Delighting in a good read

This is the view I enjoyed for a long afternoon at the cottage. And these were the sounds - a light breeze and the rippling lake against the wharf:

One of the delights of the cottage is the luxury to sit down with a good book and not have to get up for anything. It's a perfect place to shut out the world and immerse yourself in the world of your book. In my case, the book I was reading took me back to pre-American Civil War times in Kentucky. I finally finished reading Uncle Tom's Cabin, and I have to say this book shot way up to the top of my favourites. First of all I was completely caught off guard by the underlying themes. Yes, I knew the book was an indictment against the injustices of slavery and was very forward-thinking of its female author. In fact, Harriet Beecher Stowe has become a sort of hero to me now. The text, the language, is very pointed to particular social groups and at the time it was written in 1851 it had to have been very shocking to its readers. HBS was very counter-cultural and I dig that! But what I didn't expect was the message of hope and forgiveness in the midst of some of the worst kinds of treatment a human could endure by the hands of another. Uncle Tom's heartfelt desire was not really for his own earthy freedom, because he knew he would receive freedom in Heaven one day. No, his heartfelt desire was for his Master's freedom - freedom from that which has separated him from God, and freedom that comes from being released in forgiveness.

This is a long post, but I have to share these passages from the book with you. I hope they give you as much food for thought as they did for me. AND, if you haven't read Uncle Tom's Cabin - do!

On the abuses of slavery, the author writes to the reader:

"Patience! Patience! ye whose hearts swell indignant at wrongs like these. Not one throb of anguish, not one tear of the oppressed is forgotten by the Man of Sorrows, the Lord of Glory. In his patient, generous bosom he bears the anguish of a world. Bear thou, like him, in patience, and labour in love; for sure is he is God, "the year of his redeemed shall come." (Ch.12)

And when George, a slave who doubts the presence of God, finds refuge in a Quaker home:

"This, indeed, was a home, -- home, -- a word that George had never yet known the meaning for; and a belief in God and trust in His providence, began to encircle his heart, as with a golden cloud of protection and confidence, dark, misanthropic, pining, atheistic doubts and fierce despair melted away before the light of a living Gospel, breathed in living faces, preached by a thousand unconscious acts of love and good-will, which, like a cup of cold water given in the name of a disciple shall never lose their reward. (Ch.13)

And from St. Clare, on the hypocrisy of the church's support and justification of slavery:

"Religion! Is that what you hear at church religion? Is that which can bend and turn, and descend and ascend, to fit every crooked phase of selfish, worldly society, religion? Is that religion that is less scrupulous, less generous,less just, less considerate for man, than even my own ungodly, worldly, blinded nature? No! When I look for a religion, I must look for something above me, not for something beneath."