Reading...

I just finished 2 books: All Over but the Shoutin' by Rick Bragg and The Human, The Orchid, and The Octopus by Jacques Cousteau.

All Over but the Shoutin' is a look at Rick Bragg's life growing up in (very) rural Alabama. His father was an alcoholic who was absent the better part of his life. The book also dealt a good bit with the role religion played in the culture in which he grew up. Even if you aren't hugely interested in Bragg's story (though it is very interesting), his style of writing and the word pictures he creates are very engaging. (I interrupted Jeff's reading many times with "you've got to hear this!")

One of my favorite excerpts from the book:

"He (his Daddy) had never been inside a church in his life, back when he was young, indestructible. But as the sickness squeezed his lungs he began to hope that Jesus was more than just a fifty-cent mail-order picture enshrined in a dime store frame on the hallway wall, that salvation was the trick card he could play right at the end and stay in the money. I know it because I asked my momma what they talked about all those times. "He talked about y'all a little. But mostly he just wanted to talk about the Lord."

I guess it is what you do if you grow up with warnings of damnation ringing from every church door and radio station and family reunion, in a place where total strangers will walk up to you at the Piggly Wiggly and ask if you are Saved. Even if you deny that faith, rebuke it, you still carry it around with you like some half-forgotten Indian head penny you keep in your pocket for luck. I wonder sometimes if I will be the same, if when I see my life coming to an end I will drop to my knees and search my soul for old sins and my memory for forgotten prayers. I reckon so."

I have been fascinated with all things under the sea for quite some time. I have a secret dream of one day taking scuba diving lessons and going on a dive where I can actually see sharks (I used to want to swim with the sharks--now I just want to be able to say that I saw them). I was intrigued at the library recently when I saw Jacques Cousteau's book so I picked up and brought it home.

From a strictly historical perspective, it was a fascinating read. He lived from 1910-1997 and a bit of world history is intertwined with his tales of dives and exploration. The book (naturally) deals with conservation a good bit.

I was most intrigued by the chapter entitled "The Holy Scriptures and the Environment". I don't know really what I expected. I guess somewhere in my Pollyanna world, "holy scripture" still means the Bible not a mish-mash of the Bible, the Koran, Buddhism and Hinduism. I would think that, regardless of your faith, when everything "holy" about the various religions gets all squashed together, it would tend to lessen the importance of each. Or maybe that is the point. Anyway, this chapter was very Eckhart Tolle in that points were taken from each of the "scriptures" that supported the view that God, Muhammed, or other higher authority wants/commands their followers to actively care for the environment.

Gracen's latest reads are listed on the side bar. She and I are still reading Anne of Avonlea together. Every afternoon she takes Molly into her room for "reading" time. They work through the library bag--and, yes, she chooses books at the library that Molly will enjoy. Who knew that a Bichon could be so educated?!