People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks
This is our book club selection for February 2012. I knew very little about it when we chose it for discussion. Now that I have finished it, I can see that it will provide a great deal of meat for thoughtful chewing. The stories of the people who handle the Haggadah (the text recited at the Seder on the first two nights of the Jewish Passover, including a narrative of the Exodus) are full of human anguish.
It demonstrates the sinfulness of human nature when we allow our differences to become reason enough for disrespect, hatred, and even murder. The fact that any particular religion or faith is the instrument by which one People or culture feels justified in its domination over another People or culture is so opposite of the loving God I have come to know personally. Those who are so “certain” of their righteousness have time after time acted cruelly and sinfully. It has to stop. But the only way I know to make it stop is by trying to live out my own belief that God loves all People, no matter their color, race, gender, ability, sexuality, or faith. What else will we as sinful humans find about each other so that we may denigrate them rather than lift them up? I hope that we have seen the last.
Back to the book – read it … and please think and act in the ways that will make this world a more loving and peaceful place.