# “This is an interesting planet” by Marilynne Robinson

- Link: https://tollelege.net/2009/01/14/this-is-an-interesting-planet-by-marilynne-robinson/
- Published: 2009-01-14T20:49:22-06:00
- Author: tollelege

“[I am reminded] of something I saw early one morning a few years ago, as I was 
walking up to the church. There was a young couple strolling along half a block 
ahead of me. The sun had come up brilliantly after a heavy rain, and the trees were
glistening and very wet.

On some impulse, plain exuberance, I suppose, the fellow jumped up and caught hold
of a branch, and a storm of luminous water came pouring down on the two of them,
and they laughed and took off running, the girl sweeping water off her hair and 
her dress as if she were a little bit disgusted, but she wasn’t.

It was a beautiful thing to see, like something from a myth. I don’t know why I 
thought of that now, except perhaps because it is easy to believe in such moments
that water was made primarily for blessing, and only secondarily for growing vegetables
or doing the wash.

I wish I had paid more attention to it. My list of regrets may seem unusual, but
who can know that they are, really. This is an interesting planet. It deserves all
the attention you can give it.”

–Marilynne Robinson, _Gilead: A Novel_ (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004),
27-8.

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