Day 88

I don't care if you are Protestant, Muslim, Mormon or Pentecostal; gay, straight or queer; a mortician, a bus driver, a school teacher or a biker. My motto: to each her own. I try to reserve judgement, I really do. But tell me that you don't read and I automatically relegate you to a special purgatory, a place where you can stay until you can be made to see the depths of your sin and repent (at which time you will be issued a library card and an Amazon.com account). My judgement is especially harsh when an individual claims a love of words and a desire to write, yet still refuses to make time for a good novel or juicy memoir. My judgement grows out of my own passion for language. Although I am a slow and plodding reader and I often struggle to find the time to do the things I love, I make time everyday to read. Occasionally, I read a passage that is a revelation and a miracle. A few days ago, I was reading Kim Barne's Hungry For the World when I ran across this passage: This is what I know of seduction: it can be flowered and perfumed, or it can spring from sweat and darkness; it can come sweet and slow, or fast and hard like birth. It can find you at work or at home, awake or asleep. It can begin with a kiss or the withholding of a kiss. It's a flower that opens, a bruise the spreads. It is words like these that ignite my evangelical zeal for reading. How could they not?