Saturday, June 28, 2008

Read-a-thon Update the Fourth

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Any meaning is better than none. Ask any Catholic or Methodist or Hutterite or Hmong. You believe in a God who, in his exquisite loneliness, created the universe and little you. Or you believe that we, in our terrifying loneliness, created God. Doesn't matter which. Ask any Vietnamese child kneeling in the mud, praying, choking on her tears, feeling the hot muzzle of an M16 at the nape of her neck, hearing the screams of her grandparents, inhaling the sting of smoke and cordite, knowing that this soldier here behind you, dear, is about to make his own meaning by firing a burst of bullets through your head. At that moment there is no arrow of time for you, there is no there, no then. There is only this singularity, this Planck instant, the big bang. At that moment you are borrowing energy against time and shaping your brief life into a quantum of meaning.

--John Dufresne, Requiem, Mass. 168 pages

5 comments:

  1. Sounds like an interesting book.

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  2. Wow - that's a powerful quote.

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  3. Um yea. heavy stuff

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  4. Wow. A great quote, but I don't think I could handle it at this point in the read-a-thon. lol

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  5. If you're still with us, I hope you're enjoying your reading! :)

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