Tuesday, February 07, 2006
Quote for the Week
More Steinbeck - sorry, its just too good not to share.
"The minister, a man of iron with tool-steel eyes and a delivery like a pneumatic drill, opened up with a prayer and reassured us that we were a pretty sorry lot. And he was right. We didn't amount to much to start with, and due to our own tawdry efforts we had been slipping ever since. Then, having softened us up, he went into a glorious sermon, a fire-and-brimstone sermon. Having proved that we, or perhaps only I, were no damn good, he painted with cool certainty what was likely to happen to us if we didn't make some basic reorganizations for which he didn't hold out much hope.
He spoke of Hell as an expert, not the mush-mush Hell of these soft days, but a well-stoked, white-hot Hell served by technicians of the first order. The reverend brought it to a point where we could understand it, a good hard coal fire, plenty of draft, and a squad of open-hearth devils who put there hearts into their work, and their work was me.
I began to feel good all over. For some years now God has been a pal to us, practicing togetherness, and that causes the same emptiness a father does playing softball with his son. But this Vermont God cared enough about me to go to a lot of trouble kicking the hell out of me. "
--Weekend adventures forthcoming--
"The minister, a man of iron with tool-steel eyes and a delivery like a pneumatic drill, opened up with a prayer and reassured us that we were a pretty sorry lot. And he was right. We didn't amount to much to start with, and due to our own tawdry efforts we had been slipping ever since. Then, having softened us up, he went into a glorious sermon, a fire-and-brimstone sermon. Having proved that we, or perhaps only I, were no damn good, he painted with cool certainty what was likely to happen to us if we didn't make some basic reorganizations for which he didn't hold out much hope.
He spoke of Hell as an expert, not the mush-mush Hell of these soft days, but a well-stoked, white-hot Hell served by technicians of the first order. The reverend brought it to a point where we could understand it, a good hard coal fire, plenty of draft, and a squad of open-hearth devils who put there hearts into their work, and their work was me.
I began to feel good all over. For some years now God has been a pal to us, practicing togetherness, and that causes the same emptiness a father does playing softball with his son. But this Vermont God cared enough about me to go to a lot of trouble kicking the hell out of me. "
--Weekend adventures forthcoming--
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