Let me say something about that word: miracle. For too long it's been used to characterize things or events that, though pleasant, are entirely normal. Peeping chicks at Easter time, spring generally, a clear sunrise after an overcast weeka miracle, people say, as if they've been educated from greeting cards. I'm sorry, but nope. Such things are worth our notice every day of the week, but to call them miracles evaporates the strength of the word.Savor the miracles you find.
Real miracles bother people, like strange sudden pains unknown in medical literature. It's true: They rebut every rule all we good citizens take comfort in. Lazarus obeying orders and climbing up out of the gravenow there's a miracle, and you can bet it upset a lot of folks who were standing around at the time. When a person dies, the earth is generally unwilling to cough him back up. A miracle contradicts the will of earth.
Leif Enger, Peace Like a River
Thursday, March 05, 2009
A Favorite Quote
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2 comments:
I love that book. I should re-read it.
Great book, written by a minnesotan who wrote for MPR. For some reason the story didn't hit me, but the language was like prose, wonderful.....
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