101% American
  • Home
  • Reality Check
  • Stuarts-Blog

TRIAL BY ORDEAL

5/28/2012

 
Picture
TRIAL BY ORDEAL
    Life began harshly for Cheryl Strayed, yet it was she who designed her own redemptive ordeal. Early childhood with a brutal father followed by loss of a loving and deeply loved mother knocked her loose from her bearings. She came to believe that a 1,607 mile solo hike on the Pacific Crest Trail from southern California to Oregon, would reset and redeem her life. WILD is her story of pain, grit, and heroic will; it made me root for her all the way and feel the triumph of her eventual victory.
    There’s a vast literature of suffering yet I’ve never believed that in and of itself it has any inherent value. Those who inflict suffering on others are an existential curse. Those who inflict it on themselves are in dire need of help. Most suffering produces only misery and ends in death, yet somewhere within it flows a current of redemption. Cheryl Strayed found that current and rode it to triumph.
    Most religions are built on the promise of redemption, if not in this world, then in the next. They offer hope in the face of hopelessness, which may also be a Darwinian ploy to keep misery from triggering immediate suicide. Hope against hope may have kept alive galley slaves chained to their oars, offered solace to Nazi death camp prisoners, be in the minds of all who know only agony at the edge of survival.
    The trial and triumph that urged Cheryl Strayed to stake everything on one desperate chance, from which she emerged whole and splendid, makes me sure that the bit of genetic code that generates dreams of glory is both a cruel chimera and a great gift
.

Martha
5/28/2012 08:54:18 am

Stuart, I like your foray into book-reviewing, and this is a great recommendation. Thank you. I also love the photo of you with Nero -- a great counterpart to the pilot photo.

CH
5/28/2012 09:57:14 pm

Interesting last name -- Strayed.
Lost & found.

Andrew
5/29/2012 01:03:02 pm

Ah, at last we get the long promised photo update, cool.


Comments are closed.
    Picture

    Author (Yuma, AZ, 1944)

    Being 90 years in this world,  with great kids,  great grandkids, great wives (two, one at a time) and great memories, I wonder why some people seem to have stopped loving the U.S.A.? I will wonder in print right here. If you wonder too, or can provide some answers, please comment.
                                   Stuart Hodes

    Picture
           With my friend, Nero.
                   April, 2012.
        Photo by Ray Madrigal

    Archives

    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly