A review by hannahgadbois
Almost No Memory: Stories by Lydia Davis

4.0

“If we were to go to Pastor Elaine herself for spiritual assistance, she might point to another passage, one we had seen by chance in Galatians, ‘But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith.’ How we would like to have in us this thing, the fruit of the Spirit. We read the list again and this time read it against the list of what is sometimes in us: love, joy, peace, gentleness, and goodness. We do not seem to have faith. As for long-suffering, we do not know if it is something one can have in small amounts. And now we see that it may be in the absence of long-suffering that no good thing comes into our flesh and we become vicious, as though possessed, and in the same moment lose, for a time, all love, joy, peace, gentleness, and goodness. Yet we do not know how to gain more long-suffering. It is not enough to want it, or to will it, or to will it from such a shallow place, anyway, as we do.”