Five easy steps...to randomness

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 23.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence as a comment on my blog.
5. Post the text of the sentence on your own blog, along with these instructions.

I had a hard time deciding which is the fifth sentence (luckily there was only one book within reach, so I didn't have to debate that as well), because the page begins in the middle of a sentence, which also includes a quote that is two sentences separated by ellipses as well as a period. I debated long and hard, counted and recounted. What is a sentence, technically? (Can you tell I'm a copy editor?) OK, so the final decision: a sentence ends with a period, whether within a quote or not. So here it is:

On the last Sunday in April, I served the chalice at communion for the first time since Kit died.
---Nora Gallagher, Practicing Resurrection

It begins on a bittersweet note, but the rest of the anecdote is an incredibly beautiful description of communion and community.

What's yours?

Borrowed from Josh, who borrowed it from someone else, who borrowed it from someone else, who found it in the house that Jack built...

Comments

[David H]

Therefore, each account eventually became part of the family lore, told, retold, puzzled over, and discussed again and again by close friends and family members.

[Mark W.]

Provided that any of those neghbours sing out of tune, or have boots that squeak, or double chins, or odd clothes, the patient will quite easily believe that their religion must therefore be somehow ridiculous. -- The Screwtape Letters, Letter #2, C.S. Lewis

[Jimmy]

This didn't quite work for me. I picked up the nearest book to me, which was the book, Religions of America, edited by Leo Rosten, sitting next to the lamp on my desk. The only thing on page 23 of my book is this: Part One Religious Beliefs And Credos--in question-and-answer-form. And nothing on the page indicates it's page 23, except if you turn backwards once to find page 21, or turn forward once to find page 25. So I didn't fine one sentence, much less a 5th, on page 23.

[Cleave]

Chastened rationality is also manifest in the "loss of the metanarrative" and the advent of "local stories."

From Beyond Foundationalism: Shaping Theology in a Postmodern Context, by Stanly Grenz and John Franke

[Peter]

"If we do not seek liberation from our obsessions, then becoming more withdrawn and less social may even make us more blind to them, since it can mask them." - John Anthony McGuckin, The Book of Mystical Chapters (quoting John Cassian)