there are worse things...

I finished Home by Marilynne Robinson yesterday. It's the follow novel to Gilead, not a sequel, exactly, but with a familiar overlap in characters and setting. Oh Robinson's writing flows smooth, delighting the eyes and teasing the imagination. A passage that caused me to grin...

He laughed. "Good girl. We might even be able to work up a disagreement, one of those ideological differences I read about in the news from time to time. Shouting and arm waving. In the heat of it all I might come up with a conviction or two."

"That sounds wonderful," she said, "except we'd better forget the shouting, for Papa's sake. But we could still do the arm waving."

He shook his head. "That would be so-- Presbyterian, somehow."

"There are worse things."