poisonwood

the poisonwood bible {barbara kingsolver} was my latest read.  i have been moving somewhat slowly the last month or so with my reading list.  life has just been so busy with grading, doing my own schoolwork, traveling, work, and a number of other things.  i am hoping to hit the ground running (or reading) again this week.  i finished the poisoinwood bible a couple of weeks ago.  definitely a sad, interesting read.  it was the story of a christian family that made a sudden move to the congo to serve as missionaries.  though it is fiction, it is a picture of what is wrong with family leaders that get so caught up in the ministry that they forget about serving their own family. 

"i could see that the whole idea and business of childhood was nothing guaranteed.  it seemed to me, in fact, like something more or less invented by white people and stuck onto the front end of grown-up life like a frill on a dress."  the poisonwood bible {barbara kingsolver}

"if your brother is going to steal your hen, save your honor and give it to him first."  the poisonwood bible {barbara kingsolver}

"you can't just point to the one most terrible thing and wonder why it happened...each bad thing causes something worse...if you look hard enough you can always see reasons, but you'll go crazy if you think it's all punishment for your sins...god doesn't need to punish us. he just grants us a long enough life to punish ourselves."  the poisonwood bible {barbara kingsolver}

"marriage is one long fit of compromise, deep and wide.  there is always one agenda swallowing another, a squeaky wheel crying out.  but hasn't our life together meant more to the world than either of us could have meant alone?"  the poisonwood bible {barbara kingsolver}

"...you have nothing to lose but your chains.  but i don't happen to agree.  if chained is where you have been, your arms will always bear marks of the shackles.  what you have to lose is your story, your own slant.  you'll look at the scars on your arms and see mere ugliness, or you'll take great care to look away from them and see nothing.  either way, you have no words for the story of where you came from."  the poisonwood bible {barbara kingsolver}

"i think of him exactly that way.  we are the balance of our damage and our transgressions.  he was my father.  i own half his genes, and all of his history.  believe this:  the mistakes are part of the story.  i am born of a man who believed he could tell nothing but the truth, while he set down for all time the poisonwood bible."  the poisonwood bible {barbara kingsolver}