Tuesday, 14 April 2009
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It has been nearly ten years since I first read The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver. On my first reading I gobbled it up whole over just three days. This time I’ve taken three weeks; time to savor and ruminate, to swallow and enjoy the aftertaste of every thought and description.
In some ways I wonder that my parents allowed me to even read it at such a tender and impressionable age. With all of its stark descriptions and cynicisms, the book must have planted a dark seed in my uncultivated mind all those years ago. I have reaped the reward: awestruck, and wide-eyed doubt.
The Poisonwood Bible, and other books have slowly nudged me toward a sort of open-ended agnosticism, which has in turn served to reinvigorate honest theological curiosity. For me, this mindset has opened whole realms of thought which just weren’t accessible when I was strictly adhering to a rigid system of prescribed beliefs. Doubt undoes religion, but I think it strengthens faith. I’ve found it to be the most potent motivating factor in the search for Truth.
Or maybe I’ve gone off the deep end. God only knows.
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