The Dark Tower

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I just finished "The Dark Tower" series.  It was seven looooonnnnnnggggg books by Stephen King (and if you've read Stephen King, you know how long-winded he can be.)

It is the story of Roland and his quest to find, see, and climb "The Dark Tower."  That's essentially it.  He doesn't care who he has to shoot, who he has to abandon, who he has to lie to, or what he has to do...he's gonna see that dern Tower!. (and it takes him seven books to do it.)

Stephen King describes this as his "keystone" series.  He interweaves stories from his other books (particularly "Salem's Lot" and "The Stand") into this story. He even writes himself in as a character.  He borrows heavily from "Lord of the Rings" (which he readily admits was his primary inspiration.) The books are: Lord of the Rings meets The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly meets The Road Warrior meets Salem's Lot. It's also a very self-indulgent book for Mr. King.  This was a story he wanted to write.  It was slow to take off commercially (I don't even know if it actually has "taken off.")  But the series has a faithful (and fairly rabid) following.

It is heavily pan-theistic.  There is the creator "Gan" who has seemed to make everything and then retreated to some unknown and noninterfereing location. There is the "Prim" which is the ocean of "magic" that has receded, yet there are puddles of the Prim where magic still resides in the world.  There is the concept of "ka" which a type of active destiny that worls in the worlds.  There are multiple worlds that are connected by these beams that are held up by The Tower, or perhaps The Tower holds the beams up...in any case, it is all quite convoluted.

Throughout the book "ka" is generally cruel, but not with malicious intent. Ka just needs particular things to happen and it doesn't "care" who it has to use of what the personal consequences are to the individual doing it.  I can think of only one time in the series where "ka" does something that is just, flat out, kind...and the person receiving it is shocked.

That tends to be the world's view of God.  That he is uncaring, distant, and has stuff He wants done without regard to those doing it.

But ultimately, God's very nature is that He IS love.  He is a kind Father who loves and blesses, and when He had every opportunity and right to wipe us out because of our mutiny and rebellion, He sent his own son to be executed and punished in our place.  It is an everlasting mystery that the world refuses to believe, yet when individuals latch onto the fact that God IS love and all it implies, they are changed forever.

Roland was obsessed in climbing an empty Tower.

We should be obsessed with an internal embrace from the one we love in the heavily populated Celestial City.

chris

To learn more about The Dark Tower: The DarkTower and Discordia