The Chosen – Chaim Potok

Centred on the unlikely friendship between two Jewish boys, Danny and Reuven and their relationships with their fathers. We live not far from a community that is similar to the ultra-strict Jewish Hasidic community of Danny, so I found this aspect of the book very interesting. The book is beautifully written with a gentle pace and the portrayal of the relationships is particularly moving.

– Lines of note:
– “Reuven, as you grow older you will discover that the most important things that will happen to you will often come as a result of silly things, you call them, “ordinary things’ is a better expression. That is the way the world is.” (Page 94)
– So true. We all have our sliding door moments.

– “A man must fill his life with meaning, meaning is not automatically given to life. It is hard work to fill one’s life with meaning. That I do not think you understand yet. A life filled with meaning is worthy of rest. I want to be worthy of rest when I am no longer here. Do you understand what I am saying?” (Page 784)
– Reuven’s dad explains why he cannot give up his work campaigning for an Israeli state despite his ill health. Reuven’s dad is such a wise character.

– “You can listen to silence, Reuven. I’ve begun to realize that you can listen to silence and learn from it. It has a quality and a dimension all its own. It talks to me sometimes. I feel myself alive in it. It talks. And I can hear it … Sometimes-sometimes it cries, and you can hear the pain of the world in it. It hurts to listen to it then. But you have to.”(Page 225)
– Danny is bought up in silence by his father, which is probably why silence carries the pain of the world for him.

Turning of Days: Lessons from Nature, Season and Spirit – Hannah Anderson

This beautiful series of reflections begins in the natural world and leads to God. I read this over the year, matching the season I was in, one essay to each sitting over my morning coffee. The writing is gorgeous, with her detailed attention to the natural world paired thoughtfully with scripture. The reflections would have been more meaningful if I shared the author’s geographic location, but living in Australia within a completely different eco-system, especially much milder winters and different flora and fauna, some aspects didn’t quite resonate with me. That being said, these writings are aspirational, and the author includes a final chapter of practical suggestions for learning to listen as she writes:
– “If the psalmist is correct, however, if nature is trying to tell us something about the Creator, we must learn to listen to it.”

– Other highlights:

– “And so I wonder, does the city replace the Garden? Or do we finally become the kind of people who can live peaceably in a garden?”
– There’s only so much we can do in our attempts to live peaceably with how our world is structured. Requires us and the world to be renewed.

– “Those who pray for God’s coming kingdom know that it will be the ruin of theirs. “
So true.

– “Because in the end, a heart that longs for fruitfulness is also a heart that will work for it. A heart that hopes for goodness will plant and prune and wait and pray. Such a heart is not blind to the realities of life; it just knows no other way to live. And so understanding the stakes, such a heart stakes a claim anyway. Such a heart hopes in God.”
– I want to be a person of hope

– “The good news about soil—even poor soil—is that it can be cultivated. You may not be able to control the kind of ground you inherit, but you can control what you do with it. The good news about those who’ve been made from earth is that we too can be cultivated.”
– When you see the cultivators working the earth, the thought of that work in me is not a comfortable thought, but if we stay focused on the growth that comes from the cultivation, hopefully we’ll decide in the end that it is worth it.