I recently finished reading both the Red Pyramid, and the Percy Jackson series of books written by Rick Riordan. I loved these books!!!
I love learning about history, and mythology, and I love that sort of adventure story with a good guy to root for and a bad guy to root against. I learned while I was entertained. Its the perfect combination. I think though, on a deeper level, there were some things from old mythologies that really connected with me on a religious level.
In the Red Pyramid and its sequel, what stood out to me the most was the importance and power of names. I think Latter-day saints off all people should be aware of how powerful and important names are. After all, we have had re emphasised more than once how important it is that we know the name of our church The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, each part of that has a special meaning, and was given specifically in revelation from God. But even our nick name, Mormon, from the Book of Mormon, named for the Prophet Mormon, who's name, if I remember correctly means "more good." Bottom line, names are important, they have power. Fear of the name, increases fear of the thing itself.. .and so on. I loved that.
Percy Jackson reminded me of a few things. For one, we are all literally spirit children of God, so in a way, you could say we are like the Demi-Gods of the books. We come here, we don't really know who we are, our full potential or any of that stuff, and Satan and his monsters attack us sometimes because he knows what we could become. But when we find out who we really are, that's when we really can come under attack. Another similarity I noticed were the number of the Demi-God hero children that felt that they had been abandoned by their god/parent, because they were left alone to fight their battles. In reality, for most instances that wasn't the case, and the Hero either didn't recognize the love their parent/god was trying to show them, didn't accept their gifts, or didn't know the full story. There was a reason those gods limited their interactions and didn't interfere directly in the affairs of their children- they had to determine their own destiny. Sometimes people in our world wonder how God can let horrible things happen in our lives, tragedies and so forth, failing to see the great things it can make of us, or the further damage that interference could have done.
These are just a few similarities to my beliefs and the wonderful fictional series I read. Lot can be learned from fiction and old myths. There are always bits of truth hidden in what we think are myths and fairy tails, often even deep and profound truths, if we take the time to think about them. Ah, go read a book already. Good nigh!
I love learning about history, and mythology, and I love that sort of adventure story with a good guy to root for and a bad guy to root against. I learned while I was entertained. Its the perfect combination. I think though, on a deeper level, there were some things from old mythologies that really connected with me on a religious level.
In the Red Pyramid and its sequel, what stood out to me the most was the importance and power of names. I think Latter-day saints off all people should be aware of how powerful and important names are. After all, we have had re emphasised more than once how important it is that we know the name of our church The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, each part of that has a special meaning, and was given specifically in revelation from God. But even our nick name, Mormon, from the Book of Mormon, named for the Prophet Mormon, who's name, if I remember correctly means "more good." Bottom line, names are important, they have power. Fear of the name, increases fear of the thing itself.. .and so on. I loved that.
Percy Jackson reminded me of a few things. For one, we are all literally spirit children of God, so in a way, you could say we are like the Demi-Gods of the books. We come here, we don't really know who we are, our full potential or any of that stuff, and Satan and his monsters attack us sometimes because he knows what we could become. But when we find out who we really are, that's when we really can come under attack. Another similarity I noticed were the number of the Demi-God hero children that felt that they had been abandoned by their god/parent, because they were left alone to fight their battles. In reality, for most instances that wasn't the case, and the Hero either didn't recognize the love their parent/god was trying to show them, didn't accept their gifts, or didn't know the full story. There was a reason those gods limited their interactions and didn't interfere directly in the affairs of their children- they had to determine their own destiny. Sometimes people in our world wonder how God can let horrible things happen in our lives, tragedies and so forth, failing to see the great things it can make of us, or the further damage that interference could have done.
These are just a few similarities to my beliefs and the wonderful fictional series I read. Lot can be learned from fiction and old myths. There are always bits of truth hidden in what we think are myths and fairy tails, often even deep and profound truths, if we take the time to think about them. Ah, go read a book already. Good nigh!
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