This week The Fault in Our Stars, a book by novelist and nerdfighteria ringleader John Green, is on sale for only $3 on Amazon. It’s worth the money and I recommend you download a copy. I read it in the summer of 2012 when I did a unit of CPE hospital chaplaincy work our whole group was read it . It tells the story of two teenagers who are dying. One of them has lost the normal function of her lungs. One of the has lost the normal function of his leg. They meet in a cancer support group through a mutual friend who has lost the normal function of his eyes. They come together in “the literal heart of Jesus” which is the cross-section of a Church basement shaped like a cross.
The teens struggle through listening to every empty platitude about life and struggle and finding meaning in the midst of the meaninglessness of their suffering. Each teen struggles to come to terms with what their sickness means to them in their own own unique way. Gus seeks to do something heroic with his life, he wants to be remembered by doing something great. Hazel seeks to find meaning by trying to resolve an unresolved book by a reclusive author. Their friend Isaac tries to find meaning in a teenage love affair that he hopes will give him eternal love, but it doesn’t even last through his surgery. The book points to an existential frustration that we all must endure at some level. We wish that we were placed on this earth for some special purpose. Life seems too precious to simply end without a crescendo. I know that I can relate to this. I hope that my life is significant. I want to write things that matter, do things that matter, and make a difference to the world. In short, I want to do great things. However I am reminded of what Blessed Teresa of Calcutta said, “there are NO great things, only little things with great love.”
The title of the book comes from a line in Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar (Act 1, scene 2). The nobleman Cassius says to Brutus, “The fault, dear Brutus is not in our stars, / But in ourselves, that we are underlings.” This is a truly beautiful line. Throughout much of human history people have looked away from themselves for meaning. They have looked for a calling from God, or to astrology, or to platonic forms, or to money, or power, or respect. The beauty of this book is that it helps the characters find out that they are loved for who they are even as people who are not whole. The world is not changed by great endeavors but as people love one another in little ways. Gus’s love for Hazel helps Peter Van Houten come to terms with his own loss of his child. Mrs. Lancaster finds her new vocation as a social worker through the love she has in her vocation as a mother.
I love this theme because it resonates so dearly with my own fascination with Jesus. The thing that is so amazing about what Jesus shows is that God isn’t interested in saving the world in a way that is beyond us. God wants to heal people through people. God wants to demonstrate his love in a way that is tangible and contagious. God chose a grace so real that you could touch it, smell it, taste it, and even kill it. God shows us love in Jesus. A love as fragile as life itself, but never broken. A love in the language of skin and bones, that is spoken by every culture.
I suppose what I’m trying to say in all of this is that John Green helped me. He helped me live inside a character who is dying. As I spent time that summer working as a hospital chaplain I encountered a great deal of sorrow and pain as people were dying and suffering around me. It’s easy for me to want to jump to empty platitudes about clouds and silver linings and other such nonsense. This can sometimes be nice for people, but in the face of the immensity of our own mortality it falls far short of a lasting hope. By allowing me to live a bit inside a dying teenager, I was able to open my heart a little more. I was able to love a little better, and I hope that through reading this book I might be able to do more small things with a greater love.
So it’s $2.99 today… go ahead and buy a copy. There is also a movie based on it coming out next year, so there’s that too.
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