"Strangers and Sojourners" by Michael O'Brien

This book is taking my whole being by storm!

It's an existential version of Anne of Green Gables mixed with Stephen Leacock's ' Sunshine sketches of a Small Town", and a less jaded Anne-Marie Macdonald . It is a unique creation and it is re-creating my wordy heart!

Michael O'Brien, the man who wrote this book, has written several other equally lethargy-friendly books. He lives in the deep woods of Combermere, Ontario. Where he and his wife raise their six children on paintings and the written word. Several members of my community and I had the privilege of meeting Mr. O'Brien and his family during our flurry of a sojourn across Ontario. What a gift of a man!!!

Enjoy....

" What is a human life ? Is it designed? Is it accidental? The latter, I think, but I do sometimes wonder if we are subsumed in something much larger than our senses perceive. What if we are to greater beings what the fish in the river is to us? When it is hooked on the lure and hauled up through the upper limits of its worls into a higher realm, does it wonder at the naivete of its brief sojourn in the water?" (99)

" Are submission and control the only alternatives? There is another, but it is entirely theoretical: let us suppose that a man and a woman, understanding their own limitations and their greatness , were to choose to give life to each other by giving away their very selves. Then both would be defeated, and both would win. In the process, both in the end would become a new kind of being, something they could not understand in the beginning and would never choose if they could foresee the struggle involved.If they were to persist, however, both would eventually become free, because neither would be dominated by the will to power. Only by the will to love. Yes, I see it. I might even be willing to engage upon such an experiment. " (103)

"'If there had been no poets or storytellers in Ireland, wouldn't the people have died long ago fron giving up? It's a powerful way to do battle, more lasting than a sword.' He paused, reflecting, 'and remember, lad, those who live by the sword, shall die by it.'
'And when will the English start perishing? Them and all the tyants in the world?' The priest sighed loudly in a lament too deep for words. He only regarded the boy more closely, praying that he might not have to mourn for him one day.
'If there is murder in the heart,Stiofan, and blood on the hands, we must cleanse it with prayer and music and poems. If we do not....'" (124)