Today, I am teaching Coelho's The Alchemist to my senior elective Myth & Mind students. We're reading the camel driver's conversation with the seer, who observes, "'When people consult me, it's not that I'm reading the future; I am guessing the future. The future belongs to God, and it is only he who reveals it, under extraordinary circumstances. How do I guess at the future? Based on the omens of the present. The secret is here in the present. If you pay attention to the present, you can improve upon it. And, if you improve on the present, what comes later will also be better. Forget about the future, and live each day according to the teachings, confident that God loves his children. Each day, in itself, brings with it an eternity'" (106). While the camel driver envisions a mysterious future to which the seer has access, the seer knows the only mystery is that we cannot be clear sighted enough to understand the world in which we live.

I can't help but think that, seeing into the future, we have more days ahead like those at Sandyhook and Vegas. Why? Because we cannot imagine our present with enough vision to see the omens so clearly there. Why so many shootings, why so many deaths? We are literally holding the answer in our hands, yet cannot imagine why anyone ever gets shot.

*Sigh.*