The last 2 evenings, I have pretty much declared the afternoon and evening as Mental Health times for myself. I needed those times. I had a pretty awful work week - the week prior and the first 3 days of this week we worked short handed. Usually I get to rest the knee and ankle. I haven't had that luxury so by the time I get home, both are absolutely killing me. Instead of taking pain killers, I just go to bed - I really don't believe in painkillers anyway. Instead, I read and I watched a couple of new shows I had on TiVo and declared them not worthy of my time so cleaned up my season pass manager.
I read a couple of new books and reread one of my favorites: The Reader by Bernhard Schlinks.
I picked this book to reread and as part of Inspirational Sunday because it made me think when I first read it and it still makes me think. I love how Mr. Schlinks takes the relationship between Michael and Hanna and compares it to the relationship Germans had with others (Germans and other people) in post-war Germany. One reviewers said that in a lot of ways, it is like the relationship the Germans had with the Nazi movement. I know my relatives are on both sides. I have met patients who lived in the concentration camps and I know Germans who lived during that time too.
There is a little eroticism in the book and at first I questioned what the eroticism had to do with this but as I thought about it - it is one of those books that make you think. I realized that the eroticism was necessary because if reflected the guilt and shame that the Germans bear for the Holocaust as well as the moral divide that still exists between the generations. It was not always a black and white issue. It still isn't. There were way too many gray areas in the actions and in the forces of good and evil and where the legal and moral responsibility lies.
Please don't think that I question whether or not the Holocaust happened because I am not. It happened. Mr. Schlinks though gives one perspectives that still are around today. It is a book that forces you, the reader, to think and question your own position in life and how uncomfortable not only you but others are with moral ambiguity. It makes you think about how you react and if what you say is what you do. To me, that is the biggest lesson we need to learn in life.
Note that I would never do what Michael did or even entertain any thought of having an affair. In my opinion, that is not the point of the book.
The reasons why I love this book come through in a few of my favorite quotes for it:
There's no need to talk about it, because the truth of what one says lies in what one does.
The tectonic layers of our lives rest so tightly one on top of the other that we always come up against earlier events in later ones, not as matter that has been fully formed and pushed aside, but absolutely present and alive. I understand this. Nonetheless, I sometimes find it hard to bear.
A cloth had been tied around Hanna's head to hold up her chin until the onset of rigor mortis. Her face was neither particularly peaceful nor particularly agonized. It looked rigid and dead. As I looked and looked, the living face became visible in the dead, the young in the old. This is what must happen to old married couples, I thought: the young man is preserved in the old one for her, the beauty and grace of the young woman stay fresh in the old one for him. Why had I not seen this reflection a week age?
Now this quote makes me think about what one sees in their spouse after they have been married for a while. Is it really that simple? When we look at our spouse, do we see the person they used to be or do we see them as that young person combined with who they have become? I sometimes wonder why someone married someone else but beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I loved this quote because it has so many truths in it: "the young man is preserved in the old one for her, the beauty and grace of the young woman stay fresh in the old one for him". Maybe that is why there is divorce. People no longer can see that reflection. But then why do they still seek that same type of person? I look at my husband and see everything - the past, the present, and hope for the future. I remember him as the dapper young man who woo'd me and swept me off my feet and at times compare him to the man he is today - one who seldom says he loves me but says it in his actions. So do we need words or actions for love? Do you remember your spouse the same way?
But I will repeat my favorite: "The truth of what one says lies in what one does." How true are those words? How do you live your life? Are you one who says do as I say and not as I do? How can you be true to yourself and God then?
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