The Book of Strange New Things

by Michel Faber

Cf. “God Weeps” by Shirley Erena Murray (1996): 1 God weeps at love withheld, at strength misused, at children's innocence abused, and, till we change the way we love, God weeps. 2 God bleeds at anger's fist, at trust betrayed, at women battered and afraid, and, till we change the way we win, God bleeds. 3 God cries at hungry mouths, at running sores, at creatures dying without cause, and, till we change the way we care, God cries. 4 God waits for stones to melt, for peace to seed, for hearts to hold each other's need, and, till we understand the Christ, God waits.

Simile

About all these things and more, Peter wept. Then he felt better, as if purged.

toy braziers.

“Long ago,” she echoed. Then: “Long ago, the Lord Said Po ISrael, I have loved you, my people.” The quote from Jeremiah surprised him, not

Long ago and far away … maybe they were the same thing after all.

Oasans had difficulty choosing the linguistic boxes into which they felt obliged, by others, to put their conceptions of time.

how to amble

There was an art to walking slower than your instinct told you to,

The trick was to...

Haha

Haha

Haha

Haha

educative.

All of us? I wonder why that is?

Her flesh, which smelled fermented but not foul, had turned gray as clay, and was pitted with pocks and cavities.

Monster was the word that came to his mind as he suppressed a shudder. But then Creatura: created thing, he reminded himself.

stonkingly obvious good sense.

strikingly? Or neologism?

stonkingly obvious good sense.

Haha

One smoothed his hands over an invisible molehill in the air, signaling that this would not be necessary.

Haha

Haha

Haha

Haha

“My mother very imporPanP woman,” he said at last. “For me.”

Haha

Simile. Nice one.

This gathering wasn’t about him: that was actually the beauty of it. He was privileged to observe, but he wasn’t on duty, nothing was expected of him;

the fontanelle in her head yawned open,

a whuffle of applause

neologism?

Simile

Haha

Haha

Haha Christenings, Easter & Christmas gatherings, etc.

Simile haha

his mind was tickled by a thought of his own baby, growing inside the body of his wife far away.

Observe the opportunity, as Ecclesiastes urged him. Be not ignorant of anything great or small.

Bible

Sad, but there was no point grieving.

Anyway, life wasn’t about measurement, it was about getting the most out of each God-given minute.

Haha

Unto every province according to the writing thereof, and unto every people after their language—Mordecai’s publishing manifesto, sometime during the Israelites’ Babylonian exile.

Bible - Esther

There was grace in their strenuous approximation. More grace, for sure, than you’d find in some complacent congregation in a British village, singing facile hymns while their minds were half-preoccupied with football or soap operas.

Haha

Cf. Julian of Norwich: “...deeds are done which appear so evil to us and people suffer such terrible evils that it does not seem as though any good will ever come of them; and we consider this, sorrowing and grieving over it so that we cannot find peace in the blessed contemplation of God as we should do; and this is why: our reasoning powers are so blind now, so humble and so simple, that we cannot know the high, marvelous wisdom, the might and the goodness of the Holy Trinity. And this is what he means where he says, 'You shall see for yourself that all manner of things shall be well', as if he said, 'Pay attention to this now, faithfully and confidently, and at the end of time you will truly see it in the fullness of joy.”

They’re converting each other, Peter’s not doing the evangelizing.

Peter was determined to know them all as individuals,

Ain’t gonna happen

Sinile

But who, really, was Jesus Lover Thirteen? Peter had to admit he was finding it difficult to know the Oasans in any deeper sense.

No one, as far as he could tell, was anxiously pondering the question Who am I?

Or eagerly, as I did in 2018 leading up to my retirement.

In one way, it was really kind of … restful, to be spared the melodramas that made things so complicated when you dealt with other humans.