I was talking the other day about the novel, "The Traveling Death and Resurrection Show."

I am loving the book right now. Oh, it may break bad on me eventually (I've seen that in novels - they're all wise and funny up to about 200 pages in, and then it all falls apart and either turns pat or turns emo). But right now - I'm not quite halfway through - it's wonderful.

I have to share a quotation with you. I need to set it up first: Frankka (the stigmata artist) has run away from the theater troupe - mainly because a performance was super-hyped and it brought out both the rabid fans and the rabid protesters. The radical pastor of the Presbyterian church where they were to perform manages to shuffle her out through the old draft-dodger Underground Railroad of sorts. Frankka winds up, after some twists and turns, at the mountain cabin of Dot...we don't really know who Dot is and why she takes people like Frankka in. She just IS.

And one evening, over dinner, they are talking about how Frankka ran off, and Frankka talks about how she feels like everyone is greedy and full of bull and how disilluioned she is. And this exchange follows (Dot is speaking):

"Anyway," she says, "Everyone has to have a strategy, don't you think?"
I shrug...
"The question is," she points her fork in my direction, "is it a war strategy or a love strategy?"

And I get that. I TOTALLY get that. That is such a perfect way of putting it. Because I have SEEN that in people...I've seen people walk into a meeting or something, and you can tell by the set of their shoulders and the look in their eyes, that they are going in with a "war strategy"...a "do it unto others before they have a chance to do it unto me."

And while I don't discount that in some situations (like, actual war) a war strategy might be wise and useful, in situations where the stakes are low and cooperation will lead to the desired outcome faster and more comfortably than conflict, war strategies are pretty stupid.

And I've also seen people who walk in with a war strategy getting softened up somehow and changing it to a love strategy...and other permutations.

But I love that imagery, it works. I've got the quotation from the book written on a post-it note and it's stuck up in a place where I can see it when I work at my desk or am getting ready to go to class.

Also, a few sentences later, Frankka is telling Dot that her cabin is "too close" to society and that if it were up to her (Frankka), she would build way up on the mountain. And Dot looks at her and says, "It's easy to be a saint on a mountaintop." - another line that I love.