Well, I hope you all had a chance to read the book this month. I am interested to see what you have to say. I don't have any deep or thought provoking questions to ask. There are just a few quotes and ideas I'd like to discuss.
1. "Choose wisely, for what you ask may very well be what you receive." What experience have you had with this?
2. Shortly after they start their journey she encounters flies (they clean out thier ears and noses...remember). They talk about how everything has a purpose and then she goes on to say, "surrender is definitely the correct answer in certain circumstances. I wonder what else in my life I perceived to be wrong or difficult instead of exploring to understand the time and purpose." What can you say about this in your own life?
3. "We automatically give to each person we meet, but we choose what we give. Our words, our actions, must consciously set the stage for the life we wish to lead." What do you wish to give to each person that you meet?
4. At one point they talk about sporting events and they say to her, "but if one person wins, everyone else must lose. Is that fun? Games are for fun. Why would you submit anyone to such an experience and then try to convince him he was in truth a winner? That custom is difficult to understand. Does it work for your people?" How would you answer that?
5. A couple of times they talk about gravy and frosting. Gravy-"they know the truth, but it is buried under thickening and spices of convenience, materialism, insecurity, and fear." Frosting-"it seems to represent how they spend almost all the seconds of their existence in doing superficial, artificial, temporary, pleasant-looking, nice-appearing projects and spend very few actual seconds of their lives developing their eternal beingness." What do you think about that?
6. What was your favorite message from the book?
7. What did you like/not like about the book?
7. Do you think it really happened? Why?
Thanks everyone for reading. I'm anxious to hear what you all thought.
JEN
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
I LOVED THIS BOOK! Thank you so much, Jen, for suggesting it. I've been telling everyone I know that they MUST read it!
I'll just answer one question: I REALLY want to read what others think....please write your thoughts!
4. I think Marlo Morgan's answer to the Aborigine's query about our games (Does it work for your people) was right on. She said, "No." Actually, I believe competition has gotten us where we are today: both good and bad. For example, the reason we can pay less for stuff at WalMart is because of competition (good ol’ capitalism). But, competition is also the reason so many people are in debt beyond control (keeping up with the Jones'), killed by Road Rage (gotta get ahead), and parents get kicked out of Little League games for bad behavior. My kids have a darling game they love to play called Cariboo. In the game, all players work together to find hidden balls which are put in a “tide pool” to open up a treasure chest. They could play this game all day, every day (believe me, they want to) and yet no one wins or loses...all players get excited together when the treasure chest magically opens to reveal the big, sparkling jewel. Some of our favorite games as a kid were group cooperation games, like the one where everyone puts their hands in the middle, grabs two other hands, and then works together to "untwist" the human knot. I think if some things were less competitive and more about the outcome, we would be a happier society. But, don’t get rid of capitalism….I still want to be able to buy cheap toilet paper!
Hooray! I actually read this book! I fell off the Bookworm horse for a few months, but I'm back! And what a good time to return! I thought this book was excellent! There were so many little lessons packed into it's pages. I might have to read it all over again to be sure they'll stick with me.
The quotes from the tribal people were so profound! I loved all the ones Jen pointed out. But, the lesson I wanted to discuss was the people's absolute nonattachment to possessions. At the beginning when they dropped the author’s belongings (clothes, camera, wallet, etc.) into the fire I thought, “Oh! I would be SO mad!” Talk about a cold-turkey adjustment to having nothing to call your own! Towards the end of the book when the tribe was hit by a storm and flash flood, what little they did have (sleeping skins, Marlo’s headband and waist belt) was washed away. Marlo’s belt held precious cargo given to her by a healer. It was the only thing she had kept throughout the journey and planned to take home. But, suddenly it was gone and she had to learn again how unimportant material things should be. She said, “This brush with death also stripped my belief that things outside of myself were causes for joy or despair.”
I think this lesson is a hard one for all of us who have SO many possessions! Having just moved into a new home and our list of things we “need” to acquire being multiplied, I hope we won’t place too much emphasis on THINGS. I used to wonder to myself, ‘It my house were on fire, what things would I try to grab quickly on my way out?” (Now that I’m a parent, I know it would be my “assigned” child!) But, I think how devastated we would be to lose especially journals and photo albums and everything that has a special memory. But, the lesson in this book is that we cannot become so attached to anything BUT the memories. In the end, all we will have is the things inside ourselves. So, my take-home lesson is to work more on what’s inside of me and worry less about the bare undecorated walls of my home!
After reading the introduction, I couldn't help but wonder the whole way through, "How much of this ACTUALLY happened?" Marlo Morgan claims she wrote it as a novel to protect the people. But, do you think she embellished the story as well or not? I'd like to think it all happened just as written. What an amazing experience!
Thanks for a great choice of book!
I'm in! It took me nine tries to remember my password. Oh, dear. I really enjoyed this book for many reasons. I'll answer a couple of discussion questions first. #3 I'd like to give to each person I meet...pleasantness, I guess is the word I'm looking for. Marjorie Hinckley said something along the lines of be nice to everyone you meet. You don't know what kind of day they are having. So I hope I give an encouraging smile or kind word. Hold a door open for someone or not speed up when someone needs to change lanes. I try to be patient with the cashier in training. In some situations though, all I can give is just holding my tongue.
I completely agree with the question of fun if there is one winner, everyone else must be losers. It's great for the winner, but some children/people are always the losers. I would like to see more cooperative games and activities and more mindset of helping someone enjoy the game is more important than if I win. We do see a lot of unhealthy competition in society. (I never did like Dodge Ball.)
My favorite message from the book was about birthdays. Why celebrate getting one year older? You don't have to do anything to accomplish that. Instead, celebrate getting BETTER. I'm going to think of that every year from now on. How am I better this last year? Have I developed talents? Have I become nicer, more understanding, performed more acts of kindness, improved my intellect in some small way? Have I learned something new or made a new friend? How am I growing, or mutating, into someone better? I really liked the idea of celebrating getting better instead of older.
I also liked the idea of a name reflecting your strengths. I wonder if our culture did that, upon meeting someone, would we immediately see them for their strengths and potential contributions? I am horrible at labeling upon appearance and also knowing what to talk about with new people. So a name that conveys their talents/interests would be very helpful to me personally to appreciate them right away and have a jumping off point for conversation.
I read the author's introduction about how some readers would take this book for fiction. If the reader chose to do that, it would still be entertaining. I didn't really have any reason to doubt its authenticity until the guy broke his leg with a compound fracture that moved back into place with the tribe talking to it and it was healed in days. I'd like to believe the entire experience happened, because it would be incredible. I'm pretty sure I would have demanded to be taken back after the first day, no, after the first couple of hours. (Then again, the tribe probably wouldn't have chosen me to go on the walkabout in the first place.)If it really did happen, that's amazing. If it is embellished or fictionalized, that's okay too because there are a lot of good lessons in this text. I enjoyed reading it and look forward to Frankenstein!
Thanks for reading my comments. :)
Dear Bookworms,
Thanks for your book choice in September, Jen. I absolutely LOVED Mutant Message, and nine out of ten women I recommended it to loved it also! I so put myself in the story since Marlo was 50-something like me when the story took place. At our age, you pretty much have passed by the "trying to arrive" years of your life. You have settled into a fairly comfortable existence and have become set in your lovely home and routine. Wow, what a shake up this adventure would be!! I so admired how she was able to ask a lot of questions to learn but most of her learning took place by being still and observing. I'm trying to gain a better talent for that. Although she didn't really mention God or our Savior as the source of all of creation good and bad, that it is to Him we look for our healing, our guidance and our very salvation, I think that was what the "real people" were actually doing. I loved how she gave up the world, shedding it for a purer understanding of people, nature, and love. I think if this story truly happened (and I hope it did), the tragedy is that the aboriginal tribe is giving up on the rest of the world. Because the majority of mankind won't learn or accept the real lifestyle they so naturally embraced and preserved in their separated existence, they end it all with celibacy and zero population growth. To voluntarily end their race seems kind of selfish. Christ never gave up on his persecutors or the spiritually blind of his earthly sojourn, and he never gives up on us-- at times unwise, wasteful, ungrateful and smothered in "frosting and gravy". I learned many lessons from this book. I want to be less of a mutant, and be more real. In other words I want to live a more Christlike way.
---Fay
Things have been incredibly busy with us, and I feel bad writing only a couple of sentences, but it was important to me to acknowledge a great pick by Jen. I read the book and I loved it! Everyone has written such wonderful comments--I agree. :) The biggest lesson I got from this book is that so very few things matter--but what matters, matters a lot!!
I'm back to posting after a few months off. Moving and starting a new job has taken more out of me than I realized it would.
Thanks for choosing last month's book. It was an interesting read. Like many of you, it caused me to reflect on my life, the things I take for granted, and the many things that nature offers us, both in beauty and sustenance.
That said, there were a couple of things that I really had a hard time with in the book. These things led me to feel like this book was a work of fiction. In the beginning of the book I had a difficult time imagining a woman so willing to leaving her world behind and follow this group of people off into an unknown land, without being given even a single verbal explanation. Particularly because of the strong, independent woman that he appeared to be, it seemed completely unbelievable. This created a big hurdle for me to overcome, but I did eventually enjoy the message of the book.
For me, the author vividly brought to life the way of the aborigines and the conditions of the outback. Living in some of those conditions seems unbearable! I admired that she depicted that the aborigines were open to what the land was telling them, being in tune with one another, and recognizing a greater being's influence in their lives. They appeared so open minded and respectful of one another's ways as well as the ways of the animals and other things in nature. However, I was disheartened to read how close-minded the she made the aboriginal people out to be of our world and ways of life. It seemed contradictory to their nature. I wanted them to react differently to our world and us, more compassionate and understanding, since they had been so heavily mistreated by "mutants". I guess I wanted them to not be so human.
Thanks for the insightful read! I'm looking forward to Frankenstein.
-Michelle
Post a Comment