Frankenstein

I could go so many different directions with this blog post.

I could tell you about how strange it is to read the same exact book at different times in your life. How it’s like reading a brand new book, as totally different phrases and words impact you.

I could tell you about the IMPERFECTions of a monster. How he was grotesque and monstrous. How he was rejected by humanity. How he was rejected by his very own creator. And how sad it would be if our creator rejected us because of our IMPEFECTions.

I could tell you about how the monster’s heart turned towards evil when he couldn’t find a community in which he could be himself. He had no one to love him, believe in him, hold his heart and mind accountable. How he was forced to live utterly alone and how the isolation bent his heart to evil things. I could tell you how vastly important it is for us to do life together.

I could tell you about the magic of picking out the book in the library. Of going there specifically to search for this one book, and then picking it, out of ALL the others, knowing, for some reason, it is the very one that will speak to you at this time in your life. I could tell you of how magical it felt to see the worn cover, the embedded gold title and the fraying ribbon. To know I was one of hundreds of people to hold this book and dive into its world.

I could share favorite quotes with you from the book like this one:

I feel my heart glow with an enthusiasm which elevates me to heaven; for nothing contributes so much to tranquillise the mind as a steady purpose – a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye.

or this one:

There is something at work in my soul which I do not understand…There is a love for the marvellous, a belief in the marvellous, intertwined in all my projects, which hurries me out of the common pathways of men, even to the wild sea and unvisited regions I am about to explore.

Or I could tell you about how strange and almost adulterous it feels to have the realization that I felt God and heard from God and sensed God’s presence and voice through the book Frankenstein. How I am quite sure God speaks to us in more ways then we are every willing to admit, maybe even through fortune cookies and visits from friends and houses in the country on lots of land for practically free with no internet that we thought were meant for us, but perhaps were only meant to awaken us to what we really wanted (more on this another time).

I could tell you about how I’m struggling lately with being engaged with the Bible and yet feel like God is still calling to me, just through non-traditional ways. Through my art books, through the strokes of a paint brush, through literature and songs and movies and conversations with my husband. How I feel His wooing in my life right now more in the things that are not the traditional Cultural-Christian venues, of church and quiet times in the Bible, and Christian music. And how I am both terrified and excited about what this means.

And I suppose, in writing all that this post could be about, I’ve already written the post it was meant to be.