Five Surprising Lessons of Hope in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road

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Five Surprising Lessons of Hope in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road

Award-winning, movie-spawning, but also hopeful—even out of ashes of the world’s end? Yes, The Road by Cormac McCarthy is all those things and more.

The Road was released in 2006, but I sure enjoyed reading it in 2020. This has been a more apocalyptic year than most, and yet reading about true despair and desolation makes even the world’s current circumstances seem mild. I also have more appreciation for the genre now that I’ve written my own apocalyptic books: The Omega Trilogy.

I think we read and watch dystopia because we yearn for hope. Here are five surprising lessons of hope that shine through the darkness of The Road.

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The Greatest Story Ever Told

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The Greatest Story Ever Told

Science is catching up with ancient human wisdom. Studies of the brain show that stories activate parts of the cortex like nothing else. Or as one scholar put it, as he measured the brain activity of people watching a James Bond movie, he was “watching an amazing neural ballet in which a story line changes the activity of people’s brains.” (HBR, Why Your Brain Loves Good Storytelling).

We all know this is true. Stories change us. Sometimes profoundly. And it makes you wonder: what is the greatest story ever told? What story has produced the most total change in human brains? Here’s the definitive answer, plus a storyteller’s reasons why.

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Age 30-33: The Differences Between Jesus and Me

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Age 30-33: The Differences Between Jesus and Me

This week I reached the ripe age of 33. It was a fine birthday, spent with family and friends and Facebook well-wishers. I even got to talk through my upcoming book, Great White Throne, with a couple writer friends.

Amidst these festivities, a bigger question has been on my mind. Tradition says a man named Jesus lived to the same age. In only three years of ministry, he left quite a mark on the world. So I figure it’s time to see how I’m measuring up to the world’s most famous person.

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