Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Sweet Meggie---new sampler inspired by The Thornbirds

  There is a legend about a bird which sings just once in its life, more sweetly than any other creature on the face of the earth. From the moment it leaves the nest it searches for a thorn tree, and does not rest until it has found one. Then, singing among the savage branches, it impales itself upon the longest, sharpest spine. And, dying, it rises above its own agony to out-carol the lark and the nightingale. One superlative song, existence the price. But the whole world stills to listen, and God in His heaven smiles. For the best is only bought at the price of great pain... or so says the legend  ~~~~

Father Ralph to little Meggie, The Thornbirds---Wickipedia

I love this book. In fact it is my favorite classic for reasons that reasonate beyond my own childhood. In the early 80's when the movie came out on TV, I was so happy to watch the entire series nightly.
Several times, I have gone to the library to rent the entire 8 hour saga and once, I stayed up all night to look at the movie all in complete format.

By inspiration of this novel, I have designed a few of my thoughts on the Celtic theme of Sweet Meggie and Father Ralph.



Sweet Meggie
designed by Feathers in the Nest
copyright 2012

inspired by The Thornbirds novel

colors of choice
linen of choice

The larger heart is mixed in blue and red, and the 2 gold crosses represent the torn relationship between Father Ralph's  love for God and his love for Meggie which conflicted and was a choice throughout the movie, so very hard for Father Ralph to articulate.

“There are no ambitions noble enough to justify breaking someone's heart. ” from The Thornbirds novel by Colleen McCullough ---sampler verse condensed from this quote.

Along with this quote are a few of my other favorites:

Ralph, our God has given us freewill. And with that freewill comes the burden of choice.
 It is time, far past time that you took up that burden, because until you do, you cannot go on~~~the Archbishop in the Thornbirds to Father Ralph

This is the best review of the novel that I have read in a long time. There are many, many central themes to this book which I think we all can relate to in one way or another. If you would click here to read a blogger's summary, I think this writer really had some interesting takes on the novel.



Rachel Ward is a great actress in this movie. The book has many themes in it including relationships to God, to a life partner, to mother/daughter connections and many more.


And little Meggie grew up, but the relationship of love never left her for Father Ralph. In fact, it just deepened as they both changed courses in their lives and when their paths crossed over the 60 year period.


I hope you enjoy my ramblings and thoughts for Tuesday.

Till later,
Jennifer

6 comments:

  1. I love your post so much..
    Cute new chart .
    Take care xxx

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  2. I loved the movie or should I say mini series of The Thorn Birds. I would like to watch it again. I never read the book but it too sounds like something I should think about doing. Love your little sampler too. It is so pretty!!!

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  3. Beautiful phrase and thank you for the book review.

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  4. Beautiful phrase and thank you for the book review.

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  5. Dearest Jennifer,

    Great design you made! With all your heart done...
    We first saw the movie while living in Italy: 'Ucelli di Rovo...'. We bought the book and read it while working and living now in Indonesia. While working in Australia we bought the complete video series as we did have a multi-system video recorder at the time. My husband just the other day mentioned that we no longer can watch those tapes... THANKS for posting about it, I went ahead and ordered the DVD version. We will watch it again together!
    Did you know that they just got together for the first time since 1983? http://huff.to/OqjxC8
    Hugs and love to you,

    Mariette

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  6. That was my favorite series. I almost need to read the book. Love it!

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I hope you find some useful information and gentle inspiration for your day.
Jennifer