Sounds a little morbid doesn’t it? But it was not....it was another lovely evening with the women of The Wisdom Club. This time our pic was a fiction book called The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold....

This book came out in 2002 but has re-surfaced in the last year or so and will soon be coming out next month as a major motion picture.

Tho story line is somewhat of a heavier nature in which it depicts the after life a teenage girl after her violent murder. The girl’s name is Susie Salmon, and the story begins with her telling you about her new “life” in heaven, a place that is not at all what she expected.She watches life on earth continue with out her, her friend speaking of her death, he killer trying to cover his tracks, her grief stricken family coming apart at the seams. From unspeakable tragedy and loss, this book is able to evoke feelings of hope, humour, love and contentment.

For our evening this book brought up a lot of conversation of death and coming to terms with our own immortality. There was much sharing of our own personal experiences of loss and continual connection with the dead and some shared of how they would hope to pass.

Not everyone in the group was comfortable with the notion of people watching you after they pass on, while others took great comfort and peace in that thought.

At the beginning of this year we read The Shack which came up on this night as a comparison book. Many felt the Lovely bones was darker and not as hopeful. while some felt this book jut offered a different kind of hope.

I find is so fascinating to listen to everyone views and stories. I am in love with how this group grows every time we meet and how our sharing goes deeper. These evenings for me are a great time of learning and growing. As much as I love to contribute I love to listen to the views of each one of these great women. It is not so much that we all are in agreement but it is the fact that we can voice our selves and still be in a community together of respect and love.

Where was a time when I believed that all need too believe the same, think the same, live the same....I was much younger and not yet living free.

There is a story that is found in the Bible, the Quran, the Midrash and the Kabbalah that speaks about a time when the people of the earth thought it good to all live in one place, speak one language and live one way. They also thought it to be a good idea to build a tower to the heavens so that they could be as high as God. They built this tower in honour of themselves so to prove to the God of all gods that they too could be as high. It is said that it was at this time that  the language changed form one to many so that the people would scatter and not be stuck in one view.

Diversity is important. It teaches us to remain open to the possibilities that are in store for us. It helps us be moulded into different forms...not to stay dry in one way of being. That, for me, is the gift of The Wisdom Club and all the other wonderful women that come into my life. Diversity is a staple in my world....not always easy but definitely necessary.

One of the favourite quotes from the book was read that night by the lovely Claire:

“ These were the lovely bones that had grown around my absence: the connections - sometimes tenuous, sometimes made at great cost, but often magnificent - that happened after I was gone. And I began to see things in a way that let me hold the world without me in it. The events that my death wrought were merely the bones of a body that would become whole at some unpredictable time in the future. The price of what I came to see as this miraculous body had been my life.”

pg 320

It was a wonderful evening of food, drink and discussion. I look forward to our next gathering. thanks ladies...

our next pick is: Traveling with Pomegranates by Sue Monk Kidd and Ann Kidd Taylor

stayed tuned.....