"The Pillars of the Earth" by Ken Follett

Ken Follett's "The Pillars of the Earth" is an epic historical novel that spans a generation in mid to late 12th century. The novel chronicles the lives of several 'ordinary' people- not kings or popes or crusaders, but monks, stonemasons, and local landowners- as they all take part in the construction of a grand cathedral, one of the most monumental undertakings of the medieval world. In the end, the lives involved are as grand and sweeping as the spires of the cathedral around which they are centered.

This book sparked my imagination in many ways. The subject of cathedral-building has always fascinated me, but somehow I never knew it. When I toured the cathedrals of Spain I was always mystified by their enormity. Great trees of stone would rise out of the floor and extend into the distant ceiling. And into this surface, this infinite canvas of masonry, would be carved the most intricate works of art. My mind could not grasp how men with simple machines and no modern technology could erect such a structure.

Unfortunately, I never pursued the question. I appreciated the beauty of it all, but once I left the building it didn't occur to do some research or figure any of it out. But the novel goes into depth on the subjects of masonry and stonecarving. What the builders of the day lacked in technology they more than made up for in knowledge and passion. They knew stone- how to carve it, how to use it, how it behaved under pressure and weather and time. This combined with the passion to do something superhuman drove them literally to greater and greater heights. I am anxious for my next visit to a cathedral, for I will now see it in a new and even more wondrous light.

I was also taken in very much the description of life in the Middle Ages. Even now, several days after I have turned the last page, I am still enchanted by the world of Kingsbridge and the way of life there. I had read about the harsh and violent reality of life in the Middle Ages in history textbooks, and I usually dismissed life in that era as terrible and virtually unlivable by today's standards.

But it wasn't unlivable. This is a fact because- get this- people lived those lives! What I took away from "The Pillars of the Earth", among many other things, was the fact that during some of the most violent, corrupt, and unfair times in Western history, people were living, loving, having children, and sharing their joys and pains with one another. It was a time when survival was never a certainty from day to day, yes, but for some that meant that every day alive was a joyful event. Every meal was a blessing because starvation was much closer than we know it to be today.

In this old world might made right, as the saying goes. Those who were the better swordsmen could look forward to rich lives, for they could kill and take whatever they wanted. Sometimes good men held a sword and checked the power of others, but even in these cases there were surely self-serving motives involved. Fairness was an idea for philosophers and holy men; it had no place in daily life. Those who decried the unfairness soon died, and those who lived in spite of it were tougher for having done so.

There is a lesson there, at least for me. We condemn any unfairness now with an air of enlightenment (although for many 'enlightenment' merely means killing and taking in a more covert and acceptable manner). Every once in a while I see or hear of people who demand that nothing bad happen to them on the basis that it would be unfair, and nobody should be treated unfairly. They take this view as a sort of cover-all. The truth is it takes courage to live in a world that is inherently unfair, and it takes character to treat other people fairly in spite of it. Those two characteristics will probably take you the farthest, because, now as in the Middle Ages, there is little or nothing protecting you from the cruelties of the world except for yourself.

As usual, however, I digress. The fact that the story arouses all of these thoughts and feelings in me goes to show the remarkable job Ken Follett does crafting his characters and telling their stories. For a short time (or perhaps not so short, depending on how long it takes you to read a thousand-page novel) you live with them, fall in love with them, share their pain with them, and die with them. The book takes you away; can you ask for anything more?

To Keri- great Christmas gift! Thank you!

Where my servers at?

Preach on, man, preach on.
Music Video: “Tip Yo Waiter”

"Slaughterhouse-Five" by Kurt Vonnegut

Not since Slaughterhouse-Three has master of horror Kurt Vonnegut come out with something so diabolical.

Kidding.

I had been curious about "Slaughterhouse-Five" long before I read it, flipping through a few pages while browsing at Barnes & Noble or even watching about ten minutes of the 1972 movie- only ten minutes because it's a very confusing plot if you don't know what's going on from the beginning. I'd read reviews or descriptions saying that it was, in a nutshell, a humorous anti-war book with touches of science fiction and philosophy. But what finally prompted me to pick it up and read it was a recent episode of LOST in which one of the characters becomes "unstuck in time", an idea borrowed directly from Vonnegut's book.

Becoming unstuck in time is exactly what happens to Billy Pilgrim. The idea behind it is that while we imagine time to be a linear sequence of events, we are actually just living out moments in a cycle to be repeated over and over again. Billy Pilgrim, instead of living his moments consecutively, jumps from one to another at random- at one point he is a young man in World War II, and the next he is an married and attending his daughter's wedding.

While Pilgrim is jumping about in time I thought a lot about how fate and free will would be affected by time being a cycle, going in a loop. If everything returns from whence it came, do we have any choice about where we're going? Can we affect it? Billy Pilgrim can't, and he seems to accept it pretty easily. As he goes from watching the horrors of the Dresden fire-bombing of WWII to more relaxed years of old age and family life and even his death, he seems to just be along for the ride.

Death, in fact, is probably the most interestingly handled idea in the book. After every mention of death- from the death of a dog, to genocide and mass murder, to individual deaths of soldiers, to even the main character's own death- is the phrase, "So it goes." Every death in the book seems even and inevitable, and with that simple phrase, okay.

The book's strong anti-war message is probably best described in a part of the story when, due to his unfixed position in time, Billy Pilgrim watches a war movie in reverse. It is the most direct imagery in the book, and it was also beautiful, in a way. If you only read a small part of this already short novel, I'd recommend that one.

Good Men

Lt. Weinberg: Why do you like them so much?

Galloway: Because they stand up on a wall and say, "Nothing's going to hurt you tonight, not on my watch."

- A Few Good Men

My thoughts are with my brother, and with everyone standing on that wall.

"The New Theology"

I read an article in today’s Chicago Tribune magazine called, “The New Theology”. The article’s topic was a class of scientist-theologians, people who have studied the intricacies and science of the natural world and saw overwhelming evidence that their religious beliefs were, at best, incorrect. They looked at evolution and didn’t see the careful, guiding hand of a god but saw instead the erratic, random influence of genetics, mutation, and adaptation. They saw that these views could not both be true. Evolution and science withstood tests of logic, reasoning, and physical evidence, but long-held religious beliefs no longer did. An example of one of the major discrepancies noted in the article is that, “if God designed every last element of life, that makes him minutely responsible for nature’s cruelty and failures as well as its beauty.” This sits well neither as theology nor science. As Jerry Coyne of the U. of C. is quoted in the article as saying, “… the only God worth believing in is one whom modern science has deemed implausible.” However, instead of abandoning their religion entirely (as many scientists have done) these “new theologians” changed the one thing that was in their power to change: their view of “God”.

The idea of changing a deity’s role in nature and creation is a fascinating one, with some pretty far-reaching implications for the religious. The article’s author, Jeremy Manier, did a great job of balancing the article between the religious and the secular, exploring both viewpoints thoroughly and, as far as I could tell, without bias. This is no easy task, considering the polar nature of the controversy. Several worthy points were brought up and they’ve been simmering in my brain all day.

A very interesting notion came up in this article, one that I’ve seen in many other writings discussing the gap between believers and atheists. It is the idea that both believers and atheists agree on what a god should be. From the article:
“For both camps, the only God who makes sense is one who designed all life with exquisite attention to detail.”
It is this fact that makes it difficult to label the debate a theological one. The major debate of what God should be like is moot. It almost seems as if some people believe in a god for the very same reasons that others do not, if that makes any sense.

More interesting still is the idea of changing one’s conception of a deity so that it can be reconciled with one’s point of view- whether that view be scientific or emotional or what have you. The idea of an all-powerful, all-knowing god is being viewed through every believer’s personal prism, and is apparently open to interpretation by that person. Some sources put the number of Christians in the world at around 2 billion. They may think that they are all believing the same god, but are they? There could be 2 billion versions of god in hearts and minds all over the world. Is everybody’s interpretation correct? Is nobody’s interpretation correct? I bring this up in order to say that if belief in god can be changed to fit the facts, than maybe we’re closer than we think to doing away with him altogether.

As I said, the article was well-balanced and as a source of information and public opinion it had a responsibility to be so. On a personal note, however, I find I have much more respect for someone who questions his faith, finds the answers in conflict with that faith, and is able to make the often difficult change within himself- not a change designed to indulge the things that he hopes are real, but to embrace and carry with him those things which are real, that which is evident to him. A person, in other words, who is able to set aside his hopes and fears in favor of the truth.