A review by csgvassar
For the Time Being by Annie Dillard
3.0
Annie Dillard is definitely thought-provoking, which I always look for in a book. She is also very artistic in her presentation of ideas. It took me awhile to catch on to her style and there were definitely parts that I just didn't get. In this book, Annie leaves us pondering the big question of the purpose of our existence and questioning whether we're just another speck of sand or something more important. Good stuff to ponder.
Obviously, these are richer if you read the entire book, but here are a few excerpts which caught my attention:
There are 1,198,500,000 people alive now in China. To get a feel for what this means, simply take yourself--in all your singularity, importance, complexity, and love--and multiply by 1,198,500,000. See? Nothing to it.
When a person arrives in the world as a baby, says one Midrash, "his hands are clenched as though to say, 'Everything is mine. I will inherit it all.' When he departs from the world, his hands are open, as though to say, 'I have acquired nothing from the world.'"
"One death is a tragedy; a million deaths are a statistic." Joseph Stalin, that gourmandizer, gave words to this disquieting and possibly universal sentiment.
Why must we suffer losses? Even Meister Eckhart offers the lame apology that God never intended us to regard his gifts as our property and that "in order to impress it on us, he frequently takes away everything, physical and spiritual....Why does God stress this point so much? Because he wants to be ours exclusively."
It is a weakening and discoloring idea, that rustic people knew God personally once upon a time---or even knew selflessness or courage or literature---but that it is too late for us. In fact, the absolute is available to everyone in every age. There never was a more holy age than ours, and never a less.
An English journalist, observing the Sisters of Charity in Calcutta, reasoned: "Either life is always and in all circumstances sacred, or intrinsically of no account; it is inconceivable that it should be in some cases the one, and in some the other."
Obviously, these are richer if you read the entire book, but here are a few excerpts which caught my attention:
There are 1,198,500,000 people alive now in China. To get a feel for what this means, simply take yourself--in all your singularity, importance, complexity, and love--and multiply by 1,198,500,000. See? Nothing to it.
When a person arrives in the world as a baby, says one Midrash, "his hands are clenched as though to say, 'Everything is mine. I will inherit it all.' When he departs from the world, his hands are open, as though to say, 'I have acquired nothing from the world.'"
"One death is a tragedy; a million deaths are a statistic." Joseph Stalin, that gourmandizer, gave words to this disquieting and possibly universal sentiment.
Why must we suffer losses? Even Meister Eckhart offers the lame apology that God never intended us to regard his gifts as our property and that "in order to impress it on us, he frequently takes away everything, physical and spiritual....Why does God stress this point so much? Because he wants to be ours exclusively."
It is a weakening and discoloring idea, that rustic people knew God personally once upon a time---or even knew selflessness or courage or literature---but that it is too late for us. In fact, the absolute is available to everyone in every age. There never was a more holy age than ours, and never a less.
An English journalist, observing the Sisters of Charity in Calcutta, reasoned: "Either life is always and in all circumstances sacred, or intrinsically of no account; it is inconceivable that it should be in some cases the one, and in some the other."