Wednesday, August 19, 2009

A Random Thought

Many years ago, when I was in grade school, I was watching The Swiss Family Robinson with a family of half a dozen or so friends of ours, homeschoolers. We reached the bit where the girl who you're still meant to think is a guy at that point is invited to sleep between the two brothers. S/he says s/he'd rather not. The oldest sister, who was four or five years older than I (and on whom I apparently had a crush--I was young enough that I remember very little) said, "Well, I wouldn't want to sleep between two boys."

To which I, thinking myself clever, responded, "Well I wouldn't want to sleep between two girls."

There was a rather mystifying complete silence.

As I grow older, I realize in more and more dimensions what I actually said.

It makes me laugh at night.

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Quote of the Week

"Mercy and truth, my friends, have met together," said the General. "Righteousness and bliss shall kiss one another."

..."Man, my friends," said General Lowenhielm, "is frail and foolish. We have all of us been told that grace is to be found in the universe. But in our human foolishness and short-sightedness we imagine divine grace to be finite. For this reason we tremble..." Never till now had the General stated that he trembled; he was genuinely surprised and even shocked at hearing his own voice proclaim the fact. "We tremble before making our choice in life, and after having made it again tremble in fear of having chosen wrong. But the moment comes when our eyes are opened, and we see and realize that grace is infinite. Grace, my friends, demands nothing from us but that we shall await it with confidence and acknowledge it in gratitude. Grace, brothers, makes no condition and singles out none ofus in particular; grace takes us all to its bosom and proclaims general amnesty. See! that which we have chosen is given us, and that which we have refused is, also and at the same time, granted us. Ay, that which we have rejected is poured upon us abundantly. For mercy and truth have met together, and righteousness and bliss shall kiss one another."

-"Babette's Feast," Isak Dinesen