Fiction Indeed

I keep a running list of every book that I read. When I finish one I add it to the list and move on to the next. It becomes a kind of a game for me: How many can I get through in a month? Can I finish more than I read last year? How fast can I get through this one and get started on the next? Am I well-read now? Now? Now? From time to time I catch myself reading hard only to get onto another book. This can't be good. I used to read for pleasure, but if I'm not very careful I turn it into some kind of contest with myself in which the joy and the good are stripped away and what's left is a Will Clark level of competition that makes me want to stop yet won't allow me to. When I catch myself falling back into this pattern (and reading non-fiction--if that's a distinction you're comfortable with--seems to trip me up more than reading the other stuff) that's when I dust off Lonesome Dove. It's a long book--900-plus pages--plenty long enough to keep me from hurrying, and the nature of the story--it's about a cattle drive--lends itself to just traveling along with it.

It's not my favorite book--A Prayer for Owen Meany still holds that title--but is the one that, over repeated readings spanning the past ten years or so, is teaching me the most about myself. Life is a journey. Montana exists, if you're willing to leave the comfortable dust and go find it. The trip itself may be more important than the destination. The people traveling with us are along for myriad reasons. Friendship matters. Some of us will die along the way; some of us will bring it on ourselves. We're all in this together in ways and to a degree that we'll never be aware of. The decisions that seem the smallest often have the biggest repercussions--even for people we will never meet. Our fathers are important people. Sometimes there are snakes in the river and sometimes there aren't. Love redeems. Love redeems.

Love redeems.