By Rev. Cam Lemons

For me acutely and to maybe a lesser degree humanity generally, we live our lives in a painful tension between the wanderlust of Chris McCandless, and the settled faithfulness of John Ames.  Chris McCandless embodied our youthful desire to broaden our experiences, to test our bodies, and to discover the breadth of the world’s beauty.  John Ames images an aging, righteous soul that has found contentment in the dusty roads of a no-name town, and deep wonder in the gift of a wife and child.  He is the complex and refined result of Eugene Peterson’s ‘long obedience in the same direction.’ He isn’t well traveled. He isn’t well known outside his tiny town. And he knows the damp presence of melancholy. But he has been faithful in the small plot of mid-west property that he inherited. And as years of unglamorous faithfulness accumulated into decades, rather than receiving stunning plot twists, and sensational rewards, he was given some hard, some happy stories, and a satisfaction with the humble life that he lived and legacy that he left.

This story is completely out of vogue with our times, and with marketable literature. There is nothing fast and furious to sell here. There are no melodramatic, scandalous moments to capture our immature attention. In Gilead, no one quiets their job, burns their money, or makes the evening news. The Christian faith that is personified isn’t brash and over confident. In fact, one of the major actors in Gilead is the illusive character Time, who over the course of many years reveals people’s core identity. And in doing so works to redefine our idea of what is noteworthy, what is important, what is publishable. Maybe putting on a tie, kissing your wife and heading to work, is more glorious than our world would like us to believe. And maybe only time can recognize it.

I found myself toward the end of the book concerned about the connection between Jack and Lila. In fact, I was more concerned about it than Rev. Ames seemed to be. But it alerted me to the fact that I cared about these characters in this book. Even though he didn’t immediately wrap me around his finger, I had grown to respect John Ames deeply, and I was concerned what a 21^st century writer might do with his legacy in the closing pages of her book. But thankfully, my instinct for the sensational was wrong. Marilynne Robinson once again resisted the mannerisms of her time. And she told her story with integrity, of a righteous man that was able to find a quiet death. The book’s primary tension, between a man and his legacy, had found an enduring resolution. I hope that my story reads like this one day. In a time when everyone wants their moment of fame, maybe the person we need to spent time with is that old soul that teaches us that fame is something that the great souls of past times never needed, and maybe they are all the greater for it.