Darts and Heaven

One of my favorite teachers at Missouri State, Brian Shawver, said the goal of all great literature should be to say something true about the human experience. He drew a bullseye on the chalk board and called the center truth, or objective truth, or something. I remember the bullseye. The point was all great novels should be aiming for truth.

I just finished reading a book that seemed to have that aim. It’s called “The Lovely Bones,” by Alice Sebold. In fact, it’s the main reason I haven’t posted anything this week. I have a limited amount of free time, and this week I spent it reading.

A friend from St. Louis bought the book for my birthday. It’s really a heart-breaking story of a 14-year-old girl who was raped and murdered. She narrates from a sort of purgatory, an “In-Between” where she can watch her family and friends deal with the aftermath of her murder. It was very emotional.

It tended to use some indirect language at times, which was frustrating. Not a perfectly-centered hit, I suppose. But overall, it was really very good.

It was similar to an idea I’ve had for a book for years, tentatively called “Badges.” I was sort of unnerved by the similarities because I don’t think I could write it as well as Sebold wrote hers. In my story, people who have lived wear their life stories on their clothes, like badges. The ones with the most honorable badges are teachers to the troubled souls in this sort of In-Between place where the story is set. The teachers can still watch the living and use their experiences to help the troubled. The lost or troubled souls get a shot at redemption through reincarnation. Nobody leaves the In-Between world until all have been helped.

It’s a rough idea, and I haven’t worked it out enough internally to start writing it. I wonder now if it wouldn’t seem, from the reader's perspective, to steal from Sebold. Her book sold over 1 million copies, and is being turned into a movie. I suppose it is different enough, but I wouldn’t want to write something that came off as a not-as-good version of her story.

I found a study sited by www.livescience.com, which says that 76 percent of doctors said they believed in God and 59 percent believe in some sort of afterlife. This was a comforting statistic to me.

I’m not a religious person, but, like many doctors, I believe in some sort of life after death. If you have ever known someone you trust who has had a near-death experience, as I have, you’ve probably heard a story that is as hard not to believe as it is to understand.

People of all major religious faiths (an many minor ones, too) have claimed and tried to document their religious experiences. Atheists and skeptics talk about the God part of the brain as a reason for religious faith, and offer the process of the brain shutting itself down as an explanation for the light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel phenomenon.

Knowing what to believe isn't always easy, and I admit that I've struggled with my own faith and worldview as long as I can remember.

Contrary to much popular thought, I suspect that being right about the nature of things doesn’t matter much. In the end. If there is an end.

In a big mixed-up world, hitting the target squarely is hard. However, like Mr. Shawver said, we can control what we aim for.