Ironic. This morning the temperature is in the 50s, so it's warm enough for me to get out on my bike. And the roads are dry, which often hasn't been the case recently. But the head cold that has been advancing and receding over the past few days has really settled in. So I figured I should be easy on myself this morning. (I can feel my body getting softer by the hour.)

I spent the time finishing the re-reading of Gilead, the excruciatingly beautiful novel by Marilynne Robinson. It takes the form of a journal that an elderly preacher in Kansas is composing, so that his very young son will remember him when he's dead. It's an early-morning book for me, because that's when I'm most alert. The writing is very subtle; meditations, really on themes that are Biblical -- judgement and grace; specifically, the judgementalism that arises from ignorance, and the forgiveness that often comes with a fuller understanding of a person's situation. There's also a good bit of the themes of the parable of the Prodigal. These are not pages that can be read quickly.

I first read Gilead three years ago. I've re-read it because, for my birthday, Patty gave me Robinson's newest novel, Home, which carries on the story of one of the characters in Gilead. Now that my memory is refreshed of the "story so far," I can get into the new book.

Marilynne Robinson has written three novels: Housekeeping, published in 1980, Gilead, published in 2004, and now Home. She obviously writes as the Spirit moves her. The fact that she doesn't simply churn them out every couple of years commends her to me!