Letter...

(This letter has been edited for content. Written on 13 July)

'lo John,

I saw Signs for the first time this evening. It was rather good. I can see why
my dad liked it. The real story was not the one you'd tend to focus on while
watching the movie. The renewal of faith of the main character was the real
plot, the rest was just the manner in which it was accomplished. I don't think
that his faith was really dead or gone, if it had been he would not have been
saying "I hate you" over and over while they were in the basement. His faith
had been thwarted and twisted such that he thought that he really did not
believe anymore. But the Providential asthma attack of his son while the alien
was holding him and his subsequent recovery, was not enough to bring back a
faith that was totally gone. It would have been enough to show him how badly he
was twisted though. Perhaps that was what his wife meant when she told him to
"See" just before she died... (I do hope you've seen the movie, because I've
just given away the end)


Time for a serious topic. What makes a child grow up? What is the difference
between a child and an adult, in the truest sense of the word, not simply
meaning "having achieve a certain number of years". I've been thinking about it
and I thing that it is a level or degree of detachment. Let me explain what I
mean by detachment. To me (how Mr. Collins would be grimacing at this)
detachment means a separation of sense perception and basic feelings from the
intellectual and spiritual workings of the soul. I guess, in a way, its
separating the rational from the animal in the nature of man. (I know I really
don't know what I am talking about when I bring up nature, but I'm thinking
aloud, as it were) Granted this separation cannot be total or men would not be,
well, human. I think of it more like a sieve...Anyway, I think this detachment
is the ability to control how the things you sense and feel affect you on a
deep emotional and spiritual level. (Does this make any sense? I've been
thinking about it for a while, most of the summer, but have not really had to
express it very much. Funny how things make so much less sense once you put
them onto paper or try to explain them.) As a child, the smallest things can
make you cry or be happy. And I'm not saying that we should loose our childlike
qualities. But we have to be able to control them, see what things ought to have
a real and lasting effect and what things ought to be let go of.
I'm still thinking about this, so I will probably be bringing it up again.


And now its late. Good night, God bless.