I just finished reading Miracle in the Andes by Nando Parrado and Vince Rause, a true story about the 1972 plane crash that left an Uruguayan rugby team stranded in the Andes for more than two months. The story has been told before, but Parrado, one of the heroes of the trip, offers some very insightful thoughts about what he learned during this unimaginable ordeal.
I don't want to give too much away because I think every reader should encounter this book with their own perspective and with their own lives in mind, but one of my favorite ideas is summarized in the following quote:
"Death has an opposite, but the opposite is not mere living. It is not courage or faith or human will. The opposite of death is love."
This book definitely touches on many issues of faith and philosophy, but at its core it is a story about the incredible power of love.
Caution: This book frequently brought me on the verge of tears, so if you're reading it in a public place or are particularly emotional, you have been warned.
Are you trying to change your life? I'd love to hear about it! ken.e.noguchi@gmail.com
I'm reading Malcolm Gladwell's collection of columns, What the Dog Saw. At the beginning of the book he makes a point of saying: (paraphrased) "I'm not trying to convince you of anything, that's not the point of good writing. Good writing succeeds on its ability to engage you." It sounds like this book definitely engaged you.. but what did it make you think? If you can say without giving too much away?
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Yeah, I guess my post wasn't very insightful. Here are a few thoughts right off the bat:
ReplyDelete1. Life truly is about loving with all your heart no matter the consequences, because at the end of the day, our individual lives are meaningless and short. For the past few years this is what I thought I believed, but after reading this book I have a much better sense of what this means.
2. The human will to live is incredibly strong, and based completely on the even stronger human will to love and be loved. Heroic is probably an understatement for what some of these guys accomplished, and I found myself constantly questioning my own will power. There were parts in the book where I literally asked myself, "If that were me, would I have just given up and died?" and it was tough to answer those questions honestly. In 99.9% of the situations we face in our lives, our will isn't tested at all (even thought we might think it is) but it was jarring to read this story where every day for two months these guys were confronted with immediate death.
3. It also helped me refine my spiritual views. The book is interesting because it is a tragic story, but also a miraculous one. Many of the survivors attribute their rescue to God, saying that He saved them and led them out of the mountains. While the author, who lost his mother and sister in the plane crash, finds it impossible to believe in a God that would allow his family to die. An interesting dichotomy to say the least, and one that the author handles quite well. He has a few paragraphs where he describes his spiritual views and they resonated well with me. I'll have to show you the book so I don't butcher them, but basically his beliefs align with the Eastern tradition of God as a spiritual presence that is neither benevolent nor malevolent, but just is. A presence that through our actions we can feel closer to, one of these actions being our ability to love wholeheartedly.
I really like 1). A lot of times it can be such a pain to love people, I feel like pride gets in the way a lot. I'm sure you know this feeling from teaching, but it's so frustrating when you're trying to do something nice for someone and they lash out at you. I think that sort of experience makes it hard to be nice.
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