Our Road

This is the time of the year when many of us find more time to read for pleasure. I have been able to do so lately, although I'm never without a novel "on the go." Cormac McCarthy wrote No Country for Old Men, made into a successful and creepy motion picture.

He won the Pulitzer Prize for The Road which I read first, followed by my daughter Jocelyn. It is the bleak, dystopian story of a man and his son who walk a road through what is hell on earth. Some unexplained catastrophic event has ocurred on the planet resulting in a blasted landscape in which birds no longer sing and the sun does not shine through the heavy blanket of cloud. Each day is a matter of moving forward, foraging for food, avoiding the few marauding bands of survivors who are desparate and dangerous.

I'm glad Joc and I both read it. I found the picture almost unbearable and willed myself to finish, The novel is beautifully written but I was relieved when I finished. She found hope in the unrelenting, one-step-in-front-of-another love of the father for the child, and the boy's innocent hope which flickers in the darkness yet is never extinguished.

We live in a world where personal discouragement and ominous news can seem overwhelming. Our faith can't just cause the bad stuff to evaporate but it can give us strength to walk our roads.
Jesus offered himself as the Way, the Truth, and the Life which is Good News, whatever our circumstances.