Or thought that maybe you should have grown up in a different time period because of a book?
Or that you could never truly understand what the people who lived life long before you went through? and how standards and ideas of life and thoughts were just so different?
Or that they are so similar?
Or that they are so similar?
The book Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson, a sort of fictional memoir, led me to think all of these things.
It is a series of letters written by an old preacher to his young son in the small, secluded town of Gilead, Iowa in the late 1950's.
His thoughts, or Robinson's thoughts really, are so honest and interesting. Things that, once stated, I recognized as being in my mind long before and began to ponder more closely. Thoughts about eternity and small things in life. And about the present and huge things in life.
One thought I particularly enjoyed was about laughter:
"...It is an amazing thing to watch people laugh, the way it sort of takes them over...I wonder what it is and where it comes from, and I wonder what it expends out of your system, so that you have to do it till you're done..." (pg. 5)
Laughing is easily one of my top 5 favorite things in life. I have pondered the different laughs and reasons to laugh, but never quite this perspective of laughter. But what does it expend and where does it come from? Sometimes laughter is so uproarious that it can hardly be contained and sometimes it is so small that only I am aware it is happening.
One thought I particularly enjoyed was about laughter:
"...It is an amazing thing to watch people laugh, the way it sort of takes them over...I wonder what it is and where it comes from, and I wonder what it expends out of your system, so that you have to do it till you're done..." (pg. 5)
Laughing is easily one of my top 5 favorite things in life. I have pondered the different laughs and reasons to laugh, but never quite this perspective of laughter. But what does it expend and where does it come from? Sometimes laughter is so uproarious that it can hardly be contained and sometimes it is so small that only I am aware it is happening.
The old preacher moves from simple thoughts on laughter to deep and intriguing thoughts on eternity (pictured left from pg. 57) and what comes of this world.
The old preacher moves from simple thoughts on laughter to deep and intriguing thoughts on eternity (pictured left from pg. 57) and what comes of this world. Toward the end the old preacher writes:
"There are a thousand thousand reasons to live this life, every one of them sufficient."
(pg. 243)
I cannot help but agree with him. Some days the reasons for things seem blurry and silly and insignificant, but they are sufficient. If you are living, there is reason.
The idea of writing our stories and thoughts in short letters is beautiful to me. I have long believed a well written letter (or a silly and nonsensical letter) is one of the best gifts someone could give. And what better way to keep ideas and knowledge and ponderings alive than to pass them down in the form of letters from one generation to the next.
