persistence

i can officially say that i accomplished something this weekend.

about 3 1/2 months ago, i bought and started reading a book called gilead. i had read many glowing reviews on different blogs, etc, including the rabbit room, hearing that it won a pulitzer prize for fiction in 2005. naturally, i decided it would be worth my while to purchase. however, after getting about 50 pages in, i got really frustrated and bored with the book. i picked it up at random times throughout the summer, reading a few pages here and there, but never feeling as though i was making any progress. but one fateful night, a conversation with a new friend revealed that she had also started gilead and was also very frustrated and ready to give up on it. but, we also both agreed that, with all the good reviews and the pulitzer, there had to be a point in which it redeems itself. i (out of my own selfish pride, i suppose) made a promise to her to finish the book (i think i was giving it more hope than she was...i may still be today). during my breaks between classes this week, i've hit it really hard, knocking out larger and larger chunks, until finally, i finished the book yesterday afternoon. and, as much as i hated the process, the end result is gilead being one of the best books i've read in a while.

it's kind of hard to explain why i like the book so much. the basic plot goes like this: john ames is a 77 year old preacher living in the small town of gilead, iowa. he has recently found out that he has a heart condition which is killing him. after marrying a much younger woman, he has a 7 year old son. because of his impending death, he begins to write a diary of letters to this son to attempt to teach and tell him all of the things that he won't get to. he explains family history, his own story and struggles, and also documents many events that happen as the diary itself is being written, much of this present action involving his neighbor and friend boughton, and old boughton's family (with much of the plot focusing on the story of jack boughton).

the story is not so much why i was so glad i finished it. the story is good, as it is very metaphorical and subtly interesting. but the language with which this book is written is what got me. it's absolutely beautiful. stunningly so. marilynn robinson writes with such precision, but it's also nonchalant in a way. yet even the simplest statements/explanations are thought out and make you stop and say, "wow".

i also was struck by the central role of Christianity in the story (obviously, as it's from the point of view of a preacher). as many nonfiction Christian books i've read over the years, this might be the most profoundly Christian book i've ever read.

gilead was an unexpected gift to me. i went from dreading picking it up to not wanting it to be over, and wishing i had savored every word a little more. it's simple, poignant, haunting, and meditative, but more than anything, it's beautiful. read it. you can borrow mine.

here's a short passage to hopefully convey how awesome the language is (probably my favorite passage in the entire book):

"in the matter of belief, i have always found that defenses have the same irrelevance about them as the criticisms they are meant to answer. i think the attempt to defend belief can unsettle it, in fact, because there is always an inadequacy in argument about ultimate things. we participate in Being without remainder. no breath, no though, no wart or whisker, is not as sunk in Being as it could be. and yet no one can say what Being is...

i've lost my point. it was to the effect that you can assert the existence of something- Being- having not the slightest notion of what it is. then God is at a greater remove altogether- if God is the Author of Existence, what can it mean to say God exists? there's a problem in vocabulary. He would have to have had a character before the existence which the poverty of our own understanding (THAT'S quite a phrase) can only call existence. that is clearly a source of confusion...

so my advice is this- don't look for proofs. don't bother with them at all. they are never sufficient to the question, and they're always a little impertinent, i think, because they claim for God a place within our conceptual grasp. and they will likely sound wrong to you even if you convince someone else with them. that is very unsettling over the long term. 'let your works so shine before men,' etc. it was Coleridge who said Christianity is a life, not a doctrine, words to that effect. i'm not saying never doubt or question. the Lord gave you a mind so that you would make honest use of it. i'm saying you must be sure that the doubts and questions are your own, not, so to speak, the mustache and walking stick that happen to be the fashion of any particular moment."