Who can define the journey into something that is beyond definition? Our friendship defied structures, measures, demands and proofs. We only knew what existed, accepted it for what it was, and lived out of what was. We did not create it, sketch it out on paper and inscribe a list of friendship qualifications and demands. There was never any thought of accountability to a contrived friendship rules and regulations package. Legalistic obligation can never be the basis of genuine friendship; it is simply a matter of life itself—organic. One dares to courageously follow the heart regardless of the judgment of others.
The Heart Unstructured can be described as a love story, a romance… but it infinitely transcends that genre. The book itself is an allegory, and the author, as a master of metaphor, paints a vivid picture of the tragic truth of mere religion, and the way it compels its adherents to conform to its rituals and rigidity while silencing the voice of the heart, which longs for authentic, dynamic relational connection with the Creator and the whole of creation.
In our zeal to be “right,” we so often sacrifice the mystery and deep wonder of relational intimacy for which we are designed.
This is the conflict the two main characters in the book find themselves in as expressed in the following excerpt from the book:
‘Standing on the steps of our respective religious cultures each Sunday morning and fixing our gaze upon one another just across the narrow street, our hearts could not accept that I could love God as a Roman Catholic and she could love God as a Baptist, but we could never love each other.’
October’s Dying—though a novel—graphically reflects the horrific history of Canada’s relationship with the Indigenous Peoples of the country. It reveals Canada’s best kept “dirty little secret” widely recognized as genocide.
Long before Canada became a nation (1867) the European influence was at work north of the 49th. Parallel. The Jesuit Order of the Roman Catholic priesthood was present in New France—later to become the Province of Quebec. This was as early as the mid-sixteenth century, and from the beginning the European passion was to assimilate the Native Peoples of the land into the various forms of European culture—and most especially religious culture.
What Readers Say about the Book
– ELWOOD HORTON
What Readers Say about the Book
– ELWOOD HORTON
What Readers Say about the Book