from Heather King's book

An unexpected book I just picked up free at work before it was released to stores, it has touched me, inconsistent though it was in parts. A few quotes:

Heather King - "Redeemed"
"Books save my life... I know it was because so many people were willing to burn out their lives in front of a page trying to get it right. People whose goal wasn't to sound smarter or more profound than the rest of us, but to show us what it means to be human. People who set out not to sensationalize their pain, but to shed light on ours. People who didn't set themselves above the world, but were part of the world, and loved the world and suffered for it, and made art of their suffering."

"[Christ's teachings are]... a call to come awake... I see I've walked around all these years almost completely unconscious of what drives me: of my deep agitation and unrest, of the perverse ways I sabotage myself. Driving around town like a maniac, never allowing myself enough time, knowing when I should leave but subconsciously finding something to do so I short myself ten minutes, so that for the whole trip I'm in a coma of adrenaline-charged anxiety and rage. Putting of my 'happiness' until such and such happens: when I have a certain amount of money I'll be happy, when I sell a book I'll be happy, when I lose that last 2.38 pounds I'll be happy... I'm bad, I'm guilty, I'm unworthy of love. "

"...the long slow crucifixion of trying to love God with my whole heart, mind, soul and strength, and my neighbor as myself: the hardest, most complex, paradoxical, maddening, stimulating, challenging, inexhaustibly enriching, perpetually unfinished, bound-to-fail, sublime task in the world."

Currently listening : The Trumpet Child By Over the Rhine