"The Power and the Glory"

On my trip to Sticksville, I took along Graham Greene's The Power and the Glory, at the recommendation of Son 2 who had read it in English class last year.  Of course it's a great book, but I loved the way that Greene shows us what good there is, hidden though it be, in the whiskey priest where many more upright and pious people are missing it.  After I finished the book, Son 2 asked me what I thought of it.  I tried to explain this, and quoted back to him what I thought was one of the most insightful lines of the book:

"What an unbearable creature he must have been in those days--and yet in those days he had been comparatively innocent. That was another mystery: it sometimes seemed to him that venial sins--impatience, an unimportant lie, pride, a neglected opportunity--cut you off from grace more completely than the worst sins of all. Then, in his innocence, he had felt no love for anyone; now in his corruption he had learnt."

Son 2's answer?  "That's the line I wrote my paper on."

Nice to know we are struck by similar things, I guess ....