Understanding the Words on the Page At Last

It's Sunday morning as I write this and I am trying to reorient myself. I've been sick for the past two days. At first I thought it was because of some chemicals I had used to clean the bathroom. Then I thought maybe it was from the dust stirred up when I suddenly decided to pledge the house. I only got to two rooms with that one. I was all excited to vacuum next because I bought new vacuum bags for the first time in so many years I'm embarassed to say. The label suggests you replace the vacuum bag every thirty to sixty days. I'm assuming that's for people, like my mom, who actually vacuum daily?

I always think I'm going to do better with that, but then I never actually do. Getting sick this time doesn't help me to make the necessary committment.

While I've been sick I've been reading, and I find this really interesting.

I've had this book The Truth in Jesus: The Nature of Truth and How We Come to Know It, written by George MacDonald, with compilation, editing and insightful essays provided by Michael Phillips, for years. I was drawn to this book in the bookstore, well before Barnes and Noble came to Tuscaloosa, for many reasons, not least of which was the cover design. I've tried to read it numerous times, with varying levels of success.

So this time I pick it up to read it and, wonder of wonders, I actually find it making sense. It never did before. In the past it was always, and I mean always, too difficult for me to understand. I'd get through several pages before giving up. In the past Phillips's "Insights into" the essays didn't hold any insight for me. At most I could grab onto one or two sentences.

So what has changed? I don't exactly know. I also don't exactly know how to synthesize MacDonald's ideas with the other reading I've been doing. This may become another experiment for me in the days ahead, because a lot of what I'm reading in MacDonald fits in nicely with other ideas I've been grappling with, this idea of relationship for one. The idea of understanding and accepting my own being for another. It's as though God knew when I would be reading this book at last, what my other surrounding reading would be, what I would be writing in journal and in blog. Because what's cool about the reading this time is that it somehow cosmically appears to be fitting together. MacDonald has had me referencing Kierkegaard, Yancey, Adler, and even Rand as I've been reading him. Some of those associations have been positive, and some of them negative. Anyway, it is an exciting time for reading even as I am ill.