"Sometimes I need a little reminder... one that I can feel rather than one that I repeat to myself... how many things I will mourn should I be lucky enough to know when my time is coming. Sometimes I need a deeper nudge to listen to the sounds of my children's voices and not just their words. Every now and then a good and serious truth that causes remembrance of how fragile, how fleeting and how un-repeatable the moments of a life truly are is a very good thing." - cagefreefamily blogi was just reading the only blog i follow (cagefreefamily). ...she wrote a post about why she prefers reading books about dying and why rather than depress her, they put the fragility of life into focus and give her reason to appreciate it, in all its delicate and fading glory. of course, she said it more eloquently (see above quote).
i've been unable to articulate this myself for so long... it's the reason i prefer documentaries about the iraq war or the water crisis over superman III. or why i was transfixed by the recent frontline episode on dying. and why i adored the novel i read last month (gilead by marilynne robinson): a letter from a dying man to his son. or why my favorite book is as i lay dying, which begins with the sounds of a son hammering nails into his mother's coffin. reminders of mortality give a person a drive to live deliberately and lovingly. reminders of war and social injustice give a person a reason to cast aside the blinders and kill the apathy.
recently, an acquaintance said she could not participate in a book club i am a part of because she can't handle "disturbing" or "sad" literature. but man, you've gotta be disturbed or saddened in order to soak in the beauty!
i'll leave with another quote, from gilead:
"There are two occasions when the sacred beauty of Creation becomes dazzingly 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." - Marilynne Robinson, Gilead
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