Life of Pi and One Witch's Story

Today (and some of yesterday, I guess) I read most ofLife of Pi by Yann Martel, not for the first or even second time. I say I read most of it, because I skimmed parts that I find particularly tedious the fourth or fifth time around. Besides, I knew what I wanted to read. When it first came out, or when it first became popular, it was known as "that book about the kid on a life raft with a tiger!" And that's why I read it. But it is also about zoos, survival, and a boy loving God. The boy, Pi, is Indian, and as such, is Hindu. But during the course of his youth, he is introduced to both Christianity and Islam in a peaceful, calm, and unassuming manor. He accepts both, along with Hinduism, as his Truths. His religions. He does none of what I tried to do with Christianity and Paganism, which is combine them into one religion that espouses the best of both. Instead, he believes in all three of them fully and separately. Something I don't think I could do, honestly.

In one part he asks his mother for a prayer rug and to be baptized, and she tells him he cannot be a Hindu, a Muslim, and a Christian; he must choose one. And he asks about his uncle/friend of the family who is a citizen of both India and France, with two passports. His mother says there is only one nation in the sky; to this, Pi asks, "Then shouldn't all passports be accepted?"

This book is filled with much wisdom. I can see myself in Pi, a young sixteen year old boy from India, in that I see the Truth told in every religion and accept it as valid, even if I myself cannot (or will not) subscribe to more than one.

Another wisdom from this book: words imply invention, and invention implies story.

Isn't telling about something... already something of an invention? Isn't just looking upon this world already something of an invention? ... The world isn't just the way it s. It is how we understand it, no? And in understanding something, we bring something to it, no? Doesn't that make life a story?

And in this quote, I found the inspiration for a new name for my blog. (Even if my "Witch at Church" title has managed to find me a follower or two in the last few days.) In a blog, we tell how we look upon the world. Even in blogs that stick to the facts, invention runs rampant. So what are blogs other than a story, especially blogs such as mine that don't deal entirely with politics, but rather the warp and woof that make up a life. And if life is a story, what is mine other than one witch's story?