I've recently read a book by Sheri Tepper, an author Leigh recommended during those fourth-floor breaks we usually have. It's a good read, very thought-provoking and at some points very "real." The story is a mixture of fantasy and religion and boasts of well-crafted characters. I held a very strong and vivid image of Disme (lead character) in my head throughout the whole book. Although not as gripping as some of the books I've read, the interesting world she created, the personalities and the turn of events kept me reading it.

Below is an excerpt from the book that holds true to me:

"...humans are cheap in holding their gods so cheap they peck at them like pigeons, constantly intruding upon them with prayer! Prayer from all sides of every conflict, prayer before each contest, during every issue. Private prayer, public prayer, shepherded prayer baa-ed from congregation, sports prayer before games, prayer parroted and prayer spontaneous, endless instructions to god, endless...plockutta."

"Intercede for me and solve my problems; give me; grant me; hear the words I'm saying; suspend the laws of nature in this instance; cure her; save him; don't let them; listen to me; do this!' " The Visitor sighed. "Beneath it, one hears devil's laughter."

"Devils?"

"Each race creates its own devils. You had so many that they specialized. Devils of racial hatred, devils of greed and violence. Devils who killes their own people in orgies of blood. Devils who bombed school buses, devils who bombed other devils. I got to know every one of them by name..."

"...The Real One doesn't even perceive words. If IT did, imagine what IT would have to listen to! The Real One sees only the pattern of what is, where it begins and where it comes to rest. The only prayer IT perceives is action."

"An example from your old world...A child being shot and everyone weeping. What does the Real One see? IT sees the maker and making of a device that kills; the device itself, the sellingg of the device that kills, the buying of the device that kills, the placement of it near the child, the occurence, the death. Only actions enter the pattern the Real One sees. What is. What was done. IT perceives neither intentions nor remorse."

"What is, is! Reality. Nature. The laws of a Universe that contains all things. Expansion and coontraction, matter and anti-matter, light and dark, joy and sorrow, ecstacy and horror, supernovas and black holes, euphoria and pain, governing and politics life and death. All the goads and all the stumbling blocks that force intelligence to grow by conquering."

"Conquering what?"

"Anything. Stink, or disease, or hatred. Pain, bugs, or brambles. The shortness of life or the frailty of age."

"Why not just leave those things out?"

"It's been tried. If you give a being only feelgood-joylife, nothing happens. Dinosaurs lived here for hundreds of millions of years in feelgood-joylife, and at the end of it they had conquered nothing. Sixty-five million years ago, I judged they'd had long enough, so I brought an asteroid to start things over..."

• • •

"Intelligent races always worship something. It's a kind of yearning that intellect has, to see and worship the eventual goal. It may not always go after the truth, but it always wants a story. People start out with magic, and turn that into religion, and then, if they don't go on to worship the Real One, they settle for a temporary godlet like me, or for any one of a thousand convenient devils. You can tell which by the actions. Those who worship the Real One are problem-solvers. They experiment and pay attention to the result in order to see what's good, what's bad. They work to give every person and creature the good stuff, variety, food, space, cleanliness; and they do it because sane, healthy creatures exposed to complex environments conquer better! They work to eliminate the bad stuff like pollution, extinctions, overpopulation, weapons, because sick starving creatures in impoverished and threatened environments don't conquer at all..."

- The Visitor, Sheri S. Tepper