Silence

The first chapter in Silence really creates a sort of gray whirlwind. The descriptions of the people in the overly crowded cities, the description of the christians being persecuted... It was all so grotesque and depressing. Why is it that we are not aware of these things? We don't think about it in our day today lives as we lay out on the beach, or cram for tests--but there are starving, dying people all over the world. There were people in the Holocaust who died horrible, inhumane deaths. For some reason, we are able to think about those things in the abstract and they won't affect us. Even when we see pictures, or commercials, or even movies we start to become numb. It's almost like we have to put part of ourselves in something before we can really start to struggle with it--and then ultimately care. In a way, struggling to read about Christians being tortured in Japan, struggling over the issue of simply recanting has made me come out with a true answer. It's like Talmage said about Man's Search for Meaning: don't read it unless you are willing to struggle with it. In that struggle I think we find meaning. Along the lines of what we were discussing last class, I think the meaning we derive from various struggles may not always consistently be the same thing, but in a way they feed into the greater meaning of life.

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