God

I wanted to come up with a fantastically beautiful unifying theme about Eat, Pray, Love and give myself some existential decipherment of Gilbert's personal journey to keep to myself. I don't see that happening mostly because I don't think that is the point of the book. This one is making me more thoughtful about myself than it is about her, and I like it. A lot.

I fell in love with her when she spoke about god, so instead of belittling her experience with a quasi intellectual overly academic breakdown of her literary quality or style I want to think about God like she does. firstly, without delving into itbecause this is not a homeland blog, how interesting would it be to think about God in relation to a homeland. Portable comfort? Consolation? Faith? Love? Sounds like home to me, though I do think the idea is imperfect it is certainly wildly entertaining to turn about in my head.

"Hello God. How are you? I'm Liz it's nice to meet you" Strictly from a literary standpoint, or at least as a means of communication or conveyance to the reader her simplicity and self awareness create a fantastic clarity. "I'm sorry to bother you late night" Really! These two pages, 15-16 have a huge significance to me, one for this reading, and the other for strictly personal reasons. For reading, as I have gotten further into the story and watched Liz move, grow, and love I can't help but imagine her prayers even when she doesn't tell me about them directly. I love it. As for the personal reason, I have always had a similar style of prayer, maybe not so much as far as the introduction because I have always felt that God and I knew each other.

I am not the best Christian in the world, and an even worse Catholic, and Gilbert has a way of explaining to me why that is. I am not sure how I feel about her hearing a voice, but I do like what she hears. "Go to bed". As applicable to the rest of the stories, I think this sentiment holds what is bordering on too much truth. It is exemplified later when she visits the medicine man for the first time and he tells her that she worries too much. Her answer from god, and her answer fromthe medicine man seem to be similar. Don't worry. Do what you can do. The medicine man's answer seems a bit more dedicated to fate than to faith as God's was but the result and idea holds fast.

I think this passage (I don't want to go on forever about the details we all have read it) gave me what i needed to understand Liz. First and foremost it yanked me into her. I get it. Second, the thought that I share so much in common in thought and faith and belief with an author gives me a sort of freedom to dwell in her thought and follow her through her experience. She has a mastery of her own self and it makes the read as well as the stories supremely fulfilling.