Books - Unexpected Gifts

 

I have read multitudes of books.  I love reading.  I love learning stories, fiction and fact, examining new places, people, how humans deal with stress and happiness and everything in between.

Sometimes I stumble across books, sometimes a friend will recommend one, sometimes I will see an ad online and something catches my attention.

So it was with this one.  I don't remember where I learned about it, but if the author was going to talk about 'thrums', I was intrigued.  There was mention of grandparents being croft weavers, and I assumed there were going to be lots of stories about weaving.

Well, there are some stories about grandfathers weaving and sharing some of their knowledge, but Alan Garner is a weaver of words, not threads.  I'm not all that different when you come right down to it, honestly.  (As a weaver of threads AND words, I can see the similarities...)

Anyway, the public library didn't have it in their collection but it wasn't all that expensive, and that little inner voice that I've learned to listen to urged me to buy it, so I did.

It was only a little bit of a disappointment when it arrived and I realized that there wasn't that much about the weaver grandparents, but there were stories.  And essays.  Poems.  

Today I was reading it again (I can only read in little bits these days) and on page 162 read a passage and went a-HA!  This was the passage that I needed to read!

Given the way of the world right now, I've been struggling to justify weaving.  I'm 'retired' (for certain values) and I no longer have any 'need' to weave because I'm trying to weave down my stash and get rid of my inventory of woven goods.  But weaving is *also* part of my therapy right now, so I feel compelled to keep getting to the loom.

He was telling a story about meeting a astronomer/cosmologist and discussing a lot of things.  At one point the cosmologist considered leaving his profession when he felt it was being used to advance 'war', and briefly considered entering the priesthood.  But then "a bishop said he would do more good by staying where he was, since creativity is a form of prayer."

Garner then followed that conversation between the bishop and cosmologist by observing that Dylan Thomas was saying 'Creativity is prayer.'

I literally sat back and closed the book to think about that and let it sit for a while.

When the student is ready, the teacher will appear, it's been said.  I have no idea why I felt compelled to buy this smallish book.  But this morning, when things were looking rather bleak in the world, when there is so much uncertainty, and danger feels far too present...somehow I felt how much that statement rang true in my ears, my brain, and in my heart.

Another book that Doug found mentioned on FB yesterday that I requested.  I feel it is the type of book that the public library *needs* in it's collection right now:  Humans; the 300,000 year struggle for equality written by Alvin Finkel.  I don't know if the library will bring it in.  Again, it's not a terribly expensive book, so I will buy it to read myself, if they don't add it to the collection.

OK, found a photo of the cover:

I have read other texts about very deep/ancient history.  I find it fascinating to think about my distant ancestors, how they lived.  What they made.  What they might have thought.  The gods they worshipped, the government they may have had.

And how, in truth, we are more like them than most of us would be willing to admit.