The 2 Dreams from "No Country for Old Men"

I can't say I would recommend either the book or the movie, because they are both very violent. But I have an affinity for Cormac McCarthey's book's because of the amazing talent this man has, he is an artist, and the spiritual depth is always very present. But it needs to be stated that his books are dark, and the movie's from the books are dark. But I don't think he uses violence for the sake of violence, he is using it as a tool to make a point.

I wanted to focus on the 2 dreams at the end of the book and the end of the movie, because I think there extremely powerful. The first dream is very small, but carries huge importance, "he met his father in town, and he gave me some money, but I lost it," His father passed onto him a tradition of goodness, but he lost it. We have to take authentic tradition, and build our life upon it, because much of the wisdom has been hard one, but if we don't, we will repeat all the same mistakes of the past. Within the Catholic Church there is literally a gold mine of saints, sinners, doctrine, art, liturgy, you name it, and we can learn from all of it.

The second dream is the most clear hint of the books intent, his father is riding his horse in the snow, the cold, and the dark, and he is going ahead of him to fix a fire. The world in this book is very dark, and clearly our own world is very dark, but what the sheriff finally learns is his fathers key message, that you can't spend your time worry about how dark the world is, you need to spend your time and energy "fix in a fire, in all that cold, and all that dark," That is really our mission, to reflect God's goodness and to be a part of God's goodness and beauty in the world.

Every time we do good for others, we are fix en that fire in the dark. That is why I love the "green card" of Alcoholics Anonymous so much, because they offer as one of the cures for alcoholism, to do 3 hidden acts of charity everyday. The clear implication is to get the focus off ourselves and onto other people, these small acts move the foundation of the world, and we are spending our energy in the right way, "fix en that fire in the dark".