Novel:Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder

"A long time ago, when all the grandfathers and grandmothers of today were little boys and little girls or very small babies, or perhaps not even born, Pa and Ma and Mary and Laura and Baby Carrie left their little house in the Big Woods of Wisconsin."

I've read these books 100 time! I've visited several of the places where Ingalls family actually lived! Pepin Wisconsin, Walnut Grove in Minnesota, and De Smet South Dakota! I love these books because they remind of simpler times and spending time with family.

Textual Lineage #2

"Bridging" by Marge Piercy
I had to copy the whole thing or it doesn't make sense. This poem reminds me that I am always connected to friends and family even if I don't see them or speak to them very often.

Being together is knowing
even if what we know
is that we cannot really be together
caught in the teeth of the machinery
of the wrong moments of our lives.

A clear umbilicus
goes out invisibly between,
thread we spin fluid and finer than hair
but strong enough to hang a bridge on.

That bridge will be there
a blacklight rainbow arching out of your skull
whenever you need
whenever you can open your eyes and want
to walk upon it.

Nobody can live on a bridge
or plant potatoes
but it is fine for comings and goings,
meetings, partings and long views
and a real connection to someplace else
where you may
in the crazy weathers of struggle
now and again want to be.

Textual Lineage

"ARE YOU TELLING ME CHRIST WAS LUCKY?" Owen asked her. "I WOULD SAY HE COULD HAVE USED A LITTLE MORE LUCK THAN HE HAD. I WOULD SAY HE RAN OUT OF LUCK, AT THE END."

"But Owen," Rector Wiggin said. "He was crucified, yet he rose from the dead—he was resurrected. Isn't the point that he was saved?"

"HE WAS USED," said Owen Meany, who was in a contrary mood.

This book is one of the funniest and most serious books I have ever read! It fundamentally changed the role religion plays in my life. I loved the book so much I refused to see the movie for fear it diminish the inspiration I found in the book.

A Prayer for Owen Meany movie trailer