Friday, June 13, 2008

Secret Life of Bees - Julia

I'm sorry, but I have to say I didn't really love this book. My #1 complaint is the negative portrayal of marriage. Lily had a negative view from T. Ray and her mother; August talked about loving her freedom more than the man she could have married; and June resisted it throughout (though she did get happy once finally making the choice). And, I'm sorry but I just didn't catch the symbolism of the whole Mary statue mumbo jumbo! Overall I just thought it was kind of an annoying book.

However, there was some great quotes that I had to share and I got some good thinking in on some subjects as well. First, some quotes:

"...people aren't meant to be overly bright in everything." (15) - - Truman G. Madsen has said, "Everyone is a genius at something."

"Children did not have two parents who refused to love them. One, maybe, but not two." (41)

"Some things don't matter that much...Like the color of a house...The hardest thing on earth is choosing what matters." (147)

"You have to know when to prod, when to let things take their course." (236
) - - good one for parenting! :-)

"J.O.Y" - - Love this! The true way to have happiness is getting your priorities straight: Jesus Others Yourself

"Once you get stung, you can't get unstung." (167)


The Secret to Belonging

This book was yet another book about belonging and the meaning of family. Though it had a negative viewpoint of marriage (in my opinion), I was struck with the vividness in which the author portrayed the need to feel loved.

Connecting the bee life to family life, Kidd quoted, "Honeybees are social insects and live in colonies. Each colony is a family unit, comprising a single, egg-laying femail or queen and her many sterile daughters called workers. The workers cooperate in the food-gathering, nest-building, and rearing the off-spring. Males are reared only at the times of year when their presence is required." (67) Again, a hint of "no need for males, no need for marriage" in there; but taking that out, you find that bees work together as a family should work together. Getting things done for the betterment of the family must be a principle instilled in children. That sense of belonging strengthens as you work together.

"I wanted to make her love me," Lily says of August. "I wanted to make her love me so she would keep me forever. If I could make her love me, maybe she would...let me stay." (94) How often do we do things to "make people love" us? Whether it be in our friendships, our wards, or our own families, I think we all have a sense of needing to act a certain way in order to be loved. However, one of my favorite quotes from Rabbi Kushner states:

A lot of misery could be traced to this one mistaken notion [that] we need to be perfect for people to love us and we forfeit that love if we ever fall short of perfection. There are few emotions more capable of leaving us feeling bad about ourselves than the convistion that we don't deserve to be loved, and few ways more certain to generate that conviction than the idea that every time we do something wrong, we give God and the people closest to us reasons not to love us.

In short this is what Lily was struggling with throughout the whole novel. In her mind she heard, "You are unloveable, Lily Owens. Unloveable. Who could love you? Who in this world could ever love you?" (242) Why was she thinking this? Because she had the weight of killing her own mother on her shoulders. What a burden for a young girl to carry through her life. And yet, how many of those around us carry similar weight, for even smaller mistakes! How do we lift these burdens from ourselves? How do we truly gain a sense of belonging?

The answer: "Remembering is everything." (228) Allowing yourself to remember things - - to sorrow over mistakes, to remember the Plan that allows us to push past those mistakes, and remembering the joys that come from choosing the right and feeling the Spirit - - you can then move forward with a realistic veiwpoint of life and gain a true sense of belonging to something more grand than what life may offer. Lily discovered this truth. She was not able to move on and truly experience belonging until she allowed herself to remember, to cry, to mourn, to feel. "A wall of glass broke in my chest, a wall I didn't even know was there... [August's] hands rubbed my back. She didn't say, Come on now, stop your crying, everythings going ot be okay, which is the automatic thing people say when they want you to shut up. She said, 'It hurts, I know it does. Let it out. Just let it out.' So I did." (238) So I did.

1 comment:

Kelly said...

I didn't love it either...but you will hear why in my essay - which has been sitting half-typed on my computer for a few weeks now.
Anyway, I liked your quotes and I like what you had to say.