionate toward yourself and your emotions. This acts like an antidote to berating yourself, which so many of us do, often unknowingly.
**"I wish they had taught me about acceptance at school. I've been resisting emotions all my life, and it has caused me to break down. Now I accept. I've stopped fighting with my reality. For me it's the best way to be with emotions."**
Consider this; How would you treat your friends when they were upset? Would you criticize them for feeling sad, or would you listen to them? Would you offer them a hug or push them over? Of course, you would seek to be kind to them. Well, try doing the same today with your feelings, especially the ones you normally judge as bad or wrong. If that doesn't feel comfortable for you, just try today, as an experiment. When you feel sad, say to yourself something like, "It's okay to feel sad. It's natural. Let me show kindness to the sadness. Let me hold the feeling with gentleness—with respect." Try placing your hand softly on the area in your body where you feel the emotion, as you would on a friend who was hurt—with care and affection. Feel the emotion together with your breathing. Remember that this feeling is universal; all human beings suffer with this feeling too.
**Tales of Wisdom:
Even the Dalai Lama Was Surprised**
When the Dalai Lama was at a meeting with Westerners, meditation teacher Jack Kornfield and others explained how self-hatred, shame, and self-criticism were among the biggest challenges that people faced. It took the Dalai Lama 10 minutes of discussion with the translator to understand the concept of self-hatred. When he understood the meaning, he was genuinely shocked. In the Tibetan tradition, there is no word for self-hatred because it didn't exist in that culture. Whatever the reason, self-hatred is not helpful, and self-compassion is the solution. As the Dalai Lama responded, "But every being is precious!" Self-compassion and mindfulness can help you see yourself as just as precious as anyone else—which you are.
**Reflection:
Discoveries from Week 4**
Here's a chance for you to reflect on your experiences from the week that's just gone.
**MINDFULNESS OF BREATH AND BODY MEDITATION**
How did you find the mindfulness of breath and body meditation practice? Did you manage to adopt a seated posture for that meditation? If so, how did you manage any aches or pains arising in your back or other parts of your body?
Don't worry if you found it painful; that's often quite common, as most people aren't used to sitting upright and still for long periods of time. With practice, your back will strengthen and you'll find it easier.
**MINDFUL BOOSTER: KINDNESS**
Did you remember to do an act of kindness every day, or at least a couple of times during the week? If so, what effect did the action have on your state of mind? Is it something you'd like to do more regularly?
RESPONDING TO STRESS FAQs
**Q: I'm losing enthusiasm for the mindfulness practice. Is that normal? Should I stop meditating?**
A: Around Week 3 or 4 of the course, people often experience a dip in motivation. The initial excitement of discovering a new tool to manage your stress may have diminished, and your romantic ideas of meditation as being your quick-fix method to eliminate stress may have been popped like a balloon. But don't stop. This is entirely normal. This is where the work starts. Keep going—there's lots more to discover and enjoy.
**Q: Why do I keep putting meditation off when I know it's good for me?**
A: This seems to be a common phenomenon for many people. Stopping what you're doing to be mindful or to meditate may go against all your upbringing, conditioning, and cultural norms. So there's bound to be some resistance. Rather than fighting the resistance, feel it. Notice what thoughts are driving this behavior. What feelings prevent you from meditating? As soon as you notice that, you're already being mindful.
**Q: I keep switching between the mini and full course. Is that okay?**
A: That's fine. You can do whichever one suits you in any one week. The shortest of practices is better than nothing at all.
Home Experiments: Week 5
This week's main home experiment alternates between the expanding awareness mindfulness meditation and either the body scan or yoga. You can choose whatever you feel is right for you. Remember to use the table below to find out what you need to be practicing this week, and keep recording your findings in your journal. Here are some details about the other home experiments for this week.
_Mindful Booster_
This week's mindful booster is practicing gratitude. There is now lots of evidence to suggest that counting your blessings not only lowers stress but raises your level of happiness, improves relationships, and even helps you sleep. You could practice gratitude every day by noting a few things in your journal, thinking about them as you drift off to sleep, or sharing what you're grateful for with a friend or your partner every night during dinner. Use whatever approach you like to reflect on what you're grateful for every day. Think of different things or people to be grateful for every day to keep the process fresh.
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_Difficult Communications Record_
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Next week, you will be exploring mindfulness in communication. To prepare you for this, one of your recommended weekly tasks involves recording your difficult communications.
Answer the following questions every day in which you have a difficult communication. The communication could have been in person, on the phone, or even by e-mail. Effective communication is so important for managing stress—it's worth the few minutes it takes every day to try this. Even if this process leads to one insight, it's time and effort well invested.
1. Whom were you communicating with?
2. What was it about?
3. How did this communication come about?
4. What did you want from the communication?
5. What did you get from the communication?
6. What did the other person want?
7. What did the other person get?
8. What were your thoughts, feelings, and body sensations then?
9. What are your thoughts, feelings, and body sensations now?
**Week 5**
**Day** | **Time** | **Mini-Course** | **Full Course**
---|---|---|---
1
| |
Mini-expanding awareness meditation
Mindful booster: gratitude | Full expanding awareness meditation
Mindful pause × 3
Difficult communications record
Mindful booster: gratitude
2
| |
Mini-body scan or mini-yoga
Mindful booster: gratitude | Full body scan or full yoga
Mindful pause × 3
Difficult communications record
Mindful booster: gratitude
3
| |
Mini-expanding awareness meditation
Mindful booster: gratitude | Full expanding awareness meditation
Mindful pause × 3
Difficult communications record
Mindful booster: gratitude
4
| |
Mini-body scan or mini-yoga
Mindful booster: gratitude | Full body scan or full yoga
Mindful pause × 3
Difficult communications record
Mindful booster: gratitude
5
| |
Mini-expanding awareness meditation
Mindful booster: gratitude | Full expanding awareness meditation
Mindful pause × 3
Difficult communications record
Mindful booster: gratitude
6
| |
Mini-body scan or mini-yoga
Mindful booster: gratitude | Full body scan or full yoga
Mindful pause × 3
Difficult communications record
Mindful booster: gratitude
# NINE
# _Week 6_
# Mindful Communication
_The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place._
—GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
INTENTIONS
_To explore mindful communication._
_To practice applying mindfulness in different ways to listen deeply and speak effectively._
_To discover the roles of emotions and stress in communication and how to manage them._
THIS IS the story of Hiroto, one of my readers and followers online.
Hiroto depended on his partner for his happiness. Whenever he felt annoyed or frustrated about anything, he took it out on her, and more often than not, that resulted in an argument. If he was not happy, he blamed his girlfriend. This seemed entirely reasonable to him. He didn't help with the cleaning in the house much, and she hardly ever cooked.
One of his friends had recently completed a course in mindfulness and kept raving about it, so Hiroto decided to give it a try, partly out of curiosity. He took to it like a duck to water, and although it reduced his stress, it did this in a way that was totally unexpected.
Hiroto's perspective on life and his relationship has improved in different ways as a result of mindfulness. He's now much less reliant on his partner for his happiness. He's less focused on her and more focused on cultivating his own well-being. Hiroto now takes a moment to look mindfully within himself when feeling frustrated. This makes him feel better. How does he do this? By spotting negative thought patterns and tendencies to avoid difficult emotions early, and then practicing a short mindful exercise, which helps to dissipate these negative habits. Before mindfulness, Hiroto dealt with feelings of anxiety by arguing with and blaming his partner. Negative thought patterns included habitually thinking, "Why is she not making me happy?" or "Why is she stressing me out? It should feel relaxing to be with her," followed by thoughts and statements of how she should do this or that.
His relationship feels much more relaxed and positive now. Hiroto's new way of being has taken pressure off his partner now that he is more mindful. He seems to be more relaxed and is now talking about having children together, whereas before he was cautious about committing to the relationship.
Hiroto's change occurred when he discovered a greater awareness of his own thoughts and behavior. The next step was not to immediately react to his negative thought patterns and difficult emotions. He gradually acquired the ability to step back from thoughts and emotions and choose a healthier action instead of engaging in his usual habitual patterns of reactivity.
**Reflection:
Exploring Your Difficult Communications Record**
Before we dive into more theory this session, take a few moments to look at your difficult communications record, which you filled in last week if you did the home experiments for the full course.
The purpose of the difficult communications record was to give you an opportunity to see any patterns in your thoughts and feelings and body sensations in difficult conversations that you had throughout the week. Did you notice any patterns?
When I filled the record in myself, I noticed that my most difficult communications were with a friend. A close family member of his had just died, and I needed to call him. Noting my experience helped me see that I had some feelings of anxiety before and during the call and felt it in my stomach. After the call, I spotted my mind playing back the conversation several times, imagining us on the phone, how he was sitting and feeling and what he thought of me. In the past, I've noticed patterns of avoidance when helping others in grief. It's only by filling out the record that the habitual tendencies can be seen so clearly.
**Reflection:
Habitual Tendencies in Difficult Communications**
If you're doing the mini-course, simply note in your journal what habitual tendencies you have discovered in the more difficult communications you deal with. Nobody is perfect at communication—we're all human. Everyone has his or her different challenges. Keep this self-compassionate attitude in mind as you reflect on your imperfect communication this week.
EXPLORING COMMUNICATION
The word communication comes from the Latin _communicare,_ meaning to join, unite, or literally to make common. But how often is communication unifying?
Human beings are social animals, and the heart of socializing lies in effective communication. By communicating well with others, you are able to resolve your differences, build trust, share ideas, and find solutions. Although communication seems simple, poor communication can lead to misunderstanding and swiftly to disagreements, conflict, and stress. Mindfulness offers a way of improving communication so you are better able to connect with your family, friends, and colleagues.
Think about all the communications that you've had today so far. You may have sent text messages, e-mails, or tweets. You may have had a phone conversation or left a voicemail. And of course, you may have had a face-to-face conversation with one or several people already. But communication is not just about sharing ideas. Communication is about sharing emotions. And you can't share emotions that you are not tuned in to. Mindfulness helps you get in touch with both your emotions and those of the other person. This is a vital part of effective communication with others. In this way, you are even able to communicate negative issues in a way that resolves rather than fires up conflict.
Before learning mindfulness, I almost never communicated my emotions to others. My cultural upbringing discouraged the sharing of emotions. After learning mindfulness, in which I got more in touch with my feelings, I began to share my emotions in trusted groups. Now I'm more capable of both listening to others sharing their feelings and sharing my own. It's an aspect of my personality I'm developing, and mindfulness together with journaling my emotions has been a helpful part of that journey.
For example, on one occasion I was given a leadership role in a school and then, several months later, was told that I'd have to step down. No good reason or warning was given. I was understandably angry with the manager and could feel the frustration building up in my body. I managed the situation mindfully by practicing a mindful pause and then writing down all my feelings in a journal that evening. This helped me gather my thoughts and clarify my feelings. The next day I felt comfortable enough to share my experience with close colleagues. They told me about other people who had been treated in the same way by the same manager. I immediately realized the manager was just unskillful in the way he treated staff and felt instantly less stressed—it wasn't all my fault!
Lack of effective communication leads to stress in the following ways:
• Your emotions can fester. Those pent-up emotions can cause you stress.
• You can't put the issue into perspective. In my example, I was able to let go of the stress once I realized the manager had an issue with people management. Problems can seem huge until you share them—then you can realize things aren't quite so bad.
• You get stuck in ruminative thinking. Ever notice how problems can go around and around in your head, generating unnecessary stress? By simply talking it through with someone, you can find an effective solution or at least feel better. A problem shared is indeed a problem halved.
Discover: Mindful Communication
Mindful communication is a way of communicating more meaningfully in your personal and professional life. Through mindful communication you really tune in to both the content and the emotions of the speaker. Simultaneously, you can consciously respond to your own emotions rather than automatically reacting to them.
The Problem with Autopilot
One of the key challenges in effective communication is autopilot. Autopilot, as you recall from Chapter 4, is living habitually rather than consciously. And although habits can be positive, they can prevent you from making choices and seeing the miracle of life unfolding in front of your eyes—it's like a form of sleepwalking.
When you relate to others automatically, you create conditions for a reactive way of communicating. If the other person says something disagreeable to you, you may react by lashing out with anger, sinking into sadness, or just walking away. Without mindfulness, it just happens—you have no choice.
With mindfulness, you can take the following three steps instead, depicted in the diagram below.
1. **Notice** that your communication is currently happening automatically. You are sitting in the same posture, with the same attitude, jumping to the same conclusions, and feeling the same way as you have many times before.
2. **Connect** with your senses. Look at the person for the first time, practice listening deeply, notice your bodily sensations and reactions. This brings you into the present moment and gives access to all the information you need, both words and emotions, so you can choose to respond more wisely.
3. Make a **choice and act**. Decide how you will respond in this communication. Try choosing something different from your normal, habitual reaction. If it feels uncomfortable, it's a good sign that you've stepped out of habitual mode.
Hiroto had another challenge: his mother. Hiroto's mom always seemed to focus on the negative, and so Hiroto just avoided her. The next time the phone rang and his mother was on the line, Hiroto began arguing back in his habitual way. But then he noticed that he was on autopilot. He connected with his breathing and his body sitting on the bed and then chose to listen mindfully rather than mechanically. It wasn't easy. He felt wave after wave of emotions as his mother spoke. But at the end of an hour's talk, his mother stopped and asked Hiroto how he was. That was different! She had pretty much never asked that before. Somehow by being mindful, Hiroto felt his mother had gained permission to step out of her mindless ways too. Over the coming months, he looked forward to the challenge of being mindful with his mother as their relationship began to bloom.
Mindful Listening
Have you ever had the experience of speaking to someone and discovered the person hasn't been listening? He asks a question that you just answered or starts arguing rather than appreciating the difficult day that you've been suffering.
Listening itself is almost effortless. The challenge is setting aside all the other thoughts, desires, and emotions that may form a barrier to your listening. Mindful listening is about that process of letting go.
**"I've been married for 21 years but now see I've been living automatically for most of that time. Thinking about what I'm grateful for in the relationship has woken me from sleepwalking through my life. After that, to say 'I love you' and really mean it warms my heart."**
There are several benefits of mindful listening:
• **You build trust.** The speaker will feel like she is being heard, which of course is what she wants if she's speaking! If the speaker feels she is being heard, she's more likely to find a deeper connection. Trust will naturally arise.
• **Conflicts recede**. When you are better able to understand the other person, you're less likely to get into conflict in the first place. In this way, the speaker won't get frustrated.
• **You can soothe emotions** in the speaker. If the speaker is emotionally charged, offering mindful listening will make her feel like the emotion and the problem is being shared, and this helps to reduce the emotion's intensity. In such a case, by listening you are offering an act of kindness. From this place, you are in a position to create a mental space in which a solution or different way of thinking can arise in the speaker or yourself.
Mindful listening in conversation is like a meditation. When you're practicing mindful listening in meditation, the idea is to be open and listen to the sounds, and each time your mind wanders to other thoughts, you gently and kindly bring your attention back, again and again. When listening to the sounds, you avoid being judgmental. Instead you listen with genuine curiosity, care, and acceptance, as best you can.
EXERCISE: Listening Mindfully
Try this in your next conversation:
1. **Prepare** for the communication. Practice a short mindful pause or at least take a few breaths or connect with one of your senses.
2. **Set aside judgment of the person.** If you're holding your own judgment while the other person is speaking, you're not listening to the person—you're listening to your judgment. If you can't do this, try labeling the thought "judgment" and imagine putting the judgment in a box or on a cloud and letting it float away for the time being. You don't have to agree with everything the person says, but you don't have to judge him as a person either.
3. Give the speaker your full and undivided **attention.** Listen to each sentence he says. Notice both the words and the tone of voice.
4. You will probably and quite naturally **nod or say "uh-huh"** as the person speaks. This is more natural than just staring at him without acknowledging what he says and both makes the speaker feel more comfortable and reassures him that you're listening and not spaced out!
5. **Be curious and show curiosity.** Look interested. Adopt open, interested body language. Look at the speaker and use appropriate facial expressions. Ask questions to help clarify the person's point and to show your curiosity.
Have you ever noticed people sometimes pretend to listen? You can tell from their facial expression and body language that they're not listening. They're just waiting to jump in and make their point. They're just listening to their own ideas. If they listened carefully, the conversation would be far more productive. Ensure you don't get caught in that habit too. Make sure you're not just acting as if you're listening, but actually listening.
Interruptions are another issue in conversations. Do you find yourself interrupting the speaker? If you find yourself interrupting with statements like "Oh, yes, the same thing happened to me when . . . ," your attention is on your own thoughts rather than the speaker. Conversations are not about looking for chances to speak, but begin with simply understanding what the speaker is sharing. When I catch myself interrupting someone, I know it's time to step back and practice mindful listening more diligently.
**Reflection**
1. Think back to a time when you communicated well with someone. When was it, who were you with, what was your state of mind, and what were you talking about? How did it feel to communicate effectively? How mindful were you in that communication? Consider how you can apply your experience to future communications.
2. Now consider a difficult communication that you handled well. How did you manage this? What was the quality of your listening like? How can you apply this to future difficult communications?
Jot your thoughts down in your journal if you like.
Beyond Words: Nonverbal Communication
When you talk about something important to you, nonverbal communication conveys more than your actual words. Nonverbal communication includes body language, facial expression, tone of voice, eye contact, and gestures. And to a more subtle extent, even breathing and muscle tension can have an effect. Your emotions are expressed far more nonverbally than from what you actually say.
By understanding nonverbal communication, you can express yourself and comprehend the other person more effectively. This can be particularly helpful to resolve conflict in difficult conversations. I like to think of this as listening with your eyes and not just your ears.
Use open body language by uncrossing your arms and looking the other person in the eye when she speaks.
Enhancing How You Interpret Nonverbal Communication
A great way to help develop your skills in learning nonverbal communication is to watch others. I love to sit in cafés and people-watch, trying to guess the emotional state and relationship between people by looking at nonverbal communication. When you can't hear what they're saying, you start to learn more about nonverbal communication. Even watching television without the sound on can teach you the power of body language. It's great practice.
A couple of things to remember, though:
1. **People of different cultures, ages, and genders use different body language, so don't read too deeply into each signal.** For example, while good eye contact is almost the norm in the West, it's seen as disrespectful in other areas, including some Asian and African cultures. The less eye contact these groups have, the more respect they show.
2. **And consider a group of body language signals as a whole rather than just one.** For example, if someone happens to have her arms crossed for a while, it doesn't mean she's definitely afraid or feeling defensive—maybe she's just feeling a bit cold without her jacket. But if she also avoids eye contact, looks away a lot, and is a bit jumpy, it might be safer to conclude she's worried about something.
_Research Corner:
How Your Posture Can Transform Your Life_
Social psychologist Amy Cuddy wondered: Can deliberately adopting a confident posture for 2 minutes affect one's level of stress?
She took two random groups of people. One group had to adopt an open body pose, which normally signifies high confidence and power—for example, sitting back with chest open and arms behind the head. The other group adopted a closed body posture with arms and legs folded, which implied low confidence.
After 2 minutes of holding the high-confidence pose, participants' saliva was tested. The results of the short test were amazing. The open body pose group had lowered their stress hormone cortisol by about 25%! The closed body pose participants ended up with 10% higher levels of cortisol.
In another study by Cuddy, adopting the high-confidence pose for 2 minutes before an interview greatly increased the chance of being hired. It was even more important than what the interviewee actually said or what qualifications the applicant had. The main reason: the pose made people have greater _presence._
So try this. Next time you're faced with a stressful situation like being interviewed, making a presentation, teaching a class, or seeing your doctor, take 2 minutes to mindfully open your posture. Go to the bathroom or to your office or into the elevator and really open up your body. Just 2 minutes. Stand up and make a big star sign with your body (just spread your arms and legs far apart), and do it mindfully. Feel your breathing, your body sensations, your emotions. Your stress levels will drop and your sense of confidence will rise—the science backs it up. For an interview or presentation, those 2 minutes could change the direction your life.
Developing Your Own Nonverbal Communication
The basic skill in nonverbal communication is to match your words to your body language. If you're speaking about something you're excited about, you need to be smiling, have a slightly faster rate of speaking and higher tone of voice and appropriate gestures with your arms, for example. If your words don't match your nonverbal communication, the listener won't believe you.
| One excellent way to use body language is when you're feeling anxious about a meeting, like a date. If you stand upright, smile and maintain eye contact, and speak a bit more slowly, even though you feel scared, your emotions may start to ease. This is a clever way to use your body to ease your emotions.
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STRESS AND MINDFUL COMMUNICATION
As you've already read, a bit of pressure is fine and part of life. But constant or high levels of stress take a toll on your relationships. This is because your brain's high-level functioning gets shut down by the fight-or-flight response and you're much more likely to react in a way that you later regret—an experience most people have had. Mindful communication can help you both prevent stress from rising too high and discover ways to respond quickly to that stress so it doesn't cause further difficulties in your relationships.
When you're in the middle of a heated conversation with your boss, you can't stop for 10 minutes of meditation! So how can you help to relieve your stress so the communication doesn't get out of control? Here are a few suggestions.
PRACTICE: Dealing with Stress during a Conversation
These techniques can be put into play whenever you feel stressed during a conversation. The more you practice with them, the more easily you'll be able to apply them when needed.
1. **Recognize** that your stress level is rising. Look out for your stress signals such as tension in your shoulders, increased heart rate, a constant need to interrupt the speaker, or a tightening in your chest, for example. Or you may close down and feel like running away, looking downward, or freezing.
2. **Take a breath.** Feel one full in- and out-breath, even while the person is speaking. Switch your attention for a few seconds into the physical sensation of your breathing. Breathe in and out through your nose so that you don't look like you're sighing in frustration.
3. **Connect with a sense.** Choose whatever works for you. For me, I like the physical sensation of my feet on the floor or my body on the chair. You may prefer noticing what the speaker looks like with curiosity, listening to all the sounds around you as well as what the speaker is saying.
4. **Look for the middle ground.** If you're willing to compromise, you may find a place where it's not ideal for you or the person, but at least you do find a resolution to the issue. Not being willing to compromise at all will often just lead to more stressful communication, and isn't the most effective way to be with others. You both have needs and desires.
5. **See the funny side.** I know this can be much more difficult in the heat of a stressful conversation, but humor can be a great way to dissipate the tension. If you can look at things from a bigger picture, you may be able to see the light-hearted aspects of the situation.
| If you find yourself getting stressed in certain relationships, personal or professional, and just can't seem to stop, rather than trying harder and harder to manage your stress, just watch. Just be as mindful as you can of the conversation and the stress, without trying to stop any emotions or frustrations. Notice your body, the sentences that pour out of your mouth, and the tension that rises. And if you forget to be mindful, be aware of that too! Observing your own behavior with mindfulness and compassion sets the stage for transformation by itself.
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Mindful Communication and Emotions
Communication is usually motivated by emotions, and difficult communications are often charged with those emotions. So the quality of the communication depends on an awareness of both your emotions and the emotions of the other person. For example, if you're feeling anxious but don't know it, you may find yourself shouting at your partner about a small issue rather than talking about the real cause of your stress.
If you lack awareness of how you're feeling, you won't be able to share your emotions and needs with others. And if you aren't aware of the other person's feelings, you won't be able to understand or help him either. This lack of awareness leads to frustration in both parties, as needs are left unfulfilled.
Mindfulness of emotions is a vital life skill. You may be frightened of strong emotions like sadness or anger, but when you ignore, suppress, or fight the emotions, they become a bigger problem. Mindfulness of emotions helps you become aware of emotions with acceptance, so you can respond to the feeling by either just staying with the sensation or deciding to communicate the emotion in an appropriate way. Simply venting anger is a reaction to the feeling of anger and not often appropriate or helpful; learning to be with the emotion and expressing it well is far more satisfying and effective.
EXERCISE: Assessing Your Emotional Awareness
Answer the following questions to assess your general emotional awareness. Jot your thoughts down in your journal if that helps:
• Do you ever feel emotions as a physical sensation?
• Do you ever use emotions or gut feelings to guide your decisions?
• Do you pay attention to your constantly changing inner emotional landscape rather than noticing only one or two emotions in the day?
• Are you comfortable with all your feelings and willing to share your emotions with others?
• Are you sensitive to other people's emotions by putting yourself in their shoes?
The more questions you answered with a no, the less you are currently mindful of your emotions. You can boost your mindful awareness of emotions and therefore improve your communication by:
• Practicing mindfulness of emotions, which is part of the **expanding awareness meditation** in Chapter 8.
• **Labeling your emotions** in your mind as you experience them, whether they are pleasant or not.
• **Asking yourself,** "How am I feeling? Where do I feel this emotion in my body?" several times a day.
• **Sharing your emotions** with a trusted friend.
• **Keeping a journal** and writing down your reflections and emotions from the day or after a difficult communication.
EXERCISE: Mindful Speaking and Listening
Here's an exercise that you can do with someone else—your partner, a friend, or anyone. The exercise takes about 5 minutes.
1. Begin by **asking your partner to talk** to you about any topic she wishes for 5 minutes. Use a timer.
2. **Listen mindfully without interrupting.** You can do this listening by using the techniques in EXERCISE: Listening Mindfully earlier in the chapter.
3. Remember to **use your nonverbal communication skills,** including looking the person in the eyes, acknowledging that you're listening to him, and also noticing any thoughts and feelings that may be arising for you and setting them aside for the time being.
4. You can just **think of it like a meditation** rather than your normal way of listening. This way of listening will help you go from the normal automatic pilot or habitual way of listening to this more mindful form of listening.
5. When the time is up, you can **switch roles.** This time you're doing the speaking and the other person can practice mindful listening.
6. When you're speaking, you can take your time to speak, noticing what you're saying and listening to your tone of voice. If you feel too self-conscious, let go of this process. But I know for me personally, listening to my tone of voice makes me more mindful and makes me speak more slowly and eloquently.
GOING DEEPER: Practice a mindful pause before and after speaking and before and after listening. And if you want to challenge yourself even further, talk about an issue that's more emotionally charged for you.
**Reflection**
At the end of the exercise, discuss your findings. What did you discover about yourself and your friend? What did you enjoy? What did you find challenging? Did you find it easier to do the listening part of the process or the speaking? Is that the same experience in your daily life? Specifically focus on the process of speaking and listening mindfully.
MINDFUL ASSERTIVENESS: BEYOND PASSIVE AND AGGRESSIVE
When you're assertive, you're able to express your needs and desires as well as respect the other person, and this leads to more authentic and harmonious communications and relationships. Most people confuse assertiveness with aggressiveness, however. When you're being assertive in your communication, you're being neither aggressive nor passive.
_Research Corner: Journaling Is like Medicine_
I've offered lots of opportunities to journal in this book. Here's some research that touches on the health benefits of journaling.
University of Texas Psychology Professor and Chair Dr. James Pennebaker is considered the grandfather of journaling research. In his classic study in 1988, 50 students were assigned to journal about either their life's most traumatic experiences, or everyday experiences, for 4 days in a row. Six weeks later, he found those that journaled about their traumatic life experiences had more positive moods, fewer illnesses, improved cellular immune-system function, and fewer visits to the student health center—all compared to those writing about everyday experiences. Confronting traumatic experiences seemed to be physically beneficial.
In another study called "Effects of Writing about Stressful Experiences on Symptom Reduction in Patients with Asthma or Rheumatoid Arthritis," published in the _Journal of the American Medical Association_ in 1999, 112 patients with asthma or rheumatoid arthritis participated. A group of them were asked to journal for about 20 minutes a day for 3 consecutive days about the _most traumatic event of their lives_. So just 1 hour in total. Four months later, almost 50% of the group journaling about their stressful event showed a clinically significant improvement in their condition! The report stated that if a medicine were found to have the same effects, its use would be widespread within a short time.
I think by expressing emotions on paper, the participants became more mindful of their suppressed feelings and this lowered their levels of stress, boosting their immune system and making them healthier. It's an easy and inexpensive way to manage your stress in a relatively short time. Give it a go sometime!
A mindfully assertive person communicates her needs
with clarity and sensitivity. An aggressive person
demands her needs without care.
I use the term mindful assertiveness to emphasize that it's not just about asserting your own rights but about being sensitive to the needs of others as well. Mindful assertiveness is about practicing assertiveness in the backdrop of a compassionate mindful awareness of your own mind-set and that of the other person.
Overcoming Passive Communication
If you're passive in your communication, you're more likely to agree to the wishes of others even though it undermines your needs. If you have a strong desire to be liked by others, you'll have a tendency to be passive.
My own personality leans toward being passive, even though I am quite an extrovert. I didn't think that meditation would help me be more assertive. But actually, through meditation I'm much better able to handle emotions like anxiety. When I do have to complain or stand up for myself, I use it as an opportunity to practice mindfulness, rather than avoiding the discomfort and acting passively. I usually enjoy that challenge now.
Passive people are often considered kind and friendly, just like mindfully assertive people. But they have trouble being kind and friendly to themselves. They don't see themselves as of equal importance to other people. If this sounds like you, combining mindfulness with assertiveness skills could help lower your stress.
For example, if your sister asked you to pick up some bread from the store, a passive response might be "I'm busy looking after the children and need to take Jonny for his piano lesson and promised Michael I'd cook dinner, but I'll squeeze it in just before that." A more assertive response might be "No, I don't have time for that today. I'm really busy. Sorry I can't help you this time."
Saying yes to someone might mean saying no
to something else. Think before you agree to someone
else's request.
Assertiveness training has traditionally said to avoid apologizing. But mindful assertiveness is about being friendly and kind as well as firm. The idea is to try to create a win–win situation so both parties are at least a little bit satisfied.
PRACTICE: Mindfully Responding to Requests
The next time you get a request to do something, become aware of how you're feeling. If you find yourself automatically saying yes again, just notice. Practice a mindful pause after the conversation. Then consider your own needs just as much as the other person's needs. If you feel you're probably being too kind to the other person but not kind to yourself at all, call the person back and politely say you can't fulfill the request. When you practice this periodically, you become more comfortably assertive.
Reducing Aggressive Communication
When you respond aggressively in your communication, you're saying you see your desires, needs, and rights as greater than those of others. Aggressive responding includes telling rather than asking, rushing the other person unnecessarily, not taking feelings into account—even ignoring is a form of aggression.
An aggressive form of communication lacks compassion. An aggressive person is not seeing the situation from the other person's perspective, only his own. If you make an aggressive communication, you're more likely to provoke either a passive or an aggressive response. If the other person responds aggressively, you're unlikely to get your needs or desires met. And if the other person responds passively, you would have made that person feel low or more stressed rather than strengthening the relationship.
**Tales of Wisdom: The Starfish Story**
Once upon a time a man was walking along a beach when he noticed a boy in the distance hurriedly throwing something into the sea. He approached the boy and said, "Hey, what are you up to?"
"I'm throwing starfish back into the ocean. The tide is going out, and if I don't throw them back in, they'll die," replied the boy.
The man laughed. "Look along the coastline. There's thousands of starfish. You can't possibly make a difference!"
The boy listened patiently. Then he looked down, picked up another starfish, and gently threw it back into the ocean. He smiled back at the man and said, "I made a difference to that one."
What does the story mean to you? To me, it reminds me that every small act of kindness _does_ make a difference.
PRACTICE: Mindfully Noticing Others' Reactions to You
Notice other people's reactions when you communicate with them. Notice their facial expression, body language, and tone of voice. If people tend to react with defensiveness or aggression, perhaps you're being too aggressive in your communication. Just observe to begin with before judging yourself or making any changes. Do this whenever you think of it during an interaction to become more mindfully aware of the effect you might be having on others. Avoid the temptation to change at first—just watch to begin with. Your change will happen naturally if you watch people's reactions nonjudgmentally.
Being Mindfully Assertive
To be mindfully assertive means to take a balanced view of your own needs as well as the needs of the other person. You express your needs, but you also listen to the needs of others and seek to find an amicable solution.
These are the kinds of behaviors that are part of mindful assertiveness:
• Mindfully listening to others and letting go of your judgment while they speak.
• Both accepting your responsibilities and being willing to delegate to others.
• Being aware of your own emotions and avoiding reacting to them habitually; instead you respond to them with conscious awareness of making a choice.
• Being willing to apologize when you're wrong.
• Being grateful for what others are doing for you and sharing your appreciation with others.
• Balancing a kindness to yourself with a kindness toward others.
• Forgiving yourself when you're too passive or aggressive and making small changes to be a bit more assertive next time.
Here are two mindful techniques to be more assertive in your communication.
_Traffic Light Communication_
Author Susan Chapman specializes in mindful communication. She likes to use the model of traffic lights when teaching mindful communication skills.
**Red light** represents being closed down and defensive. Your husband turns up an hour late at the restaurant and doesn't even apologize. An argument ensues. Your focus turns to your own needs rather than anyone else. You don't care about the relationship, only that he's rude and you're starving. You can be in a red light communication zone for minutes, hours, days, years, or even a lifetime.
**Yellow light** is in between. Your husband is late for dinner, but you're not totally overwhelmed by your emotions. There's an opportunity to make a choice. You could go down the red route and turn passive or aggressive. But you have an option. With a dash of mindful awareness and the possibility of responding differently to the situation, you make matters better. You soothe your emotions by connecting with your senses and enjoying the restaurant's aromas. You give him a kiss and order starters. Lateness can be discussed afterward. You're moving toward green light instead of red.
**Green light** is openness. With openness you can access compassion, curiosity, and acceptance. This is the state of mindfulness. The needs of others are just as valuable as your own. You can love, care, and both feel the pain of others and a desire to relieve that pain. You react with concern to your husband's late arrival and are pleased to see he has arrived safe and well. Before long, there's laughter, engaging conversation, and a plate of pasta.
By being mindful of your traffic light signal, you can make better choices in your communication. Take close care about what you do and say in red, exercise your ability to make the right choice when in yellow, and enjoy deepening your communication when green.
PRACTICE: Find the Truth
This is a great technique you can practice using any time someone is being aggressive toward you. Your response is then neither aggressive nor passive. Simply look for an element of truth in the person's statement and agree with that, even if it's a bit critical.
Here's how:
1. **Listen** to what the person says.
2. **Notice** any strong emotions arising in your body and feel them with your breathing.
3. In a calm way, make your statement, **highlighting the truth.**
4. **Listen mindfully again,** without judging the person as "bad," as this evokes more conflict and stress. Instead, listen and seek the element of truth.
5. Again, use mindfulness to accept and step back from your thoughts and **repeat** any true element.
**For example:**
OTHER: You haven't cooked dinner yet! You're so lazy! ( _aggressive tone_ )
YOU: Yes, I haven't cooked dinner yet. ( _calm response_ )
OTHER: I've been working so hard. I'm tired and hungry. What's wrong with you?! ( _still aggressive_ )
YOU: Yes, I know you're hungry and tired and have been working hard. I've been busy with the children, actually. I plan to make dinner soon. ( _Identifies truth again. Uses breath to stay calm_.)
OTHER: Oh, I see. I'll look after them. ( _much calmer response_ )
PRACTICE: Empathic Assertion
This is a conscious way of acknowledging how the other person feels before you express your need. In this way you show empathy. Simply start your statement with how the other person sees the situation.
For example, here someone starts with acknowledging the parking attendant:
"I understand you say you don't normally offer refunds for parking tickets."
Then follow this with your need:
"However, in this case, I paid for my parking, so I would like a refund, please."
Acknowledging what the other person says can make him less defensive and make a resolution more likely. This takes practice and mindfulness, however, since emotions are often high. Practice in less heated interactions at first and then work your way up to the most tense situations.
ENACTING COMMUNICATION STYLES: LEARNING THROUGH MOVEMENT
In my workshops, I like to get people to act out different poses to experience different communication styles: passive, aggressive, and mindful communication. This way of exploring emotions is particularly effective if you learn through activity and movement rather than just reading.
I describe three different role-play scenarios below. Try them out with your partner or a friend when you can.
EXERCISE: Communicating Passively
In this exercise, you are going to enact a passive form of communication using physical role play rather than actually exchanging words.
1. Begin by facing your partner, about 6 feet apart. Center yourself with a few breaths and tune in to your emotional state.
2. Ask the other person to raise his arms parallel to the floor and come toward you.
3. As he gets close to pushing you, lie down on the floor in a passive way, giving in.
4. The other person simply walks around you as you lie there.
**Reflection**
Write down your thoughts in your journal if you like.
What did you feel during this interaction? What were your thoughts? Did this feel like a familiar form of communication, or was it alien to you? How would you have preferred to respond rather than lying down?
EXERCISE: Communicating Aggressively
This time, you are going to enact an aggressive form of communication using physical role play rather than actually exchanging words.
1. Begin by facing your partner, about 6 feet apart.
2. Ask your partner to raise her arms parallel to the floor while you do the same.
3. Move toward each other and push against each other, without knocking anyone over!
4. Continue to push each other. The harder your partner pushes, the harder you need to push back.
**Reflection**
How did you feel during this exercise? How did it compare to your emotions in the first scenario? What thoughts arose for you this time? Some people feel more empowered in this aggressive form of communication compared to the passive example earlier. Others feel uncomfortable, as if it's unnatural.
EXERCISE: Communicating with Mindful Assertiveness
In this final exercise, you are going to model a mindfully assertive form of communication using physical role play. Again, this is done in silence. This time, hold a very slight smile on your face too—to remind you to be playful in the interaction.
1. Raise your arms in front of you, parallel to the floor, and have your partner do the same.
2. As your partner moves toward you, move toward her too, looking her in the eye.
3. As she moves toward you, take hold of her wrists and use their force to gently direct their energy to one side rather than toward you.
4. Use the force in your partner's arms to move in almost a dance, continuing to flow with each other. Take a firm stand and neither run away nor exert full control. Play with the forces your partner exerts and put a little bit of force in yourself to redirect the energy.
5. Stay aware, moment by moment. Acknowledge the other person's point of view through her physical movement and express your point of view by physically guiding her arms in the way you wish. You don't know where you'll be moving next, and you're open to that, trusting yourself in each moment to make a choice as to which direction to move in.
I personally really enjoy this exercise. You get to experience physically what it's like to allow the physical force that someone exerts on you without too much effort. It's a bit like a freestyle dancing where you play off each other's movement. When you're dancing, it's doesn't feel like effort—it's fun. You don't know what will happen next. One moment you're going around in a circle, and the next minute your partner is doing spins and you're both laughing. It's a great metaphor for meeting difficult conversations in a different way rather than just hiding, running away, or fighting back.
**"I've always had a fiery personality. It led to the breakdown of a relationship that I really valued—I was distraught. Mindfulness helped me see my fear underneath the anger and gave me the skills to soothe that anxiety with my breath and self-kindness. I'm not in a new relationship, but I'm far more at peace with myself."**
GOING DEEPER: If you enjoyed the role plays, try some more! One involves curling yourself into a ball when the other person comes toward you. Yet another involves running away as the other person comes toward you. Try them out if you have time, and make up one of your own. There are so many different ways we all react in communication, both one to one and in a group. Also try to apply the advice of Thich Nhat Hanh whenever you can, summarized in the box below.
_Thich Nhat Hanh on Communication_
Nobel Peace Prize nominee and the second-most-famous Buddhist monk after the Dalai Lama is Zen Buddhist mindfulness teacher Thich Nhat Hanh. Here is a summary of his key advice on what he calls mindful or compassionate communication.
The essence of communication is deep listening and loving speech.
**Deep listening** —Listen with compassion to relieve the suffering of the other person. Even if the other person is mistaken in his interpretation of a situation, just listen deeply. Correct his interpretation when you think he'd be ready to listen—but not now. For now, don't interrupt or argue; just listen with your heart. An hour of this can bring about healing and transformation in the other person.
**Loving speech** —There is a saying in Vietnamese that "It doesn't cost anything to have loving speech." When dealing with a difficult conversation, use loving speech. And ask for help. For example: '"Darling, I am suffering, and I want you to know it. Darling, I am doing my best; I'm trying not to blame anyone else, including you. Since we are so close to each other, since we have made a commitment to each other, I feel that I need your support and your help to get out of this state of suffering, of anger."
The practice of mindfulness meditation and living mindfully in everything you do will help you listen deeply and speak lovingly.
**Reflection**
What feelings arose for you as you did this exercise? What thoughts arose in your mind? Did you enjoy this process, or did you find it difficult? Did the movement turn into a form of dance, or did you still feel some sort of fight or resistance with your partner?
PRACTICE: Mindful Yoga
| _10 minutes_.
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| _30 minutes_.
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_Audio tracks 9 and _.
Practice the mini or full mindful yoga sequence in Chapter 13.
PRACTICE: Expanding Awareness Mindfulness Meditation
| _10 minutes_.
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| _30 minutes_.
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_Audio tracks 15 and ._
This week the expanding awareness meditation practice is just the same as you did last week. Remember to choose either the mini or full version. Try it now by finding a comfortable yet upright posture and using the guided audio.
GOING DEEPER: RESPONDING TO YOUR STRESS MEDITATION. At the end of the meditation, try the following exercise.
| _5–10 minutes_.
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| _Audio track 17_.
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1. Bring to mind a **current challenge** in your life that is the cause of some stress. A situation that you're willing to work with at the moment. Not your biggest challenge but not so small that it causes no stress at all. A 3 on a scale of 1–10 is a good guide.
2. **Bring the situation vividly to mind.** Imagine being in the situation and all the difficulties associated with it.
3. Notice whether you can **feel the stress in your body.** Physical tension, faster heart rate, a little bit of sweating, butterflies in your stomach, tightness in the back or shoulders or jaw, perhaps. Look out for your stress signals.
4. **Tune in to your emotions.** Notice how you feel. Label that emotion if you can, and be aware of where you feel the emotion, exactly, in your body. Just try to spot it as best you can. The more precisely you can locate the emotion and the more you notice about the sensation, the better. With time and experience, you'll keep getting better at this.
5. **Bring mindful attitudes to the emotion.** These include curiosity, friendliness, and acceptance.
6. **Try placing your hand** on the location of the sensation—a friendly hand representing kindness. Do it the way you would place your hand on the injured knee of a child, with care and affection.
7. **Feel the sensation together with your breathing.** This can promote a present-moment awareness and mindful attitudes to your experience.
8. When you're ready, bring this meditation to a close.
**Reflection**
What effect did the responding to your stress meditation have on you? Write down your experience and reflections.
This is an important and challenging meditation, teaching you the skills to be with stress and its emotions without reacting to them but instead learning to be with those difficult sensations.
PREPARING FOR A DAY OF MINDFULNESS
At some point this week, the MBSR program includes a full day of mindfulness practice. This will be detailed in the next chapter. If you're doing the mini-program, you don't have to do this. If you're doing the full program and are seeking the maximum benefits from mindfulness, look at your schedule and see how you could make time for a day of mindfulness. At this point all you need to do is make time for a day of mindfulness in which you don't have any other responsibilities.
The benefits of a day of mindfulness are:
• An opportunity to **deepen** your experience of mindful awareness as you move from one mindfulness practice to another.
• A chance to **discover** how your body and mind respond to an extended period of mindfulness practice.
• The **time** to train your mind in mindfulness for an extended period of time without going back into your normal habits.
I remember on the last day of mindfulness that I ran for teacher training, one lady had tears rolling down her cheeks at the end. She explained in an animated way that the experience of spending a day just being mindful and resting was exactly what she needed. Her father had died a couple of years before, and she'd blocked herself from the grief. She thought she wouldn't be able to handle it. The day gave her the space to stop avoiding the feelings and the courage to allow them to come through slowly. It was totally unexpected. A few months later she said that day was a major breakthrough in her life and she now felt happier and more confident.
**Reflection: How Are the Home Experiments Going?**
1. How have the expanding awareness meditation and body scan or mindful yoga home experiments been going? What went well? What did you struggle with?
2. If you didn't practice on certain days, what thoughts did you have? What got in the way?
MEDITATION AND MINDFUL STRETCHING FAQS
**Q: I've really taken to the yoga, but the body scan and expanding awareness meditation don't work for me. Can I stop them?**
A: All these meditations work in subtle ways in their own time. Just because you don't immediately feel the benefits doesn't mean they're not working. So as you made a commitment at the beginning of the course to stick it out for the 8 weeks, give it a shot. It's just 3 more weeks! And then you can make your decision.
**Q: I was hoping my mind chatter would calm down after all this meditation, but it hasn't really stopped. Am I doing something wrong?**
A: Mind chatter is here to stay, I'm afraid. Sometimes it calms down and sometimes it increases, like when you're under stress. The great thing about mindfulness is that you can carry on being mindful despite the mind chatter. You can acknowledge the mind chatting away and come back to focusing on your breathing or your partner's concerns or the tree by the road. Think of your mind chatter like the weather outside—it's almost always changing. Give up all hope to silence the chatter and give full attention as best you can to being mindful; that's the less stressful approach. You don't need to make mind chatter another problem to deal with. _Use mind chatter as a stepping stone into mindful awareness._
**Q: I think I've overstretched myself in the yoga. I'm so stupid. I'm limping around when I try to walk. What should I do?**
A: You're not stupid for doing that. What sort of thought is "I'm so stupid"? It's a self-judgment. Notice your mind patterns here. You've judged yourself for making a mistake as a beginner in yoga. Interesting, isn't it? See if you can spot that happening at other times in your daily life. That's what mindfulness is about!
**Q: I prefer to do the meditations without the audio. Is that okay?**
A: Yes, that's fine. You can choose from tracks 20 to 23, which is just silence with bells to let you know when it's time to stop.
**Q: Why do we do mindfulness of thoughts? The whole reason I'm doing this is to stop paying attention to negative thoughts; if I pay attention to those thoughts, I know where I'll end up, and it's not a good place.**
A: First of all, all the exercises are your choice. If you feel they are not right for you, remember you can stop them. The reason for practicing mindfulness of thoughts is not to go down your usual habitual thinking paths but to look at them as if you're separate from them—like you see clouds in the sky. You can't stop clouds from coming into the sky. You also can't stop thoughts from coming into your mind; it's what thoughts do.
**It's very common for beginners to go too far. I've made this mistake too! You're discovering your body's current limits and gone past your edge; it's part of the discovery process in yoga. Have a break, and when you feel better, restart the practice and go easy on the stretches. Mindful yoga is a mindfulness exercise more than a physical exercise.**
EXERCISE: Paper Thought Clouds
If you're having trouble stepping back from you thoughts, this exercise is a fun one to try. Take some paper and cut it into the shape of clouds. Write some of your common thoughts on the clouds. Then pass them in front of your eyes so they come into vision from your left and go out of sight on your right while you look straight ahead. There's no need to dwell further about each thought cloud. See if you can see each thought in the same way—as on another cloud. Do this several times, until the thoughts seem to have almost the same emotionally uncharged effect. Then throw the clouds in the trash or burn them—this can enhance the feeling of letting the thoughts go. Note any insights you had about this exercise in your journal, if you wish.
Home Experiments: Week 6
This week's main home experiment alternates between expanding awareness meditation and either the body scan or a mindful yoga sequence of your choice. You can choose whatever you feel is right for you each day. Remember to use the table to find out what you need to be practicing this week and keep recording your findings in your journal.
_Mindful Booster_
This week's mindful booster is to have one mindful communication per day. It could be with someone close to you, or even a brief few minutes with a colleague at work, or at the local store. Remember to stop, look, listen, and avoid interrupting. Keep an open body language and be curious. Notice tone of voice and the other person's body language. Your discoveries could have a big impact on understanding yourself and your relationships, so jot your observations down and take a few moments to reflect on your findings about yourself.
_Mindful Pause_
If you're doing the full course, practice one of your mindful pauses after a stressful experience. Use this as an opportunity to respond to your experience of stress rather than reacting, if you can. And if you do find yourself reacting automatically to your stress, notice that nonjudgmentally too. Write down your findings.
**Week 6**
**Day** | **Mini-Course** | **Full Course**
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1 | Mini-expanding awareness meditation
Mindful booster: mindful communication | Full expanding awareness meditation
Mindful pause × 3
Mindful booster: mindful communication
2 | Mini-body scan or mini-yoga
Mindful booster: self-compassion | Full body scan or full yoga
Mindful pause × 3
Mindful booster: mindful communication
3 | Mini-expanding awareness meditation
Mindful booster: mindful communication | Full expanding awareness meditation
Mindful pause × 3
Mindful booster: mindful communication
4 | Mini-body scan or mini-yoga
Mindful booster: mindful communication | Full body scan or full yoga
Mindful pause × 3
Mindful booster: mindful communication
5 | Mini-expanding awareness meditation
Mindful booster: mindful communication | Full expanding awareness meditation
Mindful pause × 3
Mindful booster: mindful communication
6 | Mini-body scan or mini-yoga
Mindful booster: mindful communication | Full body scan or full yoga
Mindful pause × 3
Mindful booster: mindful communication
# TEN
# _A Day of Mindfulness_
# Deepening Your Awareness
_Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right doing there is a field. I'll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass the world is too full to talk about._
—RUMI
INTENTIONS
_To understand the reasons for a day of silent mindfulness practice._
_To explore the best ways to prepare for the day._
_To decide what to do on your day of mindfulness._
_To overcome challenges that typically come up during a day of mindfulness._
"MY LIFE changed through an insight during a day of mindfulness," said Jayden. His face was beaming. His smile, infectious. He shared his story with us over a cup of tea after a meditation session.
Jayden had first suffered from anxiety when he was studying for exams in high school. In fact, his stomach felt so painful due to the anxiety that he took antacids several times a day to soothe his belly and make the discomfort go away. He felt ashamed of his feelings. Why did this happen only to him? Why did all the other students seem so confident? It wasn't fair. The anxiety continued through college and when he started work for a marketing agency.
One day, strolling home tired after a day at work, Jayden got mugged. He wasn't hurt physically, but he couldn't stop thinking about what could have happened and started to get panic attacks. To make matters worse, a week later, he got mugged again. Life was not good. Focusing at work was becoming impossible, and he was going into a downward spiral. He'd stopped eating properly, couldn't sleep, and felt jumpy and nervous almost all the time.
He shared his recent problems with one of his colleagues. A 10-minute chat turned into an hour-long tearful conversation. Jayden was referred to a therapist by his manager, who turned out to be a keen advocate of mindfulness. After a few months of therapy, his anxiety was getting under control and the mindfulness exercises he had learned seemed to be helping.
Jayden joined a mindfulness class and then a full day of silent mindfulness practice was recommended to him. "In silence!" he thought. He'd never been silent for a whole day; it seemed really crazy. Just 10 minutes or so in the meditations was fine, but a whole day? His therapist encouraged him to try it. Jayden reluctantly agreed to the challenge but began to feel that familiar swirling in the pit of his stomach. The night before, he dived into bed, got into a fetal position, but just couldn't sleep. What had he got himself into? Why was he so scared?
When he arrived for the day of mindfulness, people were having refreshments and chatting outside in the sunshine. Jayden didn't want to talk to anyone; he felt too nervous. He found a place to sit down inside the hall to meditate and did his usual mindful pause to try to settle himself. His thoughts were negative and he had mixed emotions. His neck and shoulders were so tense—he couldn't really feel them.
The first meditation was for half an hour, and Jayden ended it feeling worse rather than better. Next was mindful yoga. That was easier. He began to focus. He initially had thoughts about not being able to stretch, but the stretches were easy. The teacher emphasized keeping eyes closed so no one would be tempted to judge and compare themselves to others and how far or little they can stretch. That was not the point. Keeping eyes closed helped him focus on his own bodily sensations and breathing.
The breakthrough happened for Jayden in one of the meditations he was doing on the meditation cushion. The long periods of meditation and being away from his usual distractions during the day of mindfulness gave Jayden's mind time to calm down. In his more focused state, he was able to see clearly how mindfully accepting anxiety helped. This is the mindful acceptance you learned about in Chapter 8. He felt the familiar anxiety in the pit of his stomach but decided to just really let it be. Rather than mentally trying to push his feeling away, he consciously felt the emotion without too many thoughts distracting him. Like a gentle wave that rises from the ocean, the anxiety rose gracefully and began to fall. He kept watching. Down it went.
The anxiety diminished because Jayden was able to feel the emotion without fearing it. The safe place of the day of mindfulness gave him the time and space to observe without judging—the essence of mindfulness.
The penny had dropped. Before Jayden had been accepting the feeling so that it would go away. But now he was _really_ accepting it. He had the genuine attitude of "whatever happens happens." Whether the anxiety was there or not there didn't matter. In fact, he began to _look_ for the anxiety rather than get rid of it. It felt like standing up to something scary—like a bully—and that felt empowering.
The day of mindfulness ended well for Jayden, and he went back for more. Regular meditation helps him keep his worries under control and make space for his emotions to pass through his awareness rather than getting stuck within him. Anxiety still comes up for him in the face of stress, but he meets it with a much healthier attitude these days.
Jayden's breakthrough arose in a day of mindfulness practice. But you don't have to do a day's meditation with a group if you don't have access to one. This chapter will show you how to do a day of mindfulness without a teacher. You can then adjust the schedule and content to fit your time and lifestyle. You can even practice with friends or family or try half a day if that's all you have time for.
WHAT IS A DAY OF MINDFULNESS?
The purpose of the day of mindfulness is to train your mind to be more present.
A day of mindfulness consists of practicing mindfulness meditation and doing daily activities in a mindful way while being silent. The day starts the moment you wake up and continues until you drift off to sleep.
Being silent, your thinking mind begins to calm and your senses sharpen. Your bodily sensations are more pronounced. And emotions can become heightened—both the difficult and the joyful ones. This is of course a generalization, and different people have different experiences. But I have found everyone is pleasantly surprised by how transformative a day of mindfulness can be.
In your normal, everyday life, there are plenty of distractions—TV, Internet, and cell phones to name a few. Then there are all the responsibilities that you have to fulfill and all the various unexpected problems to deal with. That's a lot to think about. So when you sit to meditate, it's no wonder your mind is still swirling with thoughts and focusing is difficult.
A day of mindfulness is free of responsibilities. You have time simply to be rather than constantly doing. In this time, three benefits arise:
1. Your body and mind have time to de-stress. You're under less pressure from constant doing and so begin to relax—a bit like a vacation without the stressful travel.
2. You discover new insights about how your mind works. You notice patterns like always thinking about the future or feeling guilty when you're not doing something productive. This self-knowledge helps you see why you're feeling stressed and lessens anxiety.
3. Your mind has time to calm down. Normal, everyday stimulation keeps your mind overly active. In this calmer state, you can begin to feel more peaceful and get a sense of clarity.
These benefits are hard to access among your normal, everyday activities because you're just too busy to notice.
I like to practice a day of mindfulness once a month. Often I don't manage this due to other commitments, but that's my aim. If you find the day beneficial, you can practice the day or half-day on a monthly or perhaps quarterly basis.
The type of silence practiced on a day of mindfulness is sometimes called "noble silence," a concept originally from Buddhism. It's noble in the sense of being an admirable practice to engage in. Noble silence is about giving a rest to all your senses, not just your ears. So you turn off the TV, radio, and telephone. You can stop reading and writing and surfing the Internet. All obvious and subtle distractions are put aside. Instead, you open your eyes, ears, and heart to the world around you and within you. In this way, your mind naturally begins to settle, just like the mud settles in a glass of dirty water when you stop shaking it. This is the practice of deep silence and is the spirit of a day of mindfulness. In deep silence, you make space for your body, mind, and heart to heal and nourish themselves.
When I say silence, I mean that you refrain from speaking to anyone. You can be in a place that may not be silent. You can also listen to guided meditations to help structure your practice.
PREPARING FOR A DAY OF SILENT MINDFULNESS PRACTICE
Choose a day when no one else is at home. If that's not possible, you'll need to let others know not to disturb you as you're doing a "mindfulness experiment" for a day. Rewarding those who don't disturb you with delicious cookies is always well received!
The day before, decide what meals you're going to eat. Ensure you have all the food and drink you need. It's not a problem if the meals require cooking, as preparing and eating food is a wonderful mindfulness practice.
I make sure I don't need to do any work on my day of mindfulness. I certainly keep my laptop closed on that day and my phones off.
Other forms of work that involve the use of your senses can be used in a day of mindfulness. Here are some that offer lots of opportunity to develop mindful awareness:
• Cooking
• Cleaning
• Gardening
• Sweeping
• Ironing
Whether you get a little cooking or cleaning done or not makes no difference. If you think you'll go into doing mode during the activities above, refrain from them.
You'll need some form of timer to indicate the end of each meditation practice. Avoid using your mobile phone for this because you may be tempted to check messages.
Reading anything beyond the odd poem or story based on mindfulness is not recommended. Reading is effectively reentering the world of thoughts, words, and ideas. Instead, give your mind and heart a break from such matters and cultivate a more direct observing perspective of each moment in the day.
You can practice a day of mindfulness on your own or with a friend, group of friends, or family members. The power of practicing mindfulness together in silence can be profound. And you could then explore your experience of the day with each other to share insights.
A WORD ABOUT EXPECTATIONS
Consider letting go of all expectations for the day. If you expect the day to be relaxing, calming, and peaceful, you may end up disappointed. And if you expect the day is going to be tough, challenging, and hard work, you may never start. So let go of expectations—just have an open mind and see what happens.
See the day of mindfulness as an experiment on yourself. To see what happens when you take time out just to "be." You did this every day as a baby and young child. You had no agenda, no baggage, no goals. You lived in the present moment. So living a day mindfully isn't alien to you. It's a chance to let go of all the stuff that modern society considers normal and see what happens. Think of it as being like trying out a new hobby or sport and seeing how you find it.
When I first attended a day of mindfulness, I was expecting it to be peaceful, calming, and relaxing. After a few meditations, my back was aching, I was getting irritated by the fidgety person next to me, and I seemed to swing between feeling overly energetic and falling asleep. It was a battle! I was relieved to have made it to the end of the day and thought about never attending another such day. But the week that followed was fascinating. I was calmer and more focused. And things that usually make be feel stressed—my heavy workload and demanding students—were almost nonissues. I wasn't doing anything radically different; my mind was just able to focus easily on one task at a time, and I felt in control. From then on, I let go of all expectations before such a day.
**"Ithought eating in silence would be boring. It turned out to feel relaxing and enjoyable. I've never tasted food properly before. It's amazing what misconceptions our brains come up with about a day of silence."**
HOW TO USE THIS CHAPTER
It's best to read through this whole chapter first and then practice the day of mindfulness at some point this week. If you don't have time to practice the day this week, whenever you can is fine. You could even have a day of mindfulness after the course if you wish.
One way to plan the day would be to use a paper and pen to create a schedule of your day while you read through the recommendations in this chapter. You can use that schedule on the day of mindfulness to guide you, rather than having to read this chapter.
If you're doing the mini-course, you don't need to do a day of mindfulness unless you want to.
VARIATION: If you're feeling adventurous, why not go with the flow? Just do whatever mindfulness practice or exercise you feel like, and let the day unfold naturally. That can be more fun. If you're the kind of person who loves controlling everything, this would be a great experiment for you—don't plan the day and see what happens.
A SAMPLE SCHEDULE FOR YOU
Following is a structure you might use for your day. The timing is approximate—choose times to wake up, sleep, and practice meditation that are realistic for you.
8:00 A.M.: Waking Up
Ideally, you went to bed early the night before. I personally don't use an alarm, especially on a day of mindfulness, but it's up to you. If you allow yourself to wake up naturally, you'll feel more rested as you'll be waking up at the end of your natural sleep cycle.
Start your day with a mindful pause. A short meditation helps to set the tone for the whole day. Spending a few minutes reflecting on what you're grateful for is also a positive start to your day of mindfulness.
8:15 A.M.: Shower
I like to take a shower in the morning, but you can have a bath if you prefer. Not sure how to be mindful in the shower? Simply connect with your senses, any one that you prefer. You could listen to the sound of the water gushing out of the shower or the soft touch of the soap against your warm skin, or the scent of shower gel. Choose any sense and switch between senses as you prefer.
8:30 A.M.: Getting Dressed
Getting dressed is something most people do automatically. Today, notice how you choose which clothes to wear. How you wear them in the same way. How you habitually take your time or rush—what do you do? Challenge yourself to notice something different in your dressing routine. Remember to pause before and after getting dressed for a few moments too.
9:00 A.M.: Mindful Yoga
Yoga is a great way to start your day of mindfulness. The stretching will help to dispel any morning sleepiness and may make your muscles a bit more relaxed for your meditations in seated postures later.
You can choose to use the mini or full yoga practice in Chapter 13. Use the guided audio if you can't remember all the postures.
9.30 A.M.: Mindful Eating
Take your time preparing breakfast. As you go from your yoga to prepare your food, notice the transition. Feel your feet on the floor as you walk and feel the handle on any door that you open.
Prepare your meal with attention in each moment. If you're preparing a fruit salad for yourself, notice the color of the fruit. As you chop an apple, for example, feel the edge of the knife as it cuts through the apple. Hear the sound of the knife cutting through the apple. Take a moment to smell the freshly chopped apple. If you're cooking oatmeal, watch how the consistency changes as you warm the mixture in your saucepan. Listen to the oatmeal as it begins to bubble. Watch the wisps of steam rising up from the pan.
Once your meal is prepared, take some time to set the table. The ritual of setting the table beautifully can enhance your experience of mindfulness. Anything that's different from your habitual way of preparing breakfast will increase your level of mindful awareness.
As you sit down to eat your meal, take a mindful pause. At the end of the pause, take some time to be grateful for the meal in front of you. Remember there are many people who are not as privileged as you and would love such a meal. Take a few moments to look at your breakfast before taking your first bite. Notice how hungry you are. Put your utensil down and enjoy the flavors. Once you've fully chewed and swallowed that first bite, you can go for your second bite and so on. Bring your mind gently back to the meal each time your mind wanders, just like in any other meditation. Notice how your stomach gradually fills up. After you finish your meal, take another few moments to practice a mindful pause.
Eat until you're 80% full: Try _hara hachi bu_
Experiment with eating until you're 80% full. This principle, called _hara hachi bu,_ is followed by the Okinawans in Japan. The Okinawans have among the highest number of centenarians (more than 100 years old) in the world, due in part to their lower intake of calories.
As your stomach takes 10–20 minutes to register that it's full, when you think you're about 80% full, you're actually more like 100% full.
Here's how:
1. Begin your meal with a mindful pause, or even just a few mindful breaths.
2. Use a small plate and take the amount of food that you think would leave you about 80% full. Just estimate. I usually take too much food, so for me, it's about taking about 80% of my usual plateful.
3. Eat as mindfully as you can. Connect with the subtle flavors. Count at least 10 chews before swallowing each morsel. Eat with your nondominant hand to help turn off automatic eating. Savor your food and eat with gratitude.
4. Once you've finished the plate, ask yourself: How full am I?
5. If you think you're less than 80% full, go ahead and take a bit more food. But see if you can resist eating until totally full—that point when you feel bloated.
I would call _hara hachi bu_ a mindful form of eating as you're tuning in to how full your stomach is rather than eating on autopilot just to finish the plate of food. It also helps you manage a healthy weight. I've been using _hara hachi bu_ for the last few months and have lost a few extra pounds—give it a try. I'm not perfect and certainly get a bit carried away in some meals. Just remember to go easy on yourself. If you do automatically overeat, forgiving yourself by saying to yourself, "It's okay. Everyone overeats from time to time," reduces the chance of an emotional binge.
10:15 A.M.: Washing the Dishes
I never used to like washing dishes. But with mindfulness, it's far more enjoyable. After a long day working on a computer or in meetings, washing the dishes is a nice, simple activity that can help bring me back into the present moment.
Children love washing dishes. They like feeling the warm water and the bubbles, the magical rainbow of colors as the light catches the soap suds, and the sense of getting a good job done. So bring this sense of seeing things afresh, like a child, when you wash the dishes.
Notice the color of the plate before and after you wash it. Hear the sound of the water from the tap. Really feel the warmth of the water as it softly touches your skin. Experience a few of your breaths from time to time. Wonder at the dexterity of your hands as you lift and wash the dishes without breaking them, which even the most advanced robot can't do at the moment.
10:30 A.M.: Mindfulness of Breath Meditation
In your first meditation practice, start with the simple mindfulness of breath. Set your timer for about 30 minutes.
You can sit either on a chair or on a meditation stool or cushion, whatever feels more comfortable for you. If you want to be reminded how to do mindfulness of breath meditation, see Chapter 5.
11:00 A.M.: Mindful Walking
Walking slowly is great for digestion and reduces sleepiness in your meditation practice. Use Chapter 6 to guide you.
You may like to do mindful walking in your garden. If you're going to walk down the street mindfully, try walking closer to your normal pace and give full attention in each moment as best you can. If you're very close to a park or other natural surroundings, try walking there to enhance your experience.
11:30 A.M.: Expanding Awareness Meditation
Once you return from your walk, you can go straight into this meditation. Rather than having lots of guidance, practice with just bells (audio tracks 21–24) to indicate that you need to move from one stage (e.g., mindfulness of breath) to another (e.g., mindfulness of body).
As the day progresses, using less audio guidance and having more silence is an effective way to help deepen your meditation. Although guidance is helpful for pacing and reminding you to bring your attention back, for some people it acts like a distraction from being fully attentive to their unfolding present-moment experience.
Noon: Mountain or Lake Meditation
These are guided-imagery-type meditations, which are not typical in mindfulness practice. However, I've come to discover that some people really enjoy this type of meditation, and it helps to make mindfulness more accessible to them.
The purpose of these meditations is to help you understand the practice of mindfulness at a deeper level. They act as metaphors, pointing you to ways of accessing greater degrees of stability, groundedness, inner strength, and acceptance and to reflect on your inner sense of wholeness despite the seeming transience of the world.
Choose whichever one appeals to you or do them both if you have time.
**Tales of Wisdom: The Moon Can't Be Stolen**
Once a thief clambered through the window and into a meditation master's home. He searched around frantically but couldn't find anything of value to steal. Frustrated, as he was about to leave, the meditation master heard a noise and went downstairs. He saw the thief and said, "Are you leaving empty-handed?" The thief froze, bemused by the comment. Finally he replied, "Yes . . . why?" "Let me give you some clothes!" remarked the teacher. He handed over a small pile of clothes. The thief thought the guy was crazy! He took the clothes and ran out. The teacher stepped out of his home, walked to a nearby lake, and smiled as he watched the pale moon just above the horizon. "If only I could give him the moon," he thought.
PRACTICE: Mountain Meditation
| _Audio track 18: About 20 minutes_.
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Here's the guidance for the mountain meditation:
1. Sit in a posture that is upright, balanced, and still, without straining your back. Allow your eyes to close gently or softly cast your eyes downward.
2. Take three deep, full in- and out-breaths, feeling each breath as you do so. Then let your breath find its own natural rhythm.
3. Spend a few minutes feeling your breathing. Notice you're watching the body breathing itself. You don't actually have to do anything.
4. When you're ready, bring to mind the image of a beautiful, majestic mountain. It may be one that you've seen before or one that you made up in your imagination, or perhaps a combination of the two.
5. Take your time to imagine this picture. Allow the image of the mountain to come slowly into focus. Don't worry if you don't think you're a visual person. Just do the best you can, which is absolutely fine.
6. Stay aware of the image of the mountain. What color is it? Does it have snow on its peak? Notice the shape of the mountain with its peak up high in the sky, perhaps above the clouds. Notice how the base of your mountain is firmly fixed on the earth's surface. Are there any trees growing on the slopes? What sort of natural vegetation do you notice?
7. As you see this mountain as best you can, be aware of its stability. How grounded the mountain is. Really feel the presence of the mountain—as if it's right here in front of you.
8. Now allow yourself to merge into the mountain. So, in a sense, you are the mountain. Your head is the lofty peak of the mountain. The sides of your body are the slopes of this beautiful mountain. And the seat you're sitting on is where the mountain becomes one with the rest of the earth. You share the immense size, stillness, and majesty of the mountain. And you, as the mountain, view the panoramic vista around you.
9. Your buttocks and legs represent the mountain rooted to the earth. Feel a gentle uplift in your posture, starting deep within your pelvis and spine, upright just like that mountain.
10. You sit as if you are a breathing mountain. Still, serene, centered, and majestic. Your presence has qualities beyond thought and words.
11. As you sit here as the mountain, you notice the sun moving across the sky, continuing changing areas of color, light, and shade. And eventually day turns to night. Overhead is a roof made of stars and wispy clouds and the bright, pale moon, casting its silver light in its own delicate way. And night eventually gives way to dawn, and a new day with new possibilities and subtly different experiences.
12. Different days bring different weather. Some days cloudy, other days clear. Sometimes it rains and you see the most beautiful rainbow. Other days, bright sunlight. And through all this change that surrounds you, you remain the same. Dignified, solid, and fully centered in the present.
13. As the days pass, the seasons change. In summer the sun may melt most of the snow. Any trees on the slope filling up with leaves and nature are a flurry of activity. In fall, the temperatures cool and the leaves may turn into a fiery orange. With winter may come snow, cool winds, and more clouds. This is a time for rest and hibernation for much of nature. And as winter gradually blends into spring, the activity of nature begins again.
14. All this change makes no difference to you in your essence as the mountain. You're familiar with change and accept this to be the way things are. You also know your inner being to be still, calm, solid, beyond thought, and one with the earth itself. You just sit, even when buffeted by the most violent of storms, with its wind and rain.
15. Just as the mountain experiences changes in each day and season, so you have different experiences with each day and season. And sometimes you are faced with violent storms in your body and mind. Tuning in to the essence of the mountain can remind you that there is a place within you that remains centered and still despite the seemingly huge changes that surround you.
16. The way through life's changes and challenges is opening up with awareness. There is no experience that awareness cannot hold. In your willingness and courage to feel the cold wind and violent storms, you simultaneously open awareness to the possibility that the storm will pass—that moment by moment, change will occur and there will be another spring after winter.
17. Your internal weather may include draining thoughts, difficult emotions, and painful sensations. But the mountain doesn't take the weather personally. The mountain doesn't hold any grudge. The weather is simply weathering. Perhaps your internal weather is impersonal too, and part and parcel of the nature of things. A resistance to those experiences is just adding to the suffering, which takes time to see.
18. The weather of your life is not to be ignored. Instead, you can discover the value of honoring and respecting the weather and come to see that the awareness that holds it is also in some mysterious way peaceful and free of it.
19. If you found some value in reflecting on the qualities of a mountain, to bring you to an inner stillness, vitality, and stability, you can bring this image to mind in your meditations and daily life.
20. Continue to practice sitting, being with your breathing and bodily sensations, until it is time for you to stop.
PRACTICE: Lake Meditation
| _Audio track 19: About 20 minutes._
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Here's the guidance for the lake meditation:
1. Begin by finding a place to lie down. You can use a mat on the floor or lie on a bed. Allow your eyes to close. Take a few deep, slow breaths and then just feel your breath as it finds its own natural rhythm.
2. When you're ready, bring to mind, and to heart, the image of a beautiful lake. It may be a lake you've seen long ago, etched in your memory. Or it may be a lake that you just make up in your imagination, perhaps based on a postcard or painting that you've seen. As best you can, notice the color of the lake—is it crystal clear or a little muddy? What's the size and shape of the lake? Does the still surface of the lake reflect the backdrop, which may be mountains or trees or clouds that are gliding elegantly through the clear blue sky? If it's windy, notice how it whips up the surface of the water, creating diamonds of light as they catch the sunlight. And yet deep underneath, the water is still and calm, supporting the movement above. And as day turns to the stillness of night, and the wind calms, you may be able to see a canopy of dazzling stars and the majesty of the moon glowing on the earth. As the seasons change, which they inevitably and effortlessly do, the lake may freeze over, surrounded by a blanket of snow like icing, heavily dusted on a cake.
3. As you lie here, breathing, and when you're ready to do so, allow your mind and heart and being to merge with the lake. So you are, in some way, this magnificent lake. As a living, breathing lake you reflect the beauty of your natural surroundings and the ever-changing sky above.
4. As you continue to breathe, notice how the earth forms a solid basin, holding the lake in stillness. The lake seems to just accept the days, nights, seasons, and years that go by. And in that lack of resistance, in that letting go, lies the beauty of the lake. As you lie here, what thoughts and feelings and sensations are you willing to accept and let go as the reality of this moment? Can you reflect them as they are, just as the lake does?
5. Notice how the lake is the same in some ways, and in some ways ever changing. In the same way, notice how each present moment is different and yet the awareness that is underlying all your experiences creates a sense of safe familiarity.
6. As the wind rises and falls, the surface of the lake is disturbed. And as storms make their bold appearance, the still lake may seem a distant memory. But deep underneath the lake, there's another story. Another viewpoint. There's more to the lake than just the surface. Near the base of the lake are calm, peaceful waters. As your mind tosses and turns and your emotions create giant ripples in your life, can you remember this lake? Can you see beyond the surface? Your base, your being, the heart of awareness itself, remains unchanged, solid, still, and supportive.
7. You may like to bring this metaphor of the lake to mind whenever you face storms in your life, with the intensity of thoughts and emotions that they bring. You can also use the lake metaphor in your meditations, to enrich and deepen your practice in some way.
8. As you lie here, feeling your breathing and opening up to feeling your body as a whole, rest as the lake does. Open your mind and heart to the richness of your surroundings, accepting each moment as it is. Reflecting sun and clouds, trees and mountains, birds and butterflies. Mirroring mist and fog and cloud and dust. And as your waters lap against the shores in the coolness of night, tune in to that quiet stillness, that wonder and mystery of those millions of stars, all reflected, without effort and with reverence, in this lake that is within you.
9. Continue to practice tuning in to this lake, moment by moment, until you are ready to bring this meditation to a close. And finish by remembering to honor your efforts to practice today, to cultivate awareness and compassion for yourself and thereby create positive ripples in all those you meet.
12:30 P.M.: Yoga
You can do either yoga sequence in Chapter 13. If you find guidance helpful for pacing, support, or to remind you how to do the postures, use the full yoga audio. If you remember how to do the postures, you are welcome to practice them without the audio, using whatever postures and stretches your body needs now.
Tune in to the more subtle sensations and messages from your body as you practice yoga. Remember, feeling your breathing is a key part of mindful yoga. And be compassionate with your own body, being careful not to push past your physical limits.
**"This will sound a bit crazy, but I had a feeling of being one with everything in one of the meditations. It felt so restful—just a minute in that state felt like a full night of deep sleep. The ultimate feeling of letting go. That was a nice side effect of the day of mindfulness!"**
1:00 P.M.: Lunch
Prepare your lunch in the same mindful way as was described for breakfast. Take your time to prepare, eat, and wash up afterwards, pausing after each activity to gather your attention and center yourself in the here and now.
2:00 P.M.: Mindful Walking or a Nap
This afternoon, experiment with the following mindful walking exercise if you can.
PRACTICE: Mindful Slow and Fast Walking
1. Begin your mindful walking at your normal pace. Notice the sensations of your feet on the floor or the touch of air against your skin. Alternatively, you could tune in to the sensation of your breath as you walk.
2. Now become aware of your thoughts and feelings as you walk. Notice them and, as best you can, watch them from a distance rather than getting caught up in them.
3. Next, increase your walking pace and clench your fists and jaw. Sense what the extra tension feels like. Notice what thoughts and feelings arise for you this time.
4. Release the tension in your body, but continue to walk at a faster pace. Hold your head upright and chest open. Note how this feels. What thoughts arise this time?
5. Gradually go back to your normal pace of walking. Find that natural rhythm and tune in to your bodily sensations as you walk.
6. Now stop. Observe your bodily sensations. Notice your heartbeat, the temperature of your body, and the rate of your breathing. Move the spotlight of your awareness into your inner world of thoughts and emotions—place your thoughts on imaginary clouds if that helps.
7. Begin walking more slowly, staying mindful of each step. Slowly walk back to where you started.
8. Finish in the mountain posture (see Chapter 13), tuning in to your inner experiences and reflecting on what you observed in this exercise, without judgment.
The change of pace and tension help to energize you after lunch and allow you to see the effect of the body on the mind and emotions, as well as vice versa.
If you feel tired after lunch, you could also take a nap for 20–30 minutes. It'll help reset your circadian cycle, which is designed for a short snooze in the early afternoon, and you'll feel fresher rather than fighting fatigue later on. If you sleep too much, you may feel groggy, so watch out for that.
2:45 P.M.: Expanding Awareness Meditation
Practice the expanding awareness meditation in Chapter 8, either by yourself or using the audio if you need it. As you've been practicing mindfulness for a few hours now, it's particularly beneficial to practice with extended periods of silence. The silence helps you tune in to your own, subtle experiences in each moment.
Audio track 22—silence with bells every 5 minutes.
To do this, use the audio, which is silence with just bells.
3:15 P.M.: Cultivating Compassion: Loving-Kindness Meditation
Compassion cultivates the desire to relieve the suffering in others. It is about knowing that both you and others go through difficulties in life and have the desire to end that suffering.
This meditation is a powerful exercise to do toward the end of your day of mindfulness. This is because when your mind is calmer, you are better able to access and cultivate feelings of friendliness toward yourself and others.
One way of cultivating compassion is through the "loving-kindness meditation," which is described below. Loving-kindness meditation can help you move from isolation to connection, from judgment to caring, and from dislike to understanding. You don't need to force any emotion to arise. That is a common misunderstanding. Simply give your attention and authentic well-wishing in each phrase you say to yourself and see what arises. Think of yourself like an open field, in which you're planting seeds of compassion. As with all meditations, don't worry if your mind keeps wandering or wanders off for long periods of time. Guide that attention back as softly and smoothly as you can, when you can.
You can use the audio to guide you through it and can make use of it after you finish the course.
PRACTICE: Loving-Kindness Meditation
| _Audio track 20: 30 minutes._
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1. For this meditation, ensure you're feeling particularly comfortable and warm. The physical feeling of safety and warmth will help to cultivate the emotional quality of compassion. You can be seated comfortably or lie down if you wish.
2. Take a few deep, slow, mindful breaths. Then let your body find its own natural flow of breath. Feel your breathing in the area near your heart. Notice whether your chest is rising and falling. Be aware of the warmth of your body. Try placing your hand, representing self-kindness and care, softly on your heart area and notice what effect that has. Feel the warmth of your hand on your heart. If you prefer to place your hand on your belly or your lap, that's fine too.
3. When you're ready, bring to mind someone, or even a pet, that makes you smile. Someone with whom you have an easy and positive relationship. Perhaps not your partner, as such relationships tend to be complex and it's easy to get lost in thoughts. Maybe an aunt or uncle, perhaps your young son or daughter, a spiritual figure, or another person you hold in great respect, whether the person is alive or not. Wish this person well with words like:
"May you be happy, may you be healthy,
and may you be free from suffering."
Allow the words to sound in your heart area rather than your head, if you can. Tune in to both the words and the meaning behind the words. And if some other words resonate with you, use them. Use words that represent kindness and compassion for you. Continue repeating these words for a few minutes. Remember, you don't need to force any feelings at all—just wish wellness and make space for any feelings to arise.
4. Now, in the same spirit, bring yourself to mind. Wish yourself well. You are just as worthy as any other being on the planet. You deserve an equal amount of kindness and care.
"May I be happy. May I be healthy. May I be filled with compassion and kindness towards myself. May I be free from suffering."
This is the most difficult stage for some people. You may feel guilty for sending kindness to yourself, or think you're overindulging yourself. If this is the case, this stage of the loving-kindness meditation is going to be a useful exercise for you to help relieve stress. Stress can often be heightened by being too hard on yourself, and this meditation is a great antidote. If you felt a resistance to self-kindness, that's okay. Given time, this will be a particularly nourishing and healing meditation for you. Try to be patient as best you can. Persevere gently and notice what happens with interest.
5. Next, bring to mind a neutral person—someone you neither like nor dislike, someone you hardly know. For example, someone at the toll booth, the supermarket checkout, or the mail carrier. Remember that they, like you, have a life outside their work role. Consider their friends and family, their hopes and fears, desires and dreams. Wish them well. Use your own words or use these:
"May you be happy and healthy. May you be filled with love and peace. May you be free from all pain and suffering."
6. Next up is someone you don't like—a difficult person. This person may be dead or alive. As a beginner, choose someone who's quite difficult, but not the most difficult person you know. It may be someone who has caused you problems and suffering in the past. Consider him or her as a whole person, beyond just the hurt the person caused you. As a human being, this person also experiences pain, anxiety, stress, and a host of difficulties. See if you can forgive his actions, which he may have done unknowingly. And if the pain inflicted on you was deliberate, perhaps there was a reason—the person's emotional state, his own vulnerability and pain, his needs being unfulfilled. If you can, ask the person to forgive you for any hurt you caused him too. You're not assuming what he did was right, just letting go of the pain caused by his actions. This warms your heart instead of hardening it.
"May you be well and happy and healthy. May you be free of stress, anxiety, pain. May your heart be filled with self-kindness and compassion."
7. Bring to mind all four of you: yourself, your friend, your neutral person, and your difficult person. As you imagine all of you together, see if you can offer a sense of well-wishing and compassion to all, equally.
8. You can finish this meditation by offering loving-kindness to all beings on the planet—being mindful of the difficulties and suffering that all beings face and wishing them to be free of that suffering.
9. Now come back to yourself. Center your attention on your breathing, feeling its natural pace and depth. Bring a sense of warmth, affection, and gratitude to your breath.
10. Before you end the meditation, appreciate your efforts to cultivate one of life's most nourishing qualities—compassion.
VARIATION: You can practice this loving-kindness meditation at any time after you finish this course. And you don't need to do all the stages if you don't have time. You can do just one or two or whichever stage you feel you need to.
_ResearchCorner: Why Practice Compassion?_
Scientists have found when you feel compassion, your heart rate slows down, you release a hormone called oxytocin that promotes bonding, and the part of your brain involved in care and pleasure is activated. You are then motivated to care for and help others. Compassion also increases resilience to stress and boosts the immune system to accelerate healing.
You can train yourself to be more and more compassionate with practice—it's not a fixed trait, but more like a muscle. Researchers at Emory University have found people who did a compassion training course had greater levels of compassion and lower levels of stress hormones in their blood and saliva.
Self-compassion in particular trumps self-esteem. Research by Kristin Neff found that people with high self-esteem could end up in traps like narcissism, self-righteous anger, prejudice, and self-absorption. Consider those who have high self-esteem and see themselves as high achievers. This self-image can cause them to believe they are above others, and their arrogance comes at a cost: when things go wrong in life, their self-esteem naturally drops as their self-image as superior crumbles. This is a stressful way to live.
Self-compassion, in contrast, is about being kind to yourself and seeing your imperfection as human. With this tendency, you'll refrain from criticizing yourself and not be vulnerable to seeing yourself as worth less when things go wrong. You'll have greater resilience against future life challenges and therefore lower levels of stress.
I experienced self-esteem issues myself. For example, when I was a high school student, I was top in the class. My sense of self-esteem was high, built on my academic achievements. But in university, I never achieved the highest grade in the class. The more I tried, the more frustrated I got. I felt low and wanted to give up. By good fortune, I discovered mindfulness halfway through my studies. I learned the value of self-compassion and finished my studies successfully without pushing myself too hard.
Other fascinating recent studies have found compassion to heal, but empathy to hurt. Empathy is a way to feel other people's suffering but can lead to emotional burnout. For example, health professionals or caregivers can become distressed themselves and suffer greatly. Empathy activates areas in the brain associated with unpleasant feelings like sadness and pain. Compassion is very different. Compassion activates the more warm and caring parts of the brain, like a loving mother toward her crying baby.
World-renowned Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard has been collaborating with several scientists, including Tania Singer, neuroscientist and Director of the Department of Social Neuroscience at the Max Planck Institute. Their research, published in 2014 in the journal _Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience_ , suggests that those in the helping professions should do compassion training to help protect them from empathy burnout. Watch this space!
4:00 P.M.: Mindful Daily Activity
Start by having a drink and/or snack if you need it. During this time period, spend time gardening, cleaning, sweeping outside, or going for a walk. You may like to take the time to lie in bed and sleep if you're feeling very tired. Check in with your body and see what your body needs.
6:00 P.M.: Preparing and Eating Dinner Mindfully
Follow the same principles as for breakfast and lunch.
7:30 P.M.: Bathing or Mindful Activities
Listening to music can be a nice way to bring the day of mindfulness to a close. Play a piece of music and lie down and just allow the sounds to enter your ears and go deeply into your being. I'd recommend classical or other calming forms of music. Alternatively, you may enjoy some simple painting, a gentle evening walk, tending to your plants, or some yoga.
You may also like to take a nice relaxing bath. This can be combined with lighting a few candles. Use the opportunity to connect with your senses rather than just allow your mind to drift. Smell the scent of the bath salts, observe the flickering candles, notice the sensations in your body as your muscles slowly begin to relax in the warm water. Listening to the sound of the water as it fills up the bath is also another very pleasant and mindful exercise.
8:30 P.M.: Final Meditation of the Day
Finish the day with a meditation of your choice—sitting meditation or body scan.
9:30 P.M.: Bedtime Routine and Sleep
Get ready for bed, paying attention to your habitual routine. Then lie down, gently close your eyes, and feel your whole body as you lie in bed. Take a few moments to scan through your body from head to toe. Observe whether your body feels different from how it normally feels at the end of the day. Feel your breathing as it finds its natural rhythm. Continue this gentle mindful awareness until you eventually drift off into sleep.
**Reflection**
The day after your day of mindfulness, write down what you noticed. What was challenging? What aspects did you enjoy? If you were to have such a day again, what changes would you make to enhance your experience?
_Drink from That Well_
I begin today with anticipation,
To savor a different kind of way,
Yet find myself in isolation,
Emotions grip me in disarray
But there is inside me a deeper cry,
For peace and silence and calm and joy.
And though the clock says hours to go,
I smile, and remember, this breath is all!
Beneath the surface, attention-seeking waves,
That we call thoughts, moods, sensations, tough days.
I long to feel, to be with, to love,
To reclaim sweet clarity of a pure white dove.
Now I'm ready to start again.
To be me, myself, to sit, to rest.
Not rest in sleep, in slumber, or dwell.
But rest in awareness,
And drink from that well.
—SHAMASH ALIDINA
**Reflection:
Discoveries from Week 6 Home Experiments**
Take a few moments to reflect on your daily mindful communication—your daily mindful booster this week. How did that go? Did you actually manage to remember to communicate mindfully, once a day? Many people forget, as automatic pilot mode is the default in the human brain. If you forgot, notice that—no need to berate yourself. Instead, see this as a chance to learn just how automatic we humans can be! If you did manage to remember, how was the experience? Did you notice yourself rushing through the conversation, or feeling impatient? Did you find yourself tempted to multitask as you spoke?
Recall the story of the three questions (Chapter 6)—the most important person is the person who's in front of you. It doesn't matter whether it's a princess or a pauper; consider whoever is in front of you as the most important person in the world who is worthy of your full attention. Listening to this person fully is one of the greatest meditations.
Jot down any reflections on mindful communication in your journal or digital device.
DAY OF MINDFULNESS FAQs
**Q: I felt emotional and found myself crying. Is that normal?**
A: Feeling emotional and crying is absolutely normal during a day of mindfulness. You may never have taken so much extended time in quiet rather than being distracted. This spaciousness can give permission for your body to release any pent-up or suppressed emotions. It's a good thing and nothing that you need to worry about. I've heard many stories of people being healed of physical illnesses after an emotional release in a meditation retreat. For example, one client overcame her chronic headaches after a retreat. Another client had shoulder pain for a couple of years, but it went away after a retreat.
**Q: I found the day emotionally and physically draining. I actually feel more tired now. What did I do wrong?**
A: You didn't do anything wrong. As explained earlier, a day of mindfulness can create an emotional state for people. Emotions are there to be felt rather than pushed away or ignored. The day of mindfulness gives you a safe opportunity to practice being with emotions within yourself. If you feel that the emotions are overwhelming for you, perhaps you need to see a health professional to see other ways of getting help with managing your emotions. The day of mindfulness can be draining physically as well. A range of practices like expanding awareness meditation with yoga and walking can help reduce the physical toll on your body. However, part of the physical drain can be linked to the emotions that are released. Be gentle with yourself as best you can and see if you can avoid too much intense activity on the day following the day of mindfulness. The positive effects from a day of mindfulness may not be observed consciously and may be taking place unconsciously within your mind and heart. These processes take time rather than being an immediate fix. One of my clients didn't seem to gain any benefit—just felt waves of anger come and go. He almost left during the day out of frustration. But in the days that followed, he found himself better able to spot moments of self-criticism when at work; he was more mindful of his thought patterns. He was then able to say kinder words to himself rather than berate himself so much. This reduced his stress significantly.
**Q: Howoften should I have a day of mindfulness?**
A: As often as you wish. Having two or three days of mindfulness in a year is a good start. But if you have time to practice more, that's absolutely fine! Evidence seems to suggest the more you practice mindfulness the more benefits you accrue. You could have the odd morning or afternoon of mindfulness whenever you have time, too.
**Q: I've heard of people going for a weekend of mindfulness or even a one-week retreat. Do you recommend that?**
A: Yes, I do recommend longer periods of mindfulness practice if you're willing to do it. However, begin with a few one-day mindfulness sessions and then build up to the weekend before going on to do a full week of silent mindfulness. That way you are less likely to put yourself off from doing the extended mindfulness retreats in the future.
**Q: I couldn't do a whole day of mindfulness, in silence! Why should I force myself to do that?!**
A: There's no need to force yourself to do anything. If you're happy just doing the little mindfulness exercises and meditations, that's fine. If you ever feel you'd like to discover more about your own mind and heart, then experiment with a couple of hours of mindfulness—maybe the body scan, expanding awareness meditation, and some mindful walking. And build up to a day of mindfulness if you feel inclined to do so. You're allowed to take your time and come to a day of mindfulness, when you're ready and choose to do so.
# ELEVEN
# _Week 7_
# Taking Care of Yourself
_If someone comes along and shoots an arrow into your heart, it's fruitless to stand there and yell at the person. It would be much better to turn your attention to the fact that there's an arrow in your heart._
—PEMA CHÖDRÖN
INTENTIONS
_To adjust your lifestyle to reduce stress._
_To identify your nourishing and depleting activities._
_To develop a mindful stress management action plan._
_To discover what a "mindful action step" is._
NOT LONG AGO a young woman named Valentina applied for one of my online training programs and told me on the phone a lot about her background. She said that after experiencing a string of traumatic events she was so racked with panic and agony that she turned to an array of drugs to try to numb her emotions. Eventually she reached the proverbial rock bottom, with no friends or family willing to continue a relationship with her.
Miraculously, one day she discovered an uncashed check made out to her for a sizable sum, and this presented her with a choice. Describing her decision as flowing from a rare moment of clarity, she invested in rehab instead of funding her addictions. At the rehab center she happened upon a stone bench beside a stream and felt inexplicably drawn to it. Without knowing that what she was doing was actually a form of meditation, she sat cross-legged on the bench and listened to the trickling water with her eyes closed, in the midst of a peaceful silence that instantly felt healing.
For Valentina, this was the first step on the road to mindfulness, self-compassion, and new self-awareness honed through meditation practice and daily journaling. As she described her transformation from a hard-drinking, drugging hedonist to a sober vegan yogi, she laughed boisterously and marveled at the fact that people—including those who had once found her impossible to be around—now often point out how cheerful and open she is. Quietly then, Valentina said she thought her friendly personality combined with her difficult history would make her a dedicated, empathetic mindfulness teacher.
I did, of course, accept Valentina into the course.
In one transformative moment, Valentina chose life rather than the path to self-destruction, and that was an act of self-care. From that important fork in the road, I'm sure there were many moments of choice where she could have gone back to her old lifestyle. But she got through, using mindfulness. That initial choice has led her to eat healthy food, exercise, practice meditation and yoga, and spend time with good company. This kind of nourishing lifestyle has borne such powerful fruit that she has the energy, enthusiasm, and love to share her discoveries with others. Her self-care and self-compassion are spilling over into care and compassion for others in her original predicament. Without caring for herself, this would be impossible.
LOOKING AFTER YOURSELF
There are probably many demands on your time and energy, and looking after yourself can easily slip down the to-do list. Perhaps you're a busy mom, a pressured business executive, or recently bereaved. When faced with lots of demands, it's easy to forget to take care of yourself. When you do look after yourself, your feelings of distress begin to turn into positive eustress (see Chapter 7), and you're better able to meet life's challenges with a smile.
Take a moment to think about how caring owners treat their dog. They wash and groom him, give him sufficient and healthy food, ensure their dog is at the right weight, and exercise the dog every day. They make sure they give their beloved animal time and attention and play games with the dog when out and about. At night they make sure their dog is warm enough and has a place to sleep. So dogs are given food, exercise, fun, love, and rest. And in return the dog gives unconditional love to the owner. We humans also need at least the same sort of love and care to meet life's challenges with enthusiasm and hope.
Before you start thinking how little you take care of yourself, take a few moments to reflect on how much your body already looks after you. All day and night, your body breathes for you. Your heart beats over 100,000 times in a day to pump blood containing oxygen, nutrients, and immune cells around your body. Your digestive system processes 1,100 pounds of food a year. Your body urges you to eat, sleep, and move around to keep you alive and well. So in all these many ways, your body is taking care of you.
But you have a role to play too. Taking care of yourself involves eating a balanced diet, sleeping sufficiently, and exercising your body. And just as important, you need to make time for socializing, having fun, and doing things you enjoy. Exactly what you need to do to look after yourself is unique to you, and only you can know what the right choices are. By being more aware of your body and mind, you can learn to take better care of yourself.
For example, one client of mine started getting painful spots on his legs. He tried to ignore them and carried on with his high-pressure job. Eventually they became so painful he couldn't walk, and he had to get antibiotics from his doctor and take time off work. Now he's more mindful of his body, and when the spots appear, he needs to make a conscious effort to practice mindfulness and take a little time off. He hasn't suffered from a severe recurrence of the spots ever since.
For you the warning signs may be a headache, a bout with the flu, painful shoulders, or just dwelling on everything that's going wrong in your life. Use these signs to remind you to be kind to yourself rather than pushing harder or reprimanding yourself for not being perfect.
This week you'll have a chance to look at your typical daily activities. You can then identify what, if anything, needs to be adjusted so that you're nourishing your body and mind, not just depleting yourself. You'll also look at a set of five areas to focus on, to help boost your well-being and build resilience against stressors.
THE CHALLENGE OF TAKING CARE OF YOURSELF
If looking after ourselves were easy, we would all be doing it well. But in reality, there are challenges that prevent you from taking full care of yourself. Some of them are external factors, and others may just be attitudes in your own mind. Let's look at a few typical challenges and tips to overcome them.
Lack of willpower is rated as the number-one reason we don't take effective care of ourselves, according to the American Psychological Association. If you know you need to go to bed on time or go for a run, but somehow end up wasting time, you may need some help to boost your self-control. Here are some tips for increasing your willpower:
• **Mindfulness meditation increases willpower.** Even a few minutes a day can start building up gray matter in areas of the brain that control decision making.
• **Exercise.** People who exercise are more likely to quit smoking, reduce alcohol consumption, eat more healthily, and even be more careful with their spending habits.
• **Sleep.** The closer you can get to about 7½ hours of sleep a night, the stronger your willpower will be.
• **Build good habits.** When you're under stress, you go back to your habits, good or bad. So by having good habits, you will be better able to handle or even enjoy the stress.
• **Being nice to yourself really works.** When you lapse, being self-critical reduces your willpower. One of the most well-tested areas in willpower research is that self-compassion is the most effective way to achieve good new habits. Remember that you're only human and can't be perfect.
Lack of time is a common reason people give for not taking care of themselves through measures like exercise or cooking a proper meal. If this is the case for you, I'd recommend you spend a week tracking how you spend your time, hour by hour. When I did this, just the act of setting an alarm every hour and writing down how I was spending my time made me much more efficient. I then managed to get to sleep on time rather than surfing online and exercised rather than working unproductively. Many time management gurus recommend time tracking as the first step toward using time effectively.
If you feel overwhelmed with responsibilities, you may feel too pressured to be able to look after yourself well. But even a 5-minute brisk walk a day can start to create small positive changes in your brain and body to help you cope with the busyness of life.
Finally, you may think of taking care of yourself as being selfish. Recall the safety advice on flights: Always put on your own oxygen mask before doing the same for anyone else. By taking good care of yourself, you'll feel better, have more energy, and be able to help others.
**"Through mindfulness I realized I was constantly running around looking after my kids and husband and parents. I never had time for myself. Never. I immediately decided things have got to change. That's been a huge relief."**
I have struggled with this idea myself. When I first became a schoolteacher, I was young, full of energy, and wanted to change the world. I gave all my energy to caring for my students rather than myself. I worked harder and harder until I started to get ill. Not spending my free time working on lesson plans, marking books, or doing extra training seemed selfish. But I started to notice a pattern. The harder I worked, the less energy I had for the kids and the less effective I was as a teacher. On the days I rested well, I had far more patience and the lessons went well. Taking care of myself, even if I felt guilty at first, was better for both my students and me. Nowadays, I love taking care of myself!
WHEN TO TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF
Seeing to your own needs is not something you do only when feeling worn out, stressed, or tired. If you do it all the time, as a matter of course, you'll be resilient when the next stressor comes around the corner. However, it's especially important to look after your needs when under excessive stress.
Take plants as an example. In winter, when it's cooler, my plants don't need much watering. Once a week is fine. But in the summer, in the relentless heat, daily watering is necessary. Otherwise the plants will wilt and weaken. When the heat is on, more nourishment is required.
In the same way, when the heat of stress is high, take extra care of yourself. After a stressful day, take a few moments or a few minutes to practice your favorite mindfulness meditation. Try to see the practice as a little treat after a tough day. This may help you go to bed a little earlier, eat a bit healthier, or maybe give you motivation to take time to exercise. Even a 5-minute phone call to your best friend can make a world of difference. A little bit of mindfulness following a challenging day will be an investment that pays back handsomely.
A LOOK AT YOUR CURRENT LIFESTYLE
Before you start thinking about how great or poor you are at taking care of yourself, let's start by taking a closer look at your current lifestyle. The activities you do habitually will give you a good idea about what's going well and which areas need tweaking. Until you stop and write this down, you may not realize how you currently use your time.
You'll then rate each activity as either energizing (nourishing) or draining (depleting). This will help you see what proportion of your day is uplifting and what proportion isn't. You can then either look at creative ways of readjusting your schedule or readjusting your attitude and perception so the draining activities aren't quite so draining.
Here's a sample list:
7:00 A.M.—Wake up
7:15 A.M.—Shower and get dressed
7:45 A.M.—Get the kids ready for school
8:30 A.M.—(Rush) to school
9:00 A.M.—Drive to work
9:30 A.M.—Arrive at work
9:45 A.M.—Work on new marketing plan
And so on . . .
EXERCISE: My Nourishing and Depleting Activities
1. **Create your own daily list** of activities you do in a typical day.
2. **Add a +** for activities that are nourishing, uplifting, or energizing for you. These are the activities that make you feel good.
3. **Add a –** to activities that are depleting or make you feel drained or tired. These are the activities that make you feel worse.
4. **Which positive activities can you do more often?** Go through the list and see which ones you could do more of. For example, going for a walk, reading a story to the kids, waking up a few minutes earlier to have time for a nice cup of coffee.
5. **Which negative activities can you reduce?** For example, cut checking social media sites to only once a day, doing fewer chores by delegating, such as training the children to wash the dishes after dinner, or making some activities less stressful by, for instance, listening to your favorite music on your morning commute.
VARIATION: Compare your thoughts with reality. Record how you felt as soon as you can after doing the activity and how strongly you felt on a scale of 1–10 (1 being very mild and 10 being very intense)—for example, happy 7/10 or annoyed 8/10. See if the activity really was nourishing or depleting for you. For example, people think they enjoy watching television for hours, but when they actually do this, they rate it as just about as interesting as sitting in the bathroom!
GOING DEEPER: If you enjoy this process and want more detail, try recording your daily activities for a full week, including the weekend, to get a clearer picture of what you do. And jot down your mood every hour or so to see if you can spot any patterns.
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Some activities may seem energizing at the time, but later on you find they have depleted your energy. For example, drinking several glasses of wine may seem to make you feel good at the time, but later on in the evening, you may regret it. In that case, you may choose to label it as depleting.
Other activities may feel draining but actually energize you. For example, exercise may feel like it's depleting your energy at the time you do it, but afterward, or perhaps the next day, you may feel more energized.
I recommend you record your feelings as soon as you can after the experience, but look out for these patterns in your journal, described in the drinking and exercise example above.
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**Reflection**
Did you make any new discoveries through this exercise? What changes in your schedule, or perhaps your attitude, can you make? Small changes like that can have a surprisingly big impact.
For example, one of my clients who used to find it depleting to listen to her mother on the phone practiced mindful breathing as she listened. The phone calls became meditation time rather than criticism and fight time, and she felt less overwhelmed by the stress as a result.
**Tales of Wisdom: How to Walk on Water**
Three monks were sitting by the side of a lake in meditation. Suddenly, the first monk got up and said, "I forgot to put my underwear out to dry!" and miraculously walked on the water, across the lake, and into his hut, before promptly returning.
Before long, the second monk jumped up and said, "I forgot to flush the toilet" and immediately got up and strolled on top of water, into his hut, and came back again, in the same amazing way.
The third monk thought, "These monks think they have some sort of superior meditation technique and are just showing off. I can do that easily. I'm a far better meditator then they'll ever be." The monk stood up, attempted to confidently walk on water, and immediately fell into the lake. He got out, psyched himself up, and tried again. The same thing happened. Before long, he was completely soaked.
The other two monks calmly watched the scene, and then one monk said to the other, "Shall we tell him where the stones are?"
What's the moral of the story for you?
WHEN STRESS OVERWHELMS
The following practice is a three-step exercise you can try using when you feel overwhelmed by stress.
PRACTICE: The Mindful ABC
The exercise is made up of steps A, B, and C to make it easier to remember. A stands for awareness, B stands for breath and beliefs, and C stands for choosing a mindful action, as explained later and illustrated in the diagram below.
**StepA: Awareness**
Become aware of your stress signs. These are the thoughts, feelings, and sensations in your body and behavior that you notice when you're too stressed.
The signs vary for different people. For me, I feel a slight twitch in my eyelid, I don't feel like talking to my friends, I have a tension in my shoulders, and I get irritated by the slightest disturbance. I'm reluctant to talk to others. What are your signs? Look back at Chapter 5 to remind yourself.
**Step B: Breath and Beliefs**
_Breath_
Take a few slow, deep mindful breaths. Then allow your breathing to be as it is and feel its sensation. Expand your awareness to your body and feel all the sensations there, accepting them as they are. Recognize any tight or tense bodily sensations as part and parcel of the stress response if that's what they are. No need to try to change the sensation—just watch and, if you can, accept them.
_Beliefs_
Now ask yourself: "What exactly am I stressed about?" Your answer may be "I'm concerned that I won't finish the report on time" or "I'm worried I'll run out of money this month." Then consider reevaluating your current beliefs about stress itself. It's not always easy, but see if you can give it a go. Think, "This stress is energizing me to prepare to complete the report" rather than just "I must reduce my stress" or "Stress is bad." Remember that stress can be healthy in short bursts as it sharpens your senses, strengthens you to act, releases oxytocin to urge you to be with others, and initially boosts your immune function. You could also reevaluate your stressor—for example, "Yes, I'm scared about running out of money for rent, but I could always borrow from Dad if worse comes to worst."
**Step C: Choose a Mindful Action**
This step is about choosing what to do next.
Whatever the stressor, you either need to change the situation or accept what you can't change.
**_Ifyou decide that you need to change the situation:_** Maybe you need to call the employment agency, finish that report, or take your child home if he's having a tantrum.
**_If you decide you need to accept the situation, at least for now, you can:_**
• _Choose to do something energizing._ Consider going for a walk, run, jog, running up or down the stairs. The activity may help to burn up your stress hormones, which is what your body is gearing up to do—act. Integrate your activity with mindful awareness rather than just letting your mind worry.
• _Choose to do something relaxing._ This can be any activity that you have time for and that appeals to you. Here are some examples: have a bath, listen to music, garden, go for a drive, meditation, or yoga. Do the activity with mindful awareness.
• _Choose to be mindful in the moment._ You may choose just to be fully mindful in whatever you do next. This may be the case if you're traveling or at work or in the middle of a conversation. Just choose one of your senses and fully connect with it. Immerse your attention in the experience. Ideally, I'd recommend you be mindfully aware and have a spirit of kindness to yourself no matter which choice you make.
**Reflection**
Make a summary of the Mindful ABC Exercise if it appeals to you. When you try it out, write down what effect the exercise had on your state of mind, your emotions, and whether you dealt with the stressor differently from how you may normally have coped with it.
RAISING WELL-BEING TO REDUCE STRESS
If you're feeling even slightly distressed with the pressures of life, you're probably not feeling happy. You may not even believe that happiness is something achievable for you given your circumstances. And yet taking steps to raise your long-term well-being can increase your resilience to stress.
Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health examined 200 studies on well-being and cardiovascular health. They found both positive emotion and optimism to slow the progression of heart disease and halve the risk of a major issue with your heart, such as a heart attack. So being happy both opens your emotional heart and heals your physical heart!
A fantastic model that I've been using to raise well-being in recent years is called the Five Ways to Well-Being. This is an evidence-based plan from the New Economics Foundation in the United Kingdom, based on the U.K. government's state-of-the-art research on mental well-being. Everyone's path to a life of happiness is different, but these activities have been found by research to be particularly beneficial for raising people's well-being and reduce distress.
The five ways to well-being, depicted in the diagram below, are:
1. **Connect** —This is about increasing the quality of your relationships with friends, family, coworkers, or even neighbors.
2. **Move** —This area emphasizes the importance of moving your body rather than being sedentary.
3. **Notice** —This is almost directly about mindfulness and how your awareness of your inner thoughts and emotions helps to clarify your values and direction in life. You also notice and appreciate the world around you.
4. **Discover** —This is about learning new things. Not necessarily through just books or courses or by earning certificates, but anything new.
5. **Give**—This is about learning to give of yourself a little bit every day and enjoy the feeling of helping others. This too can help to enhance your connections and build the quality and depth of your social network.
A very small action in any one of these areas often has a lasting impact, just as a small pebble creates ripples throughout a lake. By improving one area, you'll start to improve them all. And, as you'll note in the descriptions that follow, mindfulness underlies them all.
Connect with Others
A powerful way of raising your resilience to stress and enjoy greater well-being is through social relationships. Close relationships with family and friends offer love and support. Broader connections bring a sense of belonging. Seek to be close enough to a few people so you can turn to one another at times of difficulty.
One of the great advantages of a conversation with someone you trust, when you're distressed, is putting things into perspective. As you'll recall, one of the core factors that drives stress is how you interpret the situation. If you're in an anxious state, that interpretation is not happening through the wise, calm part of your brain: the prefrontal cortex. Instead, it's a reaction arising from activation in the amygdala, the part that wants you to focus on danger and see the negative consequences.
**"I didn't notice any changes from practicing mindfulness, but my wife has! She says I'm much less reactive and nicer to be with. And when she says something like that, she means it! I can see it's improving our connection."**
Here are some different ways for developing your social network that you may not have considered for a while:
_Ways of Making New Friends_
• **Carpool to work.** Your employer may organize it, or just ask colleagues at work. It's a great way to get to know someone.
• **Use online social networks** to connect with your old friends. I've recently managed to get in touch with friends from primary school, and it's been like we were never apart when we met up.
• **Walk a dog.** Dog owners often end up chatting with each other. You could even volunteer to walk dogs from a local shelter. A nice opportunity to do some mindful walking too.
_Ways of Deepening Your Current Relationships_
• **Remember the golden rule:** Treat others the way you'd appreciate being treated yourself.
• **Invest time and energy in your close relationships.** That's the best investment you can make.
• **Give relationships some space.** Balance time together with time pursuing your own interests.
• **Be forgiving.** Everyone makes mistakes; we're all human.
**Reflection**
Write down who is closest to you in your life. Examples may include family, friends, colleagues, neighbors, mentors, and others.
You don't need to have lots of relationships. Even a small number of close relationships to people you can turn to in times of difficulty is fine. But if it's just one person, consider exploring ways to develop more close relationships with family or friends.
Be Physically Active
Want to reduce your stress and increase your productivity? At the same time, want to reduce your risk of heart disease, stroke, and cancer by 50%? Then exercise is for you!
Any activity that doesn't involve passively sitting or lying down is a step in the right direction. Going to the gym is not the only way to be physically active. Find activities you enjoy and that are right for your current ability. And if you can do that exercise with others, even better.
Examples of exercise include:
• Walking briskly
• Playing tennis
• Pushing a lawn mower
• Using a vacuum cleaner
If the activity enables you to break a sweat, you're making your heart work and achieving benefits for your body and mind. Be creative and see what activities you can find that get you sweating!
When you combine these activities with mindfulness, the benefits are not just a physical release of tension, but a brain exercise too—staying in the present moment nonjudgmentally while your body moves. If you do your best to be mindful while doing the physical exercise, you're effectively meditating with all the extra benefits that brings.
How much activity should you do? That's a common question, and the best way for me to answer is to ask: How much activity are you willing to do? Even a 5-minute walk up and down your street has been found to have benefits. And there's mounting evidence that short bouts of exercise, like a brisk walk, can build fitness and help you manage stress.
If you don't do any physical activity at the moment, try these tips to get you moving.
• **Ask yourself:** Are you willing to give physical activity a try if it's fun? Physical activity will make you feel happier, healthier, and live longer. It will improve your brain function, make you feel more confident, help reduce smoking, and even lower your credit card bill, as you're less likely to spend money to feel better!
• **Boost your willpower.** You can do this by one of the following: getting to bed on time, practicing meditation, and eating foods with a low glycemic index (GI). Foods with a low GI are generally better for you, as they raise your blood sugar level slowly. With greater willpower, you'll be more likely to create an exercise habit.
• **Spend time with people who do exercise regularly.** You are more likely to think of physical activity positively if you have friends who do the same. They may inspire you to get moving.
• **Make a plan and measure.** By making a basic activity plan and recording what you achieved, you'll be much more likely to stick to it. You could use an app on your phone or simply record it in your journal or other notebook. Set a small, manageable goal to start with, like a 5-minute walk every day.
• **Be self-compassionate when you lapse.** On the days you don't manage to exercise, practice self-kindness. This is hard to believe for many people, but being too strict with yourself when you fail makes it more likely you'll fail again. Forgiving yourself puts you in a more positive mind-set, making another setback less likely.
• **Exercise with a friend.** If you can, find someone else to do your physical activities with. You can then motivate each other, and on the days you want to give up, your friend will encourage you.
• **Reduce your sitting time.** Even if you do half an hour of exercise a day, recent research has found if you spend hours at work sitting, the exercise makes a limited difference health-wise. Try standing while on the phone, having a walking meeting, or going for a stroll at lunchtime. Stand and move throughout the day as much as you can.
Take Notice
Noticing or, in other words, mindfulness, helps you stimulate curiosity and appreciate the world around you. Rather than seeing life in a habitual way, you wake up and enjoy what's going well in your life. Connect with sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and touch. Noticing your own thoughts and feelings can also clarify what direction you want to go in life. So you're making conscious decisions, not being set in your old ways.
Apart from practicing meditation, yoga, or tai chi, here are some more unusual ways of improving your noticing skills:
• **Watch for all objects with a certain color** for a few minutes. For example, if I pick green, I can now notice trees, grass, a highlighter pen, a logo on a business card, a part of my teacup, and a pattern on my curtain.
• **Do one task at half the normal speed for just 1 minute.** What else do you then notice? If I try that while typing, I suddenly notice how smooth the keys are and that I'm sitting in a twisted posture.
• **Try doing nothing for 5 minutes a day.** Yup, nothing. Just sit there or lie there and see what happens. If that's really difficult to do, due to time pressure, maybe you need to look at managing your time differently.
• **Count how many different sounds you can hear when you're waiting in a queue.** When I stop to try this, I notice cars in the distance, a boiling kettle, a distant plane, and plates being clattered. I wasn't aware of any of that before.
• **Ask yourself three questions:** How do I feel right now? What am I thinking about right now? What can I notice with my senses right now?
Discover
Learning something new raises your confidence. And because whatever you're learning is new, you naturally become more mindful in the process. Imagine learning to paint or drive for the first time—your attention would be fully in the present as you develop the new skill.
Most people associate learning with school. But your brain is built and thrives on learning new things, and you can learn at any age. And when you learn by doing activities, that learning is enhanced.
Here are some ideas for ways you can keep learning to build resilience and mental well-being:
• Ask the people around you more questions.
• Seek to learn one new fact every day.
• Take a course in painting, playing an instrument, or fixing cars.
• Engage in a new role at work.
• Try playing a new sport, listening to a new audiobook, or cooking something different.
• Visit a museum to learn about a period you find interesting in history, art, or science.
• Try that hobby you've been thinking about, whether it's flying toy helicopters, knitting, or writing fiction.
I've recently tried painting. I must say, I had ideas like "I can't paint!" running through my head the first time. But splashing colors on a canvas and making mistakes was highly therapeutic and fun. I just called it modern art. I've been experimenting with meditating before doing the painting to see what effect that has—it made the paintings more serene and calming to look at. Other things I do to boost learning: listen to a new audiobook every couple of weeks, watch talks on _www.ted.com_ , visit museums when I can, read blogs on science and psychology, read new books and go to lectures and talks on different topics from time to time.
Give
You may be surprised to see giving as a recommendation in a chapter on taking care of yourself. But both small and large acts of kindness can boost your sense of well-being, improve your relationships, and help you manage stress in a positive way. Being kind to others is an act of kindness to yourself. Kind people live longer and happier lives. People over age 55 who volunteer for two or more organizations have a 44% lower chance of dying. That's more effective than exercising four times a week!
I discovered a powerful example of this last week. An old friend visited me. After failing several years at university, becoming stressed and frustrated, he visited his doctor, who diagnosed him with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). His doctor advised him to find the time to help others rather than just rest. This seems like strange advice to someone who struggles to have the energy to do his own daily chores. But he took the advice and volunteered for a CFS charity. He began to feel grateful for what he could do, and helping others gave his life meaning again. He now also meditates and is far more positive and upbeat about his future. He enjoys the challenges in his life rather than feeling crushed by the stress. It seems that giving of himself has helped him reduce stress and increase his happiness.
**"I love the feeling of doing something nice for someone else. That was one of my favorite parts of Shamash's course for me. It gave me permission to be nice just for the sake of itself. It lifted my mood every time! It's amazing that I rarely made time to do this before."**
Here are some ways you can give:
• Praise a colleague with a short e-mail.
• Open the door for someone.
• Make a cup of tea for a coworker.
• Smile more.
• Consider volunteering for the local community.
• Offer to help an elderly person with his or her bag.
• Invite a friend for dinner.
• Offer to help a colleague with a work project.
EXERCISE: Improving One Area of Your Lifestyle
If you feel overwhelmed with all the things that could improve your well-being, stress not! Try the following steps to clarify one action you could do. Just one action is a fine way to start.
1. Look at the diagram of the five ways to well-being on page 247. Rate how well you're doing in each area on a scale of 1 to 5: 1 for lots of potential for improvement in that area and 5 for doing perfectly well in that area of your life right now, in your opinion.
2. Decide which area you want to develop. You may choose the lowest-value one or the one that you'd most like to develop. It's better to choose the area you're most likely to be successful in and would enjoy.
3. In this coming week, take action in the area you've chosen. For example, if it's Discover, see what new things you learn every day already. Perhaps play a new game with your child, rediscover an old hobby, or join that evening class you've been meaning to take.
4. Do your tiny chosen activity in a mindful way. Savor the experience. And watch to see if you begin to cope better with your stress. Finish by recording your findings in your journal. And if you're inspired, take another action next month!
MEASURE TO MOTIVATE YOURSELF
Measuring your daily activities is a great way to boost your motivation. You can measure not only how much exercise you do but also your heart rate, the quality of your sleep, your weight, your mood, how you use your time, the amount of meditation you've done, the number of steps you've taken in a day, and more. Recently my mother started using a pedometer to record how many steps she takes a day, and it has helped motivate her to walk more.
There is now a whole movement based on measuring yourself to help you achieve your goals. It's called quantified self, and you can start exploring at _www.quantifiedself.com_.
I'm into technology and for the last few months have used a variety of applications on my phone to keep track, which is motivating for me and has helped me develop healthy habits. I've been tracking the amount of time I spend meditating (insight meditation timer app), my weight and eating habits (My Fitness Pal app), the number of walks or runs I do every week and my speed (Runkeeper app), how I use my time (just on Excel), and the quality of my sleep (Sleep Cycle app) and recording my thoughts in my own journal, which I do privately online ( _www.penzu.com_ ). If you don't like using technology, you can simply keep records using a pen and paper—that's just as good and perhaps less stressful for you!
PRACTICE: Mindful Yoga and Meditation for Life
| _10 minutes_.
---|---
| _30 minutes_.
By now, you're familiar with the yoga sequences that have been offered to you. Today you're invited to practice in silence and to start the practice with a 5-minute standing body scan. You can use this body scan to find out which areas of your body are tense and require some attention, and which areas are relaxed. Then engage in whatever yoga postures you feel your body needs. Rather than thinking of the yoga practice as something unusual that you do, allow the yoga stretches to feel like a natural process. Just as you naturally stretch your body in the morning in bed, stretch your body with mindful awareness to meet your body's current needs.
After practicing this for 10 or 30 minutes, depending on whether you're doing the mini or full course, go on to practice any mindfulness meditation of your choice. Again, try doing this without using the audio.
VARIATION: Just for a change, you could try practicing the meditation first and then doing the yoga. Notice what effect that has. Your level of mindful awareness in the yoga may increase.
_The Daffodils_
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
The thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Outdid the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
—WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
**Reflection: How Was Your Day of Mindfulness?**
If you chose to have a day, or perhaps half-day, of mindfulness, how did you find the experience? What did you like or not like about it? What did you discover about your thoughts, emotions, bodily sensations, urges, and desires? If you plan to have another such day, do you wish to pop the date in your diary, or just see when it feels right?
Record your reflections in your journal, phone, or tablet.
SELF-CARE FAQs
**Q: I'm already doing things for others all the time. Are you really suggesting I give more of myself?**
A: If you're already giving your time to help others, you don't have to give any more. For you, perhaps you need to give less by saying no more often. But many people spend their time thinking about themselves and their own lives to feel better when actually seeking to help others would help themselves. This is because the brain is hardwired to reward you when you're generous with your time or energy. As the Dalai Lama says, "If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion."
**Q: I literally have no spare time for mindfulness with my young baby and job. I'm on the go from morning till I fall asleep exhausted. What can I do?**
A: If you have no spare slots to stop and practice a mindfulness exercise like the mindful pause, then don't worry! You can practice mindfulness as you are doing your daily activities. When you're looking at your child, pay attention to her eyes and body and gently smile at her rather than letting your mind get too lost in planning and worrying. When breastfeeding, be there with your child. When driving to the doctor for a checkup, feel your breath and notice the world around you, ensuring you switch off your phone and other distractions. Micro moments of mindfulness make a difference—a deep breath here, a mindful hug there—it all makes a huge difference.
**Q: I'm anxious about this course ending. How can I prepare for the end?**
A: This course isn't the end, really. If anything, it's the beginning of a journey into a life of greater mindfulness. Seek to join a local mindfulness or meditation group in your area, and if there isn't one, consider an online mindfulness group, either mine or some other one that appeals. Perhaps in the near future, you can start a mindfulness group of your own to support others as well as yourself in the practice.
**Q: I lovethe loving-kindness meditation! Can I just do that one?**
A: Yes, you can! You can do any meditation you like. Different people like different meditations. They have all been found to be beneficial, so use what works for you or whatever you enjoy.
**Q: Unfortunately, I never really got into the mindfulness practice in this book. I'm not good at sticking to things like this. What shall I do?**
A: That's okay—you're not alone! There are two approaches you could take. You could closely watch your thoughts and find out what ideas you have that are preventing you from practicing the mindful experiments. And then begin by fully committing to doing 1 minute of meditation every day and building up from there. Alternatively, consider what hobbies or physical activity you do regularly and make that activity a mindful one. Even if it's knitting mindfully three or four times a week, that would be great.
Home Experiments: Week 7
This week, experiment with not using the guided audio when you meditate. Instead, just set a timer for however long you choose to meditate. And you can choose whatever meditation you prefer or feel would work best for you. If you find practicing without the audio too difficult, then try using the audio on alternate days.
_Mindful Booster_
This week, the mindful booster is to use the ABC approach to stress that you discovered in this chapter. To summarize it, A is awareness, so become aware of your stress signs, including thoughts, feelings, body, and behavior. Step B is about becoming aware of your breath and then also becoming aware of your beliefs about stress and shifting your thoughts to a more positive attitude toward the stress itself. See your beating heart as strengthening you. Feel a faster breathing rate as oxygenating your brain and body. Finally, step C is choice. Choose a relaxing activity to lower stress to more manageable levels; or an energizing activity to channel your vitality; or face your stressor and try to fix things so your stress is effectively managed. Work with your stress rather than just trying to eliminate or run away from it.
Week 7
**Day** | **Mini-Course** | **Full Course**
---|---|---
1 | Any mini-meditation you like, without audio
Mindful booster: Try the ABC approach to stress | Any full meditation practice you like, without audio
Mindful pause × 3
Mindful booster: Try the ABC approach to stress
2 | Any mini-meditation you like, without audio
Mindful booster: Try the ABC approach to stress | Any full meditation practice you like, without audio
Mindful pause × 3
Mindful booster: Try the ABC approach to stress
3 | Any mini-meditation you like, without audio
Mindful booster: Try the ABC approach to stress | Any full meditation practice you like, without audio
Mindful pause × 3
Mindful booster: Try the ABC approach to stress
4 | Any mini-meditation you like, without audio
Mindful booster: Try the ABC approach to stress | Any full meditation practice you like, without audio
Mindful pause × 3
Mindful booster: Try the ABC approach to stress
5 | Any mini-meditation you like, without audio
Mindful booster: Try the ABC approach to stress | Any full meditation practice you like, without audio
Mindful pause × 3
Mindful booster: Try the ABC approach to stress
6 | Any mini-meditation you like, without audio
Mindful booster: Try the ABC approach to stress | Any full meditation practice you like, without audio
Mindful pause × 3
Mindful booster: Try the ABC approach to stress
# TWELVE
# _Week 8_
# The Rest of Your Life
_You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You're on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who'll decide where to go. . . ._
—DR. SEUSS
INTENTIONS
_To reflect on what you discovered in this course._
_To look at how you now handle acute stress having done this course._
_To explore how to continue practicing mindfulness._
_To set your vision for a more mindful life with clear intentions for both the short and long term._
RAJ WAS a single man in his late 30s. He worked as a dentist in a busy local practice. He'd divorced a year earlier after being married for about a year. It goes without saying, but his ex had seemed so wonderful when they were dating—the perfect lady. After they got married, alarm bells immediately started to ring. Her expectations of him increased dramatically, and they argued every night. No matter what he tried to improve the relationship, she just kept demanding more of him. After 12 months of agony, stress, and misery, they ended the relationship.
After the stress of divorce, life began to settle down again. His stress levels were slowly beginning to return to normal. Except for one thing. Raj had started spending money to make himself feel better through the divorce, and the habit hadn't stopped. He just couldn't stop spending money. Designer clothes that he just _had_ to have. Holidays at luxurious hotels. All the latest gadgets. He bought a new car, thinking he "deserved it." Finally, he even got a mortgage on a house that he couldn't afford. Most evenings were spent surfing the Web and making new purchases. Eventually, he stopped opening bills that dropped through the mail slot every day, and before he knew it, he'd maxed out his credit cards.
When a colleague said they were going to come to one of my mindfulness classes, he decided to give it a try—he'd read about mindfulness in a magazine. Raj discovered his body was riddled with tension, and the body scan meditation started to release that naturally. He meditated every day and with each session, worked through a whole host of emotions that he'd pushed away over the last couple of years.
The meditations started to clear his mind. He began to feel confident enough to open the bills and make the necessary phone calls. He also started to take better care of his health, jogging occasionally in the mornings and preparing healthy meals for himself a few days a week.
But the best thing for him was that he stopped overspending. He realized he kept purchasing online to feel the euphoria of having a new gadget, shirt, or laptop. But that feeling didn't last long. Within about 15 minutes, the desire to buy one more thing arose. He was then shopping again to recreate that excitement. The next time he felt the urge to shop, he hesitated. He did a mindful pause and noticed the sense of desire as a tangible body sensation. He then set a timer for 5 minutes to see whether he could feel the urge together with his breath to see what happens. He managed. But amazingly, the urge had passed within about 2 minutes.
That autopilot behavior to shop began to drop away, replaced by meditation practice. The mindfulness organically grew a sense of deep-seated well-being in his heart. No amount of shopping could offer him that same inner peace.
PRACTICE: Coming Full Circle
Before you dive into this week's session, start with some mindfulness meditation practice, as outlined below. The meditations will help you have a more mindful outlook for the reflections that follow in the session.
**Body Scan**
| _10 minutes_.
---|---
| _30 minutes_.
---|---
_Audio tracks 6 and ._
You started this mindfulness course with the body scan meditation, lying down and taking up to half an hour to get in touch with the sensations in your body from moment to moment. We now come full circle.
When you first tried the body scan, you may have experienced a whole host of different ideas, opinions, and beliefs about what to expect. After almost 2 months of mindfulness practice, you can bring a different quality to the experience today.
In particular, try bringing the following two attitudes to your body scan:
1. **Acceptance.** Notice whether your mind just keeps wandering relentlessly. See if you can accept that. Notice whether you feel pain, discomfort, or a sense of wanting to move, fidget, or relax. See if you can accept that. Notice any emotions that arise through your practice of the body scan and see if you can accept that too. Give the space for all experiences to just be, rather than trying to change them. Smile at thoughts like "but I've been meditating for 2 months and I still can't control my mind" and just start again. Remember, we're not in the business of _controlling_ thoughts.
2. **Freshness.** By this I mean experiencing as if for the very first time. Sometimes this is called practicing with "beginner's mind." Practice the body scan as if you've never done the body scan before, with a sense of curiosity and openness.
I know for me personally, the body scan is more challenging than the sitting meditation as I'm more prone to fall asleep, but even so, I find I become more in tune with my bodily sensations throughout the day after the meditation.
**Yoga Stretches**
| _10 minutes_.
---|---
| _30 minutes_.
---|---
_Audio tracks 9 and (optional)_.
Following the body scan, practice some mindful yoga or mindful stretching of your choice. You can use a guided audio or simply tune in to your own bodily sensations to decide which body parts need stretching. Continue to bring the attitudes of acceptance and beginner's mind, as you did in the body scan.
**Expanding Awareness Meditation**
| _Audio tracks 15 and (optional)._
---|---
| Finally, after the yoga, spend some time in this meditation. This is usually practiced in a seated posture. Again, use a guided audio of your choice, or simply set a timer for however long you wish. Notice how it feels to do the meditation after the body scan and yoga practice. Do you find the experience easier or more challenging?
---|---
**Reflection**
Write down what your experience of the meditations was like today.
1. Did you manage to bring a little more acceptance or beginner's mind?
2. Was it a struggle? Was there something you were not accepting? If so, what?
3. Was there any aspect of the meditation you enjoyed?
4. Do you find yourself judging the practice as "a good session" or "a bad one"? If so, how could you describe it differently?
**Reflecting on the Course:
What Gems Did You Discover?**
At this point, it's useful to reflect on what you've discovered about yourself by reading this book and practicing the meditations. Some insights may have come from simply reading the words on this page. Others, through the actual experience of meditation. Or you may have made a discovery when being mindful in your everyday life.
These insights are important. By taking some time to look back over the course and reflecting on your insights, you can grow in wisdom and self-understanding.
For example, when I first did a mindfulness course, my major insight about myself was this: Thoughts are just thoughts popping into my head; I don't always have to believe them or act on them. Also, I discovered that rather than spending every minute thinking, it's helpful to live in the moment and enjoy life just as it is.
Okay, now it's your turn!
EXERCISE: Self-Reflection Meditation
Take 10–15 minutes to do this meditation before entering reflections in your journal.
1. Start with a few minutes of mindfulness of breath.
2. Once you feel you've settled into the meditation, cast your mind back to the start of this meditation course. What did you discover when doing the eating meditation and the body scan?
3. You also explored the expanding awareness meditation, yoga, and the mindful pause. What did you enjoy about them? What did you discover from them?
4. As you went through the course, you learned about stress—both its benefits and its drawbacks. How has your understanding of stress developed?
5. Being as honest with yourself as you can, consider the following question: What are the most important insights you've discovered from this course that you wish to take away with you?
**Reflection**
Write down your answers to the questions asked in the preceding meditation, especially the last question.
**Tales of Wisdom: Three Hairs**
Once upon a time there was a woman who woke up, looked in the mirror, and noticed she had only three hairs on her head. She thought, "Oh well, I think I'll braid my hair today." She did so and had a great day.
The next day, she woke up, looked in the mirror, and found only two hairs on her head. "Hmmm," she thought. "I know—I'll part my hair down the middle today." And off she went and had a great day.
The next morning, she woke, looked in the mirror, and found just one hair on her head. "Oh . . . I can wear my hair just like a ponytail," she thought and, with a spring in her step, had a lovely day.
Waking up the next morning, she looked in the mirror and discovered she had no hair on her head at all. "Yay, I don't have to fix my hair today!" she thought.
WEEK 8 IS THE REST OF YOUR LIFE!
Although this is the last session, I hope it's the beginning of a lifetime of mindfulness practice for you. This chapter will not only explore your next steps for this week but also create a realistic and exciting vision for the long term.
Some people want to just be mindful in their everyday life, without stopping to meditate even for a few minutes. That sounds great in theory, but in practice your mind easily goes back to its habitual ways. So if you're eager to be a more mindful person, you'll need to practice some meditation on a daily basis.
If you're suffering from chronic stress, practice as much mindfulness meditation as you can. The research shows the more you practice, the better it is for you. Monks who have been practicing all their lives have brains highly wired for resilience to stress according to brain scans. The half-hour body scans, expanding awareness meditations, and yoga may be best suited for your needs, which were part of the full program in this book.
If your challenge is short bursts of high stress (acute stress), then you need to use mindfulness to both respond to that stress effectively and find rest between those high-stress periods. A combination of mini-meditations when you're under pressure and the longer meditations from time to time may serve your purposes well.
If, having done this course, you just don't think meditation is for you, then consider doing one daily, solitary activity in a mindful way. Many people find running a mindful activity—time to de-stress and live in the now. For others it's walking the dog every morning, knitting, playing an instrument, cooking, or gardening. Find out what works for you and try to do it daily or as close to daily as you can.
**"Before this course, I saw stress as the enemy. Now I understand that stress has evolved to help me. I use mindfulness to work with my stress, not against it."**
Whatever you decide for your future, I hope the exercises that follow will help you clarify and stick to your chosen mindfulness practices so they help manage your stress. And when you aren't able to stick to your plan, remember to use mindfulness, curiosity, and self-kindness to gently get back on track, rather than creating another stressor in your life.
SETTING YOUR VISION
Martin Luther King's famous "I Have a Dream" speech is considered one of the greatest orations of all time. It was particularly moving because King used imagery to set a vision of how he saw the future. And that dream, that vision, became a burning desire in people's hearts, moving them to action to make the vision a reality. Change began through imagery first and then action.
Einstein also understood the importance of imagination. He famously said, "Imagination is more important than knowledge." This statement seems strange coming from someone who is considered so knowledgeable. But as you may know, one of Einstein's greatest ideas came through his imagining what it would be like to ride on a beam of light.
Today you have the chance to use your own imagination to create a vision for your future mindful self. A vision of how you'll be using mindfulness in your life to work with stress. This may seem ironic, as mindfulness emphasizes living in the present. But when you have a powerful yet attainable vision, you are more highly motivated to take action in the present.
You'll do this in several stages, shown in the diagram below:
1. Create a long-term vision through a letter-writing exercise and then come up with three long-term goals you're excited about.
2. Create a short-term vision through a reflection exercise and then come up with three short-term goals you're excited about.
3. Decide on a meditation schedule based on your previous reflections and visions if that's what you wish.
4. Through the daily meditations and your efforts to live in the present moment, you're living with greater levels of mindful awareness, helping you work with stress more creatively.
Your Long-Term Vision
Recent research has found that if people don't imagine or feel a connection with their future self, they are much less likely to eat healthily or exercise. One piece of research found that people who felt as if their future self was like some other person, rather than themselves, took less care of themselves and even saved less for retirement!
If you develop a closer connection to your future self, you will be more likely to keep to your goal of regular mindfulness meditation or other daily mindful practice. The following exercise has been tested on others and helps with this.
EXERCISE: Writing a Letter from Your Future Self
Imagine yourself at some future date. A year, 3 years, or perhaps even 10 years from now—whatever feels right to you. At this time, imagine you've learned to respond to your stress in a positive way. Imagine yourself as your ideal, future self, living with mindfulness, wisdom, compassion, or any other values that you consider important for you.
Visualize what it feels like to be a regular meditator if that's what you want. What time of day do you meditate? Where do you do your regular meditation practice? How willing are you to meditate when obstacles get in the way? When time is short? When stress levels are high?
Also consider how you respond to your everyday challenges. What's your response when stuck in traffic? How do you communicate with your partner, your friends, or your colleagues at work? How do you deal with conflicts? How mindful are you when you eat, when you exercise, and when you work? How aware are you of your moment-to-moment thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations?
When you're ready, imagine that you, as your future self, can write to you as your present self. Write to your present self with the following points:
• Tell your present self all your **good qualities** that your future self can see. Explain to your present self all the strengths and skills you have that will make you more mindful and effective under pressure.
• Let your future self express **appreciation** for all the effort that your present self made to meditate regularly, practicing mindful walking, or whatever else you wish to do.
• Offer your present self some **self-compassionate words of wisdom** to overcome your present challenges in being mindful and dealing with your stress.
Here's an excerpt from a letter that I wrote a few years back to my present self when going through some tough challenges at work and wanting to be a writer and meditation teacher.
Dear Present-Day Shamash,
How are you? I hope you're well. It's your future self, Shamash, here! I'm writing to encourage you to gently stick with your mindfulness practice to deal with the stress you're currently facing.
_Good qualities_
I know things seem difficult for you at the moment with all the challenges at work. But you have great strengths to get you through them. You're creative and come up with unique solutions to the challenges you face. You're willing to put the effort in to find solutions rather than just give up. You love mindfulness and by practicing meditation every day you'll be better able to handle the stress that comes your way. And on the days you don't meditate, you can forgive yourself—you never need to be hard on yourself.
_Appreciation_
I know you're going through a tough time at the moment, with all the classes you teach, the prep you have to do, some aggressive managers and personal issues. But I'm writing to say a big thank-you for sticking with the meditation and mindful practice. Doing regular days and half-days of mindfulness practice really helped you. You worked hard to get through this tough time and became a more stress-resilient person for doing so.
_Self-compassionate words of wisdom_
You're going through a tough time at the moment, but you're not alone. It's not such a big deal in the great scheme of things. So many people are faced with difficult challenges at work. No need to be hard on yourself. Instead, say nice things to yourself, like, "Hey, you tried your best," or "Today was tough, but tomorrow is another day." These words of self-kindness may feel strange, but they are exactly what you'd say to a friend going through difficulties. Over the years it will become second nature to you.
In conclusion, thanks once again for persevering with the daily meditation and mindful living and for being compassionate to both yourself and others. And remember, the challenges you're facing are temporary—they will pass. Be mindful!
Love,
Future Shamash
|
Write in your own style—there's no need for you to copy me in any way. Feel free to add extra sections, and you can write in much more detail.
Take your time with this exercise. You may like to do it after practicing a meditation.
If letter writing doesn't inspire you, consider a painting, collage, or whatever other form of expression works for you.
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**Reflection**
Following your letter, you should have some ideas for three realistic, long-term goals for living a more mindful life to manage your stress. Write them down.
Examples include practicing mindfulness meditation for 15 minutes a day, doing a day of mindfulness every few months, doing a mindfulness course annually, cultivating friendships through mindful communication, or whatever else you would like to see yourself doing in a mindful way.
Your Short-Term Intentions: The Next 3 Months
You've been practicing mindfulness for about 2 months now. For some of you, meditation may have become a daily habit. Others may have struggled to find the time and space to meditate regularly and perhaps feel frustrated about that.
Having considered your long-term vision, think about what goals related to mindfulness to manage your stress you'd like to achieve over the next 3 months. One of your goals may be a daily meditation practice, one could be about living in a mindful way or applying one of the mindful boosters, and one goal could be to go for a mindful walk for 15 minutes every day. To help you clarify your goals and increase your chances of success rather than making the goals into another source of stress, try writing down the specifics of your plan.
**"My vision is to be a peaceful, happy person—someone who looks after himself. In the last 8 weeks, this dream is becoming a reality. It's much closer than I thought."**
**Reflection**
Write down your mindfulness plan for the next 3 months. Answer the following questions to improve your chances of building a mindfulness habit:
1. What are your three main goals or intentions for the next 3 months? It's important to be as realistic as you can.
2. Which meditations will you do each month?
3. How much time will you spend doing them?
4. What time of day will you do them?
5. What are the chances that you're going to stick to this plan?
6. Is there any way of increasing your chances? If so, how?
7. Who can you talk to about this plan, to improve your chances of success? Or is there someone you could meditate with on a daily or weekly basis?
8. What are all the obstacles that will prevent you from doing your meditation practice? Be as honest with yourself as you can.
9. When these obstacles arise, what action could you realistically take to help overcome them?
10. What words of kindness could you use at the times when you don't achieve your goal (treating yourself like you would a good friend)?
Reflecting on obstacles is particularly important. Most people think the best way to stick to your goals is to think positively about them. But it turns out that it's even more effective to think negatively—to think about what might prevent you from achieving your goal and determining what you'll do to handle that.
For me the thought "Oh, I can't be bothered to meditate now" can be the obstacle to meditating if I'm feeling really tired or agitated. And if I go down for breakfast and start my day, I'm much less likely to meditate. So I watch out for that thought and desire and say to myself, "Let me meditate for at least 1 minute and then decide." Usually after the first minute, I'm happy to keep going. In fact, this technique works for me on other tasks I'm procrastinating over too!
_Research Corner: Achieving Your Intentions_
To explain why setting your intentions and writing them all down is so important, consider the following study published in the _British Journal of Health Psychology_ in 2010. Researchers studied how best to help people stick to their goals by testing 248 people and put them randomly in three groups, hoping to get them to start exercising.
• Group 1—Control: They asked them to keep track of how much they exercised over 2 weeks.
• Group 2—Motivation: They asked them to read a leaflet all about the benefits of exercise to reduce heart disease. They were then told to track their exercise over the next 2 weeks.
• Group 3—Intention: This group received the same leaflet as Group 2. But they were also asked to write down, there and then, what day and time they would do their 20 minutes of vigorous exercise over the next week.
Here are the surprising results:
• Group 1: 38% exercised at least once a week.
• Group 2: 35% exercised at least once a week.
• Group 3: 91% exercised at least once a week!
This suggests, along with many other studies, that if you write down specifically when and where you are going to do your chosen activity (in our case, mindful living and meditation), you're much more likely to achieve your goal. It also suggests that just reading about the benefits of mindfulness to motivate yourself may not work on its own—you need to commit to dates and times and write them down.
INSTALLING THE MEDITATION HABIT
To make mindfulness meditation a daily occurrence, you need to make it into a habit. This may seem strange, as you've discovered the problem of living in a habitual, autopilot way. But you can make the habit of meditation a conscious one, rather than doing it automatically. Conscious good habits are ones you are aware you have and are happy to have. The meditation habit is one such example.
I've made meditation a daily, morning habit. Most mornings I just get up and meditate. So I don't need to really think or debate or force myself too much. There have been some times when I've slipped out of the habit, but I've managed to reinstate the habit before too long. You can achieve a similar, positive habit.
There has been quite a lot of research on how to form good habits in recent years. Here's what the science suggests.
1. **Take small steps.** As you're new to meditation, the 30 minutes or even the 10 minutes a day may have been too tricky. If so, try 3 minutes a day—you decide what you can do and stick to it! You can then build from there.
2. **Focus on one habit at a time.** If you're creating a habit of daily meditation, don't also make major changes in other areas of your life, like eating or exercising habits. Focus on one change at a time to increase the likelihood of success. Many experiments have shown humans don't have unlimited willpower, so choosing your challenges one at a time is a great idea.
3. **Write your goal down.** Use your journal to record how much you want to meditate, what time you plan to do so, and by what date you wish to achieve this. You've already done this if you did the last journaling exercise.
4. **Repeat, repeat.** To form a habit to meditate, you need to keep practicing. How many times? It varies from person to person—you'll know meditation has become a habit when it becomes second nature.
Charles Duhigg, in his bestselling book _The Power of Habit,_ identifies three parts of a neurological habit loop. They are simply:
1. Cue
2. Routine
3. Reward
In the case of meditation practice, the routine is the meditation practice itself. What's the cue? That's the trigger that tells your mind it's time to meditate. For me, the cue is simply waking up in the morning. After I wake up, I have a little natural stretch in bed, set my meditation timer or listen to a guided meditation, and meditate. Experiments show triggers can be in the following categories:
• **Location.** For example, one of my clients always meditates on the train to work. That's his cue to meditate.
• **Time.** Whatever particular time you choose. Mornings are often best, but not for everyone.
• **Emotion.** For example, you may meditate when you feel anxious, low, angry, or tired. These can be your meditation triggers.
• **Other people.** For example, you may meditate together with a friend or when you attend a meditation group.
• **Previous action.** For example, after brushing your teeth or after breakfast or after taking a shower.
So, what about the reward? In meditation, the idea is to simply practice and observe what arises rather than seeking a reward. I know that if I stop meditating for a week, I become more irritable, less calm, and less focused. Being a more accepting, peaceful, and focused person makes me feel better. That's my reward. Some teachers would say there's no reward to meditation; you practice for its own sake.
| When you're first creating your meditation habit, you could experiment with rewarding yourself with a call to a friend, your favorite meal, or a cup of your favorite coffee. A little reward after meditating will help create that habit loop in your brain. After a while, you no longer need to reward yourself with external things; the meditation itself will be your reward.
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_This Too Will Pass_
When things get too much, you can take no more,
When getting out of bed seems the biggest chore.
There are four words that can give you peace,
No matter what the anxiety, it's sure to cease.
The words are simple, their meaning clear,
Remember them now, and hold them dear.
For all experiences are relatively brief,
Think "This too will pass" and smile with relief!
—SHAMASH ALIDINA
MINDFULNESS IS MIRACULOUS BUT TAKES HER TIME
The Grand Canyon is considered one of the Seven Wonders of the World—a miracle of nature. Its immensity can almost overwhelm your senses. The canyon averages 4,000 feet in depth for over 277 miles! And that depth has been cut by the Colorado River. For the river to achieve this, it has taken millions of years. When I visited a few years ago, I couldn't even see the river at the bottom. And yet it was amazing how deep the canyon was. A reminder of what can be achieved over time.
In the same way, your daily practice of mindfulness may not seem to make any difference on a daily basis. You may feel frustrated that you continue to feel the rough bristles of excessive stress rub against you. But the river of awareness sinks deep in your being. Day by day, mindful awareness softens your heart and awakens your senses to the rich beauty of life around you. Just remember the Colorado River—each day the river cuts a fraction of a millimeter, but over time develops a world's wonder. But here's the good news: although meditation may take months to fully show its effects, it doesn't take millions of years like the Colorado River!
The pain of life can feel as if it leaves permanent scars within you. And yet the soft gentleness of mindfulness can begin healing those wounds within. You may feel broken, damaged, even beyond repair. You are not alone in these feelings. Mindfulness is not the answer to all your problems; it's one answer. But I've met so many people who have found mindfulness to be a soothing, healing solution to life's relentless stresses. They describe mindfulness as a lifesaver, a chance to start again.
For example, Lucy was a trainee accountant. She had lots of pressure at work and had to study for accountancy exams in the evenings. She had no time to see her friends. On top of this, her boss never seemed happy with any of her work. One day she randomly burst into tears—she felt so stressed. Within weeks, her boyfriend left her, saying she had no time for him. Her life felt like it was falling apart. Lucy couldn't face work anymore. She went to see her doctor, who gave her time off and recommended a mindfulness program. The meditations taught her to separate herself from her relentless waves of negative thoughts and feelings. This helped her start feeling in control of her life. The mindfulness taught her that self-acceptance was more important than trying to be perfect at work. She went for mindful walks in her local park and reconnected with her friends. Within a few months, she rejoined her company in a different department and went on to build a successful career. She continues to make time for mindfulness practice daily. Years later, she still discovers new insights about herself and others through her mindful and self-compassion exercises. The painful experience of anxiety and loss she felt scarred her on the inside, but the meditations gave her the time and space to heal herself. You too have this inner capacity to heal, and mindfulness is a powerful way to access that.
SEVEN KEYS TO UNLOCKING A MINDFUL LIFESTYLE
As we approach the end of this chapter and course, I'm going to offer some suggestions for living mindfully, based on the acronym MINDFUL to make it easier for you to remember. If you like it, photocopy or download and print the diagram below that summarizes these keys (available to download and print from _www.guilford.com/alidina-materials_ ) and stick it up on your fridge door or somewhere else to remind you to be mindful. Think of it as a summary of the whole course.
From _The Mindful Way through Stress._ Copyright 2015 by The Guilford Press.
M—Meditate
Spend a few minutes feeling your breath to a full body scan, expanding awareness meditation, or yoga practice. Meditation means to pay attention to your thoughts, feeling, body, breath, or to connect with one of your senses for a length of time that you choose. Feel free to be creative in what you think of as your daily meditation practice. Drinking tea, swimming, or gardening can all become a meditation when you do them intentionally and with mindful attention in the present moment. Consider adding a small smile as you meditate to remind you not to take the exercise too seriously. This reminds you to be less serious and more playful in your approach.
I—Interpret Differently
Only 10% of your well-being is determined by your outer circumstances. Change your attitude, your interpretation of events, to live a better life. Losing a job sucks, but does it give you a chance to change careers? A tight deadline isn't fun, but will the stress help to energize and motivate you to work more efficiently? To take an extreme example, when my grandparents died, I was upset and sad, of course; I was very close to them. But as time went by I realized that their death also helped the rest of our family become closer. We had a chance to celebrate their life. Their death is sad but also a chance for us to use the gifts they gave us. Interpretation is about directing your attention to the positive, not just the negative.
N—Be Nonjudgmental
When you're practicing mindfulness, the idea is to be nonjudgmental. Our perfectionistic society has trained us to perpetually look for what's wrong and try to improve it. But recall the last time you saw a scene of great beauty—perhaps a beautiful landscape of rolling hills and trees. Did you think, "That tree's a bit short" or "That hill isn't quite curvy enough"? Of course not. You looked nonjudgmentally. You were mindful and enjoyed the moment. You can judge to make decisions, but make time to stop judging every day too.
D—Discover
Mindfulness is about discovering more about yourself and the world around you. You become a scientist of your own laboratory—and that laboratory is your body and mind. Notice your habitual patterns of thought. Find out what happens when you meditate every single day for a whole week. Explore what effect fully accepting a so-called negative emotion has on you.
F—Forgive
Begin by forgiving yourself for the mistakes you've made. If you've read this far in this book, I have no doubt that you mean well. You want to be a more mindful and conscious person. Accept that as a human you have imperfections. You make mistakes like everyone else on the planet. Condemning yourself just adds to life's burden. Instead, forgive yourself and learn from your mistakes. Then learn to forgive others—not to say what they did was right but for you to stop holding on to grudges. Holding blame is more painful for you than the other person.
U—Urge Surf
This is an unusual one, but you'll find it helpful. Urge surfing is the act of noticing when you have an urge to do something and deciding to just watch that urge rise up and fall instead of fulfilling your desire. This is used in addiction treatment, but in our modern society with the temptations of excessive sweet and fatty food, 24/7 entertainment, cell phones, e-mails, the Internet, and more, we are constantly being tempted. By learning to urge surf, you can notice the urge to check your phone and surf the urge until it passes. Want a second cookie? Feel the urge and see if you can train your brain to sit through it.
L—Look After Yourself
You may be giving of yourself too much. Constantly helping others without taking time for rest and renewal will drain you. Then you can't help anyone. Looking after yourself with sufficient sleep, exercise, pursuing interests, socializing, having some fun, and meditating are all necessary for human functioning; they are not luxuries.
FINDING ONGOING SUPPORT
Mindfulness is a popular topic, and there are many resources available to support your efforts, including books about applying mindfulness to specific issues, other guided meditations, local mindfulness meditation groups, mindfulness-based therapists and coaches, online courses and groups, and mindfulness retreats. For a full list, see the Resources in the back of the book.
WEEK 8 FAQs
This last session is an opportunity to explore any lingering questions that you may have.
**Q: What if I can't stick to my meditation as I've planned to do?**
A: If you think you won't be able to stick to your plan, adjust it. Reduce the time you'll meditate or seek the support of a local weekly meditation group. Or even an online group of meditators could work for you. Give it a try and reassess things in 3 months.
**Q: I didn't really feel I got much benefit from this course. Should I continue?**
A: That's entirely up to you. Just remember that the benefits of mindfulness are subtle and hard to notice at first. I'd suggest, if you're willing, that you practice for a few more months on a daily basis. But it's your choice, of course.
**Q: I missed quite a few weeks of the course. Shall I start again?**
A: Yes, you can start again. There's absolutely no harm in that. In fact, practicing an 8-week mindfulness course regularly is a great way to give yourself some structure if you struggle to plan your own time.
**"Yesterday I looked outside and saw the most beautiful rainbow! Before learning mindfulness, I wouldn't have given it a second glance. Mindfulness has made my life worth living once again. Life is not just clouds and rain. There's also sunshine and rainbows if you look carefully."**
**Q: What if I want to do a longer course of mindfulness?**
A: You could do this 8-week course for 8 months. Do each practice for a month rather than a week. I've done that before and found I gained all sorts of new discoveries and insights about myself.
**Q: Even after doing this mindfulness course, I'm still feeling really stressed—my heart is beating fast and I'm always feeling overheated and tense. I can't sleep properly. What shall I do?**
A: Go and see your doctor first. He or she will be able to assess your symptoms properly. Then you'll know if you're suffering from excessive stress or some other condition, or perhaps both. A health professional should be able to point you to other resources or professionals who can help you. If not, find a different doctor or health professional. Your health is a number-one priority.
Home Experiments for the Rest of Your Life
As I mentioned earlier, Week 8 is the rest of your life, so this week's home experiments could be a very long list! But instead, let's keep it simple for this week, and then the following week you can use the plan you've created in your journal using the exercises from today.
1. **Meditation.** Find some time every day to do one meditation of your choice. It could last from 1 minute to 45 minutes—it's up to you.
2. **Mindful living.** Engage in everyday mindfulness—seek to bring your attention back to the present moment whenever and wherever you remember to do so, no matter what you're doing.
3. **Mindful booster.** Choose any mindful booster that you enjoyed working with from the last 7 weeks on this course. One easy choice is simply to spend a few moments every day thinking about and writing what you're grateful for and why.
PRACTICE: Closing Meditation
This is the final meditation to end this particular course. Let the practice signify the start of a new adventure in your life. A new chapter. One in which cultivating greater awareness and self-compassion lies at the heart of your being.
1. Sit or lie down in a posture that feels comfortable for you. Allow your eyes to close gently.
2. Take three deep, full, conscious breaths and then allow your breath to find its own natural rhythm. Feel each precious in- and out-breath.
3. Notice that it's your body breathing by itself rather than you _doing_ the breathing. Let your body breathe by itself and be a watcher, an observer of the experience for a few minutes.
4. Open up your awareness to your whole body—feel your body expanding and contracting with each breath. Hold the bodily sensations within awareness.
5. Reflect on all the effort you've taken to meditate over the last 7 weeks. All the moments where you've tried to be mindful. Acknowledge that effort. Be proud of that effort. To get this far, no matter how much meditation you actually did, is admirable. These practices oppose much of what modern culture worships, so congratulate yourself for what you have done so far, rather than berating yourself for what you haven't done.
6. When you're ready, practice some loving-kindness meditation. Begin with yourself if that's okay with you. Use these words, or any other words you prefer:
"May I be happy. May I be healthy.
May I be free of suffering."
Allow the words to drop into your heart, not just your head, if you can.
7. Now bring all your friends and family together to mind, including yourself. Use the words:
"May we be happy. May we be healthy.
May we be free from suffering."
8. Now consider all the people who practice mindfulness or meditation of some sort, just as you are.
"May we all be happy. May we all be healthy.
May we all be free from suffering."
9. Bring all living beings to mind. Plants and trees. All humans and land animals. Fishes in the sea and birds in the air.
"May we all be happy, healthy, and free
from suffering."
10. As you bring this meditation to a close, remember that you are not alone in your meditation—at any time, millions of people are practicing meditation all over the world right now, to manage their stress, to open their hearts, or to create greater peace both within themselves and in the world at large. Dedicate this meditation equally to yourself and all those other people around the world, wishing to be happy and free of their suffering. You are just as worthy of happiness as anyone else in the world.
11. When you're ready, bring the meditation to a close.
VARIATION: Some people like to light a candle or have some flowers or attractive stones placed in front of them when they do this closing meditation, so it feels like a ceremony, signifying the start of a more mindful way of living.
| You can use this meditation to help you bring a sense of closure to any significant journey or process in your life. The loving-kindness practice in this meditation is particularly good for soothing difficult emotions in your heart and building resilience to future stressors.
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FINAL WORDS
Thank you for taking this journey into mindfulness together with me. I'm deeply honored that you shared this life-affirming process with me and hope our paths cross in person one day.
Remember, however bad your past has been or however bleak your future may appear, you are not alone. You _can_ find relief in the present moment. Take life moment by moment, mindful breath by mindful breath. Joy, peace, and clarity really are accessible to you. I wish you all the very best.
# THIRTEEN
# _Mindful Stretching and Yoga_
_Our bodies are our gardens, to the which our wills are gardeners._
—WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
MOVING OR stretching your body can be an enjoyable way of cultivating mindfulness. The stimulus you receive from your body as you begin to gently stretch offers lots of sensations for you to focus your awareness on. For many people, this makes it easier to stay attentive in the present moment and feel centered, grounded, and united with their body.
There are many ways to stretch in a mindful way. The most popular disciplines are probably yoga, tai chi, and qigong. Although yoga is offered in this book, you can practice any approach that appeals to you.
WHAT IS MINDFUL YOGA?
The word _yoga_ means "to join" or "to unite." Yoga is about uniting mind and body. Most people associate yoga with a range of physical postures designed to build flexibility and perhaps promote relaxation or fitness, but yoga is traditionally about developing mindfulness.
The yoga in the MBSR program is not about physical exercise. The focus is far more on the mindful awareness of the various postures you adopt and the transition from one posture to another. You can focus on:
• Your physical sensations from moment to moment, within your body.
• Your breathing.
• How your mind starts to think about other issues and bringing your attention back.
• Your emotions within your physical body.
• Your relationship to the process of stretching. For example, the judgments that pop into your head, your emotional reactions as you hold a pose, your desire to shy away from pushing yourself into a stretch.
• Noticing and letting go of comparison, competition, and judging yourself if you practice yoga with others. Noticing and letting go of the desire to "do," to progress and be able to do certain poses.
If you are uncomfortable practicing yoga because of your religious beliefs, feel free to consider it mindful stretching instead. And use whatever stretches you feel comfortable with—not necessarily yoga postures. This program does not need to be associated with any religion and wishes the process to be accessible to all, whatever your background or physical ability.
**Gentle warning:** Please remember to check with your doctor before engaging in any physical postures outlined in this book, especially if you have a health condition. If you do have a health condition, you're best advised to work together with a trained and experienced professional instructor who can adapt the movements specifically for you.
**"I had a real resistance to the idea of doing yoga. But when I thought of it as mindful stretching, it seemed much more possible—even I can do a bit of streching!"**
In such a case, consider visualizing yourself in each posture for an equal amount of time as you'd do the real stretch—the imagery will activate the neurons in your brain associated with the stretch, and there's evidence from several studies to suggest those muscles will actually strengthen too. This only works if you do the imagery regularly (several times a week for at least several weeks) rather than just once or twice. And the more vivid you can make the imagery, the more effective the outcome seems to be.
_Research Corner:
Be Mindful of Your Posture and Feel Great!_
Posture can have a direct effect on how you feel. If you're feeling low, simply try sitting up straight, walking upright, and avoiding slouching. It may help reduce your stress by making you feel more in control. And the science seems to agree.
A study published in 2009 in the _European Journal of Social Psychology_ by Briñol, Petty, and Wagner asked half of a group to sit slumped and the other half to sit up straight. The people who were sitting up straight had significantly higher levels of self-confidence and belief in themselves compared to those who were slouched. So make sure you stand and sit up straight, especially at your next interview or date!
YOGA AS A MINDFUL PRACTICE: BEING PRESENT IN YOUR BODY
Yoga is a superb way to mindfully train yourself to live in the present. And sometimes, when you practice yoga in a mindful way, you may experience a state of flow. Flow is a state of mind in which you are so focused that you notice only what you're engaged in—in this case, yoga. Being aware of your breathing together with your body can often help create this mindful flow state. You forget about your shopping list or the gardening you need to do. You even forget one aspect of living that you're so used to noticing—your sense of self. Your attention is wholly in the moment. You usually also forget about time, as your awareness is so fully present.
This flow state is something you may experience often, sometimes, or never. The most important point is not to try to get into any particular state. Simply be mindful, pay attention with curiosity and openness, and see what happens.
Trees can teach you a lot about yoga and stress reduction. Notice the way trees cope with the wind. As the wind buffets a tree, the branches move and the leaves dance around. They are not stiff or fixed. The top of the tree seems to move the most. But the base of the tree remains fixed and grounded to the earth. The base of the tree is almost completely still. (See the below.)
Yoga is similar. You gently stretch your arms and legs after being buffeted by the stress of the day. But the idea of mindful yoga is that you stay rooted in awareness—just as the tree would topple over without its roots, even though they are invisible. So awareness is your root. And the longer you practice being aware in the present, the deeper your roots and the less likely you are to topple with the stressors you face.
Here are a few tips to consider before you try the yoga practice:
• **Yoga is not about how far you can stretch.** Do you classify the best tree as the one that bends the most? Of course not. In the same way, yoga is not about how flexible you are. The idea is you begin with where you are. Even if after years of yoga practice you were just as flexible as you were when you started, it wouldn't matter—that's not the goal. What matters is the level of mindful awareness you brought to the experience.
• **The key to mindful yoga is resting your attention on your breath and bodily sensations.** That's the secret. Just pay attention to your breathing and body. Your mind will wander to thoughts. Those thoughts include judgment, memories, interpretations, ideas, plans, and more. When you notice this happening, acknowledge and bring your attention back to your breathing and your bodily sensations. There's no need to ban thinking. Just notice, smile, and glide your attention back.
• **Yoga is not a competition.** Competition is about comparison and judgment and striving with effort to achieve a goal—comparing yourself to others or to your past achievements. Competition can generate a great deal of motivation, but not usually a reduction in stress, which is what this book is about. You are not good enough now, and you want to be better. So where is your attention? Your attention is on where you want to be, not where you are. And so you are not living in the present. Mindful yoga is about letting go of striving for a goal and just simply being present.
Use your breath like a thread to weave mindfulness into your yoga practice. You can then observe how a posture changes your breath. One posture may deepen your breath, while another may make your breathing more shallow. Holding postures will also affect your breathing—you can watch this with curiosity.
Each time you enter a posture in yoga is an opportunity to discover something new: to discover the relationship between your body, thoughts, and emotions; to discover which muscles feel tight, your emotional reaction to any intense sensations, and the thoughts that arise in your mind.
If you're an experienced yoga practitioner, you may want to do more advanced postures, and that's fine. But even the most adept practitioners can learn and grow from practicing each of these postures with mindfulness and as if for the first time, with a sense of freshness and playfulness.
WANT A YOGA CLASS?
In addition to learning basic yoga from this book, you may like to try a class. The benefit of joining a class is that the teacher can show you how to do the poses and correct any mistakes you may be making. Being with others in the class and making friends can be an additional stress reliever.
Here are a few tips for finding an appropriate teacher:
• Is the teacher experienced? How many years? Is the teacher qualified?
• Is the yoga class for relaxation and stress reduction or some other goal? Hatha yoga is often more slow and mindful, but almost any yoga can be taught in a mindful way.
• Is the class suitable for beginners or not?
• If you have a specific health condition, check that the teacher can adjust the class appropriately.
EXPERIENCING YOGA (AND LIFE) WITH PLAYFULNESS
Playfulness is a mindful attitude. One enjoyable way to practice yoga is to bring an attitude of playfulness. See if you can find some joy in the various poses. If you can, great. If you have difficulty feeling joy for anything, that's okay. You may have been through a significant amount of stress, which prevents you being able to feel happiness at the moment. In this case, bring as much mindful awareness to the poses as you can and hold a very gentle and subtle smile on your face. Research suggests the nerves in your facial muscles will begin sending signals to your brain, helping to gently lift your mood.
As a child you were able to find joy in the simplest activities. That inner child has not gone away—you're always able to tap into that resource. Experiment with bringing a childlike curiosity to your own body as you practice some yoga today and see what happens.
Most experts agree that play is helpful to reduce not only children's stress but adults' stress too. Playfulness indicates that a marriage will last longer. Playfulness is identified, by psychologists studying happiness, as one of the 24 top most important human strengths. If you have a hobby or activity that you do every day or week just for fun, you're more likely to do that activity with mindful awareness and therefore reduce your stress too.
I personally had an inner resistance to yoga practice when I learned it in a class. The first time I really enjoyed practicing yoga was actually when I was training to teach mindfulness with Jon Kabat-Zinn, developer of MBSR. He was teaching trainee mindfulness teachers and encouraged us all to bring a spirit of playfulness to the whole yoga practice. He invited us to imagine we were like babies, lying in our cots, stretching our bodies as if for the first time. This made the process far more enjoyable and effortless for me.
PRACTICE: Mini-Mindful Yoga Sequence
| _Audio track 9: 10 minutes_.
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**Standing Mountain Yoga Pose**
Begin by standing up straight. Allow your big toes to touch, but your heels can be slightly apart. If you find it hard to balance, you can have your feet a few inches apart. Firm your thigh muscles so they lift your kneecaps, but try to keep your abdomen relaxed. Feel a gentle sense of yourself lengthening. Rotate your pelvis so your tailbone is tucked in and your pubis is moving up toward your navel. Press your shoulders back and down, opening your chest. Ensure your head is balanced centrally on your neck. Feel each in-breath and each out-breath.
**Upward Salute**
On your next inhale, raise your arms outward and stretch toward the sky. Feel the sensations in your arms and shoulders as you stretch. Hold your palms parallel to each other, above your head. Tip your head back slowly and gently—there's no need to force your head back too far. Extend your tailbone toward the floor. Keep breathing with mindful awareness in this posture for a few breaths. Breathe out and sweep your arms outward and begin to bend downward. As you bend down, move on to the next posture, the standing forward bend.
**Forward Bend Pose**
As you exhale, contract your thigh muscles. Keeping your legs slightly bent to protect your back, bend forward from your hips, not your waist. Feel your breath releasing and the sensation in your legs and back as you go down. Just notice how far you can go.
Relax your head and neck and allow your arms to be limp. Keep feeling your breathing and let yourself relax on each out breath. If you feel uncomfortable, you can bend your knees a little more.
**Cobra Pose**
Now lie on your front and stretch your legs back, with the top of your feet on the floor. Place your hands on the floor, under your shoulders. Keep your elbows in toward your body. Gently push the front of your feet and thighs into the floor. Be mindful of your breathing.
On your next in-breath, slowly push your hands down to lift your body upward. Rise only to a height at which your pelvis and legs stay in connection with the floor. Continue to feel each in- and out-breath. Push your shoulders back. See if you can allow the bend to be distributed throughout your whole spine. You need to hold this pose for only about 10 seconds. Then, on your next exhalation, slowly lower yourself back to the floor. You can repeat this sequence two more times if that feels okay.
| The key is not to overdo the back bend. To test whether you're overdoing it, lift your hands off the mat for a moment and see if you can hold the posture. Remember, you're focusing on using mindful awareness to reduce your stress, not put excessive physical tension in your back.
---|---
**Cat Pose**
**Cow Pose**
1. Come up on your hands and knees on the floor. Keep your knees underneath your hips. Make sure your shoulders, elbows, and wrists are in a straight line. Keep your head positioned so that it's neither looking up nor drooping down. Instead, simply gaze at the floor. This is a neutral, tabletop posture. As you exhale, arch your back toward the ceiling. You can allow your head to go down, but you don't need to force your chin to your chest. As you inhale, return to the neutral tabletop pose and go into the cow pose. Feel your breath expanding both your belly and your lower back—this pose gives you a unique opportunity to try to feel your breath in your back.
2. Lift your sitting bones and chest upward, which allows your stomach to move downward. At the same time, lift your head so you're looking straight ahead. ****
3. On your next exhale, go back to the cat pose.
4. Repeat this in rhythm with your breathing 10–20 times if that feels okay.
| You need to be careful to protect your neck by keeping your shoulders down, away from your ears.
---|---
**Child's Pose**
To get into child's pose, begin by kneeling on the floor. Allow your big toes to touch and then gently sit on your heels. You can then separate your knees so they are roughly hip width apart. Place your arms alongside your torso with your palms facing up. Continue to feel the sensation of your breathing. Each time you breathe, have a sense of your shoulders relaxing and falling down toward the ground. This is a resting posture, so you don't need to strain. After a minute or so, on your next exhalation, slowly rise up from the pose. ****
| To make the pose more challenging and deepen the stretch, stretch your arms forward in front of you, while drawing your shoulders back and down.
---|---
**Corpse Pose**
Finish your yoga practice today with corpse pose as described in Chapter 4. ****
PRACTICE: Full Mindful Yoga Sequence
| _Audio track 10: 30 minutes_.
---|---
If you're doing the full MBSR course using this book, begin with the mini sequence described above. Then go straight into the poses in this section, which take another 20 minutes.
1. Continuing to be in corpse pose, on your next in-breath, move your arms directly above your head and stretch your heels in the other direction. Breathe in and out and notice all the sensations throughout your body as you do this. On your next out-breath, bring your arms back to your sides. Take a few mindful breaths.
2. Now place your feet on the floor so your knees point toward the ceiling. Draw both your knees toward your chest and hold on to your knees. Gently rock from side to side, massaging the muscles in your back. If you want, you can raise your head toward your knees. You can also try some gentle circling movements on your back. Practice this for a few breaths and then stretch your legs back out. Notice how your body feels now. ****
3. Draw in your left knee with your hands, not forcing it too much toward yourself. If you wish to go deeper into the stretch, bring your head toward your knee as far as it can comfortably go. Feel the sensation in the stretch. Then after a few breaths, stretch your left leg out. Repeat this process with your right leg. ****
4. Lie down on your back again with your arms by your sides. Notice how your body feels now, just being with your body and your breathing.
5. Raise your knees so your feet are as close as possible to your buttocks. Place a blanket under your shoulders if you wish. As you breathe out, push down on your feet so you raise your lower back off the floor. Keep your knees over your heels. There's lots of space above and below your abdomen to breathe—notice this. When it's right for you, come back down again as slowly as possible. Then stretch your legs out and be aware of how your body feels as you lie down.
6. Lie down on your mat again. Bring your knees up to your chest and hug them if you can. Feel a few breaths mindfully. Then gently rock from side to side or up or down to massage your back. If you wish, bring your head toward your knees on your next out-breath. Then when you're ready, stretch your legs back out again. ****
7. As you lie on your back, place your arms perpendicular to your body, forming a T shape. Raise your knees with your feet on the floor. Then tighten your tummy muscles and let your knees come down to your left side, slowly. Your right knee may be able to follow or may not. Just go as far as you comfortably can. At the same time, turn your head toward the right so you're creating a gentle twist in your body, as shown in the diagram. On each out-breath, see if you can relax into the posture so gravity can gradually deepen the twist. No need to force anything. When you're ready, tighten your tummy muscles again as you raise your knees and roll them over to the right side and look toward the left, feeling your breathing and naturally allowing gravity to pull your legs down into the mat, quite naturally. After a few breaths, tighten your stomach muscles and come back into the center and then stretch your legs out.
**"Being quite fat and inflexible, I never thought I had a hope in hell of achieving anything with the yoga. But somehow the mindfulness increased my confidence and I began to stretch and exercise my body for the first time in years."**
8. Now slowly stand up and come into mountain pose. Take a few deep, conscious breaths. Allow your breathing to find its natural rhythm. Feel the sensations throughout your body as you stand for a minute or so.
9. **Pointing upward.** As you breathe in, lift your arms above you, touching your hands together, with your fingers pointing toward the ceiling. When you're ready, lower your arms so you're forming a cross. Hold this posture for a few breaths. Now bring your arms back down again into mountain pose.
10. **Picking a fruit.** Lift your left arm up so it's stretching above your head, leaving your right arm by your side. Stretch your left arm as far as you can, as if you're trying to pick a fruit just beyond your reach. To increase the stretch, stand on tiptoes on your right foot. Feel the stretch in the left side of your body and notice whether your right side is tensing unnecessarily. When you're ready, slowly lower your left arm, past the horizontal and feel the sensation in your arm—notice your breathing as you go back into mountain pose. Then repeat this process with your right arm.
11. **Bending to the left and right.** Now raise both your arms together, up through the horizontal position and into a vertical position, so your arms are pointing up past your ears toward the ceiling or touching each other. Feel the stretch in your arms. When you're ready, slowly bend to the right. Your bend is from the hip, and your body will bend to maintain balance. Hold this position, keeping your head between your arms. Keep breathing rather than holding your breath. Find your edge—not too far, but feeling a stretch. Then, after a few breaths, bring both your arms above your head again. Repeat this procedure, bending to your left.
12. **Mountain pose.** On your next out-breath, allow your arms to come back down again into the mountain pose. Stand balanced and solid. Notice what it is like to be in this standing posture after doing those stretches. Bring your awareness back to the rhythm of your own breathing.
13. **Shoulder rolls.** When you're ready, try a few shoulder rolls. Begin by pushing both your shoulders forward, keeping your chest in the same position. Then let your shoulders drop down. Now move your shoulders back as if you're trying to touch your right and left shoulders behind you. Then lift up your shoulders so they can almost touch your ears. Then just let your shoulders drop down. Repeat this process for a few cycles. Then, after a few rolls, go in the opposite direction—up, back, down, and forward. Return to mountain pose when you feel you've done enough.
14. **Head rolls.** Allow your head to drop gently to your right side. Let the weight of your head allow the stretch of your head so your right ear is moving toward your right shoulder. Now roll your head around so your chin is dropping down toward your chest. Feel the stretch. Then rotate around so your left ear is over your left shoulder. Then move back around to your right shoulder again. Continue to rotate slowly in this way. Let the weight of your head control the depth of the stretch. After a few cycles, go around in the other direction. When you're ready, come back into mountain pose.
15. **Balancing pose.** With this awareness of your center of balance, lift your arms to your sides so they form a horizontal line with your fingertips pointing outward. You may find it helpful to find a point on the floor or wall to focus your attention on. Form a cross with your body and shift your balance to your right foot. As you move all your weight to your right foot, lift your left foot slowly off the floor and point it to your left. You may need to keep bringing your left leg down, or you may find a point of balance with your left leg up. Then, when you're ready, bring your left leg back down again. When you're ready, repeat this process on the other side, with most of your weight on your left and your right leg raised. Then, when you've finished, bring your leg and arms down slowly at the same time and adopt the mountain pose once again.
16. In **mountain pose** , notice any physical release that may be happening. The sense of relief at the end of the last pose, the change in your breathing rate or depth, any tingling sensations in your body. Stay in this posture until you're ready and willing to move on.
17. **Looking left and right.** Place both your hands on your hips, just moving your head to the right. Begin with just your eyes looking toward your right and then your chin. Go as far as you can without pain. Relax your shoulders if they've become tense. When you're ready, move your head back to facing forward. And then repeat to the left, beginning with your eyes and then your head. Then return to center.
18. **Twisting whole body left and right.** Now repeat the process looking toward the right with your hand on your hips. But when you reach the farthest point you can see to the right, continue the twist from your waist. Continue the twist right down into your knees and ankles. So your neck, head, waist, knees, and ankles are all twisting to the right as far as you can. Notice what muscles do and don't need to be involved. Explore your own limit, your edge. When you're ready, come back into the central position and rotate and twist to the left as far as you can. Then release your arms back into the mountain pose.
19. **Mountain pose.** Finish in mountain pose. Notice what it feels like. Be aware of your whole body from the top of your head to the tips of your toes. Notice any sense of warmth or coolness.
20. **Acknowledge** the time you've taken for yourself and that this subtle process will have a positive effect, like a ripple, in both your day and your whole life.
**Reflection**
How did you respond to the mindful yoga? What thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations did you notice in particular? What positive effects do you think this sequence would have on you if you practiced it on a regular basis? Note your observations in your journal.
# _Resources_
YOUR MINDFULNESS AUDIO
This book comes with a set of free guided mindfulness meditations that you can download. Visit _www.guilford.com/alidina-materials_ to download it onto your computer or mobile device.
FINDING AN MBSR TEACHER NEAR YOU
International
**University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMMS)—Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society**
_www.umassmed.edu/cfm_
To find an MBSR teacher near you, you can begin by contacting UMMS's Center for Mindfulness. They will probably have a list on their website in the near future too.
United Kingdom
**Be Mindful**
_<http://bemindful.co.uk/>_
This has a list of the latest MBSR courses, as well as teachers, mainly located in the United Kingdom. Again, not comprehensive, but worth a look.
International
Many online lists are not always up to date. The best way to find a mindfulness teacher in your area may be to use a search engine like Google. For example, if you want to find a mindfulness teacher in San Francisco or Holborn, just search "mindfulness holborn"/"mindfulness san francisco" or "mbsr holborn"/"mbsr san francisco." You could also try searching "mbct holborn"/"mbct san francisco."
Many MBCT (mindfulness-based cognitive therapy) teachers are able to teach MBSR too. And the programs are quite similar.
With this approach, you need to find out what credentials the teacher has and judge whether he or she seems sufficiently qualified and has the necessary experience. Ask them who they trained with and how long they've been teaching mindfulness.
ONLINE MINDFULNESS COURSES
_www.shamashalidina.com_
I offer a free 21-day e-course introduction to mindfulness when you sign up on the website. It's also a way of keeping in touch with my work.
_www.livemindfulonline.com_
This is my popular video-based 8-week mindfulness course with downloadable audio meditations.
_www.bemindfulonline.com_
This website has a 4-week mindfulness course.
RECOMMENDED WEBSITES
**Mindful**
_www.mindful.org_
A well-written and well-designed website and monthly magazine with all the latest news and tips in the world of mindfulness. Some excellent articles from the best teachers are available here.
**Mindfulnet**
_www.mindfulnet.org_
A website with a wealth of resources, links, and information on mindfulness for stress and mindfulness in the workplace.
**Greater Good Berkeley Center**
_<http://greatergood.berkeley.edu>_
This is a great website with evidence-based resources on cultivating gratitude, altruism, compassion, empathy, forgiveness, happiness, and mindfulness. All these qualities have been linked to greater resilience against stress.
**Action for Happiness**
_www.actionforhappiness.org_
A great nonprofit organization with a wealth of well-designed and -researched resources to help you to raise your own happiness and help others to be happier.
**Dalai Lama**
_www.dalailama.com/messages/compassion_
This is a fantastic short piece written by His Holiness the Dalai Lama on "Compassion and the Individual." I'm sure you'll find inspiring ideas on managing your stress and increasing your happiness in that article.
**American Institute of Stress**
_www.stress.org_
The American Institute of Stress is a nonprofit that imparts information on stress reduction, stress in the workplace, effects of stress, and various other stressrelated topics.
FINDING A MINDFULNESS RETREAT
I run secular mindfulness retreats once or twice a year—contact me for details. You could also try searching for mindfulness retreats in your area; with the increase in mindfulness teachers around the world, there may be one nearby.
The following websites list lots of established centers that offer mindfulness retreats. The websites often have links to other recommended centers that may be more convenient for you.
**Gaia House—Devon, United Kingdom**
_<http://gaiahouse.co.uk>_
**Spirit Rock—Woodacre, California**
_www.spiritrock.org_
**Insight Meditation Society—Barre, Massachusetts**
_www.dharma.org_
**Plum Village—Southern France**
_<http://plumvillage.org>_
**Deer Park Monastery**
_<http://deerparkmonastery.org>_
BOOKS
Mindfulness and Well-Being
Alidina, Shamash. (2010). _Mindfulness for dummies_. Chichester, West Sussex, UK: Wiley.
Brahm, Ajahn. (2010). _Opening the door of your heart: And other Buddhist tales of happiness_ (new ed.). Sydney: Read How You Want.
Cutler, Howard C., & Dalai Lama. (1998). _The art of happiness: A handbook for living_. New York: Riverhead Books.
Hanh, Thich Nhat. (1991). _Peace is every step: The path of mindfulness in everyday life_. New York: Bantam Books.
Kornfield, Jack. (2002). _A path with heart: The classic guide through the perils and promises of spiritual life_. London: Rider.
Ricard, Matthieu. (2006). _Happiness: A guide to developing life's most important skill_. New York: Little, Brown.
Mindfulness for Stress
Kabat-Zinn, Jon. (2013). _Full catastrophe living: Using the wisdom of your body and mind to face stress, pain, and illness_ (rev. ed.). New York: Bantam Books.
Williams, Mark, & Danny Penman. (2011). _Mindfulness: An eight-week plan for finding peace in a frantic world_. New York: Piatkus.
Self-Compassion
Germer, Christopher K. (2009). _The mindful path to self-compassion: Freeing yourself from destructive thoughts and emotions_. New York: Guilford Press.
Neff, Kristin. (2013). _Self-compassion_. London: Hodder & Stoughton.
Salzberg, Sharon. (1995). _Loving-kindness: The revolutionary art of happiness_. Boston: Shambhala.
Stress Management
Alidina, Shamash. (2012). _Relaxation for dummies_. Chichester, UK: Wiley.
Charlesworth, Edward A., & Ronald G. Nathan. (2001). _Stress management: A comprehensive guide to wellness_. New York: Atheneum.
Davis, Martha, Elizabeth Robbins Eshelman, & Matthew McKay. (2008). _The relaxation and stress reduction workbook_. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger.
Mindful Movement
Boccio, Frank. (2004). _Mindfulness yoga: The awakened union of breath, body and mind_. Boston: Wisdom.
Hanh, Thich Nhat, & Wietske Vriezen. (2008). _Mindful movements: Ten exercises for well-being._ New York: Parallax Press.
IF YOU NEED HELP URGENTLY
If you're feeling distressed and don't know where to turn to for whatever reason, or are contemplating suicide, contact the Befrienders Worldwide. They are a network of 169 emotional support centers in 29 countries. They link to centers that provide essential support to people in crisis for free. They will listen without judging you.
_www.befrienders.org_
# _References_
References are listed in the order in which the material cited appears in the book so you can get more detailed information from the source as you read the chapters if you like.
CHAPTER 1
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How stress can cause depression. (n.d.). _ScienceNordic.com_. Retrieved from _http://sciencenordic.com/how-stress-can-cause-depression._
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). _Flow: The psychology of optimal experience_. New York: Harper & Row.
Lieberman, M. D. (2010). Dispositional mindfulness and depressive symptomatology: Correlations with limbic and self-referential neural activity during rest. _Emotion_ , _10_ (1), 12–24.
DeLongis, A., Folkman, S., & Lazarus, R. S. (1988). The impact of daily stress on health and mood: Psychological and social resources as mediators. _Journal of Personality and Social Psychology_ , _54_ (3), 486–495.
Goeders, N. E. (2003). The impact of stress on addiction. _European Neuropsychopharmacology_ , _13_ (6), 435–441.
Killingsworth, M. A., & Gilbert, D. T. (2010). A wandering mind is an unhappy mind. _Science_ , _330_ (6006), 932.
Parswani, M. J., Sharma, M. P., & Iyengar, S. S. (2013). Mindfulness-based stress reduction program in coronary heart disease: A randomized control trial. _International Journal of Yoga, 6_ (2), 111–117.
Gregg, J. A., Callaghan, G. M., Hayes, S. C., & Glenn-Lawson, J. L. (2007). Improving diabetes self-management through acceptance, mindfulness, and values: A randomized controlled trial. _Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 75_ (2), 336–343.
Deyo, M., Wilson, K. A., Ong, J., & Koopman, C. (2009). Mindfulness and rumination: Does mindfulness training lead to reductions in the ruminative thinking associated with depression? _Journal of Science and Healing, 5_ (5), 265–271.
Creswell, J. D., Myers, H. F., Cole, S. W., & Irwin, M. R. (2009). Mindfulness meditation training effects on CD4+ T lymphocytes in HIV-1 infected adults: A small randomized controlled trial. _Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, 23_ (2), 184–188.
Davidson, R. J. (2003). Alterations in brain and immune function produced by mindfulness meditation. _Psychosomatic Medicine_ , _65_ (4), 564–570.
Zeidan, F., Martucci, K. T., Kraft, R. A., Gordon, N. S., McHaffie, J. G., & Coghill, R. C. (2011). Brain mechanisms supporting the modulation of pain by mindfulness meditation _. Journal of Neuroscience, 31_ (14), 5540–5548.
Howell, A. J., Digdon, N. L., & Buro, K. (2010). Mindfulness predicts sleep-related self-regulation and well-being. _Personality and Individual Differences_ , _48_ (4), 419–424.
Farb, N. A., Anderson, A. K., Mayberg, H., Bean, J., McKeon, D., & Segal, Z. V. (2010). Minding one's emotions: Mindfulness training alters the neural expression of sadness [correction to Farb et al. (2010)]. _Emotion_ , _10_ (2), 215–215.
Jha, A. P., Stanley, E. A., Kiyonaga, A., Wong, L., & Gelfand, L. (2010). Examining the protective effects of mindfulness training on working memory capacity and affective experience. _Emotion_ , _10_ (1), 54–64.
Moore, A., & Malinowski, P. (2009). Meditation, mindfulness and cognitive flexibility. _Consciousness and Cognition, 18_ (1), 176–186.
Carmody, J., & Baer, R. (2008). Relationships between mindfulness practice and levels of mindfulness, medical and psychological symptoms and well-being in a mindfulness-based stress reduction program. _Journal of Behavioral Medicine_ , _31_ (1), 23–33.
Creswell, J. D., Irwin, M. R., Burklund, L. J., Lieberman, M. D., Arevalo, J. M., Ma, J., et al. (2012). Mindfulness-based stress reduction training reduces loneliness and pro-inflammatory gene expression in older adults: A small randomized controlled trial. _Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, 26_ (7), 1095–1101.
Vøllestad, J., Nielsen, M. B., & Nielsen, G. H. (2012). Mindfulness- and acceptance-based interventions for anxiety disorders: A systematic review and meta-analysis. _British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 51_ (3), 239–260.
Borders, A., Earleywine, M., & Jajodia, A. (2010). Could mindfulness decrease anger, hostility, and aggression by decreasing rumination? _Aggressive Behavior_ , _36_ (1), 28–44.
Barnes, S., Brown, K. W., Krusemark, E., Campbell, W. K., & Rogge, R. D. (2007). The role of mindfulness in romantic relationship satisfaction and responses to relationship stress. _Journal of Marital and Family Therapy_ , _33_ (4), 482–500.
Lucas, M. (2012). _Rewire your brain for love: Creating vibrant relationships using the science of mindfulness_. Carlsbad, CA: Hay House.
CHAPTER 3
Ullrich, P. M., & Lutgendorf , S. K. (2002). Journaling about stressful events: Effects of cognitive processing and emotional expression. _Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 24_ (3), 244–250.
CHAPTER 4
Surawy, C., Roberts, J., & Silver, A. (2005). The effect of mindfulness training on mood and measures of fatigue, activity, and quality of life in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome on a hospital waiting list: A series of exploratory studies. _Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy, 33_ (1), 103–109.
Bjergegaard, M., & Milne, J. (2013). _Winning without losing: 66 strategies for succeeding in business while living a happy and balanced life._ London: Profile.
Shapiro, S. L., Carlson, L. E., Astin, J. A., & Freedman, B. (2006). Mechanisms of mindfulness. _Journal of Clinical Psychology_ , _62_ , 373–386.
Jain, S., Shapiro, S. L., Swanick, S., Roesch, S. C., Mills, P. J., Bell, I., et al. (2007). A randomized controlled trial of mindfulness meditation versus relaxation training: Effects on distress, positive states of mind, rumination, and distraction. _Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 33_ (1), 11–21.
CHAPTER 5
Rozin, P., & Royzman, E. B. (2001). Negativity bias, negativity dominance, and contagion. _Personality and Social Psychology Review_ , _5_ (4), 296–320.
Joseph, S. (2011). _What doesn't kill us: The new psychology of post-traumatic growth_. New York: Basic Books.
Rosenkranz, M. A., Davidson, R. J., MacCoon, D. G., Sheridan, J. F., Kalin, N. H., & Lutz, A. (2013). A comparison of mindfulness-based stress reduction and an active control in modulation of neurogenic inflammation. _Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, 27_ (1), 174–184.
CHAPTER 6
Killingsworth, M. A., & Gilbert, D. T. (2010). A wandering mind is an unhappy mind _. Science, 330_ (6006), 932.
Mark, G. J., Voida, S., & Cardello, A. V. (2012). A pace not dictated by electrons: An empirical study of work without email. In _Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems_ (CHI '12). New York: 555–564.
Ophir, E., Nass, C., & Anthony, D. W. (2009). Cognitive control in media multitaskers. _Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 106_ , 15583–15587.
Farb, N. A. S., Segal, Z. V., Mayberg, H., Bean, J., McKeon, D., Fatima, Z., et al. (2007). Attending to the present: Mindfulness meditation reveals distinct neural modes of self-reference. _Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 2_ (4), 313–322.
CHAPTER 7
Cannon, W. B. (1939). _The wisdom of the body_. New York: Norton.
Selye, H. (1956). _The stress of life_. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Keller, A., Litzelman, K., Wisk, L. E., Maddox, T., Cheng, E. R., Creswell, P. D., et al. (2011). Does the perception that stress affects health matter? The association with health and mortality. _Health Psychology_ , _104_ (4), 716–733.
Could stress be good for you? Research that suggests it has benefits (TED blog). (n.d.). Retrieved from _http://bit.ly/stresscanbegood_.
Aschbacher, K., O'Donovan, A., Wolkowitz, O. M., Dhabhar, F. S., Su, Y., & Epel, E. (2013). Good stress, bad stress, and oxidative stress: Insights from anticipatory cortisol reactivity. _Psychoneuroendocrinology, 38_ (9), 1698–1708.
Holmes, T. H., & Rahe, R. H. (1967). The social readjustment rating scale. _Journal of Psychosomatic Research_ , _11_ (2), 213–218.
_A new stress paradigm for women_. (n.d.). Retrieved from _www.apa.org/monitor/julaug00/stress.aspx._
Pace, T., Negi, L., Adame, D., Cole, S., Sivilli, T., Brown, T., et al. (2009). Effect of compassion meditation on neuroendocrine, innate immune and behavioral responses to psychosocial stress. _Psychoneuroendocrinology_ , _34_ (1), 87–98.
CHAPTER 8
The science of mindfulness meditation. (n.d.). Retrieved from _http://psychcentral.com/news/2007/06/22/the-science-of-mindfulness-meditation/910.html._
Can mindfulness increase our resilience to stress? [video file]. (n.d.). Retrieved from _www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALjF1yb-VLw._
Creswell, J. D., Way, B. M., Eisenberger, N. I., & Lieberman, M. D. (2007). Neural correlates of dispositional mindfulness during affect labeling. _Psychosomatic Medicine_ , _69_ (6), 560–565.
CHAPTER 9
Cuddy, A. (n.d.). _Your body language shapes who you are_. Retrieved from _www.ted.com/talks/amy_cuddy_your_body_language_shapes_who_you_are._
Carney, D. R., Cuddy, A. J., Yap, A. J. (2010). Power posing: Brief nonverbal displays affect neuroendocrine levels and risk tolerance. _Psychological Science, 21_ (10), 1363–1368.
Pennebaker, J. W., Kiecolt-Glaser, J. K., & Glaser, R. (1988). Disclosure of traumas and immune function: Health implications for psychotherapy. _Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 56_ , 239–245.
Smyth, J. M., Stone, A. A., Hurewitz, A., & Kaell, A. (1999). Effects of writing about stressful experiences on symptom reduction in patients with asthma or rheumatoid arthritis. _Journal of the American Medical Association, 281_ , 1304–1309.
Open up! Writing about trauma reduces stress, aids immunity. (n.d.). Retrieved from _www.apa.org/research/action/writing.aspx._
Chapman, S. G. (2012). _The five keys to mindful communication: Using deep listening and mindful speech to strengthen relationships, heal conflicts, and accomplish your goals_. Boston: Shambhala.
Hanh, T. (1975). _The miracle of mindfulness: An introduction to the practice of meditation._ Boston: Beacon Press.
CHAPTER 10
Neff, K. (2013). _Self compassion_. London: Hodder & Stoughton.
Kok, B. E., & Fredrickson, B. L. (2010). Upward spirals of the heart: Autonomic flexibility, as indexed by vagal tone, reciprocally and prospectively predicts positive emotions and social connectedness. _Biological Psychology_ , 432–436.
Lanxon, N. (2012, July 12). _Compassion over empathy could help prevent emotional burnout_. Retrieved from _www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-07/12/tania-singer-compassion-burnout_.
Ricard, M. (2013, October 9). _Empathy fatigue_. Retrieved from _www.matthieuricard.org/en/blog/posts/empathy-fatigue-2_.
Klimecki, O. M., Leiberg, S., Ricard, M., & Singer, T. (2014). Differential pattern of functional brain plasticity after compassion and empathy training. _Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 9_ (6), 873–879.
Klimecki, O., Ricard, M., & Singer, T. (2013). Empathy versus compassion: Lessons from 1st and 3rd person methods. In T. Singer & M. Bolz (Eds.), _Compassion: Bridging practice and science_ (pp. 272–287). Retrieved from _www.compassion-training.org_.
CHAPTER 11
What you need to know about willpower: The psychological science of self-control. (n.d.). Retrieved from _www.apa.org/helpcenter/willpower.aspx_.
Does self-compassion or criticism motivate self-improvement? __ (n.d.). Retrieved from _www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-science-willpower/201206/does-self-compassion-or-criticism-motivate-self-improvement_.
Boehm, J. K., & Kubzansky, L. D. (2012). The heart's content: The association between positive psychological well-being and cardiovascular health. _Psychological Bulletin, 138_ (4), 655–691.
Aked, J., Marks, N., Cordon, C., & Thompson, S. (2009). _Five ways to well-being: A report presented to the Foresight Project on communicating the evidence base for improving people's well-being_. London: NEF.
Oman, D., Thoresen, C. E., & McMahon, K. (1999). Volunteerism and mortality among the community-dwelling elderly. _Journal of Health Psychology_ , _4_ (3), 301–316.
CHAPTER 13
Brinol, P., Petty, R. E., & Wagner, B. (2009). Body posture effects on self-evaluation: A self-validation approach. _European Journal of Social Psychology, 39_ , 1053–1064.
# _Index_
The pagination of this electronic edition does not match the edition from which it was created. To locate a specific passage, please use the search feature of your e-book reader or select a page number link below.
_A_
Acceptance
Coming Full Circle exercise and, –
four A's of stress mangagement and, –
mindful listening and,
overview, –
resilience and,
resistance and,
Action, , –
Adaptation, –
Addiction, , –
Adrenal fatigue, ,
Adversity,
Age, –
Aggression,
Aggressive communication, –, –. _See also_ Communication
Alarm phase of stress,
Alcohol use, , –
Altering the stressor, –
Amygdala activity,
Anger, –,
Anxiety
benefits of mindfulness and,
Body Scan Meditation exercise and,
FAQs regarding,
mindfulness and, –
Appreciation, –
Assertiveness, –, –
Assessment, –
Attachment,
Attention
Expanding Awareness Meditation and, –
negativity bias and, –,
overview, –,
value of being present, –
Attitudes, , –,
Attitudes towards stress,
Automatic pilot
day of mindfulness practice and,
fight-or-flight response, –
mindful communication and, –
Mindful Pause Meditation, –
overview, –, –
stress signs and, –
Aversion,
Avoidance, –
Awareness
experience and, –
honoring your emotions and,
taking care of yourself and, –
_B_
Balance, –, –
Behaviors
automatic pilot and,
examining your stress,
mindful living and,
responding and,
"Being" mode of mind, , –
Beliefs, –
Big picture, ,
Bodily sensations
automatic pilot and,
Expanding Awareness Meditation and, –
Mindful Pause Meditation, –
Opening Awareness Meditation and,
present moment and, –
Body posture,
Body scan meditation
Body Scan Meditation exercise, –,
Coming Full Circle exercise and, –
FAQs regarding, –, ,
Mindful Yoga and Meditation for Life, –
mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) and,
overview, –, , ,
Boundaries,
Breathing awareness. _See also_ Mindfulness of breath
Expanding Awareness Meditation and,
Mindful Belly Breathing exercise, –
Mindful Pause Meditation, –
Mindfulness of Breath and Body Meditation, –,
Mindfulness of Breath Meditation, –,
Opening Awareness Meditation and,
overview, , –
resistance and,
taking care of yourself and, –
Burnout, ,
_C_
Calmness,
Care,
Change,
Choice
automatic pilot and, –
benefits of mindfulness and,
fight-or-flight response, –
habits and,
mindful communication and,
personal responsibility and,
responding and,
taking care of yourself and, –
Choiceless awareness, , –
Communication. _See also_ Mindful communication
assertiveness and, –
enacting through movement, –
listening and, –
nonverbal communication, –
overview, –
Communication, difficult, , –, . _See also_ Mindful communication
Communication, mindful. _See_ Mindful communication
Compassion. _See also_ Self-compassion
benefits of mindfulness and, –
day of mindfulness practice and, –
honoring your emotions and,
mindful communication and, ,
mindfulness and,
overview,
Compromise,
Conflicts,
Connection, , –
Consciousness, –
Control, –
Coping strategies, –
Criticism
mindfulness and, –
Mindfulness of Breath Meditation, –
responding to stress and, –
Culture, –
Curiosity, –,
_D_
Day of mindfulness practice
expectations and, –
FAQs regarding, –
overview, –, –,
preparing for, –, –
sample schedule for, –
Decisiveness,
Deep listening,
Depression
benefits of mindfulness and,
FAQs regarding,
mindfulness and, –
Difficult Communication Record, ,
Digestive system,
Direct experience activation,
Discovery. _See also_ Self-discovery
MINDFUL acronym and, –
taking care of yourself and, , –
Disease, , –
Distress, –
DNA,
"Doing" mode of mind
day of mindfulness practice and,
mindfulness and,
overview, –
Drink,
Drug use, , –
_E_
Eating. _See_ Mindful eating
Emotional intelligence,
Emotions
Assessing Your Emotional Awareness,
automatic pilot and,
benefits of mindfulness and, –
day of mindfulness practice and, –
examining your stress, –
Expanding Awareness Meditation and,
habits and,
honoring, –
mindful communication and, , –, –
mindful living and,
Mindful Pause Meditation, –
mindfulness and,
Opening Awareness Meditation and,
overview,
responding and,
role of thoughts in, –
Emotions of others,
Empathy,
Eustress,
Everyday mindfulness
effects of mindfulness and, –
finding time to practice,
habit of meditation and, –
lifetime of mindfulness practice and, –
MINDFUL acronym and, –
Exercise, physical. _See also_ Physical activity
stress management and,
taking care of yourself and, , –
Exercises. _See also_ Mindfulness practice exercises; Practice exercises; Visualizations
Assessing Your Emotional Awareness,
Coming Full Circle exercise, –
Communicating Aggressively exercise, –
Communicating Passively exercise,
Communicating with Mindful Assertiveness exercise, –
Dealing with Stress during a Conversation, –
Empathic Assertion,
Find the Truth technique, –
Finding a New Way to See a Problem as a Challenge exercise,
How Unmindful Can We Be? exercise,
Improving One Area of Your Lifestyle exercise, –
listening mindfully exercise,
Mindful ABC exercise, –
Mindful Speaking and Listening exercise,
mindful yoga and, , , ,
Mindfully Noticing Others' Reactions to You,
Mindfully Responding to Requests,
My Nourishing and Depleting Activities, –
Paper Thought Clouds exercise, –
Reacting and Responding to Your Own Thoughts exercise, –
Stressful Events in Your Life exercise, –, –
What Is Your Best Self? exercise,
Writing a Letter from Your Future Self exercise, –
Exhaustion phase of stress,
Expanding awareness meditation
Coming Full Circle exercise and,
day of mindfulness practice and, ,
FAQs regarding,
mindful communication and, , –
mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) and,
overview, , –
Expectations, –
Experience, –
Exploring mindfulness with others, –. _See also_ Support from others
External pressure, –, . _See also_ Stress
_F_
Family life,
Feelings. _See also_ Emotions
bodily sensations and,
differentiating from thoughts, –
four A's of stress management and, ,
role of thoughts in, –
Fight-or-flight response, –, –
Flexibility,
"Flow" state of mind, –
Focus, , –, –
Focused awareness, –
Food, relationship with, , ,
Forgetting to practice, –
Forgiveness, , –
Four A's of stress management, –
Freshness, –
Friendliness, –
Friendships, –
Fun,
_G_
Gender, –, –
General adaptation syndrome, –
Giving, –, –
Gratitude
four A's of stress management and,
negativity bias and,
responding to stress and, –
Grudges,
Guided imagery,
_H_
Habits
automatic pilot and, –
habit of meditation and, –
mindlessness and, –
personal responsibility and,
resistance and, –
responding to stress and, –
taking care of yourself and,
Happiness,
Health, , –
Healthy lifestyle,
Heart health, –
Home experiments. _See also_ Mindfulness practice exercises
responding and, –
for the rest of your life,
for Week 1, –
for Week 2, –, –
for Week 3, –
for Week 4, –
for Week 5, –
for Week 6, –, –
for Week 7, –
Hope,
_I_
Immune functioning, –
Indifference,
Inflammation, –
Intention, , –,
Internal pressure, –. _See also_ Stress
Interpretation. _See also_ Thoughts
breath as an anchor and, –
MINDFUL acronym and, –
negativity bias and, –
overview,
stress and, –
Interruptions,
_J_
Journaling
keeping a record of mindfulness practice and, –
mindful communication and, ,
Judgment
honoring your emotions and,
MINDFUL acronym and, –
mindfulness and, –, –
Mindfulness of Breath Meditation, –
personal responsibility and,
_K_
Kindness
assertiveness and,
benefits of mindfulness and, –
day of mindfulness practice and, –
mindful communication and, ,
negativity bias and, –
practicing, ,
_L_
Labeling your emotions,
Lake meditation, , –
Language use,
Life circumstances, –, –
Life events, –, –
Life experiences, –
Lifetime of practice
effects of mindfulness and, –
FAQs regarding, –
habit of meditation and, –
MINDFUL acronym and, –
overview, –
setting a vision, –
Listening mindfully, –, . _See also_ Mindful communication
Live in the moment. _See_ Present moment
Loneliness, –
Long-term vision setting, –
Loving speech,
Loving-kindness meditation, –,
_M_
Marriage,
Measuring,
Meditation
FAQs regarding, –
MINDFUL acronym and, –
mindfulness and, –
negativity bias and, –
resources regarding, –
Memory,
Mental well-being,
Mind chatter. _See_ Thoughts; Wandering mind
Mindful body scan meditation. _See_ Body scan meditation
Mindful communication. _See also_ Communication, difficult
assertiveness and, –
enacting communication styles and, –
FAQs regarding, –
overview, , –
preparing for a day of mindfulness and, –
stress and, –
Mindful eating
automatic pilot and, –
day of mindfulness practice and, –
lifestyle and,
Mindfully Eating an Apple, –
Mindful life,
Mindful listening, –. _See also_ Mindful communication
Mindful movement meditations, ,
Mindful pause
bodily sensations and,
mindful communication and,
Mindful Pause Meditation, –
overview, , , –, , –
Mindful stretching, . _See also_ Mindful yoga
Mindful walking
day of mindfulness practice and, , –
mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) and,
overview, , –, –
Mindful yoga. _See also_ Movement
being present in your body and, –
Coming Full Circle exercise and,
day of mindfulness practice and,
FAQs regarding, , ,
mindful communication and,
mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) and,
overview, , , , , –
playfulness and, –
taking a yoga class,
taking care of yourself and, –
Mindfulness. _See also_ Practice of mindfulness
brain and mind benefits of, –
compared to relaxation, –
emotional benefits of, –
FAQs regarding, –, –
finding time to practice, –
meditation and, –
MINDFUL acronym and, –
overview, –, –, –, –
physical benefits of, –
relationship benefits of, –
resilience and, –
resources regarding, –
stress and, –, –
when to start a practice of, –
Mindfulness buddy, –
Mindfulness meditations. _See also_ Meditation; Mindfulness practice exercises
acceptance and,
FAQs regarding, –
finding time to practice,
negativity bias and, –
Mindfulness of breath, , . _See also_ Breathing awareness
Mindfulness practice exercises. _See also_ Home experiments; Practice of mindfulness; Visualizations
Body Scan Meditation exercise, –,
Closing Meditation, –
Expanding Awareness Meditation, –
Expanding Awareness Mindfulness Meditation and, –
Lake Meditation, –
Loving-Kindness Meditation, –
Mindful Belly Breathing exercise, –,
Mindful Pause Meditation, –, –
Mindful Slow and Fast Walking, –
Mindful Walking practice, –
Mindful Yoga and Meditation for Life, –
Mindfully Eating an Apple, –
Mindfulness of Breath and Body Meditation, –,
Mindfulness of Breath Meditation, –,
Mountain Meditation, –
Opening Awareness Meditation, –
overview, –
Self-Reflection Meditation, –
Two-Minute Mindfulness Exercise,
Uncovering Your Intention—Mindful Ocean Visualization, –
when to start, –
Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR)
outline of, –
overview, , –
recommendations for, –
resources regarding, –
when to start, –
Mindlessness, –, –
Mini-meditation,
Modes of mind, –. _See also_ "Being" mode of mind; "Doing" mode of mind
Moment, living in. _See_ Present moment
Motivation, ,
Mountain meditation, , –
Movement, . _See also_ Exercise, physical; Mindful yoga; Physical activity; Stretching
Multitasking, , –
Muscle relaxation, , –. _See also_ Relaxation
_N_
Narrative-based part of the brain, –. _See also_ Thoughts
Negative people,
Negative thinking. _See also_ Negativity bias; Thoughts
FAQs regarding,
habits and,
lifetime of mindfulness practice and, –
Negativity bias, –, . _See also_ Interpretation; Negative thinking
Neutral experiences, –
Nicotine use, , –
Noble silence, . _See also_ Day of mindfulness practice
Nonjudgmentalness, –, –
Nonverbal communication, –
Noticing, ,
_O_
Open awareness, , –
Openness, –
Opportunities,
Optimism,
_P_
Pain relief, ,
Parasympathetic nervous system, –
Parenting,
Passive communication, –, . _See also_ Communication
Patterns, –,
Paying attention. _See_ Attention
Perceptions, ,
Personal responsibility, , –
Physical activity. _See also_ Exercise, physical; Mindful yoga
bodily sensations and,
mindful yoga and,
taking care of yourself and, , –
Physical diseases, , –
Physical symptoms,
Physicians, , , –
Planning, –, –. _See also_ Scheduling mindfulness practice
Playfulness, –
Pleasant events calendar,
Pleasant experience, , –
Posttraumatic growth,
Posture,
Practice exercises, –. _See also_ Exercises; Mindfulness practice exercises
Practice of mindfulness. _See also_ Exercises; Mindfulness; Mindfulness practice exercises
FAQs regarding, –
finding time to practice, –
Full Mindful Yoga Sequence, –
importance of a daily practice, –
keeping a record of, –
Mini-Mindful Yoga Sequence, –
overview, –
remembering to practice, –
resistance to, –
when to start, –
Present moment
benefits of mindfulness and,
bodily sensations, –
modes of mind and, –
multitasking and, –
overview, –, , –
relaxation and,
thoughts and, –, –
value of being present, –
walking mindfully and, –
Pressure, –. _See also_ Stress
Problems, –
Professional help, , , –
_Q_
Qualified self,
_R_
Reacting, , –,
Reaction times,
Relationships. _See also_ Support from others
benefits of mindfulness and, –
mindfulness and, , –
mindfulness buddy, –
resilience and, –
stress and,
taking care of yourself and, –
Relaxation
compared to mindfulness, –
deep breathing techniques and, –
meditation and, –
stress management and,
Relaxation response,
Remembering to practice, –
Resilience, –,
Resistance, –
Resistance phase of stress, –
Responding. _See also_ Stress
automatic pilot and,
breath as an anchor and, –
FAQs regarding, –,
fight-or-flight response,
gender differences in, –
interpretation and, –
overview, , –
practical ways of, –
stress signs and, –
Responsibility, personal, , –
Rest of your life. _See_ Lifetime of practice
Restless feelings,
Rumination
benefits of mindfulness and, –
Mindfulness of Breath Meditation, –
relaxation and,
_S_
Saying "no,"
Scheduling mindfulness practice, –, –. _See also_ Planning; Practice of mindfulness
Seeing things differently, –
Self-assessment, –
Self-care. _See_ Taking care of yourself
Self-compassion. _See also_ Compassion
benefits of mindfulness and, –
overview, –,
taking care of yourself and,
Writing a Letter from Your Future Self exercise, –
Self-criticism, –, –. _See also_ Criticism
Self-discovery. _See also_ Discovery
Assessing Your Emotional Awareness,
honoring your emotions and,
stress signs and, –
what you hope to get from mindfulness, –
your best self, –
Self-judgment, –
Self-responsibility. _See_ Personal responsibility
Short-term vision setting, –
Sitting meditation, ,
Sleep functioning
benefits of mindfulness and,
stress management and,
taking care of yourself and,
Social interaction, , –
Socialization, , –
Societal-level effects of stress,
Sounds,
Stages of stress, –
Standards,
Story-telling brain, –. _See also_ Thoughts
Stress. _See also_ Responding
benefits of mindfulness and,
bodily sensations and,
effects of, –
examining, –
FAQs regarding, –
gender differences in, –
interpretation and, –
keeping a record of mindfulness practice and, –
life experiences and, –
lifetime of mindfulness practice and, –
mindful communication and, –
Mindful Pause Meditation, –
mindfulness and, –
overview, –,
personal responsibility and, –
physiology of, –, –
practical ways of responding to, –
recommendations for mindfulness practice and, –
resources regarding, –
seeing things differently and, –
self-assessment of, –
stages of, –
taking care of yourself and, –
Stress overload, ,
Stress response,
Stress signs, –
"Stressful life events" list, –, –
Stretching, . _See also_ Mindful yoga
Studying mindfulness, –
Substance use, , –
Support from others. _See also_ Relationships
exploring mindfulness with others, –
lifetime of mindfulness practice and, –
mindfulness buddy, –
Sympathetic nervous system, –
_T_
Taking care of yourself
challenge of, –
FAQs regarding, –
lifestyle and, –
MINDFUL acronym and, –
overview, , –
stress and, –
well-being and, –
when to take care of yourself,
Telomerase,
The Tree Questions,
Thoughts. _See also_ Interpretation; Negative thinking
automatic pilot and,
bodily sensations and,
Body Scan Meditation exercise and, ,
breath as an anchor and, –
differentiating from feelings, –
examining your stress,
Expanding Awareness Meditation and, –
FAQs regarding, –
habits and,
meditation and,
mindful living and,
Mindful Pause Meditation, –
mindfulness and,
Opening Awareness Meditation and,
overview,
personal responsibility and,
present moment and, –, –
responding and,
role of in shaping your feelings, –
Time for mindfulness practice, finding, –
Time management,
"To-be" list,
To-do lists, , –
Traffic light communication, . _See also_ Mindful communication
Trust,
_U_
Unpleasant experiences, –
Urge surfing, –
_V_
Vision, setting, –
Visualizations, –. _See also_ Mindfulness practice exercises
_W_
Walking mindfully. _See_ Mindful walking
Wandering mind. _See also_ Thoughts
Body Scan Meditation exercise and,
Expanding Awareness Meditation and,
FAQs regarding, –
meditation and,
Mindfulness of Breath Meditation,
Well-being, , –
Willpower, ,
_Winning without Losing_ (Milne), –
Working memory,
Worry
benefits of mindfulness and, –
FAQs regarding, , –
Mindfulness of Breath Meditation, –
relaxation and,
_Y_
Yoga. _See_ Mindful yoga
# _About the Author_
**Shamash Alidina** has been helping people to manage stress using mindfulness for more than 14 years. He is the author of the bestselling _Mindfulness for Dummies_. Based in London, he teaches mindfulness internationally to health professionals, executive coaches, and the public. He also offers mindfulness teacher training programs online. His website is _www.shamashalidina.com_.
# _List of Audio Tracks_
TRACK 1. | Two-Minute Mindfulness Exercise—2 minutes (Chapter 1)
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TRACK 2. | Opening Awareness Meditation—10 minutes (Chapter 4)
TRACK 3. | Uncovering Your Intention: Mindful Ocean Visualization—10 minutes (Chapter 4)
TRACK 4. | Mindfully Eating an Apple—10 minutes (Chapter 4)
TRACK 5. | Mindful Belly Breathing—10 minutes (Chapter 4)
TRACK 6. | Mini-Body Scan Meditation—10 minutes (Chapter 4)
TRACK 7. | Full Body Scan Meditation—30 minutes (Chapter 4)
TRACK 8. | Mindful Pause Meditation—2 minutes (Chapter 5)
TRACK 9. | Mini-Mindful Yoga—10 minutes (Chapter 6)
TRACK 10. | Full Mindful Yoga—30 minutes (Chapter 6)
TRACK 11. | Mindful Walking—10 minutes
TRACK 12. | Mindfulness of Breath Meditation—10 minutes (Chapter 6)
TRACK 13. | Mini-Mindfulness of Breath and Body Meditation—10 minutes (Chapter 7)
TRACK 14. | Full Mindfulness of Breath and Body Meditation—20 minutes (Chapter 7)
TRACK 15. | Mini-Expanding Awareness Meditation—10 minutes (Chapter 8)
TRACK 16. | Full Expanding Awareness Meditation—30 minutes (Chapter 8)
TRACK 17. | Responding to Stress Meditation—10 minutes (Chapter 9)
TRACK 18. | Mountain Meditation—20 minutes (Chapter 10)
TRACK 19. | Lake Meditation—20 minutes (Chapter 10)
TRACK 20. | Loving-Kindness Meditation—30 minutes (Chapter 10)
TRACK 21. | Silence with a Bell in Between—10 minutes total
TRACK 22. | Silence with Bells Every 5 Minutes—30 minutes total
TRACK 23. | Silence with Bells Every 10 Minutes—30 minutes total
TRACK 24. | Silence with Bells Every 15 Minutes—45 minutes total
_Terms of Use_
The publisher grants to individual purchasers of _The Mindful Way through Stress_ nonassignable permission to stream and download the audio files located at _www.guilford.com/alidina-materials_. This license is limited to you, the individual purchaser, for personal use. This license does not grant the right to reproduce these materials for resale, redistribution, broadcast, or any other purposes (including but not limited to books, pamphlets, articles, video- or audiotapes, blogs, file-sharing sites, Internet or intranet sites, and handouts or slides for lectures, workshops, or webinars, whether or not a fee is charged) in audio form or in transcription. Permission to reproduce these materials for these and any other purposes must be obtained in writing from the Permissions Department of Guilford Publications.
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**About Guilford Press**
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www.guilford.com
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Founded in 1973, Guilford Publications, Inc., has built an international reputation as a publisher of books, periodicals, software, and DVDs in mental health, education, geography, and the social and behavioral sciences. We pride ourselves on teaming up with authors who are recognized experts, and who translate their knowledge into vital, needed resources for practitioners, academics, and general readers. Our dedicated editorial professionals work closely on each title to produce high-quality content that readers can rely on. The firm is owned by its founding partners, President Bob Matloff and Editor-in-Chief Seymour Weingarten, and many staff members have been at Guilford for more than 20 years.
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**Discover Related Guilford Books**
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| {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaBook"
} | 7,684 |
package org.jivesoftware.openfire.net;
import java.security.GeneralSecurityException;
import java.security.KeyStore;
import java.security.KeyStoreException;
import java.security.Principal;
import java.security.PublicKey;
import java.security.cert.CertificateException;
import java.security.cert.X509Certificate;
import java.util.Date;
import java.util.Enumeration;
import java.util.List;
import javax.net.ssl.X509TrustManager;
import org.jivesoftware.openfire.Connection;
import org.jivesoftware.openfire.session.ConnectionSettings;
import org.jivesoftware.util.CertificateManager;
import org.jivesoftware.util.JiveGlobals;
import org.slf4j.Logger;
import org.slf4j.LoggerFactory;
/**
* ServerTrustManager is a Trust Manager that is only used for s2s connections. This TrustManager
* is used both when the server connects to another server as well as when receiving a connection
* from another server. In both cases, it is possible to indicate if self-signed certificates
* are going to be accepted. In case of accepting a self-signed certificate a warning is logged.
* Future version of the server might include a small workflow so admins can review self-signed
* certificates or certificates of unknown issuers and manually accept them.
*
* @author Gaston Dombiak
*/
public class ServerTrustManager implements X509TrustManager {
private static final Logger Log = LoggerFactory.getLogger(ServerTrustManager.class);
/**
* KeyStore that holds the trusted CA
*/
private KeyStore trustStore;
/**
* @deprecated Use ServerTrustManager(KeyStore trustStore) instead (there's no functional difference).
*/
@Deprecated
public ServerTrustManager(String server, KeyStore trustStore, Connection connection) {
this(trustStore);
}
public ServerTrustManager(KeyStore trustTrust) {
super();
this.trustStore = trustTrust;
}
@Override
public void checkClientTrusted(X509Certificate[] x509Certificates,
String string) {
// Do not validate the certificate at this point. The certificate is going to be used
// when the remote server requests to do EXTERNAL SASL
}
/**
* Given the partial or complete certificate chain provided by the peer, build a certificate
* path to a trusted root and return if it can be validated and is trusted for server SSL
* authentication based on the authentication type. The authentication type is the key
* exchange algorithm portion of the cipher suites represented as a String, such as "RSA",
* "DHE_DSS". Note: for some exportable cipher suites, the key exchange algorithm is
* determined at run time during the handshake. For instance, for
* TLS_RSA_EXPORT_WITH_RC4_40_MD5, the authType should be RSA_EXPORT when an ephemeral
* RSA key is used for the key exchange, and RSA when the key from the server certificate
* is used. Checking is case-sensitive.<p>
*
* By default certificates are going to be verified. This includes verifying the certificate
* chain, the root certificate and the certificates validity. However, it is possible to
* disable certificates validation as a whole or each specific validation.
*
* @param x509Certificates an ordered array of peer X.509 certificates with the peer's own
* certificate listed first and followed by any certificate authorities.
* @param string the key exchange algorithm used.
* @throws CertificateException if the certificate chain is not trusted by this TrustManager.
*/
@Override
public void checkServerTrusted(X509Certificate[] x509Certificates, String string)
throws CertificateException {
// Do nothing here. As before, the certificate will be validated when the remote server authenticates.
}
@Override
public X509Certificate[] getAcceptedIssuers() {
if (JiveGlobals.getBooleanProperty(ConnectionSettings.Server.TLS_ACCEPT_SELFSIGNED_CERTS, false)) {
// Answer an empty list since we accept any issuer
return new X509Certificate[0];
}
else {
X509Certificate[] X509Certs = null;
try {
// See how many certificates are in the keystore.
int numberOfEntry = trustStore.size();
// If there are any certificates in the keystore.
if (numberOfEntry > 0) {
// Create an array of X509Certificates
X509Certs = new X509Certificate[numberOfEntry];
// Get all of the certificate alias out of the keystore.
Enumeration aliases = trustStore.aliases();
// Retrieve all of the certificates out of the keystore
// via the alias name.
int i = 0;
while (aliases.hasMoreElements()) {
X509Certs[i] =
(X509Certificate) trustStore.
getCertificate((String) aliases.nextElement());
i++;
}
}
}
catch (Exception e) {
Log.error(e.getMessage(), e);
X509Certs = null;
}
return X509Certs;
}
}
}
| {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaGithub"
} | 5,362 |
Q: Should a solid state hard drive make crunching work noises? I use heavy software. 3d, mostly. I'm used to the comforting sound of a hard drive that sounds like a popcorn popper.
But, just got my first Lenovo, with a solid state hard drive. Model KXG6AZNV512G TOSHIBA to be exact.
Its making high frequency crunching noises...even in sequence with every keypress (firefox browser, 1104 memory use).
Wow.
When I use zbrush I hear buzzing with every rotation of the model.
Is this normal?
A: A solid state disk (SSD) has no moving parts. Therefore, it does make any vibrations to transfer in to the air, which would result in audible sound.
It is possible that the drive's electronics are creating magnetic interference with the computer's electronics, resulting in noise. This can come through the computers speakers and even through some of the electronics. I have not seen this happen personally with SSDs, but have in some YouTube videos of people complaining about it. I have seen it occur with other electronics. I have seen some manufacturers put shielding over the drives and other parts, to prevent this. Since this is a new laptop, it sounds more like a defect.
All this is assuming that interference is the culprit. It could be something else.
I would contact Lenovo, or the place of purchase and either get it serviced or exchanged.
| {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaStackExchange"
} | 3,122 |
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After Reviewers Ravaged Sergei Rachmaninoff ,The Composer Turned to Hypnosis
Article by Tony Sokol
In the book "Lady Windermere's Fan," Oscar Wilde's Lord Darlington says a critic knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. Reviewers at the time had the power to devalue art with a quip. Artists, and people in general, can be sensitive to criticism. The great Russian composer SeRgei Rachmaninoff was so traumatized by bad reviews of his First Symphony, he shut himself off from writing altogether. Had it not been for the work of the pioneering hypnotist Nikolai Dahl, Rachmaninoff may never have composed his "Second Piano Concerto in C minor, Op. 18."
Sergei Rachmaninoff was born in Russia in 1873. He studied with Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and was on his way to stardom when his "First Symphony" premiered in St. Petersburg. Rachmaninoff fled the orchestra hall before the symphony finished.
"It is true that the performance was beneath contempt," wrote Rachmaninoff, in his memoirs "Rachmaninoff's Recollections." "Its deficiencies were revealed to me with a dreadful distinctness even during the first rehearsal." One critic compared the piece to the ten plagues of Egypt. "If there was a conservatory in hell, Rachmaninoff would get the first prize for his symphony, so devilish are the discords he places before us," newspaper critic Cesar Cui sneered.
"Something within me snapped," Rachmaninoff wrote. "All my self-confidence broke down. … A paralyzing apathy possessed me. I did nothing at all and found no pleasure in anything. Half my days were spent on a couch sighing over my ruined life. My only occupation consisted in giving a few piano lessons in order to keep myself alive."
Shortly after the performance, Rachmaninoff reportedly played some of his compositions on the piano for the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy, who asked the pianist whether "such music" was "needed by anybody?…I must tell you how I dislike it all." The composer's depression lasted for three years. Rachmaninoff continued his career as a pianist and conductor, but hit a creative wall and was unable to compose music.
Nikolai Vladimirovich Dahl was a Russian physician who specialized in the fields of neurology, psychiatry and psychology. He was born in 1860 and graduated from the Moscow University in 1887. Dahl was also an amateur musician who played the viola. Dahl treated Rachmaninoff after the composer's breakdown. After the 1897 Symphony No. 1 reviews, Rachmaninoff lived with his cousins who urged him to visit a psychiatrist in Moscow who was working with a new therapy called autosuggestion.
"My relatives had informed Dr. Dahl that he must by all means cure me of my apathetic condition and bring about such results that I would again be able to compose," Rachmaninoff wrote in his "Recollections." Dahl started his treatment on Rachmaninoff in in January 1900. The daily treatment program included hypnotherapy and psychotherapy and went on for more than three months.
By the early 1900s, hypnotism was becoming accepted as a therapeutic tool. While Sigmund Freud used hypnosis to provoke a catharsis in his patients that might jar repressed trauma, Dr. Dahl took a more modern approach. His daily sessions were motivational. "I heard the same hypnotic formula repeated day after day while I lay half asleep in an armchair in [Dahl]'s study," Rachmaninoff wrote. "You will begin to write your concerto," Dahl told Rachmaninoff. "You will work with the greatest of ease. The concerto will be of excellent quality."
Dahl wasn't the only person giving Rachmaninoff pep talks. The playwright Anton Chekhov attended one of Rachmaninoff's concerts and told the master pianist he would one day be a "great man." The great man had big hands that few pianists could easily reproduce without breaking the chords. Rachmaninoff's fingers spanned a perfect 12th, from C to G 1½ octaves above.
"Dr. Dahl had inquired what kind of composition was required of me, and he was informed, 'a concerto for pianoforte,' for I had promised this to people in London and had given up in despair the idea of writing it," Rachmaninoff wrote. "Although it may sound impossible to believe, this treatment really helped me. I began to compose at the beginning of the summer. The material grew in volume, and new musical ideas began to well up within me, many more than I needed for my concerto."
"I felt that Dahl's treatment had strengthened my nervous system to a miraculous degree. Out of gratitude I dedicated my Second Concerto to him," Rachmaninoff concluded.
Rachmaninoff's "Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor" is one of the most romantic pieces of music ever composed. The slow opening minor piano chords evoke the sad tolling of church bells. The pop singles "Full Moon and Empty Arms," which was sung by Frank Sinatra and Perry Como, "I Will Bring You Music," and the 1976 hit "All By Myself (Don't wanna be all by myself)" by Eric Carmen, all paid it musical homage.
The piece appeared in such films as "Grand Hotel," "Brief Encounter," "I've Always Loved You," "Rhapsody," "September Affair," "Groundhog Day," and "Somewhere in Time." The piece gave Marilyn Monroe's Candy Kane character "The Seven-Year Itch." Dahl and Rachmaninoff's relationship was dramatized in the 2015 Off-Broadway musical "Preludes" by Dave Malloy, which ran at Lincoln Center Theater.
Rachmaninoff fled the Communist regime in 1917 and immigrated to the United States, where he lived in New York City and Beverly Hills. Dr. Dahl emigrated from Russia in 1925 and settled in Beirut, Lebanon. According to Wikipedia, Dahl played "the viola in the orchestra of the American University of Beirut. On one occasion, Rachmaninoff's 2nd Piano Concerto was performed, with Arkadie Kouguell as soloist and conductor. The audience was informed that the dedicatee of the concerto, Dr. Dahl, was a member of the viola section of the orchestra, and they demanded he rise and take a bow."
Dahl died in Beirut in 1939. Rachmaninoff fell ill during a concert tour in late 1942. He died of melanoma, in Beverly Hills, California, on March 28, 1943, four days before his 70th birthday.
By Elena Mosaner|2019-11-11T05:23:00+00:00November 11th, 2019|Hypnosis and Art|Comments Off on After Reviewers Ravaged Sergei Rachmaninoff ,The Composer Turned to Hypnosis
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"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaCommonCrawl"
} | 4,420 |
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{"url":"https:\/\/www.jvejercito.com\/6t1qssa\/4e5f99-distance-and-midpoint-of-complex-numbers-calculator","text":"Basic math, GED, algebra, geometry, statistics, trigonometry and calculus practice problems are available with instant feedback. 9. Learning Goal: Provide more opportunities to practice and build procedural fluency with calculating the distance and midpoint between 2 points. Free Complex Numbers Calculator - Simplify complex expressions using algebraic rules step-by-step This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. The complex number z is equal to two plus three i and the complex number w is equal to negative five minus i. Is there a straightforward way to find the polar form of the midpoint of these two complex numbers? Since you know the initial point is 0,0 you can then calculate the midpoint. Fractions should be entered with a forward such as '3\/4' for the fraction $$\\frac{3}{4}$$. Not to be confused with the intercept points of that hyperbola that are calculated from the quadratic equation. Find the distance between the points $\\left( \\frac{3}{4} , -3 \\right)$ and $\\left( -\\frac{13}{4}, 5\\right)$. This is the distance between the origin (0, 0) and the point (a, b) in the complex plane. Explainer +9; Sample Question Videos 00:56. This web site owner is mathematician Milo\u0161 Petrovi\u0107. The midpoint formula is typically shown as: One way calculate the midpoint is to remember that this midpoint is half of the distance between points. Show Instructions. Distance and Midpoint Formula in the Complex Plane The modulus of the complex number a+biis \u02dca+bi\u02dc=\u02daa2+b2. Number Line Midpoint Calculator: If you have 2 points on a number line and you want to find the midpoint, enter point 1 and point 2 on the number line and press Calculate. This online calculator will compute and plot the distance and midpointof a line segment. Distance and midpoint of complex numbers. Complex conjugates. eval(ez_write_tag([[250,250],'calculator_academy-medrectangle-3','ezslot_10',169,'0','0']));eval(ez_write_tag([[250,250],'calculator_academy-medrectangle-3','ezslot_11',169,'0','1'])); Midpoint is used in geometry to describe the point along a line that is equidistant from the end points of that line. Find the distance between the points $(\u20135, -1)$ and $(3, 4)$. This way, a complex number is defined as a polynomial with real coefficients in the single indeterminate i, for which the relation i 2 + 1 = 0 is imposed. Khan Academy ist eine Non-profit Organisation mit dem Zweck eine kostenlose, weltklasse Ausbildung f\u00fcr jeden Menschen auf der ganzen Welt zug\u00e4nglich zu machen. $A(x_A, y_A)$ and $B(x_B, y_B)$, we use formula: Find distance between points $A(3, -4)$ and $B(-1, 3)$. 00:50. 2 r1 r2 times the cosine of the angle between them which is theta 2 minus theta 1. If you want to calculate the midpoint this way, you can use this distance between points calculator and divide the final answer by 2.eval(ez_write_tag([[250,250],'calculator_academy-banner-1','ezslot_2',192,'0','0'])); Another way is through using the slope of the line if it is known. The calculator will generate a \u2026 By using this website, you agree to our Cookie Policy. Instructions:: All Functions . ,$\\color{blue}{\\text{ 2r3 } = 2\\sqrt{3}}$ That's it, that's the distance formula. Another way is through using the slope of the line if it is known. Our mission is to provide a free, world-class education to anyone, anywhere. We'll explain this using an example below. Adding and subtracting complex numbers. MIDPOINT CALCULATOR . 4. In this example we have: Instructions. There are two types of problems in this exercise: Find the distance and the midpoint: This problem provides two complex numbers and a grid. How to enter numbers: Enter any integer, decimal or fraction. It is also used in other areas of mathematics, especially in the area of complex numbers. View Notes - Math 10 WS comp distance.docx from MATH 10 at University of the Philippines Diliman. For two points in the complex plane, the distance between the points is the modulus of the difference of the two complex numbers. When looking at a hyperbola, the midpoint of the vertices will be the midpoint of that hyperbola. If you have the unit vector, you can multiply it by the magnitude to get the final x and y coordinates of the end point. The calculator will generate a step-by-step explanation on how to obtain the results. Distance of complex numbers. It also demonstrates elementary operations on complex numbers. To use linear interpolation to calculate the distance, end point, or midpoint, visit the interpolation calculator. Distance & midpoint of complex numbers. Complex Numbers Topics: 1. d squared equals r1 squared plus r2 squared minus twice the product r1 and r2. Enter the x and y coordinates of two points and this calculator will determine the midpoint. 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A complex number is a number of the form a + bi, where a and b are real numbers, and i is an indeterminate satisfying i 2 = \u22121.For example, 2 + 3i is a complex number. In this lesson, we will learn how to find the distance and midpoint of two complex numbers in the complex plane. To find distance between points In general, you can skip the multiplication sign, so 5x is equivalent to 5*x. Using the image of the two points in the plane will help solidify these concepts. As in previous example we have: If you want to calculate the midpoint this way, you can use this distance between points calculator and divide the final answer by 2. Just type your formula into the top box. mathhelp@mathportal.org. Example: type in (2-3i)*(1+i), and see the answer of 5-i. with endpoints $A(x_A, y_A)$ and $B(x_B, y_B)$, is: Find midpoint of a segment with endpoints $A(3, -4)$ and $B(-1, 3)$. By \u2026 Algebra Video 17:38. How to Use the Midpoint Calculator? A right triangle with vertices at $2+i$ and $5-3i$ and $2-3i$ may help the teacher explain how to compute the distance in (b). The distance formula is used to find the distance between two points in the coordinate plane. The procedure to use the midpoint calculator is as follows: Step 1: Enter the coordinate points in the respective input field. We could see the line drawn between these two points is the hypotenuse of a right triangle. The calculator will simplify any complex expression, with steps shown. Welcome to MathPortal. Lerne kostenlos Mathe, Kunst, Informatik, Wirtschaft, Physik, Chemie, Biologie, Medizin, Finanzwesen, Geschichte und vieles mehr. 02:04. Select Your Favourite Category And Start Learning.. 3D Design. Alternatively, add the two x coordinates of the endpoints and divide by 2. Free distance calculator - Compute distance between two points step-by-step This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. The Distance and midpoint on the complex plane exercise appears under the Precalculus Math Mission and Mathematics III Math Mission. Find the midpoint M between $(\u20133, 5)$ and $(4, \u20132)$. Step 2: Now click the button \u201cSolve\u201d to get the midpoint Upon getting your results after combining like terms you will take your results and plug it into this formula : \u221a 2+ 2. By using this website, you agree to our Cookie Policy. The midpoint can also be calculated from the initial coordinates, slope, and only one of the end coordinates in either the x or y direction. A midpoint is the location between two points that is equal distance from each point. Khan Academy is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. I designed this web site and wrote all the lessons, formulas and calculators . Classwork Estimation - Partition Warm Up Practice School Location Clues More Practice 1:1 Lesson Pear Deck More Practice is completed on paper Display treasure hunt on the board at the end of class Answers Link\u2026 March 31, 2020 Measure the distance between the two end points, and divide the result by 2. This is the currently selected item. 2. Another interesting factor about midpoints is that it can actually be used in economics and is known as the midpoint formula economics. BYJU\u2019S online midpoint calculator tool makes the calculation faster, and it displays the midpoint in a fraction of seconds. This distance from either end is the midpoint of that line. Complex Number Calculator. Finding the distance and midpoint between pairs of complex numbers is shown, focusing on similarities between the complex and rectangular systems. For example, a complex number z = a+ib corresponds to the ordered pair of numbers (a, b). $x_A = 3,~~ y_A = -4,~~ x_B = -1,~~ y_B = 3$~. Multiplying complex numbers. NAME: _ DATE: _ DISTANCE AND MIDPOINT In this lesson we will look at complex numbers in the complex So the distance formula looks like this. As imaginary unit use i or j (in electrical engineering), which satisfies basic equation i 2 = \u22121 or j 2 = \u22121.The calculator also converts a complex number into angle notation (phasor notation), exponential, or polar coordinates (magnitude and angle). Complex numbers and complex planes. Complex Number Calculator. How it works: Just type numbers into the boxes below and the calculator will automatically calculate the distance between those 2 points. When finding the distance of two complex numbers you must simply combine like terms ( real parts & imaginary parts ) of the two points that you are given. This exercise introduces the distance and midpoint formulas as applied to complex numbers. Do the same for the y coordinates. To learn more about this, you can visit our slope calculator. Finding the distance and midpoint between pairs of complex numbers is shown, focusing on similarities between the complex and rectangular systems. 3. 7. This calculator does basic arithmetic on complex numbers and evaluates expressions in the set of complex numbers. $x_A = 3,~~ y_A = -4,~~ x_B = -1,~~ y_B = 3$~. Distance Formula Calculator Enter any Number into this free calculator. $${\\color{blue}{ d(A,B) = \\sqrt{(x_B - x_A)^2 + (y_B-y_A)^2} }}$$, $x_A = 3,~~ y_A = -4,~~ x_B = -1,~~ y_B = 3$, $${\\color{blue}{ M~\\left(\\frac{x_A + x_B}{2}, \\frac{y_A + y_B}{2}\\right) }}$$. The calculator displays complex number and its conjugate on the complex plane, evaluate complex number absolute value and principal value of the argument . Angle and absolute value of complex numbers. It will perform addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, raising to power, and also will find the polar form, conjugate, modulus and inverse of the complex number. Introduction to imaginary numbers. We want to calculate the distance between the two points (-2, 1) and (4, 3). ,$\\color{blue}{ \\text{ 2r(3\/5) }= 2 \\sqrt{\\frac{3}{5}}}$. Donate or volunteer today! 8. This problem is intended to reinforce the geometric interpretation of distance between complex numbers and midpoints as modulus of the difference and average respectively. $x_A = 3,~~ y_A = -4,~~ x_B = -1,~~ y_B = 3$. Polar form of complex numbers. eval(ez_write_tag([[580,400],'calculator_academy-large-leaderboard-2','ezslot_9',107,'0','0'])); The last method of calculating the midpoint is through the use of a unit vector. Because an ordered pair of numbers represents coordinates of a point in the two-dimensional Cartesian plane, the midpoint calculator is most often used in analytical geometry. This calculator extracts the square root, calculate the modulus, finds inverse, finds conjugate and transform complex number to polar form. Using the slope of a line to calculate a point is also known as linear interpolation. To learn more about unit vectors, visit our unit vector calculator. Math skills practice site. The midpoint is sometimes refereed to as the centroid, although this term is used more generally for other things that are the midpoint on a line. Practice: Distance of complex numbers. The calculator given in this section can be used to find mid point between the given two points. So we have. So we have: Note: use this calculator to find distance and draw graph. 6. So we have: Please tell me how can I make this better. Multiplying and dividing complex numbers. If you want to contact me, probably have some question write me using the contact form or email me on Step-by-step explanation is provided. Distance and Midpoint in Complex Plane HSN-CN.6 \/ N-CN.6 - Activities for teaching The Complex Number System, including The Complex Number System worksheets, The Complex Number System practice problems, questions, assessments, quizzes, tests, lesson plans - aligned to Common Core and state standards - Goalbook Pathways Online calculator to calculate and display the distance and midpoint for two points. The results give you the coordinates of the midpoint. The formula for finding the midpoint $M$ of a segment, Practice: Midpoint of complex numbers. Next lesson. The complex number calculator allows to calculates the sum of complex numbers online, to calculate the sum of complex numbers 1+i and 4+2*i, enter complex_number(1+i+4+2*i), after calculation, the result 5+3*i is returned. Midpoint Calculator - Find midpoint between the given two points in just a click. Complex numbers. 5. Else, if you know one point and one midpoint, and want to solve for the other point, enter those on the number line and press Calculate. person_outlineAntonschedule 2018-10-09 12:39:46. Calculate the midpoint between any two x,y coordinate points on a graph. Free midpoint calculator - calculate the midpoint between two points using the Midpoint Formula step-by-step This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. Quiz Tag: Distance and midpoint of complex numbers Distance and midpoint of complex numbers. Find the midpoint M between $\\left( \\frac{1}{2}, \\frac{5}{3} \\right)$ and $\\left( -\\frac{4}{3}, \u20132\\right)$. This way is a little backwards, but sometimes you can use this method of you only have certain information. How to calculate a midpoint One way calculate the midpoint is to remember that this midpoint is half of the distance between points. 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\section{Introduction}
Short-period exoplanets orbiting nearby, cool M dwarfs are prime targets for the search and characterization of atmospheres of low-mass, sub-Neptune-sized worlds. One particular target that falls in this category is K2-18~b, which was first pointed out as a transiting planet candidate by \citet{2015ApJ...809...25M} and later confirmed with \emph{Spitzer} photometry \citep{2017ApJ...834..187B} and Doppler velocity measurements \citep{2017A&A...608A..35C}. This planet has a radius of $R_\mathrm{P} = 2.711 \pm 0.065$ R$_\oplus$, a mass of $M_\mathrm{P} = 8.64 \pm 1.35$ M$_\oplus$ and an orbital period of $T_\mathrm{orb} = 32.9$ d \citep{2019A&A...621A..49C}. At an average distance of 0.14 au from its host star, K2-18~b receives a similar amount of bolometric irradiation to that received by the Earth from the Sun. Nevertheless, its high-energy environment is unconstrained, and its density is consistent with either a significant H$_2$/He envelope or a $100\%$ H$_2$O composition \citep{2018AJ....155..257S, 2019A&A...621A..49C}. The host star is a nearby M2.8-type dwarf located at 38 pc \citep{2018A&A...616A...1G}, rendering K2-18~b one of the best mini-Neptunes suitable for atmospheric follow-up using the \emph{Hubble Space Telescope} (\emph{HST}), the \emph{James Webb Space Telescope} (\emph{JWST}), and high-resolution infrared spectrographs.
The 0.4--5.0 $\mu$m transmission spectrum of K2-18~b measured with data from the \emph{Kepler} satellite (\emph{K2} mission), the Wide-Field Camera 3 (WFC3/\emph{HST}), and the Infrared Array Camera (IRAC/\emph{Spitzer}) revealed the presence of water vapor in its lower atmosphere \citep{2019ApJ...887L..14B, 2019NatAs.tmp..451T}. By comparing atmospheric models with the data, \citeauthor{2019ApJ...887L..14B} concludes that the best match is a H$_2$-dominated atmosphere with water vapor absorbing above the cloud deck below the 10-1000 mbar pressure level. While these observations provided us with some initial information regarding the composition of its lower atmosphere, they do not constrain the abundances of molecular species.
Models predict that the deposition of high-energy photons (X-rays and far-ultraviolet) produced by the host star leads to an expansion of the planetary upper atmosphere, as well as the production of H atoms due to photodissociation of H$_2$O \citep[e.g.,][]{1983ApJ...264..726I, 1993JGR....98.7415W}. This expansion populates the outer layers of the planetary atmosphere where the gas is collisionless, also known as the exosphere. It is therefore likely that the atmosphere of K2-18~b, which is rich in H$_2$ and H$_2$O, possesses a H-rich exosphere. Previous \emph{HST} observations have shown evidence for the presence of large-scale, H-rich exospheres around the warm Neptunes GJ~436~b \citep{2015Natur.522..459E, 2017A&A...605L...7L, 2019A&A...629A..47D} and GJ~3470~b \citep{2018A&A...620A.147B}. However, to date, no evidence for extended atmospheres has been found for planets smaller than Neptune, as non-detections were reported for the super-Earths 55~Cnc~e \citep{2012A&A...547A..18E}, HD~97658~b \citep{2017A&A...597A..26B}, GJ~1132~b \citep{2019AJ....158...50W}, and $\pi$ Men c \citep{2019arXiv191206913G}, and marginal detections were reported for the small rocky-planet systems in TRAPPIST-1 \citep{2017AJ....154..121B} and Kepler-444 \citep{2017A&A...602A.106B}.
In this letter, we report the results of a series of far-ultraviolet (FUV) observations of two transits of K2-18~b using the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) installed on \emph{HST}. The aim of these observations was to perform Lyman-$\alpha$ transmission spectroscopy of K2-18~b in order to detect its H-rich exosphere, which should produce an excess absorption in the stellar Lyman-$\alpha$ emission during the transit of the planet.
\section{Observations and data reduction}
\object{K2-18} was observed with \emph{HST}/STIS and the grating G140M (resolving power $R \approx 10000$) during two transits on June 18 2017 and March 9 2018 (Program GO-14221, PI: D. Ehrenreich). The first visit (A) allowed five exposures, of which only the first two were successful but were severely contaminated by strong geocoronal emission; this contamination completely swamped the stellar Lyman-$\alpha$ emission and rendered this visit unsuitable for analysis (see Fig. \ref{k2-18_A}). The second visit (B) contained four successful exposures, of which two were performed before the transit ingress and the other two in-transit.
The data were reduced using the standard STIS pipeline, except for the spectral extraction. Since the star is faint, the automated extraction is unable to accurately find the stellar spectrum in the flat-fielded frames. Furthermore, the dark current background of the FUV-MAMA detector of STIS reaches levels high enough to be comparable with the stellar spectrum. In order to correctly extract the spectrum and remove the dark current background, we use the \texttt{x1d} method of \texttt{stistools}\footnote{\footnotesize{Software freely available at \url{https://stistools.readthedocs.io/en/latest/}.}} with user-defined values for the location of: i) the spectrum in the cross-dispersion direction, and ii) the regions where the dark current background near the spectrum can be accurately estimated.
Using visual inspection, we determined the location of the spectrum in the cross-dispersion direction to be $y = 389$ px (parameter \texttt{a2center} in the pipeline). Determining the best location of the background is not as straightforward; normally, the pipeline extracts the background from regions far from the spectrum, but these regions have discrepant levels of dark current compared to the region of the spectrum. Therefore, we chose to use regions immediately near the location of the spectrum to determine the background (parameters \texttt{bk1offst} and \texttt{bk2offst} in the pipeline), namely at a distance of $\Delta = 20$ px from \texttt{a2center}. We combine the two out-of-transit spectra and the two in-transit spectra separately in order to isolate potential signals of an atmospheric signal of K2-18~b, and the resulting spectra are shown in Fig. \ref{k2-18_spec}.
\begin{figure*}
\centering
\begin{tabular}{cc}
\includegraphics[width=0.44\hsize]{geoc_cont_visitA.pdf} & \includegraphics[width=0.44\hsize]{geoc_cont_visitB.pdf}
\end{tabular}
\caption{\emph{HST}/STIS spectra of K2-18 in Visits A (left panel) and B (right panel) obtained after data reduction (lines). The geocoronal and background contamination is shown as vertical bars; in Visit A, the geocoronal emission overwhelms the stellar fluxes, preventing us from reliably measuring the latter. The Doppler velocities are in the stellar rest frame.}
\label{k2-18_A}
\end{figure*}
\begin{figure}
\centering
\includegraphics[width=\hsize]{K2-18_lya_spectra.pdf}
\caption{\emph{HST}/STIS spectra of K2-18 in Visit B. The Doppler velocities are in the stellar rest frame. The shaded interval is the region with geocoronal contamination.}
\label{k2-18_spec}
\end{figure}
\section{Tentative detection of a H-rich exosphere in K2-18~b}
Since the interstellar medium (ISM) absorbs the core of the Lyman-$\alpha$ emission line, we can only observe the attenuated fluxes in the blue and red wings of the stellar line. We integrated the flux densities in wavelength space between Doppler velocities [-160, -50] km s$^{-1}$ and [+50, +160] km s$^{-1}$, respectively, to produce the Lyman-$\alpha$ light curves in the blue and red wings.
\begin{figure*}
\centering
\begin{tabular}{cc}
\includegraphics[width=0.44\hsize]{lya_b_lc.pdf} & \includegraphics[width=0.44\hsize]{lya_r_lc.pdf}
\end{tabular}
\caption{Light curves of the blue (left panel) and red (right panel) wings of the Lyman-$\alpha$ emission of K2-18 during the transit of planet b. $\mathrm{Time} = 0$ corresponds to the transit center according to the ephemeris of \citet{2019ApJ...887L..14B}. The vertical red lines represent the ingress and egress of K2-18~b. Visit A was affected by strong geocoronal contamination, and therefore the measured stellar fluxes are likely inaccurate.}
\label{k2-18b_lc}
\end{figure*}
During Visit B, we observe a steep decrease in the blueshifted Lyman-$\alpha$\ fluxes during the transit of K2-18~b (left panel in Fig. \ref{k2-18b_lc}), reaching almost zero emission near the planetary egress. This decrease in flux is also seen when we compare the combined out-of-transit and in-transit spectra (see Fig. \ref{k2-18_spec}). The redshifted Lyman-$\alpha$\ emission of the combined in-transit orbits varies by $14\% \pm 23\%$, which is consistent with a stable redshifted flux during the visit; this indicates that the variation in the blue wing is likely to be astrophysical in nature. Similar results are obtained even when we extract the background emission at different positions in the detector.
The blue wing flux measured in the combined in-transit spectra decreases by $67\% \pm 18\%$ in relation to the combined out-of-transit spectra; in particular, the last orbit displays an absorption of $93\% \pm 18\%$ in relation to the combined out-of-transit spectra. Although statistically significant, we conservatively deem this result tentative until it is repeated in future observations; for a reference, the intrinsic stellar variability of the Lyman-$\alpha$\ emission of HD~97658~b is on the order of a few tens of percent at $\sim$2$\sigma$ confidence \citep{2017A&A...597A..26B}. If confirmed to be linked to the transit of K2-18~b, the variation in Lyman-$\alpha$\ flux can be interpreted as the absorption caused by an extended, H-rich exosphere of the planet. Such a large absorption signal can be explained by a combination of large atmospheric escape rate and long photoionization lifetime of the H atoms in the exosphere. This result gives further support to the hypothesis that K2-18~b possesses a H$_2$-dominated envelope \citep[as in the conclusions of][]{2019ApJ...887L..14B}, unlike the super-Earths 55~Cnc~e and HD~219134~b. Previous results for the super-Earths HD~97658~b and GJ~1132~b were inconclusive due to stellar variability for the first \citep{2017A&A...597A..26B} and lack of stellar blue wing emission in the second \citep{2019AJ....158...50W}.
\section{The high-energy environment of K2-18~b}
Determining the high-energy environment of K2-18~b provides a critical piece of information to interpret the evolution and current state of its atmosphere. To that end, we used the STIS observations of K2-18 to reconstruct its intrinsic Lyman-$\alpha$\ spectrum and estimate the high-energy irradiation received by planet b. The reconstruction process follows the standard method used in, for example, \citet{2017AJ....154..121B} and \citet{2018A&A...620A.147B}. In short, we fit the observed spectrum to a model of the intrinsic emission line attenuated by ISM absorption, scaled for distance and convolved with the instrumental response; the fit yields an estimate of the intrinsic emission and certain properties of the ISM in the line of sight. In this process, we assume that the intrinsic Lyman-$\alpha$\ emission of K2-18 possesses a Gaussian profile \citep[applicable for M dwarfs and for the quality of the available spectra; see][]{2017A&A...602A.106B, 2018A&A...620A.147B}, and fix the temperature and turbulent velocity of the ISM to 8000~K and 1.23~km~s$^{-1}$ \citep[for the NGP cloud, as estimated by the LISM calculator][]{2008ApJ...673..283R}, respectively. We also set the deuterium-to-hydrogen ratio ($\ion{D}{I}/\ion{H}{I}$) to $1.5 \times 10^{-5}$ and the systemic velocity to 0.6537~km~s$^{-1}$ \citep[measured with high-resolution spectra by][]{2017A&A...608A..35C}.
The result of the Lyman-$\alpha$\ line reconstruction is shown in Fig. \ref{k2-18_rec_spec}. We simultaneously fit each exposure to a global Lyman-$\alpha$\ line model within $\pm 300$~km~s$^{-1}$ in the stellar rest frame, excluding the band that corresponds to significant airglow contamination (approximately the range $\pm 50$~km~s$^{-1}$, shown in orange in Fig. \ref{k2-18_rec_spec}). When fitting the in-transit orbits we excluded the pixels corresponding to the range potentially absorbed by the planet. We explore the parameter space using the Markov chain Monte Carlo ensemble sampler implementation of \texttt{emcee} \citep{2013PASP..125..306F}; in addition, we report the uncertainties based on the highest density interval (HDI), which contains 68.3\% of the distribution mass such that no point outside the interval has a higher density than any point within it. We fit for four free parameters in total: the temperature (assuming a Gaussian thermal broadening) and amplitude of the intrinsic stellar Lyman-$\alpha$\ line, and the radial velocity and \ion{H}{I} density of the ISM. We estimated the EUV flux in K2-18~b using the relation from \citet{2014ApJ...780...61L}.
\begin{figure}[h]
\centering
\includegraphics[width=\hsize]{reconstructed_lya.pdf}
\caption{Reconstructed intrinsic Lyman-$\alpha$\ spectrum of K2-18 (green) and the average Lyman-$\alpha$\ profile as observed with \emph{HST}/STIS (black bars). The red (blue) curve shows the inferred observable spectrum with (without) instrumental convolution and the shaded region represents the 1$\sigma$ uncertainty for the red curve. The dotted curve shows the inferred ISM absorption profile.}
\label{k2-18_rec_spec}
\end{figure}
We determined that the heliocentric radial velocity of the ISM is $V_\mathrm{R} = 11.39^{+4.04}_{-4.73}$ km s$^{-1}$, and the \ion{H}{I} column density in the line of sight is $\log_{10}{\eta} = 18.16^{+0.44}_{-0.34}$ cm$^{-2}$. While $\eta$ is consistent with the results from \citet{2005ApJS..159..118W}, the value we determined for $V_\mathrm{R}$ differs by $2\sigma$ with the value predicted by LISM calculator \citep{2008ApJ...673..283R}.
We estimated the properties of the high-energy environment of K2-18~b based on the reconstructed Lyman-$\alpha$\ emission and the results are shown in Table \ref{env_prop}; the large uncertainties in these estimates are due to the low signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) of the spectra and the uncertainties in the semi-empirical relations used to estimate the EUV flux. The best fit model of the intrinsic Lyman-$\alpha$\ emission of K2-18 results in a $\beta$ (ratio between radiation pressure and stellar gravity; see right axis of Fig. \ref{k2-18_rec_spec}) of about 2.2. Although more data would be necessary to confirm this line shape, and the corresponding high $\beta$, it nonetheless suggests that radiation pressure could blow away the escaping hydrogen atoms more strongly in K2-18~b than in GJ~436~b \citep{2016A&A...591A.121B} or the TRAPPIST-1 planets \citep{2017AJ....154..121B}. This value of $\beta$ is similar to that inferred for GJ~3470~b \citep{2018A&A...620A.147B}, which could indicate that the exosphere of K2-18~b possesses a similar shape. Using the energy-limited escape \citep[e.g.,][]{2015A&A...576A..42S} as an initial estimate, we predict that the total escape rate in K2-18~b is two orders of magnitude lower when compared to the values inferred for GJ~436~b \citep[$\sim$2.2 $\times 10^{10}$ g s$^{-1}$;][]{2016A&A...591A.121B} and GJ~3470~b \citep[$\sim$8.5 $\times 10^{10}$ g s$^{-1}$;][]{2018A&A...620A.147B}. We estimated the photoionization rate and lifetime as in \citet{2017A&A...597A..26B}, which yields a value likely above 1200 h for the latter; this long lifetime means that the H atoms in the exosphere of K2-18~b could stay neutral for much longer than in GJ~436 (12 h) and GJ~3470~b (3.5 h). These results are not surprising because K2-18~b is subject to lower irradiation levels than the aforementioned warm Neptunes.
The inferred escape rate of K2-18~b is likely underestimated because we do not take into account the stellar X-ray flux, which is currently unknown. For a similar star like GJ~436, the ratio between X-ray and EUV emission is $\sim$0.23 \citep{2016A&A...591A.121B}, which provides an upper limit on the level of underestimation contained in our calculation; however, the contribution of X-ray flux may be less important for the ionization conditions because of the smaller ionization cross-section when compared to EUV wavelengths.
\begin{table}
\caption{Properties of the high-energy environment of K2-18~b.}
\label{env_prop}
\centering
\begin{tabular}{ll}
\hline
Lyman-$\alpha$\ flux (erg s$^{-1}$ cm$^{-2}$) & $100.7^{+96.1}_{-82.4}$ \\
EUV 10-91.2 nm flux (erg s$^{-1}$ cm$^{-2}$) & $107.9^{+124.7}_{-90.8}$ \\
Photoionization rate ($\times 10^{-6}$ s$^{-1}$) & $3.7^{+7.5}_{-3.5}$ \\
Photoionization lifetime (h) & $3600^{+49900}_{-2400}$ \\
Escape rate at 100\% efficiency ($\times 10^8$ g s$^{-1}$) & $3.5^{+4.0}_{-2.9}$ \\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\end{table}
\section{Conclusions}
K2-18~b is currently one of the best targets for transit spectroscopy among sub-Neptune planets due to its large scale height, its short distance from the Sun, and the infrared brightness of the host star. Previous results have shown evidence that the atmosphere of the planet is dominated by H$_2$/He and contains water vapor. In these atmospheric conditions and under the expected high levels of EUV irradiation, K2-18~b is prone to efficiently losing its atmosphere and producing a detectable excess absorption of H in Lyman-$\alpha$\ caused by a H-rich exosphere during transit. In this study we analyzed four \emph{HST} orbits before and during the transit of K2-18~b with the STIS instrument to search for this feature.
We analyzed the flux time series of both the blue- and redshifted wings of the stellar Lyman-$\alpha$\ emission. The blue wing displays a significant excess absorption during the transit; in particular, near the egress of K2-18~b, the flux in the blue wing is consistent with 100\% absorption. The in-transit red wing fluxes vary by $14\% \pm 23\%$ and are significantly more stable than the blue wing fluxes. A blueshifted absorption could indicate the presence of a H-rich exosphere around K2-18~b being swept away by radiation pressure from its host star towards the direction of the observer, similar to the exospheres of GJ~436~b and GJ~3470~b.
Despite the low S/N of the observed spectra, we were able to reconstruct the intrinsic stellar emission (without the ISM absorption) to assess the high-energy environment of K2-18~b. Our first estimate for the expected total escape rate of K2-18~b leads to a value on the order of $10^8$ g s$^{-1}$. The ratio between radiation pressure and gravity ($\beta$) suggests that the exosphere of K2-18~b is in a similar state to that observed for GJ~3470~b. We estimate that the EUV ($10-91.2$ nm) flux in the planet is on the order of $10^1-10^2$ erg s$^{-1}$ cm$^{-2}$. At the estimated escape rate, it is likely that the planet will lose only a small fraction (1\% or less) of its mass during its remaining lifetime, and therefore it is probably not an archetypal planet crossing the radius valley to become a bare rock \citep{2017AJ....154..109F, 2018MNRAS.479.4786V, 2018AJ....156..264F}; as such, the planet will likely retain its volatile-rich atmosphere due to the more amenable EUV irradiation flux than for example GJ~3470~b, which is at least ten times more EUV irradiated than K2-18~b.
Since we observed only one partial transit of K2-18~b, we conclude that the H-rich exosphere detection is only tentative for now, and more observations are needed to rule out stellar activity effects and confirm the reported feature. Furthermore, additional observations of the Lyman-$\alpha$\ spectrum of K2-18 will help in better constraining the high-energy environment of the planet and its atmospheric escape history.
\begin{acknowledgements}
LAdS thanks M. Turbet and M. L\'opez-Morales for the insightful discussions about K2-18~b. This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (project {\sc Four Aces}; grant agreement No 724427), and it has been carried out in the frame of the National Centre for Competence in Research PlanetS supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF). This research is based on observations made with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. NA-D acknowledges the support of FONDECYT project 3180063. The authors are grateful to the anonymous referee for the quick and helpful review. The data are openly available in the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST), which is maintained by the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI). STScI is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc. under NASA contract NAS 5-26555. This research made use of the NASA Exoplanet Archive, which is operated by the California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration under the Exoplanet Exploration Program. We used the open source software SciPy \citep{scipy_ref}, Jupyter \citep{Kluyver:2016aa}, Astropy \citep{2013A&A...558A..33A}, Matplotlib \citep{Hunter:2007} and \texttt{emcee} \citep{2013PASP..125..306F}.
\end{acknowledgements}
\bibliographystyle{aa}
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{"url":"https:\/\/windows-hexerror.linestarve.com\/q\/so49985303-VS2017-c-ifstream-error","text":"# VS2017 c++ ifstream error\n\n0\n\nI've just installed Visual Studio to start writing C++ there, I spent the last year learning in CodeBlocks and everything was going fine. But when I got to trying out the ifstream function, it shoots out an error and I've looked around and can't seem to find an answer anywhere. Could you guys please help?\n\nHere's the very simple code that I wrote:\n\n#include \"stdafx.h\"\n#include <iostream>\n#include <fstream>\n\nusing namespace std;\n\nint main()\n{\nint n, m[100];\nifstream f1(\"in.txt\");\nf1 >> n;\nfor (int i; i < n; i++)\n{\nf1 >> m[i];\ncout << m[i] << endl;\n}\nf1.close();\nsystem(\"pause\");\nreturn 0;\n}\n\n\nThis is the in.txt path C:\\Users\\Administratar\\source\\repos\\ConsApp1\\in.txt\n\nAnd this is what is inside in.txt\n\n4\n1\n2\n3\n4\n\n\nAnd the error says: \"Error: Unable to open file C:\\Users\\Administratar\\source\\repos\\ConsApp1\\Debug\\ConsApp1.obj Error code = 0x80070002\"\n\nc++\nasked on Stack Overflow Apr 23, 2018 by Ron K","date":"2020-01-25 15:37:11","metadata":"{\"extraction_info\": {\"found_math\": true, \"script_math_tex\": 0, \"script_math_asciimath\": 0, \"math_annotations\": 0, \"math_alttext\": 0, \"mathml\": 0, \"mathjax_tag\": 0, \"mathjax_inline_tex\": 0, \"mathjax_display_tex\": 0, \"mathjax_asciimath\": 1, \"img_math\": 0, \"codecogs_latex\": 0, \"wp_latex\": 0, \"mimetex.cgi\": 0, \"\/images\/math\/codecogs\": 0, \"mathtex.cgi\": 0, \"katex\": 0, \"math-container\": 0, \"wp-katex-eq\": 0, \"align\": 0, \"equation\": 0, \"x-ck12\": 0, \"texerror\": 0, \"math_score\": 0.29845449328422546, \"perplexity\": 6449.608364583928}, \"config\": {\"markdown_headings\": true, \"markdown_code\": true, \"boilerplate_config\": {\"ratio_threshold\": 0.18, \"absolute_threshold\": 10, \"end_threshold\": 15, \"enable\": true}, \"remove_buttons\": true, \"remove_image_figures\": true, \"remove_link_clusters\": true, \"table_config\": {\"min_rows\": 2, \"min_cols\": 3, \"format\": \"plain\"}, \"remove_chinese\": true, \"remove_edit_buttons\": true, \"extract_latex\": true}, \"warc_path\": \"s3:\/\/commoncrawl\/crawl-data\/CC-MAIN-2020-05\/segments\/1579251672537.90\/warc\/CC-MAIN-20200125131641-20200125160641-00464.warc.gz\"}"} | null | null |
Q: How to change flextable caption layout? I am building a flextable and I need the caption to be left-aligned. However, when I add a caption, it is always centered. I am exporting the table to docx. I am aware there is a related post here: Is there a way to change the font size of a flextable caption?, but it refers to tables that are knitted to html in markdown.
I would appreciate your help.
This is my example code:
require(flextable)
tab <- data.frame("Variable" = c("Reference Norm", "Suject", "Cutoff"), "Indicators"= c("Content 1", "Content 2", "Content 3"), "Reference Norm" = c("", "Content 4", "Content 5"), "Subject" = c("", "", "Content 6"))
tab <- flextable(tab)
tab <- add_footer_lines(tab, values = "Note.")
tab <- set_caption(tab, "This caption should be left-aligned.")
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Josef Kotek (17. června 1883 Plzeň – 23. prosince 1914 Ostrava) byl český novinář, národní socialista a příslušník prvního odboje z řad civilistů.
Od roku 1913 působil jako redaktor časopisu Pokrok v Prostějově. Pro pobuřující protidynastické řeči byl rakouským zeměbraneckým polním válečným soudem odsouzen k smrti a popraven. Jeho odsouzení bylo v rozporu i s tehdejším platným rakouským trestním právem.
Reference
Externí odkazy
Češi odsouzení k trestu smrti
Členové České strany národně sociální
Osobnosti prvního československého odboje
Oběti první světové války
Popravení zastřelením
Narození v roce 1883
Úmrtí v roce 1914
Muži
Narození 17. června
Úmrtí 23. prosince
Popravení v Ostravě | {
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\section{Acknowledgement}
\small{This research is supported in part by the Northrop Grumman Mission Systems Research in Applications for Learning Machines (REALM) initiative, It is also supported in part by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), via IARPA R\&D Contract No. D17PC00345. The views and conclusions contained herein are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as necessarily representing the official policies or endorsements, either expressed or implied, of ODNI, IARPA, or the U.S. Government. The U.S. Government is authorized to reproduce and distribute reprints for Governmental purposes notwithstanding any copyright annotation thereon.}
\section{dnnrnprneprne}
\section{Conclusions and Future Work}\label{sec:conclusion}
In this paper, we present a robust end-to-end framework for state of the art vehicle re-identification. We present a dual path model AAVER which combines macroscopic global features with localized discriminative features to efficiently identify a probe image in a gallery of varying sizes. In addition, we establish benchmarks for key-point detection and orientation prediction on VeRi-776 dataset. Lastly, we advocate for the adoption of re-ranking when considering the performance of future vehicle re-identification methods. Adaptive key-point selection conditioned on vehicle orientation is vital for discriminating between vehicles of the same make, model and color. Evaluating on both VeRi-776 and VehicleID shows the strength of our proposed method. Lastly, we conduct an ablation study to understand the influence of the adaptive key-point selection step.
In the future, we plan to extend our key-point module to align vehicle images to a canonical coordinates system before comparing a given pair of images. Similarly, we can learn a 3D representation of vehicles to be used in other tasks such as vehicular speed estimation.
\section{Experiments}
\label{sec:experiments}
Here we first present the two large-scale datasets used for the vehicle re-identification task and their evaluation protocols, after which we describe the implementation details of the proposed method.
\subsection{Datasets}\label{subsec:datasets}
To the best our knowledge, there are mainly two large scale vehicle datasets that are publicly available and are designed for the task of vehicle re-identification: VeRi-776 \cite{liu2016large},\cite{liu2016deep_Veri} and VehicleID \cite{liu2016deep_VehicleID}.
\textbf{VeRi-776} dataset consists of 49,357 images of $776$ distinct vehicles that were captured with 20 non-overlapping cameras in variety of orientations and lighting conditions. Out of these images, 37,778 (576 identities) and 11,579 (200 identities) have been assigned to training and testing respectively. For the query set, 1,678 images have been selected from the testing set. The evaluation protocol for this dataset is as follows: for each probe image in the query set the corresponding identity and the camera ID from which the image is captured is gathered. The gallery is constructed by selecting all the images in the testing set except the ones that share the same identity and camera ID as the probe. Evaluation metrics adopted for this dataset are mean Average Precision (mAP), Cumulative Match Curve (CMC) for top 1 (CMC@1) and top 5 (CMC@5) matches.
\textbf{VehicleID} is another large-scale dataset used for vehicle retrieval task and is composed of $221,567$ images from $26,328$ unique vehicles. Half of the identities, \emph{i.e.} $13,164$, are reserved for training while the other half are dedicated for evaluation. There are $6$ test splits for gallery sizes of $800$, $1600$, $2400$, $3200$, $6000$ and $13,164$. In the recent works \cite{wang2017orientation,shen2017learning} the first three splits have been used. The proposed evaluation protocol for each split in VehicleID dataset is to randomly select an image for each of the identities to form the gallery of respective size and use the rest of the images for query. This procedure is repeated ten times and the averaged metrics, CMC@1 and CMC@5, are reported.
\subsection{Implementation Details}
In our implementation, all the input images were resized to $(224,224)$ and normalized by the ImageNet dataset \cite{deng2009imagenet} mean and standard deviation. Also, in all of our experiments we used batch training with size of $150$ and Adam optimizer \cite{kingma2014adam} with the learning rate of $1e-4$.
Initially, we fine-tuned our baseline models (see section \ref{subsec:global}) on VeRi-776 and VehicleID datasets separately, for $20$ epochs. Then, we initialized the key-point and orientation estimation network with ImageNet pre-trained weights. The first stage of this network was trained for $40$ epochs; afterwards the second stage was trained for $40$ epochs as well.
Next, we trained the orientation conditioned feature extraction branch for each of VeRi-776 and VehicleID datasets for 20 epochs. Finally, we select the network's output of the penultimate layer as the feature vector corresponding to the input vehicle image.
\section{Experimental Evaluations}\label{sec:evaluation_results}
We first present the evaluation results of our vehicle key-point and orientation estimation model followed by the evaluation of the proposed method AAVER on both VeRi-776 and VehicleID datasets.
\subsection{Vehicle Key-Point and Orientation Estimation Evaluation}
In order to evaluate the performance of the proposed two-stage key-point detection model, we use the Mean Square Error (MSE) in terms of pixels for the location of visible key-points in $56 \times 56$ maps over the test set of VeRi-776 key-point dataset. Table \ref{tab:kp_net_acc} shows the MSE of our model after first and second stages. Moreover, we measured the accuracy of the model for viewpoint classification. It can be observed that the refinement stage reduces the key-point localization error by $20\%$ compared to the first stage.
To the best of our knowledge, \cite{wang2017orientation} is the only work on the VeRi-776 key-point and orientation estimation dataset. \cite{wang2017orientation} used the averaged distance between estimated and ground-truth locations of all visible key-points for evaluation. If the distance is less than a threshold value ($r_0$ in terms of pixels in $48 \times 48$ map), the estimation is considered to be correct. We follow the same protocol to compare the precision with \cite{wang2017orientation} and Table \ref{tab:kp_net_acc} shows the result of this comparison.
\begin{table}[h!]
\centering
\caption{Accuracy evaluation and comparison of the vehicle landmark and orientation estimation network}
\begin{tabular}{|c|c|c|}
\cline{2-3}
\multicolumn{1}{c|}{} & Stage 1 & Stage 2 \\ \hline
Key-point localization MSE (pixel) & 1.95 & \textbf{1.56} \\
\hline
Orientation Accuracy & - & 84.44\% \\
\hline
\hline
\multicolumn{3}{|c|}{Key-Point Precision Comparison} \\
\hline
\hline
Model & $r_0 = 3$ & $r_0 = 5$ \\
\hline
OIFE \cite{wang2017orientation} & 88.8\% & 92.05\%\\
\hline
Ours & \textbf{95.30\%} & \textbf{97.11\%} \\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\label{tab:kp_net_acc}
\end{table}
\subsection{Evaluation Results on VeRi-776}
Table \ref{tab:baseline_proposed_comparison} summarizes the results of the global appearance model (baseline) and the proposed AAVER model with adaptive attention. Note that in both ResNet-50 and ResNet-101 -based architectures, there is a significant improvement in mAP and CMC@1 scores after incorporating adaptive attention. This indicates that conditioning on the orientation of the vehicle and selecting corresponding key-points enables the network to focus more on parts that contains minute differences in similar cars. This claim is further studied in section \ref{subsec:ablation}. Unsurprisingly, we also observe that ResNet-101 shows better performance compared to ResNet-50 under similar settings.
\begin{table}[!htb]
\centering
\caption{Performance comparison between baseline and the proposed method on VeRi-776 dataset}
\resizebox{\columnwidth}{!}{%
\begin{tabular}{|c|c|c|c|c|}
\hline
\multicolumn{2}{|c||}{Model} & mAP & CMC@1 & CMC@5 \\
\hline
\multicolumn{1}{|c}{\multirow{2}{*}{Baseline}} & \multicolumn{1}{|c||}{ResNet-50} & 52.88 & 83.49 & 92.31 \\
\cline{2-5}
\multicolumn{1}{|c}{} & \multicolumn{1}{|c||}{ResNet-101} & 55.75 & 84.74 & 94.34 \\
\hline
\hline
\multicolumn{1}{|c}{\multirow{2}{*}{AAVER}} & \multicolumn{1}{|c||}{ResNet-50} & 58.52 & 88.68 & 94.10 \\
\cline{2-5}
\multicolumn{1}{|c}{} & \multicolumn{1}{|c||}{ResNet-101} & \textbf{61.18} & \textbf{88.97} & \textbf{94.70} \\
\hline
\end{tabular}
}
\label{tab:baseline_proposed_comparison}
\end{table}
Figure \ref{fig:baseline_VS_proposed_1} plots the probe image and the top three returns of each baseline and the proposed model. It can be observed that AAVER significantly improves the performance over the baseline.
\begin{figure}
\centering
\begin{tabular}[t]{cc}
\begin{subfigure}{0.16\textwidth}
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth,height=\textwidth]{probe1.eps}
\caption{Probe Image}
\end{subfigure}
\hspace{-0.2cm}
&
\begin{tabular}{ccc}
\begin{subfigure}[t]{0.08\textwidth}
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{GeneralReturn1_1.eps}
\caption{Rank $1$}
\end{subfigure}
\hspace{-0.2cm}
&
\begin{subfigure}[t]{0.08\textwidth}
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{GeneralReturn1_2.eps}
\caption{Rank $2$}
\end{subfigure}
\hspace{-0.2cm}
&
\begin{subfigure}[t]{0.08\textwidth}
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{GeneralReturn1_3.eps}
\caption{Rank $3$}
\end{subfigure}
\\
\begin{subfigure}[t]{0.08\textwidth}
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{PartReturn1_1.eps}
\caption{Rank $1$}
\end{subfigure}
\hspace{-0.2cm}
&
\begin{subfigure}[t]{0.08\textwidth}
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{PartReturn1_2.eps}
\caption{Rank $2$}
\end{subfigure}
\hspace{-0.2cm}
&
\begin{subfigure}[t]{0.08\textwidth}
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{PartReturn1_3.eps}
\caption{Rank $3$}
\end{subfigure}
\end{tabular}
\end{tabular}
\caption{Top three returned results of the baseline model (sub-figures b-d) versus the AAVER model (sub-figures e-g) on VeRi-776 dataset}
\label{fig:baseline_VS_proposed_1}
\end{figure}
\subsection{Evaluation Results on VehicleID}
Images in this dataset have less variations in viewpoint, \emph{i.e.} mostly front and rear, compared to VeRi-776 dataset. For this dataset, the evaluation metrics are only CMC@1 and CMC@5 as there is only one true match in the gallery for each probe image. Table \ref{tab:baseline_proposed_comparison_Vehicle_ID} presents the re-identification results of baseline and the proposed models over test splits. As compared to baseline models, a significant increase in performance is observed when features from adaptive attention-based path are fused with global appearance features.
\begin{table}[!htb]
\centering
\caption{Performance comparison between baseline and proposed method on VehicleID dataset}
\resizebox{\columnwidth}{!}{%
\begin{tabular}{cc|c|c|c|c|}
\cline{3-6}
& & \multicolumn{2}{c|}{Baseline Model} & \multicolumn{2}{|c|}{AAVER Model} \\
\cline{2-6}
& \multicolumn{1}{|c|}{Split} & ResNet-50 & ResNet-101 & \multicolumn{1}{|c|}{ResNet-50} & ResNet-101 \\
\cline{2-6}
\hline
\multicolumn{1}{|c}{\multirow{3}{*}{CMC@1}} & \multicolumn{1}{|c||}{800} & 67.27 & 70.03 & \multicolumn{1}{|c|}{72.47} & \textbf{74.69} \\ \cline{2-6}
\multicolumn{1}{ |c }{} &
\multicolumn{1}{|c||}{1600} & 62.03 & 65.26 & \multicolumn{1}{|c|}{66.85} & \textbf{68.62} \\ \cline{2-6}
\multicolumn{1}{ |c }{} &
\multicolumn{1}{|c||}{2400} & 55.12 & 59.04 & \multicolumn{1}{|c|}{60.23} & \textbf{63.54} \\ \cline{1-6}
\hline
\hline
\multicolumn{1}{|c}{\multirow{3}{*}{CMC@5}} & \multicolumn{1}{|c||}{800} & 89.05 & 89.81 & \multicolumn{1}{|c|}{93.22} & \textbf{93.82} \\ \cline{2-6}
\multicolumn{1}{ |c }{} &
\multicolumn{1}{|c||}{1600} & 84.31 & 84.96 & \multicolumn{1}{|c|}{89.39} & \textbf{89.95} \\ \cline{2-6}
\multicolumn{1}{ |c }{} &
\multicolumn{1}{|c||}{2400} & 80.04 & 80.60 & \multicolumn{1}{|c|}{84.85} & \textbf{85.64} \\ \cline{1-6}
\end{tabular}
}
\label{tab:baseline_proposed_comparison_Vehicle_ID}
\end{table}
Figure \ref{fig:baseline_VS_proposed_5} shows an examples of a query from VehicleID dataset and the top three results returned by both global and adaptive attention model.
\begin{figure}
\centering
\begin{tabular}[t]{cc}
\begin{subfigure}{0.16\textwidth}
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{probe5.eps}
\caption{Probe Image}
\end{subfigure}
\hspace{-0.4cm}
&
\begin{tabular}{ccc}
\begin{subfigure}[t]{0.08\textwidth}
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{General_model_returns5_1.eps}
\caption{Rank $1$}
\end{subfigure}
\hspace{-0.1cm}
&
\begin{subfigure}[t]{0.08\textwidth}
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{General_model_returns5_2.eps}
\caption{Rank $2$}
\end{subfigure}
\hspace{-0.1cm}
&
\begin{subfigure}[t]{0.08\textwidth}
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{General_model_returns5_3.eps}
\caption{Rank $3$}
\end{subfigure}
\\
\begin{subfigure}[t]{0.08\textwidth}
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{Part_model_returns5_1.eps}
\caption{Rank$1$}
\end{subfigure}
\hspace{-0.1cm}
&
\begin{subfigure}[t]{0.08\textwidth}
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{Part_model_returns5_2.eps}
\caption{Rank $2$}
\end{subfigure}
\hspace{-0.1cm}
&
\begin{subfigure}[t]{0.08\textwidth}
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{Part_model_returns5_3.eps}
\caption{Rank $3$}
\end{subfigure}
\end{tabular}
\end{tabular}
\caption{Top three returned results of the baseline model (sub-figures b-d) versus the AAVER model (sub-figures e-g) on VehicleID dataset}
\label{fig:baseline_VS_proposed_5}
\end{figure}
\subsection{Comparison with State of the Art Methods}
In this section, we compare AAVER model with ResNet-101 backbone against the recent state of the art methods. The results of this comparison are presented in Table \ref{tab:state_of_art_comp}.
\begin{table*}[t]
\centering
\caption{Comparison with recent methods and state of the arts}
\label{tab:state_of_art_comp}
\resizebox{2.1\columnwidth}{!}{%
\begin{tabular}{c|c|c|cc|c|c|c|c|c|}
\cline{2-10}
& \multicolumn{9}{c|}{Dataset} \\
\cline{2-10}
& \multicolumn{3}{c}{\multirow{2}{*}{VeRi-776}} & \multicolumn{6}{||c|}{VehicleID} \\ \cline{5-10}
& \multicolumn{3}{c}{} & \multicolumn{2}{||c|}{Test size = 800} & \multicolumn{2}{c|}{Test size = 1600} & \multicolumn{2}{c|}{Test size = 2400} \\
\cline{1-10}
\multicolumn{1}{|c|}{Method} & mAP & CMC@1 & CMC@5 & \multicolumn{1}{||c|}{CMC@1} & \multicolumn{1}{c|}{CMC@5} & CMC@1 & CMC@5 & CMC@1 & CMC@5 \\
\hline
\hline
\multicolumn{1}{|c|}{SCPL \cite{shen2017learning}} & 58.27 & 83.49 & 90.04 & \multicolumn{1}{||c|}{-} & - & - & - & - & - \\
\hline
\multicolumn{1}{|c|}{OIFE \cite{wang2017orientation}} & 48.00 & 65.9 & 87.7 & \multicolumn{1}{||c|}{-} & - & - & - & - & - \\
\hline
\multicolumn{1}{|c|}{VAMI \cite{zhou2018viewpoint}} & 50.13 & 77.03 & 90.82 & \multicolumn{1}{||c|}{63.12} & 83.25 & 52.87 & 75.12 & 47.34 & 70.29 \\
\hline
\multicolumn{1}{|c|}{RAM \cite{liu2018ram}} & 61.5 & 88.6 & 94.0 & \multicolumn{1}{||c|}{\textbf{75.2}} & 91.5 & \textbf{72.3} & 87.0 & \textbf{67.7} & 84.5 \\
\hline
\hline
\multicolumn{1}{|c|}{AAVER} & 61.18 & 88.97 & \textbf{94.70} & \multicolumn{1}{||c|}{74.69} & \textbf{93.82} & 68.62 & \textbf{89.95} & 63.54 & \textbf{85.64} \\
\hline
\multicolumn{1}{|c|}{AAVER + Re-ranking} & \textbf{66.35} & \textbf{90.17} & 94.34 & \multicolumn{1}{||c|}{-} & - & - & - & - & - \\
\hline
\end{tabular}
}
\end{table*}
From Table \ref{tab:state_of_art_comp}, it can be observed that our proposed method is among the top performers of vehicle re-identification task and is the state of the art for most of the evaluation metrics on both VeRi-776 and VehicleID datasets. Note that in the absence of a deterministic test set for VehicleID dataset, one cannot provide the basis for a fair comparison. The reason lies in the fact that random gallery construction yields different evaluation results with relatively high variance even when averaged over ten repetitions. Finally, we have to emphasize on the necessity of using re-ranking as a post processing step whenever there are multiple instances of the probe image in the gallery. Here for the VeRi-776 dataset, re-ranking shows significant improvement and results in state of the art mAP and CMC@1 scores. Note that for VehicleID dataset re-ranking is not applicable as there is only one true match in the gallery for each probe image.
\subsection{Ablation Studies}\label{subsec:ablation}
We designed a set of experiments to study the impact of complementary information that the orientation conditioned branch provides. Note that in these experiments we only use the test split $800$ for the VehicleID dataset To this end, the following experiments have been conducted:
\begin{enumerate}
\item In the first experiment we examined the depth of the layer in the global branch from which the global features are pooled and then fed to the orientation conditioned branch. To investigate this we tried pooling features after Res2, Res3 and Res4 blocks of spatial size of $56\times56$, $28\times28$ and $14\times14$. Table \ref{tab:which_layer_to_pool} demonstrates the results of this experiment. It can be observed that as we go from shallow to deeper layers,
the features become more abstract and focusing on parts of deep feature maps do not help in providing a robust representation of vehicles with minute differences.
\begin{table}[h]
\centering
\caption{Experiment 1: Depth of pooled global features}
\resizebox{\columnwidth}{!}{%
\begin{tabular}{|c|c|c|c|c|}
\cline{1-5}
Dataset & features size & mAP & CMC@1 & CMC@5 \\
\hline
\multirow{3}{*}{VeRi-776} & $56\times56$ & \textbf{0.612} & \textbf{88.97} & \textbf{94.70} \\
\cline{2-5}
& $28\times28$ & 0.608 & 88.50 & 94.58 \\
\cline{2-5}
& $14\times14$ & 0.597 & 85.88 & 93.03 \\
\hline
\hline
\multirow{3}{*}{VehicleID} & $56\times56$ & - & \textbf{74.69} & \textbf{93.82} \\
\cline{2-5}
& $28\times28$ & - & 72.60 & 93.24 \\
\cline{2-5}
& $14\times14$ & - & 71.09 & 92.13 \\
\hline
\end{tabular}
}
\label{tab:which_layer_to_pool}
\end{table}
\item In our method, we use two streams for extracting global and local features from vehicle images, so we were keen to see whether a single branch can extract discriminative features that encompass global as well as local differences. To test this hypothesis, instead of pooling features from the global branch we fused the selected heatmaps into the global branch by concatenation and used the output as the representation for a vehicle image.
Table \ref{tab:single_vs_two_stream} depicts the result of this experiment, for both VeRi and VehicleID datasets. we can infer that the re-identification performance drops
significantly by relying on a single branch.
\begin{table}[h]
\centering
\caption{Experiment 2: Single versus Dual-branch feature extraction}
\begin{tabular}{|c|c|c|c|c|}
\cline{1-5}
Dataset & Type & mAP & CMC@1 & CMC@5 \\
\hline
\multirow{2}{*}{VeRi-776} & Single & 0.528 & 80.93 & 90.52 \\
\cline{2-5}
& Dual & \textbf{0.612} & \textbf{88.97} & \textbf{94.70} \\
\hline
\hline
\multirow{2}{*}{VehicleID} & Single & - & 69.61 & 91.45 \\
\cline{2-5}
& Dual & - & \textbf{74.69} & \textbf{93.82} \\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\label{tab:single_vs_two_stream}
\end{table}
\vspace{-0.2cm}
\item In the final set of experiments we scrutinize the way in which the information from vehicle key-point heatmaps are incorporated in the proposed model. Our work is in some aspects similar to \cite{wang2017orientation} which groups a fixed set of key-points and combines all the corresponding heatmaps into one map by adding them together. Therefore, we conduct this experiment under the same settings as of \cite{wang2017orientation}. Table \ref{tab:keypoint_heatmap_incorporation}
shows the results of these experiments. The type "Combined" in Table \ref{tab:keypoint_heatmap_incorporation} refers to the method in \cite{wang2017orientation}. We can conclude that using all heatmaps combined into one group does not result in competitive results as the adaptive selection of heatmaps.
This validates the hypothesis that not all the key-points contribute to a discriminative representation of the vehicle.
\begin{table}[h]
\centering
\caption{Experiment 3: Key-points heatmaps utilization}
\resizebox{\columnwidth}{!}{%
\begin{tabular}{|c|c|c|c|c|}
\cline{1-5}
Dataset & Type & mAP & CMC@1 & CMC@5 \\
\hline
\hline
\multirow{2}{*}{VeRi-776} & Combined\cite{wang2017orientation} & 0.606 & 87.66 & 94.17\\
\cline{2-5}
& AAVER & \textbf{0.612} & \textbf{88.97} & \textbf{94.70} \\
\hline
\hline
\multirow{2}{*}{VehicleID} & Combined\cite{wang2017orientation} & - & 71.79 & 92.10\\
\cline{2-5}
& AAVER & - & \textbf{74.69} & \textbf{93.82} \\
\hline
\end{tabular}
}
\label{tab:keypoint_heatmap_incorporation}
\end{table}
\end{enumerate}
\section{Introduction}\label{sec:intro}
Vehicle re-identification (re-id) refers to the task of retrieving all images of a particular vehicle identity in a large gallery set, composed of vehicle images taken from varying orientations, cameras, time and locations. Accurately re-identifying vehicles from images and videos, is of great interest in surveillance and intelligence applications. In contrast to vehicle recognition which aims to identify the make and model of the vehicle, vehicle re-id is concerned with identifying specific vehicle instances. This task is extremely challenging as vehicles with different identities can be of the same make, model and color, and thus it is challenging for a Deep Convolutional Neural Network (DCNN) to make accurate predictions. In this paper, we present a novel algorithm driven by adaptive attention for re-identifying vehicles from still images without using information from other sources such as time and location.
The similar task of person re-id aims at re-identifying humans appearing in different cameras. While visual appearance models work reasonably well for person re-id, the same techniques fail to differentiate vehicles due to the lack of highly discriminating features. Person re-id models are not heavily reliant on facial features as they also learn discriminating features based on clothing and accessories. However, vehicle re-id poses a new set of challenges. Different vehicle identities can have similar colors and shapes especially those coming from the same manufacturer with a particular model, trim and year. Subtle cues such as different wheel patterns and custom logos might be unavailable in the global appearance features. Therefore, it is important that vehicle re-id model learns to focus on different parts of the vehicles while making a decision. Previous works in person re-id such as \cite{Xu_2018_CVPR} have used attention models with human key-points as regions of attention and have shown significant improvement in performance. Similarly, methods such as \cite{wang2017orientation} have used vehicle key-points to learn attention maps for each of the $20$ key-points defined by \cite{wang2017orientation}. The system proposed by Wang \emph{et al.}\cite{wang2017orientation} grouped key-points into four groups corresponding to front, rear, left and right.
\begin{figure}[t]
\centering
\begin{subfigure}[t]{0.075\textwidth}
\centering
\includegraphics[height=1.35cm,width=1.35cm]{Rear_view_crop.eps}
\end{subfigure}
\begin{subfigure}[t]{0.075\textwidth}
\centering
\includegraphics[height=1.35cm,width=1.35cm]{fp_front.eps}
\caption{Front}
\label{fig:fig_1a}
\end{subfigure}
\begin{subfigure}[t]{0.075\textwidth}
\centering
\includegraphics[height=1.35cm,width=1.35cm]{fp_left.eps}
\caption{Left}
\end{subfigure}
\begin{subfigure}[t]{0.075\textwidth}
\centering
\includegraphics[height=1.35cm,width=1.35cm]{fp_right.eps}
\caption{Right}
\end{subfigure}
\begin{subfigure}[t]{0.075\textwidth}
\centering
\includegraphics[height=1.35cm,width=1.35cm]{fp_rear.eps}
\caption{Rear}
\end{subfigure}
\caption{Heatmaps grouped as suggested in \cite{wang2017orientation}. Attention to
all subgroup of key-points leads to erroneous results. Although, only the rear of the car is visible, contributions from frontal key-points are non-zero.}
\label{fig:fig_1}
\end{figure}
However, not all key-points provide discriminating information and their respective contributions depend on the orientation of the vehicle. For instance, in Figure \ref{fig:fig_1a} we observe that the key-points from the front of the car incorrectly influence the attention of the model as the front of the car is not visible. Hence, paying attention to all the key-points, as suggested in \cite{wang2017orientation}, can lead to erroneous results. The proposed method tackles the problem of false attention by adaptively choosing the key-points to focus on, based on the orientation of the vehicle hence, providing complementary information to global appearance features. In this work, terms with same connotation, \textit{path}, \textit{stream} and \textit{branch}, have been used interchangeably.
In the proposed method, the first stream is a DCNN trained to extract discriminative global appearance features for each vehicle identity. However, this stream often fails to extract subtle features necessary to distinguish similar vehicles. Therefore, a second path composed of orientation conditioned key-point selection and localized feature extraction modules is used in parallel to supplement the features from the first path. By using orientation as a conditioning factor for adaptive key-point selection, the model learns to focus on the most informative parts of the vehicle. Additionally, we develop a fully convolutional two-stage key-point detection model inspired by the works of Kumar \emph{et al.}\cite{Kumar_2018_CVPR} and Bulat \emph{et al.}\cite{bulat2016human} for facial key-point detection and human pose estimation respectively.
The detailed architectures of each module in the proposed method are discussed in section \ref{sec:proposed}. Through extensive experimentation, we show that the proposed Adaptive Attention model for Vehicle Re-identification (AAVER) approach improves the re-id accuracy on challenging datasets such as VeRi-776 \cite{liu2016large,liu2016deep_Veri} and VehicleID \cite{liu2016deep_VehicleID}. In addition, the proposed vehicle key-point detection model, improves the accuracy by more than $7\%$ over state of the art.
\subsection{Metric Learning}
Another effective strategy to learn the discriminative representation is metric learning. Zhang \emph{et al.}\cite{zhang2017improving} proposed an improved triplet loss which performs joint optimization with an auxiliary classification loss as a regularizer in order to characterize intra-sample variances. Bai \emph{et al.}\cite{8265213} introduced Group-Sensitive triplet embeding to better model the intra-class variance. Shen \emph{et al.}~\cite{shen2017learning} also proposed to improve the matching performance by making use of spatio-temporal information; they developed a Siamese-CNN with path LSTM model which generates the corresponding candidate visual-spatio-temporal paths of an actual vehicle image by a chain-based Markov random field (MRF) model with a deeply learned potential function.
In contrast, the proposed method uses the $L_2$ softmax \cite{ranjan2017l2} loss function as it has shown impressive performance for the task of face verification and trains faster compared to triplet loss-based methods such as \cite{zhang2017improving} without the hassle of sampling hard triplets.
\section{Adaptive Attention Vehicle Re-identification (AAVER)}
\label{sec:proposed}
\begin{figure*}[ht]
\centering
\includegraphics[width=\linewidth]{Entire-Model_pipeline.eps}
\caption{Adaptive Attention Vehicle Re-identification (AAVER) Model Pipeline. The input vehicle image is processed in parallel along two paths: In the first path, the global appearance features ($f_g$) are extracted. The second path is responsible for detecting vehicle key-points and predicting its orientation, after which localized features ($f_l$) are extracted based on adaptive key-point selection. Subsequently, the two feature vectors $f_g$ and $f_l$ are fused with a shallow multi-layer perceptron.}
\label{fig:partmodel}
\end{figure*}
The entire pipeline of the proposed method AAVER is composed of three main modules: \textbf{Global Feature Extraction}, \textbf{Vehicle Key-Point and Viewpoint Estimation}, and \textbf{Adaptive Key-Point Selection and Feature Extraction} which is followed by a re-ranking based post-processing. Figure \ref{fig:partmodel} shows the diagrammatic overview of our method.
In AAVER, the global feature extraction module is responsible for extracting the macroscopic features ($f_g$) of the vehicles. By looking at the entire vehicle, this model tries to maximally separate the identities in the feature space. However, this model may fail to take into account subtle differences between similar cars, most extremely the ones that are of the same make, model and color. Therefore, the features generated by this module are supplemented with features ($f_l$) from the localized feature extraction module. This can be achieved by the adaptive attention strategy using the proposed key-point and orientation estimation network.
In order to estimate the vehicle key-points, we draw inspiration from literature on facial key-point detection and human pose estimation. Inspired by \cite{Kumar_2018_CVPR,bulat2016human} we employ a two-stage model to predict the vehicle's orientation and landmarks in a coarse to fine manner; the coarse heatmaps predicted by a DCNN are refined using a shallower network.
Finally, we use the proposed adaptive key-point selection module to select a subset of most informative key-points and pool features from early layers of the global feature extraction module to extract localized features around the selected key-points. The features obtained from the two paths of AAVER are then merged using a multi-layer perceptron. The entire model can be trained end-to-end using any differentiable loss function. In our work, we use the $L_2$ softmax loss as proposed in \cite{ranjan2017l2}.
During inference, we use the features from penultimate fully connected layer as the representation of a given vehicle. Additionally, we also perform re-ranking\cite{zhong2017re} as a post processing step.
Each module is described in detail in the following sub sections. Pytorch deep learning framework \cite{paszke2017automatic} has been used in all of the experiments.
\input{pirazh.tex}
\input{saket.tex}
\subsection{Network and Implementation Details}
\begin{figure}
\centering
\begin{subfigure}[b]{0.16\textwidth}
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{Figures/probe2.pdf}
\caption{Probe Image}
\end{subfigure} \\
\begin{subfigure}[b]{0.08\textwidth}
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{Figures/GeneralReturn2_1.pdf}
\caption{Top $1$}
\end{subfigure}
\begin{subfigure}[b]{0.08\textwidth}
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{Figures/GeneralReturn2_2.pdf}
\caption{Top $2$}
\end{subfigure}
\begin{subfigure}[b]{0.08\textwidth}
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{Figures/GeneralReturn2_3.pdf}
\caption{Top $3$}
\end{subfigure}
\begin{subfigure}[b]{0.08\textwidth}
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{Figures/GeneralReturn2_4.pdf}
\caption{Top $4$}
\end{subfigure}
\begin{subfigure}[b]{0.08\textwidth}
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{Figures/GeneralReturn2_5.pdf}
\caption{Top $5$}
\end{subfigure}
\\
\begin{subfigure}[b]{0.08\textwidth}
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{Figures/PartReturn2_1.pdf}
\caption{Top $1$}
\end{subfigure}
\begin{subfigure}[b]{0.08\textwidth}
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{Figures/PartReturn2_2.pdf}
\caption{Top $2$}
\end{subfigure}
\begin{subfigure}[b]{0.08\textwidth}
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{Figures/PartReturn2_3.pdf}
\caption{Top $3$}
\end{subfigure}
\begin{subfigure}[b]{0.08\textwidth}
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{Figures/PartReturn2_4.pdf}
\caption{Top $4$}
\end{subfigure}
\begin{subfigure}[b]{0.08\textwidth}
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{Figures/PartReturn2_5.pdf}
\caption{Top $5$}
\end{subfigure}
\caption{Comparison between Feature embedding of Baseline versus Proposed method in Veri 776 dataset; first row, sub figure a, is the probe image, second row, sub figures b to f, and the third row, sub figures g to k, are 5 returns of baseline model and proposed method with the highest similarity to the probe image.}
\label{fig:baseline_VS_proposed_2}
\end{figure}
\begin{figure}
\centering
\begin{subfigure}[b]{0.16\textwidth}
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{Figures/prob6.pdf}
\caption{Probe Image}
\end{subfigure} \\
\begin{subfigure}[b]{0.08\textwidth}
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{Figures/General_model_returns6_1.pdf}
\caption{Top $1$}
\end{subfigure}
\begin{subfigure}[b]{0.08\textwidth}
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{Figures/General_model_returns6_2.pdf}
\caption{Top $2$}
\end{subfigure}
\begin{subfigure}[b]{0.08\textwidth}
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{Figures/General_model_returns6_3.pdf}
\caption{Top $3$}
\end{subfigure}
\begin{subfigure}[b]{0.08\textwidth}
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{Figures/General_model_returns6_4.pdf}
\caption{Top $4$}
\end{subfigure}
\begin{subfigure}[b]{0.08\textwidth}
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{Figures/General_model_returns6_5.pdf}
\caption{Top $5$}
\end{subfigure}
\\
\begin{subfigure}[b]{0.08\textwidth}
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{Figures/Part_model_returns6_1.pdf}
\caption{Top $1$}
\end{subfigure}
\begin{subfigure}[b]{0.08\textwidth}
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{Figures/Part_model_returns6_2.pdf}
\caption{Top $2$}
\end{subfigure}
\begin{subfigure}[b]{0.08\textwidth}
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{Figures/Part_model_returns6_3.pdf}
\caption{Top $3$}
\end{subfigure}
\begin{subfigure}[b]{0.08\textwidth}
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{Figures/Part_model_returns6_4.pdf}
\caption{Top $4$}
\end{subfigure}
\begin{subfigure}[b]{0.08\textwidth}
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{Figures/Part_model_returns6_5.pdf}
\caption{Top $5$}
\end{subfigure}
\caption{Comparison between Feature embedding of Baseline versus Proposed method in Vehicle-ID; first row, sub figure a, is the probe image, second row, sub figures b to f, and the third row, sub figures g to k, are 5 returns of baseline model and proposed method with the highest similarity to the probe image.}
\label{fig:baseline_VS_proposed_6}
\end{figure}
\begin{figure}
\centering
\begin{subfigure}[b]{0.16\textwidth}
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{Figures/probe1.pdf}
\caption{Probe Image}
\end{subfigure} \\
\begin{subfigure}[b]{0.08\textwidth}
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{Figures/GeneralReturn1_1.pdf}
\caption{Top $1$}
\end{subfigure}
\begin{subfigure}[b]{0.08\textwidth}
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{Figures/GeneralReturn1_2.pdf}
\caption{Top $2$}
\end{subfigure}
\begin{subfigure}[b]{0.08\textwidth}
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{Figures/GeneralReturn1_3.pdf}
\caption{Top $3$}
\end{subfigure}
\begin{subfigure}[b]{0.08\textwidth}
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{Figures/GeneralReturn1_4.pdf}
\caption{Top $4$}
\end{subfigure}
\begin{subfigure}[b]{0.08\textwidth}
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{Figures/GeneralReturn1_5.pdf}
\caption{Top $5$}
\end{subfigure}
\\
\begin{subfigure}[b]{0.08\textwidth}
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{Figures/PartReturn1_1.pdf}
\caption{Top $1$}
\end{subfigure}
\begin{subfigure}[b]{0.08\textwidth}
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{Figures/PartReturn1_2.pdf}
\caption{Top $2$}
\end{subfigure}
\begin{subfigure}[b]{0.08\textwidth}
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{Figures/PartReturn1_3.pdf}
\caption{Top $3$}
\end{subfigure}
\begin{subfigure}[b]{0.08\textwidth}
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{Figures/PartReturn1_4.pdf}
\caption{Top $4$}
\end{subfigure}
\begin{subfigure}[b]{0.08\textwidth}
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{Figures/PartReturn1_5.pdf}
\caption{Top $5$}
\end{subfigure}
\caption{Comparison between Feature embedding of Baseline versus Proposed method in Veri 776 dataset; first row, sub figure a, is the probe image, second row, sub figures b to f, and the third row, sub figures g to k, are 5 returns of baseline model and proposed method with the highest similarity to the probe image.}
\label{fig:baseline_VS_proposed_1}
\end{figure}
\subsection{Global Feature Extraction} \label{subsec:global}
For extracting the global appearance features, we employ ResNet-50 and ResNet-101 \cite{DBLP:journals/corr/HeZRS15} as backbone networks and also adopt them as our baseline models. We initialized the weights of these models using the weights from the models pre-trained on the CompCars dataset. A $2048$-dimensional features vector from the last convolutional layer of ResNet is then fed to a shallow multi-layer perceptron. This network is trained using the $L_2$ softmax loss function which constrains the feature vectors extracted by the network to lie on a hyper-sphere of radius $\alpha$. This enables the network to embed features of identical vehicles together while pushing apart the features from different vehicles. It is mathematically expressed as:
\begin{equation}
\label{eqn:l2softmax}
\centering
\mathcal{L}_S = - \log \frac{\exp^(\mathbf{W}_{y}^T (\frac{\alpha \mathbf{x}}{\| \mathbf{x} \|_2}) + b_{y})}{\sum_{j = 1}^{N} \exp^(\mathbf{W}_j^T (\frac{\alpha \mathbf{x}}{\| \mathbf{x} \|_2}) + b_j)}
\end{equation}
\noindent
where $\mathbf{x}$ is the feature vector corresponding to class label $y$, $\mathbf{W}_j$ is the weight and $b_j$ is the bias corresponding to class j, $\alpha$ is a positive trainable scalar parameter, and $N$ is the number of classes respectively.
\subsection{Vehicle Key-Point and Orientation Estimation}
In this work, a two-stage model is proposed for key-point estimation. In the first stage, a VGG-16\cite{simonyan2014very} -based fully convolutional network is employed to do a coarse estimation of the location of $N_1$ ($N_1=21=$ 20 key-points plus background) heatmaps of size $H \times W$ ($56 \times 56$). This network is trained using a per-pixel multi-class cross entropy loss defined as follows:
\begin{equation}
\centering
\mathcal{L}_1 = \frac{-1}{H \times W} \sum_{i=1}^{H}\sum_{j=1}^{W}\log(\frac{\exp(\mathbf{x}_{i,j}({t^{*}}_{i,j}))}{\sum_{k=1}^{N_1}\exp(\mathbf{x}_{i,j}(k))})
\label{eqn:kpnet_stage1_loss}
\end{equation}
\noindent
where $\mathbf{x}_{i,j}$ is the vector corresponding to pixel location $i$ and $j$ across all output channels and $t^{*}_{i,j}$ is the ground-truth class label for that pixel location. After training the first stage, the weights of this network are frozen for training of the subsequent stage. The left side of Figure \ref{fig:KP_net} depicts the the output of the first stage for a sample vehicle image.
Although the responses of the first stage can be used for the prediction of visible key-point locations, there might be erroneous activations in the heatmaps that correspond to invisible key-points. Consequently, we use the second stage that takes in the sub-sampled version of the input image and the coarse estimates of key-points to refine the results. The refinement network follows the hourglass architecture introduced in \cite{newell2016stacked} which is commonly used for refining heatmaps and reducing artifacts due to invisible key-points. In the second stage, coarse heatmaps estimated from the first stage, are refined through a two-stack hourglass network with skip connections. Along with refining the estimated key-points, the orientation of the vehicle is also predicted through a parallel branch composed of two fully connected layers designed to classify the orientation into eight classes as defined in\cite{wang2017orientation}. This multi-task learning helps the refinement network to make accurate predictions of the visible key-points while reducing the response of invisible key-points. Figure \ref{fig:KP_net} shows the overall schematic flow of the two-stage network.
To train the heatmap refinement and orientation branches we use Mean Square Error (MSE) and cross entropy loss respectively. Equation \ref{eqn:kpnet_stage2_loss} represents the loss function used for the second stage. It is worth mentioning that in the second stage we are only interested in foreground heatmaps, hence, we exclude the refinement of the background channel.
\begin{equation}
\centering
\mathcal{L}_2 = \mathcal{L}_H + \lambda * \mathcal{L}_O
\label{eqn:kpnet_stage2_loss}
\end{equation}
where $\mathcal{L}_H$ is the heatmap regression loss:
\begin{equation}
\mathcal{L}_H = \sum_{k=1}^{N_2}\sum_{i=1}^{H}\sum_{j=1}^{W} {\mid h_{k}(i,j) - {h^{*}}_{k}(i,j)\mid}^2
\label{eqn:kpnet_stage2_Heatmaploss}
\end{equation}
and $\mathcal{L}_O$ is the orientation classification loss:
\begin{equation}
\mathcal{L}_O = -\log(\frac{\exp(\mathbf{p}(p^{*}))}{\sum_{i=1}^{N_p} \exp(\mathbf{p}(i))}).
\label{eqn:kpnet_stage2_poseloss}
\end{equation}
In Equation (\ref{eqn:kpnet_stage2_Heatmaploss}), $N_2 = N_1 -1$, $h_{k}(i,j)$ and $h^{*}_{k}(i,j)$ are predicted and ground-truth heatmaps in stage 2 for the $k^{th}$ key-point at locations $i$ and $j$ respectively. $\mathbf{p}$, $p^{*}$ and $N_p$ in Equation (\ref{eqn:kpnet_stage2_poseloss}) constitute the predicted orientation vector, the corresponding ground-truth orientation and number of classes respectively. Finally, $\lambda$ in Equation (\ref{eqn:kpnet_stage2_loss}) is a weight to balance the losses used in model optimization. In our experiments, $\lambda$ is set to $10$ obtained after cross-validation. In the right hand side of Figure \ref{fig:KP_net} which shows the the output of the second stage, it can be observed that the initial coarse estimates of key-points have been refined.
\subsection{Adaptive Key-Point Selection and Feature Extraction}
Subtle differences in similar vehicles mostly occur close to vehicle landmarks, \emph{e.g.} same car make and models of same color might be distinguishable through their window stickers, rims, indicator lights on the side mirrors, etc. This can be achieved by focusing the attention on parts of the image that encompasses these distinctions. To this end, regions of interest within the image are identified based on the orientation of the vehicle; after which features from the shallower layer of the global appearance model are pooled. As suggested in \cite{DBLP:journals/corr/ZeilerF13} these pooled features contain contextual rather than abstract information. Later, deep blocks (Res3, Res4 and Res5) of another ResNet model are used to extract supplementary features corresponding to the regions of interest.
In \cite{wang2017orientation}, vehicle's orientation is annotated into eight different classes, \emph{i.e.} rear, left ,left front, left rear, right, right front and right rear; however, there is no absolute boundary between two adjacent orientations. For instance, for the case of right and right front, the network gets confused between the two classes when trained for orientation prediction; this can be observed in Figure \ref{fig:pose_confusionmatrix} which shows the confusion matrix for the eight-class classification problem. To overcome this issue, we designed a key-point selector module that takes the predicted orientation likelihood vector and adaptively selects the key-points based on the likelihoods.
In order to achieve this, we constructed eight groups shown in Table \ref{tab:KP_selection_map} corresponding to each of the eight orientations of a vehicle and its two adjacent orientations. During inference, the likelihood of each orientation group is calculated and the one with the highest probability is picked. Also, experimentally it was observed that for each orientation group at least seven key-points are always visible. Consequently, given the orientation group with the highest probability we select the seven heatmaps shown in Table \ref{tab:KP_selection_map} corresponding to the respective orientation group. These orientation groups are named based on their center orientation \emph{e.g.} the group that contains left front, front and right front is named front.
\begin{table}
\centering
\caption{Seven Prominent key-points in each orientation group}
\resizebox{\columnwidth}{!}{%
\begin{tabular}{|c|P{5cm}|}
\hline
Orientation Group & Visible Key-Points \\
\hline\hline
Front & [11, 12, 7, 8, 9, 13, 14] \\
\hline
Rear & [18, 16, 15, 19, 17, 11, 12] \\
\hline
Left & [8, 1, 11, 14, 15, 2, 17] \\
\hline
Left Front & [9, 14, 6, 8, 11, 1, 15] \\
\hline
Left Rear & [2, 17, 15, 11, 14, 19, 1] \\
\hline
Right & [7, 3, 12, 13, 16, 4, 18] \\
\hline
Right Front & [9, 13, 5, 7, 12, 3, 16] \\
\hline
Right Rear & [3, 4, 12, 16, 18, 19, 13] \\
\hline
\end{tabular}
}
\label{tab:KP_selection_map}
\end{table}
After obtaining the seven heatmaps, for each map, a Gaussian kernel with $\sigma=2$ is placed in the location of the map's peak, \emph{i.e.} the key-point location. This is done in order to emphasize the importance of the surrounding areas around the key-points as they may have discriminative information.
Following the adaptive heatmap selection and dilation by the Gaussian kernel, is the localized feature extraction ($f_l$) by Res3, Res4 and Res5 blocks of the parallel ResNet model. The input to this sub-network is the concatenation of the seven dilated heatmaps of shape $7 \times 56 \times 56$ and the pooled global features of shape $256 \times 56 \times 56$. Finally, the localized features $f_l$ is concatenated with the global appearance features $f_g$ and passed through a multi-layer perceptron followed by $L_2$ softmax loss function (refer to Figure \ref{fig:partmodel}). Given that features are normalized, we use cosine similarity to calculate the similarity score between image pairs.
\subsection{Post Processing Step: Re-Ranking}\label{reranking}
In general, Re-ID can be regarded as a retrieval problem. Given a probe vehicle, we want to search in the gallery for images containing the same vehicle in a cross-camera mode. After an initial ranking list is obtained, a good practice consists of adding a re-ranking step, with the expectation that the relevant images will receive higher ranks. Such re-ranking steps have been mostly studied in generic instance retrievals such as \cite{qin2011hello}, \cite{chum2007total}, \cite{jegou2007contextual} and \cite{zhong2017re}.
The main advantage of many re-ranking methods is that they can be implemented without requiring additional training samples, and also can be applied to any initial ranking list.
Significant amount of research in person re-id goes into re-ranking strategies and vehicle re-id is lacking in that aspect. Most of the state of the art methods for vehicle re-id do not perform re-ranking on their initial ranking list.
We use the re-ranking strategy proposed by Zhong et al. \cite{zhong2017re} in our work.
\section{Related Work}\label{sec:related}
\input{jc.tex}
\section*{Supplementary Material}
\noindent
In this section we present the performance of our method on the newly released VeRi-Wild dataset\cite{lou2019large}. This dataset is collected in a network of 174 surveillance cameras covering a large urban area and captures unconstrained scenarios. It is composed of 416,314 images (277,797/138,517 for train/test sets) of 40,671 different vehicle identities. The test set, similar to VehicleID dataset is divided into three Small (41,861), Medium (69,389) and Large (138,517) images splits. The evaluation for this dataset follows the same protocol as VeRi-776. Table \ref{tab:baseline_proposed_comparison_VeRi-Wild} summarizes the result of our baseline and proposed AAVER model.
\begin{table}[hbt!]
\centering
\caption{Performance comparison between baseline and proposed method on VeRi-Wild dataset}
\resizebox{1.05\columnwidth}{!}{%
\begin{tabular}{cc|c|c|c|c|}
\cline{3-6}
& & \multicolumn{2}{c|}{Baseline Model} & \multicolumn{2}{|c|}{AAVER Model} \\
\cline{2-6}
& \multicolumn{1}{|c|}{Split} & ResNet-50 & ResNet-101 & \multicolumn{1}{|c|}{ResNet-50} & ResNet-101 \\
\cline{2-6}
\hline
\multicolumn{1}{|c}{\multirow{3}{*}{mAP}} & \multicolumn{1}{|c||}{Small} & 60.22 & 60.99 & \multicolumn{1}{|c|}{60.62} & \textbf{62.23} \\ \cline{2-6}
\multicolumn{1}{ |c }{} &
\multicolumn{1}{|c||}{Medium} & 51.21 & 52.49 & \multicolumn{1}{|c|}{51.77} & \textbf{53.66} \\ \cline{2-6}
\multicolumn{1}{ |c }{} &
\multicolumn{1}{|c||}{Large} & 38.89 & 38.99 & \multicolumn{1}{|c|}{40.42} & \textbf{41.68} \\ \cline{1-6}
\hline
\hline
\multicolumn{1}{|c}{\multirow{3}{*}{CMC@1}} & \multicolumn{1}{|c||}{Small} & 71.37 & 72.97 & \multicolumn{1}{|c|}{74.60} & \textbf{75.80} \\ \cline{2-6}
\multicolumn{1}{ |c }{} &
\multicolumn{1}{|c||}{Medium} & 62.84 & 65.02 & \multicolumn{1}{|c|}{65.76} & \textbf{68.24} \\ \cline{2-6}
\multicolumn{1}{ |c }{} &
\multicolumn{1}{|c||}{Large} & 52.00 & 54.65 & \multicolumn{1}{|c|}{56.03} & \textbf{58.69} \\ \cline{1-6}
\hline
\hline
\multicolumn{1}{|c}{\multirow{3}{*}{CMC@5}} & \multicolumn{1}{|c||}{Small} & 90.10 & 91.57 & \multicolumn{1}{|c|}{91.60} & \textbf{92.70} \\ \cline{2-6}
\multicolumn{1}{ |c }{} &
\multicolumn{1}{|c||}{Medium} & 86.58 & 87.30 & \multicolumn{1}{|c|}{87.16} & \textbf{88.88} \\ \cline{2-6}
\multicolumn{1}{ |c }{} &
\multicolumn{1}{|c||}{Large} & 77.48 & 79.52 & \multicolumn{1}{|c|}{79.67} & \textbf{81.59} \\ \cline{1-6}
\end{tabular}
}
\label{tab:baseline_proposed_comparison_VeRi-Wild}
\end{table}
From Table \ref{tab:baseline_proposed_comparison_VeRi-Wild} it can be seen that for all splits of VeRi-Wild dataset like VeRi-776 and VehicleID datasets, a significant boost is obtained by conditioning the features on the vehicle's orientation and corresponding key-points.
Figure \ref{fig:baseline_VS_proposed_6} shows an examples of a query from VeRi-Wild dataset and the top three results returned by both global and adaptive attention models.
\begin{figure}[H]
\centering
\begin{tabular}[t]{cc}
\begin{subfigure}{0.16\textwidth}
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{query2_test.eps}
\caption{Probe Image}
\end{subfigure}
\hspace{-0.4cm}
&
\begin{tabular}{ccc}
\begin{subfigure}[t]{0.08\textwidth}
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{base1_test.eps}
\caption{Rank $1$}
\end{subfigure}
\hspace{-0.1cm}
&
\begin{subfigure}[t]{0.08\textwidth}
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{base2_test.eps}
\caption{Rank $2$}
\end{subfigure}
\hspace{-0.1cm}
&
\begin{subfigure}[t]{0.08\textwidth}
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{base3_test.eps}
\caption{Rank $3$}
\end{subfigure}
\\
\begin{subfigure}[t]{0.08\textwidth}
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{aaver1_test.eps}
\caption{Rank$1$}
\end{subfigure}
\hspace{-0.1cm}
&
\begin{subfigure}[t]{0.08\textwidth}
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{aaver2_test.eps}
\caption{Rank $2$}
\end{subfigure}
\hspace{-0.1cm}
&
\begin{subfigure}[t]{0.08\textwidth}
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{aaver3_test.eps}
\caption{Rank $3$}
\end{subfigure}
\end{tabular}
\end{tabular}
\caption{Top three returned results of the baseline model (sub-figures b-d) versus the AAVER model (sub-figures e-g) on VeRi-Wild dataset}
\label{fig:baseline_VS_proposed_6}
\end{figure}
| {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaArXiv"
} | 7,163 |
{"url":"https:\/\/www.weimengtw.com\/or\/414","text":"# \u9019\u500b\u554f\u984c\u662f\u5426\u5c6c\u65bc\u4efb\u4f55\u5e38\u898b\u7684\u554f\u984c\u5b9a\u7fa9\u3002...\u80cc\u5305\uff1f\n\n1. \u5982\u679c\u9078\u64c7$$i$$\u98050\u62161\u6b21\uff0c\u800c\u5c11\u65bc2\u6b21\uff0c\u5247\u6c92\u6709\u4efb\u4f55\u984d\u5916\u50f9\u503c\n2. \u6bcf\u500b\u9805\u76ee$$i$$ \u4e0d\u662f\u5fc5\u9808\u90fd\u9700\u8981\u9078\u64c7\n3. \u6bcf\u500b\u5b50\u96c6\u90fd\u662f\u9810\u5b9a\u7fa9\u7684\uff0c\u4e26\u4e14\u662f\u507d\u96a8\u6a5f\u7684\n\n$$----\u4ee5\u4e0b\u53ea\u662f\u53e6\u4e00\u7a2e\u5f62\u5f0f\u7684\u5617\u8a66----$$\n\n1\uff09\u6211\u6709\u4e00\u500b\u908f\u8f2f\u77e9\u9663M\uff08i\u884c\uff0cj col\uff09\uff0c\u5176\u4e2d\u884c\u8868\u793a\u7e3d\u9ad4\uff0c\u5217\u8868\u793a\u53ef\u7528\u7684\u5b50\u96c6\u30022\uff09\u76ee\u6a19\u662f\u512a\u5316\u5217\u5411\u91cf\uff08j\uff0c1\uff09\u7684F\uff0c\u8a72\u5411\u91cf\u8868\u793a\u5c0d\u6bcf\u500b\u5b50\u96c6\uff08M\u7684\u5217\uff09\u7684\u9078\u64c7\uff0c\u4ee5\u4f7fM x F\u22652\u7684\u5143\u7d20\u6578\u91cf\u6700\u5c11\uff1b3\uff09F\u53d7\u5236\u65bc\u60a8\u5fc5\u9808\u7cbe\u78ba\u9078\u64c7X\u500b\u5b50\u96c6\u7684\u60c5\u6cc1\u3002\n\ni = 1e6;j = 150\uff1bX = 140\n\nSet_Matrix = randi\uff08[0 1]\uff0ci\uff0cj\uff09;\n\nHere is a MILP formulation, in case you did something different. Let binary variable $$F_j$$ indicate whether subset $$j$$ is chosen. Let binary variable $$T_i$$ indicate whether item $$i$$ appears in two or more of the chosen subsets. The problem is to minimize $$\\sum_i T_i$$ subject to: \\begin{align} \\sum_j F_j &= 140 \\tag1 \\\\ \\sum_j M_{i,j} F_j - 1 &\\le 149 T_i &&\\text{for all i} \\tag2 \\end{align} Constraint $$(1)$$ is the cardinality constraint. Constraint $$(2)$$ enforces $$\\sum_j M_{i,j} F_j \\ge 2 \\implies T_i = 1$$. If most of these constraints are naturally satisfied anyway, you could generate them dynamically only if they are violated.","date":"2020-11-30 16:43:16","metadata":"{\"extraction_info\": {\"found_math\": true, \"script_math_tex\": 0, \"script_math_asciimath\": 0, \"math_annotations\": 0, \"math_alttext\": 0, \"mathml\": 0, \"mathjax_tag\": 0, \"mathjax_inline_tex\": 0, \"mathjax_display_tex\": 0, \"mathjax_asciimath\": 0, \"img_math\": 0, \"codecogs_latex\": 0, \"wp_latex\": 0, \"mimetex.cgi\": 0, \"\/images\/math\/codecogs\": 0, \"mathtex.cgi\": 0, \"katex\": 0, \"math-container\": 25, \"wp-katex-eq\": 0, \"align\": 1, \"equation\": 0, \"x-ck12\": 0, \"texerror\": 0, \"math_score\": 0.9991151690483093, \"perplexity\": 1072.5271982814384}, \"config\": {\"markdown_headings\": true, \"markdown_code\": true, \"boilerplate_config\": {\"ratio_threshold\": 0.3, \"absolute_threshold\": 10, \"end_threshold\": 15, \"enable\": true}, \"remove_buttons\": true, \"remove_image_figures\": true, \"remove_link_clusters\": true, \"table_config\": {\"min_rows\": 2, \"min_cols\": 3, \"format\": \"plain\"}, \"remove_chinese\": true, \"remove_edit_buttons\": true, \"extract_latex\": true}, \"warc_path\": \"s3:\/\/commoncrawl\/crawl-data\/CC-MAIN-2020-50\/segments\/1606141216897.58\/warc\/CC-MAIN-20201130161537-20201130191537-00095.warc.gz\"}"} | null | null |
namespace ash {
namespace {
constexpr char kUserActionBack[] = "back";
constexpr char kUserActionCancel[] = "cancel";
constexpr char kUserActionStartEnrollment[] = "startEnrollment";
constexpr char kUserActionReloadDefault[] = "reloadDefault";
constexpr char kUserActionRetry[] = "retry";
} // namespace
// static
std::string GaiaScreen::GetResultString(Result result) {
switch (result) {
case Result::BACK:
return "Back";
case Result::CANCEL:
return "Cancel";
case Result::ENTERPRISE_ENROLL:
return "EnterpriseEnroll";
case Result::START_CONSUMER_KIOSK:
return "StartConsumerKiosk";
}
}
GaiaScreen::GaiaScreen(base::WeakPtr<TView> view,
const ScreenExitCallback& exit_callback)
: BaseScreen(GaiaView::kScreenId, OobeScreenPriority::DEFAULT),
view_(std::move(view)),
exit_callback_(exit_callback) {}
GaiaScreen::~GaiaScreen() {
backlights_forced_off_observation_.Reset();
}
void GaiaScreen::LoadOnline(const AccountId& account) {
if (!view_)
return;
auto gaia_path = GaiaView::GaiaPath::kDefault;
if (!account.empty()) {
auto* user = user_manager::UserManager::Get()->FindUser(account);
DCHECK(user);
if (user && (user->IsChild() || features::IsGaiaReauthEndpointEnabled()))
gaia_path = GaiaView::GaiaPath::kReauth;
}
view_->SetGaiaPath(gaia_path);
view_->LoadGaiaAsync(account);
}
void GaiaScreen::LoadOnlineForChildSignup() {
if (!view_)
return;
view_->SetGaiaPath(GaiaView::GaiaPath::kChildSignup);
view_->LoadGaiaAsync(EmptyAccountId());
}
void GaiaScreen::LoadOnlineForChildSignin() {
if (!view_)
return;
view_->SetGaiaPath(GaiaView::GaiaPath::kChildSignin);
view_->LoadGaiaAsync(EmptyAccountId());
}
void GaiaScreen::ShowAllowlistCheckFailedError() {
if (!view_)
return;
view_->ShowAllowlistCheckFailedError();
}
void GaiaScreen::Reset() {
if (!view_)
return;
view_->SetGaiaPath(GaiaView::GaiaPath::kDefault);
view_->Reset();
}
void GaiaScreen::ReloadGaiaAuthenticator() {
if (!view_)
return;
view_->ReloadGaiaAuthenticator();
}
void GaiaScreen::ShowImpl() {
if (!view_)
return;
if (!backlights_forced_off_observation_.IsObserving()) {
backlights_forced_off_observation_.Observe(
Shell::Get()->backlights_forced_off_setter());
}
// Landed on the login screen. No longer skipping enrollment for tests.
context()->skip_to_login_for_tests = false;
view_->Show();
}
void GaiaScreen::HideImpl() {
if (!view_)
return;
view_->SetGaiaPath(GaiaView::GaiaPath::kDefault);
view_->Hide();
backlights_forced_off_observation_.Reset();
}
void GaiaScreen::OnUserAction(const base::Value::List& args) {
const std::string& action_id = args[0].GetString();
if (action_id == kUserActionBack) {
exit_callback_.Run(Result::BACK);
} else if (action_id == kUserActionCancel) {
exit_callback_.Run(Result::CANCEL);
} else if (action_id == kUserActionStartEnrollment) {
exit_callback_.Run(Result::ENTERPRISE_ENROLL);
} else if (action_id == kUserActionReloadDefault) {
Reset();
LoadOnline(EmptyAccountId());
} else if (action_id == kUserActionRetry) {
LoadOnline(EmptyAccountId());
} else {
BaseScreen::OnUserAction(args);
}
}
bool GaiaScreen::HandleAccelerator(LoginAcceleratorAction action) {
if (action == LoginAcceleratorAction::kStartEnrollment) {
exit_callback_.Run(Result::ENTERPRISE_ENROLL);
return true;
}
if (action == LoginAcceleratorAction::kEnableConsumerKiosk) {
exit_callback_.Run(Result::START_CONSUMER_KIOSK);
return true;
}
return false;
}
void GaiaScreen::OnScreenBacklightStateChanged(
ScreenBacklightState screen_backlight_state) {
if (screen_backlight_state == ScreenBacklightState::ON)
return;
exit_callback_.Run(Result::CANCEL);
}
} // namespace ash
| {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaGithub"
} | 9,226 |
Содус-Пойнт () — селище () в США, в окрузі Вейн штату Нью-Йорк. Населення — 900 осіб (2010).
Географія
Содус-Пойнт розташований за координатами (43.264500, -76.995962). За даними Бюро перепису населення США в 2010 році селище мало площу 3,82 км², з яких 3,80 км² — суходіл та 0,02 км² — водойми.
Демографія
Згідно з переписом 2010 року, у селищі мешкало 900 осіб у 425 домогосподарствах у складі 258 родин. Густота населення становила 236 осіб/км². Було 754 помешкання (198/км²).
Расовий склад населення:
До двох чи більше рас належало 2,6 %. Частка іспаномовних становила 3,3 % від усіх жителів.
За віковим діапазоном населення розподілялося таким чином: 15,2 % — особи молодші 18 років, 65,2 % — особи у віці 18—64 років, 19,6 % — особи у віці 65 років та старші. Медіана віку мешканця становила 51,8 року. На 100 осіб жіночої статі у селищі припадало 105,0 чоловіків; на 100 жінок у віці від 18 років та старших — 105,1 чоловіків також старших 18 років.
Середній дохід на одне домашнє господарство становив доларів США (медіана — ), а середній дохід на одну сім'ю — доларів (медіана — ). Медіана доходів становила долари для чоловіків та долари для жінок. За межею бідності перебувало 17,0 % осіб, у тому числі 31,9 % дітей у віці до 18 років та 7,1 % осіб у віці 65 років та старших.
Цивільне працевлаштоване населення становило 426 осіб. Основні галузі зайнятості: освіта, охорона здоров'я та соціальна допомога — 28,4 %, роздрібна торгівля — 16,7 %, транспорт — 10,3 %, виробництво — 10,1 %.
Примітки
Джерела
Селища Нью-Йорку
Населені пункти округу Вейн (Нью-Йорк) | {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaWikipedia"
} | 582 |
{"url":"http:\/\/clay6.com\/qa\/126138\/the-distance-between-the-line-overrightarrow-2-hat-2-hat-3-hat-lambda-hat-h","text":"# The distance between the line $\\overrightarrow{r} = 2 \\hat{i} - 2 \\hat{j} + 3 \\hat{k} + \\lambda (\\hat{i} - \\hat{j} + 4 \\hat{k})$ and the plane $\\overrightarrow{r} . (\\hat{i} + 5 \\hat{j} + \\hat{k}) = 5$ is :\n( A ) $\\frac{3}{10}$\n( B ) $\\frac{10}{3\\sqrt{3}}$\n( C ) $\\frac{10}{9}$\n( D ) $\\frac{10}{3}$","date":"2019-09-17 10:34:36","metadata":"{\"extraction_info\": {\"found_math\": true, \"script_math_tex\": 0, \"script_math_asciimath\": 0, \"math_annotations\": 0, \"math_alttext\": 0, \"mathml\": 0, \"mathjax_tag\": 0, \"mathjax_inline_tex\": 1, \"mathjax_display_tex\": 0, \"mathjax_asciimath\": 0, \"img_math\": 0, \"codecogs_latex\": 0, \"wp_latex\": 0, \"mimetex.cgi\": 0, \"\/images\/math\/codecogs\": 0, \"mathtex.cgi\": 0, \"katex\": 0, \"math-container\": 0, \"wp-katex-eq\": 0, \"align\": 0, \"equation\": 0, \"x-ck12\": 0, \"texerror\": 0, \"math_score\": 0.6325264573097229, \"perplexity\": 762.8239438396266}, \"config\": {\"markdown_headings\": true, \"markdown_code\": true, \"boilerplate_config\": {\"ratio_threshold\": 0.18, \"absolute_threshold\": 10, \"end_threshold\": 15, \"enable\": true}, \"remove_buttons\": true, \"remove_image_figures\": true, \"remove_link_clusters\": true, \"table_config\": {\"min_rows\": 2, \"min_cols\": 3, \"format\": \"plain\"}, \"remove_chinese\": true, \"remove_edit_buttons\": true, \"extract_latex\": true}, \"warc_path\": \"s3:\/\/commoncrawl\/crawl-data\/CC-MAIN-2019-39\/segments\/1568514573070.36\/warc\/CC-MAIN-20190917101137-20190917123137-00319.warc.gz\"}"} | null | null |
Q: How to set default data type for parameter in a class with the class itself? I just want to deploy datatypes for some parameters, for example, parameter left is a TreeNode type. But When I wrote the code like this:
class TreeNode:
def __init__(self, key, val, left: TreeNode = None, right = None, parent = None):
self.key = key
self.payload = val
self.leftChild = left
self.rightChild = right
self.parent = parent
I will receive a error message:
NameError: name 'TreeNode' is not defined
So could anyone can tell me how to set default datatypes with the current class?
| {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaStackExchange"
} | 1,758 |
Whichever site you shop on in our system - hair-scrunchies.com, HeadBandits.com or PennysBoutique.com - you'll be transferred to Penny's Boutique when you checkout so that you'll be in a secure area. Your customer account will work there as well as your shopping cart. You don't need to do anything special to be secure.
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Absolutely! As you know, it takes a great deal of work to establish and maintain a secure site so that your customers' information stays safe. We use Authorize.net and a Secure Socket Layer (SSL) on PennysBoutique.com On most browsers, you'll see the little yellow 'lock' symbol on the top or bottom of your screen. Regardless of your browser, you can know you're in a secure site when you look at the web address in your browse - if it starts with https:// (the 's' is what's different), you'll know you're on a secure site.
What do I do if my order doesn't go through?
If you're not sure if it worked, give me a call or send me an email. If you're concerned that it might have worked, but you're not certain, keep in touch - we'll give it a couple of days to see if the processing company gets the information. If they don't, I can take your credit card information and confirm your order on the phone so you don't have to go through it all again. I won't automatically do that, however, because sometimes customers change their mind. So please call or email me. My number is 314-496-9342. | {
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Find Super Why Costume 4-6 Halloween shopping results from Amazon & compare prices with other Halloween online stores: Ebay, Walmart, Target, Sears, Asos, Spitit Halloween, Costume Express, Costume Craze, Party City, Oriental Trading, Yandy, Halloween Express, Smiffys, Costume Discounters, BuyCostumes, Costume Kingdom, and other stores.
Disguise Super Why Child Classic Costume - Size: Child (4-6) by Super Why!
Don't satisfied with Super Why Costume 4-6 results or need more Halloween costume ideas? Try to exlore these related searches: Star Wars Stormtrooper Suit, Cheap Halloween Costume Ideas Scary, Robbin In Da Hood. | {
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By the end of our course, you will be able to create professional applications and submit them to the play store from scratch!
No prior knowledge or programming experience is needed to take our course! Jump right in!
Students will need to download Android Studio (a free downloadable software) which we show you how to get in the course!
Do you have an idea for an application, but you just don't know where to start?
Or maybe you have some programming experience, but you just need a little help.
Then our Complete Kotlin Course is for you!
We are looking for students eager to learn about Android O & Kotlin.
And the best part, you do not need any prior programming language or design experience to get started!
We teach you from scratch, step by step, how to build your very own professional Android applications, with Kotlin.
Welcome To Kotlin For Android O Development: From Beginner To Advanced!
⇉ This course is one of the Biggest & Most Comprehensive Kotlin Courses on Udemy Ever Created!
⇉ You get Over 180+ Lectures and 15+ hours of HD content!
⇉ Watch the promo video to see how you can become a professional Kotlin Developer with Android O today!
In our complete course you will learn how to build an Android application from scratch!
In our course, you will start from the beginning by downloading Java JDK and Android Studio. Once you have those installed, you will learn by building real applications like Instagram & Foursquare Clones! We teach you step by step and if you ever have any questions, all you have to do is post in our course discussion to receive help from Atil or Joe! Not only only will you learn with more than 15 hours of HD video, but you will also learn about designing your applications in Sketch. This will give your applications a professional touch and separate your app from all of the others! We also show you step by step how to submit your new app to the Google Play Store!
By the time you are finished with our complete course, you will be able to create almost any kind of application that you want in Android!
You will also learn related subjects and practice them by building applications like "Art Book", "Catch The Kenny Game", "Real Time Currency Converter","Instagram Clone", "Travel Map", "Foursquare Clone" and much more... You will also learn both Firebase & Parse in this course, whereas most online guides only teach you one!
With the right mindset, understanding, and application of the teachings in this course, you will instantly begin learning how to become a professional Android Developer!
When I learn something new about Kotlin, I add it to the course -at no additional cost to you! This is a course that will continue to add more and more to every aspect of your life.
This course is for you if you are looking to learn Androids newest programming language, Kotlin!
This course is for students who want to have the freedom of creating their own amazing apps from scratch!
This course is also for you if you have app experience and want to learn some more advanced concepts! | {
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I was getting java.lang.LinkageError when running Felix. I had a big trouble finding out what the problem really was.
Finally, I found that javax.activation was being loaded by two modules differently (See http://frankkieviet.blogspot.no/2009/03/javalanglinkageerror-loader-constraint.html and http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4270950/compile-time-vs-run-time-dependency-java).
I couldn't exclude javax.activation from any of my modules (tried to explicitly ignore it from my pom.xml files (Maven), but that didn't work).
In the end I discovered that felix automatically loads some packages on startup. This is specified in the org.osgi.framework.system.packages.extra variable in config.properties (In the conf folder).
Just adding javax.activation;version=1.1.1 (The version I wanted) there fixed it.
Now Felix loads the package, and my waring modules fetch it from there instead of trying to load it themselves. | {
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{"url":"https:\/\/www.numerade.com\/questions\/a-curve-passes-through-the-point-0-5-and-has-the-property-that-the-slope-of-the-curve-at-every-point\/","text":"\ud83d\udcac \ud83d\udc4b We\u2019re always here. Join our Discord to connect with other students 24\/7, any time, night or day.Join Here!\n\n# A curve passes through the point (0, 5) and has the property that the slope of the curve at every point $P$ is twice the $y-$ coordinate of $P.$ What is the equation of the curve?\n\n## $y=5 e^{2 x}$\n\nDerivatives\n\nDifferentiation\n\n### Discussion\n\nYou must be signed in to discuss.\n\nLectures\n\nJoin Bootcamp\n\n### Video Transcript\n\nin this problem. We're told that we have a curve whose slope is equal to twice the y coordinate. And you can think of slope as the derivative D Y D X, and then twice the y coordinate would be two times why. So when we see that equation, we might think about the main idea from this section where if you have a differential equation of the form, do I d t equals K times. Why it's solution will be this exponential growth and decay formula. So what that tells us is that we have something whose solution will be, Why equals? Why not times e to the K t. And in this case, que is too. And we're using X instead of t. Okay, so now what we need to know is the value of why not and that will complete are figuring out the model or the equation. So let's use the ordered pair that was given, we know goes through the 0.5 so we can substitute five and for the y value and zero in for the X value. And we have five equals. Why not times e to the two time zero So that would be five equals. Why not tons? Each of the zero each of the zero is one so five equals. Why not times one. So now we realize that why not? Is five. So if you substitute that in, you have the equation y equals five times e to the two x.\n\nWZ\n\nDerivatives\n\nDifferentiation\n\nLectures\n\nJoin Bootcamp","date":"2021-09-20 14:18:46","metadata":"{\"extraction_info\": {\"found_math\": true, \"script_math_tex\": 0, \"script_math_asciimath\": 0, \"math_annotations\": 0, \"math_alttext\": 0, \"mathml\": 0, \"mathjax_tag\": 0, \"mathjax_inline_tex\": 1, \"mathjax_display_tex\": 0, \"mathjax_asciimath\": 0, \"img_math\": 0, \"codecogs_latex\": 0, \"wp_latex\": 0, \"mimetex.cgi\": 0, \"\/images\/math\/codecogs\": 0, \"mathtex.cgi\": 0, \"katex\": 0, \"math-container\": 0, \"wp-katex-eq\": 0, \"align\": 0, \"equation\": 0, \"x-ck12\": 0, \"texerror\": 0, \"math_score\": 0.7534984350204468, \"perplexity\": 447.80078639379724}, \"config\": {\"markdown_headings\": true, \"markdown_code\": true, \"boilerplate_config\": {\"ratio_threshold\": 0.18, \"absolute_threshold\": 10, \"end_threshold\": 15, \"enable\": true}, \"remove_buttons\": true, \"remove_image_figures\": true, \"remove_link_clusters\": true, \"table_config\": {\"min_rows\": 2, \"min_cols\": 3, \"format\": \"plain\"}, \"remove_chinese\": true, \"remove_edit_buttons\": true, \"extract_latex\": true}, \"warc_path\": \"s3:\/\/commoncrawl\/crawl-data\/CC-MAIN-2021-39\/segments\/1631780057039.7\/warc\/CC-MAIN-20210920131052-20210920161052-00702.warc.gz\"}"} | null | null |
Q: Simples Nacional The ControlToValidate property of ''RegularExpressionValidator1'' cannot be blank Estou desenvolvendo uma consulta no Simples Nacional, mas ao dar um HTTPPost no site http://www8.receita.fazenda.gov.br/simplesnacional/aplicacoes/atbhe/consultaoptantes.app/consultaropcao.aspx me retorna o erro
The ControlToValidate property of ''RegularExpressionValidator1'' cannot be blank.
Segue o Código da consulta:
Post.WriteString('__EVENTTARGET='); {Se comento esta linha, me retorna em branco}
Post.WriteString('__EVENTARGUMENT=');
Post.WriteString('__VIEWSTATE=' + FViewState);
Post.WriteString('__EVENTVALIDATION=' + FEventValidation);
Post.WriteString('ctl00$ContentPlaceHolderConteudo$' + FSessao + '=' + OnlyNumber(ACNPJ));
Post.WriteString('ctl00$ContentPlaceHolderConteudo$HiddenField1=' + FSessao);
Post.WriteString('ctl00$ContentPlaceHolderConteudo$hddServidorCaptcha=pro');
Post.WriteString('ctl00$ContentPlaceHolderConteudo$txtTexto_captcha_serpro_gov_br=' + ACaptcha);
Post.WriteString('ctl00$ContentPlaceHolderConteudo$btnConfirmar=Consultar');
Post.WriteString('ctl00_ContentPlaceHolderConteudo_RegularExpressionValidator1=null');
Post.Position := 0;
HttpSend.Clear;
HttpSend.Document.Position := 0;
HttpSend.Document.CopyFrom(Post, Post.Size);
HTTPSend.MimeType := 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded';
HTTPPost('http://www8.receita.fazenda.gov.br/simplesnacional/aplicacoes/atbhe/consultaoptantes.app/consultaropcao.aspx');
Alguém sabe o porque do erro? Como posso corrigir?
| {
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There is enough circumstantial evidence in the long-awaited 243-page Ted Wells report released Wednesday that footballs used by the Patriots were improperly deflated before the AFC Championship Game. It's impossible to read the exhaustive document without suspecting that four-time Super Bowl champion Tom Brady, one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time, had some idea—or more than just some—that Patriot minions were doctoring the footballs to Brady's liking.
Now the question is: Will the league, which is expected to hand down discipline in the case in the coming days, find enough sins in the consistently equivocating Wells report to come down hard on Brady and sanction the world champions for the second time in eight years?
I counted 23 examples of equivocating in the Wells document. Phrases like it is "more probable than not that Tom Brady was at least generally aware" of Patriot staffers John Jastremski and Jim McNally plotting to take air out of game balls. The report uses "reasonable to infer," "most plausible," "most likely," "more probable," "we think is likely," "unlikely," and other phrases that fall short of "certain" to describe multiple events and people's actions in the report. According to The MMQB legal mind Andrew Brandt, this language is common to trial lawyers in civil litigation (Wells' background), but let's not miss the overriding point here. The NFL has a momentous decision on its hands. Is the league willing to hand Brady the kind of suspension or significant fine to mar his career and legacy, based on the weight of the circumstantial evidence in the report?
Think of it: With no smoking gun, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell will have to rule on one of the NFL's all-time golden boys. If he bans Brady at least from the NFL's marquee Pittsburgh-New England season opener on Sept. 10, Goodell will be taking the Patriots' best player off the field. And either a suspension or heavy fine will forever mark Brady as a cheater in the eyes of the NFL—with strong suspicions but not incontrovertible proof that he, in essence, ordered the deflated-football version of a code red.
If Goodell hands down a suspension or heavy fine, it will forever mark Brady as a cheater in the eyes of the NFL.
The league has had definitive proof in recent disciplinary cases. In 2012, New Orleans defensive coordinator Gregg Williams admitted his role as a ringleader in the team's bounty system, and Goodell came down hard on Williams and the Saints. More recently, the Falcons admitted piping in fake crowd noise at 2014 home games; the team was fined $350,000 and a marketing employee lost his job. Cleveland GM Ray Farmer admitting sending illegal text messages to coaches during games; Goodell suspended him four games. Jets owner Woody Johnson was publicly covetous of cornerback Darrelle Revis while still a Patriot; it cost Johnson a $100,000 league fine.
But under league guidelines, the NFL doesn't have to catch Brady in the act of ordering the deflation. Goodell and NFL executive vice president of football operations Troy Vincent, who is also reviewing the case for discipline, could rely on the "preponderance of the evidence" that "the fact sought to be proved is more probable than not," according to the league's policy on integrity of the game.
I believe there is one other factor at play, and it a significant one. The other 31 teams are watching very closely what Goodell does in this case. If he fines the organization but does not come down hard on Brady, other owners will feel that their suspicions that the close bond between Goodell and New England owner Robert Kraft (well, it used to be a close bond, before this investigation frayed it) played a role in the league taking it easy on New England.
So this is a complex, explosive, divisive issue, and not just between the Patriots and the league office.
The text messages and recounted conversations involving the two Patriots' employees in question—officials locker room assistant McNally and equipment assistant Jastremski—leave little doubt that neither will work for an NFL team again. They use their positions almost recklessly, McNally apparently cavalier in leaving the locker room before the AFC Championship Game with the Patriots' game balls without telling the officials. Referee Walt Anderson told Wells' investigators it was the first time in his 19 years as an NFL official that he'd lost track of the game balls before a game. The report paints a picture of McNally, who called himself "the deflator" in a 2014 text message to Jastremski, as entering a restroom (as seen on security-camera video) and being in there for 100 seconds before the title game. He lied about it when first asked by Wells' investigators, and then said he used a urinal in a bathroom that has none.
• The NFL has some faults to address here. Two happened before the game. Colts GM Ryan Grigson emailed the league the day before the game, saying he was concerned that the Patriots might be letting air out of their footballs. League officials said they would report this to referee Walt Anderson before the game so he'd be on the lookout for it. Then Anderson lost sight of the footballs. The report isn't exact about how much time lapsed between sightings of the ballbag with New England's allotted footballs by Anderson and his crew, but it was several minutes at least. At that point, particularly with the warning Grigson had given league officials on Saturday, Anderson should have immediately either called for the backup bag of footballs to be used—there was one in the officials' locker room on the inclement Foxboro evening—or tested the pressure of the balls in McNally's bag. Instead, Anderson just began the game, and the balls in McNally's bag were used in the first half.
• The league has to invent a new protocol for footballs before the game. That's easy. No question it will be done, with the balls never out of at least one official's sight between the time they are tested for correct air pressure (12.5 pounds per square inch to 13.5 pounds) before the game, and the time they are walked to the sidelines by said officials. In addition, the exact pressure in each ball needs to be recorded before the game—another gimme.
• This is too important to get some facts wrong, and the NFL did. There were media leaks throughout the first week in the process, and some were based on misleading stats. According to the two-page letter apprising the Patriots of the investigation sent by NFL senior vice president Dave Gardi to Patriots officials Jan. 19, "One of the [Patriots'] game balls [inspected at halftime] was inflated to 10.1 psi, far below the requirement of 12 ½ to 13 ½ psi. In contrast, each of the Colts' game balls that was inspected met the requirements set forth above." In fact, the lowest of the 20 readings measuring Patriot footballs at halftime was 10.5 psi. And one of the gauges measuring the four Colts' footballs that were measured at halftime had three of the balls below 12.5 psi.
• I found two things very hard to overlook. 1) So the officials at halftime measured the psi of 10 Patriots footballs and four Colts balls. (Each team conditions footballs during the week and hands a bag of them to officials for pregame psi inspection.) The Anderson crew measured every ball with two gauges. Using a baseline of 12.5 psi for the New England balls—approximately the pressure adopted in the pregame measurements by the officials—and the Colts-preferred 13.0 for the Indianapolis footballs, the two gauges had the New England footballs down 1.39 and 1.01 psi, on average. The Colts' footballs were down an average of .37 and .56. Not totally definitive, but not nothing either. … 2) According to the Wells report, an examination of Jastremski's phone found that he and Brady had not spoken or texted for six months before the morning after the AFC championship. When the story broke that that the league was looking into claims of doctored football, the two men then spoke six times over the next three days, for a total of 55 minutes. Circumstantial, yes. But you can bet the league will look at that suspiciously.
• Will Spygate play a part in discipline? I don't think the sanctions will be as harsh as the 2007 penalty for the Patriots' taping opposing sidelines to try to steal signals. That discipline amounted to two fines totaling $750,000 and the loss of a first-round pick. Because there's no evidence the Patriots organization or coaching staff had anything to do with this—and because the last three team discipline cases didn't involve a draft choice or choices—I wouldn't be surprised if Goodell puts the onus on the two employees and Brady more than the team. But there's one other factor here. Goodell could conceivably say: This is the second time I've had this same team in the principal's office for fudging with the rules. I'm going to come down hard, and maybe that will ensure it never happens again.
That's considering, of course, that the NFL can be sure Brady was in the middle of this. | {
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Welcome to Faith Baptist Chehalis
We are an independent, Bible believing congregation located in beautiful Lewis County, Washington. We would love to invite you to visit our church family. With strong preaching and sound Bible teaching, you'll have every opportunity to grow in Christ. Ministry opportunities abound - children's ministries, special music, evangelism; we have something for every individual. Together, we can reach this world for our Lord Jesus Christ with God's word…one life at a time.
9:30 – Sunday School
10:30 – Morning Worship Service
11-12 pm Jr. Church
6:00 pm – Evening Worship Service
7:00 pm - Adult Bible Study & Master Clubs
436 Coal Creek Rd, Chehalis, WA 98532
Join us this Sunday at 9:30am New Here?
Faith Baptist Church
A Conservative Church in a Liberal World
The Hirtzel Family / Vanuatu
The Russell Family / Mexico
The Tsirozidis Family / Greece
The Russell Family, Missionaries to Mexico
April 21, 2015 by Randy
Hello! We are the Russell Family, missionaries to Mexico. My name is Adam Russell; my wife, Sarah, and I have three children- Cristian, Kendra, and Braden. The Lord has called our family to serve Him in the harvest fields of Mexico, where we plan to win lost souls to Christ, plant churches, and train national pastors to take over those churches.
Growing up, I lived a typical American life in a small country town in Washington State. I was brought up in a large family where there was no mention of God. It wasn't until the age of twenty two, when I met Sarah and she invited me to church, that I was saved. Five years later in our home church at the annual mission's conference, the Lord dealt with both my wife and I to be missionaries to Mexico.
After taking a survey trip to Mexico the calling was confirmed and I continued my studies under Pastor Bailey. With three years of studying under my pastor, several years of ministry work with children, teens, door knocking, open air work, and anything else in which the church had to an opportunity to serve, we are finally ready to start deputation. With our hearts set on reaching the people of Mexico, we are eagerly waiting to arrive and start the work the Lord has for us there!
For a more detailed testimony on our family, or the plans we have for our work in Mexico, please visit our website. www.russells2mexico.com You will also find pictures, contact information, and a short video presentation.
Please pray for us as we venture out on deputation. Also, please pray that the Lord will begin to soften the hearts of the Mexican people, that they might be ready to receive the Good News that we are bringing them of the saving power of our Lord, Jesus Christ.
View Our Prayer Letters
Filed Under: Missionaries
Phone- 360-508-9572
Sending church info:
436 Coal Creek Rd.
Support address:
Word for the World Baptist Ministries
Mexico is a land of beauty, history, and culture, but it's not without problems. As the world knows, some of the largest issues for the people of Mexico are corruption in the government, poverty, and drug wars. Mexico has the second highest degree of economic disparity between the extremely poor and extremely rich. There is an average monthly income of $1,000 amongst the people, but with this vast separation of the poor and rich, there are few that reach this average income. The best way to earn an average living in Mexico is through completed education, but this is very difficult to achieve when most teenagers are expected to quit school and start working in order to help out with the family.
Mexico was established as a country in September 27, 1821 with Mexico City being the capital. There are currently over 120 million people living in Mexico. The flag of Mexico represents the people of Mexico and their history. It has three equal vertical bands of green, white, and red; Mexico's coat of arms (an eagle with a snake in its beak perched on a cactus) is centered in the white band. Green signifies hope, joy, and love; white represents peace and honesty; red stands for hardiness, bravery, strength, and valor. The coat of arms is derived from a legend that the wandering Aztec people were to settle at a location where they would see an eagle on a cactus eating a snake; the city they founded, Tenochtitlan, is now Mexico City.
The main industries in Mexico are plantations such as corn, tobacco, avocado, pineapple, coffee, beans, beef, and dairy as well as industrial items like iron, steel, petroleum, and consumer durables.
Mexico also has the highest amount of Roman Catholic converts per population making it the second largest Catholic country in the world. This is a staggering 85% of the population. The rest of the people of Mexico are Pentecostals, Jehovah Witness', or Atheists leaving less than 1% of the population being truly born again through the blood of Jesus Christ as their savior. There is a huge need for the truth of the bible in Mexico just as every other needy country in the world.
Northwest Bible Conference – 2020
Northwest Bible Classes – Pastor Bailey
Northwest Bible Classes – Pastor Sherry
2020 Missions Sunday
2020-Special Services With Dr. Wayne Sehmish
Islam-Religion of Peace?
This Generation – November 8th Pre-Election
Reaching The Millennial
Lessons For The Youth
Memorial Tribute to God's Servants
The Wail of Jeremiah
Most Recent Sermon
January 10, 2021 By Randy
https://www.fbc-wa.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Friends.mp3
By Pastor Mike Sherry
Sunday Evening Service 1-10-2021
Launch Live Stream
Final Fight Bible Radio
There Was Praise
https://www.fbc-wa.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/There-Was-Praise.mp3
Sunday Morning Service 1-10-2021
Decisions at Every Door
January 3, 2021 By Randy
https://www.fbc-wa.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Decisions-at-Every-Dooor.mp3
Sunday Evening Service 1-3-2021
1 Timothy #5
December 29, 2020 By Pastor Bill Bailey
https://www.fbc-wa.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/1-Timothy-5.mp3
By Pastor Bailey
© 2021 · Faith Baptist Church · 436 Coal Creek Rd, Chehalis, WA 98532 · (360) 740-0263 | {
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{"url":"http:\/\/physics.aps.org\/synopsis-for\/10.1103\/PhysRevB.83.115107","text":"# Synopsis: It takes two\n\nThe voltage created in inclined thin anisotropic films illuminated by laser light is significantly affected by a photovoltaic component.\n\nA significant transverse voltage (more than $10\\phantom{\\rule{0.333em}{0ex}}\\text{V}$) has been observed for several inclined-oriented anisotropic thin films when illuminated by laser light. This effect has been attributed to the off-diagonal thermoelectric effect, in which a temperature gradient orthogonal to the film plane induces a voltage parallel to the plane. However, recent results that deviate from the expected behavior of the thermoelectric effect have caused researchers to propose that the induced voltage may be due to an optical and hence nonthermal effect.\n\nWriting in Physical Review B, Kouhei Takahashi and co-workers at Panasonic Corporation in Kyoto, Japan, present measurements of laser-induced voltages in ${\\text{Ca}}_{x}{\\text{Co0}}_{2}$ ($x\\sim 0.5$) thin films at different laser wavelengths. The signals behave as expected for energies lower than the band gap of the film, but for energies above the band gap, the signal is smaller than what would be expected from the off-diagonal thermoelectric effect alone. This deviation is consistent with an interband transition, indicating that a small photovoltaic effect is suppressing the voltage signal. By revealing the nature of the different effects on the signal, this experiment helps resolve the controversy of the responsible effect. The results have bearing on applications such as sensitive thermal sensors and thermoelectric generators. \u2013 Brad Rubin\n\n### Announcements\n\nMore Announcements \u00bb\n\n## Previous Synopsis\n\nSuperconductivity\n\n## Next Synopsis\n\nAtomic and Molecular Physics\n\n## Related Articles\n\nOptics\n\n### Synopsis: A Circularly Polarized Laser for All Labs\n\nResearchers have developed a compact, circularly polarized x-ray source for studying biological materials. Read More \u00bb\n\nMagnetism\n\n### Synopsis: Multiferroic Surprise\n\nElectric and magnetic polarization are spontaneously produced in an unlikely material\u2014one with a highly symmetric crystal structure. Read More \u00bb\n\nSoft Matter\n\n### Synopsis: Wedged Particles Make Crystals\n\nRod-shaped particles in a liquid arrange into a variety of structures when subjected to confining walls, an effect that might be used to design optical materials. Read More \u00bb","date":"2015-08-29 20:57:20","metadata":"{\"extraction_info\": {\"found_math\": true, \"script_math_tex\": 0, \"script_math_asciimath\": 0, \"math_annotations\": 0, \"math_alttext\": 0, \"mathml\": 7, \"mathjax_tag\": 0, \"mathjax_inline_tex\": 0, \"mathjax_display_tex\": 0, \"mathjax_asciimath\": 0, \"img_math\": 0, \"codecogs_latex\": 0, \"wp_latex\": 0, \"mimetex.cgi\": 0, \"\/images\/math\/codecogs\": 0, \"mathtex.cgi\": 0, \"katex\": 0, \"math-container\": 0, \"wp-katex-eq\": 0, \"align\": 0, \"equation\": 0, \"x-ck12\": 0, \"texerror\": 0, \"math_score\": 0.39085516333580017, \"perplexity\": 1904.3190714755885}, \"config\": {\"markdown_headings\": true, \"markdown_code\": true, \"boilerplate_config\": {\"ratio_threshold\": 0.18, \"absolute_threshold\": 10, \"end_threshold\": 15, \"enable\": true}, \"remove_buttons\": true, \"remove_image_figures\": true, \"remove_link_clusters\": true, \"table_config\": {\"min_rows\": 2, \"min_cols\": 3, \"format\": \"plain\"}, \"remove_chinese\": true, \"remove_edit_buttons\": true, \"extract_latex\": true}, \"warc_path\": \"s3:\/\/commoncrawl\/crawl-data\/CC-MAIN-2015-35\/segments\/1440644064538.31\/warc\/CC-MAIN-20150827025424-00186-ip-10-171-96-226.ec2.internal.warc.gz\"}"} | null | null |
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"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaGithub"
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{"url":"https:\/\/dml.cz\/handle\/10338.dmlcz\/106443","text":"# Issue\u00a02, \u00a0Volume\u00a027, 1986(Commentationes Mathematicae Universitatis Carolinae)\n\n 209-220 Atoms in the family of coreflective subcategories of uniform spaces. \u00a0Rice, Michael D.\n 221-228 On the separation of closed, convex sets. \u00a0Papageorgiou, Nikolaos S.\n 229-234 Extremal subobjects of complete posets. \u00a0Pasztor, Ana\n 235-257 Cartesian closed categories, quasitopoi and topological universes. \u00a0Ad\u00e1mek, Ji\u0159\u00ed; Herrlich, Horst\n 259-266 Nonlinear variational inequalities and the existence of equilibrium in economies with a Riesz space of commodities. \u00a0Tarafdar, Enayat; Mehta, Ghanshyam\n 267-276 Approximation of ${\\bf R}^X$ with countable subsets of $C_p(X)$ and calibers of the space $C_p (X)$. \u00a0Tkachuk, V. V.\n 277-283 Note on inappropriate trend and seasonal elimination. \u00a0Cipra, Tom\u00e1\u0161\n 285-291 A note on nonuniform nonresonance for jumping nonlinearities. \u00a0Invernizzi, Sergio\n 293-299 Support results via exceptional sets in Banach spaces. \u00a0Turinici, Mihai\n 301-306 On the unique solvability of nonresonant elliptic equations. \u00a0Quittner, Pavol; \u017dubrini\u0107, Darko\n 307-323 On a class of locally completely decomposable Abelian groups. \u00a0Bican, Ladislav; Hora, Jaroslav\n 325-340 On locally small based algebraic theories. \u00a0Reiterman, Jan\n 341-357 Discrete spectrum of operator valued Friedrichs models. \u00a0Lakajev, S. N.\n 359-370 Convex sets and Harnack inequality. \u00a0Keselman, D. G.\n 371-375 A martingale central limit theorem. \u00a0Lachout, Petr\n 377-394 Characterization of the Colombeau product of distributions. \u00a0Jel\u00ednek, Ji\u0159\u00ed\n 395-417 Ordinal invariants and epimorphisms in some categories of weak Hausdorff spaces. \u00a0Dikranjan, Dikran N.; Giuli, Eraldo\n 419 Double layer potentials on boundaries with corners and edges. \u00a0Angell, Thomas S.; Kleinman, Ralph E.; Kr\u00e1l, Josef\n 420 On accretive multivalued mappings. \u00a0Kolom\u00fd, Josef\n\nPartner of","date":"2019-01-19 08:50:05","metadata":"{\"extraction_info\": {\"found_math\": true, \"script_math_tex\": 0, \"script_math_asciimath\": 0, \"math_annotations\": 0, \"math_alttext\": 0, \"mathml\": 0, \"mathjax_tag\": 0, \"mathjax_inline_tex\": 1, \"mathjax_display_tex\": 0, \"mathjax_asciimath\": 0, \"img_math\": 0, \"codecogs_latex\": 0, \"wp_latex\": 0, \"mimetex.cgi\": 0, \"\/images\/math\/codecogs\": 0, \"mathtex.cgi\": 0, \"katex\": 0, \"math-container\": 0, \"wp-katex-eq\": 0, \"align\": 0, \"equation\": 0, \"x-ck12\": 0, \"texerror\": 0, \"math_score\": 0.8369994163513184, \"perplexity\": 14360.666841367009}, \"config\": {\"markdown_headings\": true, \"markdown_code\": true, \"boilerplate_config\": {\"ratio_threshold\": 0.18, \"absolute_threshold\": 10, \"end_threshold\": 5, \"enable\": true}, \"remove_buttons\": true, \"remove_image_figures\": true, \"remove_link_clusters\": true, \"table_config\": {\"min_rows\": 2, \"min_cols\": 3, \"format\": \"plain\"}, \"remove_chinese\": true, \"remove_edit_buttons\": true, \"extract_latex\": true}, \"warc_path\": \"s3:\/\/commoncrawl\/crawl-data\/CC-MAIN-2019-04\/segments\/1547583662863.53\/warc\/CC-MAIN-20190119074836-20190119100836-00592.warc.gz\"}"} | null | null |
Q: Can't get column names after first table return from Stored procedure in pymssql I have a procedure in sql server that returns multiple tables:
create procedure newtest
as
begin
select 1 as a
select 2 as b
end
In python, cursor.description just returns first column name: a
I want to get every column name in each table.
How can I do that?
This is my code:
cur.execute(com)
num_tables=0
while True:
print(cur.description)
ret=cur.fetchall()
if len(ret)>0:
ret_list.append(ret)
num_tables+=1
print(ret)
else:
break
A: If the command returns multiple tables (i.e. multiple result sets). You can use Cursor.nextset() to switch from one set to the next one.
Something like :
num_tables = 0
while True:
print(cur.description)
# all lines of the current set
ret = cur.fetchall()
if len(ret) > 0:
ret_list.append(ret)
num_tables += 1
print(ret)
# check and fetch the next set
if not cur.nextset():
break
The result sets are not forced to have the same column count. For example with :
create procedure newtest
as
begin
select 1 as a
select 2 as b, 3 as c
end
The result is :
(('a', <class 'int'>, None, 10, 10, 0, False),)
[(1, )]
(('b', <class 'int'>, None, 10, 10, 0, False), ('c', <class 'int'>, None, 10, 10, 0, False))
[(2, 3)]
| {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaStackExchange"
} | 3,205 |
import { withTranslation } from '@waldur/i18n';
import { OpenStackSecurityGroupsLink } from '@waldur/openstack/openstack-security-groups/OpenStackSecurityGroupsLink';
import { ResourceLink } from '@waldur/resource/ResourceLink';
import {
Field,
ResourceSummaryProps,
PureVirtualMachineSummary,
} from '@waldur/resource/summary';
import { OpenStackInstance } from './types';
const formatSecurityGroups = (props) => {
if (props.resource.security_groups) {
return (
<OpenStackSecurityGroupsLink items={props.resource.security_groups} />
);
} else {
return null;
}
};
const PureOpenStackInstanceSummary = (
props: ResourceSummaryProps<OpenStackInstance>,
) => {
const { translate } = props;
return (
<>
<PureVirtualMachineSummary {...props} />
<Field
label={translate('Security groups')}
value={formatSecurityGroups(props)}
/>
<Field
label={translate('Availability zone')}
value={props.resource.availability_zone_name}
/>
{props.resource.rancher_cluster && (
<Field
label={translate('Rancher cluster')}
value={
<ResourceLink
type="Rancher.Cluster"
uuid={props.resource.rancher_cluster.uuid}
project={props.resource.project_uuid}
label={props.resource.rancher_cluster.name}
/>
}
/>
)}
</>
);
};
export const OpenStackInstanceSummary = withTranslation(
PureOpenStackInstanceSummary,
);
| {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaGithub"
} | 9,546 |
{"url":"https:\/\/chemistry.stackexchange.com\/questions\/89080\/how-to-remove-nitrose-gasses-from-ozone-gas-mixture","text":"How to remove nitrose gasses from ozone gas mixture?\n\nI produce ozone gas with an ozone generator based on corona discharge principle. These kind of ozone generators have the disadvantage that if $\\ce{N2}$ is present, a bit of $\\ce{NO}$ and $\\ce{NO2}$ will be produced too. To produce oxygen I use a oxygen concentrator, with an output of about $90\\%$ $\\ce{O2}$ and about $10\\%$ $\\ce{N2}$. For that reason I have a little quantity of $\\ce{N2}$ entering the ozone generator, which subsequently lead to unwanted side reactions like $$\\ce{N2 -> NO -> NO2}.$$\n\nThe $\\ce{NO2}$, even in that small quantity as it is, does influence the following processes in an negative way.\n\nThe easiest way to circumnavigate this issue would be to take pure oxygen \u2013 however for cost reasons I cant use LOX, so I have to stay with the concentrator.\nI am searching for an reagent or an catalyst, which is not effected by the ozone but does absorb or disintegrate the $\\ce{NO}$, and especially the $\\ce{NO2}$.\n\nTo stripe $\\ce{NO2}$ from a normal gas is not so difficult, but the ozone does make trouble. I thought about dry $\\ce{NaOH}$, soda lime, or dry $\\ce{KOH}$, but I have the feeling that these chemicals will react with $\\ce{O3}$.\n\nAny suggestions?\n\n\u2022 I have a feeling they won't. \u2013\u00a0Ivan Neretin Jan 19 '18 at 4:54\n\u2022 Well it is difficult to find information about it. I have found that KOH will react with O3 to KO3 at room temperature. Don't know about NaOH - I guess I will have to try it. \u2013\u00a0Andreas Jan 19 '18 at 10:15\n\u2022 @Andreas why don't you make the experiment by yourself to find how much of them react or not and then show us what you found? :-) \u2013\u00a0ParaH2 Jan 21 '18 at 16:08\n\u2022 that is exactly my plan for next weekend ;-) \u2013\u00a0Andreas Jan 21 '18 at 19:42\n\nThere is no need to use caustic since $\\ce{NO2}$ reacts with water itself. As per [1] it is even better absorbed in water than in $\\ce{NaOH}$.\nOzone is soluble in water depending on the concentration of $\\ce{O3}$ in the gas phase. It is much more soluble than oxygen so you will loose some, but it will have much lower concentration of $\\ce{NO2}$. Of course, the washed ozone will be moist. If you need it dry, you can use a column of molecular sieves or some other desiccant.","date":"2020-07-15 02:56:38","metadata":"{\"extraction_info\": {\"found_math\": true, \"script_math_tex\": 0, \"script_math_asciimath\": 0, \"math_annotations\": 0, \"math_alttext\": 0, \"mathml\": 0, \"mathjax_tag\": 0, \"mathjax_inline_tex\": 1, \"mathjax_display_tex\": 1, \"mathjax_asciimath\": 0, \"img_math\": 0, \"codecogs_latex\": 0, \"wp_latex\": 0, \"mimetex.cgi\": 0, \"\/images\/math\/codecogs\": 0, \"mathtex.cgi\": 0, \"katex\": 0, \"math-container\": 0, \"wp-katex-eq\": 0, \"align\": 0, \"equation\": 0, \"x-ck12\": 0, \"texerror\": 0, \"math_score\": 0.5447613000869751, \"perplexity\": 755.5959515563723}, \"config\": {\"markdown_headings\": false, \"markdown_code\": true, \"boilerplate_config\": {\"ratio_threshold\": 0.18, \"absolute_threshold\": 10, \"end_threshold\": 15, \"enable\": true}, \"remove_buttons\": true, \"remove_image_figures\": true, \"remove_link_clusters\": true, \"table_config\": {\"min_rows\": 2, \"min_cols\": 3, \"format\": \"plain\"}, \"remove_chinese\": true, \"remove_edit_buttons\": true, \"extract_latex\": true}, \"warc_path\": \"s3:\/\/commoncrawl\/crawl-data\/CC-MAIN-2020-29\/segments\/1593657154789.95\/warc\/CC-MAIN-20200715003838-20200715033838-00398.warc.gz\"}"} | null | null |
require 'spec_helper'
require 'shared_examples'
describe "page_object.fire_xxx" do
context "browser is closed" do
it "raises PageObjectWrapper::BrowserNotFound" do
tp = PageObjectWrapper.receive_page(:some_test_page)
expect{ tp.fire_press_cool_button }.to raise_error(PageObjectWrapper::BrowserNotFound)
end
end
context "browser is opened" do
before(:all){
@b = Watir::Browser.new
PageObjectWrapper.use_browser @b
}
after(:all){ PageObjectWrapper.browser.quit }
it "executes fire_block in Watir::Browser context" do
tp = PageObjectWrapper.open_page(:some_test_page)
tp.fire_fill_textarea
tp.validate_textarea_value('Default data').should be(true)
end
context "xxx not found among current_page actions" do
it "raises NoMethodError" do
tp = PageObjectWrapper.current_page
expect{tp.fire_nonexistent_action}.to raise_error(NoMethodError)
end
end
it "can be invoked with parameters" do
tp = PageObjectWrapper.current_page
tp.fire_fill_textarea('User defined data')
tp.validate_textarea_value('User defined data').should be(true)
end
context "next_page == nil" do
it "returns action returned value" do
tp = PageObjectWrapper.current_page
data = tp.fire_fill_textarea_with_returned_value('data to fill with')
tp.validate_textarea_value(data).should be(true)
end
end
context "next_page not nil" do
it "returns next_page" do
tp = PageObjectWrapper.current_page
np = tp.fire_press_cool_button
np.should be_a(PageObjectWrapper::PageObject)
np.label_value.should eq(:test_page_with_table)
end
end
context "xxx is alias" do
it "executes corresponding action" do
tp = PageObjectWrapper.open_page(:some_test_page)
tp.fire_fill_textarea_alias
tp.validate_textarea_value('Default data').should be(true)
data = tp.fire_fill_textarea_with_returned_value_alias('data to fill with')
tp.validate_textarea_value(data).should be(true)
end
end
end
end
| {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaGithub"
} | 1,432 |
Q: iOS9 Split Screen iPad app communication I've just updated my iPad app to support iOS9 split screen. Currently I have my app on the left and safari on the right. When I click on a share extension in safari on the right can I trigger an event in my app on the left?
| {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaStackExchange"
} | 3,053 |
<!DOCTYPE html>
<link rel="help" href="https://drafts.csswg.org/css-grid-1/#pagination">
<link rel="match" href="../../reference/ref-filled-green-100px-square.xht">
<p>Test passes if there is a filled green square and <strong>no red</strong>.</p>
<div style="width: 100px; height: 100px; columns: 2; column-gap: 0; background: red;">
<div style="display: grid; background: green; grid-template-rows: 200px;"></div>
</div>
| {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaGithub"
} | 9,910 |
Q: How to keep wrapped flex-items the same width as the elements on the previous row? I have a <ul> that is a flex-box and a bunch of <li>s in it which are the flex-items.
I am trying to get the <li> to have a flexible width, that stays between two sizes using min-width and max-width. It works great as long as they are on the same line. However, when they wrap, the <li> s on the new line use as much space as they can. Which means they are small on the first line, and big on the second line when there are just a few of them.
Is there a way to tell flexbox to keep the items the width after wrapping, while keeping the flexible width?
wrapping demo:
My code looks like this:
<ul>
<li>
<figure>
<img src="http://placekitten.com/g/250/250">
</figure>
</li>
<li>
<figure>
<img src="http://placekitten.com/g/100/100">
</figure>
</li>
<!-- ... -->
</ul>
And the CSS:
ul {
display: flex;
flex-wrap: wrap;
}
li {
min-width: 40px;
max-width: 100px;
flex: 1 0 0;
}
Here's a live example on codepen with some extra comments, resize your window to see it wrap.
A: TL;DR
This is not something I'd call a solution per se, but it's a rather elegant workaround that only uses media queries, and more importantly no JavaScript!
Mixin (SCSS):
@mixin flex-wrap-fix($flex-basis, $max-viewport-width: 2000px) {
flex-grow: 1;
flex-basis: $flex-basis;
max-width: 100%;
$multiplier: 1;
$current-width: 0px;
@while $current-width < $max-viewport-width {
$current-width: $current-width + $flex-basis;
$multiplier: $multiplier + 1;
@media(min-width: $flex-basis * $multiplier) {
max-width: percentage(1/$multiplier);
}
}
}
Usage:
Apply the mixin to your flex item:
.flex-item {
@include flex-wrap-fix(100px)
}
Update:
The above mixin should do the trick, as long as you your flex container width matches your viewport size, as is the case in OP's example. Media queries won't help you otherwise, because they're always based on the viewport width. However, you could use the css-element-queries library and its element queries instead of browser media queries. Here's a mixin that you can apply to the flex container:
@mixin flex-container-wrap-items($flex-basis, $max-expected-width: 2000px) {
display: flex;
flex-wrap: wrap;
> * {
max-width: 100%;
flex-grow: 1;
flex-basis: $flex-basis;
}
$multiplier: 1;
$current-width: 0px;
@while $current-width < $max-expected-width {
$current-width: $current-width + $flex-basis;
$multiplier: $multiplier + 1;
&[min-width~="#{$flex-basis * $multiplier}"] > * {
max-width: percentage(1/$multiplier);
}
}
}
Explanation:
Let's say, as per the OP's example, we want each item to have a maximum width of 100px, so we know that for a browser width of 100px we can fit one item per row, and so on:
| Viewport Width | Max Item Count Per Row | Item Width (min-max) |
|----------------|------------------------|----------------------|
| <= 100 | 1 | 0px - 100px |
| <= 200 | 2 | 50px - 100px |
| <= 300 | 3 | 50px - 100px |
| <= 400 | 4 | 50px - 100px |
| <= 500 | 5 | 50px - 100px |
| <= 600 | 6 | 50px - 100px |
We can write media queries to create the following rules:
| Viewport Width | Max Item Count Per Row | Item Max Width | Calculation |
|------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| <= 100px | 1 | 100% | (100/1) |
| <= 200px | 2 | 50% | (100/2) |
| <= 300px | 3 | 33.33333% | (100/3) |
| <= 400px | 4 | 25% | (100/4) |
| <= 500px | 5 | 20% | (100/5) |
| <= 600px | 6 | 16.66666% | (100/6) |
Like this:
li {
flex: 1 0 0
max-width: 100%;
}
@media(min-width: 200px) {
li { max-width: 50%; }
}
@media(min-width: 300px) {
li { max-width: 33.33333%; }
}
@media(min-width: 400px) {
li { max-width: 25%; }
}
@media(min-width: 500px) {
li { max-width: 20%; }
}
@media(min-width: 600px) {
li { max-width: 16.66666%; }
}
Of course, that's repetitive, but most likely you're using some sort of preprocessor, which can take care of the repetitiveness for you. That's precisely what the mixin in the above TL;DR section does.
All we have to do now is to specify 100px as our flex-basis, and optionally the maximum browser window width (defaults to 2000px) to create the media queries for:
@include flex-wrap-fix(100px)
Example
Finally, a forked version of the original CodePen example with the desired output, using the above mixin:
http://codepen.io/anon/pen/aNVzoJ
A: I think I got it...but it's hacky. The result is the 14 images each scaling from 100px wide down to 40px, even on multiple rows.
*
*Added a duplicate set of the 14 original <li>s and added them to the flex <ul>.
*Next, the second set was rendered invisible:
li:nth-of-type(n + 15) {
visibility: hidden;
}
*In order to maintain uniform flexibility the following changes to each <li>:
li {
min-width: 40px;
max-width: 10%;
flex: 1 0 100px;
}
Please review the CodePen
and/or the Snippet in Full Page mode.
ul {
display: flex;
flex-wrap: wrap;
max-height: 258px;
}
li {
min-width: 40px;
max-width: 10%;
flex: 1 0 100px;
}
ul,
li {
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
list-style: none;
}
ul {
background-color: tomato;
}
li {
margin: 0.5em;
background-color: darkgreen;
}
li img {
width: 100%;
opacity: 0.5;
}
li figure,
li img {
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
}
li:nth-of-type(n + 15) {
visibility: hidden;
}
<ul>
<li>
<figure>
<img src="http://placekitten.com/g/250/250">
</figure>
</li>
<li>
<figure>
<img src="http://placekitten.com/g/101/101">
</figure>
</li>
<li>
<figure>
<img src="http://placekitten.com/g/201/201">
</figure>
</li>
<li>
<figure>
<img src="http://placekitten.com/g/150/150">
</figure>
</li>
<li>
<figure>
<img src="http://placekitten.com/g/80/80">
</figure>
</li>
<li>
<figure>
<img src="http://placekitten.com/g/111/111">
</figure>
</li>
<li>
<figure>
<img src="http://placekitten.com/g/40/40">
</figure>
</li>
<li>
<figure>
<img src="http://placekitten.com/g/110/110">
</figure>
</li>
<li>
<figure>
<img src="http://placekitten.com/g/75/75">
</figure>
</li>
<li>
<figure>
<img src="http://placekitten.com/g/89/89">
</figure>
</li>
<li>
<figure>
<img src="http://placekitten.com/g/150/150">
</figure>
</li>
<li>
<figure>
<img src="http://placekitten.com/g/32/32">
</figure>
</li>
<li>
<figure>
<img src="http://placekitten.com/g/61/61">
</figure>
</li>
<li>
<figure>
<img src="http://placekitten.com/g/320/320">
</figure>
</li>
<li>
<figure>
<img src="http://placekitten.com/g/250/250">
</figure>
</li>
<li>
<figure>
<img src="http://placekitten.com/g/101/101">
</figure>
</li>
<li>
<figure>
<img src="http://placekitten.com/g/201/201">
</figure>
</li>
<li>
<figure>
<img src="http://placekitten.com/g/150/150">
</figure>
</li>
<li>
<figure>
<img src="http://placekitten.com/g/80/80">
</figure>
</li>
<li>
<figure>
<img src="http://placekitten.com/g/111/111">
</figure>
</li>
<li>
<figure>
<img src="http://placekitten.com/g/40/40">
</figure>
</li>
<li>
<figure>
<img src="http://placekitten.com/g/110/110">
</figure>
</li>
<li>
<figure>
<img src="http://placekitten.com/g/75/75">
</figure>
</li>
<li>
<figure>
<img src="http://placekitten.com/g/89/89">
</figure>
</li>
<li>
<figure>
<img src="http://placekitten.com/g/150/150">
</figure>
</li>
<li>
<figure>
<img src="http://placekitten.com/g/32/32">
</figure>
</li>
<li>
<figure>
<img src="http://placekitten.com/g/61/61">
</figure>
</li>
<li>
<figure>
<img src="http://placekitten.com/g/320/320">
</figure>
</li>
</ul>
A: Alternative - grid
It's not the answer to what you want, but it nice to use:
display: grid;
grid-template-columns: repeat(auto-fill, minmax(70px, 1fr));
https://codepen.io/omergal/pen/povzJrz
ul {
display: grid;
grid-template-columns: repeat(auto-fill, minmax(70px, 1fr));
}
li {
min-width: 40px;
max-width: 100px;
}
ul,
li {
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
list-style: none;
}
ul {
background-color: tomato;
}
li {
margin: 0.5em;
background-color: darkgreen;
}
img {
width: 100%;
opacity: 0.5;
}
figure,
img {
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
}
<ul>
<li>
<figure>
<img src="http://placekitten.com/g/250/250">
</figure>
</li>
<li>
<figure>
<img src="http://placekitten.com/g/101/101">
</figure>
</li>
<li>
<figure>
<img src="http://placekitten.com/g/201/201">
</figure>
</li>
<li>
<figure>
<img src="http://placekitten.com/g/150/150">
</figure>
</li>
<li>
<figure>
<img src="http://placekitten.com/g/80/80">
</figure>
</li>
<li>
<figure>
<img src="http://placekitten.com/g/111/111">
</figure>
</li>
<li>
<figure>
<img src="http://placekitten.com/g/40/40">
</figure>
</li>
<li>
<figure>
<img src="http://placekitten.com/g/110/110">
</figure>
</li>
<li>
<figure>
<img src="http://placekitten.com/g/75/75">
</figure>
</li>
<li>
<figure>
<img src="http://placekitten.com/g/89/89">
</figure>
</li>
<li>
<figure>
<img src="http://placekitten.com/g/150/150">
</figure>
</li>
<li>
<figure>
<img src="http://placekitten.com/g/32/32">
</figure>
</li>
<li>
<figure>
<img src="http://placekitten.com/g/61/61">
</figure>
</li>
<li>
<figure>
<img src="http://placekitten.com/g/320/320">
</figure>
</li>
</ul>
A: Setting the min-width and max-width as percentages has allowed all images to stay the same width when they break onto the next line. It is not ideal, but closer to what you are after?
li {
min-width: 15%;
max-width: 15%;
}
A: I have been experimenting with your CodePen and I set
flex: 0 1 10%
Of course you can set the flex-basis whatever you want, I just wanted to prove the point, that if you set flex basis and allow it to shrink, it will behave much nicer in this case.
I think this is what you needed. Here's the preview:
http://codepen.io/anon/pen/bwqNEZ
A: For Stylus you can use this mixin: https://codepen.io/anon/pen/Epjwjq
flex-wrap-fix($basis, $max) {
flex-grow: 1
flex-basis: $basis
max-width: 100%
$multiplier = ceil($max / $basis)
for i in (1..$multiplier) {
@media(min-width: ($basis * i)) {
max-width: percentage(1/i)
}
}
}
A: I came here looking to solve the same problem for a flex box I have. I've since realised that this is now much easier with display: grid as detailed here and here.
A: This is a limitation of flexbox. The best thing you can do is set a max-width which the wrapping (growing) item will respect. You need CSS Grid for this.
A: This isn't perfect but worth try. http://codepen.io/anon/pen/MKmXpV
The changes are
li
width: 7.1428%
flex: 0 0 auto
figure
margin: 0 auto
background-color: darkgreen
min-width: 40px
max-width: 100px
*
*changed li flex to "0 0 auto" and the li width to a percentage based on
the number of lis.
*moved the min and max widths from the li to the figure
*moved the green background to the figure and centered the figures in
the lis
A: Its not working very well, but you can achieve something in this direction with columns.
column-gap: 10px;
column-width: 150px;
https://codepen.io/hobbeshunter/pen/OgByNX
A: My solution is not ideal, as it leans on JQuery: http://codepen.io/BigWillie/pen/WwyEXX
CSS
ul {
display: flex;
flex-wrap: wrap;
}
li {
min-width: 40px;
max-width: 100px;
flex: 1;
}
JavaScript
var eqRowFlexItem = function(elem) {
var w;
var $elem = $(elem);
// Clear out max-width on elements
$elem.css('max-width', '');
w = $(elem).eq(0).width();
$(elem).css('max-width', w);
}
eqRowFlexItem('li');
$(window).resize(function() {
eqRowFlexItem('li');
});
I'm not entirely sure if it answers the problem. I found this post, as the title matched the problem I was having. I was after an effect whereby I would have a greater number of elements per row on larger screens - and fewer elements per row on smaller screens. In both cases, these elements also needed to scale to fit... across devices.
However, those stray elements on the last row would always expand to fill the remaining space.
The JQuery gets the width of the first element - and applies it as a max-width to every element. The OP wanted the blocks to fall within a min-width / max-width rage. Setting the max-width in CSS seems to work. We clear the max-width off the element, so it defaults to the max-width in the CSS... then gets the actual width.
A: I had the same issue, so I used a very tiny bit of Jquery to control the width of the boxes and make them all the same width even once they wrap.
My demo is on CodePen Flex wrap, with equal width on new row
function resize(){
var colWidth;
var screen = $(window).width();
if(screen < 576){
colWidth = Math.round(screen / 2) - 31;
$(".item").width(colWidth);
}
if(screen > 575 && screen < 768){
colWidth = Math.round(screen / 3) - 31;
$(".item").width(colWidth);
}
else if (screen > 767 && screen < 992){
colWidth = Math.round(screen / 4) -31;
$(".item").width(colWidth);
}
else if (screen > 991 ){
colWidth = Math.round(screen / 6) -31;
$(".item").width(colWidth);
}
}
window.onresize = function() {
resize();
}
resize();
html,
body{
padding:0;
margin:0;
}
.flex-container {
padding: 0;
margin: 0;
list-style: none;
-ms-box-orient: horizontal;
display: -webkit-box;
display: -moz-box;
display: -ms-flexbox;
display: -moz-flex;
display: -webkit-flex;
display: flex;
justify-content: left;
background-color:#ddd;
}
.wrap {
-webkit-flex-wrap: wrap;
flex-wrap: wrap;
}
.item {
background: tomato;
height: 100px;
margin:0 15px;
line-height: 100px;
color: white;
font-weight: bold;
font-size: 2em;
text-align: center;
margin-top:10px;
}
<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<ul class="flex-container wrap">
<li class="item">1</li>
<li class="item">2</li>
<li class="item">3</li>
<li class="item">4</li>
<li class="item">5</li>
<li class="item">6</li>
<li class="item">7</li>
<li class="item">8</li>
<li class="item">9</li>
</ul>
A: if the layout is fixed, you could simply add hidden items and toggle their visibility using css breakpoints for the pixels where wrapping happens.
for example, in the following scenario .columned-list has 3 .columned-list-item elements, and for the pixels within which the 3rd .columned-list-item element wraps to the next row, I just make the 4th .columned-list-item element .hidden-item - which is normally invisible - visible :
.columned-list {
display: flex;
flex-wrap: wrap;
margin-left: 35px;
justify-content: flex-start;
.hidden-item {
display: none !important;
@media only screen and (max-width: 1375px) {
flex: 1 0 auto !important;
min-width: 410px !important;
width: 30% !important;
margin: 0 37px 37px 0 !important;
max-width: 100% !important;
display: flex !important;
background-color: #fff !important;
}
@media only screen and (max-width: 928px) {
display: none !important;
}
}
.columned-list-item {
flex: 1 0 auto;
min-width: 410px;
min-height: 1px !important; // <3 IE.
width: 30%;
margin: 0 37px 37px 0;
max-width: 100%;
display: flex;
flex-direction: column;
align-items: center;
color: #676562;
background-color: #f2f3f5;
a:nth-of-type(1) {
position: relative;
min-height: 84px;
width: 100%;
img {
width: 100%;
height: auto;
}
div {
min-height: 88px;
max-width: 203px;
padding: 0 15px;
top: 50%;
transform: translateY(-50%);
position: absolute;
display: flex;
justify-content: center;
align-items: center;
background-color: #fff;
opacity: 0.6;
span {
height: 55px;
font-family: 'Trade Gothic Next LT W04 Rg', sans-serif;
font-size: 28px;
font-weight: bold;
font-stretch: normal;
font-style: normal;
line-height: 1;
letter-spacing: 0.7px;
text-align: left;
color: #676562;
}
}
}
a:nth-of-type(2) {
padding: 10px 35px;
display: flex;
flex-direction: column;
min-height: 161px;
max-width: 390px;
strong {
font-family: 'Trade Gothic Next LT W04 Bold', sans-serif;
font-weight: bold;
text-align: center;
}
span {
font-family: 'Trade Gothic Next LT W04 Light', sans-serif;
font-size: 15px;
font-weight: normal;
font-stretch: normal;
font-style: normal;
line-height: 1.4;
letter-spacing: normal;
text-align: center;
color: #676562;
}
}
.buttons-block {
display: flex;
justify-content: space-between;
align-items: center;
width: 298px;
max-width: 100%;
margin: 10px 0 23px 0;
.button-a {
width: 114px;
height: 22px;
min-height: 1px;
box-shadow: 0px 1px 0 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.16);
background-color: #f28d4e;
display: flex;
justify-content: center;
align-items: center;
span {
font-family: 'Trade Gothic Next LT W04 Rg', sans-serif;
font-size: 15px;
font-weight: bold;
font-stretch: normal;
font-style: normal;
line-height: 1.4;
letter-spacing: normal;
text-align: center;
color: #ffffff;
}
}
.button-b {
margin-bottom: 0;
padding: 0;
}
}
@media only screen and (max-width: 760px) {
margin: 0 0 20px 0;
}
@media only screen and (max-width: 410px) {
min-width: auto;
width: 100%;
}
}
@media only screen and (max-width: 760px) {
display: flex !important;
flex-direction: column;
align-items: center;
margin-left: 0;
padding-top: 10px;
}
}
A: use max-width: 40px not max-width: 100px
| {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaStackExchange"
} | 9,889 |
With Great Power… The Stan Lee Story (2010)
Stan Lee is a complicated figure in comics history. Stan the Man was the real driving force behind the House of Ideas, and comics might not exist today without Stan. Whatever you might think of Stan's writing style, there's no denying that he's a genius at promotion, at building his company, and at displaying an incredible personality that instantly charms and delights, fills fans with joy and makes readers feel like they're part of a wonderful cult that is cooler, hipper and happier for being part of the Marvel fan universe. For any of us who read Marvel Comics between the '60s and '80s and gloried in "Stan's Soapbox", we have vivid memories of the ways that Stan made us excited to be part of the cult of Marvel.
But some fans see Stan as a huckster, a shucker and jiver, a man who lives on hype and half-truths as a way to build his fame while forgetting the artists who helped him along. This group of fans, the group I like to call the "Satan Lee" cult, feels that Lee takes credit for work he didn't actually create, that he was unwilling to share credit with his co-creators and would steal credit for the work that Kirby and Ditko and the other artists did for these comics. After all, Stan created very concise plots for his stories and left the artists to create the flow of story around them. As the story goes, for instance, Jack Kirby created the Silver Surfer out of whole cloth in Fantastic Four #48 without Stan having said a word about the character – a character that would, ironically, become Stan's favorite character.
The new documentary With Great Power shows us the real Stan Lee and gives us a portrait of the world that Stan lives in. It's a charming portrait of The Man, showing us sides of Stan Lee that most of us just don't know anything about. This delightful new film shows Stan as he really is, presenting him paradoxically as both a plain and complicated man, giving viewers a three-dimensional view of the legend and delivering details of his life that most of us had no idea existed.
At the heart of this film is Stan's marriage to his beloved Joan. Stan and Joan married shortly after World War II – she was a war bride – and their marriage has thrived since then. This documentary gives viewers an intimate and sweet view of the pair together. It's charming to see this loving couple dance around in their living room or watching Joan brought to tears reading a love letter that Stan wrote to her. Throughout the film, we see the deep love that Stan and Joan feel for each other – through both good and bad days, the couple stays together.
The film doesn't hesitate to tell the sad stories. We hear the story of the time that Joan destroyed Stan's favorite typewriter in a fit of anger – a story that still causes some frustration for the couple. And most movingly, we learn about how Stan and Joan lost their second daughter just a week after she was born. For anyone who believes that Stan has lived a completely charmed life, it's a dreadful revelation to discover that he has faced some terrible tragedy as well.
The film also spends a significant amount of time discussing the failure of Stan Lee Media in 2000, maybe the worst event of Lee's later life. The filmmakers walk through the events at the company, not hesitating to show us the excitement that the company created in Stan's life only to see the company's collapse weigh very heavily on him.
While the movie doesn't avoid discussing the tragedies in Stan's life, it spends most of its time on the stuff that we all want to enjoy: the success and excitement of his career. The creators of this film scoured archives to uncover obscure material that even the most devoted fan of Stan Lee has never seen. There's a wonderful selection of old TV and radio appearances with Stan, particularly a very sweet appearance by Stan and his daughter JC on a New York City Father's Day TV special in the late 1970s. We get to see the real Stan in that scene, sweet and kind and without hype, but it's also always really fun to see Stan ham it up at movie premieres, TV appearances and at Comic-con. We get lots of those scenes of Stan on camera, and it's fun to see it explored in such depth. And it goes without saying that we get dozens of rare photos of Stan's life and career in this film as well.
The film also brings viewers comments about Stan from many people both inside and outside the comics industry. John Romita Sr. comes across as a charming storyteller, and we also get to see Gene Colan, Joe Sinnott, Joe Simon, Mark Evanier, Todd McFarlane and many other comics creators talk about Stan, along with such celebrities as Nicolas Cage, Ringo Starr, Tobey Maguire, Samuel L. Jackson, Lou Ferrigno, Kirsten Dunst, Patrick Stewart and Brett Ratner. These comments allow us to get a different perspective on Lee and appreciate his career even more.
Most importantly for the Satan Lee crowd, Stan has glowing words for the work of Steve Ditko and especially Jack Kirby. As Stan says in the film, "they would have been nothing if not for the artists I worked with. It was a partnership." Stan goes out of his way to compliment Ditko and talk about how important the artist was at creating the image of Spider-Man that helped to propel the character to mass popularity.
Even more exciting for us fans, we get lots of talk about Kirby, including footage from the final interview that the King conducted. It's such a wonderful treat to get to hear Jack Kirby talk on this film and hear our real hero talk about comics in his own words, with his own voice. Stan has nothing but good things to say about Jack in this movie. The comments in this film still won't satisfy those who believe that Stan screwed over Ditko and Kirby, but they go a long way towards making the public well aware of the great work that these men created in comics
This is a slick, charming, flashy, extremely fast-moving documentary that gives viewers a thorough view of the man behind The Man. My only real complaint is that the film is sometimes too slick, too filled with quick cuts and flashy editing that takes away a bit from the story it tries to tell. The filmmakers were obviously very excited to share as many of the goodies that they created or captured, and sometimes the slickness is a bit overwhelming. I occasionally wanted to ask the filmmakers to slow down the movie and allow viewers to savor the scenes a bit.
With Great Power concludes with an absolutely sweet scene of Stan and Joan flirting with each other on the back deck of their beautiful Los Angeles-area home. The couple are so wonderful together, so comfortable and sweet and truly in love after all these years. It's one of the most charming moments I've seen in a movie in a long time. What better way to wrap up a portrait of a legend than by showing him at the moments of true bliss.
This film is available On Demand, iTunes, as a rental on YouTube, or on DVD – with a plethora of bonus features – on November 6th.
With Great Power... The Stan Lee Story (2010)
Documentaryjason sacksStan LeeWith Great Power The Stan Lee Story
The Vampire Diaries 4.04 "The Five"
Co-Founder / Master of Ceremonies
Jason Sacks has been obsessed with pop culture for longer than he'd like to remember. Jason has been writing for Comics Bulletin for nearly a decade, producing over a million words of content about comics, films and other media. He has also been published in a number of publications, including the late, lamented Amazing Heroes, The Flash Companionand The American Comic Book Chronicles: the 1970s and 1980s. Find him on Facebook andTwitter. Jason is the Owner and Publisher of Comics Bulletin. | {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaCommonCrawl"
} | 4,049 |
Q: Battery Charging (MCP73871) and Boosting (TPS61032 ) to 5V I am using MCP73871 charging IC to charge 3.7 Li-Ion battery. This IC can take either input from charger or from battery and generate the output accordingly. TPS61032 is used to boost the output from MCP73871 to 5v to drive the remaining system. The system block diagram is shown below:
*
*MCP73871 gives 5V when only charger/USB is connected MCP73871 gives
*5V when both charger/USB and battery is connected MCP73871 gives
*battery voltage when only battery is connected
My questions are:
*
*do we still need a battery protection IC between battery and MCP73871.
*If we need, can anybody suggest any?
*Can i still input 5V to TPS61032 where datasheet define the input range from 1.8v-5.5v.
Thanks
A: In an article by Sundar Krishnakumar dated 12/20/2019 titled BATTERY MANAGEMENT CIRCUIT USING MCP73871 States the following. There is much more to the article but this answers your question. states the following: "The battery IC under study (MCP73871) is linear type. This is suitable for charging Single-cell Lithium Ion( Li-ion) and Lithium Polymer(LiPoly) batteries in applications that demand less charging current (upto 500mA). A simpler version of this IC is available (MCP73831) with lesser parts and lesser functionalities." For the full article check: https://medium.com/@sundarkrish2010/battery-management-circuit-using-mcp73871-de4a213e9c0f
*
*No
*No need
*Yes
A: It depends on your application. A BMS automatically shuts off the battery to prevent deep discharge and draws a few nanoAmps. Your charge controller draws 30 microAmps in shutdown. Also, it's not clear the software can shut off power to itself with this charge controller. If not, the battery would be quickly damaged due to deep discharge. When a battery reaches 0V, there's a good chance it will never charge again.
TI provides ICs that integrate both charge controller and booster IC.
| {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaStackExchange"
} | 7,580 |
Реймон Руссель (, 20 января 1877, Париж — 14 июля 1933, Палермо) — французский писатель. «До 60-х годов его имя было почти неизвестно, затем последовал бум "русселеведения", но даже сейчас и даже во Франции он остается писателем, которого скорее "знают", нежели "читают" — в отличие, например, от того же Жарри» (с которым у Русселя немало общего).
Биография
Родился в обеспеченной семье и был одним из троих детей, наряду с сестрой Жерменой и братом Жоржем. В 1893 году поступил в Парижскую консерваторию по классу фортепиано. Сочинял музыку и писал к ней стихи. В семнадцатилетнем возрасте написал поэму Mon Âme, опубликованную позднее в газете Le Gaulois.
В 1894 получил после смерти отца огромное наследство. Посещал светские салоны, познакомился там с Марселем Прустом. В 1920—1921 много путешествовал, побывал в Китае и на Таити, но всюду занимался только писательством, не выходя из гостиничного номера, практически не предаваясь обычным туристическим развлечениям. Ни одно из его опубликованных и поставленных на сцене произведений не имело успеха, все книги изданы на собственные средства автора. В возрасте 19 лет, работая над стихотворным романом «Подставное лицо» (опубл. 1897), Руссель начал страдать психическим расстройством. Его случай (под вымышленным именем Марсьяль) описан известным психиатром Пьером Жане в книге «От тоски к экстазу» (1926). Руссель растратил состояние на публикации своих произведений, путешествия и консультации психотерапевта. Покончил с собой в гостинице в Палермо, приняв большую дозу барбитуратов (за несколько дней до этого он пытался вскрыть себе вены). Похоронен на кладбище Пер-Лашез.
Творчество
По рассказу самого Русселя («Как я написал некоторые из моих книг», изд. в 1935), он строил прозу на подборе близко звучащих слов, которые превращали написанное в подобие своего рода смысловых уравнений и последовательно упраздняли какую бы то ни было связь этой гигантской словесной машины с реальностью — буквально уничтожали реальность письмом. Символами подобной работы в его романах выступали гигантские, изощренные и совершенно бесполезные аппараты, бесконечно изобретавшиеся героями (Руссель был изобретателем, почитателем Жюля Верна и, кроме того, блестящим стрелком).
Роман «Locus Solus»
Наиболее известным сочинением Русселя является впервые опубликованный отдельным изданием в 1914 году (первая редакция под названием «Несколько часов в Буживале» печаталась в 1913 году) роман Locus Solus (буквально: особенное место или одинокое место). Роман строится как своеобразная экскурсия, которую проводит по своему имению для группы друзей гениальный изобретатель Марсьяль Кантрель. Всё действие романа охватывает половину одного апрельского дня. Экскурсанты лицезреют поразительные, чрезвычайно пространно описанные диковины: выложенная на лужайке при помощи трамбовочной бабы картина из множества зубов, изображающая рейтара; стеклянный резервуар с насыщенной кислородом водой в виде гигантского алмаза, где плавают бесшёрстный сиамский кот, ожившая голова Дантона и прелестная ундина; стеклянная клетка с воскрешёнными трупами и т. п. Траурный налет экскурсии, без сомнения, связан с тяжелыми переживаниями Русселя в связи с кончиной его матери в 1911 году.
Наследие и признание
Многие произведения Русселя остались в рукописях и были опубликованы лишь после его смерти. Он был открыт сюрреалистами, им восхищались Бретон, назвавший его «величайшим гипнотизером современности» и включивший его стихи, прозу и драматургию в свою «Антологию черного юмора», Арагон, Элюар, Кокто, Дюшан, Перек, Кортасар. Руссель стал одним из символических покровителей нового романа во Франции. Ему посвящены книги Мишеля Фуко (1963) и Мишель Лейриса (1987), повесть Леонардо Шаши «Бумаги, относящиеся к смерти Реймона Русселя» (1971), значительное место творчество Русселя занимает в фантастическом романе Йена Уотсона "Внедрение". Выдающийся шахматист Тартаковер высоко оценивал разработанную Русселем стратегию игры (писатель увлекся шахматами в последние годы своей жизни) и сравнивал её с некоторыми особенностями стиля Русселя .
Избранные произведения
Mon âme (1897, поэма)
La doublure (1897, роман в стихах)
La Seine (ок. 1900, роман в стихах)
Les noces (ок. 1904, роман в стихах)
Африканские впечатления (1910, роман)
Locus Solus (1914, роман)
Pages choisies d'Impressions d'Afrique et de Locus Solus (1918)
L'étoile au front (1925, драма)
La poussière de soleils (1927, драма)
Nouvelles impressions d'Afrique (1932)
Comment j'ai écrit certains de mes livres (1935, посмертно)
Публикации на русском языке
[Проза. Драма. Стихи] // Бретон А. Антология черного юмора. М.: Carte Blanche, 1999. С. 308—322.
Locus Solus / Пер. с фр. Е. Т. Маричева. Киев: Ника-Центр, 2000. 384 с. ISBN 966-521-043-2
Locus Solus (фрагменты) / Пер. В. Лапицкого // Комментарии. 1995. № 5.
Locus Solus (фрагменты) / Пер. В. Лапицкого // Locus Solus: Антология литературного авангарда XX века. СПб.: Амфора, 2000. С. 7—73. ISBN 5-94278-019-6
Литература
Foucault M. Raymond Roussel. Paris: Gallimard, 1963 (англ. изд.: Death and the labyrinth: the world of Raymond Roussel. Garden City: Doubleday, 1986)
Matthews J.H. Le théâtre de Raymond Roussel: une énigme. Paris: Lettres modernes, 1977
Houppermans S. Raymond Roussel: écriture et désir. Paris: Libr. J. Corti, 1985
Leiris M. Roussel l'ingénu. Saint-Clément-la-Rivière: Fata Morgana, 1987
Kerbellec P.G. Comment lire Raymond Roussel : cryptanalyse. Paris: J.-J. Pauvert, 1988
Le Brun A. Vingt mille lieues sous les mots, Raymond Roussel. Paris: J.J. Pauvert chez Pauvert, 1994
Caradec F. Raymond Roussel. Paris: Fayard, 1997 (англ. изд.: London: Atlas Press, 2001)
Ford M. Raymond Roussel and the republic of dreams. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 2001
Kokubu T. Le jeu du je chez Raymond Roussel. Lille: Atelier national de reproduction des thèses, 2004.
Примечания
Ссылки
Bibliographie de Raymond Roussel
Персоналии по алфавиту
Писатели Франции
Поэты Франции
Родившиеся в Париже
Умершие в Палермо
Похороненные на кладбище Пер-Лашез
Сюрреализм
Шахматы во Франции
Выпускники лицея Жансон-де-Сайи | {
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} | 1,498 |
De gevlekte bunzing of tijgerbunzing (Vormela peregusna) is een roofdier uit de familie der marterachtigen (Mustelidae). De wetenschappelijke naam van de soort werd voor het eerst geldig gepubliceerd door Johann Anton Güldenstädt in 1770.
Beschrijving
Hij heeft een gelige tot witte vacht met donkere bruinzwarte vlekken, strepen en spikkels. Zijn borst, poten, buik en keel zijn donker, evenals het puntje van zijn borstelige staart. Een brede witte band loopt van wang tot wang, boven zijn ogen langs, en hij heeft een donker gezichtsmasker, terwijl zijn snuit weer wit is. Verder hebben zijn grote ronde oren een witte rand. Waarschijnlijk is deze vacht een waarschuwing: bij gevaar zorgt de gevlekte bunzing ervoor dat zijn vacht zo indrukwekkend mogelijk lijkt. Hij gooit dan zijn kop in zijn nek, zet zijn staartharen op en krult deze naar voren, over zijn rug. Ook ontbloot hij zijn tanden, maakt blaffende geluiden en lange krijsen, en leegt hij zijn anale klieren, die een zeer stinkende geur voortbrengen.
Zijn kop-romplengte is 27 tot 38 centimeter, met een staart van 12 tot 22 centimeter en een gewicht van 265 tot 520 gram (soms tot 715 gram).
Gedrag en leefgebied
De gevlekte bunzing is een echte steppebewoner. Hij heeft een voorkeur voor droge, boomloze vlakten, maar kan in een groot areaal aan leefgebieden voorkomen, van halfwoestijnen en akkers tot bossen tot drasland.
Over het algemeen is het een schemeringsdier. 's Avonds komt hij tevoorschijn, waarbij hij zich met korte sprongetjes voortbeweegt. Af en toe stopt hij en gaat hij op zijn achterpoten zitten (soms staan) om rond te kijken. Zijn belangrijkste prooien zijn knaagdieren als hamster (Cricetus cricetus), siesel (Spermophilus citellus) en gevlekte soeslik (Spermophilus suslicus), die hij ook in hun ondergrondse tunnels vangt, maar ook andere kleine gewervelden, als kikkers, hagedissen en andere reptielen en vogels, worden gegeten, evenals insecten. Soms eet hij ook plantaardig voedsel, als vruchten en gras. De gevlekte bunzing legt voorraden aan.
De gevlekte bunzing is een solitaire soort die agressief is tegenover soortgenoten, maar de leefgebieden van individuen overlappen vaak, en in gevangenschap kunnen de dieren zonder problemen in groepen worden gehouden. Hij huist in een uitvergroot hol van een knaagdier, waar hij een slaapkamer in aanlegt.
Voortplanting
In april tot juni is de paartijd. Net als vele andere marterachtigen kent de gevlekte bunzing een verlengde draagtijd, waarbij de ontwikkeling van de embryo's enige tijd stopt. De draagtijd is 23 à 45 dagen, maar door de verlengde draagtijd worden de jongen pas na 8 tot 11 maanden geboren, in januari tot maart. De slaapkamer in het hol is bedekt met gras als de 3 tot 8 (soms 1-2) jongen worden geboren. Na 50 tot 54 dagen worden de jongen gespeend, en na 61 tot 68 dagen verlaten ze het nest.
Vrouwtjes zijn seksueel volwassen na drie maanden, mannetjes na een jaar. Het vrouwtje zorgt voor de jongen, maar er zijn verhalen dat het mannetje ook meehelpt met de zorg. Gevlekte bunzings kunnen 9 jaar oud worden in gevangenschap.
Verspreiding
De soort komt voor in het zuidoosten van Europa, Klein-Azië, Transkaukasië, de Levant, Centraal-Azië, het noorden van China en Mongolië. Binnen Europa komt de soort voor in het zuiden van Europees Rusland, het uiterste oosten van Oekraïne, Roemenië, Servië, Montenegro, Noord-Macedonië en Bulgarije. Uit grote delen van Oekraïne verdwenen en geldt ook in de Balkan als achteruitgaand.
Status
De Europese ondersoort wordt door de Rode Lijst van de IUCN als kwetsbaar beschouwd. De belangrijkste oorzaak voor zijn achteruitgang is waarschijnlijk de aantasting van de Europese steppen, die steeds meer in cultuur worden gebracht, en de achteruitgang van steppeknaagdieren als hamsters en soesliks, zijn belangrijkste voedselbron. Ook het gebruik van pesticides en aanrijdingen doden veel gevlekte bunzingen. Vroeger werd er ook op de gevlekte bunzing gejaagd voor zijn vacht.
Dier uit het Palearctisch gebied
Marterachtigen
IUCN-status kwetsbaar | {
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/**
* Created by lightmitch on 4/13/17.
*/
import React, {Component} from 'react'
import MainContent from './MainContent'
import LeftSidebar from './LeftSidebar'
import RightSidebar from './RightSidebar'
import CSSTransitionGroup from 'react-transition-group/CSSTransitionGroup'
import './style.css'
class index extends Component {
render() {
return(
<div className="dashboards-box">
<div className="container index-dashboard">
<CSSTransitionGroup
transitionName="dashboards"
transitionAppear={true}
transitionAppearTimeout={1000}
transitionEnter={false}
transitionLeave={false}
>
<div className="columns">
<LeftSidebar/>
<MainContent/>
<RightSidebar/>
</div>
</CSSTransitionGroup>
</div>
</div>
)
}
}
export default index
| {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaGithub"
} | 8,137 |
{"url":"https:\/\/zbmath.org\/?q=an%3A1090.76058","text":"## Upscaling of a class of nonlinear parabolic equations for the flow transport in heterogeneous porous media.(English)Zbl\u00a01090.76058\n\nSummary: We develop an upscaling method for the nonlinear parabolic equation $\\partial_tb(u_\\varepsilon)-\\nabla\\cdot\\bigl({\\mathbf g}^\\varepsilon(x, u_\\varepsilon)+{\\mathbf a}^\\varepsilon (x, u_\\varepsilon)\\nabla u_\\varepsilon\\bigr) =f(x,t),$ which stems from the description of flow transport in porous media. Our direct motivation is the Richards equation which models the flow transport in unsaturated porous media. We provide a detailed convergence analysis of the method under the assumption that the oscillating coefficients are periodic. While such a simplifying assumption is not required by our method, it allows us to use homogenization theory to obtain the asymptotic structure of the solutions. Numerical experiments are carricd out for Richards equaton of exponential model with periodic and randomly generated log-normal permeability to demonstrate the efficiency and accuracy of the proposed method.\n\n### MSC:\n\n 76M50 Homogenization applied to problems in fluid mechanics 76S05 Flows in porous media; filtration; seepage 76M45 Asymptotic methods, singular perturbations applied to problems in fluid mechanics 35B27 Homogenization in context of PDEs; PDEs in media with periodic structure\n\n### Keywords:\n\nconvergence; homogenization; Richards equaton\nFull Text:","date":"2022-06-25 22:46:53","metadata":"{\"extraction_info\": {\"found_math\": true, \"script_math_tex\": 0, \"script_math_asciimath\": 0, \"math_annotations\": 0, \"math_alttext\": 0, \"mathml\": 0, \"mathjax_tag\": 0, \"mathjax_inline_tex\": 1, \"mathjax_display_tex\": 0, \"mathjax_asciimath\": 0, \"img_math\": 0, \"codecogs_latex\": 0, \"wp_latex\": 0, \"mimetex.cgi\": 0, \"\/images\/math\/codecogs\": 0, \"mathtex.cgi\": 0, \"katex\": 0, \"math-container\": 0, \"wp-katex-eq\": 0, \"align\": 0, \"equation\": 0, \"x-ck12\": 0, \"texerror\": 0, \"math_score\": 0.415822297334671, \"perplexity\": 783.5318062867468}, \"config\": {\"markdown_headings\": true, \"markdown_code\": true, \"boilerplate_config\": {\"ratio_threshold\": 0.18, \"absolute_threshold\": 10, \"end_threshold\": 15, \"enable\": true}, \"remove_buttons\": true, \"remove_image_figures\": true, \"remove_link_clusters\": true, \"table_config\": {\"min_rows\": 2, \"min_cols\": 3, \"format\": \"plain\"}, \"remove_chinese\": true, \"remove_edit_buttons\": true, \"extract_latex\": true}, \"warc_path\": \"s3:\/\/commoncrawl\/crawl-data\/CC-MAIN-2022-27\/segments\/1656103036176.7\/warc\/CC-MAIN-20220625220543-20220626010543-00784.warc.gz\"}"} | null | null |
Winning at Retirement for First Responders
Certain common retirement hurdles are heightened for firefighters, police, EMTs and other first responders. Retiring means leaving behind a career marked by camaraderie, challenge, and above all a clear sense of purpose. Winning at Retirement: First Responder Edition addresses those issues and more. The book covers:
Advice on the "DROP" and other aspects of public sector pensions. Should you be afraid of a pension default? How do plans interact with Social Security and Medicare?
In plain language, when to turn on Social Security, and how to avoid a common mistake that married couples should avoid. Winning has been lauded as one of the clearest guides to Social Security claiming strategies.
Straightforward investment advice that starts with recognizing that we have no idea what will happen next with the economy and the market. Includes "Five Money Maxims" … a set of principals that helps simplify investing.
How to navigate the maze of Medicare. The book will help you understand the structure of the program, explain the choices you need to make, and tell you how to get help with enrollment.
Best practices for maintaining health and wellness. After all, it is much harder to enjoy life if you struggle to move, or are living with pain. Information about diet and exercise can be confusing and conflicting, but wellness and aging can be boiled down into key concepts that you can (should!) put into action.
Beyond addressing practical considerations like money, health, and where to live, Winning challenges you to ask: "who am I going to be in retirement?" Retirement is an opportunity for reinvention, or as a popular quotation from the book says, "a blank sheet of paper". But far too many people plan for the financial aspects, without recognizing the importance of seeking a meaningful, impactful identity. This is especially important for someone stepping away from a career of service.
First responders lay it all on the line in support of our communities. We are passionate about giving back in the form of advice that can increase chances of happiness in retirement after a career of service.
Pat & Kristin
Patrick Foley, CFP®
Financial Planner Patrick Foley has been guiding Americans toward happy retirements for more than 25 years. He and his partner and co-author Kristin Hillsley have developed an innovative and holistic process that inspired the book Winning at Retirement.
Pat holds the CFP® designation, and has an eclectic background that includes extensive community service, regular speaking engagements, and the founding of a music festival and bone marrow drive. Pat has served on a number of charitable boards including the Children's Scholarship Fund of Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Israel Chamber of Commerce, Mount St. Joseph Academy, the Whitpain Recreation Association, and the Whitpain Park & Open Space Board. In addition, he has served as the Elected Auditor of Whitpain Township.
When he's not writing or advising clients toward happy retirements, Pat is heavily involved in youth sports as a volunteer. He lives in Philadelphia with his wife, two daughters, and two crazy dogs.
Kristin Hillsley
For more than a decade, Kristin Hillsley has been dedicated to strengthening the financial well-being of her clients and community. Her goal is to provide the highest quality advice to clients in order to help them protect and strengthen their financial future.
As part of her commitment to educating women, Kristin hosts an annual Women's Lifestyle Conference to help busy women in her community connect, refresh and inspire one another. Kristin is also the exclusive financial on-air contributor with Women to Watch, a premier global media platform for women leaders. Kristin has appeared on Comcast Newsmakers to discuss issues of women in business and she has been published multiple times in local newspapers with investment strategies for women. An advocate for women within her own firm, Kristin serves on the Baird Women Advisors Advisory Council, which strives to empower and elevate Baird's women advisors.
Kristin began her career as a financial advisor in 2005. She graduated magna cum laude from Temple University's Fox School of Business with a master's in business administration (MBA) concentrating in finance. Kristin earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Delaware, where she rowed on the women's crew team.
Winning at Retirement : First Responder Edition is available on Amazon in paperback, and via the Kindle and Kindle Unlimited services.
Check out the book on Amazon | {
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} | 4,407 |
{"url":"https:\/\/chemistry.stackexchange.com\/questions\/43706\/could-a-safe-water-ocean-exist-on-a-world-with-predominantly-chlorine-atmosphere","text":"# Could a safe water ocean exist on a world with predominantly chlorine atmosphere?\n\nI am researching for a Si-Fi book. Would a water ocean on a world with a predominantly chlorine ($\\ce{Cl2}$) atmosphere be safe to touch? Would the chlorine over time saturate the water creating a \"laundry bleach' solution, or would it create a ocean of hydrocloric acid ($\\ce{HCl}$) and hypoclorous acid ($\\ce{HOCl}$), or would the chlorine just not react with the water that much?","date":"2020-02-29 06:43:57","metadata":"{\"extraction_info\": {\"found_math\": true, \"script_math_tex\": 0, \"script_math_asciimath\": 0, \"math_annotations\": 0, \"math_alttext\": 0, \"mathml\": 0, \"mathjax_tag\": 0, \"mathjax_inline_tex\": 1, \"mathjax_display_tex\": 0, \"mathjax_asciimath\": 0, \"img_math\": 0, \"codecogs_latex\": 0, \"wp_latex\": 0, \"mimetex.cgi\": 0, \"\/images\/math\/codecogs\": 0, \"mathtex.cgi\": 0, \"katex\": 0, \"math-container\": 0, \"wp-katex-eq\": 0, \"align\": 0, \"equation\": 0, \"x-ck12\": 0, \"texerror\": 0, \"math_score\": 0.2736705541610718, \"perplexity\": 6820.277928024677}, \"config\": {\"markdown_headings\": true, \"markdown_code\": true, \"boilerplate_config\": {\"ratio_threshold\": 0.18, \"absolute_threshold\": 10, \"end_threshold\": 15, \"enable\": true}, \"remove_buttons\": true, \"remove_image_figures\": true, \"remove_link_clusters\": true, \"table_config\": {\"min_rows\": 2, \"min_cols\": 3, \"format\": \"plain\"}, \"remove_chinese\": true, \"remove_edit_buttons\": true, \"extract_latex\": true}, \"warc_path\": \"s3:\/\/commoncrawl\/crawl-data\/CC-MAIN-2020-10\/segments\/1581875148671.99\/warc\/CC-MAIN-20200229053151-20200229083151-00037.warc.gz\"}"} | null | null |
This product label module allows you to enter bar codes in EAN 13 and UPC in order to generate print labels with prices and validate orders.
You will be able to manage all the products of your shop quickly and efficiently, importing massive bar codes with name, price, size, reference, barcode. Ideal for shops that have some point of sale.
Minimize errors in the preparation of your orders thanks to the validation of ORDERS by barcode.
Manage your inventory and update it quickly and easily.
It allows to generate product barcodes with and without combination.
Bulk import of barcodes by products.
Immediate print or save label function for all subsequent printing.
Label configurator based on the most used models, in addition it allows you to customize the measures.
Back up of all barcodes.
Massive inventory updater by barcode which allows you to make an inventory of the entire shop in order to update stocks in a massive way.
CSV sample files to understand how the module works.
Compatible with the following currently used tags: 5 Star, Apli, Avery, Dymo, Europe, Faxland, Gradorient, Kores, Praxton, Tanex, Thermal Printer, Zebra... we can add any label if you indicate the measurements.
Barcode order validation function, if all your products use the module system, you will be able to validate each product of your orders by its barcode before shipping. With this method you will avoid errors and shipping costs.
It allows you to add gifts to the orders as individual products to pass the validation.
You can use the Prestashop barcode or use our custom fields, the advantage of using our custom EAN field is that we DO NOT modify the URLs of the products.
Pas mal, quelques petits bugs et incohérences dans le code mais la base est bonne.
You need to upload the module, install and configure the products with their barcode. | {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaC4"
} | 4,081 |
Art, economics, science, and all that jazz…
BY ANDREW HAMILTON on February 4, 2019
The Five Quintets, by Irish poet Micheal O'Siadhail, is a gloriously unfashionable book. In an age of lyrics it is a long, conversational poem of almost 350 pages. In an age that focuses on detail, its topic is vast: the nature of Western modernity and its future. In a secular age its perspective is unobtrusively but deeply religious. It is therefore unlikely to make the best-sellers list. But it is an important and rewarding work.
It is worth dwelling briefly on the challenges facing the writer of such an ambitious poem and how he meets them. The first is to find a structure that organises the argument of the poem. As the title suggests, the work is divided into five quintets, each dealing with an aspect of modernity. Named 'Making', 'Dealing', 'Steering', 'Finding' and 'Meaning', they comprise the creative arts, economics, governance, scientific discovery and philosophy.
Each quintet is divided into five cantos which represent stages in the making of modernity breaking through, exploring freedom, dead ends of individual preoccupation or of control, breaking free, and paths to the future. Finally, the cantos describe in chronological order people, usually five in number, who represent each stage.
Read more at Eureka Street | {
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} | 9,258 |
/*! @file rocfft.h
* rocfft.h defines all the public interfaces and types
* */
#ifndef __ROCFFT_H__
#define __ROCFFT_H__
#ifdef rocfft_EXPORTS
#include "rocfft-export.h"
#else
#define ROCFFT_EXPORT
#endif
#ifdef __cplusplus
#include <cstddef>
extern "C" {
#endif /* __cplusplus */
/*! @brief Pointer type to plan structure
* @details This type is used to declare a plan handle that can be initialized
* with ::rocfft_plan_create.
* */
typedef struct rocfft_plan_t* rocfft_plan;
/*! @brief Pointer type to plan description structure
* @details This type is used to declare a plan description handle that can be
* initialized with ::rocfft_plan_description_create.
* */
typedef struct rocfft_plan_description_t* rocfft_plan_description;
/*! @brief Pointer type to execution info structure
* @details This type is used to declare an execution info handle that can be
* initialized with ::rocfft_execution_info_create.
* */
typedef struct rocfft_execution_info_t* rocfft_execution_info;
/*! @brief rocFFT status/error codes */
typedef enum rocfft_status_e
{
rocfft_status_success,
rocfft_status_failure,
rocfft_status_invalid_arg_value,
rocfft_status_invalid_dimensions,
rocfft_status_invalid_array_type,
rocfft_status_invalid_strides,
rocfft_status_invalid_distance,
rocfft_status_invalid_offset,
rocfft_status_invalid_work_buffer,
} rocfft_status;
/*! @brief Type of transform */
typedef enum rocfft_transform_type_e
{
rocfft_transform_type_complex_forward,
rocfft_transform_type_complex_inverse,
rocfft_transform_type_real_forward,
rocfft_transform_type_real_inverse,
} rocfft_transform_type;
/*! @brief Precision */
typedef enum rocfft_precision_e
{
rocfft_precision_single,
rocfft_precision_double,
} rocfft_precision;
/*! @brief Result placement
* @details Declares where the output of the transform should be
* placed. Note that input buffers may still be overwritten
* during execution of a transform, even if the transform is not
* in-place.
*/
typedef enum rocfft_result_placement_e
{
rocfft_placement_inplace,
rocfft_placement_notinplace,
} rocfft_result_placement;
/*! @brief Array type */
typedef enum rocfft_array_type_e
{
rocfft_array_type_complex_interleaved,
rocfft_array_type_complex_planar,
rocfft_array_type_real,
rocfft_array_type_hermitian_interleaved,
rocfft_array_type_hermitian_planar,
rocfft_array_type_unset,
} rocfft_array_type;
#if 0
/*! @brief Execution mode */
typedef enum rocfft_execution_mode_e
{
rocfft_exec_mode_nonblocking,
rocfft_exec_mode_nonblocking_with_flush,
rocfft_exec_mode_blocking,
} rocfft_execution_mode;
#endif
/*! @brief Library setup function, called once in program before start of
* library use */
ROCFFT_EXPORT rocfft_status rocfft_setup();
/*! @brief Library cleanup function, called once in program after end of library
* use */
ROCFFT_EXPORT rocfft_status rocfft_cleanup();
/*! @brief Create an FFT plan
*
* @details This API creates a plan, which the user can execute
* subsequently. This function takes many of the fundamental
* parameters needed to specify a transform.
*
* The dimensions parameter can take a value of 1, 2, or 3. The
* 'lengths' array specifies the size of data in each dimension. Note
* that lengths[0] is the size of the innermost dimension, lengths[1]
* is the next higher dimension and so on (column-major ordering).
*
* The 'number_of_transforms' parameter specifies how many
* transforms (of the same kind) needs to be computed. By specifying
* a value greater than 1, a batch of transforms can be computed
* with a single API call.
*
* Additionally, a handle to a plan description can be passed for
* more detailed transforms. For simple transforms, this parameter
* can be set to NULL.
*
* The plan must be destroyed with a call to ::rocfft_plan_destroy.
*
* @param[out] plan plan handle
* @param[in] placement placement of result
* @param[in] transform_type type of transform
* @param[in] precision precision
* @param[in] dimensions dimensions
* @param[in] lengths dimensions-sized array of transform lengths
* @param[in] number_of_transforms number of transforms
* @param[in] description description handle created by
* rocfft_plan_description_create; can be
* NULL for simple transforms
* */
ROCFFT_EXPORT rocfft_status rocfft_plan_create(rocfft_plan* plan,
rocfft_result_placement placement,
rocfft_transform_type transform_type,
rocfft_precision precision,
size_t dimensions,
const size_t* lengths,
size_t number_of_transforms,
const rocfft_plan_description description);
/*! @brief Execute an FFT plan
*
* @details This API executes an FFT plan on buffers given by the user.
*
* If the transform is in-place, only the input buffer is needed and
* the output buffer parameter can be set to NULL. For not in-place
* transforms, output buffers have to be specified.
*
* Input and output buffer are arrays of pointers. Interleaved
* array formats are the default, and require just one pointer per
* input or output buffer. Planar array formats require two
* pointers per input or output buffer - real and imaginary
* pointers, in that order.
*
* Note that input buffers may still be overwritten during execution
* of a transform, even if the transform is not in-place.
*
* The final parameter in this function is a rocfft_execution_info
* handle. This optional parameter serves as a way for the user to control
* execution streams and work buffers.
*
* @param[in] plan plan handle
* @param[in,out] in_buffer array (of size 1 for interleaved data, of size 2
* for planar data) of input buffers
* @param[in,out] out_buffer array (of size 1 for interleaved data, of size 2
* for planar data) of output buffers, ignored for in-place transforms
* @param[in] info execution info handle created by
* rocfft_execution_info_create
* */
ROCFFT_EXPORT rocfft_status rocfft_execute(const rocfft_plan plan,
void* in_buffer[],
void* out_buffer[],
rocfft_execution_info info);
/*! @brief Destroy an FFT plan
* @details This API frees the plan after it is no longer needed.
* @param[in] plan plan handle
* */
ROCFFT_EXPORT rocfft_status rocfft_plan_destroy(rocfft_plan plan);
/*! @brief Set scaling factor.
* @details rocFFT multiplies each element of the result by the given factor at the end of the transform.
*
* The supplied factor must be a finite number. That is, it must neither be infinity nor NaN.
*
* @param[in] description description handle
* @param[in] scale scaling factor
* */
ROCFFT_EXPORT rocfft_status rocfft_plan_description_set_scale_factor(
rocfft_plan_description description, const double scale_factor);
/*!
* @brief Set advanced data layout parameters on a plan description
*
* @details This API specifies advanced layout of input/output
* buffers for a plan description.
*
* The following parameters are supported for inputs and outputs:
*
* * Array type (real, hermitian, or complex data, in either
* interleaved or planar format).
* * Real forward transforms require real input and hermitian output.
* * Real inverse transforms require hermitian input and real output.
* * Complex transforms require complex input and output.
* * Hermitian and complex data defaults to interleaved if a specific
format is not specified.
* * Offset of first data element in the data buffer. Defaults to 0 if unspecified.
* * Stride between consecutive elements in each dimension. Defaults
to contiguous data in all dimensions if unspecified.
* * Distance between consecutive batches. Defaults to contiguous
batches if unspecified.
*
* Not all combinations of array types are supported and error codes
* will be returned for unsupported cases.
*
* @param[in, out] description description handle
* @param[in] in_array_type array type of input buffer
* @param[in] out_array_type array type of output buffer
* @param[in] in_offsets offsets, in element units, to start of data in input buffer
* @param[in] out_offsets offsets, in element units, to start of data in output buffer
* @param[in] in_strides_size size of in_strides array (must be equal to transform dimensions)
* @param[in] in_strides array of strides, in each dimension, of
* input buffer; if set to null ptr library chooses defaults
* @param[in] in_distance distance between start of each data instance in input buffer
* @param[in] out_strides_size size of out_strides array (must be
* equal to transform dimensions)
* @param[in] out_strides array of strides, in each dimension, of
* output buffer; if set to null ptr library chooses defaults
* @param[in] out_distance distance between start of each data instance in output buffer
*/
ROCFFT_EXPORT rocfft_status
rocfft_plan_description_set_data_layout(rocfft_plan_description description,
const rocfft_array_type in_array_type,
const rocfft_array_type out_array_type,
const size_t* in_offsets,
const size_t* out_offsets,
const size_t in_strides_size,
const size_t* in_strides,
const size_t in_distance,
const size_t out_strides_size,
const size_t* out_strides,
const size_t out_distance);
/*! @brief Get library version string
*
* @param[in, out] buf buffer that receives the version string
* @param[in] len length of buf, minimum 30 characters
*/
ROCFFT_EXPORT rocfft_status rocfft_get_version_string(char* buf, size_t len);
#if 0
/*! @brief Set devices in plan description
* @details This is one of plan description functions to specify optional additional plan properties using the description handle. This API specifies what compute devices to target.
* @param[in] description description handle
* @param[in] devices array of device identifiers
* @param[in] number_of_devices number of devices (size of devices array)
* */
ROCFFT_EXPORT rocfft_status rocfft_plan_description_set_devices( rocfft_plan_description description, void *devices, size_t number_of_devices );
#endif
/*! @brief Get work buffer size
* @details Get the work buffer size required for a plan.
* @param[in] plan plan handle
* @param[out] size_in_bytes size of needed work buffer in bytes
* */
ROCFFT_EXPORT rocfft_status rocfft_plan_get_work_buffer_size(const rocfft_plan plan,
size_t* size_in_bytes);
/*! @brief Print all plan information
* @details Prints plan details to stdout, to aid debugging
* @param[in] plan plan handle
* */
ROCFFT_EXPORT rocfft_status rocfft_plan_get_print(const rocfft_plan plan);
/*! @brief Create plan description
* @details This API creates a plan description with which the user
* can set extra plan properties. The plan description must be freed
* with a call to ::rocfft_plan_description_destroy.
* @param[out] description plan description handle */
ROCFFT_EXPORT rocfft_status rocfft_plan_description_create(rocfft_plan_description* description);
/*! @brief Destroy a plan description
* @details This API frees the plan description. A plan description
* can be freed any time after it is passed to ::rocfft_plan_create.
* @param[in] description plan description handle
* */
ROCFFT_EXPORT rocfft_status rocfft_plan_description_destroy(rocfft_plan_description description);
/*! @brief Create execution info
* @details This API creates an execution info with which the user
* can control plan execution and work buffers. The execution info must be freed
* with a call to ::rocfft_execution_info_destroy.
* @param[out] info execution info handle
* */
ROCFFT_EXPORT rocfft_status rocfft_execution_info_create(rocfft_execution_info* info);
/*! @brief Destroy an execution info
* @details This API frees the execution info. An execution info
* object can be freed any time after it is passed to
* ::rocfft_execute.
* @param[in] info execution info handle
* */
ROCFFT_EXPORT rocfft_status rocfft_execution_info_destroy(rocfft_execution_info info);
/*! @brief Set work buffer in execution info
*
* @details This is one of the execution info functions to specify
* optional additional information to control execution. This API
* provides a work buffer for the transform. It must be called
* before ::rocfft_execute.
*
* When a non-zero value is obtained from
* ::rocfft_plan_get_work_buffer_size, that means the library needs a
* work buffer to compute the transform. In this case, the user
* should allocate the work buffer and pass it to the library via
* this API.
*
* If a work buffer is required for the transform but is not
* specified using this function, ::rocfft_execute will automatically
* allocate the required buffer and free it when execution is
* finished.
*
* Users should allocate their own work buffers if they need precise
* control over the lifetimes of those buffers, or if multiple plans
* need to share the same buffer.
*
* @param[in] info execution info handle
* @param[in] work_buffer work buffer
* @param[in] size_in_bytes size of work buffer in bytes
* */
ROCFFT_EXPORT rocfft_status rocfft_execution_info_set_work_buffer(rocfft_execution_info info,
void* work_buffer,
const size_t size_in_bytes);
#if 0
/*! @brief Set execution mode in execution info
* @details This is one of the execution info functions to specify optional additional information to control execution.
* This API specifies execution mode. It has to be called before the call to rocfft_execute.
* Appropriate enumeration value can be specified to control blocking/non-blocking behavior of the rocfft_execute call.
* @param[in] info execution info handle
* @param[in] mode execution mode
* */
ROCFFT_EXPORT rocfft_status rocfft_execution_info_set_mode( rocfft_execution_info info,
const rocfft_execution_mode mode );
#endif
/*! @brief Set stream in execution info
* @details Associates an existing compute stream to a plan. This
* must be called before the call to ::rocfft_execute.
*
* Once the association is made, execution of the FFT will run the
* computation through the specified stream.
*
* The stream must be of type hipStream_t. It is an error to pass
* the address of a hipStream_t object.
*
* @param[in] info execution info handle
* @param[in] stream underlying compute stream
* */
ROCFFT_EXPORT rocfft_status rocfft_execution_info_set_stream(rocfft_execution_info info,
void* stream);
/*! @brief Set a load callback for a plan execution (experimental)
* @details This function specifies a user-defined callback function
* that is run to load input from global memory at the start of the
* transform. Callbacks are an experimental feature in rocFFT.
*
* Callback function pointers/data are given as arrays, with one
* function/data pointer per device executing this plan. Currently,
* plans can only use one device.
*
* The provided function pointers replace any previously-specified
* load callback for this execution info handle.
*
* Load callbacks have the following signature:
*
* @code
* T load_cb(T* data, size_t offset, void* cbdata, void* sharedMem);
* @endcode
*
* 'T' is the type of a single element of the input buffer. It is
* the caller's responsibility to ensure that the function type is
* appropriate for the plan (for example, a single-precision
* real-to-complex transform would load single-precision real
* elements).
*
* A null value for 'cb' may be specified to clear any previously
* registered load callback.
*
* Currently, 'shared_mem_bytes' must be 0. Callbacks are not
* supported on transforms that use planar formats for either input
* or output.
*
* @param[in] info execution info handle
* @param[in] cb callback function pointers
* @param[in] cbdata callback function data, passed to the function pointer when it is called
* @param[in] shared_mem_bytes amount of shared memory to allocate for the callback function to use */
ROCFFT_EXPORT rocfft_status rocfft_execution_info_set_load_callback(rocfft_execution_info info,
void** cb_functions,
void** cb_data,
size_t shared_mem_bytes);
/*! @brief Set a store callback for a plan execution (experimental)
* @details This function specifies a user-defined callback function
* that is run to store output to global memory at the end of the
* transform. Callbacks are an experimental feature in rocFFT.
*
* Callback function pointers/data are given as arrays, with one
* function/data pointer per device executing this plan. Currently,
* plans can only use one device.
*
* The provided function pointers replace any previously-specified
* store callback for this execution info handle.
*
* Store callbacks have the following signature:
*
* @code
* void store_cb(T* data, size_t offset, T element, void* cbdata, void* sharedMem);
* @endcode
*
* 'T' is the type of a single element of the output buffer. It is
* the caller's responsibility to ensure that the function type is
* appropriate for the plan (for example, a single-precision
* real-to-complex transform would store single-precision complex
* elements).
*
* A null value for 'cb' may be specified to clear any previously
* registered store callback.
*
* Currently, 'shared_mem_bytes' must be 0. Callbacks are not
* supported on transforms that use planar formats for either input
* or output.
*
* @param[in] info execution info handle
* @param[in] cb callbacks function pointers
* @param[in] cbdata callback function data, passed to the function pointer when it is called
* @param[in] shared_mem_bytes amount of shared memory to allocate for the callback function to use
* */
ROCFFT_EXPORT rocfft_status rocfft_execution_info_set_store_callback(rocfft_execution_info info,
void** cb_functions,
void** cb_data,
size_t shared_mem_bytes);
#if 0
/*! @brief Get events from execution info
* @details This is one of the execution info functions to retrieve information from execution.
* This API obtains event information. It has to be called after the call to rocfft_execute.
* This gets handles to events that the library created around one or more kernel launches during execution.
* @param[in] info execution info handle
* @param[out] events array of events
* @param[out] number_of_events number of events (size of events array)
* */
ROCFFT_EXPORT rocfft_status rocfft_execution_info_get_events( const rocfft_execution_info info, void **events, size_t *number_of_events );
#endif
#ifdef ROCFFT_RUNTIME_COMPILE
/*! @brief Serialize compiled kernel cache
* @details Serialize rocFFT's cache of compiled kernels into a
* buffer. This buffer is allocated by rocFFT and must be freed
* with a call to ::rocfft_cache_buffer_free. The length of the
* buffer in bytes is written to 'buffer_len_bytes'. */
ROCFFT_EXPORT rocfft_status rocfft_cache_serialize(void** buffer, size_t* buffer_len_bytes);
/*! @brief Free cache serialization buffer
* @details Deallocate a buffer allocated by ::rocfft_cache_serialize. */
ROCFFT_EXPORT rocfft_status rocfft_cache_buffer_free(void* buffer);
/*! @brief Deserialize a buffer into the compiled kernel cache.
* @details Kernels in the buffer that match already-cached kernels
* will replace those kernels that are in the cache. Already-cached
* kernels that do not match those in the buffer are unmodified by
* this operation. The cache is unmodified if either a null buffer
* pointer or a zero length is passed. */
ROCFFT_EXPORT rocfft_status rocfft_cache_deserialize(const void* buffer, size_t buffer_len_bytes);
#endif
#ifdef __cplusplus
}
#endif /* __cplusplus */
#endif /* __ROCFFT_H__ */
| {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaGithub"
} | 7,354 |
news.BDTV.in Technology World Modi witnesses successful launch of PSLV-C23
Modi witnesses successful launch of PSLV-C23
Monday, June 30, 2014 Technology World
Indian PM Narendra Modi addressing scientists after the successful launch of PSLV-C23
Sriharikota, India: Prime Minister Narendra Modi today witnessed the successful launch of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle – PSLV-C23 from Sriharikota. In his congratulatory address at the Mission Control Centre after the landmark launch, the Prime Minister called upon the space community to proactively engage with all stakeholders to maximize the use of space science in governance and development. India must fully harness this expertise in space technology in the developmental process for social change, economic development and resource conservation, he added.
Speaking of India's age-old ethos of the whole world being one family, the Prime Minister said India's space programme is driven by a vision of service to humanity, not a desire of power. He said India has a rich heritage of science and technology, including space. Modi said the works of our ancestors, who included visionaries like Bhaskaracharya and Aryabhata, still continue to inspire generations of scientists. He added that India must share the fruits of its advancement in space technology with the developing world, and neighbours in particular. He called upon the space community to take up the challenge of developing a SAARC satellite that can be dedicated to our neighbourhood as a gift from India.
Modi said we can be proud of the Indian space programme, which is fully indigenous, developed in the face of great international pressure and hurdles. He described it as a domain where "we have pushed beyond mediocrity to achieve excellence." He said the moon mission was inspired by the vision of former Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Among ongoing projects, Modi referred to the Mars Mission, and the satellite-based navigation system.
Referring to the benefits of space technology for the common man, the Prime Minister said it drives modern communication, empowers children in remote villages with quality education, and ensures quality healthcare to all, through telemedicine. He said it has a critical role in realizing the vision of a Digital India – the power of 125 crore connected Indians.
The Prime Minister said continued progress in space must remain a mission of high priority. He called for developing more advanced satellites and expanding our satellite footprint. He said India has the potential to be the launch service provider of the world and must work towards this goal.
The Prime Minister called for involving India's youth with space. Modi said he was pleased to have met the young scientists as Sriharikota, and admired their work and their achievements. He commended Dr. K. Radhakrishnan for his leadership, and said India's space programme is the best example of his vision of scale, speed and skill. He wished the team of scientists the best as they prepare to insert our spacecraft into the orbit of Mars in a few months.
In a speech made in a combination of English and Hindi, Modi spoke of the Tapasya made by generations of scientists, in a long journey from Upanishad to Upagrah. He remarked that he had met four generations of scientists during his visit to ISRO.
Andhra Pradesh Governor Narasimhan, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu, Minister of Parliamentary Affairs Venkaiah Naidu, MoS, PMO Dr. Jitendra Singh, Secretary Space Dr. Radhakrishnan, and eminent scientists Prof U R Rao, Dr. Kasturirangan were present on the occasion.
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Tapir Gao (born 1 October 1964) is an Indian politician. He is the president of Arunachal Pradesh unit of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). He was a member of the 14th Lok Sabha (2004-2009), representing the Arunachal East constituency for BJP. He lost from that seat in 2009 and 2014, but was elected to Lok Sabha for the second time in 2019. Gao was General Secretary of BJP in 2011 and is currently national executive member of the BJP.
In February 2020, in the Lok Sabha, he raised the issue of several areas in Arunachal Pradesh being left out from the political map of India. This included "Hadigra Dakahru Pass, Galai Tagaru Pass... in Chaglagam area"
He resides at Village Ruksin in East Siang district.
External links
Official biographical sketch in Parliament of India website
References
Bharatiya Janata Party politicians from Arunachal Pradesh
India MPs 2004–2009
Living people
1964 births
People from East Siang district
Lok Sabha members from Arunachal Pradesh
India MPs 2019–present
National Democratic Alliance candidates in the 2019 Indian general election
State Presidents of Bharatiya Janata Party | {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaWikipedia"
} | 621 |
Q: Mixing several files column by column in bash I would like to merge four .txt files into in a unique file. However, the idea is not a simple concatenation, but otherwise an 'interlacement' between the input files where the file1 will be the first three columns and files 2-4 must be pasted column by column in a subsequent order. Thus we have:
file1:
file1 <- ' AX-1 1 125
AX-2 2 456
AX-3 3 3445'
file1 <- read.table(text=file1, header=F)
write.table(file1, "file1.txt", col.names=F, row.names=F, quote=F)
file2:
file2 <- ' AX-1 AA AB AA
AX-2 AA AA AB
AX-3 BB NA AB'
file2 <- read.table(text=file2, header=F)
write.table(file2, "file2.txt", col.names=F, row.names=F, quote=F)
file3:
file3 <- ' AX-1 0.20 -0.89 0.005
AX-2 0 -0.56 -0.003
AX-3 1.2 0.002 0.005'
file3 <- read.table(text=file3, header=F)
write.table(file3, "file3.txt", col.names=F, row.names=F, quote=F)
file4:
file4 <- ' AX-1 1 0 0.56
AX-2 0 0.56 0
AX-3 1 0 0.55'
file4 <- read.table(text=file34, header=F)
write.table(file4, "file4.txt", col.names=F, row.names=F, quote=F)
Where my expected out file could be something like:
out <- 'AX-1 1 125 AA 0.2 1 AB -0.89 0 AA 0.005 0.56
AX-2 2 456 AA 0 0 AA -0.56 0.56 AB -0.003 0
AX-3 3 3445 BB 1.2 1 NA 0.002 0 AA 0.005 0.55'
out <- read.table(text=out, header=F)
write.table(out, "out.txt", col.names=F, row.names=F, quote=F)
Thus, in the out: the column 1-3 are the file1, the columns 4,7 and 10 came from file2, the columns 5,8 and 11 came from file3 and the columns 6,9 and 12 came from file4.
I have an idea how to do it in R, but my original files are too large and it will take a lot of time. I would be grateful if someone has an idea how to perform it directly in bash.
A: This should work:
$ join a1 a2 | join - a3 | join - a4 | awk '{printf "%s %s %s %s %s %s %s %s %s %s %s %s\n", $1, $2, $3, $4, $7, $10, $5, $8, $11, $6, $9, $12}'
AX-1 1 125 AA 0.20 1 AB -0.89 0 AA 0.005 0.56
AX-2 2 456 AA 0 0 AA -0.56 0.56 AB -0.003 0
AX-3 3 3445 BB 1.2 1 NA 0.002 0 AB 0.005 0.55
A: Try this:
paste file1 file2 file3 file4 | awk '{ print $1 " " $2 " " $3 " " $5 " " $9 " " $13 " " $6 " " $10 " " $14 " " $7 " " $11 " " $15 }'
this works if your files have ordered rows, join suggested by Mauro is better choice.
| {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaStackExchange"
} | 4,516 |
\section*{Foreword}
This paper is dedicated to Manuel Cardona, on the occasion of his 75th
birthday. Manuel Cardona is world-famous not only for being an outstanding
and creative experimentalist, but also for having deep theoretical insights,
in particular into the band structures of solids. His book~\cite{cardona:book}
with Peter Yu on Fundamentals of Semiconductors, now a classic of
solid-state physics, devotes a large part to the explanation of theory in
simple, accessible language. For our contribution to the present
{\em Festschrift},
we have chosen a topic off the main line
of this special issue, but we hope that Manuel and others will appreciate
our effort to follow his example and make a complicated problem more
transparent.
We started working on superconductivity in the iron pnictides,
and the later discovered chalchogenides,
not only because
we felt that this phenomenon would create the same kind of excitement as
high-temperature superconductivity in cuprates had done two decades earlier,
an excitement that the senior author had experienced under the leadership of
Manuel Cardona, but also because we --like many other researchers-- had
hoped that this would provide a shortcut to understanding high-temperature
superconductivity. In fact, these new iron-based superconductors
and the cuprates (as well as
heavy-Fermion systems) share the most important property of having a
superconducting phase close to --or even coexisting with-- an
antiferromagnetic phase. In the iron-based superconductors,
however, the latter is
metallic rather than insulating, and these superconductors may therefore
lack the complications of strong-correlation Mott-Hubbard physics. In both
iron-based superconductors
and cuprates, phonons seem to play a minor role for the
coupling, although the debate is still alive~\cite{HTC:phonons:new}. After
two and a half years with enormous theoretical and experimental effort,
published in over 2000 papers,
~\cite{FESC:paglionegreene, FESC:johnston,FESC:otherreviews}
it has become clear that,
although superconductivity in the iron-based superconductors could turn out
to be simpler than in the cuprates, the former are in many respects more
complicated than the latter --their band structures, for example, are
considerably more intricate-- and our present understanding is far from
complete.
Trying to swim upwards through this cascade of papers has blinded at least
the senior author and made him focus on finally publishing our own
results. Encouraged by Manuel Cardona, to whom this could never have
happened, we now take the opportunity to publish a pedagogical,
self-contained account of the band structures and itinerant magnetism in
the iron-based superconductors,
stressing the role of symmetry and, as far as possible,
reducing problems to that of diagonalizing a $2 \times 2$ matrix.
\section{Introduction}
The first report of superconductivity in an iron pnictide,
specifically in
F-doped LaOFeP below 5$\,$K in 2006~\cite{LaFePO:kamihara,foot}, was hardly
noticed and only two years later,
when F-doped LaOFeAs was reported to
superconduct below 28 K, the potential of
iron pnictides
as high-temperature
superconducing materials was realized.~\cite{LaOFeAs:tc:kamihara} Following
this discovery, more than 50 new iron superconductors with the same basic
structure were discovered~\cite{FESC:tc:first} with $T_{c}$ reaching up to
56 K.~\cite{FESC:tc:SmOFeAs} This structure is shown in Fig. \ref{FigLayer}
for the case of LaOFeAs. The common motive is a planar FeAs layer in which
the Fe atoms form a square lattice, tetrahedrally coordinated with As atoms
placed alternatingly above and below the hollow centers of the squares.
Instead of As, the ligand could be another pnictogen (P) or a chalcogen
(X=Se or Te), but for simplicity, in this paper we shall refer
to it as As.
These superconductors are divided in four main families depending on their
3D crystal structure~\cite{foot2}:
The iron chalcogenides are simple tetragonal (st) with the FeX layers
stacked on top of each other ($11$ family). The iron pnictides have the FeAs
layers separated by alkali metals ($111$ family), or by rare-earth
oxygen/fluoride blocking layers ($1111$ family as in Fig.$\,$\ref{FigLayer}%
), in st stacking, or by alkali-earth metals ($122$ family) in body-centered tetragonal (bct) stacking.
\begin{figure}[h!tb]
\centerline{
\includegraphics[width=1.0\linewidth]{figs/fig1}}
\caption{\label{FigLayer}The layered structure of simple tetragonal LaOFeAs. The 3D primitive cell contains one Fe$_{2}$As$_{2}$ and one La$_{2}$O$_{2}$
layer, each containing three sheets: a square planar Fe (red) or O (blue)
sheet sandwiched between two planar As (green) or La (yellow) sheets. $c$=874%
$\,$pm. The coordination of Fe with As, or O with La, is tetrahedral. $%
\mathbf{x}$ and $\mathbf{y}$ are the vectors between the Fe-Fe or O-O
nearest neighbors (separated by $a$=285$\,$pm) and $\mathbf{X}$ and $\mathbf{%
Y}$ are those between As-As or La-La nearest neighbors in the same sheet.
The directions of those vectors we shall denote $x,y,X,$and $Y$.
}
\end{figure}
Iron-based superconductors share some general physical properties, although
the details are often specific to families, or even to compounds.
With the exception of LiFeAs, the undoped compounds are spin-density wave
(SDW) metals at low temperature with the Fe spins ordered
anti-ferromagnetically between nearest neighbors in the one direction and
ferromagnetically in the other, thus forming stripe or double-stripe (FeTe)
patterns. The values of the measured magnetic moments range from 0.4$\,\mu
_{B}$/Fe in LaOFeAs ~\cite{LFAO:magnetism}, to $\sim 1\,\mu _{B}$ in BaFe$%
_{2}$As$_{2}$ compounds, to over 2$\,\mu _{B}$ in doped tellurides.~\cite%
{FESC:paglionegreene, FESC:johnston,FESC:otherreviews}
At a temperature above or at the Neel temperature, which is
of order 100$\,$K, there is a tetragonal-to-orthorhombic phase transition in
which the in-plane lattice constant contracts by 0.5-1.0\% in the direction
of ferromagnetic order.
Superconductivity sets in when the magnetic order is suppressed by pressure,
electron or hole doping, or even isovalent doping on the As site, and at a
much lower temperature. Both superconductivity and magnetism are found to
depend crucially on the details of the crystal structure; for example is it
often observed that the highest $T_{c}$s occur in those compounds where the
FeAs$_{4}$ tetrahedra are regular.~\cite{tetra} Critical temperatures range
from a few K in iron-phosphides to 56 K in SmOFeAs. The variations in the
phonon spectra are, however, small and seem uncorrelated with $T_{c}.$ This,
together with the proximity of magnetism and superconductivity in the phase
diagram, was a first indication that the superconductivity is
unconventional. A stronger indication seems to come from the symmetry of
the superconducting gap, which is currently a strongly debated issue.~\cite%
{nodes} Depending on the sample, and on the experimental technique, multiple
gaps with $s$ symmetry and various degrees of anisotropy --but also of
nodes-- have been reported.~\cite{FESC:paglionegreene, FESC:johnston,FESC:otherreviews} It now seems as if the gap
symmetry is not universal, but material specific in these compounds.
Current understanding of the basic electronic structure has been reached
mainly by angle-resolved photoemission
(ARPES)~\cite{0806ExchangesplittinginBa,0806NdAmesARPESzzAtZ,08DingEPLBa,%
Borisenko,ARPESfink,0902ARPESZxSinghLaOFeAsP,0902ARPESXzSinghBaSr,%
09ARPESBaSCGapBorisenko,LiFeAs:ARPES:borisenko,1001ARPESBaCa},
quantum
oscillation, and de-Haas-van-Alphen (dHvA) experiments~
\cite{0807ASebastianSinghSrQuantOsc,08ColdeaLaOFePFS,09AnalytisBa122,%
09AnalytisSrF2P2,09coldeaCaF2P2,mazinred,09DiracAFAFe2As2HarrisonSebastian}
in
combination with density-functional (DFT) calculations.
\cite{LaFePO:DFT:lebegue,LaOFeAs:DFT:du,BaFe2As2:DFT:singh,FeSe:DFT:subedi,LFAO:DFT:yildirim,%
LFAO:DFT:terakura,LFAO:DFT:yin,FESC:cao,FESC:DFT:vildosola,FESC:DFT:eschrig,
FESC:mazin:first,LFAO:DFT:arita}
All parent compounds have the electronic configuration Fe $d^{6}$ and are
metallic. In all known cases, the Fermi surface (FS) in the paramagnetic
tetragonal phase has two concentric hole pockets with dominant $%
d_{xz}/d_{yz} $ character and two equivalent electron pockets with
respectively $d_{xz}/d_{xy}$ and $d_{yz}/d_{xy}$ character. A third hole
pocket may also be present, but its character, $d_{xy}$ or $d_{3z^{2}-1},$
as well as the sizes and shapes of all sheets, vary among different families
of compounds, and, within the same family, with chemical composition and
pressure. In all stoichiometric compounds, the volumes of the hole sheets
compensate those of the electron sheets. The magnetically stripe-ordered
phase remains metallic, but the FS becomes much smaller and takes the shape
of a propeller~\cite{Borisenko} plus,
possibly, tiny pockets.\cite{0807ASebastianSinghSrQuantOsc}
Given the strong tendency to magnetism, and the low value of the calculated
electron-phonon interaction,~\cite{FESC:boeri:eph,boeri:AFM,
10YndurainFeAs}
spin fluctuations are the strongest candidate for mediating the
superconductivity. Alternative scenarios have been proposed, in which
superconductivity is due to magnetic interactions in the strong-coupling
limit, polarons, or orbital fluctuations.~\cite{alternative} Models for spin
fluctuations are based on the weak-coupling, itinerant limit, with
superconductivity related to the presence of strong nesting between hole and
electron sheets of the paramagnetic Fermi surface, which is also held responsible for
the instability towards magnetism.~\cite{FESC:mazin:first,
LFAO:DFT:arita,Yaresko} This possibility has been investigated using more
ore less sound models of the band structure, combined with different
many-body methods (RPA, FLEX, frG, model ME calculations) which do seem to
agree on a picture with competing instabilities towards magnetism and
superconductivity.~\cite%
{FESC:mazin:first,LFAO:DFT:arita,FESC:graser:first,FESC:eremin:first,%
benfatto08,kuroki09,tesanovic09,ummarino09,wang09,thomale09,%
thomale10,kemper10,ikeda10,popovic10}
The superconducting phase should be characterized by multiple gaps, with $%
s $ and $d$ symmetries almost degenerate. Modifying the shape and orbital
characters of the different sheets of the Fermi surface by doping, pressure,
or chemistry can influence the leading instability and affect the structure
of the gap. As a result, a reasonable, qualitative picture of the materials
trend, such as the dependence of $T_{c}$ and gap symmetry on the tetrahedral
angle, has evolved. \cite{kuroki09,thomale10} Most experimental evidence
seems to support this picture, but several points remain controversial. A
badly understood issue is how to include 3D effects, which is particularly
serious for the bct $122$ compounds.
Another problem concerns the magnetism: While it is true that
spin-polarized DFT (SDFT) calculations reproduce the correct atomic
coordinates and stripe-order of the moment, the magnitude of the moment is,
except in doped FeTe, at least two
times larger than what is measured by neutron scattering, or inferred
from the gaps measured by ARPES,~\cite{mazinred,johannes09},dHvA, and optics,
~\cite{valentired}
albeit much smaller than the saturation moment of 4 $\mu_B$/Fe.
Suppressing the too large moments in the
calculations will, however, ruin the good agreement for the structure and
the phonon spectra.~\cite{boeri:AFM,
FeBSC:mazin:problems,BF2A2:DFT:yildirim,BaF2A2:DFT:zbiri,DFT:reznik:IXS}
This over-estimation of the moment is
opposite to what was found 25 years ago for the superconducting
cuprates where the SDFT gave no moment, but is
typical for itinerant magnets close to
a magnetic quantum critical point (QCP).~\cite{FeBSC:mazin:problems} The
magnetic fluctuations in time and space have been described \cite%
{08NematicOrderInFeAsKivelson} using a localized Heisenberg model with
competing ferro- and antiferromagnetic interactions between respectively
first and second-nearest neighbors, but to reconcile this model with the
partly metallic band structure is a problem.~\cite%
{Yaresko,0807ALuLaOFeAsAFSuperexch,weiku,09Antropov,10LowMagnBasconesPRL}
Another possible solution of the moment problem in SDFT is that
moments of the predicted size
are present, but fluctuate on a time scale faster than what is
probed by the experiments.~\cite{FeBSC:mazin:problems} In fact, two recent
studies of realistic, DFT-derived multi-band Hubbard
models solved in the \emph{dynamical} mean-field approximation (DMFT) show
that the magnetism has two different energy scales.~\cite{Hansmann,haule}
It is therefore possible
that the electronic correlations after all do play a role in
these multi-band, multi-orbital materials.~\cite%
{aichhorn,voll09}
Experiments and calculations have revealed a marked interplay between the
details of the band structure and the superconducting properties. Most of
these observations are empirical and we feel that there is a need to explain
the origin of such details. In this paper, we therefore attempt to give a
self-contained, pedagogical description of the paramagnetic and
spin-polarized band structures.
Specifically, we discuss the Fe$\,d$
As$\,p$ band-structure topology, causing the pseudogap at $d^{6}$ as well as
numerous Dirac cones, the interlayer hopping in the simple-tetragonal and
body-centered-tetragonal structures, the
spin-spiral
band structures, and the band-resolved magnetic energies.
In all of this, the covalency between Fe$\,d$ and As$\,p$ is found to play
a crucial role.
Applications to
superconductivity are beyond the scope of the present paper.
In Sect. \ref{Structure and symmetry} we explain the structure of a single,
isolated FeAs layer and use the glide mirror to reduce the primitive cell to
\emph{one} FeAs unit and have $\mathbf{k}$ running in the \emph{large,}
square Brillouin zone (BZ) known from the cuprates. Halving the number of
bands will prove important when it comes to understanding the multi-orbital
band structure. In Sect. \ref{2DBands} we show that this band structure may
be generated and understood from downfolding,~\cite{NMTO} of the DFT Hilbert
space for LaOFeAs to a basis set consisting of the five Fe $d,$ localized
Wannier orbitals, or --as we prefer-- including explicitely
also the three As $p$ orbitals.
Even the latter $8\times 8$ tight-binding (TB) Hamiltonian, $%
h\left( \mathbf{k}\right),$ has long-ranged $pp$ and $pd$ hoppings due to
the diffuseness of the As $p$ orbitals, and its accurate, analytical matrix
elements are so spacious that they will be published at a different place.%
~\cite{usNJP} The crucial role of the As $p$ orbitals for the low-energy band
structure, the electron bands in particular,
and the presence of a $d^6$ pseudogap
is emphasized. The different
sheets of the FS are discussed. In Fig. \ref{FigBZ} we show the
factorization of the Bloch waves along the lines and points of
high symmetry in the large BZ. The high symmetry of the single, tetragonal
layer allows many bands to cross and leads to linear dispersions, and even
to Dirac cones. Our understanding of this generic band structure of a single
layer then allows us to discuss standard DFT calculations for specific
materials. This is done in Sect.$\,$\ref{3DBands}, where we first see that
increasing the As height moves an antibonding $p_{z}/d_{xy}$ level down
towards the degenerate top of the $d_{xz}/d_{yz}$ hole bands, with which it
cannot cross, and thereby causes the inner, longitudinal band to develop a
linear dispersion. Interlayer hopping is shown to proceed mainly via the As $%
p_{z}$ orbital and to have a strength and $\left( k_{x},k_{y}\right) $%
-dependence which depends on the material family. This hopping is
strongest for the
bct structure where the As atoms in neighboring layers
face each other. In st SmOFeAs and for $%
k_{z}\mathrm{\ }$at the edge of the 3D BZ, the antibonding $p_{z}/d_{xy}$
level reaches the top of the hole bands and forms a Dirac cone together with
the longitudinal hole band. In LiFeAs and FeTe the Dirac point is inside the
BZ. The interlayer hopping not only causes the As $p_z$-like 2D bands to
disperse with $k_{z},$ but also folds the bands into the conventional, small
BZ, i.e. it couples $h\left( \mathbf{k}\right) $ and $h\left( \mathbf{k}+\pi
\mathbf{x}+\pi \mathbf{y}\right) $. The formalism for interlayer hopping
is given in Sect.$\,$\ref{Sectbct},
and its increasing influence on
the band structures of BaFe$_{2}$As$_{2}$, CaFe$_{2}$As$_{2},$ and collapsed
CaFe$_{2}$As$_{2}$ is shown and explained, for the first time, we believe.
In CaFe$_{2}$As$_{2},$ we find that the nearly linear dispersion of the $%
d_{xy}/p_{z}$-like {\em electron} band has developed into a full Dirac cone.
\begin{figure}[tbp]
\centerline{
\includegraphics[width=0.4\linewidth]{figs/fig2}}
\caption{\label{FigBZ}
Upper-right quarter of the large Brillouin zone (BZ) for
the glide-mirror space group of the single FeAs layer (black),
the factorization of
the band Hamiltonian (blue), and the LaOFeAs Fermi surface (red).
The BZ for merely the translational part of the space group has half the
area and is folded-in as indicated by the dashed black lines. In order to
distinguish the corners, M, and edge midpoints, X, of these two square BZs,
we use an overbar for the large BZ. Hence $\Gamma \mathrm{=}\bar{\Gamma},$ M=%
\={X}, and X is the common midpoint of the \={X}\={Y} and $\bar{\Gamma}$\={M}%
-lines. The folding causes all three hole pockets to be centered at $\Gamma $
and the two electron pockets be centered at M with their axes crossed.
The blue boxes along the lines of high symmetry contain the orbitals whose
Bloch-sums may hybridize (belong to the same irreducible representation). At
the high-symmetry points, this factorization of the Hamiltonian into
diagonal blocks is as follows: $\bar{\Gamma}\,\left[ xy\right] \left[ XY%
\right] \left[ Xz,X\right] \left[ Yz,Y\right] \left[ zz,z\right] ,\;\mathrm{%
\bar{X}}\,\left[ xz\right] \left[ xy,y\right] \left[ yz,z\right] \left[
XY,zz,x\right] ,$ and$\;\mathrm{\bar{M}}\,\left[ XY\right] \left[ zz\right] %
\left[ xy,z\right] \left[ Xz,X\right] \left[ Yz,Y\right] .$
With often used notations \cite{LFAO:DFT:arita},
the inner and outer sheet of the $%
\mathrm{\bar{M}}$-centered $xz/yz$-like hole pockets are respectively $%
\alpha _{1}$ and $\alpha _{2}$ while the $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$ and $\mathrm{%
\bar{Y}}$-centered $xy/xz$ and $xy/yz$-like electrons sheets are
respectively $\beta _{1}$ and $\beta _{2}$, and the $\bar{\Gamma}$-centered $%
xy$-like hole pocket is $\gamma .$}
\end{figure}
The effects of spin polarisation on the generic 2D
band structure are discussed in Sect.%
$\,$\ref{SSBands}. We consider spin spirals which have a translationally
invariant magnitude but a spiralling orientation which is given by $\mathbf{%
q.}$ Their band Hamiltonian possesses translational symmetry both in
configurational and in spin-space, but independently of each other as long as
spin-orbit coupling is neglected. The spin spiral therefore simply couples $%
h\left( \mathbf{k}\right) $ to $h\left( \mathbf{k}+\mathbf{q}\right) ,$
regardless of whether $\mathbf{q}$ is commensurable or not.
For $h\left( \mathbf{k}\right)$ we use the DFT $pd$ Hamiltonian
derived in Sect.$\,$\ref{2DBands}.
In order to keep the analysis transparent
and amenable to generalization, we shall treat the exchange coupling
using the Stoner model rather than full SDFT.
This has the avantage
that it decouples the band structure and
self-consistency problems, so that we can study the band structure as a
function of the exchange potential, $\Delta .$
In Sect.$\,$\ref%
{Stripe} we discuss the
bands and FSs for the observed
stripe order.
As long as the moment is a linear function of $\Delta$,
gapping requires matching of $d$%
-orbital characters as well as FS dimensions (nesting). For larger moments,
and ferromagnetic order in the $x$ direction, the FS is different and
shaped like a two-blade propeller in the $k_{y}$ direction. It is formed by
crossing $d_{xy}/p_{z}$-$d_{yz\downarrow }$ and $d_{zz\downarrow
}/d_{XY\uparrow }$ bands, which cannot hybridize along the line through the
blades and the hub. The resulting Dirac cone has been predicted before~\cite%
{0811DiracDung-HaiLee} and also observed.~\cite%
{09DiracAFAFe2As2HarrisonSebastian,10PRLDiracDaiFang}
The interplay between $pd$ hybridization and magnetism is discussed using
simple, analytical $4 \times 4$ models.
In Sect.$\,$\ref%
{M&E} we first show the static spin-suceptibility, $m\left( \Delta \right)
/\Delta ,$ calculated for stripe and checkerboard orders as functions of the
electron doping in the rigid-band approximation. The low-moment solution
--maybe fortuitously-- resembles the behaviour of the observed moment
as a function of doping and $\mathbf{q}$.
We then discuss the electronic origin of the magnetic energies and first
show how the magnetic energy may be interpreted as the difference between
double-counting-corrected magnetic and non-magnetic band-structure energies.
This directly relates the magnetism to the band structure and we
specifically look at the origin of the magnetic energy.
We find that the magnetic energy gain is caused by the
coupling of
the paramagnetic $d_{xy}$
hole and $d_{xy}/p_{z}$ electron bands, as well as by that of the
$d_{xz}$ parts of the two other electron and hole bands.
The Fermi-surface contributions to the magnetic energy are comparatively small.
We can then explain why increasing the distance between the As and Fe
sheets increases the stripe-ordered moment, and vice versa.
At the end, we
compare our results with those of fully self-consistent SDFT spin-spiral calculations of moments and energies as functions of
$\mathbf{q}$ and doping in the virtual-crystal approximation,
for LaO$_{1-\mathrm{x}}$F$_{\mathrm{x}}$FeAs and
Ba$_{1-2\mathrm{y}}$K$_{2\mathrm{y}}$Fe$_{2}$As$_{2}$.
\section{Structure\label{Structure and symmetry}}
The basic structural unit for the iron-based superconductors is a planar
FeAs layer consisting of three sheets: (Fig. \ref{FigLayer}).
In the high-temperature paramagnetic tetragonal phase, the iron atoms form a
square sublattice $\left( a\equiv 1\right) $ with each Fe tetrahedrally
coordinated by four As ligands. The latter thus form two $\sqrt{2}\times
\sqrt{2}$ square lattices above and below the Fe plane at a vertical
distance of approximately half the $a$-constant of the Fe sublattice. The Fe
and As positions are thus described by respectively :%
\begin{equation}
\mathbf{t}=n_{x}\mathbf{x}+n_{y}\mathbf{y\quad }\mathrm{and}\mathbf{\quad }%
\left( n_{x}-n_{y}\pm \frac{1}{2}\right) \mathbf{\mathbf{x}+}\left(
n_{x}+n_{y}+\frac{1}{2}\right) \mathbf{\mathbf{y}}\pm \frac{\eta }{2}\mathbf{%
\mathbf{z}}=\mathbf{T+}\frac{1}{2}\left\{
\begin{array}{c}
\mathbf{X}+\eta \mathbf{z} \\
\mathbf{Y-}\eta \mathbf{z}%
\end{array}%
\right. \label{structure}
\end{equation}%
where $\mathbf{x}$ and $\mathbf{y}$ are the orthogonal vectors between the
Fe nearest neighbors and $n_{x}$ and $n_{y}$ take all integer values. $%
\mathbf{z}$ is perpendicular to $\mathbf{x}$ and $\mathbf{y,}$ and has the
same length. For perfect tetrahedra, $\eta =1,$ and for LaOFeAs, $\eta =$ $%
0.93.$ Instead of $\eta \equiv \sqrt{2}\cot \theta /2\equiv 2\sqrt{2}z_{%
\mathrm{As}},$ it is customary to specify the As-Fe-As tetrahedral angle, $%
\theta ,$ or the internal parameter, $z_{\mathrm{As}}.$ While $\mathbf{t}$
are the translations of the Fe sublattice, $\mathbf{T}\equiv n_{X}\mathbf{X}%
+n_{Y}\mathbf{Y}$ are those of the As sublattice whose primitive
translations are $\mathbf{X\equiv \mathbf{y+x}}$ and $\mathbf{Y}\equiv
\mathbf{\mathbf{y}}-\mathbf{\mathbf{x.}}$ The latter are turned by 45$%
{{}^\circ}%
$ with respect to $\mathbf{x}$ and $\mathbf{y,}$ and $\sqrt{2}$ longer. The
translation group of the FeAs layer is $\mathbf{T}$ and has \emph{two} FeAs
units per cell. These are, however, related by a \emph{glide mirror.}
Rather than using the irreducible representations of the 2D translation
group, it is therefore simpler
to use those of the group generated by the primitive
Fe-translations, $\mathbf{x}$ and $\mathbf{y,}$ combined with mirroring in
the Fe-plane. These glide-mirror operations ("take a step and stand on your
head") generate an Abelian group with only \emph{one} FeAs unit per cell and
irreducible representations, $\exp \left( i\mathbf{k}\cdot \mathbf{r}\right)
,$ which are periodic for $\mathbf{k}$ in the reciprocal lattice, $h_{x}2\pi
\mathbf{x+}h_{y}2\pi \mathbf{y},$ with $h_{x}$ and $h_{y}$ integer. The
corresponding Brillouin zone (BZ) shown in Fig. \ref{FigBZ} is a square,
centered at the $\bar{\Gamma}$-point, $\mathbf{k=0,}$ with corners at the
$\mathrm{\bar{M}}$-points, $\mathbf{k}=\pi \mathbf{y}\pm \pi \mathbf{x\ }$and $-\pi \mathbf{%
y\mp }\pi \mathbf{x},$ i.e. at $\pm \pi \mathbf{X}$ and $\pm \pi \mathbf{Y,}$
and edge-centers at the $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$ and $\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$-points, $\mathbf{k}=\pm \pi \mathbf{x}
$ and $\pm \pi \mathbf{y.}$ In this paper, we shall use this more heavy
notation instead of e.g. $\left( \pi ,\pi \right) $ for $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ and $\left(
\pi ,0\right) $ for $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$ as done for cuprates, because for the iron
superconductors, no consensus exists about whether to use the $\left(
x,y\right) $ or the $\left( X,Y\right) $ coordinate system. The overbar is
used to designate the high-symmetry points in the 2D reciprocal space for
the glide-mirror group. In conclusion, use of the glide-mirror group reduces
the number of bands by a factor of two, and this is important when attempting
to understand the intricacies of the band structure.
\begin{figure}[tbp
\centerline{
\includegraphics[width=0.6\linewidth]{figs/fig3}}
\caption{\label{FigABBloch} Sketch of the antibonding Bloch sum of Fe $d_{xy}$
orbitals in the $xy$-plane (top) and of the antibonding Bloch sum of Fe $%
d_{xz}$ orbitals in the $xz$-plane (bottom). A Bloch sum is formed by adding
the glide-mirrored orbital multiplied by $\exp \left( i\,\mathbf{k}\cdot
\mathbf{t}\right) ,$ where the glide, $\mathbf{t,}$ is a primitive
translation, $\mathbf{x}$ or $\mathbf{y,}$ and the mirror is the Fe
plane. The antibonding Bloch sum of $d_{xy}$ orbitals has $\mathbf{k}%
\mathrm{=}\mathbf{0}$ and that of $d_{xz}$ orbitals has $\mathbf{k}\mathrm{%
\cdot }\mathbf{x}\mathrm{=}\pi .$ That the lobes of the real Wannier
orbitals avoid the As sites (Fig. \ref{FigpdOrbs}) is indicated by enhancing
the countours of the lobes pointing towards the reader.}
\end{figure}
In Fig. \ref{FigABBloch} we sketch the antibonding Bloch sums of the Fe $%
d_{xy}$ (top) and $d_{xz}$ (bottom) orbitals, and realize that with the
glide-mirror notation the former has $\mathbf{k}=\mathbf{0}$ and the latter $%
\mathbf{k\cdot x}=\pi .$ Accordingly, the top of the pure Fe $d_{xy}$ band
is at $\bar{\Gamma},$ while the degenerate top of the pure $d_{xz}$ and $%
d_{yz}$ bands is at $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$. We shall often return to this. (Authors who
unfold without reference to the glide-mirror group, may have $\bar{\Gamma}$
and $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ interchanged, with the result that the $xy$ hole pocket and the
two $xz/yz$ hole pockets are respectively at $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ and $\bar{\Gamma}$.
In order to avoid
this confusion, it is useful to remember that the two $xz/yz$ hole pockets
are those towards which the electron superellipses at $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$ and $\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$ are
pointing).
The real 3D crystals consist of FeAs layers stacked in the $z$-direction
with other layers intercalated, although the iron chalcogenides, FeX, have
no intercalation. Fig \ref{FigLayer} specifically shows LaOFeAs, for which
all our Wannier-orbital (3D) calculations were done, unless otherwise
stated. The interlayer coupling is weak but not negligible, and it depends
on the material. Although the 2D glide-mirror may take the 3D crystal into
itself, as is the case for LnOFeAs, FeX, and LiFeAs, we do want to use $%
k_{z} $ to enumerate the states in the third direction. For the 3D crystals we
shall therefore use the standard 3D translation group according to which
only the $\mathbf{X}$ and $\mathbf{Y}$ translations, combined with an out-of
plane translation, leave the crystal invariant. The corresponding 2D
reciprocal lattice is $h_{X}\pi \mathbf{X}+h_{Y}\pi \mathbf{Y}=\left(
h_{X}+h_{Y}\right) \pi \mathbf{\mathbf{y+}}\left( h_{X}-h_{Y}\right) \pi
\mathbf{\mathbf{x}}.$ Hence, the 3D Brillouin zone is as shown by the dashed
lines in Fig.$\,$\ref{FigBZ} (for $k_{z}\mathrm{=}\pi /2c$), with $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$
falling onto $\bar{\Gamma}$ and with corners at $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$
and $\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$, now named
M. Interlayer hopping may thus couple the glide-mirror states at $\mathbf{k}$
with those at $\mathbf{k}+\pi \mathbf{x}+\pi \mathbf{y}.$ This
material-dependent coupling will be considered in Section \ref{3DBands}
after we have explained the generic electronic structure of a \emph{single}
FeAs layer.
Spin-orbit interaction also invalidates the glide-mirror symmetry, but the
splitting of states degenerate at $\mathbf{k}$ and $\mathbf{k}+\pi \mathbf{x}%
+\pi \mathbf{y}$ is at most $\frac{3}{2}\zeta _{\mathrm{Fe}\,3d}\approx 0.1$
eV, and this only occurs if all three $xy,\,yz,$ and $xz$ states happen to
be degenerate and purely Fe $d$-like.
\section{Paramagnetic 2D band structure\label{2DBands}}
In this section we shall describe the generic 2D band structure of an
isolated FeAs layer. We start by observing that the bands are grouped into
full and empty, separated by a pseudogap. We then discuss the grouping of
the bands into Fe 3$d$ and As 4$p,$ and derive two sets of Wannier orbitals
from DFT, one set describing merely the five Fe $d$-like bands and another
set describing the eight Fe $d$- and As $p$-like bands. Armed with those
sets, we can return to a detailed description of the low-energy
bandstructure, i.e. the one which forms the pseudogap at $d^{6}$ and the
Fermi surface. This is done in subsection \ref{2DFS} where we shall see that
the hybridization between --or covalency of-- the As $p$ and the Fe $d$
orbitals is crucial for the band topology. Bringing
this out clearly, was in
fact our original reason for deriving the eight-orbital $pd$ set, although
the five-orbital $d$ set suffices to describe the low-energy band structure.
For FeTe and LaOFeAs the formal ionic states are respectively Fe$^{2+}$Te$%
^{2-}$ and La$^{3+}$O$^{2-}$Fe$^{2+}$As$^{3-}.$ In fact, for all parents of
the iron-based superconductors, the nominal electronic configuration is
ligand$\,p^{6}$ Fe$\,d^{6}.$ The generic 2D band structure is shown in Fig. %
\ref{FigBands} for energies ranging from 4.5 eV below to 2.5 eV above the
Fermi level and along the high-symmetry lines of the BZ (Fig. \ref{FigBZ}).
In the energy range considered, there are eight bands which are seen to
separate into three low-energy and five high-energy bands. They may be
called respectively the ligand $p$- and iron $d$-bands, and the
corresponding electron count is as written on the figure. At $p^{6}d^{6}$
the two uppermost bands are seen to be detached from the rest, except at one
(Dirac) \emph{point} along the $\mathrm{\bar{X}\bar{M}}$-line where two bands cross,
because their Bloch functions are respectively even and odd with respect to
reflection in a vertical mirror parallel to $\mathrm{\bar{X}\bar{M}}$ and
containing nearest-neighbor As atoms.
If the energy of this crossing could be moved
up, above the relative band maxima at $\bar{\Gamma}$ \emph{and} $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$,
it would drag the Fermi level along
and the material would transform into a zero-gap semiconductor. For the
iron-based superconductors, however, the Fermi level is merely in a
pseudogap and the Fermi surface (FS) consists of a $\bar{\Gamma}$-centered
hole pocket, two $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$-centered hole pockets, and two compensating electron
pockets centered at respectively $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$ and $\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$ (Fig. \ref{FigBZ}).
\begin{figure}[tbp
\centerline{
\includegraphics*[width=0.4\linewidth]{figs/fig4}}
\caption{\label{FigBands} Band structure of paramagnetic, tetragonal pure
LaOFeAs with the experimental structure near the Fermi level $\left( \equiv
0\right) $ and for $\mathbf{k}$ along the high-symmetry lines in the large
2D Brillouin zone (Fig. \ref{FigBZ}). Band energies are in eV. These DFT-GGA
bands were calculated with the NMTO method and a basis of Fe $d$ and As $p$
downfolded NMTOs. Transformation to real space yields the eight Wannier
functions shown in Fig \ref{FigpdOrbs}. The 2D bands were obtained by
neglecting the interlayer hoppings and forming glide-mirror Bloch sums of
the Wannier orbitals on a single FeAs layer, i.e. by appropriately flipping
the signs of the intra-layer hopping integrals. The large gaps in the figure
are labelled by an electronic configuration which corresponds to a $p$-set
and a $d$-set of Wannier orbitals which span respectively the three lowest
and the five highest bands. This $d$-set is illustrated in Fig \ref{FigdOrbs}%
. Upon electron doping in the rigid band approximation, the $\bar{\Gamma}$%
-centered hole pocket fills once the doping exceeds $0.1$ e/Fe, and when it
exceeds $0.3\,$e/Fe, also the $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$-centered hole pockets fill.}
\end{figure}
\subsection{Fe$\,d$ five-orbital Wannier basis}
Characterizing the five upper bands as Fe $d$ is sound, because they can be
spanned exactly by five Wannier functions \cite{LFAO:DFT:arita} which behave like Fe
$d$-orbitals. This can be seen in Fig.$\,$\ref{FigdOrbs}. Our Wannier
functions were constructed \cite{NMTO} to have $d$ character on the central
Fe site and \emph{no} $d$ character on any other Fe site. This makes them
localized Wannier \emph{orbitals.} The five bands of course have characters
other than Fe $d,$ and those characters are mixed into the Fe$\,d$ Wannier
orbitals. This by-mixing follows the point symmetry in the crystal.
Specifically, the Fe $d_{xy}$ Wannier orbital has on-site Fe $p_{z}$
character breaking the horizontal-mirror symmetry of the pure $d_{xy}$
orbital, as well as strong off-site $p_{z}$ character on all four As
neighbors. The sign of the As $p_{z}$ character is \emph{anti}bonding to Fe $%
d_{xy}$ because the As$\,p$ hybridization pushes the Fe$\,d$ band \emph{up} in
energy. The corresponding nodes between the Fe $d$ and As $p$ tails make
neighboring lobes difficult to see in the figure. Hence, only the As $p_{z}$
lobes pointing towards the La layers are big. Similarly, the Fe$\,d_{Xz}$
Wannier orbital antibonds with $p_{X}$ on the two As neighbors in the $X$
direction, and Fe $d_{Yz}$ antibonds with $p_Y$ on the two As neighbors in the
$Y$ direction. If the Fe-site symmetry had been exactly tetragonal, the three
above-mentioned Wannier orbitals would have been degenerate and transformed
according to the $t_{2}$ irreducible representation. However, the
non-tetrahedral environment, e.g. flattening of the tetrahedron $\left( \eta
<1\right) ,$ increases the energy of the $d_{xy}$ orbital above that of the $%
d$ orbitals belonging to $t,$ i.e. $d_{Xz}$ and $d_{Yz}$ or, equivalently, $%
d_{xz}$ and $d_{yz}.$ In LaOFeAs, the energy of $d_{xy}$ is $\sim $0.1 eV
above that of $d_{t}$. The two remaining Wannier orbitals, $d_{3z^{2}-1}%
\mathrm{\equiv }d_{zz}$ and $d_{y^{2}-x^{2}}\mathrm{\equiv }d_{XY},$
antibond less with As $p$ because their lobes point between the arsenics. Fe
$d_{zz}$ is seen to antibond with $p_{z}$ on the four As neighbors and Fe $%
d_{XY}$ antibonds with $p_{Y}$ on the two As neighbors in the $X$ direction,
and with $p_{X}$ on the two As neighbors in the $Y$ direction. In tetrahedal
symmetry these two orbitals would transform according to the $e$
representation, and that holds quite well also in the real materials where
the orbitals are degenerate within a few meV. Their energy is $\sim $0.2 eV
below that of the $d_{Xz}$ and $d_{Yz}$ orbitals. This $e$-$t_{2}$ splitting
of a central $d$ shell in a tetrahedron having $p$ orbitals at its corners
is an order of magnitude smaller than the $t_{2g}$-$e_{g}$ splitting in an
octahedron which allows for better alignment of the $p$ and $d$ orbitals.
The $\sim $0.2 eV $e$-$t_{2}$ splitting in LaOFeAs
is 20 times smaller than the width
of the Fe$\,d$-band structure in Fig.$\,$\ref{FigBands} and does {\em not} cause
separation into two lower $e$ and three higher $t_{2}$ bands with a
pseudogap at $d^{4}.$ Nevertheless, the $t_{2}$ and $e$ orbitals do play
quite different roles in forming the band structure near the Fermi level, as
we shall see later.
\begin{figure}[tbp
\centerline{
\includegraphics*[width=1.0\linewidth]{figs/fig5}}
\caption{\label{FigdOrbs}The set of five Fe $d$-like Wannier orbitals
(downfolded and orthonormalized NMTOs) which span the five LaOFeAs bands
extending from -1.8 eV below to 2.2 eV above the Fermi level. Shown are the
positive and negative contours, $\chi _{m}\left( \mathbf{r}\right) =\pm
\left\vert c\right\vert ,$ with the former in red and the latter in blue.
Orientation and coloring (Fe red, As green, La yellow, and O blue) as in Fig.%
$\,$\ref{FigLayer}. The three orbitals to the left and the two to the right
would belong to respectively the $t_{2}$ and $e$ representations, had the
point symmetry been tetragonal. Now, $t_{2}$ split into $a$ $\left(
d_{xy}\right) $ and $t$ $\left( d_{xz},d_{yz}\right) .$ Note that the $t$
orbitals $d_{xz}\equiv \left( d_{Xz}-d_{Yz}\right) /\sqrt{2}$ and $%
d_{yz}\equiv \left( d_{Xz}+d_{Yz}\right) /\sqrt{2},$ whose Bloch sums form
the proper linear combinations for $\mathbf{k}$ along $\bar{\Gamma}$$\mathrm{\bar{X}}$
and $\mathrm{\bar{X}\bar{M}}$ (Fig.$\,$\ref{FigBZ}), are not simply 45$^\circ$
-turned versions of $d_{Xz}$ and $d_{Yz}$ shown here, in particular because
the $p$ tails of the latter are on different pairs of arsenics. The $p$
tails are thus always directed towards the nearest As neighbors in the same
plane, i.e. they are $X$ or $Y,$ and they antibond with the $t$ head.}
\end{figure}
Whereas in cubic perovskites, including the cuprate superconductors, the
effective $dd$ hopping in the separated $t_{2g}$ and $e_{g}$ bands proceeds
almost exclusively \emph{through} the $p$ tails, which are placed between
the nearest-neighbor $d$ orbitals, the effective $dd$ hopping in the
iron-based superconductors proceeds \emph{directly} between nearest-neighbor
$d$ orbitals on the square lattice as well as \emph{via} the $p$ tails lying
above and below the plane of the $d$ orbitals.
Tabulations of the hopping integrals for the $d$-orbital Hamiltonian may be
found in Refs.~\cite{LFAO:DFT:arita} and ~\cite{ikeda10}.
\subsection{Fe$\,d$ As$\,p$ eight-orbital Wannier basis and its Hamiltonian}
\begin{figure}[tbp
\centerline{
\includegraphics*[width=0.9\linewidth]{figs/fig6}}
\caption{\label{FigpdOrbs} Same as Fig.$\,$\ref{FigdOrbs}, but for the set of
eight As$\,p$- and Fe$\,d$-like Wannier functions which span the entire band
structure shown in Fig.$\,$\ref{FigBands}.}
\end{figure}
In order to explain the band structure, and in particular the interlayer
coupling in Sect. \ref{3DBands}, we find it useful to exhibit the As $p$
characters explicitly. We therefore choose \emph{not} to downfold the As $p$
channels, but span the entire eight-band structure in Fig.$\,$\ref{FigBands}
by the eight As $p$ and Fe $d$ Wannier orbitals; all other channels remain
downfolded~\cite{NMTO}. These eight orbitals are shown in Fig.$\,$\ref%
{FigpdOrbs}. Due to the lack of As $p$ tails, the Fe $d$ orbitals of this $%
pd $ set are more localized than those of the $d$ set and the integrals for
hopping between them have a shorter range. This basis set is also more suited
for including the on-site Coulomb correlations. The As $p$ orbitals are, on
the other hand, quite diffuse and give rise to strong and long-ranged $pp$
and $pd$ hoppings inside the layer. For the $p_{z}$ orbital, this is partly
due to its La $d$ and O $p$ tails. This situation is very different from the
one found in the cuprates, where long-ranged $pp$ hopping is blocked by the
presence of Cu in the same plane. Although the orbitals of the AsFe $pd$ set
resemble atomic orbitals more than those of the $d$ set, they do tend to
avoid the space covered by the other orbitals in the set: The Fe $d$
orbitals avoid the As sites and the As $p$ orbitals avoid the Fe sites. This
distorts in particular the Fe $t_{2}$ orbitals. The on-site energies, $%
\epsilon _{\alpha },$ and the nearest-neighbor hopping integrals, $t_{\alpha
,\beta }^{n_{x},n_{y}},$ are given in the table below.
Here, all energies are in eV and the hopping integral is the matrix element of
the Hamiltonian between Wannier orbitals $\alpha $ and $\beta $ with $n_{x}%
\mathbf{x}+n_{y}\mathbf{y}$ being the vector from $\alpha $ to $\beta ,$
projected onto the Fe plane. All hopping integrals needed to obtain
converged energy bands together with their analytical expressions will be
published in Ref.~\cite{usNJP}. For LaOFeAs, $a$=285$\,$pm (and, within a
few per cent, the same for the other iron-based superconductors). The
energies of the $p$ and $d$ orbitals are respectively $-1.8$ and $-0.7$ eV.
This 1.1 eV $pd$ separation is merely a fraction of the 7 eV $pd$-band width
and it therefore seems fair to claim that the band structure is more
covalent than ionic. Nevertheless, it \emph{does} split into three lower As $%
p$-like and five upper Fe $d$-like bands as noted above. The band
structure fattened by the weight of each of the eight Wannier orbitals of
the $pd$ set is shown in Fig.$\,$\ref{FigpdFatBands}. Here and in the
following we write $xy$ for Fe$\,d_{xy},$ $t$ for Fe $d_{t},$ $z$ for As$%
\,p_{z},$ a.s.o.. The strange wiggles of some of the bands may be seen to
have strong $z$ character and this tells us that the reason for those
wiggles is intra-layer hopping via the LaO layers, whose orbitals are
downfolded mainly into the As $z$ orbital.
\begin{center}
\small
\begin{tabular}{|ccccccc|}
\hline
$\epsilon _{xy}=-0.72$ & $\epsilon _{xz}=-0.65$ & $\epsilon
_{XY}=-0.75$ & $\epsilon _{zz}=-0.62$ & & $\epsilon _{z}=-1.75$ & $\epsilon
_{x}=-1.93$ \\
& & & & & & \\
$t_{xy,xy}^{1,0}=0.23$ & $t_{xz,xz}^{1,0}=0.23$ & $t_{XY,XY}^{1,0}=-0.31$ & $%
t_{zz,zz}^{1,0}=-0.06$ & & $t_{z,z}^{1,0}=0.32$ & $t_{X,X}^{1,0}=0.24$ \\
& & $t_{XY,zz}^{1,0}=-0.15$ & & & $t_{z,X}^{1,0}=-0.27$ & $%
t_{X,X}^{1\,1}=0.53$ \\
& & & & & & \\
$t_{xy,X}^{\frac{1}{2},\frac{1}{2}}=0.22$ & $t_{Xz,X}^{\frac{1}{2},\frac{1}{2%
}}=0.72$ & $t_{XY,X}^{\frac{1}{2},-\frac{1}{2}}=0.62$ & $t_{zz,z}^{\frac{1}{2%
},\frac{1}{2}}=-0.41$ & & $t_{xy,z}^{\frac{1}{2},\frac{1}{2}}=0.52$ & $%
t_{zz,X}^{\frac{1}{2},\frac{1}{2}}=0.31$ \\
& $t_{Yz,Y}^{\frac{1}{2}\,\frac{1}{2}}=-0.49$ & & & & & \\ \hline
\end{tabular}
\end{center}
\normalsize
\subsection{2D Bands and Fermi surface\label{2DFS}}
We now follow the bands around the $d^{6}$ pseudogap and begin with the
Fermi surface near $\bar{\Gamma}.$
The $\bar{\Gamma}$-centered \emph{hole pocket} is seen to have $xy$
character and, as sketched at the top of Fig.$\,$\ref{FigABBloch}, its
Bloch function $dd$-antibonds with all four nearest Fe neighbors. If in this
figure we imagine inserting the $xy$ orbital of the $d$ set (Fig.~\ref%
{FigdOrbs}), we realize that the sum of the As $p_{z}$ tails cancel. In
fact, none of the other 8 orbitals in the $pd$ set can mix with the Bloch
sum of $xy$ orbitals at $\bar{\Gamma}.$ This we have stated in the caption
to Fig.$\,$\ref{FigBZ} together with the selection rules for all other
high-symmetry points. The selection rules for the high-symmetry lines
are given in blue on the figure.
For $\mathbf{k}$ moving from $\bar{\Gamma}$ towards $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$,
the $xy$ band is seen to disperse downwards because in the $x$-direction,
the character of the wavefunction goes from $dd$ antibonding to bonding and,
at the same time, the band gets repelled by the above-lying $xz/y$ band
whose $xz$ orbitals point in the direction of the $\mathbf{k}$-vector, i.e.
the longitudinal $t$ band. The corresponding inter-band matrix element
increases linearly with the distance from $\bar{\Gamma},$ whereby the
downwards curvature of the $xy$ band is enhanced by about 10\%. The
resulting hole band mass is about twice that of a free-electron.
\begin{figure}[tbp
\centerline{
\includegraphics*[width=1.0\linewidth]{figs/fig7}}
\caption{\label{FigpdFatBands} Band structure from Fig.~\ref{FigBands}$\,$%
fattened by the character of each of the eight Wannier orbitals in the $pd$
set (Fig. \ref{FigpdOrbs}). A fatness was obtained by perturbing the on-site
energy of the orbital in question. That two bands share the same fatness
means that they hybridize. In order to concentrate the fatness onto as few
bands as possible we chose the appropriate
linear-combination of $t$ orbitals
(see Fig. \ref{FigBZ}) for each high-symmetry line . The $\bar{\Gamma}$%
$\mathrm{\bar{M}}$-line was chosen as the one in the $X$ direction.}
\end{figure}
At $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$, the $xy$ Bloch sum bonds between nearest Fe neighbors in the $x$
direction and antibonds between those in the $y$ direction. In addition,
weak hybridization with a 2 eV lower-lying As $y$ band provides $y$
character to antibond between the $xy$ orbitals in the $y$ direction. This
pushes the $xy$ band up at $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$ by 0.2 eV to $-$0.4 eV. As $\mathbf{k}$ now
moves on from $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$ towards $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$, the Bloch sum of $xy$ orbitals becomes
bonding between Fe nearest neighbors in the $y$ direction as well, whereby
the As $z$ tails (Fig.\ref{FigdOrbs}) no longer cancel and their antibonding
contribution increases linearly with $k_{y}.$ This causes the band to
disperse strongly \emph{upwards,} to a maximum 1$\,$eV \emph{above} the
Fermi level. As can be seen from Fig. \ref{FigpdFatBands}, this strong
change of band character may also be explained as the result of strong $pd$
hybridization and \emph{avoided crossing} of a pure $xy$ band dispersing
downwards from $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$ to $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ and a pure $z$ band dispersing strongly
upwards due to long-range hopping, partly via La and O (see Fig. \ref%
{FigpdOrbs}). Corresponding to the 1.3 eV upwards dispersion of the $xy/z$
antibonding band along $\mathrm{\bar{X}\bar{M}}$, we see a downwards dispersion the $z/xy$
bonding band. At $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$, $xy$ and $z$ hybridize, but only with each other:
the pure $xy$ level is at $-2.0\,$eV, the pure $z$ level at $-0.4\,$eV, and
the $xy$-$z$ hybridization is 2 eV, thus pushing the antibonding,
predominantly $z$-like level up to +0.9 eV and the bonding, predominantly $%
xy $-like level down to $-3.4\,\,$eV.
The $t$-bands which form the $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$-centered \emph{hole pockets} exhibit a
very similar behavior as the $xy$ band when, instead of going along the path
$\bar{\Gamma}$-$\mathrm{\bar{X}}$-$\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ (or $\bar{\Gamma}$-%
$\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$-$\mathrm{\bar{M}}$), we go along the
path $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$-$\mathrm{\bar{X}}$-$\bar{\Gamma}$ for the $xz$ band and along $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$-$\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$-$%
\bar{\Gamma}$ for the $yz$ band. The avoided $pd$ crossing is now between a
pure $xz$ band dispersing downwards from $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$ to $\bar{\Gamma}$ and a pure $%
y$ band dispersing strongly upwards; these dispersions are strong because $%
\mathbf{k}$ changes in the direction of strong hoppings, $dd\pi $ and $pp\pi
$, respectively. At $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$, the $xz$ band \emph{is} pure and merely 0.1 eV
below the Fermi level. At $\bar{\Gamma},$ the pure $xz$ level is at $-1$ eV,
the pure $y$ level is at $+0.5$ eV, and the hybridization between them is
over 2 eV thus pushing the antibonding, predominantly $y$-like level to +2.2
eV above the Fermi level and the bonding, predominanly $xz$-like level down
to $-2.7$ eV. Whereas along $\bar{\Gamma}$$\mathrm{\bar{X}}$, the $xy$ and $xz/y$ bands
hybridize and therefore cannot cross, along $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$$\mathrm{\bar{M}}$, they \emph{do} cross
because the Bloch sums with $k_{x}\mathrm{=}\pi $ of Fe $xy$ and Fe $xz$
orbitals are respectively even and odd upon reflection in the As-containing
vertical mirror perpendicular to the $x$ direction. In other words, they
belong to different irreducible representations (Fig.$\,$\ref{FigBZ}). Since
outside the $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$$\mathrm{\bar{M}}$-line, hybridization between them is no longer
forbidden, the accidental degeneracy is at a Dirac \emph{point} in 2D (a
line in 3D). To separate the two bands would require moving the $xy/y$ \emph{%
above} the $xz$ level at $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$ .
Near $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$, the $xy$- and $xz$-like bands are close in energy and both have
minima. The minimum of the $xy$-like band curves steeply upwards towards
$\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ due to strong hybridization with $z,$ and that of the $xz$-like band
curves steeply upwards towards $\bar{\Gamma},$ due to strong hybridization
with $y,$ but is flat towards $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$, which is the direction transversal to
the dominating $dd\pi $ hopping. These two bands hybridize weakly with each
other, except on the $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$$\mathrm{\bar{M}}$-line. As a result, they form a lower and an
upper band of which the latter cuts the Fermi level at an $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$-centered
\emph{electron pocket.} As long as the Fermi level is well above the band
crossing along $\mathrm{\bar{X}\bar{M}}$, the shape is that of a 4th-order superellipse.
This ellipse points towards $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ where its character is mainly $xy/z$ and
is flat towards $\bar{\Gamma},$ where its character is predominantly $xz/y.$
The two bands forming the $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$-centered electron pocket can be modeled by
the Hamiltonian,%
\begin{equation}
H\left( k_{x},k_{y}\right) =\left(
\begin{array}{cc}
\epsilon _{xy} & 0 \\
0 & \epsilon _{xz}%
\end{array}%
\right) +\left(
\begin{array}{cc}
\frac{\tau k_{x}^{2}}{m_{xy,xy}^{x}}+v_{xy,xy}^{y}\,k_{y} &
v_{xy,xz}^{x}\,k_{x} \\
v_{xy,xz}^{x}\,k_{x} & \frac{\tau k_{x}^{2}}{m_{dd\pi }}+\frac{\tau k_{y}^{2}%
}{m_{dd\delta }}%
\end{array}%
\right) , \label{electron}
\end{equation}%
in the basis of two effective (downfolded) Bloch orbitals, $xy$ and $xz,$
and where the origin of $\left( k_{x},k_{y}\right) $ is taken at $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$. Note
that the dispersion of the effective $xy$ band towards $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ is nearly
linear for energies not too close to $\epsilon _{xy}$ due to the avoided
crossing of the pure $xy$ and $z$-bands and the linear increase of their
hybridization (see Fig.$\,$\ref{FigpdFatBands}; we shall return to this). In
expression (\ref{electron}), $\epsilon _{xy}$=$-$0.44\thinspace eV and $%
\epsilon _{xz}$=$-$0.13$\,$eV are the levels at $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$ with respect to the
Fermi level, $v_{xy,xy}^{y}$=0.53 and $v_{xy,xz}^{x}$=$-$0.29\textrm{%
\thinspace eV}$\cdot a$ are band slopes, i.e. group velocities, and $%
m_{xy,xy}^{x}$=2.9, $m_{dd\pi }$=2.3, and $m_{dd\delta }$=$-$7 are the band
masses relative to that of a free electron. Negative masses are those of
holes. Moreover, $\tau \equiv \left( a_{0}/a\right) ^{2}\mathrm{Ry}$%
=0.47\thinspace eV with $a_{0}$ the Bohr radius.The numerical values are for
pure LaOFeAs with the experimental structure and were obtained by fitting
the result of an LAPW calculation near the Fermi level. Like everywhere else
in this paper, $k$ is in units of the inverse Fe-Fe nearest-neighbor
distance, $1/a=1/285\,\mathrm{pm}$. By symmetry, the $xy$-
and $yz$-like bands give rise to a $\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$-centered electron pocket which also
points towards $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$, where the character is mainly $xy/z$, and is flat
towards $\bar{\Gamma}$ with predominant $yz/x$ character. This is
illustrated in Fig. \ref{FigFatFS} by projection of the Fermi surface onto
the various orbitals.
\begin{figure}[tbp
\centerline{
\includegraphics[width=1.0\linewidth]{figs/fig8}}
\caption{\label{FigFatFS} Fermi surface for LaOFeAs (see also Fig. \ref{FigBZ}).
The fatness was obtained as in Fig.$\,$\ref{FigpdFatBands} and thus gives
the orbital weight times the inverse of the Fermi velocity projected onto
the plane. The fatness of the dominating $xy,$ $xz,$ and $yz$ orbitals have
been reduced by a factor 5. Here, $h$ and $e$ refer to, respectively, hole and
electron sheets.}
\end{figure}
Although none of the sheets of the paramagnetic Fermi-surface have major $e$
character, the two $e$ orbitals play a decisive role in the formation of the
$d^{6}$ pseudogap. The pure $zz$ band is centered at $-0.6$ eV and disperses
so little that it lies entirely below the Fermi level. At $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$, the $zz$
band is pure, and at $\bar{\Gamma},$ hybridization with the $z$ band pushes
it up by 0.6 eV, an amount larger than the width of the pure $zz$ band, to $%
-0.4 $ eV. The pure $XY$ band, on the other hand, is broad because the lobes
of the nearest-neighbor $XY$ orbitals point directly towards each other. This
band has its minimum at $\bar{\Gamma},$ saddlepoint at $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$, and maximum at
$\mathrm{\bar{M}}$. Both extrema, at respectively $-1.8$ eV and $+0.6$ eV, are pure. At
intermediate energies, the $XY$ band is however gapped in large regions
centered at $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$ and $\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$ by avoided crossings with the $zz$ band.
Near the $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$$\bar{\Gamma}$-lines, where the $XY$ and $zz$ bands cannot
hybridize, the $XY$ band has an avoided crossing near $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ with the upper,
\emph{transversal} hole band, $Yz/Y$ $\left( Xz/X\right) $ in the $X$ $%
\left( Y\right) $ direction. The hybridization between the transversal hole
band and the downwards-dispersing pure $XY$ band vanishes at $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$, but
increases linearly with the distance from $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$, and with a slope
proportional to the $pd\pi $-like hopping integral between the $XY$ and $Y$
orbitals. This means that, if at $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$, the $XY$ level at 0.6 eV could be
lowered by 0.4 eV such as to become degenerate with the degenerate top of
the hole bands, then the transverse hole band and the $XY$ band would form a
\emph{Dirac cone}. The trace of this cone can still be seen in Fig.$\,$\ref%
{FigpdFatBands}, in particular at the low-energy edge of the fat $XY$ band.
If the singly degenerate $XY$ level at $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ had been \emph{below} the
degenerate $Yz/Y$ level, then this lowest level would be the
singly-degenerate top of an $XY$-like hole band and the higher-lying,
doubly-degenerate level would be the bottom of the transversal $Yz/Y$ \emph{%
electron} band. The degenerate partner does not hybridize with $XY/Y$ and is
therefore independent of the position of the $XY$-band. Hence, the actual
band structure of the LaOFeAs has the $XY$ and $Yz/Y$ levels, at respectively
0.6 and 0.2 eV, inverted.
The model Hamiltonian for a Dirac cone is:%
\begin{equation}
H\left( k\right) \approx \left(
\begin{array}{rr}
-\frac{1}{2}g & 0 \\
0 & \frac{1}{2}g%
\end{array}%
\right) +\left(
\begin{array}{cc}
\frac{\tau k^{2}}{m_{1}} & vk \\
vk & \frac{\tau k^{2}}{m_{2}}%
\end{array}%
\right) , \label{Dirac}
\end{equation}%
where for the above-mentioned example $k$ is the distance from $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$. The zero of energy is midway between
the two $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ levels, $XY$ and $t/p,$ which are separated by $g$. In view of
the approximately circular shape and isotropic $XY$ character of the
transversal (outer) $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$-centered hole sheet seen in Fig.$\,$\ref{FigFatFS}%
, the isotropic $2\times 2$ Hamiltonian (\ref{Dirac}) is a reasonable
representation and may be obtained by limiting $\mathbf{k}$ to one of the
four $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$$\bar{\Gamma}$ directions where only three transversal orbitals
can mix (Fig.$\,$\ref{FigBZ}), and then downfolding the transversal $p$
orbital, i.e. $Y$ if $k$ is along $X.$ Since the unhybridized $XY$ band
disperses \emph{downwards} towards $\bar{\Gamma},$ its mass, $m_{2},$ is
negative, and since the unhybridized transversal band disperses \emph{%
upwards,} its mass, $m_{1},$ is positive. Finally, the coupling $vk$ is
proportional to the product of the $Yz$-$Y$ hybridization at $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$, which is
in fact responsible for moving the pure $Yz$ band up by 0.4 eV, and the $XY$-%
$Y$ hybridization, which is proportional to $k.$ These hybridizations are
clearly seen in the pictures of the $d$ Wannier orbitals in Fig$\,$\ref%
{FigdOrbs}.
For this incipient $XY\mathrm{-}Yz/Y$ Dirac cone in LaOFeAs, $g\mathrm{=0.4}%
\,$eV, $m_{2}\mathrm{=-1.4},$ $m_{1}\mathrm{=1.4}$, and $v\approx 0.5\,%
\mathrm{eV}\,a=1.4$ $\mathrm{eV\,\mathring{A}}=1.4c/1973,$ i.e. about
thousand times less than the velocity of light, $c.$ Now, for $k\gg \frac{1}{%
2}g\left/ v\right. =0.4\sim \left\vert \bar{\Gamma}\mathrm{\bar{M}}%
\right\vert /10,$ the Hamiltonian (\ref{Dirac}) yields the cone: $%
\varepsilon \left( k\right) =\pm vk,$ and for $k\ll \frac{1}{2}g\left/
v\right. ,$ it yields parabolic $Yz/Y$ and $XY$-like bands gapped by $g$ and
with inverse masses given by respectively%
\begin{equation*}
\frac{1}{m_{1}}-\frac{v}{g}=\frac{1}{1.4}-\frac{0.5}{0.4}\sim \frac{1}{-2}%
\quad \mathrm{and}\quad \frac{1}{m_{2}}+\frac{v}{g}=-\frac{1}{1.4}+\frac{0.5%
}{0.4}\sim \frac{1}{2}.
\end{equation*}%
Later in this paper, we shall meet not only incipient- but real Dirac cones.
The final gap needed to complete the $d^{6}$ gap in the central part of
the $\bar{\Gamma}$$\mathrm{\bar{X}}$$\mathrm{\bar{M}}$$\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$
square is the one produced by the
avoided crossings along $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$%
$\bar{\Gamma}$ of the downwards-dispersing upper $z/xy$ band with the
upwards-dispersing upper, \emph{longitudinal} $Xz/X$ band. Here again, none
of these bands are allowed to hybridize at $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$, and the matrix elements
between them increase linearly with the distance from $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ in the $X$
direction. Specifically, the $pd$ matrix elements $Xz$-$z,$ $X$-$z,$ and $X$-%
$xy$ are all linear in $k.$ Also the $zz$ band at $-0.6$ eV mixes in, with
the weak 2nd-nearest neighbor $dd$ hopping integral between $Xz$ and $zz$
orbitals providing the slope of the linear matrix element. At $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$, the $%
z/xy$ and $Xz/X$ levels are thus inverted, but by being at respectively 0.9
and 0.2 eV, they are too far apart to make the Dirac cone visible in Fig \ref%
{FigpdFatBands}. This will however change when, in the following section, we
consider other materials and include the $k_{z}$-dispersion. In conclusion,
the $d^{6}$ pseudogap is caused by the $XY$ and uppermost $z/xy$ levels
being \emph{above} the degenerate $t/p$ levels at $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$. Had the opposite
been the case, a situation with the two $t/p$ bands entirely above the three
$z/xy$ and $e$ bands, i.e. that of a $d^{6}$ insulator, could be imagined.
Having sorted out the intricacies of the band structure and thereby
understood the subtle origins of the $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$-centered electron pockets and the
$d^{6}$ pseudogap, we shall finally return to the $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$-centered hole
pockets using Figs.$\,$\ref{FigBZ}, \ref{FigpdFatBands}, and \ref{FigFatFS}.
These hole pockets have fairly complicated shapes and orbital characters.
Although the $t$ character dominates, $p$ hybridization pushes the top of
the band up by 0.4 eV, to 0.2 eV above the Fermi level, as has been
mentioned before. Departing from $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$, the two bands split into a steep one
with relative mass numerically smaller than one and a shallow one with mass
numerically larger than one. They give rise to
respectively the inner and the outer hole pockets. As long as the character
of the band is predominantly $t$-like, the steeper, inner band will be the
one for which the $dd\pi $ hopping is along the vector distance from $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$,
that is, the \emph{longitudinal} band. Accordingly, we see in Fig.$\,$\ref%
{FigpdFatBands} from $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ to $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$, the $yz$-like band stay intact and
disperse strongly downwards. From $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ towards $\bar{\Gamma},$ we see the $%
Xz$-like band disperse downwards and stay intact until it suffers an avoided
crossing with the $zz$ band. The inner band is in fact steeper towards $\bar{%
\Gamma}$ than towards $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$ and $\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$,
and this is partly because the $p$
hybridization of the longitudinal band has a node along $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$$\bar{\Gamma},$
as can be seen for the $Xz$-like band in Fig.$\,$\ref{FigpdFatBands}. The
further reason for the small mass of the inner hole pocket is the gapped
Dirac cone formed with the 0.7 eV higher-lying $z/xy$ band. The outer, \emph{%
transversal} hole band has a large mass not given by the weak $dd\delta $
hopping integral, but as discussed above in connection with Eq.$\,$(\ref%
{Dirac}), by its hybridization proportional to $k,$ with the $g$=0.4$\,$eV
higher-lying $XY$ band. Along $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$$\bar{\Gamma}$ this transversal hole band
is mainly $xz/x$ hybridizing proportional to $k,$ not only with $XY$ but also
with $zz.$ The latter gives the anisotropy seen in Fig.$\,$\ref{FigFatFS}.
In the next section we shall see how these details are modified by the
material-dependent height of As above the Fe plane and interlayer coupling.
\section{Influence of As height and interlayer hopping\label{3DBands}}
Until now we have discussed the generic 2D band structure for an isolated
FeAs layer. This band structure was obtained by (i) downfolding the proper
3D bands of LaOFeAs with $\mathbf{k}$ in the small BZ to a $16\times 16$ $pd$
TB Hamiltonian, (ii) neglecting the interlayer hoppings and (iii) reducing
the resulting Hamiltonian to an $8\times 8$ by transformation to the
glide-mirror Bloch representation with $\mathbf{k}$ in the large BZ. The
understanding of this relatively simple, generic, 2D band structure obtained
in Sect.$\,$\ref{2DFS} enables us now to explain the material-dependent,
complicated, 3D bands obtained by standard DFT calculations in the small BZ.
Specifically, we shall present and discuss the 3D band structures of
simple-tetragonal (st) LaOFeAs and SmOFeAs in Fig.~\ref{FigLaSmBa}
and in Sect.$\,$\ref{Sectst},
mentioning those of FeTe and LiFeAs en passant, and then in Sect.$\,$\ref%
{Sectbct} move on to the band structures of body-centered tetragonal (bct)
BaFe$_{2}$As$_{2}$ and CaFe$_{2}$As$_{2}$, in the normal as well as the
collapsed phase. The band structure of bct BaRu$_{2}$As$_{2}$ will finally be
mentioned. The interlayer hopping is mainly between As $z$ orbitals. In the
st LnOFeAs materials this hopping is fairly weak and the material dependence
of the band structures is caused more by the varying height of As above the
Fe plane than by interlayer hopping. This we shall see in Sect.$\,$\ref%
{Sectst}. For st FeTe and LiFeAs, and in particular for the bct materials,
the interlayer hopping is dominating, and since its effects are non-trivial,
we have derived the formalism and shall present it in Sect.$\,$\ref{Sectbct}%
. It turns out that the folding of the bands into the small BZ and
subsequent interlayer hybridization at \emph{general} $\mathbf{k}$-points
cause many bands to have nearly linear dispersions and in some cases to form
full Dirac cones.
\begin{figure}[tbp
\centerline{
\includegraphics[width=0.8\linewidth]{figs/fig9}}
\caption{ \label{FigLaSmBa}3D band structures of simple tetragonal LaOFeAs (left)
and SmOFeAs (middle), as well as body-centered tetragonal BaFe$_{2}$As$_{2}$
(right). For the two former, the BZ is a rectangular box whose cross-section
is the 2D folded-in zone shown by the dashed lines in Fig. \ref{FigBZ}. The M%
$\Gamma $-line is in the $k_{z}\mathrm{=}0$ plane, the $\Gamma $Z-line is
along the $k_{z}$-direction, and the ZR-line is in the $k_{z}\mathrm{=}\pi
/c $ plane. The 2D notation for the projection onto the $\left(
k_{x},k_{y}\right) $-plane is given on the top. The BaFe$_{2}$As$_{2}$ band
structure is plotted along those same lines, now labelled X$\Gamma $, $%
\Gamma $Z$,$and Z$\Gamma /2,$ as may be seen from Fig. \ref{FigbctBZ}. The
computational scheme was GGA-LAPW (\cite{Wien2k}).}
\end{figure}
\subsection{Simple tetragonal LnOFeAs, FeX, and LiFeAs\label{Sectst}}
Since in these st crystals, the FeAs and
LnRO layers (see Fig. \ref{FigLayer}) are simply translated in the $z$%
-direction by a multiple of $c$ and then stacked on top of each other, the
primitive translations in real and reciprocal space are respectively%
\begin{equation}
\left(
\begin{array}{c}
\mathbf{T}_{1} \\
\mathbf{T}_{2} \\
\mathbf{T}_{3}%
\end{array}%
\right) =\left(
\begin{array}{rrr}
1 & 1 & 0 \\
-1 & 1 & 0 \\
0 & 0 & c%
\end{array}%
\right) \left(
\begin{array}{c}
\mathbf{x} \\
\mathbf{y} \\
\mathbf{z}%
\end{array}%
\right) \;\mathrm{and}\;\left(
\begin{array}{c}
\mathbf{g}_{1} \\
\mathbf{g}_{2} \\
\mathbf{g}_{3}%
\end{array}%
\right) =\left(
\begin{array}{rrr}
\pi & \pi & 0 \\
-\pi & \pi & 0 \\
0 & 0 & \frac{2\pi }{c}%
\end{array}%
\right) \left(
\begin{array}{c}
\mathbf{x} \\
\mathbf{y} \\
\mathbf{z}%
\end{array}%
\right) . \label{st}
\end{equation}%
The 3D BZ is therefore simply a rectangular box whose cross-section is the
2D zone, folded-in as shown by the dashed lines in Fig. \ref{FigBZ}. The
midpoints of the vertical faces, $\frac{1}{2}\mathbf{g}_{1}$ and $\frac{1}{2}%
\mathbf{g}_{2},$ are labelled $\mathrm{X=}\left( \frac{1}{2}\mathrm{\bar{M}}%
,k_{z}\mathrm{=}0\right) ,$ those of the vertical edges, $\frac{1}{2}\left(
\mathbf{g}_{1}\pm \mathbf{g}_{2}\right) =\pi \mathbf{y}$ and $\pi \mathbf{x,}
$ are labelled $\mathrm{M=}(\mathrm{\bar{Y}},k_{z}\mathrm{=}0)$ and $(%
\mathrm{\bar{X}},0),$ those of the horizontal faces, $\pm \frac{1}{2}\mathbf{%
g}_{3},$ are labelled $\mathrm{Z=}\left( \bar{\Gamma},\pm \frac{\pi }{c}%
\right) $, those of the horizontal edges, $\pm \frac{1}{2}\left( \mathbf{g}%
_{1}+\mathbf{g}_{3}\right) $ and $\pm \frac{1}{2}\left( \mathbf{g}_{2}+%
\mathbf{g}_{3}\right) ,$ are labelled $\mathrm{R=}(\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{\bar{M}%
},\pm \frac{\pi }{c}),$ and those of the corners, $\frac{1}{2}\left( \pm
\mathbf{g}_{1}\pm \mathbf{g}_{2}\pm \mathbf{g}_{3}\right) ,$ are labelled $%
\mathrm{A=}(\mathrm{\bar{Y}},\pm \frac{\pi }{c})$ and $(\mathrm{\bar{X}},\pm
\frac{\pi }{c}).$
In order to compare with our familiar 2D bands in Fig. \ref{FigBands}, we
first consider them along $\mathrm{\bar{X}\bar{M}}$, where they are the same
as along $\mathrm{\bar{Y}\bar{M}}$, and then then translate
$\mathrm{\bar{Y}}\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ by $-\mathbf{g}_{2}$ to
$\mathrm{\bar{X}\bar{\Gamma}},$ which is
M$\Gamma $ in Fig.$\,$\ref{FigLaSmBa}. Now we can
easily recognize the $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$-centered, doubly-degenerate top of the $t$%
-like hole bands, the above-lying $XY$ and $z/xy$ bands, and the $zz$ band
at $-0.6\,$eV. Next, we consider the $\bar{\Gamma}$$\mathrm{\bar{X}}$ bands in Fig. \ref%
{FigBands} and translate this line by $-\mathbf{g}_{2}$ to $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$$\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$, which
is $\Gamma $M in Fig.$\,$\ref{FigLaSmBa}. This time, we recognize the $\bar{%
\Gamma}$-centered $xy$ hole band, the $zz/z$ band at $-0.4$ eV, and the $%
\bar{\Gamma}$-centered bottom of the $XY$ band at $-1.8\,$eV. Near M=$\mathrm{\bar{X}}$
and $\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$, we also recognize the bands responsible for the $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$ -centered
electron super-ellipse, along the direction towards $\bar{\Gamma}$ and as
well as towards $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$. Finally, we consider the $\bar{\Gamma}$$\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ bands in
Fig. \ref{FigBands} and superpose those translated by $\mathbf{g}_{1},$
to $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$$\bar{\Gamma},$ onto them. Those bands are symmetric around $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$/2,
and their first half, from $\bar{\Gamma}$ to $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$/2, is placed from Z to R
in Fig.$\,$\ref{FigLaSmBa}. Here again, we can easily recognize the bands.
After having obtained an understanding of the 3D band structure of LaOFeAs
from merely placing $\varepsilon _{\alpha }\left( \mathbf{\bar{k}+g}%
_{2}\right) $
on top of $\varepsilon _{\alpha }\left( \mathbf{\bar{k}}%
\right) ,$ we now search --and subsequently explain-- the effects of
interlayer hopping.
$k_{z}$ is 0 along M$\Gamma $ and $\pi /c$ along ZR. Along the vertical
path $\Gamma $Z, we see the $k_{z}$-dispersion at $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ and $\bar{\Gamma}$.
From this, it may be realized that only bands with As $z$ character disperse
significantly with $k_{z},$ i.e. that the interlayer hopping proceeds
mostly from As $z$ to As $z$. The bands seen to disperse in Fig.$\,$\ref%
{FigLaSmBa} are the upper $z/xy$ band near $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ and the upper $zz/z$ band
near $\bar{\Gamma}$ (Fig.$\,$\ref{FigpdFatBands}). This interlayer hopping
simply modulates the energy of the $z$ orbital, $\epsilon _{z}\left(
k_{z}\right) =t^{\perp }\cos ck_{z}.$ Now we see something very interesting:
For $k_{z}$ near $\pi /c,$ the upper $z/xy$ band has come so close to the
top of the $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$-centered hole pockets that the inner, \emph{longitudinal}
band takes the shape of a Dirac cone over an energy region of 0.4 eV around
the Fermi level. The inner hole cylinder, as well as its radius, thus become
warped due to this incipient Dirac cone. This is even more pronounced for
SmOFeAs because here, the $z/xy$ band lies nearly 0.3 eV lower than in
LaOFeAs, in fact so low that the 2D band in the $k_{z}\mathrm{=}\pi /c$
plane is nearly a complete Dirac cone at 0.2 $\,$eV and with slope $v\sim
0.3\,$eV$\cdot a$ (see expression (\ref{Dirac})). To bring the Fermi level
up to the cusp would, however, require electron doping beyond 30\%.
The reason why the $z/xy$ band lies lower in SmOFeAs than in LaOFeAs is that
As lies higher above Fe $\left( \eta \mathrm{=}0.98\right) $ in the former
than in the latter compound $\left( \eta \mathrm{=}0.93\right) .$ The $z$-$%
xy $ hybridization is therefore smaller, and that moves the upper $z/xy$
band down at $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$. This is clearly seen along all directions in Fig.$\,$\ref%
{FigLaSmBa}, but whereas this flattening of the upper $z/xy$-like band \emph{%
increases} the mass at the $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$-centered \emph{electron}
pocket towards $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ and makes it more $d$-like,
it \emph{decreases} the mass of the inner $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$%
-centered $t/p$-like \emph{hole} pocket due to the incipient Dirac cone.
Increasing $\eta ,$ generally decreases the $pd$ hybridization, whereby $pd$
antibonding levels move down in energy with respect to those of pure $d$
character and become more $d$-like. Important effects of this are the
lowering of the top of the $t/p$ hole band at $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ with respect to that of
the $xy$ hole band at $\bar{\Gamma}$ and the lowering of the bottom of the $%
xy$-like electron band with respect to the pure $xz$ level at $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$ . These
changes are clearly seen in Fig.$\,$\ref{FigLaSmBa}: With the Fermi level
readjusted, the size of the $\bar{\Gamma}$-centered $xy$ hole sheet is
increased for SmOFeAs and is now similar to that of the outer $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$-centered
hole sheet. Finally, we may note that the decreased $t/p$ hybridization at
$\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ decreases the coupling linear in $k$ to the $XY$ band, so that this
band becomes less steep in the Sm than in the La compound.
Of all known iron-based superconductors, SmOFeAs has the highest $T_{c\,\max
}$ (55 K) and the most regular FeAs$_{4}$ tetrahedron, i.e. its $\eta $ is
closest to 1. For nearly all Fe-based superconductors, $T_{c\,\max }$ versus
$\eta $ seems to follow a parabolic curve,~\cite{tetra}
a correlation which has been
extensively studied, but is not understood. For LaOFeAs, $T_{c\,\max }%
\mathrm{=}27\,$K.
Also LiFeAs and the iron chalcogenides, FeX, have the st structure and
calculations~\cite{LiFeAs:ARPES:borisenko,BaFe2As2:DFT:singh,FeSe:DFT:subedi} yield: $\eta \mathrm{=}1.12$ for
LiFeAs, while for X = S, Se, Te: $\eta \mathrm{=}0.87,\,0.97,\,1.16$,
respectively~\cite{FeSe:DFT:subedi}. In LiFeAs and FeTe, the upper $z/xy$ band thus sits
considerably lower in energy. Moreover, since in LiFeAs the perpendicular As
$z$ hopping is enhanced by hopping via Li$\,s,$ and since the perpendicular
Te $5p_{z}$ hopping is stronger than the As $4p_{z}$ hopping in LnOFeAs, the
$z/xy$ band disperses 3 and 4 times \emph{more} along $\Gamma $Z in
respectively LiFeAs and FeTe, than in LnOFeAs. As a consequence, the $z/xy$%
-like band crosses the degenerate $t/p$ band already when $k_{z}\mathrm{\sim
}\pi /2c,$ and here, it forms a Dirac cone with the inner, longitudinal $t/p$
band, at 0.1 eV above the Fermi level in LiFeAs and at 0.2 eV in FeTe. For $%
\pi /2c\lesssim k_{z}\lesssim 3\pi /2c,$ the band which at $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ has
longitudinal $t/p$ character disperses upwards and the other band, which at
$\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ has $z/xy$ character, downwards. Accordingly, the inner hole sheet of
the Fermi surface is not a cylinder, but extends merely a bit further than
from $-\pi /2c$ to $\pi /2c$ where the $z/xy$ band along $\Gamma $Z dips
below the Fermi level. The mass of this sheet vanishes when $k_{z}$ is at
the Dirac value, $\mathrm{\sim }\pi /2c.$ Here, the slope of the cone in the
$\left( k_{x},k_{y}\right) $-plane is $v\sim $0.5 eV$\cdot a$. The $\bar{%
\Gamma}$-centered $xy$ pocket is a straight cylinder, whose cross-section in
FeTe has about the same size as that of the outer $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$-centered $t/p$ hole
sheet at $k_{z}\mathrm{=}0,$ i.e. like in SmOFeAs, and in LiFeAs is even a
bit larger. LiFeAs is a non-magnetic superconductor with $T_{c}$%
=18\thinspace K.
\subsection{Body-centered tetragonal BaFe$_{2}$As$_{2}$, CaFe$_{2}$As$_{2}$,
and BaRu$_{2}$As$_{2}$\label{Sectbct}}
In the body-centered tetragonal (bct) structure, the FeAs layers are
translated by $\mathbf{x}$ before they are stacked on top of each other.
This means that the As atoms of adjacent layers are directly on top of each
other. Moreover, the interlayer As-As distance, $d\,$=379\thinspace pm is
about the same as the intralayer As-As distances, $\sqrt{2}a\,$=396$\,$pm
and $\sqrt{2}a\eta .$ It is therefore conceivable that the interlayer
hopping vertically from As $z$ to As $z$ $\left( pp\sigma \right) $ is very
strong. This is in fact the reason for the 2 eV dispersion seen along $%
\Gamma $Z in the band structure of BaFe$_{2}$As$_{2}$ on the right-hand side
of Fig.\thinspace \ref{FigLaSmBa}. Since $\eta \mathrm{=}0.97$ for BaFe$_{2}$%
As$_{2},$ the position of this $z$-like band is not as low as in FeTe, but
more like in SmOFeAs. At $k_{z}\mathrm{\approx }3\pi /4c,$ the band crosses
the degenerate $t/p$ band and forms a Dirac cone with its longitudinal
branch in the $\left( k\,_{x},k_{y}\right) $-plane, as we shall see
explicitly later. Note that the longitudinal branch disperses downwards from
$\Gamma $ towards X in the $k_{z}\mathrm{=}0$ plane, but upwards from Z in
the $k_{z}\mathrm{=}\pi /c$ plane.
Ba is intercalated in the holes between the neighboring As sheets and thus
has 8 nearest As neighbors. Also Ba orbitals can be vehicles for interlayer
coupling and, in fact, a Ba $5d_{xz/yz}$ band lying above the frame of
Fig.\thinspace \ref{FigLaSmBa} repels the top of the doubly degenerate $t/p$
band near $\Gamma $ with the result that there, the latter is only slightly
above the top of the dispersionless $\bar{\Gamma}\,xy$ band, whereas at Z,
it is 0.2 eV above. Clearly visible in the figure is also a Ba $5d_{xy}$
band starting at 1.0 eV at X and then dispersing downwards towards $\Gamma ,
$ which is reached at 0.3 eV after an avoided crossing with the $y/xz$ band
decreasing from its maximum at $\Gamma .$ From $\Gamma $ towards Z, the $%
5d_{xy}$ band then disperses upwards to 1.0 eV and, from there, continues in
the $k_{z}\mathrm{=}\pi /c$ plane towards $\Gamma ,$ but soon suffers an
avoided crossing with the hybridized $z/xy$-longitudinal-$t/p$ band.
But before we continue our discussion of the BaFe$_{2}$As$_{2}$ bands we
need to write down a formalism for the interlayer coupling which is strong
--and poorly understood-- in the bct structure.\medskip
We start from the 2D Bloch waves, $\left\vert \mathbf{r;}\alpha ,\mathbf{%
\bar{k}}\right\rangle ,$ of a single FeAs layer with $\alpha $ labelling the
state (e.g. the band) and $\mathbf{\bar{k}}$ the irreducible representation
of the glide-mirror group. These 2D Bloch waves are expressed as linear
combinations of localized Wannier orbitals. For the 3D crystal, we now use
its out-of-plane translations, $n_3 \mathbf{T}_{3},$ to stack the 2D Bloch
waves in the 3rd direction and form the corresponding Bloch sums:%
\begin{equation}
\left\vert \mathbf{r;}\alpha ,\mathbf{k}\right\rangle
=\sum\nolimits_{n_{3}=0,\pm 1,...}\left\vert \mathbf{r}-n_{3}\mathbf{T}%
_{3};\alpha ,\mathbf{\bar{k}}\right\rangle \,\exp \left( in_{3}\mathbf{T}%
_{3}\cdot \mathbf{k}\right) , \label{3D}
\end{equation}%
which we shall then use as basis functions. Here and in the remainder of
this chapter, an overbar is placed on the 2D Bloch vector in order to
distinguish it from the 3D one, $\mathbf{k\equiv \bar{k}+}k_{z}\mathbf{z.}$
Since in the \emph{bct} structure, the As atoms in a top sheet are
vertically below those in the bottom sheet of the layer above, the
corresponding vertical interlayer hopping via As $z$ is particularly simple
and strong, so we first specialize to this case. The bct primitive
translations in real and reciprocal space are respectively:%
\begin{equation}
\left(
\begin{array}{c}
\mathbf{T}_{1} \\
\mathbf{T}_{2} \\
\mathbf{T}_{3}%
\end{array}%
\right) =\left(
\begin{array}{ccc}
1 & 1 & 0 \\
-1 & 1 & 0 \\
-1 & 0 & c%
\end{array}%
\right) \left(
\begin{array}{c}
\mathbf{x} \\
\mathbf{y} \\
\mathbf{z}%
\end{array}%
\right) \;\mathrm{and}\;\left(
\begin{array}{c}
\mathbf{g}_{1} \\
\mathbf{g}_{2} \\
\mathbf{g}_{3}%
\end{array}%
\right) =\left(
\begin{array}{ccc}
\pi & \pi & \frac{\pi }{c} \\
-\pi & \pi & -\frac{\pi }{c} \\
0 & 0 & \frac{2\pi }{c}%
\end{array}%
\right) \left(
\begin{array}{c}
\mathbf{x} \\
\mathbf{y} \\
\mathbf{z}%
\end{array}%
\right) , \label{bct}
\end{equation}%
where $c$ is the distance between the FeAs layers in units of the
nearest-neighbor Fe-Fe distance, i.e. \emph{half} the bct c-lattice
constant. The bct Brillouin zone and the stacking between neighboring
Wigner-Seitz cells (BZs) of the reciprocal $\mathbf{g}$-lattice is shown in
Fig. \ref{FigbctBZ}. Using that $\mathbf{T}_{3}\cdot \mathbf{k}%
=k_{x}+ck_{z}, $ it is now a simple matter to form the 3D Bloch sums (\ref%
{3D}). For two states $\alpha $ and $\beta $ with the \emph{same} $\mathbf{%
\bar{k},}$ the interlayer coupling caused by the vertical $z$-$z$ hopping
is easily found as:%
\begin{equation}
\left\langle \alpha ,\mathbf{k}\left\vert \hat{H}\right\vert \beta ,\mathbf{k%
}\right\rangle _{\mathrm{inter}}=t^{\perp }\,c_{z,\alpha }^{\ast }\left(
\mathbf{\bar{k}}\right) c_{z,\beta }\left( \mathbf{\bar{k}}\right) \cos
ck_{z}, \label{diag}
\end{equation}%
where $t^{\perp }$ is the $pp\sigma $ hopping integral $\left( \leq 0\right)
$ between an As $z$ orbital in the top sheet to the As $z$ orbital
vertically above, in the bottom sheet of the next layer. $c_{z,\beta }\left(
\mathbf{\bar{k}}\right) $ is the eigenvector coefficient to the As $z$
orbital in the 2D $\beta $-state. Note that we have \emph{not} missed a
factor 2 in (\ref{diag}), because only one lobe of the $z$ orbital is used
for interlayer coupling. Now, from the mere knowledge of a $\mathbf{\bar{k}}
$-function in a \emph{single} --bottom or top-- As sheet, the $\mathbf{\bar{%
k}}$ and $\mathbf{\bar{k}+\bar{g}}_{1}$ (or $\mathbf{\bar{k}+\bar{g}}_{2})$
translational states are indistinguishable. Their difference is that they
have opposite parity upon the glide-mirror interchanging the top and bottom
sheets. Interlayer hopping can therefore mix states with $\mathbf{\bar{k}}$
and $\mathbf{\bar{k}+\bar{g}}_{1}.$ For the corresponding interlayer coupling,
\emph{off}-diagonal in the 2D Bloch vector, we then find :%
\begin{equation}
\left\langle \alpha ,\mathbf{k}\left\vert \hat{H}\right\vert \beta ,\mathbf{%
k+g}_{1}\right\rangle _{\mathrm{inter}}=-it^{\perp }\,c_{z,\alpha }^{\ast
}\left( \mathbf{\bar{k}}\right) c_{z,\beta }\left( \mathbf{\bar{k}+\bar{g}%
_{1}}\right) \sin ck_{z}, \label{off}
\end{equation}%
where the different parities of the $\mathbf{\bar{k}}$ and $\mathbf{\bar{k}}+%
\mathbf{\bar{g}}_{1}$ states causes the $\sin ck_{z}$-dispersion. Finally, before
coupling the $\mathbf{k}+\mathbf{g}_{1}$ state (see Fig. \ref{FigbctBZ}) to
that with $\mathbf{k}$, the former must be brought back to the central zone,
and that requires shifting $k_{z}$ in (\ref{diag}) back by $\pi /c.$ As a
consequence,
\begin{equation}
\left\langle \alpha ,\mathbf{k+g}_{1}\left\vert \hat{H}\right\vert \beta ,%
\mathbf{k+g}_{1}\right\rangle _{\mathrm{inter}}=-t^{\perp }\,c_{z,\alpha
}^{\ast }\left( \mathbf{\bar{k}+\bar{g}_{1}}\right) c_{z,\beta }\left( \mathbf{%
\bar{k}+\bar{g}_{1}}\right) \cos ck_{z}. \label{gdiag}
\end{equation}
\begin{figure}[tbp
\centerline{
\includegraphics[width=0.4\linewidth,angle=-90]{figs/fig10}}
\caption{ \label{FigbctBZ} Central bct Brillouin zone and the one translated by
the reciprocal-lattice vector $\mathbf{g}_{1}=\pi \mathbf{x}+\pi \mathbf{y}%
+\pi \mathbf{z}/c,$ see Eq. (\ref{bct}). $\Gamma $ is the center of the
zone, $\mathrm{Z}=\pm \mathbf{g}_{3}/2=\pm \pi \mathbf{z}/c$ are the centers
of the 2 horizontal faces, N are those of the 8 large slanting faces, e.g. $%
\mathbf{g}_{1}/2,$ X are the centers of the 4 vertical faces, e.g. $\left(
\mathbf{g}_{1}-\mathbf{g}_{2}+\mathbf{g}_{3}\right) /2=\pi \mathbf{x}$ and $%
\left( \mathbf{g}_{1}+\mathbf{g}_{2}\right) /2=\pi \mathbf{y},$ and P are
the 8 corners between the vertical X neighbors, e.g. $\pi \mathbf{x}+\pi
\mathbf{z}/2c.$ Note that Z in the zone translated by $\mathbf{g}_{1}$ is $%
\mathbf{g}_{1}-\mathbf{g}_{3}/2=\pi \mathbf{x}+\pi \mathbf{y.}$}
\end{figure}
In order to get a first feeling for this formalism, let us assume that we
have nothing, but interlayer hopping. That is, we have pure $z$ states
which only couple between --but not inside-- the layers. The Hamiltonian for
this problem with two $z$-orbitals per cell is:%
\begin{equation*}
H\left( \mathbf{k}\right) =\left(
\begin{array}{cc}
t^{\perp }\cos ck_{z} & -it^{\perp }\sin ck_{z} \\
it^{\perp }\sin ck_{z} & -t^{\perp }\cos ck_{z}%
\end{array}%
\right)
\end{equation*}
Diagonalization yields two dispersionless bands with energy $\pm t^{\perp
},$ and this is because this system without intra-layer coupling is
merely an assembly of As$_{2}$ dimers (dangling bonds). The same kind of
thing happens at the non-horizontal boundaries of the bct BZ, where the
states with energies $\varepsilon _{\alpha }\left( \mathbf{\bar{k}}\right) $
and $%
\varepsilon _{\alpha }\left( \mathbf{\bar{k}+\bar{g}}_{1}\right) $
are degenerate,
because if there are no further degeneracies and if $t^{\perp }$ is so small
that we only need to consider those two states, their energies simply split
by $\pm t^{\perp }\,\left\vert c_{z,\alpha }\left( \mathbf{\bar{k}}\right)
\right\vert ^{2}.$ We thus see, that neglecting interlayer coupling does
\emph{not} simply
correspond to taking $k_{z}\mathrm{=}\pi /2c;$ this merely makes
the diagonal couplings vanish
In \emph{simple tetragonal} FeX, the interlayer coupling proceeds mainly
from an As$\,z$ orbital to its 4 nearest As$\,z$ orbitals in the next layer,
with a hopping integral $t^{\angle }.$ From this follows that the diagonal
and off-diagonal interlayer couplings are given by respectively%
\begin{eqnarray}
\left\langle \alpha ,\mathbf{k}\left\vert \hat{H}\right\vert \beta ,\mathbf{k%
}\right\rangle _{\mathrm{inter}} &=&4t^{\angle }c_{z,\alpha }^{\ast }\left(
\mathbf{\bar{k}}\right) c_{z,\beta }\left( \mathbf{\bar{k}}\right) \left(
\cos k_{x}+\cos k_{y}\right) \cos ck_{z}, \notag \\
\left\langle \alpha ,\mathbf{k}\left\vert \hat{H}\right\vert \beta ,\mathbf{%
k+g}_{1}\right\rangle _{\mathrm{inter}} &=&-4it^{\angle }\,c_{z,\alpha
}^{\ast }\left( \mathbf{\bar{k}}\right) c_{z,\beta }\left( \mathbf{\bar{k}+\bar{g}}%
_{1}\right) \left( \cos k_{x}+\cos k_{y}\right) \sin ck_{z}. \label{stinter}
\end{eqnarray}%
Since the simple tetragonal reciprocal lattice vectors $\mathbf{g}_{1}$ and $%
\mathbf{g}_{2}$ in Eq.\thinspace (\ref{st}) have no $k_{z}$ component, there
is no $k_{z}$-translation leading to an Eq. (\ref{gdiag}). Instead, the
prefactor $\cos k_{x}+\cos k_{y}$ provides the sign-change for $\mathbf{\bar{%
k}}$ going to the next BZ. In addition, the prefactor makes the interlayer
coupling \emph{vanish} on the vertical faces of the 3D st BZ, that is on $%
\left( \text{$\mathrm{\bar{X}\bar{Y}}$},\,k_{z}\right) .$ This is different from the bct
case. Finally, for the system with only $z$ orbitals and no intra-layer
coupling the st fomalism yields two dispersionless bands with energies $\pm
4t^{\angle }$ corresponding to isolated As-As$_{4}$ molecules with no
coupling between the 4 atoms in the same plane.\medskip
\begin{figure}[tbp
\centerline{
\includegraphics*[width=0.6\linewidth]{figs/fig11}}
\caption{\label{Figkz} Interlayer coupling of the
$\left( \mathrm{\bar{M}},k_{z}-\pi/c\right)$
$z/xy$ (grey dashed) and the $\left( \bar{\Gamma},k_{z}\right) $
$z/zz$ (grey dotted) bands along $\Gamma $Z for bct BaFe$_{2}$As$_{2}$
(schematic). We used Eq.s (\ref{off}) and (\ref{gdiag}) together with the 2D
LaOFeAs parameters and $t^{\perp }=2\,$eV.}
\end{figure}
Having deepened our understanding of the interlayer coupling via the As $z$
orbitals, we can now return to our description of the bct band structures
for which this interlayer hopping is particularly strong and --most
noticeably-- gives rise to the 2$\,$eV dispersion of the $z$-like band seen
along $\Gamma $Z for BaFe$_{2}$As$_{2}$ in Fig.\thinspace \ref{FigLaSmBa}.
This dispersion is seen to be five times larger than in the LnOFeAs
compounds, and it turns out that this is not even the entire interlayer
dispersion, $2t^{\perp }\left\vert c_{z,z/xy}\left( \mathrm{\bar{M}}\right)
\right\vert ^{2}:$
From our previous discussion of the 2D bands, we may recall that, at $%
\mathrm{\bar{M}}$, the $z$ orbital can only mix with $xy$ and the level of
interest is the antibonding $z/xy$ level which in LaOFeAs is at 0.9 eV and
has about 70\% $z$ character, specifically, $c_{z,z/xy}\left( \mathrm{\bar{M}%
}\right) \mathrm{=}-0.83.$ At $\bar{\Gamma},$ $z$ can only mix with $zz$ and
there again, the level of interest is the antibonding $zz/z$ level, which in
LaOFeAs is at $-0.4$ eV and 85\% $d$-like, $c_{z,zz/z}\left( \mathrm{\bar{%
\Gamma}}\right) \mathrm{=}-0.39.$ If we now just couple those two LaOFeAs
antibonding bands with the bct interlayer coupling given by Eqs.\thinspace (%
\ref{diag}), (\ref{off}), and (\ref{gdiag}), and adjust the one parameter $%
t^{\perp }$ to the BaFe$_{2}$As$_{2}$ $\Gamma $Z band, thus yielding $%
t^{\perp }\mathrm{\sim -}2\,$eV, we get the two bands shown in Fig.$\,$\ref%
{Figkz}. The good agreement of the upper band with the $\Gamma $Z band in
BaFe$_{2}$As$_{2},$ dispersing from 2.1 to 0.1 eV in Fig.\thinspace \ref%
{FigLaSmBa}, hints that this band \emph{does} result from an avoided
crossing of the downwards-dispersing $\mathrm{\bar{M}}\,z/xy$ band and the
upwards-dispersing $\bar{\Gamma}\,z/zz$ band, such that the 0.1 eV state at
Z is \emph{not} $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ $z/xy,$ but $\bar{\Gamma}$ $zz/z.$ The $%
\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ $z/xy$ state at Z must then be the top of the \emph{lower}
band which is seen to have energy $-0.9$ eV in BaFe$_{2}$As$_{2}$ (this
includes a push-down by a high-lying Ba $5d_{zz}$ band). The bottom of the
lower band is then the $\bar{\Gamma}$ $z/zz$ state at $\Gamma ,$ which in
BaFe$_{2}$As$_{2}$ is seen accidentally also to have energy $-0.9$ eV.
After this estimate, let us briefly recall the proper way of including the
interlayer $z$-$z$ coupling along $\Gamma $Z. First of all, from the
caption to Fig. \ref{FigBZ} we learn that $z$ can only mix with $xy$ at $%
\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ and with $zz$ at $\bar{\Gamma}.$ Secondly, from the 2D
bands in Fig.$\,$\ref{FigpdFatBands}, we see that at $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$, as
well as at $\bar{\Gamma},$ the $z$-like levels are separated by as much as 4$%
\,$eV. This is due to strong $pd$ hybridization; the $z,xy$ matrix element
at $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ is 2 eV and the $z,zz$ element at $\bar{\Gamma}$ is
1.2 eV. For an interlayer hopping, $t^{\perp },$ as large as 2$\,$eV, we
now ought to solve a $4\times 4$ eigenvalue problem (that the $d$ states at $%
\mathbf{\bar{k}}$ and $\mathbf{\bar{k}+\bar{g}}$ are different is
irrelevant). However, for producing Fig.$\,$\ref{Figkz}, we got away with
neglecting the $pd$-bonding levels. On the other hand, $t^{\perp }\mathrm{%
\sim -}2\,$eV was obtained by fitting to bands which include the Ba $5d_{zz}$
hybridization and this leads to an overestimation of $t^{\perp },$ as we
shall see later.
\begin{figure}[tbp
\centerline{
\includegraphics[width=1.0\linewidth]{figs/fig12}}
\caption{ \label{FigBa} 3D band structure of bct BaFe$_{2}$As$_{2},$ fattened by
various partial-wave characters and calculated with the GGA-LAPW method (%
\cite{Wien2k}). The $\mathbf{k}\mathrm{\equiv }\left( \mathbf{\bar{k},}%
k_{z}\right) $ paths chosen are: $\left( \bar{\Gamma}\mathrm{\bar{X}\bar{M}}%
\bar{\Gamma},0\right) =\left( \mathrm{\bar{M}\bar{Y}}\bar{\Gamma}\mathrm{%
\bar{M}},\,\pi /c\right) ,$ in the two top left panels, $\left( \bar{\Gamma}%
\mathrm{\bar{X}\bar{M}}\bar{\Gamma},\pi /2c\right) =\left( \mathrm{\bar{M}%
\bar{Y}}\bar{\Gamma}\mathrm{\bar{M}},\,\pi /2c\right) $ in the two top right
panels, and $\left( \bar{\Gamma}\mathrm{\bar{X}\bar{M}}\bar{\Gamma},\pi
/4c\right) =\left( \mathrm{\bar{M}\bar{Y}}\bar{\Gamma}\mathrm{\bar{M}},\,3\pi
/4c\right) $ in the four bottom panels. Note that these paths extend over
the two BZs shown in Fig. \ref{FigbctBZ}. The fatness of As $z$ has been
enhanced by a factor 5 compared with those of Fe $d$ in order to account
approximately for the fact that the As $z$ Wannier orbital has most of its
charge density outside the atomic sphere used in the LAPW method.}
\end{figure}
We now discuss further aspects of the bct band structure computed for BaFe$%
_{2}$As$_{2}$. The first two top panels of Fig. \ref{FigBa} show
respectively the As $z$ and Fe $zz$ projected bands for $k_{z}\mathrm{=}0$
and along the path $\bar{\Gamma}$$\mathrm{\bar{X}}$ $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$$\bar{\Gamma},$ familiar from Fig.%
$\,$\ref{FigpdFatBands} but labelled $\Gamma $XZ$\Gamma $ in the bct
reciprocal lattice (Fig. \ref{FigbctBZ}). This path takes us from the
center, $\Gamma ,$ of the central BZ to the center, X, of a vertical BZ
face, from there to the center, Z, of the bottom face of the neighboring BZ,
and finally back to the origin, $\Gamma .$ The piece outside the central BZ
may of course be translated back to the bottom face of the central zone by $-%
\mathbf{g}_{1},$ or to the top face by $\mathbf{g}_{3}-\mathbf{g}_{1}.$ As a
result, not only the eight $\Gamma \mathrm{XZ}\Gamma \mathrm{=}\left( \bar{%
\Gamma}\mathrm{\bar{X}\bar{M}}\bar{\Gamma},0\right) $-bands, but also the
eight $\Gamma \mathrm{XZ}\Gamma \mathrm{=}\left( \mathrm{\bar{M}\bar{Y}}\bar{%
\Gamma}\mathrm{\bar{M}},\pi /c\right) $-bands are obtained in such a
standard calculation. For $k_{z}\mathrm{=}0$ and $\pi /c,$ the $\mathbf{\bar{%
k}}$-states are pure because $\sin ck_{z}\mathrm{=}0,$ and the Fe $zz$
projection confirms that the 0.1 eV state at Z has $zz$ character.
The other band with $zz$ character, i.e. the $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ $zz$ band, is seen to
have energy $-0.6$ eV at $\Gamma $ and $-1.0$ eV at Z. For reasons of
symmetry, this band can have \emph{no} As $z$ character, and nevertheless
disperses with $k_{z}$ (as seen directly along $\Gamma $Z in Fig.$\,$\ref%
{FigLaSmBa}). This is due to repulsion from the Ba $5d_{xy}$ band.
When, in Fig.~\ref{FigLaSmBa}, we observed that the longitudinal branch of the
doubly-degenerate $t/p$ band curves downwards at $\Gamma $ in the $k_{z}%
\mathrm{=}0$ plane, but upwards at Z in the $k_{z}\mathrm{=}\pi /c$ plane,
both in the central BZ (Fig.~\ref{FigbctBZ}),
this was seen as a consequence of the Dirac cone in the $k_{z}\mathrm{=}3\pi
/4c$ plane at the crossing of the $t/p$ band with the upper $z$-like band
between $\Gamma $ and Z. In the meantime, we have learned that the upper $z$%
-like band cannot hybridize with the $t/p$ band in the $k_{z}\mathrm{=}\pi
/c $ plane where $\sin ck_{z}$=0, because the former is a $\bar{\Gamma}$%
-state and the latter an $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$-state at Z. The upwards curvature at Z is
therefore due to repulsion from the \emph{lower} $z$-like band, the $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ $%
z/xy$ band near $-0.9$ eV. This repulsion is substantial and causes another,
but merely incipient Dirac point at $-0.4$ eV at Z. However, as we now
depart from the $k_{z}\mathrm{=}n\pi /c$ plane, also the $\bar{\Gamma}\,z/zz$
band hybridizes with the longitudinal $t/p$ band --proportional to $\sin
ck_{z}$ and to the horizontal distance from $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$-- and this causes a Dirac
cone to be formed at the crossing of the upper $z$-like and the degenerate $%
t/p$ bands at $k_{z}\mathrm{=}3\pi /4c$ and 0.25$\,$eV. At the bottom four
panels of Fig. \ref{FigBa} we therefore show the band structure in the
$k_{z}=\pi /4c+n\pi/c$ and
$k_{z}=3\pi /4c+n\pi /c$ planes extending over the two BZs,
projected onto the As $z$ and relevant Fe $d$ partial waves.
The Dirac cone at $\left( \mathrm{\bar{M},}\pi /4c\right) $ in the BZ
at $\mathbf{g}_1$ is seen to have $%
z,$ $zz,$ longitudinal $t/p,$ and $xy$ characters in agreement with what was
said above, and to have a low-energy slope and a steeper high-energy slope.
The low-energy slope $v=0.4$\thinspace eV$\cdot a$ is of course due to the
hybridization of the $t/p$ band with the crossing, upper $z$-like band and
the high-energy slope $v=0.8\,$eV$\cdot a$ is due to hybridization with the
lower $z$-like band, which is around $-0.9$ eV. (The hole band seen in Fig. %
\ref{FigBa} to have the strongest $xy$ character is irrelevant for the Dirac
cone because it is the $\bar{\Gamma}$-centered hole band which, due to lack
of $z$ character, cannot mix with $\mathbf{k}+\mathbf{g}_{1}$ states). As $%
k_{z}$ is now increased above $\pi /4c,$ e.g. to $k_{z}\mathrm{=}\pi /2c$
as shown in the last two top panels of Fig. \ref{FigBa}, the upper $z$-like
band moves above the $t/p$ band at $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ to 1.0 eV, whereby the longitudinal
branch of the latter curves downwards, like the transversal branch. For $%
k_{z}\mathrm{=}3\pi /4c,$ the behaviour can be seen near $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ in the four
bottom panels: The upper $z$-like band is now at 2.1 eV and has no $z/zz$
but only $z/xy$ character. The repulsion from this band steepens the
longitudinal, inner $t/p$ hole band.
The outer, transversal $t/p$ hole band attains its hole character mainly
from repulsion by the $XY$ band, as was explained in connection with Eq.$\,$(%
\ref{Dirac}) and seen in Fig. \ref{FigpdFatBands} (but excluded in Fig.$\,$%
\ref{FigBa}). Finally, for $k_{z}\mathrm{=}\pi/c,$ the behaviour can be seen
near $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ in first panel, which in fact shows what we have already
observed without orbital projections on the right-hand side of Fig.$\,$\ref%
{FigLaSmBa}.
The hole part of the Fermi surface thus has a strongly warped, cylindrical
sheet, centered around the vertical $\Gamma $Z line (see Fig. \ref{FigbctBZ}%
). In most of the zone, this sheet has longitudinal $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ $t/p$ and some $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ $z/xy$ character, i.e. it is the small-mass, inner hole sheet. Going from $%
\Gamma $ towards Z, this sheet narrows down to a neck for the Dirac value, $%
k_{z}\mathrm{=}k_{Dz},$ where the $\bar{\Gamma}$ $z/zz$ character starts
to dominate. Finally, close to Z,
the character becomes purely $\bar{\Gamma}$ $z/zz$ and the cylinder bulges
out. Unlike in FeTe and in LiFeAs, this sheet remains a cylinder because the
upper $z$-like band remains above the Fermi level for all $k_{z}$.
Concentric with this longitudinal $t/p$ hole cylinder is the transversal
one, whose mass is dominated by its $XY$ character. That cylinder has little
warping and lies outside the longitudinal cylinder, except near Z where the
latter bulges out. The third hole sheet has nearly pure $\bar{\Gamma}$ $xy$
character and is a straight cylinder. Also this cylinder is centered along $%
\Gamma $Z, but it does not hybridize with the two $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$$\ $cylinders and it
is as narrow as the Dirac neck of the longitudinal $t/p$ cylinder.
Next, we turn to the \emph{electron} sheets, which in 2D are the $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$ and
$\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$-centered super-ellipses pointing towards $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ (Fig.\thinspace \ref%
{FigBZ}). They are formed by the $xy$-like band together with the transverse
$xz$-like band for the $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$ sheet and with the transverse $yz$-like band
for the $\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$ sheet (see Eq.$\,$(\ref{electron})). Figs.\thinspace \ref%
{FigpdFatBands} and \ref{FigFatFS} show that the only part which has As $z$
character and may therefore disperse with $k_{z},$ is the one pointing
towards $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$. The corresponding band is the $z/xy$ band which we studied
above and which at $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ was found to disperse by 3 eV, from 2.1
eV ($\Gamma $) to $-0.9$ eV (Z).
Being centered at respectively $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$ and $\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$, the electron cylinders are
however far away from $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$, and since the $xy$ band can have \emph{no} $z$
character \emph{at} $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$ and $\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$, it hardly disperses with $k_{z}$ there.
But the $z$ character increases linearly with the distance $k_{y}$ from $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$
--and with the distance $k_{x}$ from $\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$-- towards $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$, and so does the
upwards $k_{z}$-dispersion. As a consequence, the latter is strongest
towards $\Gamma \mathrm{=}\left( \mathrm{\bar{M}},\pi /c\right) $ and
weakest towards Z = ($\mathrm{\bar{M}}$,0), where the $z/xy$ band eventually bends over and
becomes part of the longitudinal $t/p$ band dispersing upwards from Z (see
bottom panels of Fig.$\,$\ref{FigBa}). This diagonal interlayer coupling (%
\ref{diag}) thus modulates the long axis, $2k_{F},$ of the super-ellisoidal
cross section such that it becomes minimal towards $\Gamma $ and maximal
towards Z (see Fig. \ref{FigbctBZ}). Specifically, for the long axis of the
$\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$ cylinder: $2k_{Fx}\left( k_{z}\right) \approx 2k_{F}+\delta k_{F}\cos
ck_{z},$ and the same for the long axis of the $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$ cylinder, $%
2k_{Fy}\left( k_{z}\right) .$ Taking then the coupling of the $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$ and $\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$
cylinders into account, we first translate the $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$ cylinder to the $\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$
site and upwards by $\pi /c,$ and then couple the two cylinders by the
matrix elements (\ref{off}). The coupling has no effect in the $k_{z}\mathrm{%
=}n\pi /c$ planes containing the $\Gamma ,$ X, and Z points, but in the $%
k_{z}\mathrm{=}\pi /2c$ planes containing the P and N points, the two cross
sections mix to become identical around P, as can be seen in the last two
top panels of Fig.$\,$\ref{FigBa}. As a result, the double cylinder twists
and follows the shape of the string of X-centered rhombic BZ faces
(Fig.\thinspace \ref{FigBZ}), i.e. it stretches out towards the $zz/z$-bulge
around Z of the longitudinal hole sheet. Finally we should mention that the
other part of the electron double cylinder is made up of the $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$ $xz/y$
and $\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$ $yz/x$ bands which have no $z$ character and no $k_{z}$-dispersion.
In the two last two top panels of Fig.$\,$\ref{FigBa}, we observe a Dirac
point at P and $-1.4\,$eV. Its upper cone in this $k_{z}\mathrm{=}\pi /2c$
plane stays intact over an energy range of nearly 1.5 eV and over a distance
of almost $\pi $ ($v=0.5\,$eV$\cdot a$) whereafter it develops into the 4
neighboring maxima of the mixed $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$$\,t/p$-longitudinal and $\bar{\Gamma}%
\,zz/z$ hole band. The lower cone cone extends merely over 0.2 eV. In
addition, the Dirac point has a second, upper cone which slopes by as much
as $v=1.3\,$eV$\cdot a$ and extends several eV above the Fermi level, but is
truncated slightly below. This is the $xy/z$ electron band. From the cross
sections of the band structure with the planes shifted by multiples of $\pi
/4c$ in Fig.$\,$\ref{FigBa} one can see that the two upper Dirac cones at
the P points are fairly 3D. This seems to differ from the previously
discussed Dirac point at 0.25$\,$eV and $\left( \mathrm{\bar{M}},k_{\mathrm{D%
}z}\right) $ whose cones merely extend in a particular $k_{z}\mathrm{=}k_{%
\mathrm{D}z}$ 2D plane. In that case, the mechanism is that $k_{z}$ \emph{%
tunes} the relative position of two bands, which have different symmetries
at a 2D high-symmetry point, $\mathbf{\bar{k}}_{\mathrm{D}},$ and a
hybridization increasing linearly with the distance from that point, to be
degenerate at $\mathbf{k}=\left( \mathbf{\bar{k}}_{\mathrm{D}},k_{\mathrm{D}%
z}\right) .$ Referring to expression (\ref{Dirac}): $k_{z}$ tunes the gap,
which vanishes at the Dirac point, $g\left( k_{z}\mathrm{=}k_{\mathrm{D}%
z}\right) =0.$ For the low-energy $z/zz$-$t/p$ cone at 0.25$\,$eV and $%
\left( \mathrm{\bar{M}},3\pi /4c\right) ,$ $g\left( k_{z}\right) $ is the $%
k_{z}$ dispersion of the upper $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$$\,z/xy\,$-$\,\bar{\Gamma}\,zz/z$ band
seen in Fig.$\,$\ref{Figkz} which is \emph{larger} than that of the cone, $%
v=0.4\,$eV$\cdot a$. For the Dirac cones at P, the mechanism is actually the
same, but the $k_{z}$ dispersions of the two relevant $z$-like levels are
merely from $-$1.8 eV and $-$1.4$\,$eV at P to $-$1.6$\,$eV and $-$1.2$\,$eV
at X (Fig.$\,$\ref{FigBa}), and this amounts to \emph{less} than the Dirac
slopes, $v=0.5$ and 1.3 eV$\cdot a$.
The reason for the small $k_{z}$-dispersion along XPX, compared with that
along $\Gamma $Z, is simply that XPX is at the zone boundary where
interlayer coupling is between the \emph{degenerate} $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$ and $\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$
states. Hence, to first order in $t^{\perp },$ the two degenerate $\alpha $
levels split by $\pm t^{\perp }\,\left\vert c_{z,\alpha }\left( \mathrm{\bar{%
X}}\right) \right\vert ^{2},$ which is \emph{independent} of $k_{z}.$ But if
$t^{\perp }$ were as large as 2$\,$eV, first order might not suffice.
Therefore, once again, we first consult the caption to Fig.~\ref{FigBZ} to learn
that at $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$ , $z$ may only mix with \emph{one} other state, $yz,$ which is
the bottom of the $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ longitudinal $t/p$ band. The interlayer coupling of
$\mathrm{\bar{X}}$ with $\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$ therefore requires merely the solution of a $4\times 4$
matrix, which after exact L\"{o}wdin downfolding of the $d$ block reduces to:%
\begin{equation}
\varepsilon \left( \mathrm{\bar{X}},k_{z}\right) =\epsilon _{z}\left(
\mathrm{\bar{X}}\right) +\frac{t_{zd}^{2}\left( \mathrm{\bar{X}}\right) }{%
\varepsilon \left( \mathrm{\bar{X},}k_{z}\right) -\epsilon _{d}\left(
\mathrm{\bar{X}}\right) }\pm t^{\perp }. \label{X}
\end{equation}%
These two second-order equations for $\varepsilon \left( \mathrm{\bar{X}}%
,k_{z}\right) $ can be solved exactly \emph{and give no} $k_{z}$\emph{%
-dependence.} The above-mentioned 0.2 eV $k_{z}$-dependence seen in Fig.$\,$%
\ref{FigBa} must therefore be due to interlayer hopping via orbitals other
than As $z,$ but this is negligible. Secondly, we confirm from Fig.$\,$\ref%
{FigpdFatBands} that at $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$ , there is essentially only one
level with $z$ character (because $t_{z,yz}\left( \mathrm{\bar{X}}\right) $%
= 0.1$\,$eV). This level is at $-$2.1 eV and is non-bonding between nearest
neighbors separated by $\mathbf{x\pm }\eta \mathbf{z}$ or $\mathbf{y}\pm
\eta \mathbf{z}$. The $yz$ level is at $-1.3\,$eV and is the one seen in Fig.%
$\,$\ref{FigBa} for BaFe$_{2}$As$_{2}$ to be at $-1.4\,$eV at P and $-1.2\,$%
eV at X. So if BaFe$_{2}$As$_{2}$ were merely 2D LaOFeAs with added bct
interlayer coupling, the shift from $-2.1$ to $-1.6\,$eV should be $\sim
\left\vert t^{\perp }\right\vert ,$ but that is too inaccurate. In order to
find $t^{\perp },$ we therefore seek the lower $z$-level along XPX in BaFe$%
_{2}$As$_{2}$ and find that it is dispersionless and lies 2.0 eV below the
upper $z$ level (and below the frame of the figure). Hence $t^{\perp
}=-1.2\, $eV, assuming a 20\% bymixing of $yz$ character to the upper $z$%
-like level due to the level separation of merely 0.4$\,$eV in BaFe$_{2}$As$%
_{2}$.
We remark that although the bands do not disperse along XPX, the
wave-function characters of course do, e.g. in the $k_{z}\mathrm{=}n\pi /c$
planes, the upper and lower $z$-like levels have respectively purely $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$ $%
z/yz$ and $\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$ $z/xz$ characters, while in the $k_{z}\mathrm{=}\pi /2c$
plane, they are completely mixed. Secondly, we remind that the $z$ states
along XPX are intra-layer non-bonding and interlayer $pp\sigma $ bonding
and antibonding.
Going away from the XPX line, the upper $z$-like band hybridizes linearly
with the nearby $zz/z$ and $z/xy$ bands and thereby form the P-centered
Dirac cones discussed above. That the cones are centered at the $k_{z}%
\mathrm{=}\pi /2c$ plane, i.e. the one containing the high-symmetry points N
and P (see Fig.$\,$\ref{FigbctBZ}), is due to the fact that, in this plane,
the bct bands are periodic for $\mathbf{\bar{k}}$ in the \emph{small} BZ,
whereby the bands along $\bar{\Gamma}$$\mathrm{\bar{X}}$ equal those along $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$$\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$,
which by tetragonality equal those along $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$$\mathrm{\bar{X}}$ . This higher symmetry is
clearly seen in the last two top panels of Fig \ref{FigBands}.\medskip
\begin{figure}[tbp
\centerline{
\includegraphics[width=0.9\linewidth]{figs/fig13}}
\caption{\label{FigCa} 3D band structure of bct CaFe$_{2}$As$_{2},$ fattened
by the As $z$ character and along the paths $\left( \bar{\Gamma}\mathrm{\bar{%
X}\bar{M}}\bar{\Gamma},0\right) =\left( \mathrm{\bar{M}\bar{Y}}\bar{\Gamma}%
\mathrm{\bar{M}},\,\pi /c\right) $ and $\left( \bar{\Gamma}\mathrm{\bar{X}%
\bar{M}}\bar{\Gamma},\pi /2c\right) =\left( \mathrm{\bar{M}\bar{Y}}\bar{%
\Gamma}\mathrm{\bar{M}},\,\pi /2c\right) .$ \textit{First two panels:}
normal pressure. \textit{Last two panels:} Collapsed phase at 0.48 GPa.\cite%
{08CaCTGoldman} Otherwise as Fig. \ref{FigBa}.}
\end{figure}
In CaFe$_{2}$As$_{2},$ $\eta \mathrm{=}1.04$ so that the intr\emph{a}-layer $%
z/xy$ and $z/zz$ hybridizations are smaller than in Ba, whereby the centers
of the antibonding $z/xy$ and $z/zz$ bands lie lower. However, of greater
importance is that the smaller size of the Ca ion makes the As-As
interlayer distance 70$\,$pm\ --i.e. nearly 20\%--\ shorter than in in BaFe$%
_{2}$As$_{2}.$ This substantially increases the interlayer hopping $%
t^{\perp }.$ As a result, the splitting of the $z$-band at X, $\sim
2t^{\perp },$ which was 2 eV for Ba, is 3.2 eV for Ca. As seen in the first
two panels of Fig. \ref{FigCa}, this splitting is from $-3.9$ to $-0.7$ eV.
Hence, the upper $z$-level is above the $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$ $yz$ and $zz/z$ levels at X
and merely 0.1 eV below the $xy$-like level at $-$0.6 eV. The consequence is
that in Ca, the $xy$-like electron band forms a complete, upper Dirac cone
in the $k_{z}\mathrm{=}\pi /2c$ plane. This cone slopes by about 3.5 eV
over the distance $\pi $ $\left( v=1.1\,\mathrm{eV}\cdot a\right) $ and is
thereby twice as steep as the $Yz/XY$ cone considered after Eq.$\,$(\ref%
{Dirac}). Contrary to the case in BaFe$_{2}$As$_{2},$ the $xy$-like band now
forms the {\em inner} electron cylinder.
The second consequence of the upper $z$-level at X lying as high as $-0.7\,$%
eV, is that the $\bar{\Gamma}$ $z/zz$ hole band lies higher than in Ba. At
Z, this amounts to 0.4 eV and places the $\bar{\Gamma}$ $z/zz$ level 0.2 eV
\emph{above} the degenerate $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ $t/p$ level. Going out in top
face of the central BZ from Z,
this $\bar{\Gamma}$ $z/zz$ hole band now crosses the longitudinal $t/p$
electron band which, like in BaFe$_{2}$As$_{2},$ curves upwards due to
repulsion from the $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$$\,z/xy$ band (hybridized with Ca$\,4d_{zz}$). This
high-lying $\bar{\Gamma}$ $z/zz$ hole band crosses the Fermi level far
outside the transverse $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ $t/p$ hole band. For $k_{z}$ decreasing below $%
\pi /c,$ the crossing between the $\bar{\Gamma}$ $z/zz$ hole band and the
$\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ $z/xy$-hybridized longitudinal $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ $t/p$ electron band \emph{gap}
proportional to $\sin ck_{z}.$ The resulting lowest band is thus shaped like
a volcano with a wide foot of $\bar{\Gamma}$ $z/zz$ character and a caldera
of $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ $t/p\,z/xy$ character around Z and 0.5 eV above the Fermi level. As
$k_{z}$ decreases towards $3\pi /4c,$ this gap increases so much that the
rim is washed out and the caldera develops into a flat hilltop. Eventually,
the characters of the $z$-like bands (Fig. \ref{Figkz}) gapped around the
degenerate $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ $t/p$ band along Z$\Gamma $ change back to normal order
with the upper band being $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$$\,z/xy$ like and the lower band $\bar{\Gamma}%
\,z/zz$ like. As a consequence, the flat hill continuously transforms into
the inner, longitudinal $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ $t/p$ sheet. This can be seen for $k_{z}%
\mathrm{=}\pi /2c$ in the second panel of Fig.$\,$\ref{FigCa}. Since the two
$z$-like bands are gapped around the $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ $t/p$ band along Z$\Gamma ,$
there is \emph{no} Dirac point along $\Gamma $Z. The corresponding sheet of
Fermi surface is thus a warped, $\Gamma $Z-centered cylinder with a very
broad, $\bar{\Gamma}$ $z/zz$-like base near Z and a long narrow piece around
$\Gamma .$ Outside of this, except near Z, lies the transversal $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ $t/p$
hole cylinder. The top of the $\bar{\Gamma}$ $xy$ hole band is slightly
above that of the $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ $t/p$ band and its straight cylindrical FS sheet
lies outside the transversal $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ $t/p$ hole cylinder.
Pure CaFe$_{2}$As$_{2}$ becomes superconducting with $T_{c\max }\mathrm{\sim
}12\,$K without doping but by the application of hydrostatic pressure in the
range $2-9\,$kbar.~\cite{09canfieldrev} At 5.5 kbar there is a first-order phase transition into
a \emph{collapsed} bct non-magnetic and possibly superconducting phase
\cite{08PRB78_184517}
with $\eta $ marginally smaller and with the interlayer
As-As distance decreased by an additional 27$\,$pm. In this collapsed phase,
whose bands are shown in the two last panels of Fig. \ref{FigCa}, the
interlayer hopping is increased so much that the splitting of the $z$-band
at X, $\sim 2t^{\perp },$ is now 4.5 eV. As a result, the upper level is 0.2
eV \emph{above} the Fermi energy. This, first of all means that the electron
cylinder has lost one sheet, essentially the $xy/z$ sheet, so that there is
\emph{no} Dirac cone at P. On the other hand, at Z, the $\bar{\Gamma}$ $z/zz$
level is now 1 eV above the Fermi level and the $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$$\,z/xy$ level is 0.1
eV below the doubly-degenerate $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$$\,t/p$ level. The latter creates a
prounced, slightly gapped Dirac cone with $v=0.8$\thinspace eV$\cdot a$.
Moreover, the doubly degenerate $t/p$ level is essentially \emph{at} the
Fermi level. As $k_{z}$ decreases below $\pi /c,$ the $\bar{\Gamma}$ $z/zz$
hole band and the upper Dirac cone, which has mixed longitudinal $t/p$ and $%
z/xy$ character, gap at their crossing, which is at 0.7 eV. This volcano
thus has a cone-shaped caldera. As $k_{z}$ decreases towards $\pi /2c,$ the
rim and the Dirac caldera are flattened away and this flat hilltop sinks
below the Fermi level. The holes are thus in a large $\bar{\Gamma}$ $z/zz$
$\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ $xy/z$ like sheet shaped as a disc centered at Z. At this center,
there may be a non-occupied pin-hole with Dirac character. There are no $%
\bar{\Gamma}\,xy$ holes because that band is slightly below $\varepsilon
_{F}.$ As mentioned above, the electrons are in an XP-centered cylinder of $%
xz/yz$ character. This band structure is thus very different from the
standard one, but quite interesting.
The band structure of BaRu$_{2}$As$_{2}$~\cite{09SinghRu} is similar to that of
(non-collapsed) CaFe$_{2}$As$_{2}$ shown in the first two panels of Fig.\ref%
{FigCa}, including a Dirac point at P. But it differs in two respects: The $%
\bar{\Gamma}\,xy$ hole band is entirely below the Fermi level and the doubly
degenerate top of the hole bands disperses like in BaFe$_{2}$As$_{2}$ due to
hybridization with Ba $5d_{xz/yz}$ near $\Gamma .$ This causes the top of the $%
t/p$ bands to sink below the Fermi level near $\Gamma $ and the
corresponding inner and outer Fermi-surface sheets to truncate.
\section{2D Spin-spiral band structure\label{SSBands}}
At low temperature and normal pressure, the parent compounds of the Fe-based
superconductors (except LiFeAs) become orthorhombic, antiferromagnetic
metals. Superconductivity seems to appear, once these spin and charge orders
are suppressed, e.g. by doping (electron or hole) or pressure. This
superconductivity is presumably mediated by spin-fluctuations.
In this section we shall study the interplay between the band structure and
the spin order. {\em Ab-initio} calculations
employing spin-density-functional
theory (SDFT) tend to yield the proper spin order, which is striped with
spins on the iron rows along $\mathbf{x}$ aligned and along $\mathbf{y}$
alternating.
The moments, albeit still considerably smaller
than the saturation magnetization of 4 $\mu_B$/Fe,
are much larger ($\sim $2$\,\mu _{B}/\mathrm{Fe}$)
than those obtained by neutron scattering or muon spin rotation; the
latter are $\sim $0.4 $\mu _{B}/\mathrm{Fe}$ for LaOFeAs~\cite{LFAO:magnetism}
and twice as large for BaFe$_{2}$As$_{2}$.~\cite{FESC:johnston}
Even worse, only with the calculated large moments
do the spin-density-functional calculations yield the correct structure ($%
\eta \mathrm{=}0.93$ and 0.5\% contraction in the ferromagnetic direction
for LaOFeAs); the structures calculated without allowing for
spin-polarization differ much more from the observed ones than is normal for
density-functional calculations ($\eta \mathrm{=}0.81$ and no
orthorhombicity for LaOFeAs). ~\cite{LFAO:DFT:yin,FeBSC:mazin:problems}
It thus seems that the large moments exist,
but fluctuate on a time scale shorter than what can be resolved with
neutrons or muons \cite{Hansmann}. Below, we shall first study how the
spin-polarization modifies the band structures discussed in the previous
section which were calculated for the \emph{experimental} structures.
Thereafter we shall consider the energetics of the spin spirals.
\subsection{Formalism\label{Formalism}}
SDFT involving $d$-electron spins reduces approximately to a Stoner model
\cite{Gunnarsson76,Andersen77}. This reduction has the conceptual advantage
of cutting the SDFT self-consistency loop into a band-structure part which
for a given site and orbital-dependent exchange splitting, $\Delta ,$
yields the site and orbital-dependent spin-moment, $m\left( \Delta
\right) ,$ plus a self-consistency condition which simply states that $%
\Delta =mI,$ where $I$ is the Stoner ($\sim $ Hund's rule) interaction
parameter. The band-structure part gives insight into the spin response of the
non-interacting system, and not only in the linear regime.
The spin arrangements which we shall consider are simple \emph{spin spirals.
}For these,\emph{\ }the moment lies in the $\left( x,y\right) $-plane and
has a constant magnitude, but rotates from site to site by an angle, $%
\varphi \left( \mathbf{t}\right) =\mathbf{q}\cdot \mathbf{t,}$ proportional
to the projection of the lattice translation, $\mathbf{t}$ in Eq.$\,$(%
\ref{structure}), onto the spin-spiral wave vector, $\mathbf{q}$. Hence, the
spin spiral with $\mathbf{q}$ at $\bar{\Gamma}$ produces FM order and the
one with $\mathbf{q}$ at $\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$ produces stripe order because the moment
rotates by $\pi $ upon $\mathbf{y}$-translation, and by $0$ upon $\mathbf{x}$%
-translation. Finally, the spin spiral with $\mathbf{q}$ at $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ produces
checkerboard order because the moment rotates by $\pi $ upon $\mathbf{y}$ as
well as upon $\mathbf{x}$-translation. These spin spirals with $\mathbf{q}$
at high-symmetry points are collinear and commensurate but with the
formalism which we now explain any $\mathbf{q}$ can be treated.
In order to solve the band-structure problem in the presence of such a spin
spiral, we use a basis set of localized Wannier orbitals times pure
spin-functions, $\left\vert \uparrow \right\rangle $ and $\left\vert
\downarrow \right\rangle ,$ with quantization direction chosen along the
\emph{local} direction of the moment. In this representation, the
one-electron Hamiltonian is translationally invariant, albeit with $\mathbf{q%
}$-dependent hopping integrals, so that there is \emph{no} coupling between
Bloch sums with different wave vectors. As a consequence, the band-structure
problem can be solved for any $\mathbf{q}$ without increasing the size of
the primitive cell.\cite{San91a} When merely seeking insights in this
section, we shall neglect the interlayer coupling and use the 2D bands in
the large BZ. So in this case, configuration space is invariant to the $%
\mathbf{t}$-mirror group, and spin space is invariant to the $\mathbf{t}$%
-spinrotation group, which both have the same irreducible representations.
As long as spin and orbital spaces remain uncoupled (spin-orbit coupling
neglected), the one-electron Hamiltonian therefore factorizes down to the
orbital and spin degrees of freedom for a primitive cell of the $\mathbf{t}$%
-group. This, together with SDFT, enables simple calculation of spin-spiral
band structures, moments, and magnetic energies.
The Hamiltonian turns out to be simply:%
\begin{equation}
\tilde{H}_{\mathbf{q}}\left( \mathbf{k}\right) =\left(
\begin{array}{cc}
-\frac{1}{2}\Delta +\frac{1}{2}\left[ h\left( \mathbf{k}\right) +h\left(
\mathbf{k+q}\right) \right] & - \frac{1}{2}\left[ h\left( \mathbf{k}\right)
-h\left( \mathbf{k+q}\right) \right] \\
h.c. & \frac{1}{2}\Delta +\frac{1}{2}\left[ h\left( \mathbf{k}\right)
+h\left( \mathbf{k+q}\right) \right]%
\end{array}%
\right) , \label{Hsublat}
\end{equation}%
in the local $\left( \uparrow ,\downarrow \right) $ representation and
with the origin of $\mathbf{k}$ shifted to $\mathbf{q}/2$.
If the
two paramagnetic Hamiltonians, $h\left( \mathbf{k}\right) $ and $h\left(
\mathbf{k}+\mathbf{q}\right) ,$ are identical (not merely their
eigenvalues), this form is block diagonal.
This is also the form appropriate for $\Delta$ larger than the bandwidths.
For small $\Delta ,$ it is more
practical to transform to the $\left( \uparrow \mp \downarrow \right) /\sqrt{%
2}$ representation in which%
\begin{equation}
H_{\mathbf{q}}\left( \mathbf{k}\right) =\left(
\begin{array}{cc}
h\left( \mathbf{k}\right) & \frac{1}{2}\Delta \\
\frac{1}{2}\Delta & h\left( \mathbf{k+q}\right)%
\end{array}%
\right) . \label{H}
\end{equation}%
In these expressions, $h\left( \mathbf{k}\right) $ is the paramagnetic $%
8\times 8$ $pd$ Hamiltonian whose eigenvalues, $\varepsilon _{\alpha }\left(
\mathbf{k}\right) ,$ are the 2D bands discussed in the previous section, and
$\Delta $ is an $8\times 8$ diagonal matrix whose diagonal elements have the
same value, $\Delta ,$ for all five Fe $d$ orbitals, and $0$ for all three
As $p$ orbitals. The approximation that
\emph{only like orbitals couple}
goes back to the assumption that the spin density on Fe is spherically
symmetric, and it is justified by the fact that, using this simple form for $%
\Delta ,$ we find good agreement with the results of full calculations using
SDFT for the spin-polarized bands. Of course, a form with the proper point
symmetry on Fe could be used, but that would require more parameters.
Although it takes the spin-spiral representation to see that the Hamiltonian
above is \emph{general,} we do note that, for an $\uparrow $-electron in a
commensurate antiferromagnet, a Hamiltonian of the form (\ref{Hsublat}) is
obtained by elementary means using the $\left( \Uparrow ,\Downarrow \right) $%
-sublattice representation, global spin directions, and purely spatial Bloch
functions. The Hamiltonian obtained for a $\downarrow $-electron is the
same, but with $\Uparrow $ and $\Downarrow $ interchanged.
Diagonalization of the $16\times 16$ Hamiltonian (\ref{H}) yields energy
bands, $\varepsilon _{\beta }\left( \mathbf{k}\right) $, and corresponding
eigenvectors, $\left\{ c_{\left( \uparrow -\downarrow \right) l,\beta
}\left( \mathbf{k}\right) ,c_{\left( \uparrow + \downarrow \right) l,\beta
}\left( \mathbf{k}\right) \right\} \equiv $\thinspace $\left\{ c_{l,\beta
}\left( \mathbf{k}\right) ,c_{l,\beta }\left( \mathbf{k+q}\right) \right\} ,$
with $l$ enumerating the 8 orbitals. (Here, $c_{l,\beta }\left( \mathbf{k%
}\right) $ is a simplified notation for one of the 16 eigenvector components;
for small $\Delta ,$ this equals one of the 8 eigenvector components of the
paramagnetic Hamiltonian, times $1/\sqrt{2}$). We can now find the
orbital-projected spin polarization of state $\beta \mathbf{k}$ as:%
\begin{equation}
p_{l,\beta }\left( \mathbf{k}\right) =2\Re c_{l,\beta }^{\ast }\left(
\mathbf{k}\right) c_{l,\beta }\left( \mathbf{k}+\mathbf{q}\right) ,
\label{p}
\end{equation}%
and summing this over the Fe $d$ orbitals, $p_{\beta }\left( \mathbf{k}%
\right) =\sum\nolimits_{l=1,5}p_{l,\beta }\left( \mathbf{k}\right) ,$ and
over the occupied --or empty-- states, we obtain the Fe moment:%
\begin{equation}
m\left( \Delta \right) =\sum\nolimits_{\beta \mathbf{k}}^{\mathrm{occ}%
}p_{\beta }\left( \mathbf{k}\right) =-\sum\nolimits_{\beta \mathbf{k}}^{%
\mathrm{empty}}p_{\beta }\left( \mathbf{k}\right) . \label{m}
\end{equation}%
This is the magnetic output of the spin-spiral band-structure calculation.
\subsection{Stripe 2D band structure\label{Stripe}}
\begin{figure}[tbp]
\centerline{
\includegraphics[width=1.0\linewidth]{figs/fig14}}
\caption{\label{FigStripeBands} \textit{Top:} 2D paramagnetic bands decorated
like in Fig. \ref{FigpdFatBands} and prepared (folded) for stripe order with
$\mathbf{q}\mathrm{=}\pi \mathbf{y:}$ On top of the $\bar{\Gamma}$$\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$
bands in green we place the $\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$$\bar{\Gamma}$ bands in grey, on top of the $%
\bar{\Gamma}$$\mathrm{\bar{X}}$ bands in green we place the $\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$$\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ bands in grey, and on
top of the $\mathrm{\bar{X}\bar{M}}$ bands in green we place the $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$$\mathrm{\bar{X}}$ bands in grey.
\textit{Bottom:} 2D stripe band structure decorated with the
orbital-projected spin-polarizations as given by Eq.$\,$(\ref{p}) and with
positive and negative polarizations in respectively dark and light blue. For
the exchange potential, the value $\Delta \mathrm{=}1.8$ eV was used, which
by Eq. (\ref{m}) yields the moment $m\left( 1.8\,\mathrm{eV}\right)
=2.2$ $\mu _{B}/\mathrm{Fe}$ and corrresponds to the value $I\mathrm{=}$0.82
eV of the SDFT Stoner parameter. The dashed line is the Fermi level, which
has moved up by 0.5 eV. Note that the paramagnetic and spin-spiral band
structures are lined up with respect to the common paramagnetic potential,
i.e. $h\left( \mathbf{k}\right) $ in the TB Stoner calculation. The 2D
stripe Fermi surface is shown in Fig.$\,$\ref{FigLargeMoment}. For stripe
order, As $p$ projections cannot be spin-polarized and have therefore been
omitted.
}
\end{figure}
In order to demonstrate how the spin-spiral formalism
works for the 2D band structure of LaOFeAs,
we start from the paramagnetic bands, $\varepsilon _{\alpha }\left( \mathbf{k%
}\right) ,$ decorated with the weight of each of the eight Wannier orbitals
in Fig. \ref{FigpdFatBands}. We consider a $\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$ stripe, and thus prepare
for the $\Delta $-coupling as shown in the upper half of Fig. \ref%
{FigStripeBands}: On top of the bands at $\mathbf{k}$ (in green) we place
those at $\mathbf{k}+\pi \mathbf{y}$ (in grey). Specifically, on top of the
green $\bar{\Gamma}$$\mathrm{\bar{X}}$ bands we place the grey $\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$$\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ bands (which
are the same as the $\mathrm{\bar{X}\bar{M}}$ bands with $xz$ and $yz$ exchanged), on top
of the green $\mathrm{\bar{X}\bar{M}}$ bands we place the grey $\mathrm{\bar{M}\bar{X}}$ bands, and on top
of the green $\bar{\Gamma}$$\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$ bands (which equal the $\bar{\Gamma}$$\mathrm{\bar{X}}$
bands with $xz$ and $yz$ exchanged) we place the grey $\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$$\bar{\Gamma}$
band. The $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$$\bar{\Gamma}$ bands couple with the $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$$\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$ bands, but
since the latter were not shown in Fig. \ref{FigpdFatBands}, this line is
not shown in Fig. \ref{FigStripeBands} either.
Now, the effect of $\Delta $ is to split degeneracies, $\varepsilon _{\alpha
}\left( \mathbf{k}\right) =\varepsilon _{\beta }\left( \mathbf{k}+\mathbf{q}%
\right) ,$ by $\Delta $ times the geometrical average of the $d$ characters,
$\sum_{l=1,5}c_{l,\alpha }^{\ast }\left( \mathbf{k}\right) \,c_{l,\beta
}\left( \mathbf{k}+\mathbf{q}\right) .$ This of course only holds as long as
$\Delta $ is so small that no further bands get involved. States without
common $d$-character therefore do not split. We note that states \emph{%
throughout} the band structure split, independent of the position of the
Fermi level, i.e. of the doping, but for small $\Delta $ only those states
which gap \emph{around} the Fermi level
contribute to the magnetization and the magnetic energy, so this is how
doping enters.
The paramagnetic bands are seen to be linear inside an energy window of $\pm
0.1$ eV, at the most, around the Fermi level, and this means that effects of
the exchange potential $\pm \frac{1}{2}\Delta $ can be treated with
linear-response theory only when $\Delta \lesssim 0.2$ eV.
\begin{figure}[tbp
\centerline{
\includegraphics[width=0.8\linewidth]{figs/fig15}}
\caption{ \label{FigSmallMoment}\textit{Right:} Nesting of orbital-projected
Fermi-surface sheets for undoped 2D LaOFeAs (from Fig. \ref{FigFatFS}) for
stripe order with $\mathbf{q}\mathrm{=}\pi \mathbf{y}$ (green arrow).
\textit{Left:} Partly gapped Fermi surface resulting from the small exchange
potential $\Delta \mathrm{=}0.18$ eV which yields the small moment $m\mathrm{%
=}0.31$ $\mu _{B}/\mathrm{Fe.}$ This corresponds to the Stoner parameter $I%
\mathrm{=}0.59$ eV.
}
\end{figure}
\subsubsection{Bands and Fermi surface in the linear-response region, $%
\Delta \lesssim 0.2$ eV}
A close inspection of the top $xy$ panel of Fig. \ref{FigStripeBands} reveals
that the crossing of the purely $xy$-like band with itself halfway between $%
\bar{\Gamma}$ and $\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$ is 0.3 eV below the undoped Fermi level and thus
requires $\Delta >\,$0.6$\,$eV to gap around $\varepsilon _{F}.$ On the
other hand, the crossing of the $xy$ hole band along $\bar{\Gamma}$$\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$
with the $yz/x$ electron band along $\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$$\bar{\Gamma}$ occurs only slightly
below $\varepsilon _{F},$ meaning that the $\bar{\Gamma}$-centered hole
pocket and the $\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$-centered electron superellipse almost nest along $\bar{%
\Gamma}$$\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$. This can be seen in Fig.\thinspace \ref{FigSmallMoment} where
we show the $\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$-folded Fermi surfaces in brown lines. However, the $yz/x$
band has only very weak $xy$ character caused by its weak hybridization with
the below-lying $xy$ band, as was explained in connection with Eq. (\ref%
{electron}). Hence, due to lack of common orbital characters, these two
states gap by much less that $\Delta .$ Finally, the $xy$ hole band along $%
\bar{\Gamma}$$\mathrm{\bar{X}}$ crosses the $xy/z$ electron band along $\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$$\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ at $%
\sim $0.1 eV below $\varepsilon _{F},$ but due to the reduced $xy$ character
of the $xy/z$ band, $\Delta $ must exceed $\sim $0.3 eV to gap that part of
the Fermi surface. As a result, for the value $\Delta $=0.18$\,$eV which via
Eq.$\,$(\ref{m}) produces the same moment as the one observed
experimentally, $m\left( 0.18\,\mathrm{eV}\right) =0.3\,\mu _{B}/\mathrm{Fe}$%
, the $xy$ hole pocket does \emph{not} gap. The Fermi surface calculated for
$\Delta $=0.18\thinspace eV is shown by black lines in Fig.\thinspace \ref%
{FigSmallMoment}. For the $\bar{\Gamma}$ and $\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$-centered sheets, it only
differs from the one calculated for $\Delta $=0 and shown in brown lines,
because the Fermi level is slightly shifted due to gapping of the \emph{other%
} sheets, i.e. those centered at $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ and $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$. That gapping, which causes
the small moment of 0.3 $\mu _{B}/$Fe, takes place as follows:
The side of the $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$-centered electron superellipse which is normal to the $%
x$ direction, i.e. which points towards $\bar{\Gamma},$ matches the inner,
longitudinal $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$-centered hole pocket both in Fermi-surface dimension
(nesting) and in orbital character, $xz.$ Those two bands therefore gap
around the Fermi level, while the outer, transversal $\left( yz\right) $
hole sheet stays intact. Near the $X$ and $Y$ directions, the $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$ electron
sheet however matches the outer, transversal hole sheet in size and orbital
character, $Yz$ and $Xz,$ respectively. So near those directions, the outer,
transversal hole sheet is gapped while the inner, longitudinal sheet is
intact. Finally, due to lack of common characters near the $y$ direction,
where the $xy/z$ electron band does not hybridize with the lower-lying $xz$
band, no gapping occurs. As a consequence, small paramagnetic electron
pockets with $xy/z$ and transversal, $xz/XY/zz/x$ characters occur. Such
electron pockets will remain at the Fermi level, also for large $\Delta ,$
as we shall see below. Note that the FS parts not gapped away are
essentially not spin-polarized; this will not be the case for larger $\Delta
.$ Since the $\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$ stripe has antiferromagnetic order in the $y$ direction
and ferromagnetic order in the $x$ direction one might expect higher
conductivity in the $x$ than in the $y$ direction. However, most of the FS
has a predominantly $y$-directed group velocity and predominantly $yz$%
-electron or $yz$ longitudinal-hole character. Where the velocity is in the $%
x$ direction, the character is $xy/z$ electron or $yz$ transverse hole. The $%
xy$ hole pocket is isotropic in the plane. In conclusion, the exchange
potential needed ($\Delta \mathrm{=}0.18$ eV) to give the observed moment
with the Stoner model, is smaller than the fine structure of the bands. The
gapping of the Fermi surface and the susceptibility, $m\left( \Delta \right)
/\Delta ,$ therefore depend crucially on the details of the $\mathbf{k}$%
\emph{-and-orbital nesting.}
\subsubsection{Bands and Fermi surface beyond the linear-response region, $%
0.2\,\mathrm{eV}\lesssim \Delta <3$ eV}
The exchange potential obtained selfconsistently from the SDFT and yielding
the proper crystal structure, is ten times larger: $\Delta \mathrm{=}1.8\,$%
eV, and thereby has the \emph{same} scale as the structure of the subbands,
i.e. this $\Delta $ is \emph{intermediate} and linear-response theory
invalid. The SDFT value of the Stoner parameter is $I\mathrm{=}0.82\,$eV and
the moment is $m\left( 1.8\,\mathrm{eV}\right) =2.2\,\mu _{B}/\mathrm{Fe.}$
Compared with the maximum moment of $4\,\mu _{B}/\mathrm{Fe}$ for the $d^{6}$
configuration, the value $2.2\,\mu _{B}/\mathrm{Fe}$ is intermediate. The
lower part of Fig. \ref{FigStripeBands} now shows the stripe bands for this
situation. These bands are complicated, because the gapping and
spin-polarization depend on the energies and the $p$ and $d$ orbital
characters of those bands at $\mathbf{k}$ and $\mathbf{k+q}$ which are
separated by less than $\sim \Delta .$ In the present section, we shall
describe those bands and their Fermi surface and calculate specific,
important levels analytically.
In Fig. \ref{FigStripeBands}, the paramagnetic and the spin-spiral band
structures
are lined up with respect to
the common paramagnetic potential, i.e. $h\left( \mathbf{k}\right) $ in the
TB Stoner calculation. We see, as was pointed out before, that bands with $d$
character split irrespective of their position relatively to the Fermi
level, but those in the lower half the $d$-band structure generally shift
downwards (dark blue) while those in the upper generally half shift upwards
(light blue). We recall that the shift upon an increase of the exchange
potential is the negative of the spin-polarization: $\left. \partial
\varepsilon _{\beta }\left( \mathbf{k}\right) \right/ \partial \left( \Delta
/2\right) =-p_{\beta }\left( \mathbf{k}\right) ,$ by 1st-order perturbation
theory. In fact, there happens to be a fairly well-defined dividing line
between positively and negatively spin-polarized bands around 0 eV.
Moreover, \emph{on} this dividing line, the non-hybridizing $yz$ and $zz/XY$
bands along $\bar{\Gamma}$$\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$ are nearly degenerate and dispersionless, so
increasing $\Delta $ beyond 1.8\thinspace eV will open up a gap which
extends throughout the BZ and makes any correponding $d^{5}$ material (e.g.
LaOMnAs or LaOFeN \cite{0810ALebeguePickettNJPReview}) an antiferromagnetic
insulator.
We now discuss the intermediate-moment stripe bands for 2D LaOFeAs in detail.
Starting again on the left-hand side of Fig.$\,$\ref{FigStripeBands} with
the crossing of the paramagnetic, nearly pure $xy$ band with itself, halfway
between $\bar{\Gamma}$ and $\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$ at $-0.3$ eV, we see the bands split to the
energies $-0.3\pm 0.9\,\mathrm{eV}=-0.3\,\mathrm{eV}\pm \Delta /2$ around
the Fermi level, which has now moved up to 0.5$\,$eV, with the lower and
upper bands fully spin-polarized. This gap extends in a large region around
the $\bar{\Gamma}$$\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$-line. So, whereas for small $\Delta ,$ the $\bar{%
\Gamma}$ $xy$ hole and $\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$ $xy$-$yz$ electron sheets did not gap at all,
for intermediate $\Delta ,$ these two FS sheets no longer exist. It is
however only the $xy$-parts which are gapped away: Due to strong $yz/x$
hybridization, the $yz$-like bands near $\mathrm{\bar{\Gamma}}$ (green) has no partner at $%
\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$ (grey) within the $\pm \Delta /2$-range with which it can
couple. This band therefore only splits midways between $\bar{\Gamma}$ and
$\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$, i.e. near $\frac{1}{2}$$\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$, but hardly closer to $\bar{\Gamma}$ and
towards $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$ (grey). Hence, the reason for the disappearance of the $yz$-part of
the superellipse at $\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$ is not gapping, but the 0.5 eV upwards shift of
the Fermi level. This shift is due to the fact that with configuration $%
d^{6},$ the Fermi level lies in the upper half of the $d$-like band where
most bands are shifted upwards by the exchange potential and drag the Fermi
level along with them. The shift $\left. \partial \varepsilon _{F}\left(
\Delta \right) \right/ \partial \left( \Delta /2\right) $ is upwards, if at $%
\varepsilon _{F}\left( \Delta \right) $ the density of $\downarrow $ states
exceeds that of $\uparrow $ states.
It may be noted that the crossing of the grey $xy/z$ and $yz$ bands along
$\mathrm{\bar{Y}\bar{M}}$, which is at $d^6$ for the paramagnetic bands,
still occurs for the stripe bands, but far below the Fermi energy.
\begin{figure}[tbp]
\centerline{
\includegraphics[width=1.0\linewidth]{figs/fig16}}
\caption{
\label{FigLargeMoment}Fermi surface for stripe order $\left( \mathbf{q}%
\mathrm{=}\pi \mathbf{y}\right) $ resulting from the large exchange
potential $\Delta \mathrm{=}1.8$ eV which yields the large moment $m\mathrm{=%
}2.2$ $\mu _{B}/\mathrm{Fe}$ corresponding to to the SDFT Stoner value $I%
\mathrm{=}0.82$ eV. See also Fig.s$\,$\ref{FigSmallMoment} and \ref{FigFatFS}%
.}
\end{figure}
The bands expected to gap mostly for $\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$-stripe order are $d$ bands
dispersing less than $\Delta /2$ in the $y$ direction, i.e. the $xz$ and $zz$
bands. The $xz$ band \emph{is} dispersionless near the $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$$\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ line where
it forms the $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$-centered transverse hole band and the bottom of the $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$%
-centered electron band. Further towards the $\bar{\Gamma}$$\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$ line,
however, the $k_{y}$-dispersion of the $xz$ band becomes large due to
by-mixing of $y$ character towards $\bar{\Gamma},$ and also the concomitant
dilution of $d$ character reduces the exchange coupling. As a consequence,
near the $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$$\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ line, the $xz$ electron and hole bands split to $\sim
\pm \Delta /2,$ whereby the $\downarrow $ band is above the shifted Fermi
level and the $\uparrow $ band is far below. This emptying of antibonding $%
xz $ states yields the observed 0.5 \% orthorhomic contraction in the $x$
direction, along which the spins are aligned ferromagnetically \cite%
{LFAO:DFT:terakura}. In the remainder of the zone, there are no bands at
the Fermi level. The paramagnetic $zz$ band has a width of about 1$\,\mathrm{%
eV}\sim \Delta /2$ and is centered at $\sim -0.6\,\mathrm{eV,}$ so we expect
the exchange splitting to shift the $zz\downarrow $ band up to --or above--
the shifted Fermi level. Fig.$\,$\ref{FigStripeBands} shows that this is
roughly the case, but the details are more complicated, due
to strong hybridization with the $XY$ band, as we shall see later in
connection with Eqs.(\ref{Hdd}) and (\ref{XM/2}). The paramagnetic and stripe
bands, albeit merely for positive energies and the exchange splitting, $%
\Delta $=1.1\thinspace eV, may be seen more clearly in the left-hand side of
Fig.$\,$\ref{FigCorrectedBands}. We shall return to this figure.
Only two bands remain at the Fermi level: (1) the longitudinal $yz\downarrow
$ band dispersing downwards from $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$, crossed by and hybridizing with a
weakly spin-polarized $xy/z\uparrow $ band dispersing upwards from $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$,
and (2) the $zz\downarrow $ band dispersing downwards from $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$, hybridized
with more weakly spin-polarized $XY\uparrow $ band. Being respectively even
and odd by reflection in a vertical mirror containing nearest-neighbor As
atoms and the $\mathbf{q}$ vector (see Fig.$\,$\ref{FigBZ}), bands 1 and 2
cannot hybridize and therefore cross at a \emph{Dirac point} along the $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$%
$\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ line. This \emph{pins }the $d^{6}$-Fermi level
and gives rise to a Fermi surface shaped like a propeller,~\cite{Borisenko}
with two electron blades and a hole hub (Fig.$\,\,$\ref{FigLargeMoment}).
The hub is $yz\downarrow $ like and the inner parts of the blades are mixed $%
zz\downarrow $ - $XY\uparrow $ like, while the outer edges are mixed $%
yz\downarrow $ - $xy/z\uparrow $ like. Due to the pinning, the propeller
shape is robust, e.g. not sensitive to $\Delta .$ Hole doping by a few per
cent will bring the Fermi level to the Dirac point and make each electron
blade shrink to a point. Upon further hole doping, the blades will reappear
as hole sheets. The velocity of the $xy/z\uparrow $ and the $zz\downarrow $
parts of the anisotropic cone are respectively $\sim 1\,\mathrm{eV}\cdot
a=2.9\mathrm{\,eV\,\mathring{A}}\,$and $\sim 0.4\,\mathrm{eV}\cdot a=1.1\,%
\mathrm{eV\,\mathring{A}}.$ These Dirac cones in the stripe-ordered SDW
state have been predicted \cite{0811DiracDung-HaiLee} and later observed
using respectively quantum oscillations \cite%
{09DiracAFAFe2As2HarrisonSebastian} and ARPES \cite{10PRLDiracDaiFang}.
Compared with ours, the experimental velocities seem to be renormalized by a
factor $\sim 1/4.$ This Dirac cone will be gapped by any lattice
imperfection breaking the above-mentioned mirror symmetry and is therefore
not "protected."
In order to explain how the complicated spin and orbital characters of
conduction bands
1 and 2 arise from the paramagnetic band structure, let us consider the simple
case that the paramagnetic TB Hamiltonian $h\left( \mathbf{k}\right) $ in
Eq.\thinspace (\ref{H}) is a $2\times 2$ matrix. Its eigenvalues are the
bonding, $\varepsilon _{b}\left( \mathbf{k}\right) ,$ and antibonding, $%
\varepsilon _{a}\left( \mathbf{k}\right) ,$ paramagnetic bands with the
respective eigenvectors, $\left\{ -\sin \phi \left( \mathbf{k}\right) ,\cos
\phi \left( \mathbf{k}\right) \right\} $ and $\left\{ \cos \phi \left(
\mathbf{k}\right) ,\sin \phi \left( \mathbf{k}\right) \right\} \equiv
\left\{ c\left( \mathbf{k}\right) ,s\left( \mathbf{k}\right) \right\} $ (we
have chosen the phases of the orbitals such that the Hamiltonian is real).
Taking the first orbital is a $d$ and the second as a $p$ orbital,
transformation of the spin-spiral Hamiltonian (\ref{H}) to the
bonding-antibonding representation yields:%
\begin{equation}
H_{pd,\mathbf{q}}\left( \mathbf{k}\right) =\left(
\begin{array}{cccc}
\varepsilon _{a}\left( \mathbf{k}\right) & 0 & \quad \frac{1}{2}\Delta
\,c\left( \mathbf{k}\right) c\left( \mathbf{k+q}\right) & -\frac{1}{2}\Delta
\,c\left( \mathbf{k}\right) s\left( \mathbf{k+q}\right) \\
0 & \varepsilon _{b}\left( \mathbf{k}\right) & -\frac{1}{2}\Delta\, s\left(
\mathbf{k}\right) c\left( \mathbf{k+q}\right) & \quad \frac{1}{2}\Delta\,
s\left( \mathbf{k}\right) s\left( \mathbf{k+q}\right) \\
c.c. & c.c. & \varepsilon _{a}\left( \mathbf{k+q}\right) & 0 \\
c.c. & c.c. & 0 & \varepsilon _{b}\left( \mathbf{k+q}\right)%
\end{array}%
\right) \label{Hpd}
\end{equation}
because the $pp$ and $pd$ elements of the exchange block, $\frac{1}{2}\Delta
,$ vanish. Here, $c^{2}$ and $s^{2}=1-c^{2}$ are the $d$ characters of the
antibonding and bonding levels, respectively. Note that only the $d$ --but
not the $p-$ characters need to be the same at $\mathbf{k}$ and $\mathbf{k}+%
\mathbf{q.}$ This $4\times 4$ form (\ref{Hpd}) is exact when $\mathbf{k,}$
and thereby $\mathbf{k}+\pi \mathbf{y,}$ is at a high-symmetry point,
because here, $h\left( \mathbf{k}\right) $ factorizes into blocks of
dimension $\leq 2\times 2,$ with the $XY/zz/x$-block at $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$ as the notable
exception (see caption to Fig.\thinspace \ref{FigBZ}). We thus start
explaining the spin and orbital characters of band 1 by using (\ref{Hpd}) to
couple the levels at $\mathbf{k}=\mathrm{\bar{X}}$ to those at $\mathbf{k}+%
\mathbf{q}=\mathrm{\bar{M}:}$
the paramagnetic $xy$-like antibonding and bonding levels at $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$ (see Figs.%
$\,$\ref{FigpdFatBands} and \ref{FigStripeBands}) are the strongly $xy$-like
bottom of the electron band (green), for which $\varepsilon _{a}\left(
\mathrm{\bar{X}}\right) $=$-$0.46$\,$eV and $c\left( \mathrm{\bar{X}}\right)
$\textrm{=}0.95, and the strongly $y$-like level at $\varepsilon _{b}\left(
\mathrm{\bar{X}}\right) $=$-$2.79$\,$eV. These levels couple to the $xy$%
-like levels at $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ (grey) of which the antibonding one at $\varepsilon
_{a}\left( \mathrm{\bar{M}}\right) $=0.95 eV is mostly $z$-like, and the
bonding one at $\varepsilon _{b}\left( \mathrm{\bar{M}}\right) $=$-$3.36 eV
is mostly $xy$-like, $s\left( \mathrm{\bar{M}}\right) $=0.83. The four $xy$%
-like stripe levels at $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$ are thus the eigenvalues of the Hamiltonian:%
\begin{equation*}
\left(
\begin{array}{cccc}
-0.46 & 0 & \left( \Delta /2\right) \left( 0.95\right) \left( 0.56\right) &
-\left( \Delta /2\right) \left( 0.95\right) \left( 0.83\right) \\
0 & -2.79 & -\left( \Delta /2\right) \left( 0.31\right) \left( 0.56\right) &
\left( \Delta /2\right) \left( 0.31\right) \left( 0.83\right) \\
c.c. & c.c. & 0.95 & 0 \\
c.c. & c.c. & 0 & -3.36%
\end{array}%
\right) .
\end{equation*}%
These eigenvalues (seen in Fig.$\,$\ref{FigStripeBands}) are: $%
1.12,-0.45,-2.73,$ and $-3.59\,\mathrm{eV}$ when $\Delta /2$=0.9\thinspace
eV, and hence \emph{little perturbed by the stripe order}. The reasons are
that the paramagnetic levels are separated by more than $\Delta /2,$ and
that the $p$ hybridization reduces the geometrical averages of the $d$
characters far beyond unity, except for two levels which are, however,
separated by as much as 3 eV. In particular the state of interest, the one
at $-0.45\,\mathrm{eV,}$ has been pushed down by the level at 0.95 and up by
the one at $-$3.36, both at $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$, and as a result, has moved by merely 0.01$%
\,$eV. For the same reason, its spin polarization is only about 50\%. This
state thus remains essentially the (green) bottom of the electron band at $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$.
The paramagnetic $yz$-like antibonding and bonding levels at $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$ are the
strongly $yz$-like bottom of the longitudinal hole band, for which $%
\varepsilon _{a}\left( \mathrm{\bar{X}}\right) $=$-$1.26\thinspace eV and $%
c\left( \mathrm{\bar{X}}\right) $\textrm{=}0.998, and the strongly $z$-like
level at $\varepsilon _{b}\left( \mathrm{\bar{X}}\right) $=$-$2.12$\,$eV.
These levels couple to the $yz$-like levels at $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ (grey),
which are top of the
doubly degenerate hole band, for which $\varepsilon _{a}\left( \mathrm{\bar{M%
}}\right) $=0.21$\,$eV and $c\left( \mathrm{\bar{M}}\right) $=0.90, and the $%
y$-like level at $\varepsilon _{b}\left( \mathrm{\bar{M}}\right) $=$-$1.97$%
\, $eV. With these values, the $yz$-like eigenvalues of the $4\times 4$
stripe Hamiltonian (\ref{Hpd}) becomes $0.58,$ $-1.39,$ $-2.11,$ and $-2.21\mathbf{\,}%
\mathrm{eV.}$ Here the uppermost level, being near the Fermi level, is our
band 1. It is described to a good approximation by using merely the
antibonding paramagnetic states, i.e. by the $2\times 2$ Hamiltonian%
\begin{equation*}
\left(
\begin{array}{cc}
\varepsilon _{a}\left( \mathbf{k}\right) & \frac{\Delta }{2}c\left( \mathbf{k%
}\right) c\left( \mathbf{k+q}\right) \\
\frac{\Delta }{2}c\left( \mathbf{k}\right) c\left( \mathbf{k+q}\right) &
\varepsilon _{a}\left( \mathbf{k+q}\right)%
\end{array}%
\right) =\left(
\begin{array}{cc}
-1.26 & \left( \Delta /2\right) \left( 0.998\right) \left( 0.90\right) \\
c.c. & 0.21%
\end{array}%
\right) \;\mathrm{eV,}
\end{equation*}%
because these states are the only ones with substantial $yz$ character, as
may also be seen from Fig.$\,$\ref{FigStripeBands}. The uppermost state thus
has about 80\% $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$$\,yz$ and 20\% $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$$\,yz$ character, and its spin
polarization is $-$75\%.
As we now move from $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$ towards $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$,
via $\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{\bar{X}\bar{M}}$ as in Figs.~\ref{FigStripeBands} and
\ref{FigCorrectedBands},
the $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$$\,xy/z\uparrow$ band
disperses upwards from $-0.45\,\mathrm{eV}$ like the paramagnetic (green)
electron band, and the $yz\downarrow $ band disperses downwards from
0.58$\,$eV like the paramagnetic (grey) longitudinal $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$$\,yz$
hole band.
At about $1/4$ the distance to $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$, these two bands suffer an avoided
crossing. From there on, the $xy/z\uparrow$ band continues towards $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ like
the paramagnetic band, apart from the facts (a) that it gets folded and
split at $\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{\bar{X}\bar{M}}$ with a covalency-reduced $%
\Delta ,$ and (b) that it continues to hybridize with the longitudinal $%
yz\downarrow $ band whose downwards dispersion (grey) is halted near $%
\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{\bar{X}\bar{M}}$ due to repulsion from the upcoming
(green) $yz$ band. The $xy/yz$ hybridization matrix element along $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$$\mathrm{\bar{M}}$%
, $-2\sqrt{2}\left(
t_{xy,Xz}^{1\,0}+t_{xy,Xz}^{1\,1}+t_{xy,Xz}^{2\,1}\right) \sin k_{y},$ would
have vanished, if the $xy$ and $Xz$ Wannier orbitals of the $pd$ set shown
in Fig.$\,$\ref{FigpdOrbs} had been respectively symmetric and antisymmetric
with respect to the Fe plane.
Band 1 obtained from the $pd$ Stoner model is somewhat more shallow
than the one obtained from a standard LAPW calculation, which yields a
bandwidth of 0.6 eV. This can be traced back to the gap between the
downwards-dispersing longitudinal $yz\downarrow $ band and the upwards
dispersing $xy/z\uparrow$ band, being 0.5$\,$eV in the model but merely 0.2 eV in
the LAPW calculation, thus causing the model band to be 0.3 eV more narrow.
Reducing $t_{xy,Xz}^{1\,0}+t_{xy,Xz}^{1\,1}+t_{xy,Xz}^{2\,1}$ does not
entirely remove this discrepancy, which might also be due to our assumption
of a spherically symmetric exchange potential.
We now come to band 2. It was pointed out in Sect.$\,$\ref{2DFS}, and can
clearly be seen in Figs. \ref{FigpdFatBands} and \ref{FigStripeBands}, that
the paramagnetic $XY$ and $zz$ bands hybridize strongly, except along the $%
\bar{\Gamma}\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ lines, and have avoided crossings around $%
\mathrm{\bar{X}}$ and $\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$ causing them to gap around the
Fermi level. They also gap around the Fermi level along $\bar{\Gamma}\mathrm{%
\bar{M}}$, but due to avoided crossings with other bands. In order to
understand the effect of a stripe potential, let us use a $4\times 4$ model
like (\ref{Hpd}), but now for two $d$ orbitals. In this case, the exchange
block is constant and the spin-spiral Hamiltonian in the bonding-antibonding
representation becomes:%
\begin{equation}
H_{dd,\mathbf{q}}\left( \mathbf{k}\right) =\left(
\begin{array}{cccc}
\varepsilon _{a}\left( \mathbf{k}\right) & 0 & \frac{1}{2}\Delta \cos \left(
\phi \left( \mathbf{k+q}\right) -\phi \left( \mathbf{k}\right) \right) & -%
\frac{1}{2}\Delta \sin \left( \phi \left( \mathbf{k+q}\right) -\phi \left(
\mathbf{k}\right) \right) \\
0 & \varepsilon _{b}\left( \mathbf{k}\right) & \frac{1}{2}\Delta \sin \left(
\phi \left( \mathbf{k+q}\right) -\phi \left( \mathbf{k}\right) \right) &
\quad \frac{1}{2}\Delta \cos \left( \phi \left( \mathbf{k+q}\right) -\phi
\left( \mathbf{k}\right) \right) \\
c.c. & c.c. & \varepsilon _{a}\left( \mathbf{k+q}\right) & 0 \\
c.c. & c.c. & 0 & \varepsilon _{b}\left( \mathbf{k+q}\right)%
\end{array}%
\right) . \label{Hdd}
\end{equation}%
Clearly, if the bonding and antibonding linear combinations of the two $d$
orbitals were the same at $\mathbf{k}$ and $\mathbf{k}+\mathbf{q,}$ i.e. if $%
\phi \left( \mathbf{k}\right) \mathrm{=}\phi \left( \mathbf{k+q}\right) ,$
then the bonding-antibonding representation (\ref{Hdd}) would be identical
with the $dd$ representation. In that representation, the off-diagonal block
is $\frac{1}{2}\Delta $ times the unit matrix because we have assumed the
exchange potential to be spherical. If now also $\varepsilon _{a}\left(
\mathbf{k}\right) \mathrm{=}\varepsilon _{a}\left( \mathbf{k+q}\right) $ and
$\varepsilon _{b}\left( \mathbf{k}\right) \mathrm{=}\varepsilon _{b}\left(
\mathbf{k+q}\right) ,$ as would be the case at the zone boundary, then we
could transform to the local spin representation (\ref{Hsublat}) and would
then immediately realize that the 4 stripe eigenvalues (in eV) are:%
\begin{equation}
\varepsilon _{a}\left( \frac{1}{2}\mathrm{\bar{X}\bar{M}}\right) \pm \frac{%
\Delta }{2}\approx 0.8\pm 0.9=\left\{
\begin{array}{rr}
1.7 & \downarrow \\
-0.1 & \uparrow%
\end{array}%
\right. \;\mathrm{and}\;\varepsilon _{b}\left( \frac{1}{2}\mathrm{\bar{X}%
\bar{M}}\right) \pm \frac{\Delta }{2}\approx -0.8\pm 0.9=\left\{
\begin{array}{rr}
0.1 & \downarrow \\
-1.7 & \uparrow%
\end{array}%
\right. . \label{XM/2}
\end{equation}%
This fits well with Fig.$\,$\ref{FigStripeBands}, from where we have taken
the values 0.8 and $-$0.8 eV, for the paramagnetic antibonding and bonding
levels at $\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{\bar{X}\bar{M}}$. The stripe level belonging
to band 2 is the bonding, minority-spin level at 0.1$\,$eV. To be honest,
the energies $\pm 0.8$ eV of the paramagnetic levels do include weak
hybridizations with the $xz$ and $x$ orbitals, which have been neglected in
the $4\times 4$ $\left( XY,zz\right) $ model (\ref{Hdd}). We should also
warn that although $h\left( \mathbf{k}\right) $ and $h\left( \mathbf{k+q}%
\right) $ have the same eigenvalues at the zone boundary, these matrices are
generally \emph{not} identical;\emph{\ }off-diagonal elements may have
different signs, e.g. $h_{XY,zz}\left( -\frac{\pi }{2}\mathbf{y}\right)
=h_{XY,zz}\left( \frac{\pi }{2}\mathbf{y}\right) $ but $h_{xz,zz}\left( -%
\frac{\pi }{2}\mathbf{y}\right) =-h_{xz,zz}\left( \frac{\pi }{2}\mathbf{y}%
\right) .$
As seen from the figures, the paramagnetic bonding and antibonding $XY/zz$
bands disperse less than their separation, $\delta \sim 1.6$\thinspace eV,
so in order to be able to diagonalize the $4\times 4$ stripe Hamitonian (\ref%
{Hdd}) let us stay with the assumption that $\varepsilon _{a}\left( \mathbf{k%
}\right) =\varepsilon _{a}\left( \mathbf{k+q}\right) \equiv \delta /2$ and $%
\varepsilon _{b}\left( \mathbf{k}\right) =\varepsilon _{b}\left( \mathbf{k+q}%
\right) \equiv -\delta /2,$ but drop the assumption that $\phi \left(
\mathbf{k}\right) =\phi \left( \mathbf{k+q}\right) .$ The 4 stripe bands are
then given by:%
\begin{equation}
\varepsilon \left( \mathbf{k}\right) =\pm \frac{1}{2}\sqrt{\delta ^{2}\pm
2\delta \Delta \cos \varphi \left( \mathbf{k}\right) +\Delta ^{2}},\quad
\mathrm{where}\quad \varphi \left( \mathbf{k}\right) \equiv \phi \left(
\mathbf{k+q}\right) -\phi \left( \mathbf{k}\right) . \label{XYzz}
\end{equation}%
For $\varphi $=0, the zone-boundary case (\ref{XM/2}), the bonding and
antibonding $d$ orbitals are identical and each of the four levels, $\pm
\left( \delta /2\right) \pm \left( \Delta /2\right) ,$ have pure spin and
pure bonding or antibonding character. For $\varphi $=$\pi /2,$ the bonding
and antibonding bands have orthogonal $d$ characters and therefore only have
off-diagonal exchange coupling. This does not split the spin-degenerate
bonding and antibonding levels, but separates them to $\pm \frac{1}{2}\sqrt{%
\delta ^{2}+\Delta ^{2}}.$ The realistic case at $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$ (green)
is that the antibonding and bonding levels have roughly the same $XY$ and $%
zz $ characters. We therefore take $\phi \left( \mathrm{\bar{X}}\right) $=$%
\pi /4,$ and the $XY$ orbital as the first orbital. At $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$
(grey) the "antibonding" level has pure $XY$ and the "bonding" level pure $%
zz $ character, so $\phi \left( \mathrm{\bar{M}}\right) $=0. As a result,
the bands have dispersed from the levels given by (\ref{XM/2}) to $\pm \frac{%
1}{2}\sqrt{\delta ^{2}\pm \sqrt{2}\delta \Delta +\Delta ^{2}}=\pm 1.57$ and $%
\pm 0.66\,$eV at $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$=$\mathrm{\bar{M}.}$ This agrees well
with what is seen in Fig.$\,$\ref{FigStripeBands} and explains why band 2
disperses upwards from 0.1 at $\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{\bar{X}\bar{M}}$ to 0.66$%
\, $eV eV at $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$. The latter level is essentially bonding $%
zz\downarrow /XY\uparrow .$
Armed with the detailed understanding of the interlayer hopping provided in
Sect.$\,$\ref{3DBands} and that of the generic 2D stripe band structure
provided above, the interested reader should be able to digest the
complicated 3D stripe bands for specific materials found in the literature
and recently reviewed in Refs.~\cite{FESC:paglionegreene,FESC:johnston}.
\subsection{Magnetization and magnetic energy\label{M&E}}
Apart from the spin-spiral band structure described above in the case of
stripe order, the output of a band-structure calculation with an imposed
exchange potential, $\Delta ,$ is the Fe-magnetization, $m\left( \Delta
\right) $. In Fig. \ref{FigSusc} we
now give the results obtained for stripe $\left( \mathbf{q}=\pi \mathbf{y}%
\right) $ and checkerboard $\left( \mathbf{q}=\pi \mathbf{x}+\pi \mathbf{y}%
\right) $ orders for various electron dopings, $\mathrm{x,}$ in the
rigid-band approximation. With the Stoner approximation, we have been able
to afford sampling the spin-polarization over a very fine $k$-mesh so that
nesting features are resolved. Since the magnetization increases linearly
with $\Delta ,$ when it is small, we plot the static spin suceptibility, $%
\chi \left( m\right) \equiv m\left( \Delta \right) /\Delta ,$ and as a
function of $m$ rather than of $\Delta ,$ since the $m$ is an observable.
Note that with $4-\mathrm{x}$ empty bands, $4-\mathrm{x}$ is the
value of the saturation magnetization and $\chi \left( m\right) $ therefore
vanishes for $m$ larger than this.
\begin{figure}[tbp
\centerline{
\includegraphics[width=1.0\linewidth]{figs/fig17}}
\caption{
\label{FigSusc} Non-interacting, static spin susceptibilities $\chi
\left( m\right) \equiv m/\Delta $ for 2D LaOFeAs calculated from spin-spiral
band-structure calculations, i.e. from diagonalizing $H_{\mathbf{q}}\left(
\mathbf{k}\right) $ in Eq.$\,$(\ref{H}) and finding $m$ from the
eigenvectors according to Eq.$\,$(\ref{m}). The paramagnetic TB $pd$
Hamiltonian, $h\left( \mathbf{k}\right),$ was calculated for the observed
structure. The electron dopings, $\mathrm{x}$ (in e/Fe), were varied in the
rigid-band approximation. For a given value of the Stoner interaction
parameter, $I,$ the self-consistent moment is given by $\chi \left( m\right)
=1/I.$ The SDFT value of $I$ is 0.82 eV and the value fitting the
experimental moment and its doping dependence is 0.59 eV.}
\end{figure}
Given a value of the Stoner exchange-coupling constant, $I,$ the
self-consistent value of the magnetization is the solution of the equation $%
\chi \left( m\right) =1/I,$ and we see that for the SDFT value, $I$%
=0.82\thinspace eV, $m\mathrm{\sim }2.2\,\mu _{B}/$Fe for both stripe and
checkerboard order, and that $m$ decreases with electron doping. The reason
for the latter can be understood by considering the stripe bands for $\Delta
$=1.8\thinspace eV at the bottom of Fig.$\,$\ref{FigStripeBands}: The
magnetization along the upwards-sloping line $\chi =m/(1.8\,\mathrm{eV)}$ in
Fig. \ref{FigSusc} is the sum over the \emph{empty} bands of their spin
polarizations, taken with the opposite sign according to Eq$\,$(\ref{m}),
i.e. of the light-blue fatness. Since light-blue is seen to dominate over
dark-blue, at every
energy above the Fermi level, moving the latter \emph{up}, as electron
doping will do in the rigid-band spproximation, must \emph{de}crease the
moment.
Coming now to the small-moment part of Fig. \ref{FigSusc}, the linear
response, $\chi \left( 0\right) ,$ is seen to be particularly large for
stripe order and no doping. This is due to the good nesting shown in Fig.$\,$%
\ref{FigSmallMoment} between the $xz$ part of the $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$-centered electron
superellipse and those of the $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$-centered hole pockets. This nesting is,
however, sensitive to the relative sizes of electron and hole sheets and is
therefore rapidly destroyed with electron (or hole) doping, thus causing $%
\chi \left( 0\right) $ to decrease. Also, increasing $\Delta $ beyond $%
0.2/1.8 \sim 0.1$ eV is seen to make $\chi \left( m\right) $ decrease rapidly.
We should remember (Fig. \ref{FigBands}) that the top of the $\bar{\Gamma}$%
-centered $xy$-like hole pocket is merely 0.06 eV above the Fermi level for
the pure material and that this pocket disappears once the doping exceeds $%
0.1$ e/Fe. We recall also, that the top of the $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$-centered hole pockets is
merely 0.2 eV above the pure Fermi level and that these pockets disappear,
as well, once the electron doping exceeds $0.3\,$e/Fe. The $\bar{\Gamma}$%
-centered hole pocket and the $xy$-part of the $\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$-centered electron
superellipse start to gap when $\Delta $ exceeds 0.2 eV, and for larger $%
\Delta $, the $xy$ moment becomes as large as the $xz$ moment. The
experimentally observed moment in LaOFeAs is $\sim $0.4$\,\mu _{B}/\mathrm{%
Fe,}$ stripe ordered, and vanishes for $\mathrm{x}\gtrsim 3\%.$This would be
consistent with our 2D bands and the Stoner model if $I$=0.59\thinspace $%
\mathrm{eV.}$ However, only by virtue of its large moment, $\sim $2$\mu
_{B}, $ does the SDFT yield the observed large value of the As height, $\eta
$=0.93, and the observed 0.5\% orthorhombic contraction in the direction of
ferromagnetic order.
For checkerboard order, $\mathbf{q}$ is at the $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ point and this places
the $\bar{\Gamma}$ and $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$-centered hole sheets --as well as the $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$ and
$\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$-centered electron sheets-- on top of each other. Nesting of sheets
with the same (electron or hole) character is not optimal for gapping, and $%
\chi \left( 0\right) $ is therefore neither very high nor very doping
dependent.
\begin{figure}[tbp
\centerline{
\includegraphics[width=0.8\linewidth]{figs/fig18}}
\caption{\label{FigCorrectedBands}Band-resolved magnetic energy for stripe
order ($\mathbf{q}$ at $\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$). \textit{Red:} Unoccupied part of the folded
paramagnetic band structure, i.e. $\varepsilon _{\alpha }\left( \mathbf{k}%
\right) $ and $\varepsilon _{\alpha }\left( \mathbf{k+q}\right) $ for $%
\Delta \mathrm{=}0.$ This is the upper part of Fig. \ref{FigStripeBands},
but only for positive energies and without fatness. \textit{Black left:}
Band structure, $\varepsilon _{\beta }\left( \Delta ,\mathbf{k}\right) ,$
obtained by applying an exchange potential of intermediate strength, $\Delta $%
\textrm{=}1.1 eV, yielding a magnetization of 1.5\thinspace $\mu _{B}/$Fe and
thus corresponding to $I$=0.73 eV. The Fermi level (dashed line), $%
\varepsilon _{F}\left( \Delta \right) ,$ has moved up by 0.3 eV. The
dominant $d$-orbital characters have been written onto the bands. \textit{%
Black right:} Unoccupied part of the band structure, $e_{\beta }\left(
\Delta ,\mathbf{k}\right) \equiv \varepsilon _{\beta }\left( \Delta ,\mathbf{%
k}\right) +\frac{1}{4}p_{\beta }\left( \Delta ,\mathbf{k}\right) \Delta ,$
corrected for double counting such that the magnetic energy gain per $\beta
\mathbf{k}$-hole is $e_{\beta }\left( \Delta ,\mathbf{k}\right) -\varepsilon
_{\beta }\left( 0,\mathbf{k}\right) ,$ i.e. black minus red.
Note that only the unoccupied part of
the bands are shown and, in particular, that the double-counting corrected $%
e $-bands are truncated by the $\varepsilon $-band Fermi level, $\varepsilon
_{F}\left( \Delta \right) ,$ a truncation which does not occur at the same
energy for all $e$-bands.}
\end{figure}
For moments so low that for all possible spin orientations
$m(\Delta)$ is linear
and the magnetic energy
quadratic, the effective coupling between the spins can
be expressed in terms of the (Stoner enhanced) linear, static spin
susceptibility.
For moments so large that the system is insulating, on the other hand,
the electronic
degrees of freedom can be integrated out, whereby the coupling
between the spins is given
by a Heisenberg model. That model, with 1st and 2nd-nearest
neighbor antiferro-magnetic couplings
and $J_1 \lesssim 2J_2$ has, in fact, often been used to describe the
magnetism of the iron pnictides.
This is, however, hardly justified because the iron pnictides
are metals,
presumably with intermediate moments.
Full SDFT calculations, like the spin-spiral calculation described
at the end of this section,
do however account well for many experimental observations
and as a first step towards deriving
better exchange models,
we shall
therefore try to explain the origin of the magnetic
energies using the Stoner model.
The relation between the magnetic energy for
a particular spin spiral, a $\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$ stripe, and the underlying band structure
is illustrated in Fig.$\,$\ref{FigCorrectedBands}. Its left-hand side shows
the paramagnetic bands for positive energies, i.e. the unoccupied bands, as
well as the stripe bands for the somewhat reduced value $\Delta $=1.1 eV of
the exchange splitting. This corresponds to $I$=0.73\thinspace eV and to an
SDFT calculation for BaFe$_{2}$As$_{2}$ adjusted to the experimental dHvA FS
\cite{johannes09}. The dashed line shows the Fermi level, $%
\varepsilon _{F}\left( \Delta \right) $=0.3 eV. Note that, like in Fig.$\,$%
\ref{FigStripeBands}, the paramagnetic and spin-spiral band structures are
lined up with respect to the common paramagnetic potential.
We clearly see that the $%
\Delta $=1.1$\,$eV stripe perturbs all bands, but the $p$-like ones the least.
In SDFT, the total energy is a stationary functional of the electron and
spin densities. For densities which can be generated by occupying the
solutions of a single-particle Schr\"{o}dinger equation for a local
potential according to Fermi-Dirac statistics, the value of this functional
is simply the sum of the occupied single-particle energies, minus
corrections for double-counting of the Hartree and exchange-correlation
energies. This holds when the potential is the self-consistent one, i.e. the
one which minimizes the energy functional. For our Stoner model with $%
h\left( \mathbf{k}\right) $ describing the self-consistent paramagnetic
bands and for $\Delta $ taking the self-consistent value, $m\left( \Delta
\right) I,$ the double-counting correction of the \emph{magnetic} energy is
simply $\frac{1}{4}m\left( \Delta \right) \Delta =\sum\nolimits_{\beta
\mathbf{k}}^{\mathrm{occ}}\frac{1}{4}p_{\beta }\left( \Delta ,\mathbf{k}%
\right) \Delta .$ For $d^{6}$ materials, we shall sum over empty states,
because of those there are only 4/Fe, and nearly all have negative spin
polarization. The double-counting correction of the stripe bands has now
been performed on the right-hand side of Fig.$\,$\ref{FigCorrectedBands}
from where we realize that these (black) bands, $e_{\beta }\left( \Delta ,\mathbf{k}%
\right) \equiv \varepsilon _{\beta }\left( \Delta ,\mathbf{k}\right) +\frac{1%
}{4}p_{\beta }\left( \Delta ,\mathbf{k}\right) \Delta ,$ are \emph{far less
perturbed} than the real stripe bands, $\varepsilon _{\beta }\left( \Delta ,%
\mathbf{k}\right) .$ This means, that the \emph{state-resolved magnetic
energy gain} (black minus red), $e_{\beta }\left( \Delta ,\mathbf{k}\right) -\varepsilon _{\beta
}\left( 0,\mathbf{k}\right) ,$ is concentrated near the exchange gaps and
near the paramagnetic and spin-spiral Fermi surfaces. Note that each of
these empty bands, $e_{\beta }\left( \Delta ,\mathbf{k}\right) $ and $%
\varepsilon _{\beta }\left( 0,\mathbf{k}\right) ,$ should be defined as
$0\equiv \varepsilon _{F}\left( 0\right) ,$
if that band is occupied. This means that the empty
paramagnetic bands, $\varepsilon _{\beta }\left( 0,\mathbf{k}\right) ,$ are
continuous, but truncated with a kink at the lower figure frame. The empty,
corrected magnetic bands, $e_{\beta }\left( \Delta ,\mathbf{k}\right) ,$
should be
truncated discontinuously. Due to the 0.3 eV upwards shift of $\varepsilon
_{F}\left( \Delta \right) ,$ all empty parts of the corrected bands are
above the frame of the figure so that all empty magnetic bands are visible.
In order to see which states contribute to the energy of the $\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$ stripe,
let us now once again start from $\frac{1}{2}$$\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$ and move to the right in
the right-hand
figure. The zone-boundary gapping around 1.2 eV of the corrected $XY/zz/xz/y$%
\ band is small and fairly localized near $\frac{1}{2}$$\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$, and there, its
positive and negative contributions nearly cancel. The gapping around 0.7 eV
of the $yz/xy/x$ band is much larger due to the dominating $yz$ character of
this band, but here again, the negative and positive contributions
essentially cancel, until $\mathbf{k}$ gets closer to $\bar{\Gamma}.$ There,
the character of the lower band is $xy$ from the $\bar{\Gamma}$-centered
hole band and $xy/z$ from the $\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$-centered superellipse electron band.
This band contributes positively to the energy of the stripe in the large
region of the BZ around $\bar{\Gamma}$=$\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$ where the FS is completely
gapped, a contribution which integrates up to about half the stripe energy.
Between $\bar{\Gamma}$ and $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$, the black $xy/z$ band is seen to suffer an
avoided crossing with the band formed from the $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$-centered $xz/y$
electron band and the longitudinal $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$-centered $xz$ hole band. Near the
avoided crossing the magnetic energy density becomes negative, but is
essentially cancelled by the positive contribution from the upper band.
Closer to $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$, the contribution from the lower band becomes positive
again, and its positive magnetic energy density is seen to extend over the
large region around $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$=$\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ where the $xz$ part of the FS is completely
gapped. This part of the band is formed by coupling of the paramagnetic,
flat $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$-centered
$xz$ electron band, which is occupied and therefore lies below
the frame af the figure, and the paramagnetic transversal $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$-centered $xz$
hole band, which becomes occupied outside the transversal hole pocket. So
whereas the empty, black $xy$-$xz$ band extends smoothly throughout the
BZ, its paramagnetic partner, against which we measure the
band-resolved magnetic energy, goes to zero at a few places in the BZ, such
as outside the transversal $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$-centered hole band along $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$$\mathrm{\bar{M}}$. The
magnetic one-electron energy of the $xz$-like band thus reaches +0.5 eV
between $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$ and $\frac{1}{2}$$\mathrm{\bar{X}}$$\mathrm{\bar{M}}$.
Also the two uppermost black bands, which are degenerate at $\bar{\Gamma}$
and then split into longitudinal and transversal $p/t$ bands, stay empty,
i.e. they extend smoothly throughout the BZ. The lower of these bands, the
one which is longitudinal $p/t$-like near $\bar{\Gamma},$ becomes $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ $z/xy$
like near $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$ and is seen to contribute negligibly to the magnetic energy
in LaOFeAs (but possibly not in the bct materials). The same holds
between $\frac{1}{2}$$\mathrm{\bar{X}}$$\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ and $\sim \frac{1}{3}$$\mathrm{\bar{X}}$$\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ for its
lower partner, which is essentially the paramagnetic $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$-centered $xy/z$
electron band extending in the direction towards $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$. At $\frac{1}{3}$$\mathrm{\bar{X}}$%
$\mathrm{\bar{M}}$, where the magnetic band becomes the tip of the propeller blade, the
corrected $xy/z$ band jumbs to $0,$ whereby the one-electron magnetic energy
jumps from $0$ to $-0.25$\thinspace eV. Also the $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$-centered $yz$ hole
band coincides with the corrected magnetic $yz$ band, so that only the
Fermi-surface truncations contribute to the magnetic energy, which in this
case amounts to a small negative energy from the region between the
propeller hub and the $yz$-part of the $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$-centered hole pockets.
The higher of those two bands which are degenerate at $\bar{\Gamma},$ i.e.
the one which is transversal $p/t$ near $\bar{\Gamma},$ develops into the
uppermost of the four bands formed by the coupling of the paramagnetic $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$
$XY/zz$ and $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$$\,XY$ bands described in connection with Eq.$\,$(\ref{XYzz}%
), albeit for a larger $\Delta $. This band is seen to contribute positively
to the magnetic energy, a contribution which is, however, overwhelmed by a
large, negative contribution from the second of the four bands, which is
part of the $XY/zz$ band decreasing from 1.3 eV at $\frac{1}{2}$$\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$ to 0.6
eV at $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$, and finally to 0.2 eV around $\frac{1}{4}$$\mathrm{\bar{X}}$$\mathrm{\bar{M}}$. At this
point the $zz/XY$ band is on the inner part of the propeller blade, and
therefore jumps discontinuously to $0,$ where is stays until reaching the
zone boundary at $\frac{1}{2}$$\mathrm{\bar{X}}$$\mathrm{\bar{M}}$. The magnetic one-electron energy
of the $zz/XY$-like band thus jumps from $-0.6$ to $-0.8$ eV at $\frac{1}{4}$%
$\mathrm{\bar{X}}$$\mathrm{\bar{M}}$.
It is simpler to eyeball the balance of magnetic one-electron energies along
the line between $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$ and $\frac{1}{2}$$\mathrm{\bar{X}}$$\mathrm{\bar{M}}$, where we found large
cancellations, if we connect the magnetic $XY/zz$ and $xz$ bands
according to energy. In fact, the real $zz/XY$ and $xz$ bands may cross
along $\bar{\Gamma}$$\mathrm{\bar{X}}$ and $\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$$\mathrm{\bar{M}}$, but not between $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$ and $\frac{1%
}{2}$$\mathrm{\bar{X}}$$\mathrm{\bar{M}}$. When doing so, we see that the magnetic energy loss from
the $XY/zz$-$xz$ band lying near 0.5 eV is nearly balanced by the gain
provided by the upper $XY/zz$ band lying near 1 eV. The lower $xz$-$zz/XY$
band lies $\sim $0.2\thinspace eV above the $xz$ part of the paramagnetic
$\mathrm{\bar{M}}$-centered hole band and thus gains considerable magnetic energy. The
Fermi-surface contribution seems to be small because $k_{Fy}$ for the outer,
transversal $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$-centered hole surface is about the same dimension as the
distance from the center of the hub to the inner, $zz/XY$ part of the blade.
Finally, by joining this $xz$-$zz/XY$ band across the blade to the $xy/z$
band, we see that there is a loss of one-electron magnetic energy of about
0.2 eV inside the blade.
\begin{figure}[tbp
\centerline{
\includegraphics[width=0.8\linewidth]{figs/fig19}}
\caption{\label{FigEmag} $\mathbf{k}$-resolved magnetic $\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$%
-stripe energy, $\sum\nolimits_{\beta }^{\mathrm{empty}}\left[ e_{\beta
}\left( \Delta ,\mathbf{k}\right) -\varepsilon _{\beta }\left( 0,\mathbf{k}%
\right) \right] ,$ as in Fig.$\,$\ref{FigCorrectedBands} but for $\Delta
\mathrm{=2.3\,}$eV and summed over the empty bands and shown throughout $%
\left( k_{x},k_{y}\right) $-space. Magnetic energy gains are red and losses
blue. The discontinuities caused by the propeller sheet are clearly seen.
While the left-hand figure is for 2D LaOFeAs with the observed structure $%
\left( \eta \mathrm{=}0.93\right) ,$ the right-hand figure shows the result
obtained by reducing $t_{xy,z}^{\frac{1}{2}\frac{1}{2}}$ from 0.52 to 0.30$\,
$eV. With the latter value, the 2D paramagnetic $z/xy$ band becomes
degenerate with the top of the hole bands at $\mathrm{\bar{M},}$ and thus
forms a Dirac cone with the longitudinal $t/p$ band. This corresponds to the
elongation $\eta \mathrm{\sim }1.2.$
}
\end{figure}
This is seen quite clearly in the left-hand part of Fig.$\,$\ref{FigEmag}
where we show the $\mathbf{k}$-resolved magnetic energy, which is the
state-resolved magnetic energy considered above, summed over empty bands.
What stabilizes stripe order when its moment is $ \gtrsim 1\,\mu
_{B}/\mathrm{Fe} ,$ is then, first of all, coupling of the
paramagnetic $\bar{\Gamma}$-centered $xy$ hole and the $\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$%
-centered $xy/z$ electron bands over a large part of $\mathbf{k}$-space
centered at $\bar{\Gamma}.$ The second, almost as large contribution comes
from coupling of the $xz$ part of the paramagnetic $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$%
-centered hole band to that of the $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$-centered
electron band
over a smaller part of the zone centered at $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$. These $\bar{%
\Gamma}$ and $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$-centered red regions do not overlap. The
Fermi-surface contributions to the magnetic energy are relatively small, and
the positive (red) contribution from the hub tends to cancel the negative
(blue) contribution from the blades. This being the case, it should be
possible to derive a Heisenberg model which fairly accurately describes the
change of the magnetic energy for pertubations of $\mathbf{q}$ around
commensurable stripe order.
We can now address the interplay between the distance between the As and Fe
sheets and the stripe magnetism: The main effect of increasing this
distance, $\eta ,$ is to decrease the $z$-$xy$ hybridization, as was
discussed in Sect. \ref{Sectst}, and thereby to decrease the splitting
between the paramagnetic $z/xy$ antibonding and $xy/z$ bonding levels near $%
\mathrm{\bar{M}}$, and thus to move the empty $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$ $z/xy$
level down. The $z/xy$ electron band from $\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$=$\bar{\Gamma}$
to $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$=$\mathrm{\bar{X}}$, as well as the ones folded from $%
\mathrm{\bar{X}}$ to $\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{\bar{X}\bar{M}}$ (see Fig.\ref%
{FigStripeBands}), will be less steep and more $xy$-like upon increasing $%
\eta .$ This, in turn, will increase the polarization and the gapping of the
$xy$-like stripe bands and thereby increase the fixed-$\Delta $ moment, $%
m\left( \Delta \right) ,$ and the differential suceptibility, $\chi \equiv
dm\left( \Delta \right) /d\Delta .$ The increase of the self-consistent
moment will finally be enhanced over the increase of $m\left( \Delta \right)
$ by the Stoner factor $\left( 1-I\chi \right) ^{-1}.$ At the same time as
the moment increases, so does the gapping, the stripe energy, and, hence,
the magnetic energy. Also the mere flattening of the $z/xy$ bands increases
the magnetic energy by extending the regions around $\bar{\Gamma}$ and $%
\mathrm{\bar{X}}$ of positive magnetic one-electron energy. As seen in the
right-hand part of Fig.$\,$\ref{FigEmag}, the $\bar{\Gamma}$ region
increases in the $k_{x}$ direction and the $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$ region in the $%
k_{y}$ direction. This explains why spin polarization tends to increase the
vertial Fe-As distance.
In conclusion, what stabilizes stripe order when its moment is
$\gtrsim 1\,\mu _{B}/\mathrm{Fe},$ is --first of all-- the coupling of
the paramagnetic $\bar{\Gamma}$-centered $xy$ hole and $\mathrm{\bar{Y}}$-centered $xy/z$
electron bands over a large part of $\mathbf{k}$-space centered at $\bar{%
\Gamma}.$ The second, almost as large contribution comes from coupling of
the $xz$ part of the paramagnetic $\mathrm{\bar{M}}$-centered hole band to
that of the $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$%
-centered electron band over a smaller part of the zone centered at
$\mathrm{\bar{X}}$. These $\bar{\Gamma}$ and $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$-centered regions do not overlap. The
Fermi-surface contributions to the magnetic energy are comparatively small
and mostly negative. This being the case, it should be possible to derive
fairly accurate Heisenberg models describing the change of the magnetic
energy for pertubations of $\mathbf{q}$ around commensurable stripe
order.
For a start, one might compute
the spin-spiral energy dispersions as a function of $\mathbf{q}$,
using the simple TB Stoner
model (\ref{H}) and then analyse which one-electron states are reponsible
for the energy changes, like we did for $q\mathrm{=}\pi \mathbf{y}$.
\begin{figure}[tbp
\centerline{
\includegraphics[width=1.0\linewidth]{figs/fig20}}
\caption{\label{FigSpinSpiral} Magnetic moments (upper panels) and energies
(lower panels) per Fe of spin spirals as functions of $\mathbf{q}$ for
different electron (x) and hole (y) dopings in the virtual-crystal
approximation. These results were obtained by self-consistent SDFT-LMTO
calculations.\cite{Yaresko} The energies of the $J_{1},J_{2}$ Heisenberg
model for x(y) = 0 and 0.2 are given by respectively dashed and dash-dotted
lines. Representative real-space spin structures are shown at the bottom
right for the $\mathbf{q}$-vectors denoted by dots (adapted from Ref. \cite%
{Yaresko}).
}
\end{figure}
The results shown so far were obtained using the spherical Stoner model,
which allowed us to simplify the calculation of the spin-spiral
band structures and magnetic energies so much,
that we might understand the results by
solving simple analytical problems.
Although approximate, this model is in many respects more general
than SDFT calculations. Now, coming to the end of our tutorial paper, we show in Fig. $\,$\ref{FigSpinSpiral}
results of SDFT spin-spiral
calculations for LaO$_{1-\mathrm{x}}$F$_{\mathrm{x}}$FeAs and Ba$_{1-2%
\mathrm{y}}$K$_{2\mathrm{y}}$Fe$_{2}$As$_{2}$ of self-consistent moments and
energies as funtions of $\mathbf{q}$ and doping in the virtual-crystal
approximation (VCA).~\cite{Yaresko} Note that in this figure,
$\mathbf{q}$ takes the usual $\bar{\Gamma}$$\mathrm{\bar{X}}$$\mathrm{\bar{M}}$$\bar{%
\Gamma}$ path, so that the spin-spiral patterns near $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$ correspond
to an $\mathrm{\bar{X}}$ stripe.
For LaOFeAs, the moment is seen to be $\sim $1.3$\,\mu
_{B}/\mathrm{Fe}$ for both stripe and checkerboard order, which is somewhat
smaller than what we obtained in Fig.$\,$\ref{FigSusc}, presumably because
the moment is calculated by integration of the spin-polarization in an Fe
sphere with radius $\mathrm{\sim }a/2$ in the SDFT calculation, rather than
being summed over Fe Wannier orbitals. Other causes could be our use of the
Stoner aproximation with too high an $I$ and a spherical $\Delta .$ More
significant is, however, that whereas we found, and understood, that in the
rigid-band approximation the large moment decreases with electron doping,
and increases with hole doping, the behaviour seems to be the opposite in
the VCA approximation, both for electron-doped LaO$_{1-\mathrm{x}}$F$_{%
\mathrm{x}}$FeAs and hole-doped Ba$_{1-2\mathrm{y}}$K$_{2\mathrm{y}}$Fe$_{2}$%
As$_{2}$. The VCA approximates O$_{1-\mathrm{x}}$F$_{\mathrm{x}}$ (or Ba$%
_{1-2\mathrm{y}}$K$_{2\mathrm{y}})$ by a virtual atom having a non-integer
number of protons. Such anomalies have recently been discussed for Co and
Ni-substitution at the Fe site using supercell calculations,\cite%
{10SawatzkiWherearetherDoping} but not for substitution in the blocking
layers. We may speculate that at least for Ba$_{1-2\mathrm{y}}$K$_{2\mathrm{y%
}}$Fe$_{2}$As$_{2}$, the strong Ba 5$d$ hybrididization near the Fermi level
found in Sect.$\,$\ref{Sectbct} could make substitution of Ba by K a
non-trivial doping. Nevertheless, the spin-spiral energies shown in the
lower half of Fig.$\,$\ref{FigSpinSpiral} agree with experiments to the
extent that the stable spin order is the stripe for low doping, but shifts
to in-commensurable order for higher doping, x$>5\%$ in LaOFeAs. This is
consistent with the onset of superconductivity in this material, but is a
completely different, and presumably more accurate scenario than the one
suggested by Fig.$\,$\ref{FigSusc}. The black dashed and dotted lines are
fits by a simple Heisenberg nearest and next-nearest neighbor $\left(
J_{1},J_{2}\right) $ model to the calculated spin-spiral dispersions for
respectively the undoped and 20\% doped compounds. These fits are not bad,
although exchange interactions of longer range are needed to fit the LaOFeAs
incommensurability. However, the SDFT energies of other spin arrangements,
such as starting from stripe order and then rotating the spins on one Fe
sublattice rigidly with respect to those on the other, could not be
reproduced by the $\left( J_{1},J_{2}\right) $ model.
\section*{Summary}
We hope to have given a pedagogical, self-contained description of the
seemingly complicated multi-orbital band structures of the new iron pnictide
and chalcogenide superconductors. First, we derived a generic Fe $d$ As $p$
TB Hamiltonian by NMTO downfolding of the DFT band structure of LaOFeAs for
the observed crystal structure. By use of the glide mirror symmetry of a
single FeAs layer, its primitive cell was reduced to \emph{one} FeAs unit,
i.e. the TB $pd$ Hamiltonian, $h\left( \mathbf{k}\right) ,$ is an $8\times 8$
matrix whose converged analytical expressions are, however, too long to
for the present paper. We specified how $h\left( \mathbf{k}\right) $
factorizes at points --and along lines of high symmetry in the 2D BZ and
pointed to the many band crossings and linear dispersions ("incipient Dirac
cones") caused by the factorizations. Their role, together with that of Fe$%
\,d\,$-$\,$As$\,p$ hybridization for the presence of the $d^{6}$ pseudogap
at the Fermi level and the details of the shapes and masses of the electron
and hole pockets were subsequently explained. Thereafter we included
interlayer coupling, which mainly proceeds via the As $z$ orbitals, and
showed how the st and bct 3D band structures can be obtained by coupling $%
h\left( \mathbf{k}\right) $ and $h\left( \mathbf{k+}\pi \mathbf{x+}\pi
\mathbf{y}\right) ,$ i.e. by folding the 2D bands into the small BZ. This
formalism allowed us to explain, for the first time, we believe, the
complicated DFT band structures of in particular st SmOFeAs, bct BaFe$_{2}$As$%
_{2}$, bct CaFe$_{2}$As$_{2},$ and collapsed bct CaFe$_{2}$As$_{2}$.
What causes
the complications are the material-dependent level inversions taking place
as functions of $k_{z}.$ We found several Dirac points near the
Fermi level. Whether these points have any physical implications remains to
be seen. They do \emph{not} pin the Fermi level, because there are also
other FS sheets, and they are \emph{not} protected, because they are merely
caused by crystal symmetries, such as the vertical mirrorplane containing
the nearest-neighbor As atoms, which are easily broken by phonons,
impurities a.s.o.
We then studied the generic band structures
in the presence of spin spirals, whose
Fe moment has a constant value, $m,$ but whose orientation spiral along with
wavevector $\mathbf{q}.$ The formalism simply couples $h\left( \mathbf{k}%
\right) $ to $h\left( \mathbf{k}+\mathbf{q}\right) $ and does not require $%
\mathbf{q}$ to be commensurate. We used the Stoner approximation to SDFT,
because it is simple and allows one to calculate the spin-spiral band
structures as functions of the strength, $\Delta ,$ of the exchange
potential and impose the selfconsisteny condition, $\Delta
=m\left( \Delta \right) I$ at a later stage.
We limited ourselves to using this formalism to
explain the 2D band structures for stripe order as a function of $\Delta ,$
but in quite some depth, often using simple analytical theory. What
complicates the magnetic band structure is the simultaneous presence of
As-Fe covalency and Stoner-exchange coupling. That the latter is only
between \emph{like} Fe $d$ orbitals, gave the structure of
the small-moment SDW-gapping of the paramagnetic FS as well as
the intermediate-moment propeller-shaped FS .
With the goal of eventually understanding --and
possibly simplifying the calculation of-- the spin spiral energy dispersions,
we expressed the magnetic energy as the difference between magnetic and
nonmagnetic band-structure energies, whereby the magnetic band structure
should be the one corrected for double counting of the exchange interaction.
This formalism was then applied to the large-moment stripe order and we
found its stabilization energy to have two main sources (1) the coupling of
the paramagnetic $xy$ hole and $xy/z$ electron bands and (2) the coupling of
the other electron band and the $xz$ part of the doubly degenerate hole band.
The
Fermi-surface contributions to the magnetic energy were found to be
comparatively small, and that gave some hope for developing a suitable
Heisenberg Hamiltonian. We also explained the much discussed coupling in
SDFT between the stripe moment and the As height above the Fe plane.
In the end, we showed and discussed the
self-consistent spin-spiral moment and energy dispersion
obtained from a SDFT calculation, co-authored by
one of us.~\cite{Yaresko}
\section{Acknowledgements}
We would like to thank Alexander Yaresko for pointing out to us
the beauty of spin
spirals.
Dmytro Inosov
convinced us about the non-triviality of interlayer coupling in BaFe$_{2}$As%
$_{2}$.
Maciej Zwierzycki provided us with computer programs using the
Overlapping-Muffin-Tin-Approximation (OMTA).
~\cite{OMTA}
We are grateful to Claudia Hagemann for proof-reading the manuscript,
and to Ove Jepsen for being extremely helpful, as usual,
and for pointing out an error in the manuscript.
O.K.A. thanks to Guo-Qiang Liu for discussions of his spin-orbit
coupled calculations.
L.B. would like to thank
Alessandro Toschi for many useful discussions.
Finally, to all those colleagues who have published
results related to ours, but of which we are not aware, we apologize for
having not given reference.
\\
This research was supported in part by
the National Science Foundation under Grant No. PHY05-51164 (KITP UCSB) and
by the DFG SFP1458.
| {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaArXiv"
} | 8,223 |
package server_test
import (
"context"
"os"
"testing"
"github.com/juju/errors"
"github.com/peer-calls/peer-calls/v4/server"
"github.com/peer-calls/peer-calls/v4/server/identifiers"
"github.com/peer-calls/peer-calls/v4/server/message"
"github.com/stretchr/testify/require"
"nhooyr.io/websocket"
)
// This package contains commonly used test variables
const room identifiers.RoomID = "test-room"
// nolint:gochecknoglobals
var serializer server.ByteSerializer
type MockWSWriter struct {
out chan []byte
closeCtx context.Context
cancel context.CancelFunc
}
func NewMockWriter() *MockWSWriter {
closeCtx, cancel := context.WithCancel(context.Background())
return &MockWSWriter{
closeCtx: closeCtx,
cancel: cancel,
out: make(chan []byte, 16),
}
}
func (w *MockWSWriter) Write(ctx context.Context, typ websocket.MessageType, msg []byte) error {
w.out <- msg
return nil
}
func (w *MockWSWriter) Read(ctx context.Context) (typ websocket.MessageType, msg []byte, err error) {
select {
case <-ctx.Done():
err = errors.Trace(ctx.Err())
case <-w.closeCtx.Done():
err = errors.Trace(w.closeCtx.Err())
}
return
}
func (w *MockWSWriter) Close(statusCode websocket.StatusCode, reason string) error {
w.cancel()
return nil
}
func serialize(t *testing.T, msg message.Message) []byte {
t.Helper()
data, err := serializer.Serialize(msg)
require.Nil(t, err)
return data
}
// nolint:gochecknoglobals
var embed = server.Embed{
Templates: os.DirFS("templates"),
Static: os.DirFS("../build"),
Resources: os.DirFS("../res"),
}
| {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaGithub"
} | 789 |
namespace DurableTaskSamples.Replat
{
using System;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
public interface IMigrationTasks
{
Task<bool> ExportSite(string id, string subscriptionId, Application application);
Task<bool> ImportSite(string id, string subscriptionId, Application application);
Task<bool> MigrateServerFarmConfig(string id, string subscriptionId, Application application);
Task<bool> UpdateWebSiteHostName(string subscriptionId, Application application);
Task<bool> WhitelistSubscription(string subscriptionId);
Task<bool> CleanupPrivateStamp(string subscriptionId);
Task<bool> EnableSubscription(string subscriptionId);
Task<bool> DisableSubscription(string subscriptionId);
Task<bool> UpdateTtl(string subscriptionId);
}
public class MigrationTasks : IMigrationTasks
{
public Task<bool> ExportSite(string id, string subscriptionId, Application application)
{
Console.WriteLine(string.Format(
"Export Site Called for SubId: '{0}' with Id: '{1}'. App Name: '{2}'", subscriptionId, id, application.Name));
return Task.FromResult(true);
}
public Task<bool> ImportSite(string id, string subscriptionId, Application application)
{
Console.WriteLine(string.Format(
"Import Site Called for SubId: '{0}' with Id: '{1}'. App Name: '{2}'", subscriptionId, id, application.Name));
return Task.FromResult(true);
}
public Task<bool> MigrateServerFarmConfig(string id, string subscriptionId, Application application)
{
Console.WriteLine(string.Format(
"Migrate ServerFarm Called for SubId: '{0}' with Id: '{1}'. App Name: '{2}'", subscriptionId, id, application.Name));
return Task.FromResult(true);
}
public Task<bool> UpdateWebSiteHostName(string subscriptionId, Application application)
{
Console.WriteLine(string.Format(
"Update Website Hostname Called for SubId: '{0}'. App Name: '{1}'", subscriptionId, application.Name));
return Task.FromResult(true);
}
public Task<bool> WhitelistSubscription(string subscriptionId)
{
Console.WriteLine(string.Format(
"WhitelistSubscription Called for SubId: '{0}'.", subscriptionId));
return Task.FromResult(true);
}
public Task<bool> CleanupPrivateStamp(string subscriptionId)
{
Console.WriteLine(string.Format(
"CleanupPrivateStamp Called for SubId: '{0}'.", subscriptionId));
return Task.FromResult(true);
}
public Task<bool> EnableSubscription(string subscriptionId)
{
throw new NotImplementedException();
}
public Task<bool> DisableSubscription(string subscriptionId)
{
throw new NotImplementedException();
}
public Task<bool> UpdateTtl(string subscriptionId)
{
Console.WriteLine(string.Format(
"UpdateTtl Called for SubId: '{0}'.", subscriptionId));
return Task.FromResult(true);
}
}
}
| {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaGithub"
} | 1,156 |
In 587 BC, the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II conquered the empire led by Judah and the inhabitants were forced to the Babylonian exile. After the Israelite king Solomon's death (965-926 BC), the kingdom was divided. North of the empire was still called Israel, while the lower South was called Judea, with Jerusalem as its capital, as large areas were included in the king of Judah. Israel did not exist during the regency of Nebuchadnezzar (who ruled from 605-562 BC). Empire was devastated by the Assyrians in 732 BC. | {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaC4"
} | 1,575 |
\section{Introduction}
Many natural datasets exhibit
pronounced multi-modal structure.
We represent audio spectrograms as 2nd-order tensors (matrices)
with modes corresponding
to frequency and time.
We represent images as 3rd-order tensors
with modes corresponding to
width, height and the color channels.
Videos are expressed
as 4th-order tensors,
and the signal processed
by an array of video sensors
can be described as a 5th-order tensor.
A broad array of multi-modal data can be naturally encoded as tensors.
Tensor methods extend linear algebra
to higher order tensors and
are promising tools for manipulating and analyzing such data.
The mathematical properties of tensors
have long been the subject of theoretical study.
Previously, in machine learning,
data points were typically assumed to be vectors
and datasets to be matrices.
Hence, spectral methods,
such as matrix decompositions,
have been popular in machine learning.
Recently, tensor methods,
which generalize these techniques to higher-order tensors, have gained prominence.
One class of broadly useful techniques
within tensor methods are tensor decompositions,
which have been studied for
learning latent variables \citep{anandkumar2014tensor}.
Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) frequently
manipulate high-order tensors:
in a standard deep convolutional Neural Network (CNN) for image recognition,
the inputs and the activations
of convolutional layers
are \(3^{\text{rd}}\)-order tensors.
And yet, to wit, most architectures
output predictions
by first flattening the activation tensors
and then connecting to the output neurons
via one or more fully-connected layers.
This approach presents several issues:
we lose multi-modal information
during the flattening process
and the fully-connected layers
require a large number of parameters.
\paragraph{In this paper,}
we propose Tensor Contraction Layers (TCLs)
and Tensor Regression Layers (TRLs)
as end-to-end trainable
components of neural networks.
In doing so, we exploit multilinear structure
without giving up the power and flexibility
offered by modern deep learning methods.
By replacing fully-connected layers
with tensor contractions,
we aggregate long-range spatial information
while preserving multi-modal structure.
Moreover, by enforcing low rank,
we reduce the number of parameters needed significantly with minimal impact on accuracy.
Our proposed TRL
expresses the regression weights
through the factors of a low-rank tensor decomposition.
The TRL obviates the need for flattening
when generating output.
By combining tensor regression
with tensor contraction,
we further increase efficiency.
Augmenting the VGG and ResNet architectures,
we demonstrate improved performance on the ImageNet dataset despite significantly reducing the number of parameters (almost by 65\%).
This is the first paper that presents
an end-to-end trainable architecture
which retains the multi-dimensional tensor structure throughout the network.
\paragraph{ Related work: }
Several recent papers
apply tensor decomposition
to deep learning.
One notable line of application is to re-parametrize existing layers using tensor decomposition either to speed these up or reduce the number of parameters.
\citet{lebedev2014speeding} propose
using CP decomposition
to speed up convolutional layers. Similarly, \citep{tai2015convolutional} propose to use tensor decomposition to remove redundancy in convolutional layers and express these as the composition of two convolutional layers with less parameters.
\citet{yong2015compression} take a pre-trained network
and apply tensor (Tucker) decomposition on the convolutional kernel tensors and then fine-tune the resulting network. \citet{yang2016deep} propose weight sharing
in multi-task learning and \citet{chen2017sharing}
propose sharing residual units.
\citet{novikov2015tensorizing} use
the Tensor-Train (TT) format
to impose low-rank tensor structure on weights of the fully-connected layers.
However, they still retain
the fully-connected layers for the output,
while we present an end-to-end tensorized network architecture. All these contributions are orthogonal to ours
and can be applied together.
Despite the success of DNNs,
many open questions remain
as to why they work so well
and whether they really need so many parameters.
Tensor methods have emerged as promising tools of analysis
to address these questions
and to better understand the success of deep neural networks.
\citet{cohen2015expressive}, for example,
use tensor methods as tools of analysis
to study the expressive power of CNNs, while the follow up work \citep{sharir2017expressive} focuses on the expressive power of overlapping architectures of deep learning.
\citet{haeffele2015global} derive sufficient conditions for global optimality and optimization of non-convex factorization problems, including tensor factorization and deep neural network training.
Other papers investigate tensor methods
as tools for devising neural network learning algorithms
with theoretical guarantees of convergence \citep{sedghi2016training,janzamin2015generalization,non_convexity_nn_anandkumar}.
Several prior papers address the
power of tensor regression to
preserve natural multi-modal structure
and learn compact predictive models \citep{guo2012tensor,rabusseau2016low,zhou2013tensor,yu2016learning}.
However, these works typically rely on analytical solutions and require manipulating
large tensors containing the data.
They are usually used for small datasets or require to downsample the data or extract compact features prior to fitting the model,
and do not scale to large datasets such as ImageNet.
To our knowledge,
no prior work combines tensor contraction or tensor regression with deep learning
in an end-to-end trainable fashion.
\section{Mathematical background}
\paragraph{Notation: }
Throughout the paper, we define tensors as multidimensional arrays, with indexing starting at 0.
First order tensors are vectors, denoted \(\myvector{v}\). Second order tensors are matrices, denoted \(\mymatrix{M}\) and \(Id\) is the identity matrix. We denote \(\mytensor{X}\) tensors of order 3 or greater. For a third order tensor \(\mytensor{X}\), we denote its element \((i, j, k)\) as \(\mytensor{X}_{i_1, i_2, i_3}\). A colon is used to denote all elements of a mode e.g. the mode-1 fibers of \(\mytensor{X}\) are denoted as \(\mytensor{X}_{:, i_2, i_3}\). The transpose of \(\mymatrix{M}\) is denoted \(\mymatrix{M}\myT\) and its pseudo-inverse \(\mymatrix{M}\mypinv\). Finally, for any \(i, j \in \myN, \myrange{i}{j}\) denotes the set of integers \(\{ i, i+1, \cdots , j-1, j\}\).
\paragraph{Tensor unfolding: }
Given a tensor,
\( \mytensor{X} \in \myR^{I_0 \times I_1 \times \cdots \times I_N}\),
its mode-\(n\) unfolding is a matrix \(\mymatrix{X}_{[n]} \in \myR^{I_n, I_M}\),
with \(M = \prod_{\substack{k=0,\\k \neq n}}^N I_k\)
and is defined by the mapping from element
\( (i_0, i_1, \cdots, i_N)\) to \((i_n, j)\), with
\(
j = \sum_{\substack{k=0,\\k \neq n}}^N i_k \times \prod_{\substack{m=k+1,\\ m \neq n}}^N I_m
\).
\paragraph{Tensor vectorization: }
Given a tensor,
\( \mytensor{X} \in \myR^{I_0 \times I_1 \times \cdots \times I_N}\),
we can flatten it into a vector \(\text{vec}(\mytensor{X})\)
of size \(\left(I_0 \times \cdots \times I_N\right)\)
defined by the mapping from element
\( (i_0, i_1, \cdots, i_N)\) of \(\mytensor{X}\) to element \(j\) of \(\text{vec}(\mytensor{X})\), with
\( j = \sum_{k=0}^N i_k \times \prod_{m=k+1}^N I_m \).
\paragraph{n-mode product: }
For a tensor \(\mytensor{X} \in \myR^{I_0 \times I_1 \times \cdots \times I_N}\) and a matrix \( \mymatrix{M} \in \myR^{R \times I_n} \), the n-mode product of a tensor
is a tensor of size
\(\left(I_0 \times \cdots \times I_{n-1} \times R \times I_{n+1} \times \cdot \times I_N\right)\)
and can be expressed using unfolding of \(\mytensor{X}\)
and the classical dot product as:
\begin{equation}
\mytensor{X} \times_n \mymatrix{M} = \mymatrix{M} \mytensor{X}_{[n]} \in \myR^{I_0 \times \cdots \times I_{n-1} \times R \times I_{n+1} \times \cdot \times I_N}
\end{equation}
\paragraph{Generalized inner-product}
For two tensors \(\mytensor{X}, \mytensor{Y} \in \myR^{I_0 \times I_1 \times \cdots \times I_N}\) of same size, their inner product is defined as
\(
\myinner{\mytensor{X}}{\mytensor{Y}}=~\sum_{i_0=0}^{I_0-1}\sum_{i_1=0}^{I_1 - 1} \cdots \sum_{i_n=0}^{I_N - 1} \mytensor{X}_{i_0, i_1, \cdots, i_n} \mytensor{Y}_{i_0, i_1, \cdots, i_n}
\)
For two tensors \(\mytensor{X} \in \myR^{D_x \times I_1 \times I_2 \times \cdots \times I_N}\) and \( \mytensor{Y} \in \myR^{I_1 \times I_2 \times \cdots \times I_N \times D_y} \) sharing \(N\) modes of same size,
we similarly defined the generalized inner product along the \(N\) last (respectively first) modes of \(\mytensor{X}\) (respectively \(\mytensor{Y}\)) as
\begin{equation}
\myinner{\mytensor{X}}{\mytensor{Y}}_N =~\sum_{i_1=0}^{I_1-1}\sum_{i_2=0}^{I_1 - 1} \cdots \sum_{i_n=0}^{I_N - 1} \mytensor{X}_{:, i_1, i_2, \cdots, i_n} \mytensor{Y}_{i_1, i_2, \cdots, i_n, :}
\end{equation}
with \( \myinner{\mytensor{X}}{\mytensor{Y}}_N \in \myR^{I_x, I_y}\).
\paragraph{Tucker decomposition: }
Given a tensor \(\mytensor{X} \in \myR^{I_0 \times I_1 \times \cdots \times I_N} \),
we can decompose it into a low rank core
\(\mytensor{G} \in \myR^{R_0 \times R_1 \times \cdots \times R_N}\)
by projecting along each of its modes
with projection factors
\( \left( \mymatrix{U}^{(0)}, \cdots,\mymatrix{U}^{(N)} \right) \), with \(\mymatrix{U}^{(k)} \in \myR^{R_k, I_k}, k \in (0, \cdots, N)\).
In other words, we can write:
\begin{align}
\mytensor{X} &=
\mytensor{G} \times_0 \mymatrix{U}^{(0)}
\times_1 \mymatrix{U}^{(2)} \times
\cdots
\times_N \mymatrix{U}^{(N)} \nonumber \\
&= \mytucker{\mytensor{G}}{\mymatrix{U}^{(0)},
\cdots,
\mymatrix{U}^{(N)}}
\end{align}
Typically, the factors and core of the decomposition
are obtained by solving a least squares problem.
In particular, closed form solutions
can be obtained for the factor by considering the \(n-\)mode unfolding of \(\mytensor{X}\)
that can be expressed as:
\begin{equation}
\mymatrix{X}_{[n]} = \mymatrix{U}^{(n)} \mymatrix{G}_{[n]}
\left(\mymatrix{U}^{(-k)}
\right)^T
\label{eq:unfold_tucker}
\end{equation}
\begin{equation}
\mymatrix{U}^{(-k)} = \mymatrix{U}^{(0)}
\otimes \cdots
\mymatrix{U}^{(n-1)}
\otimes \mymatrix{U}^{(n+1)}
\otimes \cdots
\otimes \mymatrix{U}^{(N)}\nonumber
\end{equation}
Similarly, we can optimize the core in a straightforward manner
by isolating it using the equivalent rewriting of the above equality:
\begin{equation}
vec(\mymatrix{X}) =
\left( \mymatrix{U}^{(0)} \otimes \cdots \otimes \mymatrix{U}^{(N)} \right) vec(\mymatrix{G})
\end{equation}
The interested reader is referred to the thorough review of the literature on tensor decompositions by \citet{kolda2009tensor}.
\section{Tensor Contraction Layer}
One natural way to incorporate
tensor operations into a neural network
is to apply tensor contraction
to an activation tensor in order to obtain
a low-dimensional representation. In this section, we explain how to incorporate tensor contractions
into neural networks as a differentiable layer.
We call this technique the Tensor Contraction layer (TCL).
Compared to performing a similar rank reduction
with a fully-connected layer,
TCLs require fewer parameters
and less computation, while preserving the multilinear structure of the activation tensor.
\subsection{Tensor contraction layers}
Given an activation tensor \(\mytensor{X}\) of size \( \left( S_0, D_0, D_1, \cdots, D_N \right) \),
the TCL will produce a compact core tensor \(\mytensor{G}\) of smaller size \( \left( S_0, R_0, R_1, \cdots, R_N \right) \) defined as:
\begin{equation}
\mytensor{X'} =
\mytensor{X} \times_0 \mymatrix{V}^{(0)}
\times_1 \mymatrix{V}^{(1)} \times
\cdots
\times_N \mymatrix{V}^{(N)}
\end{equation}
with \(\mymatrix{V}^{(k)} \in \myR^{R_k, I_k}, k \in \myrange{0}{N}\).
Note that the projections start at the second mode
because the first mode \(S_0\) corresponds to the batch.
\begin{figure}[t]
\centering
\vspace*{0.5cm}
\includegraphics[width=0.6\linewidth]{TCL}
\vspace*{0.3cm}
\caption{A representation of the Tensor Contraction Layer (TCL) on a tensor of order 3.
The input tensor \(\mytensor{X}\) is contracted into a low rank core \(\mytensor{X'}\).}
\label{TCL_visual}
\vspace*{0.3cm}
\end{figure}
The projection factors \( \left(\mymatrix{V}^{(k)}\right)_{k \in [1, \cdots N]}\) are learned end-to-end with the rest of the network by gradient backpropagation. In the rest of this paper, we denote \emph{size--\(\left(R_0, \cdots, R_N\right)\) TCL}, or \emph{TCL--\(\left(R_0, \cdots, R_N\right)\)}
a TCL that produces a compact core of dimension \(\left(R_0, \cdots, R_N\right)\).
\subsection{Gradient back-propagation}
In the case of the TCL,
we simply need to take the gradients with respect to the factors \(\mymatrix{V}^{(k)}\) for each \(k \in {0, \cdots, N}\) of the tensor contraction. Specifically, we compute
\begin{equation}
\myd{\mytensor{X'}}{\mymatrix{V}^{(k)}} =
\myd{\mytensor{X} \times_0 \mymatrix{V}^{(0)}
\times_1 \mymatrix{V}^{(1)} \times
\cdots
\times_N \mymatrix{V}^{(N)}}{\mymatrix{V}^{(k)}}
\end{equation}
By rewriting the previous equality in terms of unfolded tensors, we get an equivalent rewriting where we have isolated the considered factor:
\begin{equation}
\myd{\mytensor{X'}_{[k]}}{\mymatrix{V}^{(k)}} =
\myd{\mymatrix{V}^{(k)} \mymatrix{X}_{[k]}
\left(Id \otimes
\mymatrix{V}^{(-k)}
\right)^T
}{\mymatrix{V}^{(k)}}
\label{eq:tcl_layer_gradient}
\end{equation}
with
\begin{equation}
\mymatrix{V}^{(-k)} = \mymatrix{V}^{(0)}
\otimes \cdots
\mymatrix{V}^{(k-1)}
\otimes \mymatrix{V}^{(k+1)}
\otimes \cdots
\otimes \mymatrix{V}^{(N)}
\end{equation}
\begin{figure*}[ht]
\centering
\vspace*{0.4cm}
\includegraphics[width=1\linewidth]{FC}~\vspace{0.1cm}
\caption{In standard CNNs, the input \(\mytensor{X}\) is flattened and then passed to a fully-connected layer, where it is multiplied by a weight matrix \(\mymatrix{W}\).}
\end{figure*}
\begin{figure*}[ht]
\vspace*{0.2cm}
\centering
\includegraphics[width=1\linewidth]{TRL}
\caption{We propose to first reduce the dimensionality of the activation tensor by applying tensor contraction before performing tensor regression.
We then replace flattening operators and fully-connected layers
by a TRL. The output is a product between the activation tensor and a low-rank weight tensor \(\mytensor{W}\). For clarity, we illustrate the case of a binary classification, where \(y\) is a scalar. For multi-class, \(y\) becomes a vector and the regression weights would become a \(4^{th}\) order tensor.}
\end{figure*}
\subsection{Model analysis}
Considering an activation tensor \(\mytensor{X}\) of size \( \left( S_0, D_0, D_1, \cdots, D_N \right) \), a size--\( \left(R_0, R_1, \cdots, R_N \right) \) Tensor Contraction Layer taking \(\mytensor{X}\) as input will have a total of \( \sum_{k=0}^{N} D_k \times R_k \) parameters.
\section{Tensor Regression Layer}
In this section, we introduce a new, differentiable, neural network layer, the Tensor Regression Layer.
In order to generate outputs,
CNNs typically either flatten the activations or apply a spatial pooling operation.
In either case, they discard all multimodal structure, and subsequently apply a full-connected output layer.
Instead, we propose leveraging that multilinear structure in the activation tensor
and formulate the output as lying
in a low-rank subspace
that jointly models the input and the output.
We do this by means of a low-rank tensor regression,
where we enforce a low multilinear rank
of the regression weight tensor.
\subsection{Tensor regression as a layer}
Let us denote by
\(\mytensor{X} \in \myR^{S, I_0 \times I_1 \times \cdots \times I_N} \)
the input activation tensor corresponding to \(S\) samples \(\left(\mytensor{X}_1, \cdots, \mytensor{X}_S\right)\) and
\( \mymatrix{Y} \in
\myR^{ S, O }
\)
the \(O\) corresponding labels for each sample.
We are interested in the problem
of estimating the regression weight tensor
\( \mytensor{W} \in
\myR^{I_0 \times I_1 \times \cdots \times I_N \times O}
\)
under some fixed low rank \( \left(R_0, \cdots, R_N, R_{N+1}\right)\), such that, \( \mymatrix{Y} = \myinner{\mytensor{X}}{\mytensor{W}}_N + b\), i.e.
\begin{align}
Y & = \myinner{\mytensor{X}}{\mytensor{W}}_N + \myvector{b} \nonumber \\
\text{subject to } & \mytensor{W} =
\mytucker{\mytensor{G}}{\mymatrix{U}^{(0)},
\cdots,
\mymatrix{U}^{(N)}, \mymatrix{U}^{(N + 1)}}
\end{align}
With \(\myinner{\mytensor{X}}{\mytensor{W}}_N = \mytensor{X}_{[0]} \times {\mytensor{W}}_{[N+1]}\) the contraction of \(\mytensor{X}\) by \( \mytensor{W}\) along their \(N\) last (respectively first) modes, \(\mytensor{G} \in \myR^{R_0 \times \cdots \times R_N \times R_{N+1}} \),
\(\mymatrix{U}^{(k)} \in \myR^{I_k \times R_k}\) for each \(k\) in \(\myrange{0}{N}\)
and \(\mymatrix{U}^{(N+1)} \in \myR^{O \times R_{N+1}}\).
Previously, this problem has been studied as a standalone one. In that setting, the input data is directly mapped to the output, and the problem solved analytically.
However, this requires pre-processing the data
to extract (hand-crafted) features to feed the model.
In addition, the analytical solution is prohibitive in terms of computation and memory usage for large datasets.
In this work, we incorporate tensor regressions as trainable layers in neural networks.
We do so by replacing the traditional
flattening + fully-connected layers
with a tensor regression applied directly
to the high-order input and enforcing
low rank constraints on the weights of the regression.
We call our layer the \emph{Tensor Regression Layer} (\emph{TRL}).
Intuitively, the advantage of the TRL comes from leveraging the multi-modal structure in the data and expressing the solution as lying on a low rank manifold encompassing both the data and the associated outputs.
\subsection{Gradient backpropagation}
\begin{figure*}[ht]
\centering
\includegraphics[width=0.75\linewidth]{square}~\vspace*{-1cm}\\
\includegraphics[width=0.75\linewidth]{double}
\caption{Empirical comparison (\ref{fig:compare}) of the TRL against linear regression with a fully-connected layer.
We plot the weight matrix of a TRL and a fully-connected layer.
Due to its low-rank weights,
the TRL better captures the structure in the weights
and is more robust to noise.
}
\label{fig:compare}
\end{figure*}
\begin{figure*}[ht]
\centering
\begin{subfigure}[b]{0.45\textwidth}
\includegraphics[width=1\linewidth]{3dplot}
\caption{Accuracy as a function of the core size}
\label{fig:barplot}
\end{subfigure}
\qquad
\begin{subfigure}[b]{0.45\textwidth}
\includegraphics[width=1\linewidth]{accuracy_savings}
\caption{Accuracy as a function of space savings}
\label{fig:curves}
\end{subfigure}
\caption{Study of the impact of the rank of the tensor regression layer on performance. On the left side, \ref{fig:barplot} shows the Top-1 accuracy (in \%)
as we vary the size of the core
along the number of outputs
and number of channels
(the TRL does spatial pooling
along the spatial dimensions,
i.e.,
the core has rank 1 along these dimensions).
On the right side, \ref{fig:curves} shows the evolution of the Top-1 and Top-5 accuracy (in \%) as a function of the space savings by reducing the rank of the TRL (also in \%). As can be observed, there is a large region for which the reduction of the rank of the tensor regression layer does not impact negatively the performance while enabling large space savings.
}
\label{fig:resnetrank}
\end{figure*}
\vspace{0.5cm}
The gradients of the regression weights and the core
with respect to each factor
can be obtained by writing:
\begin{equation}
\myd{\mytensor{W}}{\mymatrix{U}^{(k)}}=
\myd{\mytensor{G} \times_0 \mymatrix{U}^{(0)}
\times_1 \mymatrix{U}^{(1)} \times
\cdots
\times_{N+1} \mymatrix{U}^{(N+1)}}{\mymatrix{U}^{(k)}}
\end{equation}
Using the unfolded expression of the regression weights, we obtain the equivalent formulation:
\begin{equation}
\myd{\mytensor{W}_{[k]}}{\mymatrix{U}^{(k)}}=
\myd{\mymatrix{U}^{(k)} \mymatrix{G}_{[k]}
\mathbf{R}^T
}{\mymatrix{U}^{(k)}}
\label{eq:layer_gradient}
\end{equation}
with
\begin{equation}
\mathbf{R} = \mymatrix{U}^{(0)}
\otimes \cdots
\mymatrix{U}^{(k-1)}
\otimes \mymatrix{U}^{(k+1)}
\otimes \cdots
\otimes \mymatrix{U}^{(N+1)}
\end{equation}
Similarly, we can obtain the gradient with respect to the core by considering the vectorized expressions:
\begin{equation}
\myd{\text{vec}(\mytensor{W})}{\text{vec}(\mytensor{G})}=
\myd{\left( \mymatrix{U}^{(0)} \otimes \cdots \otimes \mymatrix{U}^{(N+1)} \right) vec(\mymatrix{G})}{
\text{vec}(\mytensor{G})}
\end{equation}
\subsection{Model analysis}
We consider as input an activation tensor \(\mytensor{X} \in \myR^{S, I_0 \times I_1 \times \cdots \times I_N} \),
and a rank-\((R_0, R_1, \cdots, R_N, R_{N+1})\) tensor regression layer, where, typically, \(R_k \leq I_k\). Let's assume the output is \(n\)-dimensional.
A fully-connected layer taking \(\mytensor{X}\) (after a flattening layer) as input will have \(n_{\text{FC}}\) parameters, with
\begin{equation}
n_{\text{FC}} = n \times \prod_{k=0}^N I_k
\end{equation}.
By comparison, a rank-\((R_0, R_1, \cdots, R_N, R_{N+1})\) TRL taking \(\mytensor{X}\) as input has a number of parameters \(n_{\text{TRL}}\), with:
\begin{equation}
n_{\text{TRL}} = \prod_{k=0}^{N+1} R_k + \sum_{k=0}^N R_k \times I_k + R_{N+1} \times n
\end{equation}
\section{Experiments}
We empirically demonstrate the effectiveness
of preserving the tensor structure
through tensor contraction and tensor regression
by integrating it into state-of-the-art architectures
and demonstrating similar performance
on the popular ImageNet dataset.
In particular, we empirically verify
the effectiveness of the TCL on VGG-19 \citep{vgg}
and conduct thorough experiments
with the tensor regression on ResNet-50 and ResNet-101 \citep{resnet}.
\subsection{Experimental setting}
\paragraph{Synthetic data}
To illustrate the effectiveness of the low-rank tensor regression,
we first apply it to synthetic data
\(y = \text{vec}(\mytensor{X}) \times \mymatrix{W} \)
where each sample \(\mytensor{X} \in \myR^{(64 \time 64)}\)
follows a Gaussian distribution \(\mathcal{N}(0, 3)\).
\(\mymatrix{W}\) is a fixed matrix
and the labels are generated as
\(y = \text{vec}(\mytensor{X}) \times \mymatrix{W}\).
We then train the data on \(\mytensor{X} + \mytensor{E}\),
where \(\mytensor{E}\) is added Gaussian noise
sampled from \(\mathcal{N}(0, 3)\).
We compare i) a TRL with squared loss and
ii) a fully-connected layer with a squared loss.
In Figure \ref{fig:compare},
we show the trained weight of both a linear regression based on a fully-connected layer and a TRL with various ranks, both obtained in the same setting. As can be observed in Figure \ref{fig:curves}, the TRL is easier to train on small datasets and less prone to over-fitting, due to the low rank structure of its regression weights, as opposed to typical Fully Connected based Linear Regression.
\paragraph{ImageNet Dataset}
We ran our experiments on the widely-used ImageNet-1K dataset,
using several widely-popular network architectures.
The ILSVRC dataset (ImageNet)
is composed of \(1.2\) million images for training
and \(50,000\) for validation,
all labeled for 1,000 classes.
Following \citep{densenet,resnet,huang2016stochastic,he2016identity}, we report results on the validation set
in terms of Top-1 accuracy and Top-5 accuracy across all 1000 classes.
Specifically, we evaluate the classification error
on single \(224 \times 224\) single center crop from the raw input images.
\paragraph{Training the TCL + TRL}
When experimenting with the tensor regression layer,
we did not retrain the whole network each time
but started from a pre-trained ResNet.
We experimented with two settings:
i) We replaced the last average pooling,
flattening and fully-connected layers
by either a TRL or a combination of TCL + TRL
and trained these from scratch
while keeping the rest of the network fixed.
ii) We investigate replacing the pooling and fully-connected layers
with a TRL that jointly learns the spatial pooling
as part of the tensor regression.
In that setting, we also explore initializing the TRL
by performing a Tucker decomposition
on the weights of the fully-connected layer.
\paragraph{Implementation details}
We implemented all models using the MXNet library \citep{mxnet}
and ran all experiments training with data parallelism
across multiple GPUs on Amazon Web Services,
with 4 NVIDIA k80 GPUs.
For training, we adopt the same data augmentation procedure as in the original Residual Networks (ResNets) paper \citep{resnet}.
When training the layers from scratch,
we found it useful to add a batch normalization layer \citep{ioffe2015batch} before and after the TCL/TRL
to avoid vanishing or exploding gradients,
and to make the layers more robust to changes
in the initialization of the factors.
In addition we constrain the weights
of the tensor regression
by applying \(\ell_2\) normalization \citep{salimans2016weight}
to the factors of the Tucker decomposition.
\begin{table}[ht]
\caption{Results obtained with a ResNet-101 architecture on ImageNet, learning spatial pooling as part of the TRL.}
\centering
\vspace{0.5cm}
\begin{tabularx}{0.8\textwidth}{XXXX}
\toprule
& \multicolumn{3}{c}{Performance (\%)} \\
\cmidrule{2-4}
TRL rank & Top-1 & Top-5 & Space savings \\
\midrule
baseline & \bf{77.1} & \bf{93.4} & 0 \\
(200, 1, 1, 200) & \bf{77.1} & \bf{93.2} & 68.2 \\
(150, 1, 1, 150) & 76 & 92.9 & 76.6 \\
(100, 1, 1, 100) & 74.6 & 91.7 & 84.6 \\
(50 , 1, 1, 50) & 73.6 & 91 & \bf{92.4} \\
\bottomrule
\end{tabularx}
\label{fig:table}
\vspace{0.5cm}
\end{table}
\begin{table}[ht]
\caption{Results obtained with ResNet-50 on ImageNet.
The first row corresponds to the standard ResNet.
Rows 2 and 3 present the results obtained
by replacing the last average pooling,
flattening and fully-connected layers with a TRL.
In the last row, we have also added a TCL.}
\label{resnet}
\centering
\vspace{0.5cm}
\begin{tabular}{ c c c l l }
\toprule
\multicolumn{3}{c}{Method} & \multicolumn{2}{c}{Accuracy} \\
\cmidrule{1-3}
Architecture & TCL--size & TRL rank & Top-1 (\%) & Top-5 (\%) \\
\midrule
Resnet-50 & NA (baseline)
& NA (baseline) & 74.58 & 92.06 \\
Resnet-50 & no TCL & (1000, 2048, 7, 7) & 73.6 & 91.3 \\
Resnet-50 & no TCL & (500, 1024, 3, 3) & 72.16 & 90.44 \\
Resnet-50 & (1024, 3, 3) & (1000, 1024, 3, 3) & 73.43 & 91.3 \\
Resnet-101 & NA (baseline) & NA (baseline) & 77.1 & 93.4 \\
Resnet-101 & no TCL & (1000, 2048, 7, 7) & 76.45 & 92.9 \\
Resnet-101 & no TCL & (500, 1024, 3, 3) & 76.7 & 92.9 \\
Resnet-101 & (1024, 3, 3) & (1000, 1024, 3, 3) & 76.56 & 93 \\
\bottomrule
\end{tabular}
\vspace{0.5cm}
\end{table}
\subsection{Results}
\begin{table}[ht]
\vspace{0.5cm}
\caption{Results obtained on ImageNet
by adding a TCL to a VGG-19 architecture.
We reduce the number of hidden units proportionally
to the reduction in size of the activation tensor
following the tensor contraction.
Doing so allows more than 65\% space savings
over all three fully-connected layers
(i.e. 99.8\% space saving over the fully-connected layer replaced by the TCL) with no corresponding decrease in performance
(comparing to the standard VGG network as a baseline).}
\label{vgg}
\centering
\vspace{0.5cm}
\begin{tabularx}{0.8\textwidth}{XXXXX}
\toprule
\multicolumn{2}{c}{Method} & \multicolumn{2}{c}{Accuracy} & Space Savings \\
TCL--size & Hidden Units & Top-1 (\%) & Top-5 (\%) & (\%) \\
\midrule
baseline & 4096 & 68.7 & 88 & 0 \\
(512, 7, 7) & 4096 & \bf{69.4} & \bf{88.3} & -0.21 \\
(384, 5, 5) & 3072 & 68.3 & 87.8 & \textbf{65.87} \\
\bottomrule
\end{tabularx}
\vspace{0.5cm}
\end{table}
\paragraph{Impact of the tensor contraction layer}
We first investigate the effectiveness of the TCL
using a VGG-19 network architecture \citep{vgg}.
This network is especially well-suited for our methods
because of its \(138,357,544\) parameters,
\(119,545,856\) of which (more than 80\% of the total number of parameters)
are contained in the fully-connected layers.
By adding TCL to contract the activation tensor
prior to the fully-connected layers
we can achieve large space saving.
We can express the space saving of a model \(M\)
with \(n_M\) total parameters in its fully-connected layers
with respect to a reference model \(R\)
with \(n_R\) total parameters
in its fully-connected layers
as \(1 - \frac{n_{M}}{n_{\text{R}}}\) (bias excluded).
Table \ref{vgg} presents the accuracy obtained
by the different combinations of TCL
in terms of top-1 and top-5 accuracy as well as space saving.
By adding a TCL that preserves the size of its input
we are able to obtain slightly higher performance
with little impact on the space saving (0.21\% of space loss)
while by decreasing the size of the TCL we got more than \(65\%\) space saving with almost no performance deterioration.
\begin{figure}[ht]
\centering
\includegraphics[width=0.7\linewidth]{curves}~\vspace{0.3cm}
\caption{Evolution of the RMSE as a function of the training set size for both the TRL and fully-connected regression. Thanks to the low-rank structure of its regression weights tensor, the TRL requires less training data and is less prone to overfitting than traditional fully-connected layers.}
\label{fig:synthetic-rmse}
\end{figure}
\paragraph{Overcomplete TRL}
We first tested the TRL with a ResNet-50 and a ResNet-101 architectures on ImageNet,
removing the average pooling layer
to preserve the spatial information in the tensor.
The full activation tensor is directly passed on
to a TRL which produces the outputs
on which we apply softmax to get the final predictions.
This results in more parameters as the spatial dimensions are preserved.
To reduce the computational burden
but preserve the multi-dimensional information,
we alternatively insert a TCL before the TRL.
In Table \ref{resnet}, we present results obtained in this setting
on ImageNet for various configurations of the network architecture.
In each case, we report the size of the TCL
(i.e. the dimension of the contracted tensor)
and the rank of the TRL (i.e. the dimension of the core of the regression weights).
\paragraph{Joint spatial pooling and low-rank regression}
Alternatively, we can learn the spatial pooling as part of the tensor regression. In this case, we remove the average pooling layer
and feed the tensor of size
(batch size, number of channels, height, width) to the TRL,
while imposing a rank of 1 on the spatial dimensions
of the core tensor of the regression.
Effectively, this setting simultaneously learns weights
for the multi-linear spatial pooling as well as the regression.
In practice, to initialize the weights of the TRL in this setting,
we consider the weights of the fully-connected layer
from a pre-trained model as a tensor of size
(batch size, number of channels, 1, 1, number of classes)
and apply a partial tucker decomposition to it
by keeping the first dimension (batch-size) untouched.
The core and factors of the decomposition
then give us the initialization of the TRL.
The projection vectors over the spatial dimension
are then initialized to
\(\frac{1}{\text{height}}\) and\(\frac{1}{\text{width}}\), respectively.
The Tucker decomposition was performed using TensorLy \citep{tensorly}.
In this setting, we show that we can drastically decrease
the number of parameters with little impact on performance.
\paragraph{Choice of the rank of the TRL}
While the rank of the TRL
is an additional parameter to validate,
it turns out to be easy to tune in practice.
In Figure \ref{fig:resnetrank},
we show the effect on Top-1 and Top-5 accuracy
of decreasing the size of the core tensor
of the TRL.
We also show the corresponding space savings.
The results suggest that choosing the rank is easy
because there is a large range
of values of the rank
for which the performance does not decrease.
In particular, we can obtain up to \(80\)\%
space savings with negligible impact on performance.
\section{Conclusions}
Deep neural networks already operate on multilinear activation tensors,
the structure of which is typically discarded
by flattening operations and fully-connected.
This paper proposed preserving and leveraging
the tensor structure of the activations
by introducing two new, end-to-end trainable, layers
that enable substantial space savings
while preserving the multi-dimensional structure.
The TCL that we propose reduces the dimension
of the input while preserving its multi-linear structure,
while TRLs directly map their input tensors
to the output with low-rank regression weights.
These techniques are easy to plug in to existing architectures
and are trainable end-to-end.
Our experiments demonstrate
that by imposing a low-rank constraint
on the weights of the regression,
we can learn a low-rank manifold
on which both the data and the labels lie.
Furthermore these new layers act as an additional type of regularization
on the activations (TCL) and the regression weight tensors (TRL).
The result is a compact network
that achieves similar accuracies with far fewer parameters.
The structure in the regression weight tensor
allows for more interpretable data while requiring less data to train.
Going forward, we plan to apply the TCL and TRL to more network architectures.
We also plan to leverage recent work \citep{shi2016tensor}
on extending BLAS primitives
to reduce computational overhead for transpositions,
which are necessary when computing tensor contractions.
\vskip 0.2in
| {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaArXiv"
} | 39 |
Q: FCM not receiving notification messages I have my manifest in check, my services in check, my dependencies in check, class variables in check and still no notifications on my device. I'm using my computer to send firebase cloud messages and I should be receiving them on my android phone. However,my android phone is not picking up the notifications. And yes, my android device is in the background as I send the message. Anyone know what my problem is?
Here's the source code:
My Service
public class FirebaseIDMessage extends FirebaseMessagingService {
private static final String TAG = "FirebaseIDMessage";
@Override
public void onNewToken(String s) {
super.onNewToken(s);
String token = s;
Log.d(TAG, "Registered token: = " + token);
sendRegistrationToServer(token);
}
private void sendRegistrationToServer(String token){
}
}
My Manifest File
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" package="com.example.messaging">
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET" />
<application
android:allowBackup="true"
android:icon="@mipmap/ic_launcher"
android:label="@string/app_name"
android:roundIcon="@mipmap/ic_launcher_round"
android:supportsRtl="true"
android:theme="@style/AppTheme">
<!-- Services -->
<service android:name=".FirebaseIDMessage"
android:enabled="true"
android:exported="true">
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="com.google.firebase.MESSAGING_EVENT"/>
</intent-filter>
</service>
<activity android:name=".MessagingActivity">
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
</intent-filter>
</activity>
</application>
</manifest>
My Activity
public class MessagingActivity extends AppCompatActivity {
@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.activity_messaging);
}
}
A: In your manifest file, you are missing INSTANCE_ID_EVENT
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="com.google.firebase.INSTANCE_ID_EVENT" />
</intent-filter>
This is the intent-filter for the Class extended with FirebaseInstanceIdService
public class MyFirebaseInstanceIdService extends FirebaseInstanceIdService
{
public static final String REGISTRATION_TOKEN = "REG_TOKEN";
@Override
public void onTokenRefresh()
{
String token = FirebaseInstanceId.getInstance().getToken();
Log.e(REGISTRATION_TOKEN,token);
}
}
So, finally the manifest service will be like
<service android:name=".Utils.PushNotification.MyFirebaseInstanceIdService">
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="com.google.firebase.INSTANCE_ID_EVENT" />
</intent-filter>
</service>
A: On the log you would have got registered Token. Your all set only if you receive that token.
Goto Firebase console : https://console.firebase.google.com
Choose your project -> From the left side menu -> Choose Cloud Messaging -> New Message
Type your message and then in the TARGET choose Single Device and then copy paste your received token and check on your device for this notification by this way we can confirm you have set all notification related code correctly. If you still face any problem please let know so that I can share some samples.
| {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaStackExchange"
} | 1,862 |
Теден Менги (; родился 30 апреля 2002, Манчестер) — английский футболист, центральный защитник клуба «Манчестер Юнайтед».
Клубная карьера
Уроженец Манчестера, Менги является воспитанником футбольной академии «Манчестер Юнайтед». 28 ноября 2019 года был включён в заявку «Манчестер Юнайтед» на матч группового этапа Лиги Европы против «Астаны», проведя всю игру на скамейке запасных. 5 августа 2020 года дебютировал в основном составе «Манчестер Юнайтед» в ответном матче 1/8 финала Лиги Европы против австрийского клуба ЛАСК.
1 февраля 2021 года отправился в аренду в клуб Чемпионшипа «Дерби Каунти» до конца сезона 2020/21.
4 января 2022 года отправился в аренду в клуб Чемпионшипа «Бирмингем Сити» до конца сезона 2021/22.
Карьера в сборной
Выступал за сборные Англии до 15, до 16, до 17 и до 18 и до 20 лет.
В 2019 году в составе сборной Англии до 17 лет сыграл на юношеском чемпионате Европы, который прошёл в Ирландии.
Примечания
Ссылки
Профиль футболиста на официальном сайте «Манчестер Юнайтед»
Профиль футболиста на официальном сайте Премьер-лиги
Футболисты Англии
Игроки ФК «Манчестер Юнайтед»
Игроки ФК «Дерби Каунти»
Игроки ФК «Бирмингем Сити» | {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaWikipedia"
} | 2,698 |
Q: Array of object and forEach method element access I have an array of objects defined as such:
const people = [
{
name: "John",
dateOfBirth: 1990,
dateOfDeath: 2020
},
{
name: "Jane",
dateOfBirth: 1970,
dateOfDeath: 2019,
},
{
name: "Micheal",
dateOfBirth: 2002,
}
]
I want to loop through the whole array and set the dateOfDeath for every person still alive to today.
I used
people.forEach ( element => {
if(!("dateOfDeath" in element))
element.dateOfDeath = (new date()).getFullYear();
});
My question is, why does this work? how can the callback arrow function access the array element and modify it? shouldn't it modify only the local element variable (which is the function parameter), hence leaving the array item intact?
A: Because they both have the same reference in the memory, as the object is a reference type.
For more resources about reference type and primitive type.
https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/primitive-vs-reference-data-types-in-javascript/#:~:text=Reference%20data%20types%2C%20unlike%20primitive,all%20other%20types%20of%20objects.
A:
My question is, why does this work? how can the callback arrow
function access the array element and modify it? shouldn't it modify
only the local element variable (which is the function parameter),
hence leaving the array item intact?
It works because the element which you receive, you can think of it as a reference to the original item (it works also because object has reference type, you wouldn't be able to do same with primitive types). So when you do element.something you are actually accessing the original item, via the reference.
A: As a people in this case an instance of Array constructor in js.
any array has its own methods, like forEach, map, filter, and others. these methods enable you to loop through the array with reference to its elements(element in this case). so in this case element is a reference (pointer) to the object in the array so you can modify the object throw that reference.
read more about forEach in js:
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Array/forEach
read more about references in js:
https://flexiple.com/javascript-pass-by-reference-or-value/
A: Actually the "element" passes in the callback has the same reference as the object. In layman terms both variables pointing same location in heap when you use element.dateOfDeath (It demonstrates that go the location which is pointing by element and there change the dateOFDeath). In normal case when you have normal array of numbers or strings this will not work out because in that case element act as a copy of original item present in array.
| {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaStackExchange"
} | 4,048 |
Produced by Richard Tonsing, Mary Glenn Krause, MFR,
University of Massachusetts, University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill and the Online Distributed Proofreading
Team at http://www.pgdp.net
NEW AMAZONIA:
A FORETASTE OF THE FUTURE.
BY MRS. GEORGE CORBETT,
_Author of "The Missing Note," "Cassandra," "Pharisee Unveiled," etc._
PUBLISHERS:
_London_—TOWER PUBLISHING COMPANY, 91, MINORIES, E.C.
_Newcastle-on-Tyne_—LAMBERT & CO., LIMITED, 50, GREY STREET.
CONTENTS.
PROLOGUE.
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XIII.
CHAPTER XIV.
CHAPTER XV.
CHAPTER XVI.
CHAPTER XVII.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE NEW AMAZONIA.
PROLOGUE.
It is small wonder that the perusal of that hitherto, in my eyes,
immaculate magazine, the _Nineteenth Century_, affords me less pleasure
than usual. There may possibly be some articles in it both worth reading
and worth remembering, but of these I am no longer conscious, for an
overmastering rage fills my soul, to the exclusion of everything else.
One article stands out with such prominence beyond the rest that, to all
intents and purposes, this number of the _Nineteenth Century_ contains
nothing else for me. Not that there is anything admirable in the said
article. Far from it. I look upon it as the most despicable piece of
treachery ever perpetrated towards woman by women.
Indeed, were it not that some of the perpetrators of this outrage on my
sex are well-known writers and society leaders, I would doubt the
authenticity of the signatures, and comfort my soul with the belief that
the whole affair has been nothing but a hoax got up by timorous and
jealous male bipeds, already living in fear of the revolution in social
life which looms before us at no distant date.
As it is, I am able to avail myself of no such doubtful solace, and I
can only feel mad, downright mad—no other word is strong enough—because
I am not near enough to these traitors to their own sex to give them a
_viva voce_ specimen of my opinion of them, though I resolve mentally
that they shall taste of my vengeance in the near future, if I can only
devise some sure method of bringing this about.
But perhaps by this time some of my readers, who may not have seen or
heard of the objectionable article in question, may be anxious to know
what this tirade is all about.
I will tell them.
But I must first allude to the fact that my sex really consists of three
great divisions. To the first, but not necessarily the superior
division, belongs the class which prefers to be known as _ladies_.
Ladies, or rather the class to which they belong, are generally found to
rest their claim to this distinction, if it be one, upon the fact that
they are the wives or daughters of prominent or well-to-do members of
the other sex.
They find themselves in comfortable circumstances. The money or
distinction which may be at the command of their husbands or fathers
enables them to pass the greater portion of their time in dressing, or
in airing such charms as they may possess. They lead for the most part a
frivolous life, and their greatest glory is the reflected lustre which
shines upon them by virtue of the wealth or attainments of their
husbands or other male connections.
It is always noticeable that the less brains and claim for distinction a
lady possesses herself, and the less actual cause she has for
self-glorification, the higher and the more arrogantly does she hold her
head above her fellows, and the more prone is she to despise and
depreciate every woman who recognises a nobler aim in life than that of
populating the world with offspring as imbecile as herself.
_Il va sans dire_ that there are thousands of ladies to whom the last
remark is scarcely applicable. Gentle in manners, and yielding in
disposition, they are perfectly satisfied with the existing order of
things, and quite believe the doctrine that man in his arrogance has
laid down, that he is the God-ordained lord of creation, and that
implicit obedience to his whims and fancies is the first duty of woman.
They have all they feel necessary to their well being. They have
husbands who regard them as so much personal property, and who treat
them alternately as pets or slaves; their wants are liberally provided
for without any anxiety on their part; they rather like the idea of
having little or no work to do, and to their mind, independence is a
dreadful bugbear, which every lady ought to shun as she would shun a mad
dog or a leper.
They are not to blame, poor things, for they are what man and
circumstances have made them, and their general amiability and vague
notions of doing what they have been taught is right, at all costs,
partly exonerates such of them as have been persuaded to sign the
_Nineteenth Century_ protest.
Although I am not disposed to regard _ladies_ as the wisest and most
immaculate members of my sex, I do not include in this category all
those who would fain usurp the doubtful distinction of being regarded as
such. For instance: a young friend of mine, on her marriage, found
herself domiciled in a very pretty little house in the suburbs, her
domestic staff being limited to one maid-of-all-work.
One day, while the latter was out upon an errand, a tremendous ring at
the front-door bell put my friend all in a flutter. She had but recently
returned from her honeymoon, and wished to receive callers with becoming
dignity. She would have preferred the maid to open the door, and show
the visitor into her tiny drawing room; but as the maid was not at home,
there was nothing for it but to officiate as door-opener herself.
She need not have been alarmed, for the individual at the door proved to
be a big, fat, dirty, perspiring female, with a large basket of
crockery-ware, some of which she tried to persuade my friend to buy.
Finding her efforts in this direction fruitless, she began to wonder if
she had been forestalled, and somewhat surprised my little friend by the
following query: "If ye plaze, mum, can ye tell me if there's been
_another lady_ hawking pots about here this afternoon?"
No; decidedly this individual's claim to be regarded as a lady was
somewhat too pretentious, and it must be understood that when speaking
of _ladies_, I draw the line at hawkers.
The second great division of the female sex is composed of _women_.
These do not sigh for society cognomens such as are essential to the
happiness of their less thoughtful sisters. They want something more
substantial. Many of them find it necessary to earn their own
livelihood. Others possess a sufficient percentage of this world's good
things to enable them to banish all dread of poverty in their own lives.
Others, and I am glad to say that this class is ever on the increase,
prefer to work, simply because they prize independence above all things.
No one will venture to suggest that these women are selfish egotists,
for their aims and ambitions embrace the welfare of half the human race
at least, and, whatever may be the ultimate results of their gallant
fight on behalf of "Woman's Rights," they will be only too thankful to
see them enjoyed by every other woman on the face of the earth.
Widely different from these is the third division of the feminine genus
_homo_. _Slaves_ they are. Neither more nor less. When emancipation
comes to them, it will not be as a result of their own endeavours, for
custom, perverted education, physical weakness, and lack of energy all
combine to keep them in the groove into which they have been mercilessly
trodden for centuries.
Fortunately some of them go through life without feeling terribly
discontented. Their wily subjugators, led by the priesthood, have for
centuries played upon feminine superstition and credulity, until they
have succeeded in making them believe that their physical weakness, with
its natural concomitant evil, intellectual inferiority, is foreordained
by an omniscient Being whom they are expected to gratefully adore
because of His great justice and mercy.
Now and again some of these slaves rebel, and are punished for breaking
laws made by men for the benefit of men. Sometimes we hear of some woman
who, driven either by lack of education, or by circumstances, has
committed some outrage upon society which calls for terrible punishment.
Perhaps she has been unfaithful to a wicked incarnation of lust and
cruelty, who has for years indulged in _liaisons_ of which all the world
has been cognisant. She has had to put up with incredible slights and
indignities, but as her husband has been cunning enough to refrain from
beating and starving her, the law, as made and administered by men,
allows her no escape from her irksome marital bonds.
But let her become reckless, and find solace in another man's love, then
she becomes a social pariah, against whom our canting hypocritical
Pharisees hold up their hands in denunciatory horror, and from whom the
husband speedily obtains a judicial separation, applauded by
sympathising male humbugs, and consoled by the "damages," valued at
£5,000 or so, which the court has ordered the co-respondent to pay as a
solatium for his wounded _affections_. Said co-respondent will not be
improved in morals by the skinning process he has undergone, but will
turn his attentions in future to ladies who have no husbands to claim
golden solatium for lacerated feelings.
Corrupt, Degraded, Rotten to the core is British Civilisation, and yet
we find women, who ought to know better, actually pretending that they
are perfectly contented with the existing order of things.
And that brings me back to the _raison d'être_ of this story. The
_Nineteenth Century Magazine_ has been guilty of condoning, if not of
instigating, an atrocity. It has published a rigmarole, signed by a
great many _ladies_, to the effect that Woman's Suffrage is not wanted
by _women_, and, indeed, would hardly be accepted if it were offered to
them. The principal signatories are in comfortable circumstances; have
no great cares upon their shoulders; they plume themselves upon
occupying prominent positions in society; it is to their interest to
uphold the political principles of the men whose privilege it is to
support them; they do not see that life need be made any brighter for
them, therefore they conspire to prevent every other woman from emerging
from the ditch in which she grovels.
Of course the other woman may be ambitious, or industrious, or
miserable, or oppressed; but that has nothing to do with the fine
ladies, whose arguments are as feeble as their hearts are callous, and
whose principles are as unjustifiable as their selfishness is
reprehensible.
"We have all we want," say these fair philanthropists, "and we intend to
use our best endeavours to make other women regard their circumstances
in the same light. They must be taught to duly acknowledge the reverence
they owe to MAN and GOD. If we cannot persuade them that things are as
they ought to be, we will take effectual means to prevent their further
progress towards the emancipation some of them are treasonably
preaching. Their morals we will leave to the priesthood to coddle and
terrorise, but we must make them understand that MAN always was, always
must, and always will be, of paramount power and wisdom in this world.
Woman was but made from the rib of a man, and ought to know from this
fact alone that she can never be his equal," and so on _ad nauseum_.
It would be wonderful if I, being a _woman_, did not feel indignant when
being confronted with these and similar _crushing_ arguments, which, if
not all aired in the _Nineteenth Century_, are quite as strong as any
which the deluded signatories have to advance in support of the
despicably unwomanly attitude they have adopted.
Only a rib, forsooth! How do they know that woman was made out of
nothing better than a man's rib? We have only a man's word for that, and
I have proved the falsity of so many manly utterances that I would like
some scientific proof as to the truth or falsity of the spare-rib
argument before I give it implicit credence.
Thank goodness, the _Fortnightly Review_ comes to the rescue with a
gallant counter-protest, signed by the cream of British WOMANHOOD, and I
feel viciously glad that I have been privileged to add my name to the
long list of those who are determined to stand up for justice to their
sex, whether they may happen to feel the need of it in their own
individual cases or not. I am also delighted to find an influential
magazine, conducted by men, which chivalrously does battle on behalf of
my sex.
"Good old _Fortnightly_," I apostrophise mentally. "Long life and
prosperity be thine," and I am confidently able to predict that there
will be a persistent and flourishing _Fortnightly Review_ of all things
British long after the _Nineteenth Century_ has become a thing of the
past.
But here my attention is directed to the fact that two women, who have
always womanfully championed the cause of their sex, have written
replies to the anti-woman suffrage article, and that, furthermore, the
editor of the _Nineteenth Century_ has inserted these replies in his
review, which forthwith is absolved from a great share of the
displeasure which the "atrocity" roused, not alone in my breast, but in
thousands of other women—_and_ MEN.
The last fact is justly emphasised in big letters, for it shows that at
least some portion of the male sex recognises the enormity and injustice
of saddling one-half of the human race with all the disabilities it is
possible to heap upon it, except the disabilities of exemption from
taxation and kindred methods of assisting in promoting the general
welfare of the nation.
When I mention the fact that the two replies in the _Nineteenth_ are
written by Mrs. Fawcett and Mrs. Ashton Dilke respectively, I have, I
think, given sufficient assurance that the replies are in themselves
able ones.
Into such a good humour, in fact, have I been soothed by the perusal of
the counter-protests, that I find myself stringing together all sorts of
fancies in which women's achievements form conspicuous features, and I
am just noticing how pleasant Mrs. Weldon looks in the Speaker's chair,
listening to Mrs. Besant's first Prime Ministerial speech, when my
senses become entirely "obfuscated," as <DW71> would say, and I sink into
slumber as profound as that which overcame the fabled enchanted
guardians of my favourite enchanted palace.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER I.
The next event I can chronicle was opening my eyes on a scene at once so
beautiful and strange that I started to my feet in amaze. This was not
my study, and I beheld nothing of the magazine which was the last thing
I remembered seeing before I went to sleep. I was in a glorious garden,
gay with brilliant hued flowers, the fragrance of which filled the air
with a subtle and delicate perfume; around me were trees laden with
luscious fruits which I can only compare to apples, pears, and quinces,
only they were as much finer than the fruits I had hitherto been
familiar with as Ribstone pippins are to crabs, and as jargonelles are
to greenbacks. Countless birds were singing overhead, and I was about to
sink down again, and yield to a delicious languor which overpowered me,
when I was recalled to the necessity of behaving more decorously by
hearing someone near me exclaim in mystified accents, "By Jove! But
isn't this extraordinary? I say, do you live here, or have you been
taking hasheesh too?"
I looked up, and saw, perched on the limb of a great tree, a young man
of about thirty years of age, who looked so ridiculously mystified at
the elevated position in which he found himself, that I could not
refrain from smiling, though I did not feel able to give an immediate
satisfactory reply to his queries.
"Oh, that's right," he commented. "It makes a fellow relieved to see a
smile, when he wasn't at all sure whether he wouldn't get sent to
Jericho for perching up an apple tree. But really, I don't know how the
deuce I came to be up here, that is, I beg your pardon, but I can't
understand how I happen to be up this apple tree. And oh! by Jove! It
isn't an apple tree, after all! Isn't it extraordinary?"
But I could positively do nothing but laugh at him for the space of a
moment or two. Then I gravely remarked that as I supposed he was not
glued to the tree, he had better come down, whereat he followed my
advice, being unfortunate enough, however, to graze his hands, and tear
the knees of his trousers during the process of disembarkation.
When at last he had relieved himself of a few spare expletives,
delivered in a tone which he vainly flattered himself was too low for me
to hear, he stood revealed before me, a perfect specimen of the British
masher. His height was not too great, being, I subsequently ascertained
five feet three, an inch less than my own, but he made the most of what
there was of him by holding himself as erect as possible, and as he wore
soles an inch thick to his otherwise smart boots, he looked rather
taller than he really was.
His proportions were not at all bad, and I have seen a good many very
much worse looking fellows who flattered themselves that they were quite
killing. His face had lost the freshness of early youth, and looked as
though it spent a great deal of its time in the haunts of dissipation.
The moustache, however, was perfect—so golden, so long, so elegant was
it, that it must have been the envy of countless members of the masher
tribe, and I was not surprised to notice presently that its owner found
his pet occupation in stroking it.
Just now, however, he was chiefly employed in lamenting the accident
which had occurred to his nether garment, this being, by the way, one
portion of a tweed suit of the most alarmingly demonstrative pattern and
colour.
"By Jove!" he muttered, disconsolately, "it's awful! you know. When I
was so careful, too! What on earth ever possessed me to mount that tree?
Isn't it extraordinary?"
This time I was about to attempt a reply, when I was struck dumb with
awe and astonishment, and my companion, who had found his own eyes
sufficiently powerful to take in my appearance, hastily fixed a single
eyeglass into position, and gazed in open-mouthed wonder at an
apparition which approached us.
And he might well gaze, for of a surety the creature which we saw was
something worth looking at, and a specimen of a race the like of which
we had never seen before. "It is a woman," I thought. "A goddess!" the
masher declared, and for a time I could not feel sure that he was
mistaken.
She was close upon seven feet in height, I am sure, and was of
magnificent build. A magnified Venus, a glorified Hebe, a smiling Juno,
were here all united in one perfect human being whose gait was the very
poetry of motion.
She wore a very peculiar dress, I thought, until I saw that science and
common sense had united in forming a costume in which the requirements
alike of health, comfort, and beauty had reached their acmé.
A modification of the divided skirt came a little below the knee, the
stockings and laced boots serving to heighten, instead of to hide, their
owner's beautiful symmetry of limb. A short skirt supplemented the
graceful tunic, which was worn slightly open at the neck, and partially
revealed the dainty whiteness of a shapely bust. The whole costume was
of black velvet, and was set off by exquisite filmy laces, and by a
crimson sash which confined the tunic at the waist, and hung gracefully
on the left side of the wearer.
She was wearing a silver-embroidered velvet cap, which she courteously
doffed on beholding us, and I noticed that her hair, but an inch or two
long, curled about her head and temples in the most delightfully
picturesque fashion imaginable.
She was surprised to see us, that was quite apparent, but she evidently
mistook our identity for awhile. "What strange children!" she exclaimed,
in a rich, sonorous voice, which was bewitchingly musical. "Why are you
here, and for what particular purpose are you masquerading in this
extraordinary fashion?"
"Yes, it is extraordinary, isn't it?" burst forth the masher, "but you
are slightly mistaken about us. I can't answer for this lady, and I
really don't know what the deuce she is doing here, but I am the
Honourable Augustus Fitz-Musicus. I daresay you have heard of me. My
ancestor, you know, was King George the Fourth. He fell in love with a
very beautiful lady, who, until the first gentleman in Europe favoured
her with his attentions, was an opera singer. She subsequently became
the mother of a family, who were all provided for by their delighted
father, the king. The eldest son was created Duke of Fitz-Musicus, and
he and his family were endowed with a perpetual pension for
'distinguished services rendered to the State, you know.'"
"Then you are not a little boy?" queried the giantess. "But of course
you must be. Come here, my little dear, and tell me who taught you to
say those funny things, and who pasted that queer little moustache on
your face."
As she spoke she actually stooped, kissed the Honourable Augustus
Fitz-Musicus on the forehead, and patted him playfully on the cheek with
one shapely finger. This was, however, an indignity not to be borne
patiently, and the recipient of these well-meant attentions indignantly
sprang on one side, his face scarlet, and his voice tremulous with
humiliated wrath.
"How dare you?" he gasped. "How dare you insult me so? You must know
that I am not a child. Your own hugeness need not prevent you from
seeing that _I am a man_."
"A man! never! O, this is too splendid a joke to enjoy by myself."
Saying this, and laughing until the tears came into her eyes, the
goddess raised her voice a little, and called to some companions who
were evidently close at hand, "Myra! Hilda! Agnes! oh, do come quickly.
I have found two such curious creatures."
In response to this summons three more girls of gigantic stature came
from the further end of the garden, and completed our discomfiture by
joining in the laugh against us.
"What funny little things! Wherever did you find them, Dora?" queried
one of the new comers, whereat Dora composed her risible faculties as
well as she was able, and explained that she had just found us where we
were, and that one of us claimed to be a _man_.
Myra and Agnes were quite as amused at this as Dora had been, but Hilda
took the situation somewhat more seriously. She had noted how furious
the Honourable Augustus Fitz-Musicus looked, and observed my vain
attempt to assume a dignified demeanour in the presence of such a
formidable array of playful goddesses, who now all plied us with
questions together.
I did not feel much inclined to converse, for I was terribly afraid of
being ridiculed. But Hilda questioned me so much more sensibly, in my
opinion, than the others, that I was disposed to be more communicative
to her than to them.
"Where do you come from?" she questioned gently, as if she were afraid
of injuring me by using her normal voice.
"I am English," I replied proudly, feeling quite sure that the very name
of my beloved native land would prove a talisman of value in any part of
the globe. But although the beautiful quartette refrained from laughing,
they listened to me in mystified astonishment, partly, I perceived,
because my small voice was a revelation to them, and partly because my
answer conveyed no understandable meaning to them.
"English," at last said Agnes. "What do you mean by English? There is no
such nation now. I believe that centuries ago Teuto-Scotland used to be
called England, and that it used to be inhabited by the English, a
warlike race which is now extinct."
"My dear Agnes," interposed Hilda, "You surely forget that we are
ourselves descended from this great race. But suppose we go on with our
questions. Not so fast my little man; here, I will take care of you for
the present."
The last exclamation was evoked by an attempt on the part of the
Honourable Augustus to escape while the attention of the party was
concentrated upon myself. He was, however, foiled in his attempt, and
Hilda coolly seated him upon a tall garden seat, as if he were a baby,
and kept a detaining hand on his wrist, while she listened to the
replies I now made to my tormentors. "What is your name?" was the next
interrogatory to which I was subjected. I did not consider it necessary
to go into details, so merely gave my name. Other questions were now
asked me, but I was so determined to give no food for ridicule, if I
could help it, that I was rather obstinate in refusing information, and
at last took refuge in the remark, delivered as quietly as my tingling
nerves would permit, "That in my country people were polite to
strangers, and did not interrogate them as if they were so many wild
beasts."
Even while giving utterance to this remark, I remembered several scenes
which proved that it was far from true. But the goddesses did not know
this much, and my reproof served to convince them that the Honourable
Augustus and myself were not monkeys that had learnt the art of speech,
and been dressed for exhibition, but actual, though very queer,
specimens of the human race divine.
Apologies for their rudeness were now freely tendered by the giantesses,
and one of them proposed to take us into the house at once and supply us
with refreshments. No sooner said than done, and I hardly know whether I
was most amused or humiliated to find myself led by the hand, as if I
were only just learning to walk, and must be carefully guarded from
stumbling.
It was some consolation to observe that the Honourable Augustus was
served likewise, and that he was lifted up the huge steps which must be
ascended to enter the house just as easily as I was. We were taken into
a large hall, which seemingly served as a refectory, for I observed a
table in the centre, upon which many covers were laid.
Just at this juncture a great bell was rung somewhere in the building,
and about fifty other individuals entered the room, but crowded round us
instead of round the table, as was evidently their first intention. They
were, however, upon the whole, quite as polite as a room full of English
people would be, were our respective positions reversed, and Hilda
constituted herself our protector from bothering questions until dinner
was served. The seats and table were on a somewhat larger scale than I
had been hitherto used to, but a cushion considerately brought for me
made me comfortable enough.
While being quizzed by such a number of eyes, I diligently used my own,
and noted that all these magnificent creatures, except six, were
apparently young students, and that they were all habited in somewhat
similar fashion to Dora, such difference as there was consisting, not in
shape or cut, but in variety of material and colouring.
The six exceptions were perfectly beautiful women, all approaching
middle age, and with less exuberance of spirit, but more dignity of
manner than the others. Their dress also was slightly different, their
tunics being ornamented with rich facings, and their sashes, worn on the
right side, being composed of a gorgeous material something like cloth
of gold, but so soft in texture as to drape gracefully.
A number of attendants served the meal, and these were all attired in
the national garb, with the exception of the sashes, while their clothes
were, for the most part, composed of washing materials, in which they
looked very pictures of neatness and cleanliness.
As soon as the meal had begun, we were less scrutinised than we had
been, and I now discovered myself to be very hungry, and disposed to do
full justice to the appetising viands set before me. There was a variety
of dainty dishes to choose from, and much fruit, all of which was
marvellously sweet and luscious. But there was no dish that I could see
prepared from animal food, and I resolved to discover later whether such
a strange omission was of regular or only occasional occurrence.
CHAPTER II.
After dinner was over the students indulged in conversation. I
discovered afterwards that music usually formed a prominent feature in
after dinner amusements, but to-day the Honourable Augustus and myself
afforded sufficient food for pastime. We were, however, not exactly
mobbed, though our audience was a large one in every sense of the word.
One thing puzzled me exceedingly. When I spoke awhile ago of being
"English," my interrogators seemed thoroughly mystified, and yet they
were speaking my native tongue in all its insular purity. Evidently
there was a good deal to explain on all sides.
Augustus Fitz-Musicus had by this time got over his chagrin, and was, I
could tell, even congratulating himself in a mild sort of way over the
fact that he was proving a much greater source of attraction than I was.
He was receiving the attentions of this bevy of big beauties with such a
ridiculous air of conceited nonchalance, that I was provoked to
laughter, in spite of my polite attempt to restrain my mirth.
Myra comprehended the cause of my amusement, and whispered, "I see,
little lady, that the male biped is the same all the world over,—a
conglomeration of conceit and arrogance. Your little man looks too funny
for anything, and yet I will warrant that he thinks himself capable of
captivating one half of us. What is he thought of in your country?"
But to this question I was unable to give a satisfactory answer, as I
could only say that I was perfectly ignorant of everything connected
with the Honourable Augustus, never having seen him in my life until
to-day.
This reply amazed Myra and others who heard it, but further
interrogations on her part were stopped for a little while by the advent
of the Lady Principal and two of the professors, who wished to speak
with me and to know how I came to be here.
The young students respectfully made way for them, and I confess that my
sensations on beholding them approached something very near akin to awe.
The Lady Principal, especially, was a being to be remembered. In height
she was somewhat superior to the others. Her features were so perfect in
outline and expression that I think Minerva must have looked like this
woman did. There was not one among all these women who did not look the
embodiment of health. Principal Helen Grey did more than this; she
seemed to me to be the goddess of health herself, and to be capable of
endowing others with this most to be prized earthly blessing.
She sat down beside me, and gently asked me who I was, and how I
happened to be here. My answer to the effect that I did not know how I
had got here was evidently a tax on her credulity, but she was too well
bred to do aught but listen quietly while I continued my explanations.
I told of my perusal of certain magazines, and how my feelings had been
strongly excited upon one subject, until I must have gone to sleep while
thinking of it. Then I described my awaking amid strange surroundings,
and that I supposed the Honourable Fitz-Musicus had been transported
hither also. My account of our first interview with each other provoked
amusement, and every face around me rippled with smiles.
After a few moment's musing, Principal Grey asked me what I meant by
saying that a certain article deprecated the introduction of Women's
Suffrage into my country. "Do you mean to say," she asked, "that men are
the only voters in your country?"
"Yes," I replied, "and men are not the only obstacle to woman's
advancement in England. Only a small minority of women dare avow their
real opinions on this very subject. More stupid and less enlightened
females hurl all sorts of contemptible reproaches at them for presuming
to endeavour to better the condition of their sex. All the laws of my
country have been made by men, and they are all made in the interests of
men. It is only a few years since it was possible for a married woman to
hold property in her own right. She might earn, or in any other way
acquire, a large fortune. Her husband could take and squander every
penny of it, without the least fear of being taxed with having done more
than he had a perfect right to do." "Your England, as you call it, must
be a strange country," said Principal Grey. "But I cannot quite make out
where it is. I am not considered ignorant in matters appertaining to
history and geography, but I am unable to locate this England of yours.
Once upon a time, a matter of a thousand years ago, the neighbouring
island, which is now called Teuto-Scotland, was called Albion, and later
on England, but we have always understood ourselves to be the only race
living which is at all representative of England and the ancient
English."
"And what country is this?" I enquired in my turn, marvelling much to
hear this giantess speak of "the ancient English."
"This country is New Amazonia. A long time ago it was called Erin by
some, but Ireland was the name it was best known by. It used to be the
scene of perpetual strife and warfare. Our archives tell us that it was
subjugated by the warlike English, and that it suffered for centuries
from want and oppression. The land was appropriated by English
mercenaries, who exacted enormous rents, which they spent anywhere but
in Ireland. Famines, attempted revolutions and conspiracies, unjust
repressive laws, and all sorts of calamities are said to have ruined and
depopulated the country until the wars arose which resulted in our
coming here. But as all is so strange here to you, you shall, if you
care about it, be taken out this evening, and then you will be better
able to judge what sort of people we are. Meanwhile, our duties must be
attended to. Hilda, be good enough to take this woman to your room,
until we can make other arrangements, and—oh dear, there is the little
gentleman! What shall we do with him?"
The Honourable Augustus was being conducted through the principal
reception rooms of the college, for such the building was, and the
question of his ultimate disposal could be discussed without the
embarrassment which his presence might perhaps have entailed.
"Suppose we request Mr. Medlock to take him until he decides what his
future arrangements will be?" suggested Professor Wise, a lady who had
hitherto taken no part in the conversation. "It would never do to let
him sleep in the college for a night! The poor little thing's character
would be irretrievably compromised."
"Of course it would," agreed Principal Grey, and she set about making
the necessary arrangements forthwith, while I, wondering if I had been
asleep for five or six centuries, followed Hilda to the upper story in
which her sleeping room was situated. But long before I reached it I
felt tired to death. The marble stairs were exceedingly massive, and
were apparently interminable, while the beautiful banister rails were
too large for me to grasp them with my hand, and thus help myself up. I
was at last compelled to sit down exhausted, feeling that not one more
step could I mount.
Hilda looked at me in astonishment, as I sat panting with my unwonted
exertions. "Is it possible," she cried, "that the walk up these few
steps has exhausted you? You must be ill, or is it the fault of the
queer clothes that you wear that you are incapable of taking exercise?
But whichever way it is, you cannot sit here, so be kind enough to
excuse me."
The next moment I was lifted up as if I were a child, and Hilda ran
nimbly up another long flight of steps with me, finally depositing me in
a room that was very handsomely furnished, though most of the articles
in it were of a style the like whereof I had never seen before. Seeing
that I had apparently been Rip-van-Winkelized for about six hundred
years, this is not at all surprising.
But I could not help noticing a piano, which was the facsimile of one
which was in my own possession before I fell asleep. In fact, I had an
idea that it was the very same piano, though how it got here I could not
imagine. Hilda saw me looking at it, and did not remove my mystification
by remarking, "Yes, it is a curious old thing, isn't it, and in
excellent preservation, I believe. We have several more of them in the
capital, all formerly owned by Englishwomen who originally settled in
Dublin after the wars."
"Then is this Dublin?" I asked. "If so, I am not so very far from home,
after all."
"This place used to be called Dublin in the time of the ancient Irish,
but when the country was turned over to what was then contemptuously
called 'petticoat government,' nearly all place-names were changed, and
the names of famous women applied to them. Thus we have Fawcetville,
Beecherstown, Weldonia, Besantsville, Jarrettburn, and hundreds of other
names, the etymological origin of which is easily traceable. In fact, it
is one of our laws that no town or village shall receive a name which
does not commemorate some woman who has done all she could to advance
the interests of her sex."
Our conversation lasted awhile longer, but Hilda had her studies to
attend to, and after reaching several books from a bookshelf for me to
amuse myself with during her absence, she left me for awhile to my own
devices promising to do all she could to make my visit a pleasant one.
There were many things here to arouse my curiosity, but I was most
anxious to see if the books were printed in a style which I could
understand, as I hoped to gain a great deal of information relative to
the strange land in which I found myself, through no effort of will on
my own part.
Fortunately I found the type and paper very beautiful, and with the
exception that the spelling was considerably more phonetic than that in
vogue with us, I found very little difference between our language as at
present printed, and as exponed in the pages of "The History of
Amazonia," which was the first book I opened.
I must have spent at least two hours in close reading, and if anyone
would like to know the results of my investigations in posthumous
history, she or he will find them recorded in the next chapter.
CHAPTER III.
The history began with a brief resumé of such events as school books had
long ago made me tolerably familiar with, but went on to say that it was
in the reign of Victoria that the incidents which ultimately resulted in
the disruption of the British Empire took place, though the final
decisive steps did not eventuate until towards the close of the reign of
her successor, who used his utmost endeavours to secure justice for all
his subjects. But the factious discontent had been growing for so many
years, that it was impossible for him, when he did at last come into
power, to retrieve all the errors, and undo all the mischief, which had
been done during the reign of his predecessor.
Ireland especially was troublesome, for it had always been made to feel
that it was a subjugated State. The Sovereign sedulously petted and
spoiled the northern portion of her dominions, and was so inordinately
fond of everything Scotch, that even the English grew jealous, when year
after year the Sovereign's chief desire seemed to be to prove that she
possessed no English sympathies whatever, and that she positively
declined to show the light of her countenance to any but Scotch subjects
or German relatives, if she could help it.
The principal emoluments of the State fell to the share of alien
Germans, and British taxpayers were ground to the dust, while scores of
thousands of pounds of their money crossed the Channel for the support
of Germans, some of whom were not too illustriously born, but all of
whom found favour in the eyes of Victoria Regina.
A great deal of encouragement being thus given to the Germans and Scots,
who were always willing to accept conditions to which the English found
it impossible to bow, England became over-run with them, so much so,
indeed, that the natives of the soil found it necessary to emigrate to
other countries, in order to earn their livelihood, and England itself
gradually became the principal abiding-place of a hybrid race, who were
known as Teuto-Scots.
All this time Ireland languished in a state of neglect and discontent,
which was eventually fanned into a fierce flame in consequence of the
treatment bestowed by the English Government upon certain patriots whom
they revered. There were several facsimile copies of allegorical
documents which so evidently referred to events which occurred in my own
time in England, and which were so prominently instanced as the
predisposing causes of the Irish revolution, that I subsequently took
the trouble of copying one of them, and give it in full as follows:—
CAROLUS PATRIOTUS.
A POLITICAL ALLEGORY.
And lo! there dwelt in this country a man whose name was Carolus. And
this Carolus, who was surnamed Patriotus, looked with bitterness upon
the wickedness of the oppressor, and said unto his friends and
disciples, "Verily, I can no longer look upon the tribulations of my
people, but will gird up my loins, and will set forth on a pilgrimage to
the land of the oppressor."
And behold after many days he came to Londinensis, the chief city of the
Albionites, and saw that which was not good in his sight. But he met
many people who sate him at their board, and who looked upon him as the
deliverer of his people. Unto them he said, "Verily, I will lift up my
voice, so that it shall be heard of all the nations. And I will open the
eyes of the people, so that they shall no longer look with favour upon
the evil doings of their chief rulers. And I will say unto them, 'Cast
your eyes upon Erinea, the country of my forefathers, and behold how my
brethren gnash their teeth, and struggle in vain under the yoke of the
spoiler and misruler.' And I will call upon them to give me their help
in the deliverance of my people. And my nation shall bless those who
lift up their voices for Erinea."
And behold all these things came to pass.
And the friends of Carolus, surnamed Patriotus, said unto him, "It is
well that thou shouldest do this great thing. And, verily, we will aid
thee. Our houses shall be thy houses, and our purses shall be thy
purses, until the great things which thou prophesiest shall come to
pass."
And Carolus, surnamed Patriotus, lifted up his voice against the
oppressor, yea, even in the assembly of the rulers of the Albionites did
he lift up his voice, and many disciples followed him.
But there was a great prince in Londinensis, the chief city of the
Albionites, who waxed wroth at the preachings of Carolus, and who looked
upon his teachings as evil. The name of this prince was Tempus Londinus,
and he said unto his servants, "Yea, verily, this Carolus is a seditious
man, and we must banish him from the great house of the people, else
will he conquer us, and the power of the Albionites will be as naught in
the eyes of the nations."
And there came unto the steward of Tempus, surnamed Londinus, a man
named Dupus Journalius. This man longed for riches, and knew much that
was pleasing to the steward of Tempus. Unto him he saith, "Lo, thy
servant hath travelled far to satisfy thy desires, and to please my lord
the prince. He has been to the chief city of the Erinians, and has
spoken to a man who dwells there. This man has a sword, made by Carolus,
and nothing but the poison which is worked into this sword can destroy
Carolus, surnamed Patriotus. Carolus made this sword in order to destroy
his enemies, but lo! he is now himself in their toils, and shall feel
the hand of the smiter."
And the steward of the mighty Tempus said unto Dupus, he that was
surnamed Journalius, "Fetch this man hither, that we may behold this
weapon."
But Dupus answered and said, "Not so, my lord, for this thing is
wonderful, and Judas Dublinus will not sell it but for a great price.
Yea, verily, the price is great."
Then said the chief steward unto Dupus, "Go thy way, and return unto me
to-morrow, when thou shalt see the mighty prince Tempus and his high
priests, and they shall give thee an answer."
And when Dupus returned on the morrow, he prostrated himself before
Tempus Londinus and his high priests, and they looked with favour upon
him, and gave him great wealth, saying, "Go thou to Judas, surnamed
Dublinus, and give him of thy wealth, and say unto him, 'Verily I have
spoken of thee to the rulers of the Albionites, and thou and thy doings
have found favour in their sight. Moreover, thou shalt not be punished
for thy sins, but if thou wilt render unto me the poisoned sword
wherewith to destroy Carolus, surnamed Patriotus, thou shalt dwell in
the tents of the righteous.'"
And Dupus journeyed to the chief city of the Erinians, and told all
those things unto Judas, surnamed Dublinus, who answered and said, "Yea,
verily, my lord hath done well by his servant. Here is the sword which
shall destroy Carolus, surnamed Patriotus."
Therefore Dupus was filled with joy, and hastened to carry the sword to
the mighty prince of the Albionites. And the prince was well pleased
with him, and many of the chief rulers of the people also rejoiced with
him, saying unto each other, "Now we shall be delivered from the
teachings of this vile impostor, and our country shall prosper, for the
false prophet of Erinia is vanquished, and his disciples shall be
scattered over all the earth."
But lo! and behold! a wonder came to pass. For when the high priests of
Tempus Londinus hurled the poisoned sword, which Carolus was said to
have wrought with his own hands, yea, when it was hurled at Carolus, he
valiantly seized the sword, and fought his enemies therewith, so that
those who thought to see him fall dead were amazed at his vigour.
But although Carolus did not die, he was sick for many days, and many
people prophesied that his end was near, while his enemies said,
"Rejoice, and be glad, for the foe is slain, and our enemies are
crestfallen and hang their heads in shame!"
But there were others who said, "Nay, he shall not die, but shall live
to plant the foot of scorn upon the neck of his enemy. We will give
freely of our treasure, and we will carry him to the great apothecary,
Carolus Magnus, and lo! he will heal his wounds, and lay bare the foul
sores of the slanderers."
And all the Erinians cried aloud unto Carolus Magnus, saying, "Save our
apostle, and let him not perish under the heel of his enemy."
Now Carolus, surnamed Magnus, was skilled in the art of healing, and it
came to pass after many days that Carolus, surnamed Patriotus, recovered
from his grievous sickness, and henceforth the great prince and his high
priests looked with disfavour upon Dupus Journalius.
And Tempus Londinus was exceeding wroth, and sent for Judas, surnamed
Dublinus. But the heart of Judas was filled with fear, so that he
repented him of what he had done, and wandered afar off, sending unto
Tempus and his high priests a message, saying, "Verily, I am a sinner,
and have led a mighty prince into error. The sword which should have
destroyed Carolus, surnamed Patriotus, was of a truth poisoned, but the
poison lurks in the hilt, not in the point, of the weapon. If my lord
falls sick thereof, let him not blame his servant Judas, who was tempted
by the promise of great riches. And where Judas goes, let no man
follow."
And the people clamoured for vengeance upon Judas and the hunters were
set upon the track of the betrayer and he fell into their hands. But
when they took their eyes from him, he sprang into the outermost
darkness, and the inhabitants of the earth knew him no more.
And Tempus Londinus was in his turn grievously sick. But as for Carolus
Patriotus, he grew mightier than ever, and there was rejoicing in Erinia
when he triumphed over his enemies.
CHAPTER IV.
But although this Carolus Patriotus was thus allegorically announced to
be the victor, his country still suffered for a long time at the hands
of its rulers. Disaffection and jealousy, increased in many places by
the disinclination of the discontented ones to relieve themselves
honourably of their burdens, caused certain practices to arise in Erinia
or Ireland, which only aggravated the reigning misery.
A custom called "boycotting" prevailed, whereby all those who were
suspected or proved to be unpatriotic were deprived of all communication
with those who might possibly be induced to do business with them.
People caught conveying food or other necessaries to boycotted persons
were ruthlessly shot, and very often horrible cruelties were perpetrated
upon harmless cattle, in order to show that their owners had fallen
under the ban.
Morality became a thing unknown in the country. Farms and houses were
rented from landholders, who had no other source of income, by people
who meant to live upon the produce of the land, but who were resolved
not to pay anything for the privilege. This was accounted quite an
honourable thing to do, and the worst crime of which an Irish farmer
could be accused of being guilty was "paying his rent."
Murder was an excusable necessity, but rent-paying was a crime
punishable by death. Hence landlords found no encouragement to prove
themselves deserving of confidence. Whole estates went to rack and ruin.
The really earnest reformers found it impossible to fight longer against
the prevailing misery, and emigrated in large numbers, so that the
country at last fell into a state of complete anarchy.
There were many politicians whose sole exertions were directed towards
securing to Ireland privileges which would put it on an equal footing
with the sister isle, but other troubles fell upon Great Britain, and,
as had often happened before, the affairs of Ireland were set aside in
order that other grave difficulties might be grappled with.
Several British colonies and dependencies became alienated. The whole of
the Australian dependencies threw off the yoke of England. The French
became the ultimate possessors of Newfoundland, owing to the supineness
of the Government to which it looked for protection. A treaty between
the United States and France was the means of robbing England of Canada,
and in order to prevent the loss of further slices of the Empire, Great
Britain was obliged to maintain a large standing army and navy.
There were a great many republicans in the House of Commons, and these
people always played upon one string. They urged that all the troubles
and worries of the English had their origin in the huge sums of money
which were paid to the Royal family, which ever grew more exacting and
rapacious in its demands for money. So powerfully did the republicans
appeal to the nation that many of the royalists began to consider the
situation anxiously, and feared lest the reigning dynasty should be
dethroned, and England be turned into a republic.
Others, however, considered that so much had been done to conciliate the
Germans and Scots, who were both brave and of great skill in warfare,
that an alliance with them could be safely counted upon in the event of
a civil war breaking out.
Meanwhile France was also the scene of great political changes. The
people had once more tired of the republic, and, with their usual
extremeness, had once more rejoiced at the coronation of an Emperor.
Bourbonists, Orleanists, and Bonapartists were alike powerless in the
election of a supreme ruler, and their respective claims were all set on
one side in favour of an obscure adventurer, who, emulating Napoleon,
had used the army as the step-ladder for his ambition. The French
nation, jealous of the fast-increasing power of its big German
neighbour, gladly placed in supreme command a man who, among other
things, promised to make the hated Teuton lick the dust.
Russian Autocracy was fast becoming a thing of the past, but Germany
steadily grew in power, until it threatened to emulate the days of
Charlemagne, and engulph all the countries between which it was
sandwiched.
Such was the condition of some of the principal countries of Europe when
the Irish, resolved no longer to "groan under the yoke of the
oppressor," formed themselves into a secret society which embraced
nearly all the nation; held many clandestine meetings, at which all
manner of dark things were plotted; and finally invoked the aid of
France in a grand fight which they were going to make for independence
and freedom.
France readily agreed to the alliance, the proposal having apparently
come at a most opportune time. The French always thirst for power; they
are somewhat credulous as a nation; and are so vain as to be continually
overestimating their own might and prowess. Add to this, that their
Emperor was still new fledged, and still had to fulfil his promises of
aggrandizement, and it will readily be believed that there was little
difficulty in persuading France to become Ireland's ally in her crusade
against England.
Not that France was honestly bent upon unselfishly befriending another
country. It was thought that, once firmly fixed on Irish soil, with an
army in occupation, it was simply a question of changing the absolute
rulership of the Emerald Isle in favour of Gallia. Certain emoluments
and prerogatives were to be given to the principal Irish leaders, as a
sop to Cerberus, but the principal plums of conquest were to be reserved
for Frenchmen, as soon as "_Albion la perfide_" was fairly vanquished.
Glorious visions of coming wealth and greatness filled the minds of the
thousands who, led by the brand-new Emperor himself, swarmed into
Ireland, and prepared, in conjunction with their red-hot allies, to
smash England's greatness into infinitesimal fragments. Naturally the
army was _fêted_ and entertained, but it was unfortunate that so much of
the product of the native distilleries should have been consumed in
drinking confusion to their enemies, for Bacchus always was, and always
will be, a treacherous friend, and he had something to answer for
respecting the ruin, utter, black, and entire, which erelong overtook
his votaries.
As England's statesmen had foreseen, they were able to count upon mighty
aid from the Scots and Germans, and in their opinion the issue of the
forthcoming struggle was a foregone conclusion. But Germany had to be
very wary and circumspect, for Russia and Austria considered this a
capital time to combine with France and bring about the disruption of
the big German Empire. There was even a treaty signed, by virtue of
which the three allied emperors were to share Germany very equitably, in
event of conquest.
They counted upon Switzerland remaining neutral, but were slightly taken
aback when Italy's army, which was now a very large one, was placed at
the disposal of England and Germany, thus enabling the latter country to
render powerful help to England, without imperilling its own safety very
much.
The war did not last long. When Ireland struck the blow for liberty,
both Irish and French fought well; the former goaded by desperation and
a desire for revenge; the latter by cupidity and vain-gloriousness. But
their valour was futile, and there came a day when their united forces
were utterly vanquished, and scarcely an Irish or French soldier was
left to show that there had once been a united army.
Fortunately for himself, the Emperor was slain in battle. Otherwise,
with nothing but a list of ignominious defeats to show in what manner he
had been able to keep his brilliant promises, he would have been
disgraced by a nation that was once more enraged at having shown how
huge was its capacity for being duped.
It soon transpired, however, that the residue of the French people had
need to think of something else besides avenging failures. The enemies
of France seized their opportunity; invaded it; conquered it; and
divided it, undeterred by the pusillanimous threats of Russians and
Austrians, who judged it wisest not to take to arms when the situation
of France grew so desperate.
Thus did France cease to be an independent European power, and thus also
were finally exterminated the Irish as a nation, for they were brave,
and did not yield, so long as a man could fight.
In England there was great rejoicing, and so many honours were heaped
upon Germans and Scots, that there was not an opening left for an
Englishman to lift himself into prominence. The Government of the
country gradually fell entirely into the hands of these aliens, and
Englishmen formed so small a minority of the population that a proposal
to change the name of the country from England to Teuto-Scotland was
placed before Parliament, and carried by acclamation.
All record of England, so far as its constitutional policy was
concerned, finished here, and I know not whether a ruler in the direct
line of succession remained upon the throne, or whether a republic was
the immediate outcome of all these changes or not. I learnt
subsequently, however, from the lips of Hilda, that at the time of my
visit to New Amazonia, the chief officer of state in Teuto-Scotland was
a "People's Agent," who only remained two years in office, and was then
replaced by such successor, either male or female, as might be elected
by universal suffrage.
CHAPTER V.
Since the Irish people had been completely conquered, it behoved England
to take such measures as would conduce to the future prosperity of the
island, and at the same time guard against disaffection and rebellion.
There was much consulting and advising. The Irish question was as
prominent as ever. All manner of plans were proposed, but were all in
turn rejected as unfeasible.
After several sessions had been wasted in fruitless debates and in noisy
discussions, whereof the only result arrived at was a certain amount of
forensic display on the part of ambitious members, a proposition was
mooted which at first amazed all who heard it. Then it was ridiculed
unmercifully. Next it was discussed seriously. Finally it was adopted,
amid universal enthusiasm.
For centuries the combined effects of war, seafaring, and emigration had
been to reduce the male population of England to such an extent as to
cause the female portion of the population to preponderate enormously.
So much so, in fact, that not a trade or profession which had hitherto
been regarded by men as sacred to themselves was uninvaded by feminine
competitors, who, considerably to the dismay of adult masculinity, were
steadily proving themselves capable of doing well all that they
undertook to do.
For every man in the community to support three women was an
impossibility, even if he had desired to do so, which he certainly did
not. Women who did not marry were expected to keep themselves. But by
way of showing how strictly and impartially just the male biped can be,
there prevailed a peculiar system of payment, which bore its natural
result of discontent and protest.
For instance, in Messrs. Workemphast's establishment several women were
engaged as assistants. They performed their work more neatly and deftly
than their masculine rivals, but were paid only half as much for their
services, simply because they were women. The result in all such cases
was that other expensive men were ousted to make room for some more
underpaid women, the consequence being that none but the employers were
satisfied.
The men had an idea that although it was only right that woman should
not be a burden on man, she had no business to invade his particular
province of labour. The women, on the other hand, considered themselves
entitled to equal pay with the men, provided their work was equal.
On other grounds, too, they had ample cause for complaint. Women
householders were compelled to pay quite as heavy rates and taxes as
men, but were debarred from every privilege to which equal payment of
tribute morally entitled them. Although made to provide the necessary
funds for governing the country, they were not merely debarred from
holding office, but were even prohibited from having a voice in the
election of such members of the favoured sex as aspired to be the rulers
of the land.
A woman might pay a large share of her income towards the expenses of
the Government. She might employ a dozen servants, such as gardeners,
grooms, coachmen, gamekeepers, etc., but although each of the men
dependent upon her for a livelihood, no matter how stupid, ignorant, or
loutish they might be, was accorded the privilege of voting, their
clever, accomplished mistress was considered to belong to an inferior
order of beings, to whom it would be unwise to accord privileges, seeing
that they were not supposed to have sufficient sense to use these
privileges wisely.
Again. Adultery alone on the part of a wife was quite sufficient ground
for a divorce in favour of the husband, but a wife must have a husband
who, in addition to being persistently and openly unfaithful, cruelly
ill-treated her, and took a cowardly advantage of the superiority of
strength he had attained through having systematically deprived woman of
every health-giving recreation, before the law, made by men for the
benefit of men, would afford her relief from her daily tortures.
It is on record that a judge, when a woman was being tried for the
presumed murder of her husband, dwelt with such horror upon the most
dreadful fact that she had been unfaithful to her husband, and proved so
conclusively that a woman who could be unfaithful was capable of every
crime under the sun, that the jury, remembering that their interests as
husbands must be protected, sentenced the woman to be hanged, although
medical witnesses showed that she could not be a murderess, seeing that
the cause of her husband's death was a drug of which he was proved to
have been a systematic partaker.
From this it will be argued that purity of living held high rank with
the English. But this was by no means the case, for in the same decade
the rebellion and protests of women were naturally aroused by the
foulest and most disgusting legislation that ever disgraced the land.
This was the State regulation of vice, whereby the most respectable
women were liable to be subjected to brutal indignities, in order that
no precaution might be neglected which would ensure for men complete
immunity from the consequences of systematic libertinism and immorality.
This may sound paradoxical, but it is not the less sickening in its
shameful reality, and serves to show the hollowness and insincerity of
masculine legislators.
It is small wonder that these and other crying evils brought forth the
fruits they did. Systematic injustice roused the antipathy of women who,
besides having sense enough to argue their own case, had sufficient
moral courage to brave the animadversion which was levelled at them by
the arrogant idiots of the one sex, and the unreasoning imbeciles of the
other.
Hence the expressions which we come across at times, which to modern New
Amazonians unacquainted with history are unintelligible, but which had
their own bitter meaning at the time they were in use. "Bluestocking"
was a term of opprobrium levelled at women who strove to improve their
moral and intellectual status by means of study. A "Woman's Rights'
Advocate" was described as an individual who was the fit butt for the
laughter and derision of the rest of the community.
To be strong-minded was a wonderful claim to respect in a man. Men were
fond of speaking of women as the "weak-minded," and, therefore, inferior
sex, and yet the moment a woman proved herself to be not _weak_-minded
but _strong_-minded, she was regarded as an anomaly, and sneered at as a
being who had unsexed herself. To be "only a woman" was equivalent in
the minds of many male egotists to being only "something better than his
dog, and something dearer than his horse," and yet, no sooner did she
prove herself gifted with abilities hitherto cherished as exclusively
masculine, and, therefore, infinitely superior to womanly attributes,
than she was said to have become "masculine," and regarded as an object
of horror. To be a woman was to be one unit of a despised race, and yet
to "unsex" herself was one of the most opprobrious faults of which a
woman could be guilty!
Could anything be more idiotic or paradoxical? And is it to be wondered
at that it became necessary for men to _prove_ their vaunted
superiority? And that they were gradually impelled, from sheer fear of
the future, to grant the demands of the sex which was rapidly learning
to estimate itself at its true value?
No struggle recorded in history can compare with the fight against
oppression which was now carried on by the brave and noble ancestresses
of whom we have such good reason to be proud. Many and disheartening
were the defeats they endured, but gloriously triumphant was their final
victory, of which our existence as an independent nation was the
outcome.
Universal Suffrage! Wonderful was the jubilation when it became an
accomplished fact. And wonderful were its effects upon the nation. All
the anomalies above described were wiped away, and women showed
themselves so much more just, and so much more capable of governing than
men, that they invariably enacted none but strictly fair and impartial
regulations.
Thus Boards of Guardians consisted of an equal number of women and men.
The latter superintended many details as formerly, but were relieved
from the sole responsibility of seeing after the babies' feeding
bottles, and the mothers' needs, and the old women's baths, which they
had until now considered their own especial province.
Formerly none but male inspectors were allowed to perambulate the
schools, at the expense of the country, and adjudicate as to the quality
of make, and perfection of cut, of the underclothing for women which the
girls were instructed to prepare for examination. Strange to say, it was
not without considerable opposition that women were admitted to be fit
to usurp this cherished masculine prerogative.
From time immemorial the fact that all doctors were men had proved a
serious calamity, for thousands of women let their infirmities grow upon
them until it was too late to save their lives, simply because they were
reluctant to confide the details of their ailments to members of the
other sex, who in most cases were complete strangers to them. And yet
the universities were for ages shut in the face of women who were
anxious to remedy these evils, and many and hard were the rebuffs and
insults which were endured by the first women who succeeded in removing
all barriers and in passing the examinations which qualified them as
M.D.'s.
Houses were erected on principles which men regarded as perfect, but
which women invariably found to be wofully deficient in matters
appertaining to hygiene and comfort. Since women became architects these
evils were also remedied, and as their augmented influence now
penetrated everywhere, a great change of necessity came over the whole
nation, and paved the way for one of the greatest political events the
world has ever seen.
This was the resolve to colonise Ireland with the women who outnumbered
the men so enormously in Teuto-Scotland.
It was duly remembered that the country had hitherto never managed to
support itself, and that its periodical famines had been a source of
enormous expense to Teuto-Scotland, which even now was voting large sums
for the support of the widows and children of the men who had fallen in
the late disastrous rebellion.
Many debates were, therefore, held respecting the annual amount which
should henceforth be devoted to the maintenance of Teuto-Scottish
authority in Ireland. But careful thought on the part of the greatest
leaders of the colonisation movement resulted in the island being
altogether given up to the sole rule and governance of the chief
colonists. "Home Rule" was the watchword, and it was finally agreed that
a treaty of alliance should be signed, whereby Ireland, or New Amazonia
as it was henceforth called, should maintain friendly relations with the
mother-country, but should be a perfectly self-governing and independent
State, exempt from any allegiance but that of friendliness, and a mutual
desire to prevent the encroachments of foreigners.
In return for so immense a concession, it was stipulated that New
Amazonia should now be self-supporting, and very few but enthusiasts,
remembering the past history of the island, believed in anything but a
total collapse of the new government.
Fortunately for our land, there were vast numbers of enthusiastic
believers in the available resources of New Amazonia, and in the
capacity of its chosen leaders, so that the fifty millions of pounds,
with which it was necessary to be equipped, in order to start the new
enterprise on a sound basis, was raised in a remarkably short time.
Three and a half per cent. consols were issued, and were eagerly bought
up by the enormous numbers of women who desired to become colonists in
the new republic, and to partake of the advantages and opportunities,
which would then be theirs. Great financiers were also found willing to
become partners in this novel syndicate, and as the consols were bought
up in every European country, every European country was directly
interested in the prosperity of New Amazonia, and the spirit and courage
of its leaders was the prominent topic of conversation in the whole of
the civilised world.
CHAPTER VI.
It was intended that the government should consist of a Leader, two
Prime Advisers, twelve Privy Counsellors, and two hundred-and-fifty
Tribunes, all elected by the people. As a preliminary measure, however,
only fifty Inaugurators were chosen by the Teuto-Scottish Parliament,
and upon these devolves the selection of the swarms of women who
clamoured to become members of the new republic. The Inaugurators were
divided into five committees, consisting of ten members each. These were
named respectively the Financial, the Medical, the Social, the
Political, and the Religious.
The Financial Committee was the first which the candidate had to face.
No woman was accepted for membership who could not invest a certain sum
of money in New Amazonian consols. This rule served a twofold purpose.
It prevented the intrusion of women whose poverty would make them a
burden to the rest of the community, which above all things required a
fair start. And, by making every member a partner in the monetary
venture, it ensured the personal interest of every inhabitant of the
country in its permanent prosperity.
The Medical Committee was next entrusted with a careful examination of
all those who had been able to satisfy Committee number one. Every woman
who bore the slightest trace of disease or malformation about her was
rigorously rejected, and those who passed the second stage
satisfactorily were handed over to the tender mercies of the Social
Committee, whose mission it was to enquire into the antecedents of the
candidates, and weed out such as were likely to prove discreditable to
the rest.
Few of the women, having reached this stage of the examinations, found
any difficulty in agreeing to the conditions of committees four and
five. They were simply required to take an oath of allegiance to the new
government, and to swear to obey any laws or rules which might be made
by the Constitution. They also vowed to merge all religious differences,
and to conform to whatever religious doctrines might be ultimately
agreed upon as a safe basis for the establishment of a national church.
When all these preliminaries were duly gone through, the candidate paid
her money, received satisfactory security for it, signed certain
documents, and was henceforth a duly enrolled citizen of New Amazonia,
pledged to respect all its laws, and entitled to participate in all its
benefits.
When the inaugural committees, satisfied that the enterprise could now
be floated without further delay, decided to remove the scene of their
operations to Dublin, as the capital city of the new republic had
hitherto been called, there was great excitement in London.
A banquet was given in honour of the pioneers of the movement, and the
Teuto-Scottish Government entered so cordially into the spirit of the
great enterprise, as to ensure free travelling expenses to their future
home to all accepted New Amazonians who were willing to avail themselves
of the privilege.
In many cases this was a great boon, for although no men were accepted
as colonists, the future was provided for by the admission of all the
healthy children of enrolled citizens. As only a small proportion of the
adventurers were women who had been married, the number of children was
small enough to be comfortably provided for.
Proclamations had been issued announcing many benefits which were to
fall to the lot of the very small remnant of the Irish nation, and it
was anticipated that when they found themselves to be enjoying equal
privileges with the new comers they would lose the resentful demeanour
they had hitherto maintained, and be amenable to the dictates of
kindness and reason.
It was many years, however, before the last flickerings of their
discontent were extinguished, and before they could be induced to take
kindly to the mode of living universally enforced throughout the
country. This end being finally attained, the mingled races became
amalgamated, and were henceforth alike devoted to their country and its
constitutional laws.
It was well for New Amazonia in the end that a good many Irish women had
survived, for the arts of linen-making and lace-making, which they
perpetuated and improved, are among the most valuable sources of revenue
of the country.
Shortly after the Inaugurators were established in Dublin Castle a
general election was called, and all the members of the Constitution
were duly elected. These elections were to be triennial, none of the
officials to be eligible for two successive Parliaments. The country was
divided into two hundred and fifty districts, each of which elected its
own Tribune, and paid for the maintenance of that Tribune during her
term of office.
The salaries of the Leader, Prime Advisers, and Privy Councillors were
fixed upon a progressive basis, and were payable by the State. The
National Revenue was a question which required much anxious thought, but
a solution of the problem was eventually arrived at, which was in course
of time supplemented by the present existing arrangements.
The State was to be the only importer, no private competition being
permitted. Hence the question of excise became a thing of the past.
The appointment of a great many officials to regulate the export and
import trade was necessitated, and this at once gave employment to
hundreds of receiving and exporting agents, who in their turn required
the services of clerks.
All the goods which arrived in the country were paid for by the State,
and transferred at a percentage of profit to wholesale merchants with
capital enough to pay for large business transactions of this nature.
Careful tariffs were drawn up, and the maximum of profit chargeable by
the State upon all goods labeled as "Necessaries" was five per cent.
"Luxuries," however, all yielded twenty per cent. profit to the State.
From the hands of the wholesale merchant all goods were transferred to
retail dealers, and by them placed within the reach of the people at
large. In order to prevent the largest capitalists from absorbing the
whole of the national trade, different branches were not permitted to be
adopted by one merchant or retail dealer.
Thus no draper was allowed to sell groceries, furniture, ironmongery,
stationery, or anything else which did not legitimately appertain to the
drapery business, and other traders were restricted by similar
regulations. By adopting this method the State prevented one or two
firms from making huge fortunes at the expense of fifty less opulent
traders, as was the case in Teuto-Scotland, where the system of compound
establishments, syndicates, and corners prevailed to a disastrous
extent.
At first the export traffic was not large, but was regulated in a
similar manner to the import trade. The State was the ultimate receiver,
and final vendor of all goods exported, a percentage of profit being
exacted on all goods sent away.
As the trade of the country, stimulated by the energy and determination
of its new inhabitants, steadily increased, the revenues derived by the
State were enormous, and no other method of taxation was deemed
necessary. We thus have, for the first time, the spectacle of a highly
civilised country in which the tax-collector is non-existent.
As every sort of employment which presented itself had to be done by
women, the question of a convenient working attire, which should at the
same time be suitable, healthy, warm, and becoming, was soon brought up
for discussion.
After much debate and strenuous opposition on the part of some advocates
of changeable fashions, it was decided to adopt a national distinctive
dress, the wearing of which should be compulsory. Latter day New
Amazonians find it difficult to believe that the barbarous mode of
dressing which had prevailed among the English, and later among the
Teuto-Scots, was reluctantly abandoned by thousands of women, and that
the New Amazonian National dress should have been strenuously objected
to at first.
There is in the museum, at Garrettville, an instrument of torture on
exhibition called a corset. Its extreme width is eighteen inches, and it
is an almost incredible fact that this instrument once spanned the waist
of a woman, who was only following one of the maddest and silliest
fashions ever instituted, when she deliberately forced her ribs out of
their proper places, and prepared an early grave for herself, in order
that she might meet with the favour of some idiot of the other sex, who
preferred fashion and doctor's bills to health and happiness.
The children who came with their mothers to New Amazonia were housed in
existing large buildings, until suitable erections for their reception
could be designed and built. Their supervision and education was for a
time entrusted to the mothers, subject to the directions of a trained
staff of teachers.
Physical education was all that was aimed at until the child's tenth
birthday had been passed. The most careful attention was paid to diet,
the necessary proportions of heat, flesh, and starch-formers being
supplied to them, all cooked in such palatably scientific methods as
conduced to build up a perfect system.
Swimming, running, dancing, drill, gymnastics, and every physical
health-giving game in vogue constituted the curriculum of youngsters
under ten. In the old country, thousands of little ones were pining from
bodily lassitude and decay engendered by the brain work necessitated by
a senseless system of cramming and examining. In New Amazonia the
children entering school at the age of ten were splendidly robust; had a
healthy, strong mind in a healthy, strong body, and were capable,
without fatigue, of learning more in two years than their Teuto-Scottish
contemporaries learned in all the seven years they had been compelled to
attend school.
For six years the school course had to be pursued, then a choice of
trade or profession adapted to the abilities of the student was made.
The next four years were devoted to the learning of this trade, and the
earnings of the next five years were appropriated by the State, which
thus remunerated itself for the heavy expense of maintaining and
educating each of its subjects under twenty years of age.
At the age of twenty-five each subject was at liberty to appropriate her
earnings as she liked, but was also expected to provide her own board
and residence henceforth.
As no men were admitted to any of the chief offices, some of them
emigrated, but others were glad to remain, and adopted various trades
which rendered them acceptable and useful members of the community. In
course of time, a desire was manifested on the part of several couples
to cast in their lot together, and it became necessary to pay some
attention to the marriage laws, which, as they had existed in
Teuto-Scotland, were totally rejected by New Amazonians as altogether
obsolete, and stupidly conducive to crime and immorality. The marriage
contract, under the new code of laws, became a purely civil one,
dissolvable almost without cost, upon one or other of the parties to it
proving incompatibility or unfaithfulness on the part of the other.
A document, received by each of the divorcees, legally entitled them to
marry again, provided they fulfilled every other necessary condition. A
medical certificate of soundness had to be procured before anyone was
allowed to marry, as, above all, the State was determined to secure none
but healthy subjects.
Sometimes very painful scenes were witnessed, for each new-born child
was subjected to examination, and no crippled or malformed infants were
permitted to live.
As all children were considered the property of the State, neither wife
nor husband was responsible for their maintenance and education, and
when a divorce was in prospect it was not necessary to take the
offspring of the temporary union into consideration at all, though no
divorces were permitted until after the birth of any expected result of
such union. Nursing mothers were always welcomed with their children,
and were maintained by the State, so long as the latter required their
attendance.
There was, however, a determination on the part of the Government to
guard against the evils of over-population in the future, and Malthusian
doctrines were stringently enforced. Any woman or man becoming the
parent of more than four children was punished for such recklessness by
being treated as a criminal, and deprived of many very valuable civil
rights.
It had often been the objection of legislators in the old country that
Woman's Suffrage would, in some never satisfactorily explained manner,
cause an access of immorality in the land, seeing that immoral women
would have as much right to vote as their more virtuous sisters. The
stupidity and selfishness of such an argument is easily deducible from
the fact that a large number of the male members themselves were men who
led anything but moral lives.
Health of body, the highest technical and intellectual knowledge, and
purity of morals has ever been the goal aimed at in New Amazonia, and it
can to-day boast of being the most perfect, the most prosperous, and the
most moral community in existence.
CHAPTER VII.
There existed many places of worship in the country, which were at first
used indiscriminately by Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Wesleyans,
Presbyterians, Quakers, and a host of other sects whose varied religious
beliefs were so perplexing and confusing, and provocative of so many
quarrels and discussions, that sectarianism was soon recognized as the
rock upon which the nation was likely to founder, unless prompt
legislation was brought to bear upon the situation.
Some believed in a Trinity of Gods, some in a Unity. Others looked
forward to the coming of a Redeemer, others worshipped Jesus Christ, as
the Redeemer of souls. Some denied a God altogether, and asserted that
all the higher forms of life were the outcome of evolution. Others,
again, worshipped a goddess called Humanity, and all were more or less
in fear of a mythical Being to whom all the untold millions born into
the world were supposed to be turned over for everlasting punishment in
the event of their not having been fortunate enough to meet with all the
requirements of creeds formulated by men.
Thus, one portion of the community had been taught that tiny babes,
dying before they had been sprinkled with water by a priest, and had a
certain formula of words uttered over them, would be consigned to
everlasting perdition, and debarred from all the joys of a future life.
Others would have been brought up to believe that all the untold
millions of people who had, by force of circumstances, over which they
had not the slightest control, never had Christianity preached to them,
would also be delivered into the hands of Satan!
Could anything be more blasphemously opposed to the character of a
merciful Creative Being, than to suppose it capable of producing myriads
of human beings, simply that they might be consigned to never-ending
torture such as only fiends could sanction?
Bigotry, Sectarianism, and Dogmatic Obstinacy had taken the place of a
true and simple worship of the Creator. So rank did the strife become
that certain sects actually maintained it to be wicked to enter a place
of worship patronised by a rival sect. So truly religious were the
majority of Christians that they only used the various churches as a
means of advancing their temporal power, and statistics from all the
world will prove that more lives have been lost, and more crimes
committed, in the name of Religion, than from any other cause. Strange
that what should be regarded as the greatest bond of unity upon earth
should be so abused as to become one of its greatest powers for evil!
Yet so it was when our forerunners peopled this land, and they were
compelled to adopt stringent methods of grappling with the most serious
evil in their midst.
The earth was too beautiful, and life itself was too great a mystery for
the doctrine of a bounteous Creator to be entirely abandoned, so worship
was offered, and temples dedicated, to the service of "The Giver of
Life," who was always pictured as loving and beneficent, and to whom no
fearful qualities were attributed such as for ages made professing
Christians live a life of fear lest they should really not be saved, and
caused those who were taught to regard themselves as transgressors to
die a death of horror and despair.
The doctrines preached henceforth were "Gratitude" to the "Giver of
Life," and the "Duty" to others of leading a pure and moral existence. A
simple creed this, but one which all were ultimately able to adopt, and
the worship of Morality never had any other effect upon the worship of
"Life-Giver" than to render it all the more sincere and heartfelt.
All fear of a future state is banished from the minds of New Amazonians,
who refuse to believe in a Prince of Darkness, and discard the doctrine
of everlasting punishment entirely. A continuance of life hereafter is
firmly believed in, the goal of bliss being supposed to be the ultimate
perfection which will make the soul so glorious in knowledge and purity
as to bring it near to "Life-Giver" herself, and enable it to revel in
the supreme happiness afforded to all who have left ignorance and
imperfection behind.
A priesthood was established after a time in New Amazonia, but was
bereft of the especial privileges hitherto deemed inseparable from that
holy office, but which were now regarded as the principal causes of the
corruption, perversion of truth, and immorality which prevailed in the
churches of Teuto-Scotland and other countries. No salary was attached
to the office whatever, and thus religion was deprived of its chief
means of abuse, for formerly disreputable persons who could command
influence were not debarred from choosing the sacred office of priest,
and from drawing the large profits which in many cases were derivable
from their appointment.
In Teuto-Scotland the Church was simply regarded as an easy and
lucrative profession. In New Amazonia it is an honour only bestowed upon
capable people, who already possess a sufficient income to enable them
to dispense with a further addition to it.
The doctrines they have to expound are simple, and their principal duty
consists in providing Professors, each of high repute in their various
professions, to lecture at different periods of that day, which is
still, in accordance with ancient usage, set apart as the day of general
cessation from ordinary toil.
Since it is not given one soul to be perfect in everything, and since
the attempted study of everything would result in perfection in nothing,
each individual hopes to become more speedily sure of final perfection
by using all available means of improvement in what is at present the
chief business of life, and by attending the lectures provided by the
Guardian for the purpose of elucidating the most intricate
technicalities of each trade and profession in existence.
The Lecturers are chosen by the State, and are all paid a uniform
salary. As many places would be too small to repay for the domiciling of
a complete staff of Lecturers in their midst, a system of travelling
prevails, whereby the Lecturers travel from one place to another, so
that each member of the community may have opportunities of attaining
individual perfection by receiving public instruction in her or his
special vocation.
All railways, water companies, and similar great undertakings are in the
hands of the State, which receives all surplus profits, and pays its
employés more liberally than private companies ever did in former days.
A fixed percentage is always taken by the State. Should the proceeds be
more than the State percentage, the surplus becomes the perquisite of
the working staff, who thus receive a graduated addition to their
income. Should bad work or bad management reduce the profits, the State
still takes its fixed percentage, and it is thus made the individual
interest of all persons employed by the State to do their best to
promote the success of whatever department of State labour is entrusted
to them.
The Teuto-Scots were guilty of many practices which are rigorously
prohibited in New Amazonia. One of these was the use of the dried leaves
of a plant called tobacco; by some it was put in the mouth, and the
juice masticated out of it. By the majority of users it was slowly
burnt, and the resulting smoke allowed to pass into the mouth, to be
emitted immediately after in clouds of an unpleasant, choking nature.
The practice is in many old works described as dirty and offensive; yet
it is an undoubted fact that the discontinuance of the use of tobacco
was so rebelled against, and so distasteful to many New Amazonian women,
that frequent expulsions from the country took place before the custom
was stamped out.
In all times there have been many vices attributed to the habit of
imbibing fluids, which were so remarkable in their effects, that the
users of them were deprived of both sense and motion, besides suffering
bodily illness. It is the boast of New Amazonia that an intoxicant
cannot be procured in the island, and that all existing establishments
for the manufacture of these dangerous compounds were devoted to more
noble uses.
The majority of Teuto-Scots were carnivorous, like dogs, cats, and birds
of prey. Flesh eating is a habit which induces coarseness of mind and
body, and robs both of the true beauty, and vigour furnished by a
vegetable diet. That Life-Giver never intended the human animal to be
carnivorous is proved by the anatomy of the human frame.
It is, however, probable that New Amazonia became a vegetarian nation in
consequence of the repugnance or inability of the first women who came
over from Teuto-Scotland to kill the animals from whose carcases the
beef, pork, and mutton they had hitherto consumed was obtained. They
probably found it a great deprivation to subsist without a large
proportion of animal food at first, and it was for a time extensively
imported. Vegetarian and Humanitarian doctrines were extensively
preached, and in course of time, as the art of cookery was more
carefully cultivated, the trade in meat carcases ceased entirely, to the
ultimate permanent advantage of the nation, than which no finer race
exists in the world at this moment.
It is on record that the ancients paid great attention to the diet and
housing of the animals intended either for slaughter, for beasts of
burden, or for the chase, and that they knew exactly what food would
produce the most coveted results. Thus they would subject their animals
to one kind of treatment calculated to produce fat, while a change of
diet would be productive of lean flesh. Any other results aimed at would
be treated with corresponding acumen.
They even were able to produce a cruel disease in geese, whereby their
livers were inordinately enlarged. These diseased livers were used in
the construction of certain pies called _pâtés-de-fois-gras_, which were
consumed in large quantities by those who could afford the high prices
charged for them.
And yet, incredible as it may seem, these people had scarcely the most
elementary knowledge of the necessary means of preserving the lives of
their children, and rearing them in a methodical or scientific manner.
No restraints were placed upon the people relative to the number of
their offspring, for thousands of children died daily through the
ignorance and incapacity of those who were entrusted with the rearing of
them, thus partially counteracting one evil by the infliction of
another, incalculable suffering being the invariable accompaniment of
such mal-administration of mundane affairs.
If the offspring of the Teuto-Scots attained maturity, they were the
subjects of such miseries as make New Amazonians often wonder how they
supported life's burden. Their social pleasures were perpetually ruined
by their inability to understand the signs of the weather until a
tempest was upon them. Such a thing as altering the direction of a
steady wind, and thereby producing either wet or fine weather, by means
of a huge artificially created vacuum, had never been thought of.
Neither had they attained the scientific knowledge which enables us to
prevent disastrous thunderstorms by utilising all superfluous
electricity, that would otherwise accumulate and work mischief.
So much was the life of the ancients dominated by the perpetual changes
of weather in the British Islands, that it is said that no conversation
ever took place in their day without some allusion to the weather being
made in it.
Their lives were rendered unbearable by constant troubles which
innumerable diseases wrought on their frames, and by the ever-recurring
removal of some dear friend by death.
The advance of age was not looked for with delight and eagerness, as
with us, for it brought with it an appalling train of evils. The body
waxed feeble and bent. The eyes grew dim and often sightless. The senses
of taste, smell, and hearing became impaired. The voice cracked, and
made the speech harsh and shaky. The teeth fell out, after gradually and
painfully decaying in the mouth. The gait became unsteady. The mind grew
feeble, and the whole body was transformed into a pitiable spectacle of
ruin and misery, soon to fall into the grave, unless one of the fell
diseases to which these our ancestors were subjected swept them out of
life long ere this.
Science was then in its infancy, and transfusion of blood was scouted as
useless and impracticable, or many of the troubles of those days might
have been avoided.
All these things were bad enough to endure, but when we remember that
the greater part of the human race was led to expect nothing better
after bodily death than a continuance of the spiritual ego in a state of
horrible and never-ending torture, then indeed we may be thankful that
we are free from so many of the ills to which it was then popularly
believed all human flesh was heir.
CHAPTER VIII.
I closed the book which I had been perusing, with a sense of the
liveliest amazement. Was it possible, I thought, that this wonderful
people had really conquered disease, decay, death, and the elements?
The suggestion seemed so wild, and my surroundings altogether were so
strange, that I pinched myself to make sure that I had not really left
my earthly casing behind me, and emerged, Chrysalis-like, into another
world, whereof the grovelling nature of my former existence had failed
to give me any conception.
But no, I was as sensitive to pain as ever I had been; and, to make the
situation once more one of active reality, Hilda presently made her
re-appearance. It was well for me that she seemed to have taken a strong
fancy to me, otherwise I should never have been able to feel so much at
ease in her presence as I did.
True, she was not more than nineteen years of age, so she told me, and
was still pursuing the studies which were to qualify her to become a
full-blown Lecturer on Chemical Science, but her physique was so
splendid, and her mental qualities of such surprising vigour for one so
young as she, that it was impossible for me to regard myself other than
as a very inferior being in her presence.
She was very pleased to find that I had been able to read the books she
had placed at my disposal; but her powers of belief were severely taxed
when I insisted that the retrospect, referring to the peculiar habits
and customs of the Ancients, was a faithful picture of things as they
still existed in my own country.
"To tell you the truth," she said at last, "I think that you have been
asleep for about six hundred years. You must have been taking
Schlafstrank, though I had no idea it had been so long in existence."
"And, pray, what is Schlafstrank, and what are its uses?" I asked,
whereupon I was told that Schlafstrank was an essence, discovered in the
year 2239, by Ada of Garretville, while Senior Lecturer in Chemistry for
that year. The uses to which this essence was devoted was to put people
to sleep for a longer or a shorter period of time, according to the
quantity inhaled or swallowed. While under the influence of Schlafstrank
any amount of pain could be borne without causing the subject of it any
real inconvenience, since no sense of pain or bodily suffering was
conveyed to the sleeping mind.
Thus if, in unusual exception to the rule of perfect health which
prevailed here, some dangerous or painful disease overtook any of the
children of the State, be they old or young, they were subject to the
influence of Schlafstrank, and then dosed or operated upon until the
disease was conquered. In this way did New Amazonians avoid suffering,
and it struck me as marvellous to picture them as the subjects of an
accident resulting in a few broken limbs, and being unconscious of any
inconvenience arising therefrom during the processes of setting and
recovery. I was told that Schlafstrank produced no deleterious effect
upon the body, although repeated doses were given, if the patient's mind
threatened to awake before complete recovery of the body had set in.
One thing mystified me exceedingly. I was told that Schlafstrank was not
invented until the year 2239, and naturally asked what year this was
supposed to be. No doubt there was ample room for amusement on both
sides when I positively averred that the year 1889 was not yet at an
end, and Hilda insisted just as positively that this was the year 2472.
Not a little to my surprise, an attendant knocked at the door, and
presented me with a parcel, with the words "From the Mother."
"The Mother?", I queried, and Hilda, pitying my ignorance, informed me
that the State was the Mother of her people, and that no doubt the
parcel contained a suitable outfit for me. On opening the parcel, I
found the latter surmise to be correct, and I was eased of the last
remnant of embarrassment I might have entertained at the idea of
encroaching upon the hospitality of others, by being informed that it
was considered a personal honour for any individual member of the State
to be permitted to dispense the Mother's hospitality to all comers.
No stranger was permitted to seek private hospitality, but was provided,
at the behest and expense of the Mother, with everything necessary for
comfort while in New Amazonia.
I suggested that if this were generally known, the country was in danger
of being over-run by loafers and adventurers of all nations.
This argument was met by the information that no strangers were
permitted to land except such as showed good reason for their advent.
If, by any chance, a person obtained access to the country who was
inclined to abuse its hospitality, she or he was subjected to a course
of labour which more than sufficed to pay expenses, and was then
promptly expelled, one of the numerous fleet of trading steamers which
New Amazonia now possessed being used as a means of transport to the
culprit's own country.
Hilda's duties were not quite completed, but she told me that if I would
induct myself in my new garments during her absence, she would return to
me as soon as possible, and that she was deputed to inform me that
Principal Grey and Professor Wise were prepared to escort me on a tour
round the city, if I cared to go.
_Es geht ohne sagen_ that I jumped at the offer, metaphorically
speaking, and that I exerted myself to the utmost to transform my
outward semblance by wasting no time ere I changed my own attire for the
National costume a bountiful State had placed at my disposal. I availed
myself of a marble bath which Hilda had shown me, and even half resolved
to sacrifice my hair, in my desire to make myself as less like an oddity
as possible.
The clothes proved a good fit, if the term could be applied to garments
whose chief beauty consisted in the absolute freedom from constraint
which they exercised over the body. I noticed one omission, which I was
inclined to regret. No graceful sash formed part of my outfit, and I
learnt afterwards that none but natives of the soil, or formally adopted
immigrants, were permitted to adorn themselves with this distinctive
National badge.
I was very much relieved when, on the return of Hilda, she pronounced me
to be so passable as to be sure to escape the annoyance of being
conspicuously Ancient looking, my diminutive stature being now the only
specially noticeable feature about me, provided my hair could be hidden.
Upon trial, my new velvet cap proved too inadequate a means of securing
the desired end, and, with something akin to a pang, I must confess, I
empowered Hilda to deprive me of what I had hitherto been taught to
regard as woman's glory.
No sooner, however, was I bereft of all superabundant tresses, than I
decided that the men who have from time to time so zealously exhorted
women to wear their hair long, have done it from an innate conviction
that the practice was debilitating and inconvenient, and therefore
likely to prove an invaluable aid in the final subjugation of woman.
Unlike Samson of old, I rejoiced in my newly acquired lack of hirsute
adornment, and went on my way rejoicing.
I also found locomotion so much easier in my new attire, that the marble
stairs had no terrors for me, and the interest I felt in all I saw
proved a powerful incentive to exertion. I was not sorry to find that we
were to be fortified with another meal before starting on our exploring
expedition. As at the previous meal, there was no animal food, but the
fare was scientifically perfect, and calculated to appeal powerfully to
the senses by its appetising odour and appearance. Three meals per diem
proved to be the rule here, and I observed that, compared to their
physique, the appetites of the New Amazonians seemed to be very
moderate. This was no doubt due to the fact that every item of food
consumed was of such a nature that it at once supplied all the wants of
the body, and that all indigestible or innutritive foods had long ago
been banished from New Amazonian regimen as injurious on account of the
useless waste of bodily force entailed in digesting or assimilating
them.
I was, however, glad to find that tea was not condemned as entirely
useless, and I thoroughly enjoyed this third and last meal of the day,
after which I was taken out to explore posthumous Dublin, now called
Andersonia. Once, when paying a flying visit to St. Petersburg, I was
much struck by the large scale upon which all the principal streets and
buildings were planned, and when I arrived in London, not very long
after this, I felt positively relieved at the sight of the comparatively
narrow and dingy London streets and buildings, and the sense of glare
and unreality which made itself palpable in St. Petersburg promptly
vanished in the atmosphere of London smoke.
Yellow-ochred palaces, lime-washed theatres, golden domes, and gaudy
blue and white and gilt churches appealed less to my fancy than did the
solid stone beauties of London architecture, grimy though they might be.
In looking upon Andersonia I was forcibly reminded of both the cities
just mentioned. There were the same large, open squares, revealing
broad, avenue-lined streets planned with mathematical exactitude, and
the same huge buildings that I had noticed in St. Petersburg. But there
was also the same solidity, freedom from glare, and honesty of
composition, which roused my admiration when looking upon some of
London's magnificent stone buildings. Here, however, were examples of
architecture such as I had never before seen the like of for
magnificence, and it was no detriment to their beauty that they were
unsullied by smoke or dirt.
This seemed a very large city, and must have contained a numerous
population, yet not one smoking chimney did I see. The weather was
delightfully mild, but of course heat was necessary for cooking. In my
ideas, a fire was just as necessarily associated with smoke, and I
expressed my surprise at its evident absence. Considerably to my
astonishment, I had some difficulty in making myself understood, but, in
the end, mutual enlightenment was the result of our confabulations.
Electricity was made so thoroughly subservient to human will that it
supplied light, heat, and powers of volition, besides being made to
perform nearly every conceivable domestic use. So well were the elements
analysed and understood here that thunderstorms were unknown, and the
force which yearly used to slay numbers of people was now attracted,
cooped, and subjugated to human necessities.
The skies were unclouded, the air delightfully bracing, the atmosphere
so clear and pure that I wondered if some strange change had not
occurred to my eyesight, since I could see miles and miles of fair
country, lovely villages, and populous towns, whichever way I looked.
Smoke was an imponderable quantity here, by virtue of the
smoke-consuming apparati fixed in every dwelling, which permitted not
even the destruction by fire of the household refuse which was daily
committed to the furnace, to sully the purity of the atmosphere.
I enquired if fires were frequent here, and was told that in the
manufacture or adaption of every material in use, either for building
purposes, or for decorative and personal application, there was
incorporated a substance which rendered it impervious to fire, and
practically indestructible.
There was not the slightest noise of traffic in the streets, such as I
had always been accustomed to hear in either large or small towns. On
each side of every street there was a double means of locomotion
provided. Water cars abounded, and by way of proving their comfort and
efficiency to me, the two women who escorted me took their seats in one
of them, and, somewhat nervously, I followed their example.
In another moment I noticed houses and streets fly past us with magical
rapidity, but this phenomenon ceased almost immediately, and I looked
through the glass sides of the car upon a totally new scene. Dublin Bay,
in all its glorious beauty, lay unfolded to my vision. But I was hardly
able to appreciate it at that moment, for I was possessed by the idea
that I was under the influence of magic.
The magic subsequently resolved itself into a marvellous adaptation of
hydraulic force. It was our car, not the houses, which had been flying
with electric speed. Yet so noiseless, and so apparently motionless had
we been that the illusion was perfect, and I seemed not to have moved.
The pressure of an electric button stopped a car instantaneously, and at
the same time prevented any succeeding car from passing a given point
until all obstruction ahead was removed.
These stoppages lasted only an infinitesimally short time, for all the
cars, whether for passenger or goods traffic, were pulled up to the
inner barrier of the double roadway, leaving a clear course for all cars
which were still pursuing their journey.
I could not see any water, but was told that the whole traffic of the
country was run upon these electric hydraulic ways, and that water had
been found so noiseless, so frictionless, so economical, and so superior
in every way to the locomotive railways formerly in use as to supersede
the latter a few hundred years ago. "Puffing Billy" in fact was now only
a memory. The first line of one of Dagonet's ballads, "Billy's dead and
gone to glory," came to my mind as applicable to the motive force which
in my own days was considered impossible to beat.
His knell was sounded, when there appeared a rival on the scene who
brought neither noise, dirt, vibration, nor smoke in her train.
Accidents were of almost impossible occurrence on the hydraulic roads, I
was told, and ordinary street traffic was not interfered with by these
roads, as they were constructed upon elevated platforms.
All persons using them paid a certain sum for the privilege. The State
had entire control of the waterways, and derived considerable revenues
from them, after paying all expenses, and remunerating the thousands of
people who were employed upon them. The remotest part of New Amazonia
could, I was told, be reached in twenty minutes, at small cost, as the
waterway system scarcely left a village untouched.
I was initiated in many wonders that night, being not the least
interested by an inspection of the many strange objects to be seen in
the shop windows, and by the universal good humour and happiness which
seemed to illumine every face I met. My guides proved themselves to be
admirable and patient cicerones. Fortunately for me, they recognised
that my physical capabilities were greatly inferior to their own, and
did not quite drag me about until I was tired to death.
So far, I was highly satisfied with my adventures in New Amazonia, and
when I retired to rest in the luxurious bed provided for me, I slept
soundly and healthily until Hilda awoke me, and told me that it was time
to get a bath, and dress for breakfast.
CHAPTER IX.
It could not be more than five o'clock, I was sure, and I did not feel
much inclined to rise at such an unconscionably early hour, until I
heard Hilda ask if I would not like to go to the large baths with her,
and have a swim. Alas! aquatic exercises were utterly out of my power to
undertake. But this fact did not deprive me of all desire to witness the
doings of others, and I hurriedly left my couch, performed my toilet
expeditiously, and accompanied Hilda to the splendid swimming baths in
which scores of women were disporting themselves. Their bathing costume
was neat and elegant, but at the same time thoroughly utilitarian, and
they seemed as much at home in the water as on _terra firma_.
The water was conducted from the sea, and was always cool and fresh,
owing to the mechanical arrangements which existed for changing it. I
could not help wishing that I could swim, dive, and float like these
more favoured beings, but womanfully resisted all attempts to induce me
to learn the art there and then.
In all ages, and in all countries, there have been isolated women who
have been regarded as beautiful specimens of their sex. In New Amazonia
the difficulty would consist in finding women who were not perfect
models of beauty, grace, and dignity. As I contemplated the happy groups
before me, I had ample opportunity to convince myself that not one of
them owed her superb proportions to artificial means, and I was
positively thankful that I measured quite twenty-six inches round the
waist. Had I measured a fraction less, I should have been looked upon as
deformed in this land of goddesses.
I noticed that some of the bathers, not content with simple diving,
propelled themselves to a great height by means of trapezes. They would,
when at the desired altitude, suddenly relinquish their hold upon the
trapeze, turn a somersault, and plunge, straight as a die, into the
volume of water beneath. There were many other ways here practised of
varying and elaborating these swimming exercises, but no one appeared in
the least degree fatigued by them; and I was told that every child was
taught swimming from its third year upwards, and that cases of drowning
were seldom heard of in this favoured land.
After breakfast, the students repaired to their different classes, and I
resolved to venture out alone, my suggestion that I should do so meeting
with no opposition.
My want of stature scarcely warranted the assumption that I was a
full-grown adult, and the absence of a sash proclaimed me to be of alien
race. But I did not doubt now that I should meet with anything but the
most courteous treatment. Principal Grey placed a slip of paper in my
hand, which proved to be a pass such as the State furnished to all its
guests, and was neither more nor less than an open sesame to all public
buildings, such as picture galleries and museums. It was also intended
to enable me to make such use as I chose of the water-cars.
My first impression that this was a country of none but women had been
dissipated on the previous evening by seeing great numbers of men either
working or bent upon pleasure. They were magnificent beings, all of
them, and presented a superb appearance, such as would have rendered
them all-conquering in London society.
Their dress——upon consideration I have decided not to describe their
attire. My friend, Mr. Augustus Fitz-Musicus, told me that he meant to
produce a book, detailing all his adventures in New Amazonia, and it
would hardly be fair to anticipate all he has got to say.
Although I started on my exploring tour with a very good heart, I was
not at all sorry when some one presently rushed up to me, and shook my
hand with most effusive familiarity. This some one turned out to be Mr.
Augustus Fitz-Musicus. He was as much transformed as I was, being
dressed in——there now, I nearly betrayed his secret, after all.
Considerably to my amusement he professed to be very much disgusted at
being compelled to renounce his wonderful tweeds and three-inch high
collar, in favour of——well, in favour of garments that were very much
more artistic and comfortable.
Like myself, he was thrown upon his own resources for a time, so we
resolved to explore in concert, and exchange impressions by the way.
Woman has by man been credited with an undying propensity to have the
last word on each and every occasion where talking has to be done. My
personal conviction is that every man who utters this fallacy knows very
well that it is a libel on my sex, and that he is only warding off
self-conviction by acting on the principles of first attack.
Thus, Molly Muddle tells Mrs. Bungle that Miss Pringle is too ugly for
anything. She has no sooner committed this indiscretion than she becomes
afraid that it will be brought home to her, and resolves to preserve her
own reputation for charity by straightway informing Miss Pringle that
Mrs. Bungle is taking her character away. She repeats and enlarges upon
this statement until she actually grows to believe it herself.
It is just so with the men who try to foist their own failings upon
women. They are just so many Molly Muddles. Mr. Fitz-Musicus fully bears
out this assertion by insisting upon giving me all his experiences
before I can get many words in, and by treating me to a repetition of
them which lasts until it is time to fulfil our engagements to return in
time for the mid-day meal.
"And do you know I am going to write everything down that I see while I
am here," he informs me volubly. "Nothing shall escape my notice. In
fact, I have begun my book already, for it doesn't do to trust to
memory, and as my grasp of the subject is something extraordinary, I
expect my book will be no end of a success if I ever go back to the old
country."
"Oddly enough," I say, "I have also resolved to publish my impressions
of New Amazonia."
"Ah, yes, I daresay," is the supercilious reply. "Of course, there can
be no harm in your trying. But you are only a woman, and cannot be
expected to produce anything clever. However, I like you, and don't mind
touching your work up a bit, before you send it to the printers. In that
way, it may possibly be presentable, though of course, it is sure to be
rather commonplace. Just listen to my opening paragraph."
Feeling considerably like a cat whose coat is being stroked the wrong
way, as I listened to these flattering encomiums on my mental
qualifications, I nevertheless paid particular attention to my friend's
opening sentences, of which the following is a _verbatim_ transcript:—
"The other night, I was with some fellows in London, and we all took
some Hasheesh to make us dream. Then I woke up a tree. Then I saw
somebody laughing at me, and I came down and tore my trousers. After
that, a whole troop of giantesses in queer clothes came and had a look
at me. They didn't take any notice of the other party, for she was only
a woman. One of the giantesses kissed me, and called me the handsomest
fellow she had ever seen. I like that one immensely, and I am seriously
thinking of marrying her. I understand that the marriage laws here are
just the ticket for rollicking, Bohemian fellows like me. If my wife
doesn't prove very obedient and docile, I can chuck her over, and won't
even have to keep my own youngsters, if there should be any.
"I don't like the way they house you here. If I stop, I shall insist
upon living in a small house, apart from others, where I can make my
wife feel that I am lord and master in it.
"The men here seem to be fools. They let the women grow up as strong and
healthy as themselves, and it will be difficult to reduce them to
civilization again. Isn't it extraordinary?"
This was as far as the rollicking Augustus had progressed in his
narrative, and I was quite sincere when I informed him that I thought it
very original indeed.
"Oh, I say, you have got your hair cut!" he cried. "It doesn't look at
all bad, but when you get back to England you will wish you had it back
again. But I suppose you felt that you must be in the fashion. It's a
mercy for women that they are at least capable of understanding all
matters appertaining to dress. Otherwise, we might expect them to bestow
less attention upon our own personal adornment. They can never
manufacture anything to equal men's work, but I will grant them the
faculty of criticism. How do you like me in my new clothes?"
Should I have been human if I had failed to retaliate a little? On this
occasion I found it impossible to resist the temptation, and replied
gravely, "Well, Mr. Fitz-Musicus, I confess that I was rather surprised
to see that you also had been persuaded to adopt the National costume,
for it makes you look more insignificant than ever, if possible. You
will be mistaken for some little boy, playing the truant, if you do not
mind. But I daresay my presence will be some little protection to you,
and you are sincerely welcome to any assistance I can afford you,"———
"Come, if that isn't cool!" interrupted Augustus. "I can see just what
is the matter. You are jealous of me all round, because I am naturally
of more consequence than you are, and because you have no hope of being
able to produce half such a book as mine will be. Still, as I said
before, I rather like you, and we may as well be friends while we are
here. Suppose we try an intellectual topic likely to prove of use in our
reminiscences. What did you have for your breakfast?"
I'm afraid that if I had met Mr. Fitz-Musicus in former days, I should
scarcely have looked upon him as an individual with whom it was worth my
while to waste ten minutes in conversation, and my chief regret now was
that New Amazonians were being edified by the nonentities of a man who
was by no means a fair specimen of the sort of men my country could turn
out. Not that such conceited individuals do not exist in our midst, for
I know some one at this moment who may possibly be mistaken for the
prototype of the lively Augustus.
Should he or his friends read this, I wish to assure them that above all
things I disclaim being personal. It is not quite an impossibility to
find two individuals equally addicted to what is termed fast living;
equally boisterous in the matter of dress; equally conceited and
overbearing; and addicted to the same inane forms of speech. They may,
therefore, console themselves with the idea that, however like them my
hero may be, the resemblance is only a chance one.
The further progress of my conversation with the Hon. Augustus would not
amuse the reader, any more than would a description of the remaining
portion of that morning's excursion, for I lost all interest in what I
saw, and my return to the college took place much earlier than I had
intended.
CHAPTER X.
The next excursion of any importance which I made was in the company of
Principal Grey, who proved a splendid cicerone, inasmuch as she spared
no pains to explain everything which presented itself to me in a
puzzling aspect. I had often visited different European countries, and
had been greatly interested by many things I saw. But in New Amazonia
the constant predominating feeling was _amazement_, not mere interest.
Fancy going through a city, anywhere in Europe, in our own days, without
seeing either a beggar or a poverty stricken individual of any sort.
Dirt, squalor, drunkenness, profane language, sickness, rags, and a
thousand other miseries, meet us at every turn in the poorer quarters of
our big cities. But not one of these things did I note in New Amazonia.
Purity, peace, health, harmony, and comfort reigned in their stead, and
presented a picture such as I had never hoped to gaze upon in this
world.
But what ultimately struck me as the strangest thing I had yet observed,
was the fact that I had not seen a single old woman or man since I came
here, and I determined to appease my curiosity on the subject as soon as
possible, by addressing some questions to Principal Grey.
"How is it that I have seen no old people since I came to your country?"
I asked. "Is it because you keep them secluded after they have arrived
at a certain age, or because you die comparatively young?"
"My dear woman," was the Principal's reply, "We have both met and spoken
to a great many old people this very evening. Do you mind telling me
what you call old age? Perhaps your ideas and mine on the subject differ
considerably."
"Well," I replied, "We call seventy or eighty very old, of course."
The Professor looked at me with great astonishment. "Seventy or eighty!"
she exclaimed. "Why, how old do you take me to be?"
Had it been an ordinary English lady who had asked me this home
question, I should probably have hesitated in my reply. But this was a
being who despised the appellative _lady_, with all its accompanying
affectations, and prided herself upon nothing so much as being an
honest, truthful, candid _woman_. So I made what I considered to be a
fair guess, and replied that I judged her age to be about forty or
thereabouts.
"Only forty!" was the disparaging comment upon this guess. "I am very
glad to say that it is long since I passed that baby age. One must be at
least forty-five before a position like mine is attainable. I have
occupied my present post for thirty-five years."
"Now, you are asking me to believe too much," I expostulated. "Why, you
would at that rate be eighty years old at the very least, and you have
not even the suspicion of a wrinkle about you."
"Wrinkles are not necessary evils," I was told. "We prefer to do without
them, and seldom see them in real life, though we are familiar enough
with their presentment in ancient prints. My actual age is one hundred
and fourteen years, and I hope to live a life of honourable usefulness
for many years to come, without losing the proud consciousness that I
belong to a race of beings fashioned and developed in the Life-giver's
own image."
I could only ejaculate the surprise I felt at this startling
information, and stammer something to the effect that I had never before
seen anyone who had lived a whole century, and that when such a rare
thing did occur in my country, it was considered a fit occurrence to be
recorded in the newspapers.
"Can you tell me what anyone of my age would look like in your country?
Supposing that I myself were one of you, and had reached my present age
under the normal conditions which govern life with you, what do you
really suppose I would look like?"
I am the reverse of clever with my pencil, but the picture which I
rapidly sketched would, in my opinion, have proved rather flattering
than otherwise, under the circumstances indicated by the Principal. She,
however, evidently did not regard it in that light, for she looked at
the sketch with a face of horror and repulsion, which was as comical to
me as it was evidently real.
"What a frightful country to live in," she exclaimed, "if everyone who
has attained to years of discretion is doomed to look like that! I would
rather pass my probation with the spirits than endure such a hideous
mockery of life. To watch the gradual decay of all physical beauty must
be an almost unendurable torment."
"There you are mistaken," I responded, somewhat warmly. "Our old people,
provided they have, by an honourable and useful life, gained the respect
of their fellows, are honoured more in old age than in comparative
youth. It is true that the eyesight becomes impaired; the sense of
hearing fails; the teeth fall out; the appetite becomes dulled; strength
vanishes; and the gait becomes feeble and halting. But it is also true
that in most cases the mental faculties are simultaneously affected, and
that the consciousness of physical deterioration, therefore, fails to
affect our old people as powerfully as you might think."
"Worse and worse!" cried the Principal, with emphatic conviction. "It
seems to me that with you to live is simply to be fully conscious of
dying. No New Amazonian would support such a miserable existence for a
day. I, for one, would at once resolve to disembody myself, and seek
final glorification in a less trammelled state."
"Disembody yourself? Do you mean that you would commit suicide?"
"I mean that my body should cease to live."
"But it is a crime to take the life God gave us."
"I see that superstition ranks rife with you. We should consider it a
much greater crime to permit a grovelling, decaying body to chain the
spirit to earth and nothingness, than to sever the life which prevents
it from seeking perfection in more congenial regions."
"I certainly do feel lamentably dense and ignorant while listening to
you. I cannot, for instance, fathom your meaning when you say the spirit
can seek perfection after death."
"The spirit never dies. The body is but the casing in which the spirit
is given its greatest opportunities of seeking final glorification. As
we acquire knowledge of every kind, and learn more and more to fathom
the secrets which nature has so long guarded with such jealousy, so much
nearer shall we be towards the ultimate perfection of the spirit which
assimilates most nearly to Life-giver herself, and constitutes our ideal
of final bliss. After the death of our material form, we still strive to
reach our desired goal, but our progress, when disembodied, is not so
rapid as while still inhabiting our earthly casing, and our ultimate
arrival at the zenith of wisdom, purity, and bliss; in other words,
Heaven, may be delayed for ages by a premature exit from this world.
"Naturally, therefore, we try to prolong the healthy life of the body by
all the arts in our power, knowing that it is given us as a special
means of attaining Heavenly perfection. A diseased body inevitably
affects the mind, and prevents it from soaring upwards. Therefore, we
argue, one of the surest ways of reaching Heaven is to cultivate the
health and perfection of the body.
"If this material part of us, therefore, falls into permanent sickness,
uselessness, and decay, it but serves to trammel the spirit, and hinder
its further advancement. This we are not inclined to tolerate, and when
the misfortune of physical wreck overtakes any of us, we liberate the
spirit without any wasteful delay. A certain mineral extract, added to
an ordinary dose of Schlafstrank, quietly and painlessly disposes of our
physical existence, and sends the spirit on its way, rejoicing in its
new found freedom."
"You mean that what we call chronic invalidism does not exist among you,
simply because your people are in the habit of killing themselves as
soon as health leaves them. It is one way of escaping earthly troubles.
But are there not some exceedingly painful scenes when the conviction is
forced home to anyone that it is becoming necessary to do this? Do you
feel no horror of the passage from Here to the great Hereafter?"
"Why should we? A sickly body is no fit tenement for a spirit which is
striving for Allwisdom and Deitic Purity. So the sooner we discard it,
the sooner we reach Heaven. Sometimes we are sorry to leave friends
behind, but I never heard anyone who felt the slightest dread of
severance, or who ever hesitated a moment as to the ultimate benefits of
such a step. On the contrary, it often occurs that New Amazonians are
inclined to discard the body before it is needful or expedient to do so.
We, therefore, do not sanction self-extinction until our physicians and
surgeons have carefully diagnosed a case, and pronounced their opinion
on it. If there is any chance of recovery, the patient is subjected to
the influence of Schlafstrank, and eventually awakens cheerfully,
prepared to make a sensible use of the respite given to the body. If
recovery is hopeless, the patient is provided with mineralized
Schlafstrank, and at once cheerfully relinquishes all hold upon matter."
"But suppose the subject is insane; what is done then?"
"Ah, well, insanity is of very rare occurrence with us. The Mother takes
such care of her children that they have practically no anxieties. While
we are young we are educated and cared for, and when we are old we are
always pensioned off, and do not need to labour unless we choose. Few of
us, however, care to give up work altogether. When, unfortunately,
physical influences work upon the mind in such a manner as to produce
the phenomenon called insanity, the Mother at once relieves the spirit
of the ties which would effectually prevent the slightest advancement,
towards the great goal."
"Kills all insane persons, in fact?"
"Yes; in mercy and justice to themselves."
"And what is your theory as to the condition of insane people after
death?"
"Well, they are more remotely removed from the state which entitles us
to the bliss of living in unison with Life-giver, because the condition
of the body has prevented them from acquiring the degree of perfection
which can be reached by healthy persons. But it is only a question of
time and degree. Insanity is a disease of the brain; the brain is
essentially material; release the spirit from this gross encasement, and
its chances of ultimately reaching Heaven are as great as when it first
emanated from our glorious Life-giver herself."
"I suppose crime is occasionally to be met with in New Amazonia?"
"Sometimes; but very rarely. There is very little incentive to crime
here; when it does occur, we accept it as an indication of a diseased
brain, and forthwith use our best efforts to cure the disease. We
generally succeed in doing so; but if the case, after repeated and
careful doctoring, proves incurable, of course the ordinary treatment of
the hopelessly insane is adopted."
"But do you feel no repulsion at the idea of sending a soul stained with
crime to Hell?"
"Hell? There is no Hell! That is an old superstition of the Ancients at
which I have often wondered."
"After that I am prepared to hear you say that there is no devil!"
"Most certainly I do say so. I have read of the most extraordinary
beliefs in witchcraft, sorcery, and the possession by evil spirits, to
which all nations used to lend themselves. It was said that they were
perpetually at war with all the children of Life-giver, and that the
sole purpose of their existence was to prevent people from getting to
Heaven. Our great God, whom we call Life-giver, created us in Her image,
to be Her associates as soon as our spirits are sufficiently ennobled
and purified. Life-giver is good. She has created everything. She loves
the creatures She has cast in Her own image. She would not deliberately
try to negative Her own work by creating evil spirits to harass us. As
for anything being at deliberate war with Her, and going about the world
endeavouring to foil Her plans, it is preposterous to believe it. She
would at once annihilate anything so monstrous."
"But you surely do not believe that we shall all, good and evil, be
awarded the same fate after death?"
"No, I do not. Have I not already tried to explain this to you? Our
earthly career is our training school. If we take advantage of all our
opportunities, and act in accordance with what we conceive to be the
wishes of a Divine and Beneficent Creator, we may hope to be translated
to ultimate bliss at no distant period after the death of our bodies.
But if we deliberately fail to travel in the direction of steady
advancement, we condemn our spirit to endure ages of banishment before
it is finally sufficiently purified to partake of the happiness which is
the portion of those who have pierced the veil of ignorance, and have
entered the kingdom of Divine All-knowledge and Beatitude. You talk of a
place called Hell! What worse punishment can be needed for erring souls
than to know that to their own perversity they are indebted for being
debarred from all happiness and association with purer spirits for ages
untold!"
"One more question. We believe that Jesus of Nazareth was sent to save
sinners. Do you reject that doctrine?"
"In one sense, yes. In another, no. We believe that from time to time
our Creator has permitted individual beings to lead such pure and holy
lives as to be a shining example to others, and a stimulus to exertion
in the right direction. Jesus of Nazareth was one of the greatest and
noblest of these men, and, as such, his name is honoured amongst us. But
we do not believe that the Creator awarded incalculable suffering to one
creature, in order that we might suffer less. We are sentient beings,
and are expected to work out our own salvation."
Thus far Principal Grey had been very patient with me, but as there are
limits even to New Amazonian endurance, I resolved to refrain from
questioning her further during this walk, and bestowed a little more
attention upon surrounding objects, while at the same time carefully
weighing the import of our long conversation.
CHAPTER XI.
It was not long, however, before my train of thought brought me back to
the old groove. I reflected that although I had been told that people
whose energies were failing generally preferred to give themselves a
quietus, I still did not know how it was that no one seemed to bear any
of the usual marks of age. I could hardly believe that the approach of a
wrinkle, or a slight failing in any given direction, would be considered
a sufficient warning to put an end to earthly troubles and yet I met not
a single individual who looked as if she or he was even nearing old age.
"It is strange," I said at last, "that everyone here seems gifted with
perpetual youth. I wish you would explain the mystery to me."
"Nothing easier," she rejoined. "I was just taking you to see one of our
most important buildings. Follow me."
Nothing loath, and with my curiosity roused to the very apex of
expectation, I followed my guide into a magnificent building which we
had approached. There were many other people entering at the same time,
and more careful observation convinced me that none of them looked quite
as bright and healthy as the New Amazonians with whom I had hitherto
associated.
I looked enquiringly at Principal Grey. She did but smile, and bid me be
seated.
"Wait awhile," she said, "and you shall witness a miracle."
Being deprived of the necessity for action for a time, yet fully
appreciating the advantages of a welcome rest, I made diligent use of my
eyes, and marvelled much at the rugged, chaste grandeur of the building,
which Principal Grey told me was the Andersonia Physiological Hall.
There was a marvellous groined roof, supported by equally marvellous
granite pillars. The floor was tesselated, the doors of massive clamped
oak, and the windows were wonderful dreams of the glass-painter's art.
The splendid staircase which led from the central hall to the upper
storys was of brilliant white marble, the balusters being of polished
red granite, as were also the numerous fluted columns which supported
both staircase and ceiling. The whole building was a perfect dream of
taste and splendour, but it was the people, after all, who claimed most
of my attention.
It seemed to me that those who entered the Hall, and passed on to what
Principal Grey called the "Renewing Rooms," were none of them quite so
vigorous and brisk as those who passed us on their return. And yet the
latter all seemed to have grown unaccountably stouter in one arm, which
they carried with almost wooden stiffness and awkwardness.
Of course I looked my enquiries, but for a time my guide and entertainer
preferred to tantalise me by refraining from explaining the mystery
which puzzled me.
When at last she did condescend to enlighten my ignorance, I could
scarcely restrain my incredulity, for it seemed to me that I was now
asked to believe the greatest wonder of all. I was told that the primary
purpose of this building was to afford facilities for inoculating the
aged or debilitated with the nerves of young and vigorous animals, and
that this was the explanation of the fact that I had as yet seen no
really old-looking people in New Amazonia.
"We all resort at times to the Physiological Hall for recuperation and
rejuvenation," said my companion, "and it is to the benefit we derive
here that much of our national prosperity is due. The breeding and
rearing of the animals required is an expensive branch of State economy,
but all expenses are more than counterbalanced by the fees which we
willingly pay for each operation. Even apart from the fact that we are
individually and collectively enormously benefitted by our rejuvenating
system, it gives employment to a large number of people, and adds
considerably to the revenues of the State."
"And since when has the system been in vogue?" I asked, deeply
interested.
"Only within the last four hundred years, although it is on reliable
record that experiments in that direction were inaugurated by Professor
Brown-Sequard in the nineteenth century. But in those days the human
race was only just awakening to a knowledge of the benefits and beauties
of science, and it remained for posterity to recognise the full value of
Professor Brown-Sequard's invention. Do you observe that marble statue,
extending the right hand in kindly welcome to all who enter this
building?"
"Yes. I noticed it on entering. It is a splendid conception."
"Not more splendid than the genius of the man it is intended
to personify. It is a memorial statue of the inventor of
Nerve-Rejuvenation. It is essentially idealistic, as no counterfeit
presentment of Brown-Sequard has been preserved for the admiration of
future ages, but as every statue in his honour is reproduced in the
likeness of this one, we are all familiar with what is supposed to be
his presentment, just as even in days of old everyone recognised the
portrait of Christ the Martyr when they saw it."
I got up to inspect the statue more closely, for I had a sort of
second-hand interest in the original. I had once met a gentleman, who
had attended his initiatory lecture in Paris on "The Art of not Growing
Old." I was sure, however, that the professor would never recognise
himself here, for the statue was idealised into the presentment of a
beneficent, powerful, godlike form, which was as devoid of all Gallic
characteristics, as it was beautiful in conception. I refrained,
however, from insinuating that this was the reverse of a true likeness,
and contented myself with praising the thing as a work of art.
"And who is your sculptor?" I enquired admiringly.
"Bernard O'Hagan."
"I thought men were excluded from sharing artistic and scientific
pursuits with you?"
"By no means. Some of our most famous professors are men and the
Lectureships are open to all who can head the list in our annual
competitions. The chief Governmental offices are all appropriated by
women, in sheer self-defence, in the first instance, and, later on,
because the world's experience goes to prove that masculine government
has always held openings for the free admission of corruption,
injustice, immorality, and narrow-minded, self-glorifying bigotry. The
purity and wisdom of New Amazonian Government is proverbial, and we know
better than to admit the possibility of retrogression by permitting male
governance again. Nevertheless, we are not disposed to be narrow-minded
ourselves, by way of avenging past oppression. Our Tribunes, Privy
Councillors, Prime Advisers, and Leader are always women. But with
respect to everything else, the sexes stand on an equal footing, both
women and men who have attained the age of forty-five being privileged
to vote at all elections."
"And in the case of married people, which is supposed to be the head of
the household?"
"Whichever of the two happens to be best qualified to direct domestic
affairs with the greatest wisdom. Our tenets preach equality in the
married state, and as people of uncongenial temperament have no trouble
in obtaining a divorce, it is seldom that serious marital disturbances
are heard of. The mere knowledge that marriage is a civil compact, which
may almost be dissolved at will, serves to restrain violent ebullitions
of temper. As a rule, our divorcees are very good friends after their
marriage has been judicially dissolved."
"Still, domestic involvements of this sort must serve to distract the
attention from serious duties, and reduce individual capability of
taking an active part in public work."
"Your deduction is perfectly logical, but has no foundation in fact, for
this reason—we permit no one to be elected for State offices who has
ever been married; nor are important professorial posts accessible by
them, although trade agencies and countless minor offices are open to
them. The result of this policy is manifold. Our population scarcely
increases at all, and the necessity of emigration, which is practised by
less moral and more prolific nations, does not even loom in the distant
future for us. We have no great dearth of resources to face, nor have we
to battle with the incalculable evils forced upon other States by
over-population. Our laws and social economy hold out wonderful premiums
for chastity, and the result is that all our most intellectual
compatriots, especially the women, prefer honour and advancement to the
more animal pleasures of marriage and re-production of species."
"Am I to understand from this, that you do not hold the condition of
motherhood in honour?"
"By no means. If you will take careful note of your surroundings ere you
leave us, you will see that as much public homage is paid to married
women as to single ones. But we believe that perfect clearness of brain,
and the ability to devote oneself exclusively to intellectual topics,
are inseparable from the celibate state, and we adhere rigidly to the
rules established in connection with this subject."
"It must, I suppose, be impossible even here to escape some taint of
immorality. For instance, it must be a great temptation to many people
to keep themselves eligible for election by remaining single, and yet to
indulge secretly in carnal propensities. How do you act in the case of
illegitimate children?"
"Illegitimate children are an almost unheard of phenomenon here. We do
not tolerate vice, and our punishments usually prove adequate
deterrents. A woman found guilty of adultery is at once degraded, and
never attains to any other position than that of the lowest menial in
one of our public institutions."
"And what of the man? He is allowed to go scot-free with us. Is it so
with you?"
"No man who has once offended in that direction ever has the opportunity
of repeating his crime in New Amazonia, for he is at once bereft of all
he possesses, and banished from the country. Not only does he lose all
present possessions, but forfeits the pension he would otherwise enjoy
in his old age. He is not permitted to return to the country."
"Then your punishment of the man is infinitely the most severe?"
"Yes. It is long since we recognised the necessity of repressing vice by
other methods than our forerunners adopted."
"And what are your laws in relation to the legal and moral rights of
illegitimates?"
"We have no laws on the subject, simply because the offspring of vice is
not permitted to live. We New Amazonians pride ourselves upon being of
none but honourable parentage."
This information was delivered in such a calm and matter-of-fact tone
that I involuntarily shuddered, and hastened to change the subject.
"Do you think I could witness an operation in that inner room without
feeling specially horrified?" I asked next.
"You shall yourself be operated upon, if you will," replied Principal
Grey. "You are a guest of the Mother, and will have no fees to pay, but
you will derive wonderful benefit. I wish to be operated upon myself,
and we will go in together."
"But stay one moment. Did you not say that people were inoculated at the
expense of young animals, whose nerves are used to rejuvenate their
tormentors? I cannot possibly go in there, and face vivisectional
cruelties. To see the poor brutes writhe in tortured agony; to witness
the fearful rolling of their glaring eyeballs; to listen to their
despairing cries and groans, in order that I may benefit by their
sufferings, is an ordeal I cannot go through. I will wait here, until
you have been inoculated, but I cannot go myself."
"Nonsense, my dear woman," smiled the Principal. "You are talking with
no more perception of the advancement of science than if you really
lived in that nineteenth century to which you so oddly claim to belong.
The animals do not suffer one little bit, as you will see when you go
into the 'Renewing Rooms.' Long ago, a German chemist invented a
wonderful ether, which he called 'Bändiger.' It had the power of
instantaneously arresting sense and motion. Perfect unconsciousness was
produced with electrical rapidity, and the clever chemist expected to
earn his country's gratitude for his marvellous discovery. But in those
days governments were exceedingly narrow-minded, and the German
Government was so struck with the remarkable powers for harm which the
new discovery possessed, that it ignored all its beneficial qualities,
and actually forbade the chemist to manufacture 'Bändiger' in future.
Happily, he was more enlightened than his rulers, and not merely did his
best to improve upon his invention, but left careful instructions to his
successors relating to its manufacture. Many years after this, a
miniature revolver was invented which, instead of cartridges, was
charged with minute cells of 'Bändiger.' These 'Bändiger' revolvers were
subsequently manufactured in large quantities in America, and as the
State monopolised the manufacture, and charged high prices for every
weapon, besides exacting a heavy tax for the privilege of using them,
they proved a very profitable monopoly. From America their use spread to
India, where they were speedily efficacious in ridding the country of
the countless numbers of wild beasts which annually slaughtered a great
proportion of the population. The 'Bändiger' does not kill. It only
stuns instantaneously, the effect lasting long enough to enable us to
kill outright, or to make such experiments as are required in the
interests of science and progress. An animal once subjected to its
influence feels no more pain, for it is absolutely unconscious during
all subsequent operations, and if it has been too much cut up to recover
easily, it is at once killed. If not, the administration of Schlafstrank
enables it to recuperate painlessly, and be available for future
experiments."
"This 'Bändiger' is really a frightful power. Does it never happen that
crime is committed by its aid?"
"Never. Nobody ever has the handling of a 'Bändiger' revolver, except
our duly qualified and licensed surgeons, and they would not imperil
their future existence and prosperity by stupid indulgence in a
senseless freak. But come, we must now go in, or the rooms will be
closed for the day."
This time I was not reluctant to follow the Principal, and I was very
agreeably surprised on entering the "Renewing Room." My mind's eye had
conjured a vision of gory disorder, the central figure of which was the
quivering and bleeding body of some unhappy animal, and the prominent
accessories some brawny and bare-armed surgeons, whose perspiring brows,
blood-stained hands, and callous cruelty of expression would be anything
but reassuring to the trembling and expectant human beings waiting to be
inoculated.
What I really saw was this: The room to which an attendant conducted us
was richly carpeted, and furnished with Oriental luxuriousness. Every
accessory to comfort was there, and several people were either standing
talking in animated groups, or lounging on the spacious cushioned chairs
and settees. Some were reading, some sipping coffee, some playing with
some beautiful dogs, that basked in front of the fire. A few were busy
at needlework, but all seemed thoroughly at home. There were several
tables laden with prints and papers. A magnificent bookcase occupied one
end of the room. The walls were panelled in bird's-eye maple, and
decorated with beautiful pictures, all photographed in their natural
colours, which stood out as vivid and brilliant as in an oil painting.
The operating surgeons were six in number—four of them being women, two
men. They were all handsome, of splendid physique, elegantly dressed,
and of dignified yet gentle and calm demeanour. Not a bit like the ogres
my excited fancy had pictured.
In one of the window recesses was a sort of bassinette, in which a large
dog lay motionless, and apparently sleeping, with a screen partially
hiding him from observation. To this dog the surgeons journeyed before
attacking the bared arm of the individual to be operated upon. In an
incredibly short time the task of inoculation was performed, the people
hardly ceasing their pleasant hum of conversation the while. Then the
arm was tightly bandaged, and the patient went on her or his way
rejoicing, after paying the necessary fees to an official whose duty it
was to receive them in an ante-room.
Presently an electric-bell was rung. Two attendants entered the room,
pushed the bassinette through a door at one side of the window, and drew
an empty one from an opening at the other side. Then one of the dogs was
coaxed from the hearth, and given a dainty and appetising meal,
afterwards springing upon the bassinette to enjoy a quiet nap after his
good dinner. In another second the "Bändiger" had done its work, and in
a few minutes more some of the dog's nerve force was being transferred
to my own arm.
The sensation I experienced was little more than a pinprick in
intensity, but, before I left the building with Principal Grey, I felt
ten years younger and stronger, and was proportionately elated at my
good fortune.
CHAPTER XII.
A subsequent conversation I had with Principal Grey also struck me as so
noteworthy that I jotted the particulars of it down without delay, for
the benefit of possible future English readers.
I had observed that although there were plenty of people dressed with
distinctive badges and colours, whose function it was to preserve order
and regulate the traffic, as the policemen do with us, I saw none whom I
could assume to be soldiers, and made enquiries on the subject. I was
told that standing armies were seldom maintained now, as it was no
longer the custom of nations to decimate each other by public slaughter,
but to trust to a system of international arbitration in the event of
quarrels arising.
Nevertheless, as New Amazonia was a temptingly wealthy State, thanks to
its perfect financial organisation, there was a possibility of invasion,
and great care had been lavished upon its fortifications, which, when
manned, or womaned, with trained warriors, were all but impregnable.
"Then," I said, "you do possess a trained army, after all?"
"In one sense, yes. But not in the sense you mean. We are all trained to
fight, and there is not a woman or man in the country who does not
thoroughly understand military discipline. Our training begins in
infancy, and includes riding, shooting, swimming, diving, ballooning,
and every possible military exercise. In time of war we should all
receive remuneration commensurate with what we realise by the aid of our
ordinary avocations, _plus_ an additional third. Our discipline is
severe, but we glory in it, and all New Amazonia could be ready for
action within an hour. A few foolhardy attempts to vanquish us have been
made, but our foes suffered so severely that we are scarcely likely to
be molested again. Still, our vigilance is never relaxed, and our cordon
of sentries is so perfect and efficient, that not even one stranger can
intrude here without being speedily discovered. These sentries perform a
double duty, for they effectually prevent all attempts to either import
or export any goods that have not yielded their due proportion of profit
to the Mother."
"Then New Amazonians cannot claim exemption from the temptation to
smuggle?"
"No, and yes. Such attempts used to be frequent in bygone days, but the
punishment for smuggling is so severe, and immunity from detection so
problematical, that the vice is almost stamped out."
"And what is the punishment meted to offenders in this direction?"
"Foreigners are publicly whipped and expelled, _minus_ their goods. New
Amazonians are deprived of civil rights and relegated to inferior
duties."
"Bad enough," I soliloquised. "And, now, there is another thing which
puzzles me somewhat. What with war, seafaring, and a thousand accidents
to which men are more exposed than women, so many male lives are lost in
my country, that the feminine element predominates everywhere, just as
it seems to have done in Teuto-Scotland, when the project of
re-colonising Ireland was first mooted. Is there a tendency in this
direction with you now? And, if so, do you take steps to counteract it?"
"We have devoted much thought to the subject; and have come to the
conclusion that even where all the causes of masculine extinction which
you have named are absent, then is still a tendency for women to
outnumber men. This is easily accounted for. Very few children die with
us in infancy, but it is a fact that boys succumb more easily to
infantile disorders than girls. We desire to preserve an equality of the
sexes, nevertheless, and perfect physiological knowledge enables us to
solve this problem, as we have done many others which the Ancients
deemed unsolvable."
"I notice that all your people are magnificently formed, but you must be
subject to certain ailments. Toothache, for instance, which is a perfect
scourge with us."
"That is a phenomenon to which we are here quite strange, I am glad to
say. We would as soon expect our skulls to become diseased, as to see
our teeth decay. We know the exact chemical constituents of bone, and
are careful to supply the constitution with perfect bone-forming food.
We also avoid everything that has been proved to be an injurious article
of diet."
"But individual temptation must sometimes break through this rule of
abstinence?"
"It cannot. No sooner is anything condemned by the Mother, than its
importation or manufacture is strictly forbidden, and that particular
article is soon unobtainable in the country."
"I suppose malformed or crippled children are occasionally brought into
the world, even here. What becomes of them?"
"They are at once sent to spend their term of probation in less material
spheres."
"Now, in relation to love matters. With which sex rests the onus of
proposing marriage?"
"With either sex, of course I do not see how it could be otherwise."
"It is very much otherwise with us. A woman may be dying for love, but
she is not supposed to betray the fact to anyone, until the object of
her desires intimates that he has set his affections upon her."
"But suppose that he intimates no such thing? Do you mean to say that
she is not even then to express her preference?"
"Then less than ever! The object of her affections would not think her
worth having if she were won too easily, even if he wanted her. If he
did not want her, he would most probably sneer about her love-lorn
condition to all his acquaintances, and they would be highly amused at
her unwomanliness in presuming to love before she had been asked."
"Well, I do not envy you your social institutions! It seems to me that
your men must be insufferable cads, and your women nothing less than
fools. Why do they permit such an anomalous state of things? Can they
not see that this is only another of the countless meshes with which
masculine egotism has woven the net of slavery and oppression? The man
who can look upon a true woman's love for himself with anything but
respect and grateful sympathy is nothing better than a cur, who is
himself unworthy of the esteem of all honourable people."
The Principal spoke with considerable warmth, and I was so struck with
the force of her remarks, that I promised to lay her views before my own
countrywomen at no distant date. I had, however, not much confidence in
the efficacy of any appeal I might make to womanly pride, seeing that so
little has yet been done in England to induce women to think and act for
themselves, and to endeavour to break through the multitude of social
barriers which have been erected by man's selfishness, tyranny, and
arrogance. Still, it has often happened that the absurdity of a custom
has only needed to be demonstrated in black and white for its doom to be
sealed, and I introduce this subject to the notice of my countrywomen,
in the hope that it may induce some of them to bestow a little more
thought upon the anomalies of their position, and use their best
endeavours to remove at least some of the partially self-created
disabilities they suffer from.
By way of diverting the Principal's attention from a subject which
aroused both her anger and contempt, I remarked upon the delightful
purity of the atmosphere here, and opined that infectious diseases could
not be very prevalent.
"We have heard of such evils," was the reply, "but science and common
sense united have combated them effectually. Two of our finest statues
are in honour of a couple of scientists who must be ranked amongst the
most famous benefactors of their kind who have ever lived. I allude to
Koch and Pasteur, whose discoveries inaugurated a happy era of immunity
from disorders which once killed thousands of human beings annually.
Unfortunately for their contemporaries, the world at large looked upon
their discoveries as only interesting from the scientists' point of
view, failing to recognise the fact that a gigantic revolution in
medicine was impending. In some of our archives mention is made of a Dr.
Austin Flint, who asserted that such a revolution was not far off. But
his utterances fell on ears that were mostly deaf or unheeding. And yet,
to the discovery and study of bacteria the most incalculable benefits to
the human race are to be attributed. So perfect has the knowledge on
this subject now become, that the cause of every infectious disease is
well known. They are all easily preventible, but where, through possible
slight relaxation of watchfulness, they may break out, they are so
easily curable as to cause no alarm. It is, however, many years since a
case of infectious disease occurred in New Amazonia. Science has
succeeded in affording us absolute protection against scarlet fever,
measles, yellow fever, cholera, whooping cough, and many other dreadful
ailments which formerly decimated nations."
Naturally, I was very much interested in all these statements, and our
conversation branched into various departments of the curative art. I
was considerably amused by Principal Grey's information relative to the
Dietetic Hospital, as fine a building as any I had yet noticed in
Andersonia.
The patients in this hospital were nearly all people in physical health,
and they pursued their ordinary daily avocations with a cheerfulness
which I had never before observed in an institution patronised solely
for its curative properties. The Dietists, as they were called, resorted
to this hospital in search of cures for mental and moral failings, and
implicitly obeyed the specialists who sought to effect their cure by
means of a wise and judicious selection of food.
Thus the violent tempered found their nature considerably modified and
sweetened, after being for a few months subjected to a daily diet in
which a peculiarly prepared carrot-soup was the _pièce de résistance_.
Nervous disorders were very few here, but the slightest suspicion of a
tendency to be nervous or fidgety was provocative of a temporary flight
to the hospital, which, owing to the speed and cheapness of the
water-cars, was easily accessible to every denizen of the island. Green
peas and scarlet runners were prohibited to those whose natural
tendencies ran in a choleric direction, since they were held to be
provocative of violent temper.
On the other hand, dried peas and lentils were high in favour, as they
were said to impart good humour. The fat and frivolous were dieted
partially on turnips, in order to curtail their physical tendency to
ponderosity, and their mental leaning towards superabundance of spirits.
To cabbage a thousand virtues were ascribed, and the idea that the
consumption of animal food produced coarseness of mind and body was
responsible in great measure for the disgust with which the foreign
habit of flesh-eating was regarded.
Knowing what I now did of the peculiar religious beliefs of New
Amazonians, I could easily conceive that the most scrupulous attention
would be paid to dietetic and sanitary matters, since a healthy body was
supposed to facilitate the perfecting of the spirit, and its final
glorification.
The importance attached to diet and sanitation reminded me forcibly of
the old Mosaic laws, and I enquired if great importance was attached to
the Testamentary records of Ancient History handed down to us in the
Bible.
"Certainly," replied the Principal, very emphatically, "but we also heed
Herodotus and Josephus; and our greatest classical work on ancient
history has been compiled by twelve New Amazonian savants, who compared
all come-at-able records with such strict impartiality and absence of
special bias, that we flatter ourselves upon possessing the most
accurate and reliable records of ancient history extant."
"But you surely reverence the Bible?"
"Yes, we reverence it, most assuredly. But where historical accuracy
seems to be slightly at fault, we are not above being instructed from
other sources."
"Then what do you think of Moses as a historian, as a law-giver, and as
a general?"
"In all these respects we think that he was truly great. But, being
human, it was not impossible for him to adopt an erroneous opinion on a
given subject, or to commit a grave error of judgment. Many things for
which we can now find natural explanations must have seemed miraculous
in his days, and in no case do we believe that he placed anything on
record which he did not believe to be exactly as he described it. Still,
this does not prevent us from recognising some errors in his accounts of
the doings in former times. That he forsook the precincts of a Court, in
order to cast in his lot with his own downtrodden and oppressed people,
is proof sufficient of his innate nobility, and his fearless defence of
the ill-treated Israelitish labourers showed that he had also plenty of
the courage required in a great leader."
"And what of David?"
"King David does not arouse my personal estimation. He attained to great
eminence, and founded a family which boasted as its scion Christ the
Martyr himself. He also wrote some beautiful poetry. But when it comes
to an analysis of private character, he does not shine greatly.
Naturally, however, the Jews, whose national prestige he increased so
materially, think very highly of him. Upon the whole, we prefer the New
Testament to the Old, for the sake of its beautiful moral teachings, as
well as for its historical importance."
"You do not adhere to all its commandments?"
"No, it would be ill for us if we did. Never to speak in an assembly; to
be compelled to carry a great weight of hair about with us; to be
subservient to men in all things, and to foster woman's disabilities and
man's arrogance, to the extent preached by some of the Apostles, is
repugnant to the common sense of every woman who is able to think for
herself. But when we come across anything that is offensive to our
self-respect, we make due allowances for the egotism of man and the
customs of the times. We also remember that Jesus always showed Himself
to be woman's true friend and associate; in fact, Jesus is the one pure
and shining light which the world has produced, of whom it can truly be
said that He was free from all trace of egotism, bigotry, and arrogance.
His every word and action bespoke the possession of that Divine charity
which thinketh no evil. No wonder that even yet He is by many regarded
as God himself. Surely His spirit would pass to eternal glory without
any of the probation which we expect to endure before we reach the
perfection which shall entitle us to dwell in the uttermost realms of
bliss."
"And yet there must be many beautiful natures in so happy a land as
this."
"I grant it. But the nature that can avoid sullying the soul with
wrongdoing in these enlightened days cannot compare with the purity and
goodness of a soul which walked unstained through life in the days of
bigotry, superstition, and ignorance."
"That is true. But if we accept this opinion, we must also accept its
natural correlative, and consider that the sinner of to-day is more
blameworthy than those who sinned when to be good was not so easy as it
is now."
"Few will dispute that point with you. But it becomes necessary for me
to remind you now that unpunctuality, and neglect of duty, are grave
sins with us. You will, therefore, excuse me for a time, since it
becomes necessary for me to address the students in a few minutes from
now."
I felt rebuked for my presumption in encroaching so much upon the
Principal's time. But she was so very good-natured, and so exceedingly
willing to gratify my curiosity, that I was tempted to trespass upon her
indulgence, being urged thereto by a sense of unreality, and a
conviction that my stay in New Amazonia would terminate as suddenly and
as mysteriously as it had begun. It was natural, therefore, that I
should wish to post myself up in all the information obtainable during
my sojourn here.
CHAPTER XIII.
A few hours later, I was honoured by a most embarrassing request. I say
honoured, because the request was the outcome of a desire to pay due
attention to a visitor who possessed a good passport to New Amazonian
favour in that she took an intelligent interest in her surroundings. If
I add that my diminutive stature, curious appearance, and mysterious
mode of arrival had somewhat tickled the national vein of curiosity, I
shall not be far wrong.
The service required of me was to make a public speech, in which I was
asked to give a slight account of the manners and customs of my own
country, as well as the best explanation I could give of my journey
hither, and my mode of eluding the coastguard. No doubt many of my
readers may think that such a request would not have embarrassed them.
They could have talked glibly enough, and would have felt quite
comfortable when addressing the audience which intended to listen to my
feeble utterances.
As for giving a succinct account of the journey, they could have
invented on the spot so marvellous a recital as would have excited the
wonderment of every New Amazonian. I am quite willing to admit that to
these clever individuals the forthcoming meeting would have presented no
terrors. But they may possibly comprehend my feelings when I tell them
that I had never lectured, or made a speech before a large audience in
my life. And yet, here was I expected to pose my insignificant self upon
a public platform, and address a crowded meeting at an hour's notice,
conscious all the time that thousands of people were criticising my odd
appearance and old-fashioned diction.
It certainly was no small ordeal for me to face, and I am not at all
sure that my trepidation was lessened by the information that the
Honourable Augustus was also going to give a recital of his adventures.
To be honest, I was not proud of his ability, and I was rather afraid
lest he should allow himself to be carried away by his insular, as well
as by his masculine conceit, and bring ridicule upon both of us. For,
although we knew nothing of each other's antecedents, it was inevitable
that we should be coupled together in the minds of New Amazonians, who
had never met with our like before.
Myra was solicitous that I should look my very best, and save for the
sash, which aliens were not permitted to wear, I was as gay as any
unofficial native who would be present. My escort was a large one. It
seemed to me that all the college was going, and long before we entered
the magnificent Hall of Discussion, in which I was to pose as one of the
central figures, I had come to the conclusion that everybody else in
Andersonia was bound for the same place.
"I do believe that the Hall is going to prove too small to-night,"
remarked Myra, as we gained the entrance, where a large crowd was
endeavouring to obtain an early turn at the automatic gate which
permitted none but presentees of a certain coin of the realm to obtain
access to the auditorium.
Myself and escort passed up a grand staircase, and presently reached the
platform, where my own appearance proved the signal for a loud and
long-continued burst of applause, which was presently renewed when Mr.
Fitz-Musicus was ushered on to the platform.
_He_ wasn't nervous. I could see that at a glance. I never saw anyone
look around on a vast multitude of people with such a superlatively
ridiculous affectation of arrogance and accentuated self-esteem, and a
curious conviction suddenly assailed me. The Honourable Augustus was not
of the sort of material that can ever be brought to eat humble pie,
under any circumstances whatever. His experiences in this marvellous
country only served to emphasize his national prejudices, and I could
see that, so far from acknowledging native superiority, he was bent upon
making the erstwhile proud boast that he was "a true born Englishman."
A quick, compassionate glance which he threw at me also revealed the
fact that he rather pitied me for the feminine ignorance and
incompetence which I was doomed to display ere long. But, somehow, the
irritation which his presence invariably aroused in me dispelled the
feeling of tremour with which I had hitherto been possessed, and I
defiantly resolved that whatever Mr. Fitz-Musicus himself might think
upon the subject, our audience should not vote my oratorical powers so
vastly inferior to his.
My sojourn in New Amazonia had already tended to bestow more vigour upon
me, and since my visit to the Renewing Rooms I had felt unwontedly
strong. Now that pique, wounded vanity, or a natural spirit of
emulation—call it what you will—had banished my nervousness, I felt
equal to any demands which were likely to be made upon my powers of
endurance. The Honourable Augustus was also somewhat improved in
physique, but I did not fear the contest, as I instinctively felt that
the very weapons with which he was so fond of asserting his superiority
to my own unfortunate sex would be the means of his undoing in popular
esteem, if brought into action on this occasion.
The proceedings began by our introduction to several prominent New
Amazonian celebrities, one of whom was no less an individual than the
Leader herself, whose dark green velvet attire was so richly embroidered
with gold tissue that she looked perfectly resplendent. Her cap and sash
were, in addition, adorned with gems, of which the prevailing design was
a harp encircled with shamrocks, the harps being outlined in diamonds,
and the shamrocks in emeralds.
The Leader herself was a magnificent woman, who, when her term of office
expired, would once more lapse into her former condition of comparative
obscurity as Professor of Moral Philosophy, for it was one of the laws
of this strange land, that whenever a Leader's term of office had run
out, she should for ten years at least take no further active part in
the government of her country. The next Leader elected was always one of
the Prime Advisers, who had already done duty in the ranks of the Privy
Councillors, these in their turn being elected by popular vote from the
Tribunes. It was considered desirable to afford equal chances to every
candidate for Office, hence the limitations of time insisted upon.
When the Leader entered, the whole audience rose to greet her. Then, as
soon as she and her escort were seated, and our introduction to her was
graciously acknowledged, Principal Grey, in a few well-chosen words,
described how one of her students had encountered the two strangers in
the college garden, and the arrangements that had been made for our
comfort and entertainment.
While she was still speaking, the Honourable Augustus skipped over the
stage on tiptoe and enquired _sotto voce_, "I say, are you going to
speak first, or am I?"
"Just as you like," I replied in a whisper, willing to do anything to
get rid of him, and cover his breach of manners in creating a diversion
while Principal Grey was still speaking.
"That's all right, then," he ejaculated, evidently greatly relieved.
"You see, I am used to speaking in public; and you are not. You might
spoil the impression I wish to create, if you spoke first. And
besides——"
"For goodness sake bestow your attention upon your surroundings," I
interrupted hurriedly, standing up as I spoke, and accepting the hand of
Principal Grey, who led me forward, and introduced me to the audience, a
very handsome man performing the like service for the Honourable
Augustus, who bowed so theatrically, and looked so killingly dudish,
that the one prevailing expression on the faces of all who saw him was a
large smile, which produced radiant satisfaction in Augustus.
"Mr. Fitz-Musicus wishes to speak first," I quietly informed the
Principal. She looked not a little surprised at what she evidently
regarded as his presumption. But no objection was made to the proposal,
and in another moment we were listening to the Honourable Augustus's
remarkable peroration.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he began, and was forthwith astounded to hear
deprecating murmurs all over the house. For an instant he looked
dumbfounded, then he seemed to think he knew what was wrong, and
recovered his presence of mind with magical swiftness. "I beg the pardon
of all those here assembled," he continued, "I ought to have said
_gentlemen_ and _ladies_. We are more polite in our country, and always,
when in public, do our best to flatter the _inferior sex_. However,
since you prefer it the other way, here goes. It is with great pleasure,
gentlemen and ladies——"
But it was quite impossible to catch what he said next, for he had
tickled the national sense of humour, and though the individual laughter
of each one present was the gentlest possible expression of New
Amazonian merriment, the collective result quite deadened the sound of
the "distinguished stranger's" voice.
At this juncture the Speaker rose to her feet, and stepped to the side
of the Honourable Augustus. In an instant the deepest silence reigned,
as all listened for the words of wisdom which were expected to fall from
her lips.
"My children," she began gravely, her rich voice filling the Hall with
melodious sound, "must I remind you that the laws of hospitality are
violated when the slightest interruption of the evening's programme is
made? Do you forget that it was well-known ere we met this evening that
our guests have been brought up under conditions so dissimilar to our
own, that it is impossible for them to be acquainted with our usual
forms of address, I must crave your strict silence during the remainder
of the proceedings. And you, Mr. Fitz-Musicus," she continued, "will
perhaps pardon me if I here offer the information that neither 'ladies'
nor 'gentlemen' are supposed to exist in New Amazonia. We pride
ourselves upon being honest, matter-of-fact 'women' and 'men,' and
discard the other appellations as too suggestive of affectations and
mannerisms. You will, therefore, kindly excuse the feeling of surprise
with which most of us heard ourselves greeted by words which, with us,
are terms of opprobrium."
While she spoke, the Honourable Augustus stood looking at her with an
expression of jaunty ease which spoke volumes for the invulnerability of
his _sang froid_, and even induced me to look at him with feelings in
which admiration fought for a place on a plane with my amusement.
"Oh, don't mention it, madam," he said, airily, "I might have known that
you did not aspire to the same level of culture as the English. All the
same, I am very glad if I can afford you amusement, so here goes once
more."
Raising his voice, he now turned to the audience, and so perfect were
the acoustic properties of the Hall, that every word he uttered was
heard in the most distant corner.
"I suppose," he said coolly, "that I may safely take your Mrs. Leader as
my model, and address you as 'My children.' Mighty big children some of
you are, too. I can't help thinking that I wouldn't like too many of
your size to provide for. But although it is a common adage in good old
England that, 'good stuff is put into little compass,' I am willing to
admit that there may be exceptions, and I honestly think that the Irish
race has improved since I first knew it. But you are not here to listen
to my opinions of you, but to hear my explanation of the reasons and the
method which brought me hither.
"Our parsons—I suppose you have parsons here, too—as I said, our parsons
always divide their sermons under several heads. I will be more
considerate, and use only two. In the first place, I am not conscious of
ever having had any reasons for coming here. In the second place, I know
no more of the method in which I journeyed hither than the man in the
moon. You seem to have abolished a good many things here, but I don't
suppose you have abolished the man in the moon, so you will know what I
mean. Still, I believe I can offer some sort of explanation that will be
of interest to my audience.
"When at home in my native country, I am thought pretty well of by those
who know me. In fact, I may say that I am rather a favourite both with
my own and the fair sex. This is all very well in some respects, but is
not exactly an unmixed advantage. It may not be generally known here
that I am entitled to wear the Royal Arms with a bar sinister, one of my
ancestors being no less a personage than a King of England, whom it
behoved to provide for his offspring, since his benighted people showed
a disinclination to do so.
"Unfortunately, the splendid title and pension bestowed upon the
progenitress of our family honours and emoluments have been appropriated
by my elder brother, the Duke of Quaverly, and my own allowance is so
small as to be totally inadequate to the needs of a scion of a noble
house. This has caused the limits of my enjoyments to be somewhat
circumscribed, but there is one means of increasing my pleasures which
never fails me. The practice to which I allude may not be known to you
foreigners, but you have reason to thank it, for to it you owe the
opportunity of listening to a speech by the Honourable Augustus
Fitz-Musicus.
"I cannot say how long it is since, for I have got rather mixed up in my
dates. But one evening I accompanied a friend of mine to a certain
establishment in Soho, where we partook of some Hasheesh, and,
comfortably reclining upon some velvet lounges, resigned ourselves to
the enjoyment of the dreams which we expected. My dreamy state came on
soon enough, but the first thing I remember is finding myself stuck up
an apple tree. I must leave it to the perspicacity of the assembled
multitude to explain how I came there.
"As you already know, I was not the only fresh importation from my
country, but the other party will speak for herself by-and-bye. Then one
of your—a—must I say women? Ah, yes—one of your women, and a dooced fine
woman too, came upon the scene; cut the other party altogether; took a
violent fancy to myself; and informed others of my arrival. I have been
well-treated since I came here, that is, as well as you know how to do
it.
"But I think it's a confounded nuisance not to be able to get hold of a
bit of butcher's meat. And it's just beastly to be unable to raise a
smoke in any shape or form.
"There are many other things in which we Londoners at least can beat you
into fits. There is a much greater proportion of married women among us.
I have been told that the women here prefer to be old maids, but I know
a trick worth two of that. I have often heard the same sort of thing in
England, and the very people that professed such sentiments always
snapped at the first chance of a husband they got, I may say that I
prefer teetotalism just now, but oh, Jemima! don't I wish that some of
you would tempt me with a bottle of Moët and Chandon! In fact, the very
thought of all I am deprived of while here has thoroughly upset me, and
I don't care how soon I'm home again."
Saying this, poor ill-used Augustus ceased speaking, and sat down on the
seat provided for him with such a sour and discontented expression on
his face that one could almost fancy a transformation had taken place,
and that was someone other than the man who commenced his speech so
jauntily.
As for the audience, it seemed to me that every face I looked at wore an
expression of disgust at the man who was rewarding the Mother's
hospitality so rudely. The deep silence which followed upon the speech
from which much edification had been expected, appeared to me to be so
ominous of displeasure, that all my erstwhile nervousness re-appeared in
full force.
But I was anxious to undo the unpleasant impression which my countryman
had made, and, the initiatory sentence of my speech once got over, I
talked fluently enough. I really do not remember half of what I said,
but think that I must have expressed myself graphically and
satisfactorily enough, for I sat down amid a perfect thunder of
applause, which caused the Honourable Augustus to look daggers at me. I
daresay he was justified in doing so, for I fancy that when I was
drawing comparisons between my own country and the one in which we were
sojourning, and all to the credit of the latter, he believed me to be
actuated more by a desire to flatter my audience than to speak the
honest truth.
That he was mistaken in this respect I can truthfully say, but I do not
suppose he has forgiven me to this day, unless he has come to look upon
the whole affair as the production of his Hasheesh-laden imagination.
But whatever my countryman may have thought of my performance, it
evidently satisfied everybody else, and I was very glad that this was
so, as I felt that some return was due from me for all the kindness and
hospitality I had met with during my sojourn here.
CHAPTER XIV.
I was now invited as the guest of many distinguished personages, and
thoroughly enjoyed my life for the next few days. I found New Amazonian
men quite as charming as the women, both as regards physique and
culture. Beards were in great favour here, and shaving was decidedly at
a discount, but a great length of hair was not coveted by anyone, and
the beards were always neatly clipped.
At the different entertainments I noticed a great deal of promiscuity
such as would hardly be tolerated in aristocratic English society. Not
that there was ever anyone present who was not perfectly well-bred. But
intellect was the principal passport to social privileges here, and we
all know that intellectuality may languish in obscure corners in
England, unless backed by strong personal or monetary interest, and that
our class prejudices are unpleasantly strong.
A young mechanician whom I met at the house of one of the Prime Advisers
was a universal favourite, and his modesty and good sense were admirable
foils to the plethora of self-esteem which I have seen engendered in
English "lions" for far less potent reasons. I was told that his
inventions and improvements in matters relating to sanitary science were
so marvellous and of so beneficent a nature, that he was to be rewarded
with the medal of the Order of Merit, an honour which, it will be
observed, was well worth having, he being only the thirtieth recipient
within two hundred years.
It was not difficult for me to secure an interview with him, as mutual
curiosity drew us together. If I had expected his conversation to savour
of "shop," I was strongly mistaken, for not a word of his own great
achievements did he breathe, and he drew me out so skilfully, that
half-an-hour passed in conversation with him before his professional
instincts were at all aroused, and then it was in response to some reply
I had made respecting the locality in which I resided when last I
remembered being in my own country.
"Within fifteen minutes walk of the house in which George Stephenson
resided!" he exclaimed in great wonderment. "I always understood that it
was quite a humble affair. Surely it must have crumbled to dust
centuries ago?"
"By no means." I returned. "The cottage looked very pretty and
picturesque the last time I saw it. It is tenanted by people who take a
pride in the garden, and it would compare favourably in external
appearance with any other cottage of the same size in England. It is
known locally as the 'Dial House,' as it boasts a sundial of which some
portion was the work of Stephenson himself. At the end of the house is a
very well-stocked greenhouse, and the space of ground in which the great
engineer had some lines laid for experimental purposes is converted into
a kitchen garden."
"It seems so incredible, that I can hardly take it all in," said John
Saville, with a smile which robbed his words of all possibility of
giving offence. "Nevertheless, I would give much to be able to see the
same place, and witness the actual scenes in which a great genius
conceived the wonderful inventions which revolutionised the commerce and
social relations of the world."
"But you would not appear to venerate Stephenson's inventions very much,
since you have discarded them altogether in favour of other systems of
locomotion."
"True. But our electric-hydraulic-ways are in reality gradual
evolvements arising from the basis afforded by a knowledge of locomotive
travelling, as it still existed a few centuries ago. And we can never
forget that for some hundreds of years railways were the chief factors
of civilisation."
"There is another thing which New Amazonians have discarded, for no
sufficient reason it seems to me."
"And that is?"
"Christianity."
"There you labour under a mistake. New Amazonians did not discard
Christianity. It was Christianity which declined to help them. When New
Amazonia was first peopled by the colonists from Teuto-Scotland, the
adult colonists were, as you doubtless know, all women. It was the
intention of these women to govern their State with as much success as
was compatible with the rejection of conventionality and traditionary
laws. It had hitherto been their lot to be excluded from a great
proportion of national privileges, which had been usurped by the
masculine sex for ages. In casting about for the principal causes of
their limitations of fairplay, they found, them, or thought they did so,
in the doctrines of Christianity. One of the principal Christian writers
indeed, seemed to be quite as much bent upon insulting, humiliating, and
subjugating woman, as he was upon spreading the Christian cause. New
Amazonian leaders found that they could not take an active part in
public affairs without violating all the rules laid down for woman's
guidance and man's encouragement by the Apostle Paul. It was a case
either of Christianity and reversion to Slavery, or a sort of
Unitarianism and Freedom, and they did not hesitate long as to what
choice to make. They were not likely, being intelligent beings, to
inaugurate a retrogressive movement by instructing their boys in tenets
which constantly preached the inferiority and subservience of women,
especially as they believed St. Paul's utterances on matters feminine to
be dictated more by spite than by honest conviction."
"And what were their grounds for this belief?"
"Their reasons are easily explained. We have it on reliable authority
that Saul of Tarsus, whose parents were Greeks, not Jews, but who had
himself adopted the Jewish persuasion, was a man of very violent
passions and prejudices. He hated the Christians, and took delight in
helping to exterminate them. It was when in Jerusalem, bent upon some
such mission, that he was introduced to the daughter of the Jewish High
Priest, and fell passionately in love with her. To his intense
mortification, his proposal for her hand was rejected, and he henceforth
hated both women and Jews, becoming enthusiastically Christian by way of
a change."
"But, even if this be true, the fact that Paul is not believed in here
would hardly account for the repudiation of the doctrines taught by the
other apostles of Christianity."
"I think it would. You see, Paul was a man of great ability, who had had
the advantage of studying under one of the greatest teachers of the age.
His words carried weight with them, and influenced those with whom he
associated. His writings and influence are inseparable from
Christianity. Even were this not so, there is only too much proof given
in History that of all bigots and fanatics, Christian bigots and
fanatics are the most cruel, relentless, and implacable. Christ Himself
would have repudiated a religion which has made His name an excuse for
robbery, oppression, murder, and immorality."
"You surely exaggerate enormously. All Christians disseminate the
doctrines preached by Christ in His famous Sermon on the Mount. The Ten
Commandments especially are taught to all young Christians."
"Yes, and a fine mockery it has been, to be sure! You will remember that
one commandment adjures us to refrain from making 'any graven image, nor
the likeness of anything that is in the heaven above, or in the earth
beneath, or in the water under the earth.' We are forbidden to bow down
to such things, or to worship them. And yet how small a proportion of
Christian peoples ever obeyed these injunctions! Until the time of one
Martin Luther, God himself was utterly set aside in the Christian
churches, which were filled with images and shrines, before which
deluded suppliants poured out their vain supplications. Christianity had
been entirely supplanted by Idolatry, and existed as such only in name.
Again, we are forbidden to take the name of the great Life-giver in
vain, and yet what do we find recorded? Priests, calling themselves
Christians, professed to have the power to grant forgiveness of sins in
the name of the Almighty! Some of these sins were actually _in futuro_,
and whether past, or still to be committed, their confession to a
priest, accompanied by the gift of a sum of money, ensured a free pardon
from Heaven. Of course, the _money_ was always required, and those who
were too poor to pander to priestly greed were remorselessly consigned
to Purgatory. Murder, of course, was strictly forbidden, and yet the
advocates of Christianity murdered and tortured thousands of people,
simply because they presumed to differ slightly in opinion from those in
office. Stealing was prohibited; but the priests were willing to take
the last mite from the oppressed poor, rather than abate one jot of
their lazy, sensuous privileges. As for the sin of covetousness, in whom
has it ever shown itself more rampant than in the men whose chief
energies were directed towards appropriating the wealth of all with whom
they came in contact, for the joint benefit of themselves and the
Church?"
"I grant you all this. But it refers to a state of things which has long
since passed away."
"Has image-worship passed away? Do priests work for the pure love of
God, or do they look upon their vocation as a means of making a
livelihood more to their taste than some others? Is the priestly office
the guerdon of merit and ability? Or is it still the perquisite of those
who have money and family influence at command? Do priests exercise
universal charity and kindly feeling? Have they given up thinking that
none but themselves and a few like-minded individuals will be allowed to
enter Heaven? Do they feel as much reverence for goodness in the lowly,
as they do for grandeur in high places? Do they discourage the presence
in their churches of disreputable persons, if these persons happen to be
rich, and are able to be used as pecuniary aids? In a word, are the
churches possessed of truly Christ-like qualities, without which none
can be a Christian?"
John Saville had by this time worked himself into a perfect glow of
enthusiasm, while I certainly felt correspondingly humiliated, for I was
not in a position to return an affirmative answer to all his questions.
Did I not remember seeing a man who had not thrown off the effects of
the previous night's intoxication officiating in a prominent position,
with the priest's approval, in one of our Established churches? Have I
not witnessed many another instance of priestly tolerance of evil for
Mammon's sake? Have I not recently met with a specimen of clerical
intolerance which would do credit to the religious persecutors of old?
Candidates for confirmation are requested to confess their crimes to
themselves, and to turn from the error of their ways, before they can
consider themselves fit to take their stand as Christians. The sins and
crimes are presented to the eyes of the penitents in the form of printed
questions, and one of these questions runs thus: "Have you ever entered
a _Dissenting Chapel_?"
I saw this myself in the year 1889, and was compelled now to admit the
conviction that to discard Christ and to discard Christianity may be two
very different things. It seemed marvellous, when I came to think of it,
how a thinking people like the New Amazonians should, after all these
ages, have singled out Christ as the one pure and shining light of
earth, so godlike as to be worthy of being at once translated to
companionship with the Giver of Life, seeing that His professed devotees
have, since the earliest times of the Church, done more to bring His
cause into disrepute than all His enemies.
"You admit yourself worsted?" smiled Mr. Saville.
"I confess as much," I replied. "But how comes it that you, a man,
should so enthusiastically uphold the only Constitution in the world
which has, so far as I know, successfully resisted man's striving for
supremacy?"
"Because I am thoroughly satisfied and contented with my lot, and
because no country upon earth presents such advantages to her citizens
as New Amazonia does. Our women have proved their capacity to govern
wisely and well. Our Constitution has found imitators, proof positive
that others regard our system with approval. Yet nowhere do we meet with
such health and prosperity as in our country, for man's political
influence has in all ages proved corruptive and retrogressive. Our
health is perfect, and we know that it is to the beneficent rule of our
women that we owe our strength of mind and body. It would be suicidal on
our part to wish to revert to a state of things which insured us nothing
so much as sickly bodies. For how could we expect to be strong and
healthy as we are if our mothers were reduced to the condition of the
women some of us see when we travel?"
"But do you not find your social masculine disabilities somewhat
irritating?"
"We do not labour under any disabilities of importance that I know of.
We are not eligible for Political Office, but many men hold important
and lucrative posts under Government, in which our administrative
talents are given fairplay and in all other respects the educational,
social, and elective privileges of the sexes are perfectly equal."
"I am glad to hear such opinions from you. If you could hear the
croaking that goes on in my country at the mere prospect of women being
allowed to vote, you would wonder at the amount of prejudice and
opposition which your ancestresses overcame."
"Well, when you get back to your country, you must try to enlighten your
own compatriots."
"Suppose I were never to find my way back, how do you suppose I should
fare here? Will the Mother soon be tired of entertaining me?"
"Not just yet, I think. But if your stay with us should prove likely to
be permanent, you would yourself most probably desire to make some
arrangement whereby you could secure a provision for old age. You
probably have been trained to a profession of some kind?"
"No, I have not. I was brought up as the majority of young women in my
country are brought up. It was supposed, I expect, that I should settle
down in due course, that is, marry, and that an independent profession
for myself would not be needed."
"And you say that such folly is the common practice in your country?
That accounts for many of the deplorable things you have told me. How
can women be independent and free, if they have to rely upon others to
keep them? Where is the woman in New Amazonia, do you think, who would
care thus to sacrifice her position of self-reliant independence? Such a
being does not exist, and I think that your women have themselves or
their guardians to thank in great measure for all the disadvantages
under which they labour. It will be rather awkward for you, though, if
you cannot turn your hand to anything."
"I suppose it would be awkward, if this were so. As it happens, however,
I never gave myself up to an idle life, but gradually drifted into
literature, and I could probably find employment on one of your numerous
journals."
"Certainly. If you are a graphic writer, you are sure of an appointment.
Such writers are always welcome, and you must have so much to say. You
will not need to cast about long for employment, should it be your lot
to remain with us, and you will be able to earn as much as will make
ample provision for old age when it comes.
"As you are perhaps aware, a small percentage of our earnings is always
appropriated by the State, and a proportionate pension becomes our due
as soon as we wish to claim it. If we claim our pension at the age of
seventy or eighty, it is relatively smaller than if we wait until our
hundredth year or thereabouts. We are usually not in a hurry to place
ourselves upon the pension list, for our active period of labour ceases
then, and this source of income is lost. Still, if we have filled
responsible positions in life, and have been fortunate enough to
accumulate wealth, we can, if we like, hand it all over to the State, in
return for an augmented annuity. My own parents have done this, and are
very happy and comfortable, with not a care in the world.
"There is also another source of profit which we enjoy. New Amazonia is
one huge co-operative establishment, for we are all interested in
promoting its stability and prosperity. There is another condition,
besides being compelled to have reached a certain age, before we can
vote at elections. We must all, women and men, purchase a share in the
country, and we are all very anxious to do so, seeing that these shares
are always at a premium, and command greater returns than any other form
of investment."
"Surely this is a source of danger to the community. Could not some
people, by purchasing a large number of shares, thus obtain the means of
usurping undue power and influence?"
"Impossible! We are not permitted to hold more than one share
individually. The idea is to make us all of equal station in the eyes of
the law, and to ensure our individual interest in the maintenance of
peace and order. When a State bondholder dies, the equivalent of her or
his bond is divided amongst such legatees as may have been named in the
will."
"And if there is no will?"
"That never happens, for it is compulsory to make a will immediately
upon becoming a State shareholder. Of course, if we wish the value of
our Bond to revert to the State, we name the State as our legatee, and
we are at liberty to alter our will whenever we please."
"You seem to have no money here, other than the all-pervading silver
unit. Is this your standard of value in all monetary transactions?"
"Yes; the unit pervades every business transaction, if not practically,
at least theoretically. But it is seldom used to pay large amounts with;
a paper currency serving our purposes much better than metal coinage
would do."
"Are private banks for business houses allowed to issue paper money?"
"No, none but State coupons are permitted to be issued."
"Now, just one more question, and then I have finished. I am told that
the State is the ultimate receiver of all manufactured goods, which may
neither be retailed nor exported without first yielding the imposed
percentage. Is it not possible for a group of speculators to force
prices up, either by buying a vast quantity of goods from the
manufacturers, and selling at their own price to the State; or, more
probable, could they not buy in large quantities from the State, and
retail at their own prices to the public?"
"Certainly not. The State would not deal with them. Nor would it permit
any increase of prices not necessitated by the legitimate exigencies of
trade. Speculators of the class to which you allude would find a sorry
field for their operations here."
I could not complain of the amount of information I had obtained from
John Saville; but I should probably have been still further enlightened
had not our hostess come to claim our attention in different directions.
But before saying farewell for the night, he asked me to visit his
parents on the day following, and promised me a little enlightenment
concerning some domestic arrangements in which I was interested.
CHAPTER XV.
On being introduced to John Saville's home, I found a great deal more of
simple solid comfort than I had expected, and such an air of domesticity
as my own residence in the college had led me to suppose altogether
absent from New Amazonian dwellings. At my own request, my visit was of
the most informal kind, and not another stranger was there here to
disturb the cosiness of the quiet chat which I wished to enjoy.
Mrs. Saville was possessed of the bright brown hair, clear rosy skin,
and deep grey eyes, so indicative of pure Irish descent, coupled with a
grace and charm of manner I had never seen equalled by an Englishwoman
of similar age. Mr. Saville also struck me as just a likely sort of man
to be the father of such a clever, popular son. It was clear that they
both doted upon him, and just as clear that he would have been sorry to
do anything likely to cause them grief.
But they did not treat me to a long category of each other's virtues,
preferring to let me form my own opinion of them as individuals, while
they did their best to initiate me into the ways of New Amazonian
domestic life. Their house consisted of a suite of rooms in a large
block of buildings in one of the best parts of Andersonia, and was
fitted with even convenience which would conduce to ease and comfort.
The furniture was ideally suitable, good, and elegant, but the pictures
on the walls, like many others which I had seen lately, amused me not a
little. It seemed to me at first that they were all out of perspective,
and that neither walking biped, running quadruped, nor flying bird was
painted aright. By-and-bye, however, I got more used to these pictorial
oddities, and caught myself thinking that when I got home again, I
should be wanting to introduce some of these Muybridgeian notions into
my own rooms.
The fire cast a comfortable glow on all around, making it difficult to
believe that the problem of fuel for the future was now definitely
settled, and that electricity could now and henceforth be made to supply
the necessary fuel for warming, lighting, cooking, and manufacturing
purposes. No dirt or dust from ashes, and no discoloration as the result
of burning gas was here felt, for neither the one nor the other were now
in use. Both had served humanity well in their day. Both were now
superseded by a much more efficient, cleanly, and convenient agent.
After our very appetising evening meal had been despatched; I was taken
on a tour of inspection round the building, or, rather, round such parts
of it as were public to all the tenants. The basement consisted entirely
of shops, which were connected by means of telephones with every suite
in the block, and could, with the aid of electric lifts, supply anything
ordered per telephone at a moment's notice. Nor was there any fear of
extortionate charges, or a poor sample of goods, since everything had to
be priced according to the day's Government scale, and the daily visits
of Government inspectors ensured the withdrawal of inferior or
unwholesome articles.
While conversing on telephonic subjects, I mentioned that even in my
benighted country we had made good use of this valuable invention.
"There are even telephones attached to churches and theatres," I said,
"by means of which a sermon or a song may be heard at great distances
from the places in which they are delivered. But of course you have even
improved upon these notions?"
"I think we have," smiled Mrs. Saville. "Some hundreds of years ago
there was hardly a building in New Amazonia which was not a perfect
network of telephones and patent lifts, and our people began to give the
Mother considerable anxiety, for they showed rapid signs of
deterioration. On looking round for the causes of this unfortunate
falling back, it was found to be produced by the mania for saving labour
and exercise of every possible sort, and drastic measures were speedily
introduced.
"Many of the lifts were abolished, and substantial staircases erected in
their stead, up and down which the people were expected to walk when
going in or out. The goods lifts were, however, not considered too
provocative of laziness and inactivity, and still remain very useful
adjuncts to civilization.
"The telephone system, though disapproved of by the Mother, did not
require quite such stringent measures to make it almost a thing of the
past, so far as mere amusement is concerned.
"When it first became possible to hear a concert or lecture without
being compelled to leave one's own house, everybody went in for this
sort of spiritless amusement. But it soon palled upon the people, for
there is no comparison between such a namby-pamby apology for social
enjoyment, and the pleasure to be derived from sitting within sight of
the speakers or musicians, and taking in their general appearance,
gestures, and accessories. Curiosity will always be one of the
strongest elements in human composition, and no social pleasure is
perfect which does not permit the eyes to aid the ears in their
appreciation of the fare offered to them. When, therefore, the novelty
of telephonic entertainments was over, the people tired of them, and
hardly cared to listen to the amusing or instructive sounds they had
paid their money to ensure. And when, a few years later, the
Government imposed a tax upon the use of all telephones not of a
strictly useful or business nature, the _coup de grâce_ was given to
the stay-at-home-and-enjoy-the-concert-at-your-ease system, and we
have never reverted to it since."
After that, I thought, I will be careful about boasting of English
progress, since what we deem the summit of luxurious ease is here looked
upon as the babyhood of true civilization.
"And did the reforms you mention produce the results which Government
aimed at?" I enquired aloud.
"Yes," was the reply. "Bodily health and strength depend in great
measure upon a rational exercise of our physical capabilities. The more
exercise of a reasonable nature we take, the stronger and the more
capable of work and enjoyment are we. The more we give way to indolence,
and yield to the temptation to stay indoors, the more demoralized and
unfit for the daily duties of life do we become. To encourage anything
that produces physical deterioration is to <DW44> our chances of
attaining spiritual perfection, and is too dear a price to pay for such
unsatisfactory results."
While talking, we were making due progress in our investigations, and by
this time had come to a part of the building which filled me with
admiring wonder. A large brass plate affixed to a massive door informed
me that these were the premises of the Domestic Aid Society. On touching
an electric bell, the door opened, and showed us a spacious vestibule,
at one side of which was situated the office of the check-clerk, whose
vocation it was to keep a strict account of all comings and goings, and
register the orders and commissions which were constantly coming in per
telephone from different parts of this and other buildings in the city.
This, it seemed, was visitors' day, and we proceeded to inspect the
Domestic Aid Society's premises at our leisure. The first room we
entered was a working hall, in which members of both sexes were busily
engaged in fashioning various articles for personal and household use.
It was a species of dressmaking, millinery, tailoring, and plain sewing
establishment all rolled into one.
The room was comfortably and artistically furnished. The presses for
storing materials and work were elaborately carved, and pleasant to look
upon. The light, warmth, and ventilation were all perfect, and I could
not help thinking how delighted a London worker would be, if privileged
to labour in such pleasant quarters. No wonder everybody looked happy
and healthy here, since even the most humble in the land were ensured
perfect sanitary surroundings, and limited hours of work.
Another room that pleased me exceedingly was the cookery. Here, for the
benefit of those who preferred to order their supplies ready for the
table, every branch of the culinary art was in progress, from the making
of plain bread to the concoction of the most delicate dainties. The
walls of the cookery were covered with white tiles; the floor was white,
the tables were immaculate, and the cooks and confectioners were
spotlessly neat and clean.
There was neither fuss, heat, nor discomfort, as is the case in England
when a great deal of cooking has to be done, for the work was done
systematically, and the greatest pains had been taken to make all the
conditions of labour as pleasant as possible.
Our next visit was made to the laundry, and it was a treat to see how
science had been brought to bear upon the solution of the greatest
problem which my own countrywomen are beset with, viz., how to minimise
the labour and discomfort which with us so invariably attend washing
days. From beginning to end, nearly every laundry operation was
conducted by means of noiseless electric machinery, manipulated by
skilled workpeople who knew their work to be quite as valuable, and much
more necessary, than the productions of those who followed the purely
ornamental arts.
In response to my questions on the subject, Mrs. Saville gave me the
following information:—
"The Domestic Aid Society is one of the most popular of all New
Amazonian institutions, and there are establishments of this sort all
over the country. They are generally the property of private
individuals, but are strictly subjected to State supervision and
regulation. The books are kept with the utmost exactness, and there is
never any difficulty in apportioning the share of profit which is due to
the Mother. The workpeople, no matter in what department they may be,
are all, with the exception of the supervisors and learners, paid on the
same scale. This enables our people to make their choice of a vocation
in favour of the employment they fancy most, without financial or social
reasons requiring to be taken into consideration, since both pay and
position are equal. The hours are from seven in the morning until five
at night, with intervals for meals. All work out of these hours is paid
for on a special scale. Besides the specialists whom you have seen,
there are many people employed by the Domestic Aid Societies. We charter
for servants by the day, week, or month, who come at the time agreed
upon and discharge any household duties which we may wish to entrust to
them. Messengers are also supplied for a trifling commission. Our
domestic work is always well done, for the assistants are trained by the
State, and are interested in securing our goodwill, as a bonus is
attached to the successful completion of a lengthened term of service in
one household. It is not often that we wish our assistants to be
changed, for the very fact of knowing that we have only to telephone to
the office to effect any change we desire, does away with the
irascibility so often engendered by the ancient system of engaging
servants for long periods, and being compelled to find sleeping
accommodation for them. We are not, however, in any case, addicted to
finding unnecessary faults in our assistants, for all our complaints are
registered, and if it is found that we are exceptionally bad to please,
we have to pay a slightly augmented tariff by way of atoning for our
unpleasant peculiarities."
"And how do these domestic helps employ their time when not on active
duty? And what is their relative position as compared with skilled
workpeople? Is their work regarded as inferior?"
"By no means. Domestic assistants occupy a very honourable position in
our social economy, for they, like others, have to go through a careful
course of training, and fulfil very important duties. Their scale of pay
is good, and it is by no means difficult for them to purchase a
State-Coupon, if they are thrifty. Their spare time is employed in
consonance with their own inclinations. There is a fine recreation hall
attached to every Domestic Agency in the country. In these our working
classes can enjoy themselves to their heart's content, by means of
social converse, music, reading, dancing, or games of skill."
"This question of working classes _versus_ educated classes is a very
potent one with us. Class prejudice is strong, and our aristocracy would
not submit to associate with artisans or domestic assistants on such
equal terms as is habitual with you, unless, indeed, one of them were to
succeed to a fortune, and then all her or his vulgarities and
shortcoming would find plenty of consideration. How do you account for
the superior element of sociality in your country?"
"Easily. We are all educated on the same footing. Some of us develop
literary, artistic, or scientific instincts early in life, and speedily
find our vocation. Others whose full brain powers are not yet developed,
or who are diffident of their own ability to adopt one of the higher
professions, choose a mechanical training, and discover afterwards that
they have missed their _forte_. Nothing daunted, they employ their
leisure in retrieving lost ground, and while possibly serving in the
capacity of domestic help, may be qualifying for classical or surgical
examinations, and may even at some distant date be privileged to become
Leaders. We respect mental and moral greatness, even if in embryo, and
never object to society that is pleasant in itself."
"What a paradisaical state of things," I sighed, fervently. "You can do
nothing in my country without plenty of money, and, for the matter of
that, how do your erstwhile inferiorities succeed in reaching positions
of eminence, seeing that they must have heavy examination fees to pay,
for which the adequate amount can hardly be saved out of working class
wages? Or does the State provide examiners free of charge?"
"No. Our examiners, as you may easily suppose, are very responsible,
and, therefore, very well-paid officials. But they are not a source of
expense to the Government, because the scale of examination fees is such
as to leave a substantial margin of State profit. Want of funds is never
an obstacle to progress here, for candidates for examination are
permitted to pay the fees from their future earnings."
"And suppose they were inclined to forget the repayment part of the
business, what then?"
At this question, my hearers looked so astounded that I felt painfully
conscious of having committed a huge blunder, the nature of which was
soon made evident to me by the reply I received. "You must really come
from a very strange country," said John Saville, fortunately for my
composure, in the pleasantest of tones, "for such a question to be
possible to you. The individual who could thus think of cheating would
not be a New Amazonian. But, even if this were so, the Mother has the
remedy in her own hands. She would withhold the pension to which we are
all honourably entitled in old age."
"As you imply," I responded deprecatively, "my people are not like your
people, so you must excuse the ignorance which prompted what is
evidently an offensive question. I wish I could say as much for English
national morality as you can for yours. But it is a painful fact that
fully one-half of the English race subsists upon the results of the
crimes or follies of the other half. I prefer, however, to talk of local
topics, and learn all I can of your social system while I have the
opportunity. You will, therefore, I hope, not consider me very
troublesome, if I ask yet another question or two."
"We shall be only too happy to afford you any assistance in our power,"
replied Mr. Saville.
"Then," I said, "can you tell me how a large business, say, a Domestic
Aid Agency, would fare, if the business done were inadequate, or the
capital subscribed too small? Would the proprietors become bankrupt, or
would the Mother help them out of their difficulties?"
"Bankruptcy is, I believe, an obsolete term, implying that the subject
of it has contracted debts which she or he does not intend to pay. Such
things do not occur here. If we order a thing, and reap the benefit of
it, nothing but death itself exonerates us from ultimate payment. If a
business is not prospering, application is usually made to the proper
authorities to institute an investigation and assist us out of our
difficulties. Should it prove that our incapacity is at the root of the
evil, we are advised to adopt some less onerous mode of earning a
livelihood, and our proportion of the liabilities is discharged by the
State, and accredited to us for future repayment. If, however, mere lack
of capital is cramping our operations, the State supplies the necessary
impetus, and constitutes itself an active partner, by purchasing as many
shares as will float the business financially, and by appointing a
Government agent to assist in the management. In fact, there is not a
business of any magnitude in the land in which the Mother is not a
partner, and, in addition, she of course takes the percentage of the
profits, which in other countries is raised unjustly and unequally by
means of clumsily imposed taxes."
"As with us, in fact."
"Is this so? I must know a little more of this
very-much-behind-the-times country of yours, which you call England.
England, as known to us, ceased to exist centuries ago, and yet you have
spoken of living in the vicinity of the home of George Stephenson. How
this can be, I cannot understand. We know that when he lived, the
neighbouring island, now called Teuto-Scotland, was called England. But
we also know that hundreds of years are supposed to have passed since
the last vestige of Stephenson's Northumbrian home was destroyed. How do
you explain such anomalies?"
So spoke Mr. Saville, and the rest of our conversation consisted of
explanations and descriptions on my own part which proved intensely
interesting to the Saville family, but which would sound so much like an
oft-told tale to my readers, that I refrain from inflicting it upon
them.
CHAPTER XVI.
After all this conversation we were in the mood to enjoy the dainty meal
spread before us. The young woman in attendance was one of the employés
of the Domestic Agency, and had served Mrs. Saville, to their mutual
satisfaction, for five years. She moved about the room with a grace born
of her perfect physical training, which I would fain see prevalent in my
own country. In response to a question of John Saville's, she informed
us that there was to be a grand amateur theatrical entertainment in the
Recreation Hall that evening, at which she intended to be one of the
performers.
As she was one of the indoor servants of the Agency, and slept in the
building, she was practically at home during most of her hours of
recreation, and she spoke with all the verve and vigour of one who
enjoyed life to the utmost. She was merry without familiarity; energetic
without being fussy; and respectful without being servile—altogether the
very _beau idéal_ of a nice-looking and intelligent waiting maid.
As I noted herself and her ways critically, I thought that there was
really no reason why we should not establish these Domestic Aid Agencies
in England. We are not usually very slow in adopting socially economic
ideas which have once suggested themselves to us, and if enterprise and
capital united were to take the notion up, the chief sources of English
domestic worry would be soon put an end to, as would also the reluctance
of respectable girls to adopt what is at present in only too many cases
nothing better than a life of dull, miserable slavery.
The meal ended, and the things all cleared away, Alice O'Reilly's work
for the day was over, and she betook herself to her own quarters, in
order to prepare for the evening's innocent jollities, while we again
reverted to our comparisons of the social conditions of our respective
countries. I believe that the hardest nut which I gave the Saville
family to crack was my statement that when I last remembered being at
home, the English Government had consigned some zealous partisans of
Irish liberty to the temporary seclusion of some gaols in Ireland, which
I was now assured had long ceased to exist. It was in vain that I
insisted; and when I spoke of Queen Victoria, Mr. Gladstone, and Mr.
Parnell as living contemporaneously with myself, the amusement of my
friends was, in its turn, amusing to witness.
"I wouldn't be surprised, after that," said John Saville, "to hear that
you claim personal acquaintance with the immortal writer of Hamlet and
Macbeth."
"Do you allude to Shakespeare or Bacon?" I queried innocently.
"Bacon? I know nothing of Bacon," retorted John Saville. "But I am very
much in love with the works of a certain William Shakespeare."
"You think you are. Shakespeare did not write the plays bearing his
name. The real author was Bacon, as several individuals have set
themselves to prove."
"I am afraid they have proved their case but badly. For while all our
scholars have Shakesperian quotations at their tongues' ends, there is
not one of us who has ever heard a whisper of any presumed Baconian
origin of our best loved classics."
Poor Mr. Donnelly!
From playwright to novelist was a natural transition; and, remembering
sundry financial bruisings in connection with the publication of one of
my earliest and lengthiest novels, a glow of exultation possessed me
when I learnt the conditions under which books were published nowadays.
The long-suffering author had triumphed at last, and his erstwhile
oppressor was shorn of his glory. I was told that the State had
established an immense Literary Bureau, with which large printing and
publishing works were associated. All works other than already licensed
newspapers and magazines intended for publication were submitted in the
first instance to the Bureau, and read by the official censor.
If found to be innocent of offences against morality, the book was taken
in hand, and published under State authority, the author paying the
whole of the cost, and receiving the whole of the future emoluments,
subject to the five per cent. tax accruing to the State. There was no
arbitrary range of charges, but a scale of payment for work done which
was sufficient to repay the State outlay, _plus_ a slight percentage of
profit. Writers could, by studying the printed tariff, know exactly what
style and quality of material and workmanship to choose, and would also
know to a fraction what their expenses would be. Nor did present lack of
funds stand in the way of success, for the State helped capable,
industrious authors by a judicious system of credit, just as it helped
any other of its people who had done nothing to forfeit the supposition
that they were deserving of such assistance. As already pointed out,
State aid within certain limits was unattended with any risk to the
Government, as it had means of repaying itself.
The law of copyright was simplicity itself. For one hundred years the
copyright was the inalienable property of the author, or the author's
nominees. At the end of that time the State succeeded to all copyrights
as were still of value. No grasping publisher was allowed to step in and
reap the profits of an author's brain toil, and there was no gall mixed
with the thought that a work was being written which might possibly
survive to become a valuable property of the nation, even as Gibbons'
"Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" is still a gold mine to
enterprising and speculative publishers in England.
There was no sort of hesitation on the part of anyone to claim of the
"Mother" the help and protection to which, as her veritable children,
they were justly entitled. Pauperism and workhouses did not exist,
simply because the State saw the wisdom of preventing squalor and
destitution by its system of claiming the care of its people from their
infancy, and being generous in its mode of launching them in life.
When we reflect upon the enormous sums which are collected for poor
rates in England, it is easy to conceive the vast social improvement the
same amount of money and labour could produce, if spent in the education
and fair start in life of our thousands of miserable and squalid
gutter-birds, who, instead of being all their life-long a continual
source of expense to the nation, would grow up respectable and respected
units of society, abhorring the life of shame and degradation which they
and only too many others look upon at present as their natural
birthright.
"Prevention is better than cure," is just as trite and useful a maxim
for the State as it is for the subject, as is also the warning against
being "penny-wise and pound-foolish." It would cost much less for our
country to feed, clothe, educate, and train to useful avocations
half-a-million youngsters taken from the slums, than it would cost to
meet one-half of the expenses that same half-million of juveniles will
provide for their compatriots before they have run the course of
drunkenness, pauperism, misery, and crime which the laws of cause and
effect have only too surely marked out for them in the unhappy future.
When comparing New Amazonia with England, another idea suggests itself.
How much of the national prosperity I saw around me was owing to the
fact that New Amazonia was free from the incubus of having to provide
vast sums for the support of a monarchy which with us is exceedingly
limited in its beneficent effects, but which possesses an unlimited
capacity for appropriating huge emoluments which would be more sensibly
spent in liquidating the National Debt, or in alleviating some of the
national misery! If saddled with the incalculable burdens which England
has to bear, even New Amazonian rulers would find it a difficult task to
present a satisfactory budget at the end of their term of office.
There is also another way in which our poor are deprived of a great deal
of help they would otherwise receive. Many of our churches and chapels
are simply begging houses, in which their frequenters are persuaded to
part with every penny they can be induced to spare. And this, if the
donors are satisfied, is perfectly right in its way. But is it right
that while countless poor souls, old and young, are rotting, body and
soul, in our own land, it should be the boast of our Missionary
Societies that they give hundreds of thousands of pounds every year to
strangers who do not need the gospel preached practically to them half
so much as the miserable denizens of the back slums of our own parishes?
The zeal of the advocates of Foreign missions is commendable, but I
respectfully submit that it is misdirected, and if some of them had half
an idea of what only too often ultimately becomes of their money, they
would be very chary about subscribing in future.
But when even those whose office and mission it is to seek and succour
their poor and needy neighbours, find their time and attention taken up
with more distant and less pressing duties, how is it likely that our
legislators, occupied so intensely as they are in trying to prove each
other unfit for office, will ever find time to take the cause of the
social improvement of the people into consideration? It is hopeless to
think of it at present, for a true and tender interest will never be
felt in the units of the nation until our Constitution becomes less that
of rulers and ruled, and more like that of mother and children.
To this devoutly-to-be-hoped-for consummation there is another obstacle.
The truly maternal instinct has no equivalent in the breast of man, and
so long as none but men are the people's representatives, even so long
will that people be deprived of a thousand rights which a just, earnest,
womanly co-government would give them. It is monstrous to speak of women
as being even incapable of voting wisely, when they have already proved
themselves capable of governing much more judiciously than men, many of
whom seem to recognise no other legitimate result of taking office than
squabbling and banqueting.
Certainly in many cases these are about the only matters to which some
of our corporate bodies devote their attention, and surely, surely
feminine nincompoopery could go no further than this!
There is a town in Kansas, called Oskaloosa, of which the Mayor and
other members of the Corporation are all women. Their first term of
office has been so triumphantly progressive that they have been
enthusiastically re-elected, and within twelve months the place has made
such wonderful strides in the trifling matters of social morality,
sanitation, and prosperity, that it is the wonder of surrounding towns.
After so signal a proof of feminine capacity, it argues great paucity of
brains for anyone to insinuate that a clever, capable woman is less able
to form a sensible opinion as to the relative merits of candidates for
office than a man who perhaps spends half his days in loafing about
public houses or race courses, and half his nights in dens of infamy. A
truly moral judgment we need expect from such truly moral voters!
I meet an individual in the street. His legitimate avocation is that of
bird-catching. He has been doing good business, and has spent part of
his precarious earnings in sundry "two-pennorths" of gin, and in a paper
of vile tobacco. He positively reeks of low life, and pollutes the
atmosphere as he staggers through the streets. An unfortunate dog
crosses his path. He gives it a vicious kick, and sends it howling and
limping to a neighbouring cabmen's shelter for sympathy. The dog's howls
remind him of the miserable wife and children at home who are destined
to feel the weight of his kicks and blows, and a demoniac, exulting grin
of conscious masculine superiority spreads over his face, while he
unconsciously increases his speed, in order the sooner to be at the game
he loves above all others.
Am I to believe that this thing is better able to judge of the merits of
a candidate for electoral honours than I am simply because it is a MAN?
Am I to assume that this reptile is legally and morally better fitted to
take a place among our legislators than I, solely because it is a MAN?
Perish the thought! Man's arrogance and woman's cowardice have reigned
long enough, and it behoves my countrywomen to assert their rights and
privileges without further delay.
Never mind what the men say. They cannot say more than they have said.
Never mind what the _weak-minded_ women say. Their opinions are not
worth heeding.
We are beginning to understand all we have been deprived of. We have
clear ideas as to what we want. We are perfectly aware that we have an
uphill fight, and plenty of senseless opposition to encounter. But we
also know that "Patience overcometh all things."
Woman has up to now proved that she is superabundantly gifted with a
spurious, undesirable sort of patience. It has hitherto been of the
passive and take-things-as-a-matter-of-course kind. All that wants
altering. Patience still, if you like. But it must be active, and
coupled with such steady determination as shall ensure the realisation
of all our hopes, and make political and social equality of the sexes a
realisation of the near future.
And, now, I am struck with another idea. It has suddenly occurred to me
that I have wandered a long way from the Savilles, and that my readers
will wonder where I intend to pick them up again. I have really,
however, not very far to go, for they are originally responsible for all
the digression which their conversation has suggested, and if the
opinions feebly expressed in the preceding pages succeed in winning a
few recruits to the cause of progress, the Saville family would not be
disposed to cavil at my momentary neglect of them.
I recall a remark John Saville made during that memorable visit.
"Suppose," he said, "I were to find this fabulous country of yours, and
were to set up as a lecturer, how do you think I should succeed?"
"That depends upon the subjects chosen. I do not doubt your power to
express your views forcibly."
"Well, I will give you a short syllabus. I would extol our methods of
dealing with children, in preference to yours. I would impress upon all
young women the folly of permitting my sex to arrogate to itself the
right to be the first to speak of matters amorous or matrimonial. I
would scout the idea of women being paid less wages than men, when the
work done by both is identically the same in quality and quantity. I
would insist not merely upon woman's electoral rights, but upon woman's
equal right with man to govern her country. You see, I am not quite
going the length of leaving us poor men out in the cold altogether. How
do you think my programme will take?"
"Indifferently well."
"Why?"
"Because you would be lecturing in opposition to the 'no progress' views
of the majority of your hearers."
"But I have understood you to say that your country boasts far more
women than men. How then could I, the 'Woman's Apostle,' be in the
minority?"
"Because you would not merely have the opposition of men to overcome,
but would have arrayed against you the prejudices of all those women who
are too bigoted in their own ignorance to know what is good for
themselves or others, and their name is legion. You see, the process of
education in the doctrines of the necessity for self-assertion and
personal effort is still young, and until we can awaken the
self-respect, which it has been for ages the mission of men to
extinguish in women, we cannot hope to effect the results which demand
united action. Still, the 'Onward' portion of my sex grows in numbers
every year, as does also the number of our masculine supporters, and I
hope to win an immense number of recruits when I get home again, and
describe all I have seen here."
"And that reminds me. How do you propose to get home?"
"Well, really, I ——. Upon my word, I don't know. I suppose, however,
that I shall be able to discover some way of reaching England, when I
have solved the preliminary problem of earning the necessary funds. I
have already written some descriptive articles, which I hope will be
accepted."
"They are sure to be accepted, and well paid for into the bargain, for
everything connected with you has roused the greatest interest in the
country. So the question of your independence is settled already. But
even were this not so, the Mother is always kind, and would provide you
with the means of travelling. The difficulty lies in discovering your
actual destination."
"If this is really Ireland in a perfected state, I have not far to go. A
country may be revolutionised and improved by social reforms, but
nothing of much less power than an earthquake can remove it altogether.
If England stands where it did, I have but to take a boat to Holyhead,
and a few hours more will take me home to Northumberland."
"And what will you do when you get there?"
"Report myself to my friends without further delay."
"You forget that you must have been sleeping some centuries, and that
you are not likely to find any friends left alive, or any place you have
known, in the same condition as that in which you left it. Look at this
map. Here is the island of which you speak. Holyhead and Northumberland
still find their place upon it. But is all else as you left it?"
I eagerly looked at the map before me, and without difficulty pounced
upon Newcastle. But where were all the outlying villages which used to
assert themselves so independently and with such "plum"-like utterance?
Gone! Everyone of them. Swallowed up in the huge advance of their
powerful centre, Newcastle-on-Tyne. I looked for Benwell, Gosforth,
Scotswood, Lemington, Newburn, Benton, Killingworth, and a dozen other
places, all in vain, for Newcastle overspread them all, and, as the
veritable Metropolis of the North, presented a picture of progress and
prosperity which were amazing to me.
I was told that centuries of effort had made the Tyne one of the noblest
rivers in the land. Fleets could ride upon its waters in safety, and it
was now an important naval station. Its commercial relations with the
rest of the world were enormous. In arts and manufactures it was alike
distinguished, and it was the most famous place in all Europe for the
production of every kind of electrical apparati, besides being the
northern centre of learning.
Countless other improvements and aggrandisements were related to me, but
for the most part they fell on deaf ears at the time.
I had at last realised that I was bereft of everybody and everything I
had ever held dear, and must henceforth consider myself alone in the
world, an alien in a strange land, without the possibility of ever again
exchanging a word or look of affection with those whom I had loved well
and truly.
No wonder my fortitude gave way. No wonder I returned to the college in
a mood bordering on despair.
CHAPTER XVII.
My earnest consideration for the next few days was devoted to the
question of ways and means. Knowing it to be the custom of the country
to entertain strangers hospitably, I had hitherto accepted the
attentions offered me in the frank, cordial spirit in which they were
given. But this could not continue beyond a reasonable term, and now
that my stay in the country seemed likely to be permanent, my
self-respect demanded that I should at once take steps to prove my
capability of assuming an active part in the battle of life.
As before hinted, I was not likely to encounter many difficulties in the
way of earning a livelihood, for my own experiences were a subject of
such interest to New Amazonians, that sketches of them would easily find
a market in the native journals. In fact, even while debating the point
with myself, Principal Grey came to me as the bearer of a message from
the Mother.
She was deputed to ask me if I purposed making Andersonia my permanent
abiding place, and I was also requested to state my views for the future
in any case. She was somewhat surprised to find me full of grief at the
conviction that I had indeed parted for ever from all and everything
which I had ever loved, and she did her utmost to console me, some of
her utterances dwelling in my memory yet.
"It has certainly struck us as a great wonder," she said, "that you
should have appeared so strangely in our midst. Some of our savants have
had discussions on the subject, but can come to no rational solution of
the questions mooted. To believe that you were magically transported
hither, is revolting to our twenty-fifth century common sense,
especially as we can locate no country which is in the condition
described by you as that of your native land. To believe that you have
been in a state of torpidity for six hundred years seems more likely.
But if we accept this hypothesis, we are confronted with the problem of
accounting for your whereabouts prior to your resuscitation. There has
been found not a single trace of your resting place. Had you been borne
hither on the wings of the wind, your advent could not have been more
mysterious, nor more bereft of all clue as to your former place of
abode. Your own utterances, and those of your odd compatriot, only seem
to leave one opinion open to us, and that is, that you have been in a
state of trance. The descriptions you have given of your own country and
its state of civilisation, as known to you, tally exactly with what is
known of Teuto-Scotland as it existed in the nineteenth century. The
fact that you call it England puts us, of course, on the right track at
once. But whatever may account for your arrival here, it is an undoubted
fact that you are of as real flesh and blood as we are, and that you are
now leading as commonplace a life as any of us. This being so, it is
expedient that some plans should be laid for your future, and I, as the
Mother's representative, am deputed to elicit your views and intentions
on the subject. That you should only just have realised the
impossibility of finding England or its inhabitants as you left them
possibly makes my errand appear somewhat in-apropos and precipitate to
you. I have, however, my instructions to carry out, and you must forgive
me, if it should strike you as rather unfeeling to enquire what you
intend to do for a livelihood?"
"I could not possibly take offence where all have shown me so much
kindness and consideration," was my reply. "I was, in fact, just
deliberating the same subject when you came. I have been encouraged to
think that I may hope to get on in the vocation to which I have already
devoted some years of apprenticeship—that of an author."
"Yes, that is the opinion we have also formed, and it is in connection
therewith that I have a proposal to make to you. Will you write a book
descriptive of your former life, associates, and customs? The Literary
Bureau will publish it for you, and as there is sure to be a huge demand
for it, your profits will be large enough to justify the State in at
once presenting you with advance Letters of Credit. These Letters of
Credit, as you know, represent money with us, and if you undertake to
write this work, considering it a State commission, you will at once
find yourself in a position of independence."
What other answer than "Yes" could I give to such a wonderful proposal
as this? A certain very nice, but rather gushing, young lady whom I know
would have at once exclaimed, "Oh! it's _too_ lovely." I did not do
that, but I managed to express my thanks and my acquiescence with such a
mixture of enthusiasm and dignity as did justice alike to my desire to
show my gratitude and to my sense of my own importance.
Let not the reader imagine that I had no legitimate room for the latter
feeling, for I was undoubtedly a very prominent and important personage
in New Amazonia. Circumstances over which I had had no control had
placed me in a position of publicity which was none the less real
because it was none of my seeking. The probabilities were in favour of
my popularity dying out as soon as I became less of a novelty. Meanwhile
it was advisable that I should take the goods with which the gods had
provided me, and make the most of the opportunities thrown in my way.
It did not take long to arrange my subsequent programme. I was to
commence writing on the following day, and to submit my work weekly to
the Bureau, which would make such arrangements as its heads might think
fit for bringing my work under the notice of the public.
Still, in spite of the interesting nature of our conversation, I could
not repress my melancholy, and was so depressed that my companion
offered the consolatory remark, "That though I was parted from my
beloved ones so long as I remained in my own probationary state, they
were not deprived of the power of knowing my whereabouts, and were
probably rejoicing at the fact that I had been placed in a sphere of
action which could not fail to assist my attempts to perfect myself for
the higher life."
I was conscious of finding a little consolation in the Principal's
arguments, and remarked that it would have been some additional comfort
to me if I could have known where my dear ones were buried, so that,
though deprived of their society, I might at least do honour to them by
visiting and adorning their last resting place.
The Principal did not exactly grasp my meaning at first. When she did,
she was horrified.
"Is it possible," she cried in amaze, "that you can contemplate with
equanimity the prospect of being laid in the ground to rot in repulsive
putrefaction? to be the prey of vermin; to pollute the earth, air, and
water around you; and to be the source of death and disease to those
whom you have left behind? It is too horrible to think of!"
"Why, what would you have us do?" I enquired blankly. "You wouldn't have
us kept above ground, would you?"
"I would have you decently cremated, as we all are when we die. How can
you expect to be healthy in mind and body, surrounded by the miasmatic
emanations of putrifying corpses? It was demonstrated to New Amazonian
satisfaction centuries ago that it would be impossible to rid the land
of fever and pestilential diseases until this principal source of water
pollution was removed. We still have pictures of ancient graveyards, and
I can very well imagine what they were like. The hoary, venerable
looking church; the funny upright slabs of stone or marble marking the
place where several bodies were undergoing the putrefactive process; the
pretty flowers and the picturesque trees; the little brooklet, which
winds its rippling way through or past the churchyard; its water,
looking pure and limpid because it has percolated its way through the
dead and decaying remains of your ancestors, and bearing no easily
discernible evidence of the deadly impurities of which it is the
conveying medium; I see them all, and can even follow the little
brooklet as it feeds the waters of a larger stream, and finally becomes
a component part of some great river, from which the water supply of one
of your immense manufacturing towns is obtained. Very interesting as a
picture, no doubt, but when you quietly contemplate the calm endurance
of such a horrible state of things—Faugh!"
Certainly, as presented by the Principal, the picture was not a nice
one. But one does not relinquish all one's most sentimental customs
without a struggle, and a warm discussion ensued between us, from which,
however, I emerged the loser, as I might have expected. When I came to
think of it, it was not pleasant to reflect that every drink of water I
had ever had had possibly meandered its way through the dissolving
tissues of some recently departed victim of cholera or fever. Even the
idea of past near relationship to the too generously diffusive corpse
was not consolatory, for it had a sort of cannibalistic aspect about it
which did not argue true affection for the departed.
I remembered that in my country one of the chief objections to
cremation, apart from the purely sentimental reasons promulgated, was
that in cases of foul play the process annihilated all chances of ever
discovering the real cause of death, as no analysis of cremated remains
can be made. On reflection, it struck me that it was less important that
one malefactor should be brought to book, than that whole communities
should be exposed to the risk of poison.
I reflected also that the system of "Life Insurance" was mainly
responsible for the crimes of our modern poisoners. Given the abolition
of a system whereby our relatives and guardians are interested in our
speedy demise, and the substitution of the plan which prevailed in New
Amazonia, whereby every child of the State had its old age provided for,
and poisoning, by becoming so evidently useless, would at the same time
become our rarest crime.
So I thought, while admitting to Principal Grey that burial was a
dangerous and unsatisfactory mode of disposing of the dead.
By-and-bye we began to talk of other things, and in the course of
conversation it occurred to me to make some enquiries relating to Mr.
Augustus Fitz-Musicus and his future plans.
"I am afraid," was the rejoinder, "that Mr. Fitz-Musicus can never be
converted into a sober New Amazonian. He has revolted against wearing
our National costume, and says that rather than sacrifice his British
individuality, and look like everybody else, he will brave the
probability of becoming a laughing-stock, and that he will wear his old
clothes to rags rather than have his individuality swallowed up in a
general resemblance to every nincompoop in the country. I am afraid it
would necessitate him to live as long again as he has done, to bring him
into the exact likeness of a native of New Amazonia. But his vanity is
inextinguishable, and nothing could bring him to the belief that his
appearance does not eclipse that of our handsomest men. When last I
heard of him, he was seeking some stuff with a large pattern. He says
that if he can find a nice big check, he may perhaps consent to have a
suit made in native style, but he is not at all sure yet."
"But how does he intend earning his living?"
"He is not at all sure about that either. He says that he will think
about it. But he protests meanwhile very bitterly against a destiny that
has placed him among people who can be sordid and vulgar enough to ask
him, the pampered scion of a great house, to degrade himself by
attempting to earn his own living. He considers that the Mother ought to
be proud of being honoured by his sojourn amongst us, and that she ought
to be only too glad to extend her hospitality indefinitely to him."
"And the Mother—what does she think of his peculiarities? Are they found
annoying?"
"Well, to a certain extent, yes. We abhor ingratitude. But in this case,
we are being forced into the belief that this Englishman is not exactly
a responsible agent. I am afraid that he is not quite sane. But, of
course, unless he becomes very much worse, it will not be found
necessary to adopt stringent measures with him."
"And if his peculiarities should become much more pronounced?"
"Ah, then—then, we shall be compelled to do something. He has already
lost so much time during his prolonged state of unconsciousness, that it
will be a charity to release his spirit, if it becomes evident that it
is withheld from further progress towards Heavenly bliss by being
confined in a body which is more likely to promote retrogression than
progression."
As I listened to this calm utterance my blood positively ran cold. Full
well I knew what she meant. The peculiar tenets of New Amazonian
religion had been carefully explained to me, and I knew that the life of
Mr. Fitz-Musicus was destined to be a short one, unless he restored the
native belief in his sanity. I was quite unable to talk much more after
this, and my friend, observing that I seemed fatigued and had better
rest, left me to my own resources. But I felt incapable of resting, for
I was too excited. Clearly the life of the eccentric Augustus was in
danger, and I was impatient to see him and warn him without delay.
I knew where he was located for the present, and I resolved to see him
at the earliest opportunity. All night I was restless and perturbed, and
though six o'clock was still early for the British masher, I dressed
myself with my usual care and set off to visit him, knowing that we
should have a better chance of talking undisturbed by taking a morning
stroll together, than if I waited until we were both in the midst of
society. Besides, I had to begin my book, and I intended working
honestly to discharge my debt to New Amazonia.
As I had partly expected, Mr. Fitz-Musicus was not yet astir, and when
he ultimately presented himself, he was in a state of supreme conjecture
as to my reasons for having him roused so unseasonably.
"Upon my life," he grumbled discontentedly, "one gets no peace in this
miserable place. Only yesterday I was asked in cold blood to select some
way of earning my own livelihood. Me! who never had even to dress myself
without assistance until I came to this benighted land. And, now, you
come and rouse me at this unconscionable time. I would like to catch a
servant of ours seizing me by the shoulder and making me get up at this
time in the morning, like that fellow did just now. I would not only
have packed him about his business, but would have refused him a
character into the bargain. But in this confounded country there is no
freedom. One cannot do as one likes and an impudent boot cleaner
actually presumes to dictate to a Fitz-Musicus! And then the women are
such fools, too. They cannot appreciate a good chance when they get it.
I have proposed to no less than six of them, and what do you think they
all did? Nothing but laugh, upon my word! They didn't believe that I
really meant to throw myself away upon them, and when I tried to
convince them that I was actually in earnest, they just grew more dense
and unbelieving, and laughed all the more. An Englishwoman would have
sense enough to jump at such an offer, and I don't think I shall demean
myself by proposing to another New Amazonian."
"I don't think I would," I rejoined as gravely as I could. "They do not
know how to appreciate you. Still, I think that you are not quite fair
to the land of your adoption. Personally, I have found nothing to
grumble at."
"Oh! with you it is different. You see I have been used to every
consideration all my life long, while you have never been anything but a
mere nobody."
"Precisely so. But you will forgive me, if I remark that your sense of
personal importance is running away with your discretion, and is likely
to lead you into trouble."
"How do you make that out?"
"Very easily. It is what has brought me to see you now. Listen——."
And then I did my best to explain the dangers of his position, and the
folly of persisting in his present course of discontent and
eccentricity.
"If you do not mind," I concluded seriously, "you will be treated to a
strong dose of Medicated Schlafstrank some of these days, and then where
will you be?"
Poor Augustus! Oh! how frightened he was! We were in the public gardens,
and he staggered to a seat before he could say a word. Then he gasped,
"Oh, Lord! deliver me from this land of iniquity! Help me to get home to
my poor old mother, and I'll never swear at her again! She shall have
the tickets for her gold watch and chain which I pawned, and if they'll
take me on in the shop again I'll promise to work honestly, and pay for
that suit of clothes I got on tick. And, oh, Lord, I'll turn up every
penny of the money I cleared in that thimble-rigging business on Leger
day. And that money I owe to the hotel-keeper, who thought I was Lord
Hastings. I'll pay every farthing of it. Oh, Lord! let me get out of
this very soon, or its two to one bar one that old Molly Jones will
never see her son again!"
Here was a revelation! I could scarcely credit my ears. But the very
evident terror of the man before me had brought out such truths as are
only wrung from such lips as his by dire emergency, and I involuntarily
recoiled from too near contact with an avowed blackguard, imposter, and
cheat.
He noticed my gesture of repulsion, and cried imploringly, "Oh, for
Heaven's sake, don't leave me! Help me to get out of this mess."
"I do not see what further help I can afford you," I responded coldly.
"Your fate depends upon your own conduct."
"Ah, but there's no knowing what might happen, no matter what I say or
do," he protested. "I must clear out somehow. And listen. I really have
a plan. The reason I made a row about getting my own clothes back was
because there was a tiny paper packet in the left waistcoat pocket. I
had it given me at that opium den I was in in Soho. The fellow that gave
it me told me that it was a very wonderful sort of snuff, that would
bring even funnier things to pass than Hasheesh could. I only remembered
it the other day, and I thought it might perhaps help me to get home
again. But it looks so queer that I am rather frightened of it. It might
be poison, you know, and I thought I would see what you thought about
it, before trusting myself to snuff any of it."
As he spoke he handed me the little paper parcel he had mentioned, and I
examined it somewhat curiously. It certainly was uninviting, having a
black and slimy appearance not at all pleasant to the eye. Still, it
might smell much nicer than it looked, and as I fancied that I caught a
faint, subtle aroma, I held the stuff to my nose, drew in a most
delightful perfume, and—awoke in my own study, surrounded by nineteenth
century magazines and newspapers, and shivering all over; for I had let
the fire go out during my long nap.
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{"url":"http:\/\/javatpointtutorial.com\/stories-from-at-the-very-top-dallas-matchmaker-on","text":"# Stories from at the very top Dallas Matchmaker on Valentine\u2019s Day\n\nStories from at the very top Dallas Matchmaker on Valentine\u2019s Day\n\nEverything we learned all about our local dating scene from Sameera Sullivan.\n\nSameera Sullivan\u2019s solutions would be the antithesis of Tinder. The previous professional recruiter used her headhunting talents into the dating globe in 2012, producing Lasting Connections, an offline, database-free, deeply individualized matchmaking service for \u201celite singles\u201d with branches in New York, Portland, Houston, and Dallas.\n\nSullivan\u2019s solutions aren\u2019t something you get on a whim. The high cost for employing the matchmaker begins at $45,000 (!), and may get most of the method as much as$250,000 (. ) for worldwide queries. The fortunate people chosen as consumers (Sullivan is particular) will speak to A connections that is lasting team one-on-one, frequently inside their house, to obtain a genuine knowledge of who they really are and whatever they want. \u201cI\u2019m constantly readily available for my consumers,\u201d says Sullivan, whom also offers a qualification in therapy. \u201cMy history and intuition assist me to ask the proper concerns, and get insight into really someone\u2019s mind. That\u2019s the key to someone\u2019s matchmaking.\u201d\n\nManhattan-based Sullivan established the Dallas branch of her business 36 months ago, after some friends recommended the town was at need of the matchmaker. Below, we picked her mind to learn everything we could in regards to the Dallas relationship scene ( for the close buddy, needless to say).\n\n## That are Sullivan\u2019s Dallas customers?\n\nThough Lasting Connections works together both women and men (gay or right), about 90 % of her consumers are males inside their forties or fifties shopping for effective, qualified ladies in their thirties. \u201cThey\u2019re perhaps maybe not the inventors you\u2019re likely to find at Nick & Sam\u2019s or even The Mansion,\u201d claims Sullivan. \u201cGuys whom employ a matchmaker aren\u2019t doing it since they don\u2019t have enough time. since they can\u2019t get females, it\u2019s\u201d\n\nSullivan has matched 15 couples which have domiciles in Dallas up to now.\n\n## With regards to dating, Dallas can feel pretty tiny.\n\nOne explanation Sullivan made a decision to expand to Dallas may be the divorce that is increasing. (For guide, 123 Divorce reportedly needed to go from the Fitzhugh location to a bigger area. But at the very least we have Session Pilates here now.)\n\n\u201cDallas is really a market that is small. We have all a second-degree connection,\u201d claims Sullivan. \u201cHow might you get back in to the dating scene whenever everyone understands your ex lover?\u201d\n\n## Where Dallas females ought to be searching for quality males.\n\nI did son\u2019t discover that much about life viewing The Hills on MTV, however the sentient Steve Madden fall that is Audrina Patridge did provide some advice that stuck beside me: you need to dress up irrespective of where you get, since you never understand whom you\u2019ll meet.\n\nWe don\u2019t always be successful, but it is one thing to give some thought to. Specially when you will find eligible singles strewn about regional supermarkets. \u201cBars and restaurants aren\u2019t constantly the greatest places to check. Head to entire Foods or gourmet food markets between 5-8pm, because that\u2019s when everyone\u2019s coming after finishing up work,\u201d says Sullivan.\n\nShe also indicates Residence Depot, Starbucks, or maybe more community-fostering gyms such as yoga or SoulCycle. \u201cJust make sure to browse around and take notice to who\u2019s close to you as opposed to taking a look at your phone or perhaps a dating app,\u201d adds Sullivan.\n\n## Why Sullivan is certainly not a fan of Tinder.\n\nPersonally I think like dating apps have actually all messed up the entire dating industry. More individuals are single now \u2014 they\u2019re too overwhelmed with alternatives.\n\n## Dallas males could be pretty legit.\n\nSometimes, whenever involved in other urban centers, Sullivan will need to turn away a seventy-something-year-old searching that is applicant a twenty-something. (*Cough* LA *Cough*) But no such situation has presented it self right right here. \u201cI have actually such gentlemen that are amazing in Dallas. The most effective customers we have come in Texas,\u201d claims Sullivan. \u201cThe dudes listed here are advanced and they are in search of an individual who is breathtaking, intelligent, healthy, and contains your whole package.\u201d","date":"2021-08-05 04:29:43","metadata":"{\"extraction_info\": {\"found_math\": true, \"script_math_tex\": 0, \"script_math_asciimath\": 0, \"math_annotations\": 0, \"math_alttext\": 0, \"mathml\": 0, \"mathjax_tag\": 0, \"mathjax_inline_tex\": 1, \"mathjax_display_tex\": 0, \"mathjax_asciimath\": 0, \"img_math\": 0, \"codecogs_latex\": 0, \"wp_latex\": 0, \"mimetex.cgi\": 0, \"\/images\/math\/codecogs\": 0, \"mathtex.cgi\": 0, \"katex\": 0, \"math-container\": 0, \"wp-katex-eq\": 0, \"align\": 0, \"equation\": 0, \"x-ck12\": 0, \"texerror\": 0, \"math_score\": 0.1812307983636856, \"perplexity\": 7517.679066577916}, \"config\": {\"markdown_headings\": true, \"markdown_code\": false, \"boilerplate_config\": {\"ratio_threshold\": 0.18, \"absolute_threshold\": 10, \"end_threshold\": 15, \"enable\": true}, \"remove_buttons\": true, \"remove_image_figures\": true, \"remove_link_clusters\": true, \"table_config\": {\"min_rows\": 2, \"min_cols\": 3, \"format\": \"plain\"}, \"remove_chinese\": true, \"remove_edit_buttons\": true, \"extract_latex\": true}, \"warc_path\": \"s3:\/\/commoncrawl\/crawl-data\/CC-MAIN-2021-31\/segments\/1627046155322.12\/warc\/CC-MAIN-20210805032134-20210805062134-00402.warc.gz\"}"} | null | null |
\section{Introduction}
\noindent
Cooperation is the basis for the survival and reproduction of organisms, and its phenomenon is very common in the real society \citep{wangbmb16,Perc_PR_17,Perc_bio_10,wang2020epl}. However, how did cooperative behavior evolve remains a major puzzle in scientific community \citep{Kennedy_05}. Because individuals who choose cooperative behavior need to bear the cost by themselves but bring benefits to others, which makes them at a disadvantage in the process of natural selection \citep{Axelrod1984,han2015,Hofbauer1990,Tanimoto2017,WANG18AMC,Su2019,zhangis_21,Szolnoki2014interface,fu2010jtb,Szolnoki2022csf}. Previous researches have illuminated a number of mechanisms including reputation to explain the evolution of cooperation \citep{nowak2006,Kun2013,Tanimoto2018,Szolnoki2017pre,he2019,Szolnoki2017,Szolnoki2012,Szolnoki2012pre,Fupre2008,Szolnoki20amc,han18sr,Duong2021PRSA,xia2014amc,yang2017csf,yang2019pa,quan2021}. Recent studies on strong reciprocity theory reveal that some individuals will not hesitate to pay costs to punish those who do not cooperate, even if these costs cannot be compensated \citep{Vasconcelos2015,Okada2015,zhang2017,quan2019,Han2021,wang2019,chen2015pre,perc2012njp,perc2012sr,yang2020epl,zhang2021amc}. The threat of punishment can limit the prevalence of uncooperative individuals and thus support cooperation \cite{sigmund2010nature,chen2018pcb,quan2020epl}.
Although punishment plays a pivotal role in maintaining cooperation, it cannot be ignored that punishment, especially institutional punishment, is vulnerable to corruption. A number of studies support the finding that curruption might have a destructive effect on the role of punishment in promoting cooperation \citep{Abdallah_interface_14,lee_jtb_15,Lee_PNAS_19,Liu_MMMAS_19,Liu_IJBC_21}. Concretely, Abdallah \emph{et al.} \citep{Abdallah_interface_14} studied how corruption affects the co-evolution of cooperation and punishment in public goods games (PGG) and found that the effectiveness of institutional punishment on promoting cooperation will be undermined when bribery is an option. Subsequently, some studies based on donation game \citep{Lee_PNAS_19} and PGG \citep{Liu_MMMAS_19} revealed that cyclic behavior can be found when bribe between enforcers and free-riders happens.
Previous theoretical studies have investigated how corruption affects the effect of punishment on cooperation from different perspectives \citep{Abdallah_interface_14,lee_jtb_15,Lee_PNAS_19,huang_jtb_18,Liu_MMMAS_19,Liu_IJBC_21}. However, the impact of some important factors correlated with levels of corruption such as institutional and economic factors on the results has not been explored. Recent experimental research \citep{Muthukrishna_nhb_17} constructed the institutional punishment public goods game (IPGG) and bribery game (BG) where one individual is randomly selected from the game group to act as leader who could use taxes collected from all individuals for punishment. In addition, each individual can choose whether to bribe the leader or not, and the leader can choose to punish, accept bribes, or do nothing. The experimental results reveal that corruption, the punishment multiplier (the leader's punitive power), and the pool multiplier (the expression of the economic potential) play important roles in the evolution of cooperation. However, to our knowledge, thus far few theoretical works have revealed the causal interconnections among corruption, institutional punishment, and economic factors for the evolution of cooperation. Accordingly, it is still unclear the quantitative effects of these elements on the evolution of cooperation from a theoretical perspective.
In view of the above statements, in this work we construct a game-theoretical model by combing BG with IPGG to study the evolution of cooperation. We focus on the impacts of the pool multiplier and the punishment multiplier on the evolutionary results in an infinite populations. Through theoretical analysis, we reveal that corruption will decrease the level of cooperation when cooperators are more inclined to bribe, and stronger leaders and richer economic potential can both enhance the level of contributions. Once when defectors are more willing to provide bribe, a stronger leader can stimulate individual's willingness to cooperate under poor economic potential, while a richer economic environment requires a weaker leader. We further numerically verify the above theoretical results.
\noindent\section{Model}
\noindent\subsection{IPGG}
We consider that $N$ individuals are randomly sampled from an infinite well-mixed population to play the PGG. According to the previous experimental setup \citep{Muthukrishna_nhb_17}, we consider that every individual has an initial fund $b$ and decides whether or not to contribute $c$ to the public goods pool. And the total contribution of the public goods pool is multiplied by the pool multiplier $F$ where $1<F<N$ and then distributed equally to all group members regardless of contribution. Thus one cooperator ($C$) can obtain lower payoff than a defector ($D$) in the same group. In order to solve the above cooperation problem, we consider institutional punishment under the framework of PGG. Concretely, each individual needs to pay a fixed tax $\tau$ to support such a punishment institution before contributing to the PGG, and then one individual is randomly selected from the game group as a leader. With probability $\beta$, the leader chooses to punish individuals in the PGG by using taxes extracted from all individuals, with probability $1-\beta$ he/she does nothing. Here, we assume that one punishing leader will allocate the $\alpha$ ratio of total taxes to punish cooperators, while the remainder $(1-\alpha)N\tau$ is used for equally punishing the defectors. Here the punishment multiplier is set as $r_{p}$, which describes the intensity of the selected leader to execute the punishment. Besides, the pool multiplier $F$ is used to characterize the economic potential. In our model, the bigger the $r_{p}$ is, the stronger the punitive power of the leader is; The greater the $F$, the richer the economic potential. Thus the payoffs of $C$ and $D$ individuals in the IPGG can be respectively written as
\begin{eqnarray}\label{eq1}
\pi_{C}&=&b+\frac{Fc(N_{C}+1)}{N}-c-\tau-(1-\frac{1}{N})[\frac{N_{C}}{N-1}\frac{\beta\alpha N\tau r_{p}}{N_{C}}\nonumber\\
&+&\frac{N_{D}}{N-1}\frac{\beta\alpha N\tau r_{p}}{N_{C}+1}]
\end{eqnarray}
and
\begin{eqnarray}\label{eq2}
\pi_{D}&=&b+\frac{FcN_{C}}{N}-\tau-(1-\frac{1}{N})[\frac{N_{C}}{N-1}\frac{\beta(1-\alpha)N\tau r_{p}}{N_{D}+1}\nonumber\\
&+&\frac{N_{D}}{N-1}\frac{\beta(1-\alpha)N\tau r_{p}}{N_{D}}],
\end{eqnarray}
where $1-\frac{1}{N}$ denotes the probability that the focus cooperator or defector is not selected as the leader, $N_{C}$ and $N_{D}$ respectively refer to the number of $C$ and $D$ individuals in the group. Besides, $\frac{N_{C}}{N-1}$ denotes the probability that one cooperator is selected as leader among the remaining $N-1$ individuals, and $\frac{\beta\alpha N\tau r_{p}}{N_{C}}$ denotes the expected fine that the focus cooperator needs to bear when the leader is a cooperator. $\frac{N_{D}}{N-1}\frac{\beta\alpha N\tau r_{p}}{N_{C}+1}$ represents the expected fine that the focus cooperator receives from the defective leader. Similarly, $\frac{N_{C}}{N-1}\frac{\beta(1-\alpha)N\tau r_{p}}{N_{D}+1}+\frac{N_{D}}{N-1}\frac{\beta(1-\alpha)N\tau r_{p}}{N_{D}}$ represents the expected fine that the focus defector needs to bear.
\noindent\subsection{BG}
Then we consider bribery under the framework of IPGG. In this case, all $N-1$ individuals and one leader respectively have one additional choice. Concretely, the other $N-1$ individuals can decide to use their endowment to contribute to the common pool, retain for themselves, and offer bribes to the selected leader. In turn, the leader can choose to punish other individuals, do nothing, or accept the bribe. Here we set the probability that one cooperator (non-leader) chooses to offer bribe $h$ to the leader as $p$ and the probability that one defector chooses to offer bribe as $q$. Furthermore, the probability that the leader chooses to punish is set as $\beta$, the probability of accepting bribe is $\gamma$, and hence the probability of doing nothing is $1-\beta-\gamma$. Then the payoffs of $C$ and $D$ individuals obtained from the BG can be respectively rewritten as
\begin{eqnarray}\label{eq3}
\pi_{C}&=&b+\frac{Fc(N_{C}+1)}{N}-c-\tau+\frac{1}{N}(p\gamma hN_{C}+qhN_{D}\gamma)\nonumber\\
&-&(1-\frac{1}{N})[ph\gamma+\frac{N_{C}}{N-1}\frac{\beta\alpha N\tau r_{p}}{N_{C}}+\frac{N_{D}}{N-1}\frac{\beta\alpha N\tau r_{p}}{N_{C}+1}]
\end{eqnarray}
and
\begin{eqnarray}\label{eq4}
\pi_{D}&=&b+\frac{FcN_{C}}{N}-\tau+\frac{1}{N}(p\gamma hN_{C}+qhN_{D}\gamma)\nonumber\\
&-&(1-\frac{1}{N})[qh\gamma+\frac{N_{C}}{N-1}\frac{\beta(1-\alpha)N\tau r_{p}}{N_{D}+1}+\frac{N_{D}}{N-1}\frac{\beta(1-\alpha)N\tau r_{p}}{N_{D}}],
\end{eqnarray}
where $\frac{1}{N}$ denotes the probability that the focus individual is selected as leader, $p\gamma hN_{C}$ denotes the expected bribe amount that the leader receives from cooperators, and $qhN_{D}\gamma$ denotes the expected bribe amount that the leader receives from defectors. Besides, $ph\gamma$ and $qh\gamma$ respectively denote the expected bribe amounts provided by cooperator and defector for the leader.
We use social learning to describe the strategy selection process, that is, individuals tend to imitate other individuals' strategies which can produce higher payoffs \citep{Hofbauer_98}. In the following, we shall explore the replicator dynamics of
cooperation and defection in an infinite population.
\noindent\section{Results}
In an infinite population, a general approach to investigate the evolutionary
dynamics of the fraction $x$ of $C$ individuals (and $1-x$ of $D$ individuals) in an infinite population
is the gradient of selection associated with the well-known replicator equation \citep{Schuster_83,Hofbauer_98}, given as
\begin{eqnarray}\label{re}
\dot{x}=x(1-x)(f_{C}-f_{D}),
\end{eqnarray}
which describes the change in the frequency of cooperation in the population. Here $f_{C}$ and $f_{D}$ are respectively
the average payoffs of $C$ and $D$ individuals. According to the
system equation (\ref{re}), $C (D)$ individuals will increase in the population whenever $\dot{x}> 0
(\dot{x}<0)$. Since the population is well-mixed, where each individual
can interact with each other. Then we can written the average payoffs of $C$ and $D$ individuals as
\begin{eqnarray}\label{equ6}
f_{C}=\sum_{N_{C}=0}^{N-1}\binom{N-1}{N_{C}}x^{N_{C}}(1-x)^{N-N_{C}-1}\pi_{C}
\end{eqnarray}
and
\begin{eqnarray}\label{equ7}
f_{D}=\sum_{N_{C}=0}^{N-1}\binom{N-1}{N_{C}}x^{N_{C}}(1-x)^{N-N_{C}-1}\pi_{D}.
\end{eqnarray}
\begin{figure}
\begin{center}
\includegraphics[width=1.0\textwidth]{figure1.eps}
\caption{Evolutionary dynamics of cooperation in IPGG. Panels (a), (b), and (c) show the gradient of selection changing with the fraction of cooperators for different values of pool multiplier $F$. Panel (d) shows the internal roots of $G(x)$ as a function of $F$ for different values of $r_{p}$. Panel (e) shows the internal roots of $G(x)$ as a function of $r_{p}$ for different values of $F$. Open circles represent unstable equilibrium points, and filled circles denote stable equilibrium points. The arrow pointing to the right indicates that cooperation is favored over defection. Parameter values: $b=12, N=5, c=1, \tau=1, F=2, \alpha=0.5, \beta=0.2,$ and $r_{p}=1.4$ in panel (a); $N=5, c=1, b=12, \tau=1, \alpha=0.5, F=3, r_{p}=2,$ and $\beta=0.2$ in panel (b); $N=5, F=4.7, c=1, b=12, \tau=1, \alpha=0.15, \beta=0.2,$ and $r_{p}=4$ in panel (c); $N=5, c=1, b=12, \tau=1, \alpha=0.5,$ and $\beta=0.2$ in panels (d) and (e).}\label{fig1}
\end{center}
\end{figure}
For the convenience of theoretical analysis, we set that $G (x) = x(1-x)Q(x)$ where $Q (x) = f_{C}-f_{D}$.
\noindent\textbf{Remark 3.1.} The system equation (\ref{re}) has two boundary equilibrium points, namely, $x = 1$ (full cooperation) and $x = 0$ (full defection).
\begin{figure}
\includegraphics[width=1.0\textwidth]{figure2.eps}
\caption{The competition between peer punisher and peer excluder strategies in optional public goods game. In the absence of second-order sanctioning, shown in panel~(a), both strategies survive but peer exclusion dominates. If second-order exclusion and punishment are applied then peer excluders prevail, as shown in panel~(b). Both the cost and fine of punishment are equal. Parameters are $N=5$, $r=3$, $c=1$, $\mu=10^{-6}$, $\sigma=1$, $M=100$, $c_{E}=0.4$, and $\beta=\gamma=0.4$}\label{fig2}
\end{figure}
In the following, we will analyze the existence and stability of the interior equilibrium points of equation (\ref{re}) in the models of IPGG and BG, respectively.
\noindent\subsection{Evolutionary dynamics in IPGG}
When bribery is not considered, by substituting equation (\ref{eq1}) into equation (\ref{equ6}), we can calculate the average payoff of cooperators as
\begin{eqnarray*}
f_{C}&=&b+\frac{Fc[(N-1)x+1]}{N}-c-\tau-\beta\alpha\tau r_{p}-\beta\alpha\tau r_{p}\frac{(1-x)-(1-x)^{N}}{x}.
\end{eqnarray*}
Similarly, by substituting equation (\ref{eq2}) into equation (\ref{equ7}), we can calculate the average payoff of defectors as
\begin{eqnarray*}
f_{D}&=&b+\frac{Fc(N-1)x}{N}-\tau-\beta(1-\alpha)\tau r_{p}-\beta(1-\alpha)\tau r_{p}\frac{x(1-x^{N-1})}{1-x}.
\end{eqnarray*}
\noindent\textbf{Theorem 3.1.}
Let $F_{\min}=\frac{[c-\beta\tau r_{p}+2\alpha\beta\tau r_{p}-\beta(1-\alpha)\tau r_{p}(N-1)]N}{c}$ and $F_{\max}=\frac{[c-\beta\tau r_{p}+\beta\alpha\tau r_{p}(N+1)]N}{c}$. Thus we have the following three conclusions:\\
(1) If $F< F_{\min},$ the system equation (\ref{re}) does not have interior equilibrium point for $x\in (0, 1)$. Then the equilibrium point $x=0$ is stable, while the equilibrium point $x=1$ is unstable.\\
(2) If $F_{\min}<F<F_{\max},$ the system equation (\ref{re}) just has one interior equilibrium point $x^{*}$, which is unstable. The two boundary equilibrium points $x=1$ and $x=0$ are stable.\\
(3) If $F> F_{\max},$ the system equation (\ref{re}) has no interior equilibrium point in $(0, 1)$. Only $x=1$ is a stable equilibrium point, while the equilibrium point $x=0$ is unstable .
\noindent\textbf{Proof:}
Considering that the difference between $f_{C}$ and $f_{D}$ determines the appearance of interior equilibrium points of replicator equation, we can theoretically analyze the existence of the interior equilibrium point. The difference between $f_{C}$ and $f_{D}$ can be calculated as
\begin{eqnarray}\label{eq8}
Q(x) &=&f_{C}-f_{D}\nonumber\\
&=&\frac{Fc}{N}-c-2\beta\alpha\tau r_{p}+\beta\tau r_{p}-\beta\alpha\tau r_{p}\frac{1-x}{x}[1-(1-x)^{N-1}]\nonumber\\
&+&\frac{r_{p}\beta(1-\alpha)\tau}{1-x}x(1-x^{N-1}).
\end{eqnarray}
Considering that $1-x^{N-1}=(1-x)(1+x+\cdots+x^{N-2})$, we can simplify equation (\ref{eq8}) to
\begin{eqnarray}\label{eq9}
Q(x) &=&\frac{Fc}{N}-c-2\beta\alpha\tau r_{p}+\beta\tau r_{p}-\beta\alpha\tau r_{p}\sum_{k=0}^{N-2}(1-x)^{k+1}\nonumber\\
&+&r_{p}\beta(1-\alpha)\tau\sum_{k=0}^{N-2}x^{k+1}.
\end{eqnarray}
Notice that
\begin{eqnarray}\label{eq10}
\frac{\partial Q(x)}{\partial x} &=&\beta\alpha\tau r_{p}\sum_{k=0}^{N-2}(k+1)(1-x)^{k}+r_{p}\beta(1-\alpha)\tau\sum_{k=0}^{N-2}(k+1)x^{k}.
\end{eqnarray}
We can judge that $Q(x)$ is an increasing function since $\frac{\partial Q(x)}{\partial x}>0$ for $x\in (0,1)$ when $\beta\tau r_{p}\neq 0$. In addition, we know that
\begin{eqnarray}\label{eq11}
Q(0)&=&\frac{Fc}{N}-c+\beta\tau r_{p}-\beta\alpha\tau r_{p}(N+1),\\
Q(1)&=&\frac{Fc}{N}-c+\beta\tau r_{p}-2\beta\alpha\tau r_{p}+\beta(1-\alpha)\tau r_{p}(N-1).
\end{eqnarray}
Then we can get the following conclusions:\\
(1) When $Q(1)<0$, that is, $F< F_{\min}$, the system equation (\ref{re}) has no interior equilibrium point in $(0, 1)$. Since $\frac{\partial G(x)}{\partial x}|_{x=1}=-Q(1)>0$ and $\frac{\partial G(x)}{\partial x}|_{x=0}=Q(0)<0$, we know that the equilibrium point $x=0$ is stable, while another boundary equilibrium point $x=1$ is unstable.\\
(2) When $Q(0)<0<Q(1)$, that is, $F_{\min}< F< F_{\max}$, the system equation (\ref{re}) has an unstable interior equilibrium point in $(0, 1)$. Since $\frac{\partial G(x)}{\partial x}|_{x=1}<0$ and $\frac{\partial G(x)}{\partial x}|_{x=0}<0$, thus the boundary equilibrium points $x=1$ and $x=0$ are both stable.\\
(3) When $Q(0)>0$, that is, $F> F_{\max}$, the system equation (\ref{re}) does not have interior equilibrium point for all $x\in (0, 1)$. Since $\frac{\partial G(x)}{\partial x}|_{x=1}<0$ and $\frac{\partial G(x)}{\partial x}|_{x=0}>0$, thus the equilibrium point $x=0$ is unstable, while another boundary equilibrium point $x=1$ is stable.
In order to verify the above theoretical analysis, we provide numerical calculations by presenting three typical dynamical outcomes for the gradient of selection $\dot{x}$ changing with the proportion of cooperators, as shown in Fig.~\ref{fig1}. We find that when parameter values satisfy $F<F_{\min}$, the values of the gradient of selection $\dot{x}$ are negative, and thus cooperators will not survive in the population (Fig.~\ref{fig1} (a)). When $F_{\min}< F< F_{\max}$, as shown in Fig.~\ref{fig1} (b), one unstable interior equilibrium point can emerge, and thus the system can be divided into two basins of attraction. Concretely, the system evolvs towards full cooperation ($x=1$) or full defection ($x=0$), depending on initial conditions. The existing two boundary equilibrium points, namely, $x = 0$ and $x = 1$ are both stable. When $F> F_{\max}$, the gradient of selection is always positive, and $x=1$ is the only steady state of the system (Fig.~\ref{fig1} (c)). In this case, cooperation can emerge and be maintained in the population. To better understand the effects of the pool multiplier $F$ and punishment multiplier $r_{p}$ on evolutionary dynamics, in Fig.~\ref{fig1}(d) and (e) we respectively show how the value of internal root changes with $F$ and $r_{p}$. We find that the value of the existing internal root monotonically decreases with increasing the pool multiplier $F$ (Fig.~\ref{fig1} (d)) and punishment multiplier $r_{p}$ (Fig.~\ref{fig1} (e)). This means that the advantage of cooperation expands with the increase of any one of these two parameters ($F$ and $r_{p}$).
\subsection{Evolutionary dynamics in BG}
When bribery is possible, by substituting equation (\ref{eq3}) into equation (\ref{equ6}), we can calculate the average payoff of cooperators as
\begin{eqnarray*}
f_{C}&=&b+\frac{Fc[(N-1)x+1]}{N}-c-\tau-\beta\alpha\tau r_{p}-\beta\alpha\tau r_{p}\frac{(1-x)-(1-x)^{N}}{x}\nonumber\\
&-&\frac{N-1}{N}p\gamma h+\frac{1}{N}[p\gamma h(N-1)x+q\gamma h (N-1)(1-x)].
\end{eqnarray*}
By substituting equation (\ref{eq4}) into equation (\ref{equ7}), we can calculate the average payoff of defectors as
\begin{eqnarray*}
f_{D}&=&b+\frac{Fc[(N-1)x]}{N}-\tau-\beta(1-\alpha)\tau r_{p}-\beta(1-\alpha)\tau r_{p}\frac{x(1-x^{N-1})}{1-x}\\
&-&\frac{N-1}{N}q\gamma h+\frac{1}{N}[p\gamma h(N-1)x+q\gamma h (N-1)(1-x)].
\end{eqnarray*}
\noindent\textbf{Theorem 3.2.}
Let $\bar{F}_{\min}=\frac{Nc-(N-1)\gamma h(q-p)-N\beta\tau r_{p}(1-2\alpha)-N(N-1)r_{p}\beta(1-\alpha)\tau}{c}$ and $\bar{F}_{\max}=\frac{Nc-(N-1)\gamma h(q-p)-N\beta\tau r_{p}+N\beta\alpha\tau r_{p}(N+1)}{c}$. Thus we have the following three conclusions:\\
(1) If $F< \bar{F}_{\min},$ the system equation (\ref{re}) does not have interior equilibrium point for $x\in (0, 1)$. Then the boundary equilibrium point $x=0$ is stable, while another boundary equilibrium point $x=1$ is unstable.\\
(2) If $\bar{F}_{\min}<F<\bar{F}_{\max},$ the system equation (\ref{re}) has one interior equilibrium point $x^{*}$, which is unstable. The existing two boundary equilibrium points ($x=1$ and $x=0$) are stable.\\
(3) If $F> \bar{F}_{\max},$ the system equation (\ref{re}) has no interior equilibrium point in $(0, 1)$. Only the equilibrium point $x=1$ is stable, while the equilibrium point $x=0$ is unstable.
\noindent\textbf{Proof:}
In this case, the difference between $f_{C}$ and $f_{D}$ can be calculated as
\begin{eqnarray}\label{eq13}
Q(x)&=&\frac{Fc}{N}-c+\frac{N-1}{N}\gamma h(q-p)-2\beta\alpha\tau r_{p}+\beta\tau r_{p}-\beta\alpha\tau r_{p}\sum_{k=0}^{N-2}(1-x)^{k+1}\nonumber\\
&+&r_{p}\beta(1-\alpha)\tau\sum_{k=0}^{N-2}x^{k+1}.
\end{eqnarray}
Considering that $\frac{\partial Q(x)}{\partial x}>0$, we know that $Q(x)$ is strictly increasing for all $x\in (0,1)$. Accordingly, we know
\begin{eqnarray*}\label{eq11}
\frac{\partial G(x)}{\partial x}|_{x=0}&=&Q(0)\nonumber\\
&=&\frac{Fc}{N}-c+\frac{N-1}{N}\gamma h(q-p)+\beta\tau r_{p}-\beta\alpha\tau r_{p}(N+1),\\
-\frac{\partial G(x)}{\partial x}|_{x=1}&=&Q(1)\nonumber\\
&=&\frac{Fc}{N}-c+\frac{N-1}{N}\gamma h(q-p)+\beta\tau r_{p}-2\beta\alpha\tau r_{p}\nonumber\\
&+&\beta(1-\alpha)\tau r_{p}(N-1).
\end{eqnarray*}
We can get the following three conclusions:\\
(1) If $Q(1)<0$, that is, $F< \bar{F}_{\min}$, the system equation (\ref{re}) has no interior equilibrium point for $x\in (0, 1)$. Since $\frac{\partial G(x)}{\partial x}|_{x=1}>0$ and $\frac{\partial G(x)}{\partial x}|_{x=0}<0$, thus we know that $x=0$ is stable, while $x=1$ is unstable.\\
(2) If $Q(0)<0<Q(1)$, that is, $\bar{F}_{\min}< F< \bar{F}_{\max}$, the system equation (\ref{re}) has one interior equilibrium point $x=x^{*}$. Considering that $\frac{\partial G(x)}{\partial x}|_{x=x^{*}}>0$, we know that $x=x^{*}$ is unstable. Since $\frac{\partial G(x)}{\partial x}|_{x=1}<0$ and $\frac{\partial G(x)}{\partial x}|_{x=0}<0$, we know that the existing two boundary equilibrium points are stable.\\
(3) If $Q(0)>0$, that is, $F>\bar{F}_{\max}$, the system equation (\ref{re}) does not have interior equilibrium point for $x\in (0, 1)$. Since $\frac{\partial G(x)}{\partial x}|_{x=1}<0$ and $\frac{\partial G(x)}{\partial x}|_{x=0}>0$, we know that $x=1$ is stable, while $x=0$ is unstable.
\begin{figure}
\begin{center}
\includegraphics[width=1.0\textwidth]{figure3.eps}
\caption{Evolutionary dynamics of cooperation for different values of pool multiplier $F$ and punishment multiplier $r_{p}$ in IPGG and BG under two different scenarios.
Panels (a)-(d) show the basin of attraction of full cooperation state for different values of $F$ and $r_{p}$ when $\gamma h(N-1)(q-p)/N<0$. Panels (e)-(h) show the evolutionary outcomes when $\gamma h(N-1)(q-p)/N>0$. Parameter values: $N=5, c=1, b=12, \tau=1, p=0.6, q=0.5, \alpha=0.6, h=1, \gamma=0.6, F=2, \beta=0.2$, $r_{p}=2.5$ in panel (a), $r_{p}=4$ in panel (b); $N=5, c=1, b=12, \tau=1, \alpha=0.6, h=1, \gamma=0.6, p=0.6, q=0.5, F=4, \beta=0.2$, $r_{p}=2.5$ in panel (c), $r_{p}=4$ in panel (d); $N=5, c=1, b=12, \tau=1, \alpha=0.6, h=1, \gamma=0.6, p=0.3, q=0.8, F=2, \beta=0.2$, $r_{p}=2.5$ in panel (e), $r_{p}=4$ in panel (f); $N=5, c=1, b=12, \tau=1, \alpha=0.6, h=1, \gamma=0.6, p=0.3, q=0.8, F=4, \beta=0.2$, $r_{p}=2.5$ in panel (g), $r_{p}=4$ in panel (h).}\label{fig3}
\end{center}
\end{figure}
In Fig.~\ref{fig2}, we provide three representative dynamical outcomes, namely, defection dominance (Fig.~\ref{fig2} (a)), bistable state of cooperation and defection (Fig.~\ref{fig2} (b)), and cooperation dominance (Fig.~\ref{fig2} (c)) when the model parameter value respectively satisfy $F<\bar{F}_{\min}, \bar{F}_{\min}<F<\bar{F}_{\max}$, and $F>\bar{F}_{\max}$. Besides, we show how the internal root of the gradient of selection varies with the model parameters $r_{p}$ and $F$ when $\gamma h(N-1)(q-p)/N<0$. As shown in Fig.~\ref{fig2}(d) and (e), for fixed $r_{p}$, the value of the existing internal root of $G(x)$ gradually decreases with the increase of $F$, which means that increasing $F$ can expand the basin of attraction of full cooperation state ($x=1$);
for fixed $F$, the increase of $r_{p}$ will enlarge the advantage of cooperators. Furthermore, Fig.~\ref{fig2}(f) and (g) show the evolutionary outcomes when $\gamma h(N-1)(q-p)/N>0$. Concretely, for fixed $r_{p}$, increasing $F$ will expand the basin of attraction of full cooperation steady state.
In addition, we notice that the larger the value of $r_{p}$, the slower the value of the internal root $x^{*}$ decreases with the increase of $F$ (Fig.~\ref{fig2}(f)). Fig.~\ref{fig2}(g) shows that with the increase of $r_{p}$ the internal root of $G(x)$ monotonically decreases when $F$ is not large. While when the value of $F$ is large, the value of the interior equilibrium point will increase with the increase of $r_{p}$.
In what follows, we respectively show how the basin of attraction of the full cooperation steady state varies for two different $r_{p}$ values when the economic potential is poor or rich under two different scenarios (Fig.~\ref{fig3}). Concretely, when $\gamma h(N-1)(q-p)/N<0$, we show that corruption will reduce the advantage of cooperation, and a stronger leader and stronger economic potential will both help to enhance the level of cooperation (see Fig.~\ref{fig3}(a)-(d)). While if $\gamma h(N-1)(q-p)/N>0$, a rich economic potential environment is more conducive to the evolution of cooperation than a poor economic potential environment. More interestingly, when the economic potential is poor, stronger leaders can be more favorable to expand the basin of attraction of full cooperation than a weak leader (see Fig.~\ref{fig3}(e) and (f)). While when the economic potential is strong, weaker leaders can be more beneficial to expand the advantage of cooperation in BG (see Fig.~\ref{fig3}(g) and (h)).
Finally, it is worth pointing out that we just set $N = 5$ in
Figs.\ref{fig1}-\ref{fig3} following previous related works \cite{huang_jtb_18,Liu_MMMAS_19,Liu_IJBC_21}, so that it will
be more conducive to make the comparison between our results
and those in Refs. \cite{huang_jtb_18,Liu_MMMAS_19,Liu_IJBC_21} where $N$ is also fixed at 5. Indeed
the group size $N$ plays an important role in evolution of cooperation \cite{Chen_15sr,Carpenter_07GEB}. However, we find that our main
results remain valid if the value of $N$ is approximately changed.
\noindent\section{Conclusions}
In summary, we have constructed a mathematical model by introducing bribery into the IPGG in an infinite population, so that we can study the interconnections among corruption, economic potential, and leader's punitive power and their effects on the replicator dynamics of cooperation and defection. We have found that there exist three different evolutionary outcomes, namely, cooperation dominance, bistable state of cooperation and defection, and defection dominance, and further given the conditions for the emergence of the above three dynamic behaviors from a theoretical perspective in both IPGG and BG. Furthermore, we have found that when cooperators are more inclined to offer bribes than defectors, the existence of corruption will reduce the advantage of cooperation, and richer economic potential and stronger leaders are both better able to sustain public goods contributions. On the contrary, when defectors are more willing to offer bribes, some nontrivial results will appear: stronger leaders in poor economic potential environment increase the advantage of cooperation, while reduce it in a rich economic potential environment.
Previous behavioral experimental results show that the leader's punitive power and the economic potential are two important factors that may influence the effect of institutional punishment on public good provisioning \citep{Muthukrishna_nhb_17}. Concretely, Muthukrishna \emph{et al.} \citep{Muthukrishna_nhb_17} revealed that stronger leaders can better promote the evolution of cooperation when the economic potential is weak and bribery is not considered, but when bribery is allowed, strong leaders will reduce the level of contribution. Furthermore, the existing of corruption will lead to the reduction of public goods provisioning. Different from previous experimental observations, our theoretical model predicts that whether corruption reduces the public goods contribution depends on the bribery tendency of cooperators and defectors, and whether strong leaders can promote cooperation depends on the economic potential. Our work may unveil more quantitative effects of interconnections among corruption, institutional punishment, and economic factors for the evolution of cooperation from theoretical perspective.
In the future work, we can thus consider different types of institutional incentive strategies such as institutional reward and the combination of punishment and reward. These incentives have been proved to be effective in solving social dilemmas \cite{Sun_21iscience,Gois19sr} and regulating technology safety \cite{HAN22TS,Pereira20JAIR}. Thus it is worth studying the interplay among different institutional incentives, corruption, and the evolution of cooperation, and further revealing how these incentives might influence bribery decision making. Furthermore, it could be interesting to explore whether these incentive strategies can promote the evolution of cooperation better than institutional punishment.
\section*{Acknowledgments}
This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grants Nos. 61976048 and 62036002) and the Fundamental Research Funds of the Central Universities of China. L.L. acknowledges the support from Special Project of Scientific and Technological Innovation (Grant No. 2452021004).
\section*{Declaration of interest}
None
| {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaArXiv"
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{"url":"https:\/\/www.mathportal.org\/math-tests\/pre-algebra-tests\/whole-numbers.php?testNo=3","text":"Math Calculators, Lessons and Formulas\n\nIt is time to solve your math problem\n\nmathportal.org\n\u2022 Pre algebra\n\u2022 Whole numbers\n\u2022 Divisibility Rules\n\n# Divisibility Rules\n\nans:\nsyntax error\nC\nDEL\nANS\n\u00b1\n(\n)\n\u00f7\n\u00d7\n7\n8\n9\n4\n5\n6\n+\n1\n2\n3\n=\n0\n.\nauto next question\ncalculator\n\u2022 Question 1: 1 pts $5443$ is divisible by $2.$\n\u2022 Question 2: 1 pts $2976$ is divisible by $3.$\n\u2022 Question 3: 1 pts Use 'Divisibility Rules' to determine which of the following numbers is a divisor of the number $6 455.$\n $2$ $3$ $4$ $5$\n\u2022 Question 4: 1 pts If a number is divisible by $6,$ it is also divisible by $12.$\n\u2022 Question 5: 1 pts $655$ is divisible by $5$ and $10.$\n\u2022 Question 6: 2 pts A number is divisible by $6$ if\nit is divisible by $2$\nit is divisible by $3$.\n\u2022 Question 7: 2 pts Which number is divisible by $2, 3, 4, 6$ and $9.$\n $430$ $438$ $432$ $436$\n\u2022 Question 8: 2 pts $105204$ is divisible by $11.$\n\u2022 Question 9: 3 pts Use 'Divisibility Rules' to determine which of the following numbers is NOT a divisor of the number $4032.$\n $7$ $8$ $9$ $11$\n\u2022 Question 10: 3 pts Tom picked a natural number and multiplied it by $3$. Use 'Divisibility Rules' to determine which number CANNOT be the result of this multiplication.\n $996$ $366$ $105$ $103$\n\u2022 Question 11: 3 pts Use 'Divisibility Rules' to determine which one of the following numbers is divisible by $7.$\n $5985$ $5990$ $5995$ $6000$\n\u2022 Question 12: 3 pts Ann picked a whole number and multiplied it by $13$. Use 'Divisibility Rules' to determine which number CAN be the result of this multiplication.\n $169$ $144$ $196$ $168$","date":"2021-09-19 19:36:48","metadata":"{\"extraction_info\": {\"found_math\": true, \"script_math_tex\": 0, \"script_math_asciimath\": 0, \"math_annotations\": 0, \"math_alttext\": 0, \"mathml\": 0, \"mathjax_tag\": 0, \"mathjax_inline_tex\": 1, \"mathjax_display_tex\": 0, \"mathjax_asciimath\": 0, \"img_math\": 0, \"codecogs_latex\": 0, \"wp_latex\": 0, \"mimetex.cgi\": 0, \"\/images\/math\/codecogs\": 0, \"mathtex.cgi\": 0, \"katex\": 0, \"math-container\": 0, \"wp-katex-eq\": 0, \"align\": 0, \"equation\": 0, \"x-ck12\": 0, \"texerror\": 0, \"math_score\": 0.42846325039863586, \"perplexity\": 682.9417400952511}, \"config\": {\"markdown_headings\": true, \"markdown_code\": true, \"boilerplate_config\": {\"ratio_threshold\": 0.18, \"absolute_threshold\": 20, \"end_threshold\": 15, \"enable\": true}, \"remove_buttons\": true, \"remove_image_figures\": true, \"remove_link_clusters\": true, \"table_config\": {\"min_rows\": 2, \"min_cols\": 3, \"format\": \"plain\"}, \"remove_chinese\": true, \"remove_edit_buttons\": true, \"extract_latex\": true}, \"warc_path\": \"s3:\/\/commoncrawl\/crawl-data\/CC-MAIN-2021-39\/segments\/1631780056900.32\/warc\/CC-MAIN-20210919190128-20210919220128-00268.warc.gz\"}"} | null | null |
{"url":"http:\/\/mathhelpforum.com\/advanced-algebra\/18634-finite-group-element-prime-order-print.html","text":"# Finite group with element of prime order\n\n\u2022 September 7th 2007, 05:38 PM\nFinite group with element of prime order\nLet G be a finite group with more than one element. Show that G has an element of prime order.\n\u2022 September 7th 2007, 11:49 PM\nred_dog\nLet $a\\in G, \\ ord(a)=n$.\nIf $n$ is prime, we've done.\nElse, let $p$ be a prime divisor of $n$.\nThen $a^n=a^{pm}=(a^m)^p=e$.\nLet $b=a^m\\in G\\Rightarrow b^p=e$.\nLet $0. Then $b^q=(a^m)^q=a^{mq}$.\nBut $mq.\nSo $ord(b)=p$.\n\u2022 September 8th 2007, 04:26 AM\ntopsquark\nQuote:\n\nOriginally Posted by red_dog\nLet $a\\in G, \\ ord(a)=n$.\nIf $n$ is prime, we've done.\nElse, let $p$ be a prime divisor of $n$.\nThen $a^n=a^{pm}=(a^m)^p=e$.\nLet $b=a^m\\in G\\Rightarrow b^p=e$.\nLet $0. Then $b^q=(a^m)^q=a^{mq}$.\nBut $mq.\nSo $ord(b)=p$.\n\nIf I am reading this right, then, the only case left to show is to prove that no group can exist where the order of all of its elements is 1. (I admit this is practically trivial, but it wasn't addressed in the above proof.)\n\n-Dan\n\u2022 September 8th 2007, 05:51 PM\nThePerfectHacker\nQuote:\n\nOriginally Posted by topsquark\nIf I am reading this right, then, the only case left to show is to prove that no group can exist where the order of all of its elements is 1. (I admit this is practically trivial, but it wasn't addressed in the above proof.)\n\n-Dan\n\nThe only element of order 1 is the identity. He said \"with more than 1 element (identity)\".","date":"2014-12-17 22:04:04","metadata":"{\"extraction_info\": {\"found_math\": true, \"script_math_tex\": 0, \"script_math_asciimath\": 0, \"math_annotations\": 0, \"math_alttext\": 0, \"mathml\": 0, \"mathjax_tag\": 0, \"mathjax_inline_tex\": 0, \"mathjax_display_tex\": 0, \"mathjax_asciimath\": 0, \"img_math\": 0, \"codecogs_latex\": 20, \"wp_latex\": 0, \"mimetex.cgi\": 0, \"\/images\/math\/codecogs\": 0, \"mathtex.cgi\": 0, \"katex\": 0, \"math-container\": 0, \"wp-katex-eq\": 0, \"align\": 0, \"equation\": 0, \"x-ck12\": 0, \"texerror\": 0, \"math_score\": 0.9490273594856262, \"perplexity\": 510.9044342011661}, \"config\": {\"markdown_headings\": true, \"markdown_code\": true, \"boilerplate_config\": {\"ratio_threshold\": 0.18, \"absolute_threshold\": 10, \"end_threshold\": 15, \"enable\": true}, \"remove_buttons\": true, \"remove_image_figures\": true, \"remove_link_clusters\": true, \"table_config\": {\"min_rows\": 2, \"min_cols\": 3, \"format\": \"plain\"}, \"remove_chinese\": true, \"remove_edit_buttons\": true, \"extract_latex\": true}, \"warc_path\": \"s3:\/\/commoncrawl\/crawl-data\/CC-MAIN-2014-52\/segments\/1418802764809.9\/warc\/CC-MAIN-20141217075244-00172-ip-10-231-17-201.ec2.internal.warc.gz\"}"} | null | null |
package br.edu.ufcg.computacao.si1.service;
import br.edu.ufcg.computacao.si1.model.forms.UsuarioForm;
import br.edu.ufcg.computacao.si1.model.usuario.Usuario;
import br.edu.ufcg.computacao.si1.repository.UsuarioRepository;
import org.junit.After;
import org.junit.Before;
import org.junit.Test;
import org.junit.runner.RunWith;
import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Autowired;
import org.springframework.boot.test.context.SpringBootTest;
import org.springframework.test.context.junit4.SpringRunner;
import static junit.framework.TestCase.*;
/**
* @author Caio Felipe
* Created by Caio Felipe on 26/03/16.
*/
@RunWith(SpringRunner.class)
@SpringBootTest
public class UsuarioServiceTest {
@Autowired
private UsuarioServiceImpl usuarioService;
@Autowired
private UsuarioRepository usuarioRepository;
private UsuarioForm usuarioForm1, usuarioForm2, usuarioForm3;
@Before
public void setUp() {
usuarioForm1 = new UsuarioForm();
usuarioForm1.setEmail("caio@email.com");
usuarioForm1.setNome("Caio");
usuarioForm1.setRole(1);
usuarioForm1.setSenha("caio");
usuarioForm2 = new UsuarioForm();
usuarioForm2.setEmail("pepe@email.com");
usuarioForm2.setNome("Pepe");
usuarioForm2.setRole(2);
usuarioForm2.setSenha("pepe");
usuarioForm3 = new UsuarioForm();
usuarioForm3.setEmail("thaynan@email.com");
usuarioForm3.setNome("thaynan");
usuarioForm3.setRole(2);
usuarioForm3.setSenha("thaynan");
}
@After
public void tearDown() {
usuarioRepository.deleteAll();
}
@Test
public void testInicializacao() {
assertNotNull("AnuncioService não foi instânciado corretamente", usuarioService);
assertTrue("AnuncioService não deveria conter nenhum item", usuarioService.obterTodasEntidadesCadastradas().isEmpty());
}
@Test
public void testCreateAd() {
Usuario usuario1FromDB = usuarioService.criarNovaEntidade(usuarioForm1);
Usuario usuario2FromDB = usuarioService.criarNovaEntidade(usuarioForm2);
Usuario usuario3FromDB = usuarioService.criarNovaEntidade(usuarioForm3);
assertNotNull(usuario1FromDB);
assertNotNull(usuario2FromDB);
assertNotNull(usuario3FromDB);
assertTrue(usuarioRepository.exists(usuario1FromDB.getId()));
assertTrue(usuarioRepository.exists(usuario2FromDB.getId()));
assertTrue(usuarioRepository.exists(usuario3FromDB.getId()));
assertEquals(usuario1FromDB.getEmail(), usuarioForm1.getEmail());
assertEquals(usuario2FromDB.getEmail(), usuarioForm2.getEmail());
assertEquals(usuario3FromDB.getEmail(), usuarioForm3.getEmail());
assertEquals(usuario1FromDB.getNome(), usuarioForm1.getNome());
assertEquals(usuario2FromDB.getNome(), usuarioForm2.getNome());
assertEquals(usuario3FromDB.getNome(), usuarioForm3.getNome());
assertEquals(usuario1FromDB, usuarioService.obterEntidadePorId(usuario1FromDB.getId()).get());
assertEquals(usuario2FromDB, usuarioService.obterEntidadePorId(usuario2FromDB.getId()).get());
assertEquals(usuario3FromDB, usuarioService.obterEntidadePorId(usuario3FromDB.getId()).get());
}
@Test
public void testGetAll() {
int QTDE_USUARIOS_ESPERADA = 3;
Usuario usuario1FromDB = usuarioService.criarNovaEntidade(usuarioForm1);
Usuario usuario2FromDB = usuarioService.criarNovaEntidade(usuarioForm2);
Usuario usuario3FromDB = usuarioService.criarNovaEntidade(usuarioForm3);
assertNotNull(usuario1FromDB);
assertNotNull(usuario2FromDB);
assertNotNull(usuario3FromDB);
assertEquals(QTDE_USUARIOS_ESPERADA, usuarioService.obterTodasEntidadesCadastradas().size());
assertTrue(usuarioService.obterTodasEntidadesCadastradas().contains(usuario1FromDB));
assertTrue(usuarioService.obterTodasEntidadesCadastradas().contains(usuario2FromDB));
assertTrue(usuarioService.obterTodasEntidadesCadastradas().contains(usuario3FromDB));
}
@Test
public void testDelete() {
int QTDE_USUARIOS_ESPERADA = 3;
Usuario usuario1FromDB = usuarioService.criarNovaEntidade(usuarioForm1);
Usuario usuario2FromDB = usuarioService.criarNovaEntidade(usuarioForm2);
Usuario usuario3FromDB = usuarioService.criarNovaEntidade(usuarioForm3);
assertEquals(QTDE_USUARIOS_ESPERADA, usuarioService.obterTodasEntidadesCadastradas().size());
assertTrue(usuarioService.obterTodasEntidadesCadastradas().contains(usuario1FromDB));
assertTrue(usuarioService.obterTodasEntidadesCadastradas().contains(usuario2FromDB));
assertTrue(usuarioService.obterTodasEntidadesCadastradas().contains(usuario3FromDB));
assertTrue(usuarioService.deletarEntidade(usuario1FromDB.getId()));
QTDE_USUARIOS_ESPERADA-=1;
assertEquals(QTDE_USUARIOS_ESPERADA, usuarioService.obterTodasEntidadesCadastradas().size());
assertTrue(usuarioService.deletarEntidade(usuario2FromDB.getId()));
QTDE_USUARIOS_ESPERADA-=1;
assertEquals(QTDE_USUARIOS_ESPERADA, usuarioService.obterTodasEntidadesCadastradas().size());
assertTrue(usuarioService.deletarEntidade(usuario3FromDB.getId()));
QTDE_USUARIOS_ESPERADA-=1;
assertEquals(QTDE_USUARIOS_ESPERADA, usuarioService.obterTodasEntidadesCadastradas().size());
assertEquals(0, QTDE_USUARIOS_ESPERADA);
assertFalse(usuarioService.deletarEntidade(usuario1FromDB.getId()));
assertFalse(usuarioService.deletarEntidade(usuario2FromDB.getId()));
assertFalse(usuarioService.deletarEntidade(usuario3FromDB.getId()));
}
@Test
public void testUpdate() {
String SUFIXO = " editado";
Usuario usuario1FromDB = usuarioService.criarNovaEntidade(usuarioForm1);
Usuario usuario2FromDB = usuarioService.criarNovaEntidade(usuarioForm2);
Usuario usuario3FromDB = usuarioService.criarNovaEntidade(usuarioForm3);
assertEquals(usuario1FromDB.getEmail(), usuarioForm1.getEmail());
assertEquals(usuario2FromDB.getEmail(), usuarioForm2.getEmail());
assertEquals(usuario3FromDB.getEmail(), usuarioForm3.getEmail());
//Update Nome
usuario1FromDB.setNome(usuario1FromDB.getNome()+SUFIXO);
usuario2FromDB.setNome(usuario1FromDB.getNome()+SUFIXO);
usuario3FromDB.setNome(usuario1FromDB.getNome()+SUFIXO);
assertTrue(usuarioService.atualizarEntidade(usuario1FromDB));
assertTrue(usuarioService.atualizarEntidade(usuario2FromDB));
assertTrue(usuarioService.atualizarEntidade(usuario3FromDB));
assertEquals(usuario1FromDB.getNome(), usuarioService.obterEntidadePorId(usuario1FromDB.getId()).get().getNome());
assertEquals(usuario2FromDB.getNome(), usuarioService.obterEntidadePorId(usuario2FromDB.getId()).get().getNome());
assertEquals(usuario3FromDB.getNome(), usuarioService.obterEntidadePorId(usuario3FromDB.getId()).get().getNome());
}
}
| {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaGithub"
} | 6,100 |
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