Night

First, I want to point out that gas here in the Twin Cities is down to $1.89. Seems like a good deal compared to the $4.05 we paid not so very long ago. I believe that $1.89 is the same price I paid back on September 11th, 2001 during that mad rush for gas after the World Trade Center attacks. Much to remember from that day, but we all thought it was price gouging the way prices rose and long lines formed to buy fuel. So remember that the next time you're "joyful" about getting 12.977 gallons of unleaded for $24.64.

Perhaps I'm bitter, and I think a big part of that is the book I just read in the past two evenings. "Night" by Elie Wiesel is a gripping memoir of a Jewish teenager's survival of the Holocaust during WWII. The story is one of captivity in a demeaning and brutal environment. I admit I caught myself asking, "Can this be true?" "Can all these events have really happened ?" I don't doubt they all happened, but it seems remarkable that this one boy experienced so much. I could see this as a collection of the horrors of the Holocaust, but if this one boy witnessed and experienced so much inhumanity, then perhaps I do not grasp how terrible this thing really was, for he was, in many cases, spared the terrifying life that so many lived - and died.

I'm not given to tears. I wasn't raised to cry with my emotions on my sleeve - it just isn't the thing to be done. That said, this story made me weep. I bawled to Almighty God as to why, oh why could this have been allowed. To know that such violent disgraces against our fellow man could have been perpetrated, and in the last 70 years! It is inconceivable, and yet I know it to be true.

Perhaps part of what made this book so compelling is that the story is of a boy and his father in the camps of Nazi Germany. Being not very old myself, I related quickly to the boy, as though this were me and my father. It is hard to imagine enduring such a trial, let alone suffering with my Dad.

The book is worth reading, but it very demanding. It is like the scene of an accident that compels you. The important part here is to recognize what terrible actions people are capable of, and to never forget. No matter what ideological, political, or religious differences we have with others, no ethnicity or people group deserves to be treated this way. Jesus commanded his followers to "Love one another" (John 15:12). Let us try harder to get along.

Matt