I read a really good mystery that I finished last night. In the plot line was a story that sounded fantastic and almost pulled me away from the book. Yet after I completed the book, an afterward noted that this story was in fact true, and was documentable. Truth is stranger than fiction. I realized that keeping an open mind until the END of the story is important, and how often my critical thinking makes decisions and judgments before hearing the whole tale. I somewhat spoiled for myself the reading of this mystery by my own asides and my criticism of what I thought was a plot device, though it was really an examination of historical events. I thus reenforced the author's point that greatly important information is hidden by human beings' propensity to deny what might seem preposterous. Thus others get away with outrageous acts because we cannot imagine them.
I was reading in the newspaper this morning of the 4,500 year old UNESCO site in Syria that ISIS has destroyed. A few years ago none of us could imagine that people of a region would destroy their own heritage not accidentally through conflict but deliberately as an act of spitting on their own heritage. They say it is because idolatry was worshipped, but really it is to insult and horrify us with their devaluation of culture. Why do we care? Because history has the potential to help us discover who we are and were and it identifies us. Now our history includes people who deliberately commit these acts of contempt.
I will strive to be more open and non-judgmental about story. After all, I am the person who listened to battered women's stories, most of which could never be believed if written down. And I admire even more the author of the book I just read, because she dared to risk the skepticism of her readers, for the sake of truth.
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