Pick & Mix

This is going to be an occasional blog (written by me, Malcolm!) focusing on different books, films, CDs, and anything else creative which I have found stimulating. The offerings may not always be specifically Christian, but they will have proved thought provoking and, I believe, worth a look (or listen).

So let's begin. I've jsut finished reading 'The Year of Magical Thinking' by Joan Didion. Now let's get the confession out of the way at the beginning. This book has been out for a few years now, and has also been turned into a play. Somehow I've only just caught up with it. The writer recounts the events around her husband's sudden death, and the year that followed; how her thinking changed and was shaped not just by these tragic events but also by the 40 years they had spent together. She very carefully and with great insight, separates grief from mourning (grief being your emotional reaction to the loss, mourning how you cope with the grief over a period of time), and comes to realise that beneath the ritual and words, she has to face one simple truth; he is not coming back.

Hence the title of the book: it is a year spent wishing, a year of magical thinking. She is not a religious person, and finds no solace in faith. But the experience she describes, the feelings she has to face, are all too human. And for people of faith there is an honest engagement to be made whcih takes us to the heart of what we believe and why. Too often I encounter folk who have been faced with an unspeakable tragedy, and realise that they wish they had done some serious thinking when life was calmer and the sun was out. But why would you? Life is good - why spoil things with gloomy thinking? What this book does is to provoke that deep thinking about important questions. And it seems to ask the Christian to question how faith responds to personal tragedy.

"Life changes fast. Life changes in the instant. You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends."