Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Death by book. A review of death by living

Each of us has a story, it involves the journey from birth to death, the journey called life. In Death by Living: Life Is Meant to Be Spent (Thomas Nelson, 2013), N.D. Wilson tells some of those stories. They are personal stories that involve grandparents, and parents, that involve his own story, and those of his children. He seems to indicate at various times that this is a family history that he is writing to that future generations will know the story, understand the lives that resulted in their coming to be.
            I like the concept of telling the story, of being part of the story, of being part of God's story. But this book didn’t draw me into the story. Christian theology, a little atheistic philosophy and Mormon terminology are all represented. The different ideas appear, with no rationale, no justification, no explanation, and as I finished the book, it truly seemed to represent a society where there is truly no standard for good, so there cannot be a standard for bad.
            About 40 years ago I worked with psychiatric patients; one day one of them was doing psychological testing, he looked at an inkblot and described it as a butterfly on LSD. Wilson’s writing style reminded me of that young man. Short sentences. Choppy. Scattered. Difficult to follow.

            2/5

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