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April 11, 2006
Next I'll read The Hamlet by Faulkner
While I read the book Gilead by Marilynne Robinson at times it felt as if a body was placed upon my chest. My whole being seemed to be caught up in the beauty of the words and the misery of coming to understanding how little I know about prayer and my family. I don't think I have enjoyed a book this much since I read Death Comes to the Archbishop by Willa Cather.
From the book
So often people tell me about some wickedness they've been up to, or they've suffered from, and I think, Oh, That again! I've heard of churches in the South that oblige people to make a public confession of their graver sins to the whole congragation. I think sometimes there might be an advantage in making people aware how worn and stale thses old transgressions are. It might take some of the shine off them, for those who are tempted. But I have no evidence to suggest it has that effect.
After Reading Life Together the need of confession became much more real to me. Confession not just to God but to my brothers and sisters. It is in confession that we find we are not alone and that we are beloved.
Exixtance is the essential thing and the holy thing. IF the Lord chooses to make nothing of our trandgressions then they are nothing. Or whatever reality they have is trivial and conditional beside the exquisite primary fact of existence. Of course the Lord would wipe them away, just as I wipe dirt from your face, or tears. After all, why should the Lord bother much over these smirches that are no part of His Creation?
Sin really is one of the few things of this world that are temporal. It is indeed nothing to dismiss but it is also nothing to dwell over in its forgiven state. I will be held aaccountable but only for glories sake.
...one of them being that doctrine is not belife, it is only one way of talking about belife, and the other being that the Greek word sozo, which is usually translated "saved," can also mean healed, restored, that sort of thing. So the conventional translation narrows the meaning of the word in a way that creats false expectations.
I think that I often ask the wrong questions and seek an answer that was not intended for me because the question was not my own.
In all this book was a balm for a another book Prayer A History. I did enjoy a good chunck of the book but at some point all that is truly good about prayer seemed to be sucked out like the venom in a smake bite. Prayer is dangerous. What we ask for in God's will we recieve. The book did help me see the a kind of evolution of prayer and the need of magic in the mysitcal sense. I came to respect the orthodox church more and I grew in understanding of how we came to this point of belief in the western church. What I mean is that we seem to easily forget that God is beyond our understanding and is our Kingand Father not just our brother and friend.
| By razorback | 10:28 PM
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Comments
"Life Together" is one of my favorites.
Posted by: tuggy at April 12, 2006 12:05 AM
I'll second that emotion, Tuggy. I'm reading that book right now, actually, and it's blowing my socks off.
Have fun with Faulkner, Hope. Give me a report on how it is, will you? I'm always on the lookout for good Southern literature...
And by the way, what's this I hear from Mike about the Salvation Army? Tell me more! Jesus loves you even more than the rest of us already do. :) Catch you later.
Posted by: bob at April 12, 2006 01:06 PM