YA and Trash

My "no brain power needed" book of the week is "The Knife of Never Letting Go" by Patrick Ness .. some young adult fiction Amanda recommended. YA is so good when you have a pile of other books that you really need to read and all you want is a bit of something other. I don't know if it's good yet but it's actually provided a lot of food for thought.. and I'm not even a third of the way in. It takes place in a world where there are only men and they can all hear each others "noise" and the main character is the last boy in this town. And one day he discovers a hole in the noise, he discovers quiet. Having lived his whole life hearing the thoughts of the men around him, their "noise," he is overcome by the unexpected"quiet" and has no idea what to do.

Well, I can't hear it, that's the whole point, but when I run towards it the emptiness of it is touching my chest and the stillness of it pulls at me and there's so much quiet in it, no not quiet, silence, so much unbelievable silence that I start to feel really torn up, like I'm about to lose the most valuable thing ever, like there it is, a death, and I'm running and my eyes are watering and my chest is just crushing and there's no one to see but I still mind and my eyes start crying, they start crying, they start effing crying, and I stop for a minute and I bend over and Jesus H Dammit, you can just shut up right now, but I waste a whole stupid minute, just a whole stinking, stupid minute bent over there, by which time, of course, the hole is moving away, it's moved away, it's gone.

This "hole" is later revealed to be a girl. This discover of quiet puts his life in danger and he's forced to flee for his life. So far the book looks to be an interesting social commentary, which coupled with the prevailing presence of large amounts of trash piled around Amsterdam due to the trash collector strike and the images of the still uncontainable oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, has made me keenly aware, yet again of the mess we humans have made of the word and of our lives. We are so in need of cleansing, the cleansing of Jesus' grace and love.

We had our first baptism today at a lovely little Christian community house that had a super nice chapel, including the all important baptismal! It was fun to be in a quaint little place like that, worship together, hear C's testimony, and witness her baptism. It was such a joy to celebrate with her, to see her in so many words say, "Yes, I am throwing my life in with Jesus, I want to be identified with Him forever, and I want to be cleansed and whole."

I know Amsterdam is in need of new life from the weight of this trash, the Gulf of Mexico and the animals affected by the spill, and myself and the whole of the world. Noise and trash: reminders of the decadence of life and the need of a Savior.