I was first introduced to the Thorn Birds by my grandmother when I was in middle school. This was probably her favorite book and the miniseries staring Richard Chamberlain was one of her two favorite shows to watch. When I was in middle school she never allowed me to see the episodes beyond the death of Mary Carson, so I always thought of the characters as young and the story as something frozen in time. I have come to love the story in its entirety on my own and yet still I am tempted to think of the characters only as they were when they were young and together and mostly happy; a temptation that I find extends beyond fiction and into reality. I am an utterly nostalgic creature that sometimes longs to forget that there is a present, much less a nebulous and changing future beyond.

I watched the entirety of the miniseries in high school, once I inherited the DVDs from my grandmother. I began reading the book during my sophomore year of high school. I got at least three quarters of the way through the book before I lost my copy somewhere at school. I remember not really relating to any of the characters but loving them anyway. The setting itself, the land, called to me where the characters could not yet reach me. There is something about being claimed by the land, of being a part of the physical world around us, that called to me, even at sixteen.

Now, as a thirty year old woman and as a priest myself (albeit in the Episcopal church) I find I can relate to most of the characters, if not all of them in smaller ways, and that makes this decades old work of fiction something that still lives and breathes. The characters, especially Ralph and Meggie, are complex and their inner musings and observations on life are both thought provoking and ruggedly beautiful. I love these characters not so much for their romance, but for their ambition and how it intertwines with their complex web of suppressed emotions as they react to the difficulties life brings their way.

I believe I'm drawn most to Ralph and to Justine; Ralph because I am a priest who longs to be a better priest, who experiences both God and doubt in much the same fashion and frequency as him, and Justine because I am 30 as well and waited until later to get married and seem to chase after challenging careers and those people that "give me a run for my money".

This book has led me into deeper thinking about what is a sacrament and for that I am grateful. I wonder what lessons it will teach me and how I will relate to this story as time marches on. I'll be sure to read it again in when I feel I have reached another stage of life.