an inconvenient truth

Tonight a new campus group at St. John's held a screening of "An Inconvenient Truth," the global warming documentary/Al Gore biopic. I didn't catch it in theaters so Maggie and I checked it out. The movie was informative overall, so that was successful -- but as I slunk out of the theater, embarrassed not to be signing the petitions everyone else crowded around (I agree with them in spirit, but I'm skeptical about the effectiveness of petitions, and anyway I hate the feeling of being "handled" by an event), I couldn't help wondering about Gore's role in the film.

At first glance I thought it was unbelievably ambitious of the director to feature Gore so prominently. After the 2000 elections debacle he pretty much got tagged as a personality black hole, and if I were looking to make a documentary on global warming he would be the last guy I'd look too, no matter how much of an authority he is or how snazzy a slideshow he carries around. Watching the movie left me with a much different impression of the man, as just about every other person who saw it can tell you -- it turns out, once there isn't an election at stake, Gore is intelligent, witty, and even inspiring. And his slideshow is indeed super snazzy.

But I couldn't get away from wondering what the director must have thought in the early planning stages of the film. His credits are almost entirely TV-based (including, interestingly, the right-leaning "24"), so it's not like he's some documentary specialist. Perhaps -- probably closer to definitely -- he saw Gore's presentation and felt inspired. But if I were in that position, I imagine I would agonize over whether my impressions would be felt widely, considering the recent election. And when I say consider I mean it strongly enough that I don't think I could find the cojones to go with Gore.

What made the decision such a curiosity to me was that "An Inconvenient Truth" doesn't just center on Gore's long crusade for global warming awareness; half of the guy's life is laid out before us. There are profoundly personal moments, as Gore narrates us through the near death of his young son, his own childhood spent on a farm and in DC, and his early career as an idealistic young representative. Director David Guggenheim always brings it back to global warming eventually, but the connections are oftentimes tenuous at best (i.e. the near death of 6-year-old Gore the younger gives Al a fresh understanding that "the things we love may not always be there"). In fact, the centerpiece of the movie for me was a brief but very candid bit of narration from Gore. Set against a series of images and videos of his agonizingly slow 2000 presidential campaign defeat, Gore sadly intones that "it was hard news to take, but it reminded me what was important--" then a pause, as if he knows we don't believe him when he says that, because he doesn't believe it either-- "...I started doing the slideshow again."

"The slideshow" is what we see Gore doing mostly, and credit goes both to the man himself and Guggenheim for mostly filming "today's Gore" giving the presentation, or on his way to and from giving it. It's striking that, for all his talk about the majesty of nature, Gore is not afraid to show his daily life as it really is -- he is a workhorse for the environment, and it doesn't look like he has much time to enjoy it himself. Gore is constantly driving his car, or flying on a plane; and he is absolutely glued to his laptop at all times, scanning satellite photos detailing glacier retreat. He probably puts a hell of a lot more greenhouse gas into the air per year than you or I. But rather than detract from the genuineness of his plea, seeing his real life activities only adds to the appeal -- we're spared the usual campaign ad nonsense of seeing the slick politician fishing with his kid (for the first and last time), or kissing babies (that he couldn't care less about), tossing a frisbee to his dog (whose name he's forgotten). The overall impression is not that Gore is a hypocrite, but just the opposite -- that he is absolutely busting his ass over this problem, and that the rest of us should be, too.

But the more I thought about it, the more this initial impression was consumed in doubt. By the end of the documentary, I was ready to hear about what I could do to help stop global warming -- that's saying something, because I am usually an incurable skeptic, and as I said dislike being propagandized at and handled.

So I don't know what it was -- budget constraints or time constrains or a secret despair or what -- but I swear to god the damn movie just peters out right there. We see one graph of obscurely labeled "solutions" which are never explained, and in light of this Gore's assurance that we have the ability today to turn this disaster around just feels hollow. The movie ends lamely with a website to visit -- so lamely that I honestly haven't checked it out yet. It seems so obvious to me that if you want to make a documentary that "galvanizes the base," as the say out there in super-hip political blog-land, you want the components to get people pissed, and then get them active. It seems clear that the only reason you might trip over the second half of the equation is if you honestly didn't really know how best to get people active. Some Johnnies from the new club, SF squared, gave a little song and dance post-show, perhaps in the spirit of recovery; but their encouragement to sign petitions and write letters doesn't really do it for me. By the time the whole affair was done, I mostly felt like Gore owed me an electric car so that I could feel a little better about myself without first having to come up with tens of thousands of dollars.

The bad taste in my mouth got my conspiracy prone higher brain wondering at possible ulterior motives for giving global warming and Gore himself equal billing. The truth is, the science of the movie may not be rigorous; the audience has no way of knowing, because nothing is really cited or explained. That's not an indictment -- it's only fair to expect a mass-marketed movie to involve some theatrics. It's just to say that there are some philosophical and scientific questions that are left noticeably unanswered: "is it really in the best interest of the US to do something just because lots of other countries are doing it?; is Al Gore mixing up some priorities palling around with the Chinese?; is it a bit exploitative to equate allowing the WTC memorial to flood with allowing a repeat of 9/11?; and who said it is our duty to save the world, rather than destroy it a la Nietszche?" (the last a bit of fatalism those singing dancing Johnnies made an honorable attempt to deflect).

With that in mind I began to suspect that keeping the focus on Gore himself was meant to trick the audience into ignoring these questions, and others of a more statistical nature. The battle over global warming has reached (or perhaps has always been at) a level of complexity that can be intimidating to laymen (laymen here being essentially everyone). But if Guggenheim can show us a good man -- straightforward, hard-working, passionate and honorable -- fighting for this thing, maybe we can comfortably ignore those lingering questions and join the good fight with our good ole VP.

I don't really see that possibility as impugning Gore's character, since he really does seem to be all of the things mentioned above. Nor in fact would it really ruin Guggenheim for me, if it were true -- global warming looks like it could be a real problem, and perhaps it's worth sacrificing a little honesty to get people making the right decisions on an issue that few have the time or patience to delve into in depth. But still, I left FSK with something of a bad aftertaste in my mouth.

moon landing

when the Greeks were victorious in battle or strategic planning they were in the habit of erecting 'trophies' -- little pillars of enemy armor and detritus -- and dedicating these to their patron gods (i.e. when they reach a critical island position ahead of the Persian foe, etc.) likewise the Romans and their notorious crosses (though there were of course ulterior motives for these). Christians have now appropriated that monument, and historically as they explored the world the church was always one of the first things to be built. the austerity and oftentimes super-abstractness of government monuments and memorials today. the rational scientists, on the other hand, don't really impose much of anything on their surroundings, preferring rather to take from the new environment in order to more comfortably assess its qualities from the confines of the lab. their impositions (experiments) too are transient, not meant to last except in the minds of those performing them.

there is nothing on the moon except that plastic flag, which we consider a symbol of our country but is perhaps better understood as one of the chief idols of americanism (an idol common to all countries, of course, but those ancient stone gods were all made of stone, weren't they?) understood as a religion. is it fair to point to the moon landing as indicative that america is not a christian nation but in fact imposes its own unique religion? we did not leave a cross behind, or anything besides the flag and the new vacuum caused by the experiments our men performed and the samples they brought home. one might object that we were PC enough in '69 not to make a religious gesture, but it seems like landing on the moon was an extreme-enough accomplishment that it would have overrided that nitpicking. is the moon landing then evidence that our real religion in this country is a kind of new rationalism/science combined with a highly obscure kind of idolatry? or is it just evidence that our country is controlled by people who maintain this religion? or neither? does anyone know if any of those astronauts brought things of faith with them on that flight, and maybe even if they surreptitiously left a few behind? or maybe actually leaving earth for the void is enough to kill anyone's old fashioned christianity.

the future and Israel

This summer I had the opportunity to attend a Saturday afternoon class with a "futurist" from Bar-Ilan University, Dr. David Passig. Those scare-quotes should indicate how I felt going into the class -- I'm not exactly sure what a degree in future studies from U of Minnesota is worth, but my intuition told me "not so much."
However, I was pleasantly surprised to find Dr. Passig to be an entertaining and intelligent speaker. He began by assuaging my fears somewhat with his explanation of "futurology," which appears to just be a kind of advanced statistics/history/current events cocktail. I still think it's a stupid term, but the concept of the predictive power of statistics applied to the future is interesting, and though Dr. Passig himself admitted that in general you're looking at a likelihood of 20% for the average prediction, it is better than nothing.
Dr. Passig, whose expertise in prediction is, I gather, tied up in technology and electronics, had been asked to speak on a topic he has recently branched into: the political future of the state of Israel. (It should be noted that, though the site alleges this paper is online, I cannot open that page due to some kind of PDF bug.) His talk focused, as does the paper, on the motivations or "sense of destiny" of the Jewish people in Israel yesterday, today, and tommorrow, a comparison that occurred to him on a recent flight and which he noted, in classic nutty professor form, on a cocktail napkin. Though his observations on this general point were interesting, I have to admit I don't remember them all. Anyway, I was more interested in what he said in passing: the effect of the European Union on global politics.
According to Dr. Passig, who may or may not be a reliable authority, the European Union has already started a global trend of regional politics, the likes of which the world has never experienced. As anachronistic nationalist fears and loathings have begun to evaporate on a global level, and countries have begun to seek out alliances and agreements from afar with the use of new communications technology (i.e. the internet), it seems there is still one defining characteristic that nobody can shake: location. This has led to the genesis of the EU, a sort of super country destined for greatness by virtue of its sheer size and economic power.
But the rest of the world is paying attention. Dr. Passig believes a similar eastern Asian alliance can't be far away, including China, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, and other countries in that region. Likewise, we in the USA have seen the beginnings (albeit rocky) of a North/South American union in the North American Free Trade Agreement. Presuming that income levels will eventually normalize between Canada/USA and Central/South America, it's likely that NAFTA will expand.
All these aside, there is one notable group also likely to begin to form a supercountry: the Arab world. As is apparent in Iraq's civil war, the region is still fiercely sectarian and divided. However, Dr. Passig believes these kind of national/racial tensions are going to be forced to evaporate in much the same way those between eastern and western Europeans, or the Chinese and Japanese, or Mexicans and Americans, have been and will be forced to evaporate. Which left me with one question that I was very much hoping Dr. Passig would address: when Arabic tensions begin to dissipate, what will that mean for Israel?
Unfortunately, due to many interruptions and a somewhat chaotic discussion atmosphere, Dr. Passig was soon distracted and did not return to assail that question, but it seems to me to be a fundamental one if we want to learn something of the future of Israel. Will formation of a united Arab supercountry mean the destruction of Israel, or its acceptance, or neither?
The future leaders of the Arab world, the ones who will see the economic and political necessity for this supercountry, are sure to be voices of moderation within their communities. The philosophy that would bring an end to nationalist, religious, or racial divides within the Arab world is a necessarily liberal one, and it will not be espoused by the radical terrorist groups currently flexing their short-lived muscle in the region. In fact, the economic effort that would be needed to develop a supercountry would most likely mandate at least a decade of curtailed government spending -- meaning that countries in that region that usually devote a substantial portion of their funds to terrorist groups, like Iran, will most likely need that money for other, more constructive projects.
In the short-term, then, such a supercountry would be good news for Israel, as many or all of its terrorist enemies would find themselves short on cash and long on bad karma. But what about long-term consequences?
The idea of a unified Arabic front at first sounds like nothing but bad news for the Jewish state. Though Israel has proven resilient against individual attacks from the Arab countries, and even against more coordinated assaults between three or four of them, a war that saw real, full support from wealthier countries like Iran would probably be too much to handle.
However, a full on war with Israel would be an expensive proposition, and politically difficult to justify in most cases. While these considerations haven't always deterred Arab leadership in the past, we are assuming a scenario in which Arab moderates have taken over. So the question becomes this: just how moderate is an Arab moderate? Is he willing to leave Israel to its own fate, without continuing the 60-year effort to destroy it? Dare it be proposed that, being so moderate, he is able to see through decades of Zionist/Jew-hatred to the one country in the middle east that is legitimately pluralistic, democratic, and free-market?; and that, seeing this, he is inclined to make his new supercountry partially in Israel's image? Is inclined to allow Israel to join his supercountry? And if that last, incredible possibility becomes an option, how would Israel respond?
Hopefully I'll be able to read Dr. Passig's paper soon, and he will address some of these issues.

rereading Maus

So I landed a position next year at the Temple teaching 9th graders, a substantially different job and much closer to what I actually wanted all along. This year it's been nothing but 5th and 6th grade, and while those kids are cute my skills don't lie in that area -- I was made to relive the early adolescence I squandered so foolishly not five years ago.

After finally beating this into Ellen's head, she gave me the job and asked that I start thinking about developing a more solid curriculum. With that in mind I took a look at the current 8th grade syllabus, as well as the 9th grade books. Ouch. First of all, the current book for 9th grade is some kind of comparitive religion manual from the 80s, which is not only inept but also I think possibly racist, or something. The most it has to say about the polytheistic south Americans, for example, is to show an engraving of a man having his heart torn out of his chest by some native priests and some snide caption about polytheists not knowing right from wrong. No thanks!

In my quest to develop some new material I noticed that the 8th grade was supposed to have read Wiesel's Night and done an entire unit on the Holocaust, which due to something or other they did not ever get to. Tonight I'll propose to the director that the 9th grade instead be in charge of this part of Jewish history, and that we approach the subject not with Night but Art Spiegelman's Maus.

I am no comic book elitist and in fact I loathe those people, but Maus is...well, it's uniquely affecting. Wiesel wrote a powerful book, but the heaviness of it I think defeats high school efforts to use it as a teaching text, especially in the religious school environment, which is typically light on work/heavy on fun. If nothing else, Maus is a quicker read (I did both volumes in a day), which ought to encourage the kids to actually complete the assignment.

As for Maus itself, I have to say it surprised me once more, not only with its power to draw the reader in immediately, but also the fluid mixing of 1970s America with 1940s Germany. There's something striking about Vladek's (the main character, father of the author and artist Art) religious conviction, often alluded to during his wartime experiences but completely absent from his later portrayal, much like his son. Vladek maintains a knowledge of Judaism which he expresses by way of little bits of information: Gematriah, the parsha system, a few Hebrew or Yiddish phrases here and there. Otherwise, though, he defines his life by the scrappy existence he learned in the death camps.

Art, on the other hand, knows nothing at all about his religion. He read torah at his bar mitzvah, and we are left to assume it was the last time. He married a goy (though she converted), recited from the Tibetan Book of the Dead at his mother's funeral rather than the Kaddish, and otherwise seems utterly detached from the religious side of his father's life. When Art grapples in his studio with how to understand and portray the tragedy of the Holocaust, he grapples with a human tragedy, not a religious one. More strikingly, he does not seem to be aware that he is missing or ignoring this aspect; he is completely unconcious of the omission. He feels himself to be part of the terror of the Holocaust because he would have been killed, too; because his brother was killed, his parents terrorized; but not because he has a religious connection to the victims.

Somehow it seems like that approach, whether it's genuinely naive or an extremely subtle comment by the author, has a lot more to say about the state of modern Judaism than Wiesel's frequent musings on the same subject. I had the opportunity to read over Rebecca's shoulder over Spring Break an essay by the philosopher Emil Fackenheim, who in his discussion of the Holocaust said two things that stuck with me: first, that the tragedy of the Holocaust is distinctly modern in character; and second, that it was at least in part responsible for the modern Jewish impulse to maintain both strong secular communities and good public relations.

What Fackenheim meant by the first point I confess I can't know for sure, because I didn't have time to finish reading. But I can think of plenty of ways to see the Holocaust as "modern." It's conception and execution in a Western European country which I am inclined to think of as a peer of America, and therefore modern, is the most obvious of these. But perhaps what Fackenheim meant goes a bit deeper.

What were the accusations levelled against the Jews of Europe? What did the propaganda say? Surely, much of it must have seemed nonsense initially; Jews stealing children, putting blood into their matzah, etc. But some of the rhetoric was more sinister in that it was not unbelievable. The Jews were blamed for a crumbling economy, and accused of having such control over the market and politics of Germany that even in the minority they literally controlled their countrymen.

What happened to killing Jesus? This seems to be what makes the Holocaust, for Jews, a uniquely modern crisis: the accusations are financial and political, not spiritual, not even doctrinal. Somehow, the Nazis created a magic potion that allowed them to single out a group characterized and classified by religious beliefs for crimes completely separate from religion: crimes that could impact the modern, secular world, enlightenment crimes.

At Hillel one night I suggested in a discussion that the primary incentive for Jews to stick together today was that as a people we had very recently seen a great terror. At the time it was just an idle thought, but having read Maus again I wonder if it didn't have some truth. It does seem to me, at least at this point in time, that the Holocaust basically negates all spiritual loyalty to Judaism. If this sounds like a concession to Nazism I apologize, but it is difficult for me to see how one might take seriously a covenant with a God sworn to protect, who then proceeds to allow such an act to take place in the modern world. If we as reasonable and curious humans don't take the Holocaust as a sure sign that God is not interested, exactly what are we waiting for?

Judaism then, for Fackenheim (maybe, don't want to put words in his mouth) and for Art Spiegelman, and for me, was reduced in the early 1940s to a primarily defensive gesture. No one born into it can escape it -- the Nazis' meticulous geneological records prove as much. Yet anyone born a Jew, because he finds himself alive in a time where the Holocaust must be able to happen, since it did happen, must if he is smart or afraid or both realize his duty to his people. IE, he must accept that part of his life will be spent defending his faith or blood, ingratiating it to others, and always waiting for the first sign that the modern west has pent up enough rage to let loose upon him once more.

a little bit of what I've been doing lately

If the New Law justifies properly, then, and the Old Law does not, why is the Old Law preserved? One answer might be that the Old Law, though it could not cause internal justice, was still an external representation of justice, and therefore useful for understanding the nature of the divine will. However, even this falls flat for Thomas, as he clarifies that Jesus not only internalized the Law but actually improved it, by “explaining the true sense of the Law…prescribing the safest way of complying with the statutes of the Old Law…[and] by adding some counsels of perfection.” (107—2) The New Law, then, is more than just an internalization of the Old Law – it contains additional commands. Thomas quotes Jesus, who “said to the man who affirmed that he had kept all the precepts of the Old Law: One thing is wanting to thee: If thou wilt be perfect, go, sell whatever thou hast;” (107—2) a precept clearly lacking from the Old Law. These changes came because the Old Law “could not accomplish…the justification of men.” (107—2)

...

There is very little offered to answer this question, only the inescapable fact that Thomas does handle the Old Law, and that further he does not make the case against it as strongly as he might. For this latter point, the clearest example of Thomas’s unwillingness to completely “destroy” the Old Law comes from his citing of Jesus as saying just that: “On the contrary, Our Lord said (Matt. V. 17) : I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.” One possibility, then, is that Thomas takes on the Old Law out of the divine principle. However, Thomas might just as easily have quoted Matthew 9:
“Jesus said unto them…no man pieceth an old garment with a piece of new cloth…neither do men put new wine into old vessels, for then the vessels break…But they pour new wine into new vessels, and so are both saved together.”

Jesus seems to refer here to the practicing of the ceremonial precepts, and why such things are not to be done when the time of redemption is at hand. Yet, even though Thomas is not actually advocating the practice of the ceremonial precepts, could not his preoccupation with the fulfilled Old Law be seen as an attempt to “pour new wine into old vessels”? For if the New Law is the moral precepts of the Old divorced from the ceremonial, surely this is the case. Why does Thomas cite a comparably mild verse, which cautions against the destruction of the Old Law, rather than this one, which seems to make it quite clear that the Old Law has little place in the New?

...

Thomas seems to want to claim that a true Christian is above such doubts, and that being filled with the Holy Spirit is not an internal state which can or need be questioned – certainly an attractive state of mind for the potential convert. However, if this is the case, why are any external acts at all prescribed by the New Law?

...

Speaking about the nature of theological study, Thomas says that “even as regards those truths about God which human reason can investigate, it was necessary that man be taught by a divine revelation.” (1—1) Is this a suggestion that there is no way to convert a man who has not already understood certain divine truths? How are we to know which truths about God are assailable by reason, and which must instead be divinely imparted? Thomas answers this with a yet more subtle division: just as
“the science of optics proceeds from principles established by geometry…so it is that sacred doctrine is a science because it proceeds from principles made known by the light of a higher science, namely, the science of God and the blessed.” (1—2)

Somehow, the study of sacred doctrine is a science, subject like other sciences to human reason and scrutiny.

...

God...come...s...o...n...science.
-----
Thank you and goodnight!

kids say the darndest things

The best question: why are things the way they are, and not some other way?

Why are things? Why would they not be? Are things that are not? Where are we to begin there, the boat of reason so thoroughly swamped that even the words confuse us?

For those just tuning in I am a religious school teacher. For a moment we'll set aside all of the baggage and qualms that come with being an atheist well-paid by a religious organization to inflict dogma on minors, in favor of relating an anecdote.

Student "J," a nice enough kid but perhaps one of the dumbest in the class is sitting blankly this Wednesday night. Nothing new; he is 12 and dumb, and staring at walls or tables is symptomatic of these two big problems. But tonight there's something else in his eyes. We're in the middle of an activity, so watchful if somewhat frigid Mr. Socol descends, in that casual but purposed hawk-swoop that he has somehow channeled from his middle school teachers of yore, in order to encourage participation.

"J, what's going on, man? Having trouble thinking of ideas?" [We have asked them to assign a name to their own Jewish state.]

J: Looking up slowly and with conviction "Mr. Socol, why do we go to school or even do work if everyone dies in the end anyway? Does anyone know what it all means?"

Mr. Socol: Reeling "..."

Why are things the way they are, and not some other way?

Friday night is a lecture on literature. Mr. Socol, having resumed the alter-ego Max, attends with most of the rest of the school. The tutor, stiff but not humorless, says all significant literature concerns death or aspects of death and ending. Just like significant philosophy. Max leaves with his brow furrowed, wanting to make connections but at the time unable. Too many puns, maybe.

Then Saturday morning, crossing the 150 feet from the door of his building to the dining hall, it strikes him suddenly, or part of it strikes him, some bit of debris from the clouded information explosion of Friday's lecture. What makes the question of death significant? Isn't the significant question "why are things the way they are, and not some other way?"

But we can break that one down into many smaller questions. Why do we see in color? Why do insects have so many eyes? Why am I 5'11 and not 6'? (No but seriously on that one, why.) Why do things end and die? Why do we die?

Those last two, those are whence "Why are things...?" derives its power. To ask one
question is almost the equivalent of asking the other. Supposition A.

So then returning to J's question: why do we do what we do, if we do not know the purpose? Why are we the way we are, and not some other way? It's difficult or maybe impossible to inquire seriously into that dangerous subject, for if we do and find our answer lacking we are capable of doing things we might later regret deeply. Why does J go to school? Why does he get out of bed? Why does he get in bed? Will he ever know?

And if that is the equivalent of "why do we die?",[supp B] will he ever know that? Do we die because we can't think of a good reason why we ought not to? [conclusion]

The obsessive ramblings cannot linger past 3 AM without losing the last of their
cohesiveness. But, to finish that short dialogue:

Mr. Socol: continuing to be at a loss "..."
Student B: sensing weakness in an authority figure "Well? How come?"
Mr. Socol: rallying, authoritatively "Oh, you find out the meaning of life when you graduate college. They print it on your diploma. In Latin."

Victory

some authors on death

I think about death probably more than the average person. That sentence was rewritten four times with 0% success at making it sound less weird. But it is something that can be helpful to think about, sometimes, not in a 'jesus christ I can't write this music paper I wish I were DEAD' way, but more in a 'let's make sure we're keeping priorities straight' way.

Vladimir Nabokov, on death (in particular suicide by falling):

The ideal drop is from an aircraft, your muscles relaxed, your pilot puzzled, your packed parachute shuffled off, cast off, shrugged off -- farewell, shootka (little chute)! Down you go, but all the while you feel suspended and buoyed as you somersault in slow motion like a somnolent tumbler pigeon, and sprawl supine on the eiderdown of the air, or lazily turn to embrace your pillow, enjoying every last instant of soft, deep, death-padded life, with the earth's green seesaw now above, now below, and the voluptuous crucifixion, as you sttretch yourself in the growing rush, in the nearing swish, and then your loved body's obliteration in the Lap of the Lord.

Once we've taken a moment to appreciate how Vlad can make literally any scene be the most beautiful thing in the world, let's evaluate the perspective here. The narrator is a Christian, a bit nuts, but a believer in an afterlife. He balks at suicide because it is a sin, though he does mention that "we who burrow in filth every day may be forgiven perhaps the one sin that ends all sins." Still, even this man who is a believer in Heaven, or this author who is trying to inhabit such a man, sees the bliss of the last instant as stemming primarily from life's being "death-padded." One can no longer expect anything of life or have anything expected of one, plummeting to earth in those last seconds; therefore is life a new kind of wonderful.
It strikes me as unusual that the viewpoint of a Christian (setting aside his insanity for a moment) would be written in this way.

Ever since I read John Crowley's Little, Big, I've been trying to think of death differently. Or, maybe, death has been slowly changing its shape in my mind. I still find it terrifying, to the point where ocassionally I will have a dream wherein I die and will wake up feeling as though I might actually die, from the fear. But Crowley's death undergoes some kind of severe metamorphosis. Without giving anything away, because it is a wonderful book and you should really go read it, the story revolves around a "Tale" which must be fulfilled by a particular family living in upstate New York. The Tale is never made explicit to them; they know only that they are an inextricable part of it, that everything they do is because it has allowed or forced them to, and that it somehow relates to these tiny gnome people who live in a kind of alternate dimension (I promise it's good, it sounds weird summarized though).

So basically for the whole book there's this kind of unspoken tension, because the family's final generation (about which the story focuses) must somehow make a "journey" to this alternate realm to complete the Tale, and even though no one says it at first it's clearly on everyone's mind that the word "journey" may actually mean "death." Finally, in the last section, Daily Alice Drinkwater (who must depart first) confesses her fear to her sister.

"Sophie," she said softly. "Do you think it's death?"
Sophie had fallen asleep, her head resting against Alice's shoulder. "Hm?" she said.
"Do you think that dying is what it really is?"
"I don't know," Sophie said. She felt Alice trembling beside her. "I don't think so. But I don't know."
"I don't think so either," Alice said.
Sophie said nothing.
"If it is, though," Alice said, "it isn't...what I thought."
"You mean dying isn't? Or that place?"
"Either." She pulled the afghan more closely around them. "Smoky told me, once, about this place, in India or China, where ages ago when somebody got the death sentence, they used to give him this drug, like a sleeping drug, only it's a poison, but very slow-acting; and the person falls asleep first, deep asleep, and has these very vivid dreams. He dreams a long time, he forgets he's dreaming even; he dreams for days. He dreams that he's on a journey, or that some such thing has happened to him. And then, somewhere along, the drug is so gentle and he's so fast asleep that he never notices when, he dies. But he doesn't know it. The dream changes, maybe; but he doesn't even know it's a dream, so. He just goes on. He only thinks it's another country."
"That's spooky," Sophie said.
"Smoky said he didn't think it was so, though."
"No," Sophie said. "I bet not."
"He said, if the drug was always supposed to be fatal in the end, how would anybody know what its effect was?"
"Oh."
"I was thinking," Alice said, "that maybe this is like that."

We play this game with Crowley right to the end, this oscillating back and forth between believing the Tale will kill them and the Tale will actually transport them. But it's strange that, even though there's only a short range of possibility there, so much can still be revealed. As events march ever onward towards the final crossing, the distinction between death and adventure fades until it almost seems meaningless, like the story that Daily Alice relates.

There are, the book seems to say, two great adventures to which we are privy in our lives: love and death. Is this why adults stop playing "let's pretend?" The impulse for adventure is with us from our earliest conscious memories -- have adults simply come to understand that there are two truly unfathomable journeys which are not only accessible, but also unavoidable? If so, what is the content of a great adventure? I did not think love counted. But I am in love and I see that there is more to it than I ever could have thought, and what spots were still fuzzy for me Crowley has made great strides in filling in. I may never love my way to a land of gnomes, but is the fact that the gnomes play almost no part in 99% of Little, Big mean that like me, Crowley suspects we have all we need already with us?

Death is terrifying because we do not and cannot know anything about it. Medical experiments on cadavers, theological parsing, philosophical girding: those things are wonderful but they will never cross the breach, unless they have no plans to return. That longing that we all feel, that thing that makes us read and write and paint and just generally love beautiful things because they give us a taste of something greater than ourselves: have I been wrong to be sad because I thought I would never have access to it? Will I get to know beauty when I die?

I don't know exactly where I was going to take this, but I guess it can be summed up just by saying that maybe for the first time I've found a book that has genuinely given me hope, and a lady (woman? girl?) who has begun to validate it. And I'm very pleased about that.