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Left Alone Ch7
Oct. 31st, 2008 11:51 pmChapter Seven, (Beginning) Of the End of Left Alone is up, even through it's pretty far back in the poll. I've been waffling on if the last chapter should be the final chapter, or if I should have several more chapters to reach the same chronological point as the end of the first book, and settled on this. This chapter may well be edited later - I just wanted it up for Halloween/to get it done before NaNo starts. Ironically, the amount of that I actually wrote up today is around 1700 words.
The bit about everyone going up to talk about their salvation experiences (and issuing gridlock) is straight from the book. In the books being saved seems to do stuff to your personality, so that, for example, some people find reading the bible so fulfilling you barely eat or sleep, and all sorts of sermons become super inspiring, but short of a compete personality transplant to the point you're not even human I can't imagine anyone finding it uplifting to sit through five hours of people recounting the same story of how they found God with the occasional pronoun change.
Disturbingly, the way it gets brought up there (and in later books, when believers meet they will always, without fail, no matter what else is happening, exchange stories of how they found God) suggests that this is just commonplace in the authors' experiences with church. Which in turn suggests I avoid churches from now on just on the off-chance they are one of those that will be running one of these things and I'll get stuck listening.
(I originally assumed that their "how I found God" speeches, not detailed in the book, had more to do with the vanishings and their loss and what they went through, but if the later books and radio drama are anything to go on, the only time RTC reference human relationships or loss is when saying "My wife/son/parent found God, told me, but I didn't listen. Let me talk about how sorry I am I didn't listen, because boy, am I broken up about that. The loss of going to heaven is crushing down on me every second of every day. Oh, and my husband committed suicide after our kids disappeared and I guess is kinda in hell now, but the important thing is I found Jesus! Praise the Lord!")
The bit about everyone going up to talk about their salvation experiences (and issuing gridlock) is straight from the book. In the books being saved seems to do stuff to your personality, so that, for example, some people find reading the bible so fulfilling you barely eat or sleep, and all sorts of sermons become super inspiring, but short of a compete personality transplant to the point you're not even human I can't imagine anyone finding it uplifting to sit through five hours of people recounting the same story of how they found God with the occasional pronoun change.
Disturbingly, the way it gets brought up there (and in later books, when believers meet they will always, without fail, no matter what else is happening, exchange stories of how they found God) suggests that this is just commonplace in the authors' experiences with church. Which in turn suggests I avoid churches from now on just on the off-chance they are one of those that will be running one of these things and I'll get stuck listening.
(I originally assumed that their "how I found God" speeches, not detailed in the book, had more to do with the vanishings and their loss and what they went through, but if the later books and radio drama are anything to go on, the only time RTC reference human relationships or loss is when saying "My wife/son/parent found God, told me, but I didn't listen. Let me talk about how sorry I am I didn't listen, because boy, am I broken up about that. The loss of going to heaven is crushing down on me every second of every day. Oh, and my husband committed suicide after our kids disappeared and I guess is kinda in hell now, but the important thing is I found Jesus! Praise the Lord!")
