The Giver by Lois Lowry – A few years back, a sweet friend came and spent the morning with me in a hospital room, and (among other things) she brought me this book. It was my first time reading it, and I remember enjoying it.
This second reading only deepened my appreciation for the book. Not only do I appreciate the writing and the story, but The Giver suggests many life lessons while telling the story of Jonas, as he lives his life in the community and trains to be the new Receiver of Memory.
This book was an allegory. It was an allegory about life without Truth, and the death of beauty and love and grace and mercy and joy that comes with Truth. At one point, Jonas, who is learning Truth from the Giver, bursts out in anger and despair about the ugliness and hidden horrors around him. The Giver calms him. “Listen to me, Jonas. They can’t help it. They know nothing.” Because in a sense, without Truth, the people in the community are dead – they just don’t know it. They don’t love, they don’t naturally procreate, they execute when someone doesn’t match their idea of acceptable, they can’t see beauty – not real beauty.
We don’t live in colorless, sterile communities in reality, but without the knowledge of Truth, we live in them allegorically. We are dead and don’t realize it, dead in our sins without the Truth. And that Truth is Christ and His Word.
And even deeper into the allegory – when God calls us out of that colorless death, we enter into His joy and love and compassion and mercy and see His beauty and understand His Truth – we *know.* But, much like Jonas and the Giver come to realize, the Truth needs to be shared to others around us.
This book is being returned to my shelf for a future reread.
Rebekah Ryberg nee Jones, is first and foremost a follower of the Living God. She started writing as a little girl, seeking to glorify the Lord with her books and stories…
