"Literary Meme"

A friend passed on this concept that was titled "Literary Meme", which she got from http://www.rusticanda.blogspot.com/. This is how it works:

1. grab the book closest to you
2. open it to page 161
3. find the fifth full sentence
4. post the text of the sentence to your blog
5. don't search around for the coolest book you have, use the one that is really next to you.

My daughter Susan's new novel, "And the Violin Cried", wasn't the closest book to me, but it was the first book that came to mind, so I was curious as to what the sentence would be:

Samantha’s father pounded the last nail into the manger, while Angelica Nelson toddled over toolboxes and through sawdust to donate her baby doll to the cause.

That was from chapter 34, "Send Aaron!", describing Pinedale Bible Church's preparations for a Christmas production.

The nearest book other than my Bible was an anthology called "The Intellectuals Speak Out About God", and the sentence is:

What, for example, the ontological argument basically says is that if you understand what is meant by "God" and at the same time fail to see the necessity of the reality of that Being, then you are not really talking about God but about something else.

This was from chapter 11, "The Rationality of Belief in God", in a section where Professor John E. Smith attempts to answer the question "How best can the theistic point of view be presented to modern man?"

The reason why this book is so close by is that the reading is so deep that I can only read small portions at a time. But I don't want to give up on the book, so I keep it near as a reminder to read more later.

Equally close was my NKJ Bible, and the sentence is:

It is perversion.

That was from Leviticus 18, where God proscribes homosexuality and bestiality. A reminder that belief in God, and necessarily, acceptance of His absolute proclamations, is an inconvenience to those who would rather define morality on their own terms.