Caleb's crossing Quotes - QuotesSweet | quotesweet.com

Book: Caleb's Crossing
Quotes of Book: Caleb's Crossing

Geraldine Brooks _ Caleb's Crossing
A canoe paddle is animate, because it causes something else to move. Even a humble onion has, in their view, a soul, since it causes action-pulling tears from the eyes.
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Geraldine Brooks _ Caleb's Crossing
But while I fill up my mouth with prayers, they bring no comfort. My words rattle against each other like the last beech leaves on a winter branch, and though a hard wind scours the forest, it cannot free them from the bough; it will not lift them upward into the wide white sky.
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Geraldine Brooks _ Caleb's Crossing
some half-dozen children running in the fields or about the wetus-fewer
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Geraldine Brooks _ Caleb's Crossing
I had begun this journey following him into the hidden corners of his world and here it ended with him crossed over into the brightest heights of mine.
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Geraldine Brooks _ Caleb's Crossing
I need, I suppose, to account for my life, and for my part in Caleb's crossing from his world into mine, and what flowed on from it.
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Geraldine Brooks _ Caleb's Crossing
Well, I have five brothers-Rest, Thankful, Watching, Patience, Consider-and each one of them the very opposite of their name.
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Geraldine Brooks _ Caleb's Crossing
Perhaps the giver of the name had meant to trick Cheepi, the devil-god, into thinking him unloved and therefore leaving him alone.
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Geraldine Brooks _ Caleb's Crossing
So it is, out here on this island, where we dwell with our faces to the sea and our backs to the wilderness. Like Adam's family after the fall, we all have things to do.
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Geraldine Brooks _ Caleb's Crossing
the truth from his ears, waxed strong.
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Geraldine Brooks _ Caleb's Crossing
How easily Caleb had taken the teachings of his youth-the many gods, the animate spirit world-and simply recast them in terms of our teaching.
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Geraldine Brooks _ Caleb's Crossing
Perhaps it was pride, merely, to seek these souls that God had chosen to abandon. Perhaps it was in itself a sin….
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Geraldine Brooks _ Caleb's Crossing
His task was to survive and endure through the harsh winter months, winnowing his soul until it could cross to the spirit world. There, he would undertake the search for his guide, a god embodied in some kind of beast or bird, who would protect him throughout his life. His spirit guide would enlighten his mind and guide his steps in myriad ways, until the end of his life. In those cold woods, he would learn his destiny. He said that if the spirit guide came to him in the form of a snake, then he would gain his heart's desire, and become pawaaw."I thought of the quarantine of Jesus, a similar harsh and lonely trial of character and purpose. But that vigil passed in searing desert, not snowy wood. And when, at the end, the devil came with his visions of cities and offers of power, Jesus shunned him. Caleb desired to bid him welcome.
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