Sunday Thoughts: Quotables

… I got to thinking about how much time I spend in my life crashing around like a great gasping fish, either squirming away from some uncomfortable distress or flopping hungrily toward ever more pleasure.  And I wondered whether it might serve me (and those are burdened with the task of loving me) if I could learn to stay still and endure a bit more that always getting dragged along on the potholed road of circumstance.

-- Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love, page 173

I gotta say, this passage in the book hit me right between the eyes, especially the first sentence.  Yes, that's me, I say with a cringe. 

But at least it's not ALL I am.  That unearned beautiful gift faith saves the believer from being merely that fish, from ONLY seeking pleasure and avoiding pain.

I will add that Eat, Pray, Love is not a particularly Christian book.  In fact, it's strives to be inclusive and ends up being probably more Buddhist than anything else.  But I found it thought-provoking and it did not at all tempt to wander from Christianity.  It's a snapshot of a lot of modern culture.