Just finished reading The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom. A lot of people in my church had read it, and all loved it, so I thought I'd give it a look. It's a pretty quick and easy read - could read it in a day if you had the time to spare. Overall, I wasn't greatly impressed - something like a well-written Hallmark greeting card. But a couple nice quotes near the end, where the "point" or "moral" is spelled out with little subtlety:
Eddie, the main character, responding to why he was 'sad' in his life: "I was sad because I didn't do anything with my life. I was nothing. I accomplished nothing. I was lost. I felt like wasn't supposed to be there." (pg. 191) This is a common worry/fear about our own lives, isn't it? That we won't count for anything?
Then, on the last page, the reassurance: "the secret of heaven: that each [person] affects the other and the other affects the next, and the world is full of stories, but the stories are all one." (pg. 196)
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Sermon for the Tenth Sunday after Pentecost, Year B, "Picnic and a Boat Ride," John 6:1-21 (Proper 12B, Ordinary 17B)
Sermon 7/28/24 John 6:1-21 Picnic and a Boat Ride Our gospel lesson today is a text that’s probably familiar to most of you, at least some...
1 comment:
I read it this summer at the urging of my wife's grandmother. I love your description: "like a well-written Hallmark greeting card."
I didn't really feel like it told me anything. Yes the message was everything is connected, but in the book many of those connections were accidental. I really liked Tuesdays with Morrie. It was mushy and sentimental, but the power was in the true story. This book left me under-whelmed.
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