If you've never read
The Book Thief, you're missing out.
Found for a quarter at a garage sale down the road, this book was a steal in and of itself.
The Holocaust is not something to be taken lightly, but it gets as close as you can without crossing any lines. Why is that important? Because humor, even dark, is part of the human experience, and
Book Thief's purpose is to show the human experience as colorfully as possible, the whole of it, not just in part.
The entire narration is from the point of view of Death. It's the first I've read of its kind, but the most interesting part is how Death describes himself. As "amiable. Agreeable. Affable. And that's only the A's" (Zusak 1). He calls himself a result. And, when asked to describe himself, he says for humans to only but look in a mirror. Humans, he posits, are the real carriers of death.
However, in my English II course, we explore how that's the most powerful and hopeful statement. We have the capacity to carry death, but that also means we have the power to carry life, to promote joy and healing and goodness.
Death searches, throughout the entire novel, to answer the question of why human existence is worth it. He knows it is, but he is on a quest to show how.
So, that is our course thesis for this novel: Human existence is worth it.
At the end of each class period, we spend time answering the half statement, "Human existence is worth it because..."
It's my second time teaching through this book, but this semester has hit nerves so much deeper inside me and, I believe, my class.
There's something about this semester at my university that has just been a little off-kilter, a darkness felt by so many of our students, faculty, and staff. As a believer, I do believe that spiritual warfare is alive and well and that the enemy seeks to steal, kill, and destroy, especially when there is so much life and light in a place.
I have, thus far, had 3 students drop my course out of overload. Two stayed at the university, one withdrew due to suicidal ideations. Another yet is taking next semester off because of similar mental and psychological stress. And then there's [Claire].
If we are being honest, Claire bothered me. She came to even the first day of class late. She would sit there and I just felt uncomfortable by her presence because it came off as almost hostile. She rarely turned in assignments. It was as if school--and my class--were below her. Which surprised me, as she is an English major.
Then, one day at Walmart, I saw her with another student of mine who I had recruited, a student I dearly love. Call it Jones' Effect, but if she's friends with my student, she is a good person. My whole perspective changed, and I felt it deeply that I needed to reach out. Her tardiness had gotten much worse, if she showed up at all.
She shared with me of her depression, how she wasn't coming because she couldn't get out of bed. She hadn't turned in her major paper because she had never even started her paper.
We talked. We met together. We made compromises and worked through her missing pieces. I told her how valuable her feedback in class was to course discussion. She didn't even know she had been "seen."
She started showing up to class right on time. With assignments. Good assignments. Blew me away with her next paper. I thought everything was going better, going better than better.
Then came an email telling me she was hospitalizing herself for self harm.
Then came emails from the registrar asking if she would succeed if she came back; I confirmed.
Then came an email from her asking what work she had to make up, if she could.
Then came the first day of class back after Thanksgiving. Late. No paper.
Then came the second day of class back after Thanksgiving. No Claire.
Then came the classified ad posts desperately asking for help toward this "new treatment" and a public expose on her mental illness.
Then came the text from the university at 10pm last night saying they were searching for a student they believed had self harmed.
Then came heartbreak.
A reassurance of her life was sent about 20 minutes later, but so much damage had already been done. There isn't anything that could convince me that it wasn't her. I'd be delighted to know it wasn't, but it was. I know the evidence too well.
Human existence is worth it because...
The heartbreak is because I know the answer to that question. I know it for me, and I know it for her. In fact, I could write a full list for any one of my students about why their specific human existence is worth it.
It doesn't matter if a person is Christian or not. Their human existence is worth it because they each have the capacity to love and be loved. To bless and be blessed. To care. To listen. To give. To write and think and create and dream and dance and play and BE.
To me, today, human existence is worth it because I know the Lord. I know that he has the capacity and desire to restore the broken and to pour love and compassion and grace out on us. Human existence is worth it because I am known by name by the creator of the world, and he has given me life and the ability and opportunity to love and individually care for so many people around me--and to forgive me when I sometimes suck at loving and individually caring for those around me.
I know that he sees Claire. I know that he sees her hands full of tears and the pieces of her life and that he loves her and has a plan for how to make her broken world into a stained glass mosaic full of light and color and loveliness.
Human existence is worth it because we have potential. No matter how old or young or broken or ignorant, we have potential.
There is so much more than we can see in our frozen moments of life.
*student name changed to protect privacy
