I just finished reading Dan Brown's latest novel - The Lost Symbol - It came out last Tuesday, I bought it the same day and read 100 pages a day and finished in five days. It is that interesting and gripping. I usually don't read fictions, but Brown's books are not just fiction. There is so much theology in it. For example this book begins with a statement at the beginning. "To live in the world without becoming aware of the meaning of the world is like wandering about in a great library without touching the books."
How true that is! As an observer of life, I feel that majority of people are sleepwalking through life only to find out that their life is often a nightmare. Many people live very peripheral lives. Take for example the charge by Sarah Palin that Obama's health care reform has "death panels." Those words are not in the bill. They were used by a shallow politician to whip up political frenzy. It has nothing to do with reality, but to find that reality, one has to do some reading and reflection. There is a recommendation in the Bill for doctors to discuss with the elderly, 'end-of-life issues' which, as a hospice chaplain, I feel, is a GREAT IDEA. I deal with people who have never thought about death until the day of their death and the pain and trauma they go through while dealing with the inevitable. A smart president suggests that we do something that is smart and and the sleepwalkers twist it as something else.
As a matter of fact we currently have 'death panels" and they are called HMOs who won't insure you if you have a pre-existing condition, or drop you when they find out you have a condition they don't want to cover, and charge you huge sums until you go bankrupt. Now that is a death panel for you, but nobody sees it.
The Lost Symbol has great insights about God, our destiny as image of God, and the great role a community can play in our overall well being. In fact,after reading the novel, you will want to be member of a church or a temple.
No comments:
Post a Comment