In Love with Her Language

I know! I've been reading in silence. And reading in fistfuls, whatever time I can grasp at. But my final was yesterday, and I had time to breathe, and drink in words today. Starting from the beginning, these are a few of the ones I have loved:

"Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering."

Beautiful.

"In the years that followed, the boy became a man who became invisible. In this way, he escaped death."

Poignant.

"There was no reason for our laughter, but we began to giggle and the next thing we were rocking in our seats and howling, howling with laughter, tears streaming down our cheeks. A wet spot bloomed in my crotch and that made us laugh harder, I was banging at the table and fighting for air, I thought: Maybe this is how I'll go, in a fit of laughter...."

I love the beauty of the imagery with moments of laughter sprinkled in. I like how she develops the characters in a way that makes them seem like they live just down the street. That you can smell their Chinese takeout from your back porch. That you would want to leave a light on, just so they would know you were there, or turn it off so it wouldn't rob them of sleep.

I thought a lot about the lines: "...because to live in an undescribed world was too lonely." About how we live our lives essentially alone. I mean, yes, there are people around, but there is an inner world, and inner life constantly occurring. Not every thought is or could be expressed. And even if it were, whose to say that my knowledge of sorrow or joy is the same as yours? We experience these things internally. Language is a way to make us not feel so alone.

I may be biased, but I think the written word bridges the gap from one solitary and internal life to another more than spoken word. Much of conversation is small, surface, does not scratch where the heart itches most, does not provide comfort for a roaming soul. But written words. They leak into the mind and drip into the consciousness. The tide rises within to meet the message: You are not alone. I think because we experience written word internally, it has the capacity to make us aware that--in fact someone has also fallen in love, lost their love, felt invisible, wet themselves laughing...and on and on.

And you? What have you loved about this book?

What do you think about spoken word vs. written word?

Here's What I Think About....

Listen to Your Writer.

(90) "Perhaps he understands more acutely the importance of love & the beauty of life itself, the inestimable potency of beauty within the tiny newness of his grandchild. Being a grandfather, I think Edmond Browning must have felt more acutely what is important and what is not. And what was most important would have been love-the severe desire for a child, not to succeed, but to fearlessly engage in a world in which love is so fearfully exchanged.

So then, if the Writer of our stories, or my story, views the world, views me in this way, how could I not trust this Author to pen the better story? Maybe we--or at least I--don't trust that the story will be better because what I care about most is success. And the world defines success as stuff or as comfort. And I define success by a sense that I have accomplished something great, or by the sense of importance I get from contributing to the good of others.

While it is a measure of love, the ways in which I contribute to the good of others, doing this to define myself is wrong. Acting with love for the sake of showering myself with pride, or to source my sense of worth and value is wrong.

I can only contribute. Whether it takes is not my business. I can only plant seeds with care and hope for the right growing conditions. If the seeds I have sown turn into some beautiful garden--it's not for me to stake my claim or say my hand had much to do with it at all.

What I would do well to try is to find my worth and value in the action of planting. No matter how it's done and no matter where I am. What I need to do is know that my worth and value are already defined by the Writer who is not me. What I need to know is that I too have been planted here, and right now I am given the conditions to grow in my life and through my love for it all.

What do you think about?

(7) " You get a feeling when you look back at life that that's all God really wanted from us, to live inside the body he made and enjoy the story and bond with us through the experience."

(29) "It never occurred to me that I could recreate my own story, my real life story, but in an evolution I had moved towards a better me. I was creating someone I could live through, the person I'd be if I redrew the world. A character that was me but flesh and soul other. And flesh and soul better."

(48) A story is a character who wants something and overcomes conflict to get it." --By this definition, what is your defining story? Is there another story you wish you were telling? Or spending more time telling?

A Million Miles in A Thousand Years

Okay, I now have a list of suggested reads that should keep us busy for a while. And I promise Water for Elephants is next on the list! For now, I really hope you'll read and think and have a conversation with me about Donald Miller's A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. I can't wait to see what you will think and say about it.

Rather than give a review of the book (because we can all make our own decisions of whether or not it is good), I thought I'd post a few quotes by the author. Feel free to comment on them!

And until we meet (October 20--details of when and where to follow via email) Happy reading!

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"You never question the truth of something until you have to explain it to a skeptic."
— Donald Miller

"I fell in love with books. Some people find beauty in music, some in painting, some in landscape, but I find it in words. By beauty, I mean the feeling you have suddenly glimpsed another world, or looked into a portal that reveals a kind of magic or romance out of which the world has been constructed, a feeling there is something more than the mundane, and a reson for our plodding."
— Donald Miller (To Own a Dragon: Reflections On Growing Up Without A Father)

"If the point of life is the same as the point of a story, the point of life is character transformation. If I got any comfort as I set out on my first story, it was that in nearly every story, the protagonist is transformed. He's a jerk at the beginning and nice at the end, or a coward at the beginning and brave at the end. If the character doesn't change, the story hasn't happened yet. And if story is derived from real life, if story is just condensed version of life then life itself may be designed to change us so that we evolve from one kind of person to another. "
— Donald Miller (A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life)