Love in the Ruins. The title of Walker Percy’s 1971 novel captures the book’s setting and theme — Thomas More’s Utopia this is not. But the phrase also catches a moment in the marriage of its protagonist, Dr. Tom More:
“Don’t you see,” says his wife, “people grow away from each other … We’re dead.”
“I love you dead. At this moment.”
“Dead, dead,” she whispered…
“Love,” I whispered.
The poignancy of this exchange is the paradox, the surprising where, when and who of this whispered love: it is “in the ruins,” “at this moment” of despair, this dead end, and it is “love” for “you” — for the “dead.”
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Read the rest at
https://mbird.com/2020/10/i-love-you-dead-the-good-news-of-incongruous-grace/