So my advice is this—don’t look for proofs. Don’t bother with them at all. They are never sufficient to the question, and they’re always a little impertinent, I think, because they claim for God a place within our conceptual grasp. And they will likely sound wrong to you even if you convince someone else with them. That is very unsettling over the long term. “Let your works so shine before men,” etc. It was Coleridge who said Christianity is life, not a doctrine, words to that effect. I’m not saying never doubt or question. The Lord gave you a mind so that you would make honest use of it. I’m saying you must be sure that the doubts and questions are your own, not, so to speak, the mustache and walking stick that happen to be the fashion of any particular moment.A novel in the form of a long letter, Gilead fades between fatherly advise and narration as John Ames, an ailing and elderly pastor attempts to set down in words all that he would tell his young son. But it is not so much the story that caught me as the tone. Robinson beautifully captures the weariness and confusion of an old man looking back on his life, yet there is excitement too. Gilead does well to mark out and dispel the idea that in aging we click through phases of life like gears. Ames remembers merely being himself as life slid through him. What were fears in his childhood were still fears in his old age, only dealt with differently. What was confusion when a young man is still confusing to the old, if the confusion is accepted more peacefully. This is not to say that Robinson's Ames never learns or grows, he does but not in the manner of a person mastering concepts ("Aha! I've figured out loneliness, that one's done" or "love, yes confusing at first, but with the proper time and industry..."). Instead Ames relates to his son how he has grown with his troubles, trials, and joys.
For a letter written by a dying man it is terribly peaceful and wandering. Robinson takes her time in putting John Ames' thoughts down onto paper. Stories about wild grandfather's who preached with one eye and a bloody shirt, tales of a son's wayward son, and a dust-filled journey to Kansas all peak out of the Reverend's words.
There are also several startling insights into faith--startling because they take much of what is said in faith as truth. Such passages as: "It is one of the best traits of good people that they love where they pity. And this is truer of women than of men. So they get themselves drawn into situations that are harmful to them. I have seen this happen many, many times. I have always had trouble finding a way to caution against it. Since it is, in a word, Christlike." Or: "As it was, the beauty of the poems just hurt my feelings." Are just a few of the many thoughts that will force you to bite your lip and think for a bit.
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