Louise Glück, the 2020 Nobel prize-winning poet, writes in her poem, From a Journal, 'And I feel, sometimes, part of something, very great, wholly profound and sweeping.' That line represents much of what I read this January. For a Christmas gift, my parents sent me Prairie in Her Heart by Barbara Witteman. The book is about women who homesteaded in my home state of North Dakota in the late 1800s. This book hearkened me back to my grandparents' stories, born in 1911 in North Dakota. It reminded me of my history. The book Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger is not the type of book I like, and I am not sure why I purchased it, but I did. The book is a murder mystery set in southern Minnesota. The author tells, down to the minute detail, about being a child in the '60s, drinking Kool-Aid and Tang, eating Jell-O salads, and riding banana seat bikes. Every time he mentioned one of these '60's cultural treasures, it brought memories of places, people, events, and ordinary life. Each one of us has our unique storyline, a story that nobody else has. When I recognize it and become aware of how it impacts me every day, it gives me strength. When I see the faces and remember the stories of my history as I navigate my everyday problems, I know I belong. I understand I am apart of something 'wholly profound and sweeping.' I am anchored.
The books I have read this month have reminded me of my grounding and my country's history. During January, as an American, I have felt a deep sadness to witness the division in my country and the tearing apart of families. The book Fire and Brimstone: The North Butte Mining Disaster tells of the terrible copper mine disaster in 1917 in Butte, Montana. This book caught my attention because I have driven by this vast mine many, many times. In reading the historical account of this disaster, I read about conspiracy theories, stolen elections, distrust of the media, and distrust of authorities. I am discovering that the United States was founded on these things, too. To understand where we are going, we must know where we have been. The issues and struggles of today are similar to those in the past. What anchors us as a country? Thomas Hobbes states in Leviathan, 'that a kingdom divided in itself cannot stand.'
Dostoyevsky unveils in Crime and Punishment a quality of being human, 'we need to see them as good, trusting, so that is how we see them. Slowly, slowly reality creeps into our vision. We think we are disappointed, hurt by the other. In truth, it is ourselves.' I have discovered that I need to see people for who I need them to be, not for who they are. The truth of reality is not on the other person; it is on me. As Terry Eagleton puts forth in his lectures at Yale, which became a book, 'is not reason in the end what is most fundamental about us?'. When reality seems too painful to face, it drifts, changing shape into something more comfortable, we think, to absorb. This drifting is mine to set right. For, I am anchored. As Psalm 130 says,' Hope is in the Lord.'
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes
Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger
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