A Book or Two Worth Your Time - 2

Jonas Jonasson grabbed me with the book "The 100-year Old Man Who Climbed Out A Window and Disappeared."  Never slow, never fast, but alway with an undercurrent of gut-busting humor, Jonasson wrote a story and both captivates and demands putting it down.  Why put it down?

You put the book down so you don't drop it while you laugh.  The humor catches you off-guard, especially if you are older and lived through some or all the history interwoven in the tale.

It makes me laugh.  It makes me think.  It celebrates a non-judgmental approach to living.  Johnasson makes growing older more fun.

What do you think?  Read it and leave your response(s), please.

A Book or Two Worth Your Time - Sherman Alexie

Many thing stimulate my thinking.  Today I want to mention a book by Sherman Alexie.  The title:  "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian".  Published by Little, Brown.

If you think, if you pray, if you feel, if you are now or ever were teen-aged, and especially if you grew up in a small town or community, this book will probably grab you.  Alexie writes clearly, entertainingly, and keeps the story moving.  I cannot imagine anyone getting bored or tired of reading at any point.
  At the back is a Discussion Guide, and after that is an interview with Ellen Forney.  Ms. Forney did the extensive art for the book.  And she did it well, thoughtfully, provocatively.  I can imagine a group of people reading this book and using the resources at the back as well as their own responses to share ideas, talk together and enrich one another.

If you use Amazon.com, try this link:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Sherman+Alexie

Or check your local library.  Read it, and leave a comment with some of your responses to the book.

Thanks.  And Thank You, Sherman Alexie.

Meant to Be

I hear and read the phrase, "meant to be".  f or instance:

• “Our love was meant to be."
• “God spared me from the disaster in which 82 other people died.  It was meant to be.  I have something yet to do in this world."
• “She was meant to be a Christian from before the beginning of time.  She’s so perfect at it!"

Of course, it is normal to feel "special" when something goes right, when we don't die in  the car wreck, when we have a great relationship.  But really:  is anything "meant to be"?

If something was "meant to be", I think human freedom would be negated.  Let me ask it this way:  If a person is born Hungarian, or Swedish, or Zulu, is that person meant be wealthy, or persecuted or ignorant?  In other words, if the country or culture of a person's birth doesn't just happen, but was meant to be, does that mean the person cannot sink below or rise above circumstances by choosing wisely, working fiercely or smoking dope?  (Or sucking up to a crime lord or crooked politician?)

I love to think I'm special to the universe, or to God, or to circumstances.  But I also love to think that my choices matter.  

How about you?  What do you think?  Leave a comment and let us know.

Ambiguity

I find an ambiguity in the words that are put into my mouth in songs, liturgies, patriotic expressions, enlistment oaths and life affirmations.  You know what I am talking about, probably.

In a worship service  you are asked as a congregation to say, “For the sake of God, we will search for the outcasts, including ourselves.”  We probably won’t, actually, but we say the words in order to fit in.

In a song we sing, “”that saved a wretch like me” (Amazing Grace, verse 1).  But we feel pretty smug.  We are pretty wonderful, actually.  Life is good.  We sing because it’s familiar and we want to fit in.

We pledge allegiance to the flag and seldom wonder what there is about a piece of cloth that claims my allegiance,  In fact, the next time we handle a flag we are careless, a corner drags on the ground, and it doesn’t tell us to do anything, really.

We enslist in an organization — lodge, club, military branch of service, whatever, and we are required to repeat an oath of one sort or another.  We do so to “fit in”, but. . . do we really mean it?  I did that when I joined a fraternity.  A year and a half later I realized that I was never, never going to even want to admit I was a member of that organization.  I tried to leave, but was told, “You name is written in ink.  You cannot be a non-member.”  But I don’t even remember the promises I made and don’t care.

We want to fit in, and that’s good, but most of the things we “fit into” require us to either lie or accept the ambiguity of group statements.

What do you think?  Leave a comment and let us know. 

I Never Looked At It That Way Before

As I read from "Stitches" by Anne Lamott recently I got to musing about changing.  I thought of an imaginary friend who might be a blend of all my friends and loved ones and enemies and the strangers all around me.  I thought about this person getting older and being crippled.  He or she is crippled by convictions, by childhood beliefs, by a certain way of thinking.  Being crippled he or she cannot reach forward, cannot find new possibilities, and will not get happy or fulfilled or even hopeful.

I thought about this "friend", who might even be me, and someone saying:  "What's to stop you from letting that crap go and getting on with your life?"

In Terry Goodkind's way of putting it, "Why not focus on a solution and quit the focus on the problem?"

I would add, "Especially since the problem is decades old, and doesn't even exist anymore."

What keeps me, what keeps you, what keeps our friends so attached to the past that we cannot enter a different future?

I wonder about things like this.  Do you?  Leave a comment and let us know.

Ambiguity - 1

 find an ambiguity in the words that are put into my mouth in songs, liturgies, patriotic expressions, enlistment oaths and life affirmations.  You know what I am talking about, probably.

In a worship service  you are asked as a congregation to say, “For the sake of God, we will search for the outcasts, including ourselves.”  We probably won’t, actually, but we say the words in order to fit in.

In a song we sing, “”that saved a wretch like me” (Amazing Grace, verse 1).  But we feel pretty smug.  We are pretty wonderful, actually.  Life is good.  We sing because it’s familiar and we want to fit in.

We pledge allegiance to the flag and seldom wonder what there is about a piece of cloth that claims my allegiance,  In fact, the next time we handle a flag we are careless, a corner drags on the ground, and it doesn’t tell us to do anything, really.

We enslist in an organization — lodge, club, military branch of service, whatever, and we are required to repeat an oath of one sort or another.  We do so to “fit in”, but. . . do we really mean it?  I did that when I joined a fraternity.  A year and a half later I realized that I was never, never going to even want to admit I was a member of that organization.  I tried to leave, but was told, “You name is written in ink.  You cannot be a non-member.”  But I don’t even remember the promises I made and don’t care.

We want to fit in, and that’s good, but most of the things we “fit into” require us to either lie or accept the ambiguity of group statements.

What do you think?  Leave a comment and let us know.