Other people's words

I'm a voracious reader. I devour books, and recommend only the ones that stand out for a long time after reading them. It is not at all uncommon for me to to forget a book shortly after reading it. The ones that remain in my consciousness do so because they held a resonance for me. And that resonance is not one-dimensional. I can be moved by humor, by plot, by mood, by character. Sometimes the book is summarized so well by a quotation or poem the author includes at the end, that it is what I take with me, or jot down to visit from time to time.

Sharing two of those today. The first is from The Time Traveler's Wife (a movie I haven't seen because I'm so afraid it's going to corrupt the beauty of the story). Henry and Clare's love is made stronger by the shock and disruption of a continual cycle of unexpected absence and uncertain reunion. The passage from the Oddysey quoted at the end paints the picture:

"Now from his breast into his eyes the ache
of longing mounted, and he wept at last,
his dear wife, clear and faithful, in his arms,
longed for as the sun-warmed earth is longed for by a swimmer
spent in rough water where his ship went down
under Poseidon’s blows, gale winds and tons of sea.
Few men can keep alive through a big surf
to crawl, clotted with brine, on kindly beaches
in joy, in joy, knowing the abyss behind:
and so she too rejoiced, her gaze upon her husband,
Her white arms round him pressed as though forever."

As though forever. Love exists outside of time, which is a miracle.

Gilead is the story of a 77 year old pastor from Iowa, who is writing a letter to his young son by his young wife. He won't be around when the boy is grown, so he wants to impart his thinking, and his philosophies. One set of passages in the book:

"There are two occasions when the sacred beauty of Creation becomes dazzlingly apparent, and they occur together. One is when we feel our mortal insufficiency to the world, and the other is when we feel the world’s mortal insufficiency to us..."

"...Theologians talk about a prevenient grace that precedes grace itself and allows us to accept it. I think there must also be a prevenient courage that allows us to be brave – that is, to acknowledge that there is more beauty than our eyes can bear, that precious things have been put into our hands and to do nothing to honor them is to do great harm..."

"...There is no justice in love, no proportion in it, and there need not be, because in any specific instance it is only a glimpse or parable of an embracing, incomprehensible reality. It makes no sense at all because it is the eternal breaking in on the temporal. So how could it subordinate itself to cause or consequence?"

I simply can't add any commentary. The words speak for themselves. Enjoy.