Gilead

I just finished a book tonight called Gilead. I was one of those books I didn't really want to finish because I've been meandering through it a few pages at time over the last few weeks and I just wanted to drag it out a bit longer. I loved it. It's a book about beauty, grace, memories, family, love... mixed in with thoughts on age, death, regret, heartache, loneliness... It's written as a letter from a old pastor to his young son as he approaches the end of his life.

Here's a couple quotes I read tonight... (it's not all this intense!)

"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, incomprensible reality. It makes no sense at all because it is the eternal breaking in on the temporal. So how could it be subordinate itself to cause or consequence?"

"There are two occasions when the sacred beauty of Creation becomes dazzlingly apparant, 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. Augustine says the Lord loves each of us as an only child, and that has to be true. 'He will wipe the tears from all faces." It takes nothing from the loveliness of the verse to say that is exactly what will be required..."

"Theologians talk about a prevenient grace that precedes grace itself and allows us to accept it. It 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. And therefore, this courage allows us...to make ourselves useful."

Anyway, read it if you get the chance. It's was the perfect book for a night like mine - a quiet night in a cosy room with christmas lights. It made me laugh, cry, think and hope. The best combinations.