I kept trying to narrow this quote down, but decided in the end to use the entire thing because it's difficult to divide Kingsolver's prose.
"I believe in parables. I navigate life using stories where I find them, and I hold tight to the ones that tell me new kinds of truth. This story of a bear who nursed a child is one to believe in. I believe that the things we dread most can sometimes save us. I am losing faith in such a simple thing as despising an enemy with unequivocal righteousness. A mirror held up to every moral superiority will show its precise mirror image: The terrorist loves his truth as hard as I love mine; he has a mother who looks on her own child with the same fierce pride I feel when I look at my own. Someone, somewhere, must wonder how I could love the boys who dropped the bombs that killed the humanitarian-aid workers in Kabul. We are all beasts in this kingdom, we have killed and been killed, and some new time has come to us in which we are called to find another way to divide the world. Good and evil cannot be all there is."
~Barbara Kingsolver, Small Wonder: Essays
This is the bear story to which she refers: http://boston.com/news/daily/02/bear.htm
No comments:
Post a Comment