Gilead Lesson Plan

John finds many things to be miraculous and astonishing—water, light, trees—but there is something he finds most astonishing of all. What is this? What does it show about his character and beliefs?

Now that he is close to leaving the world, John realizes that "there is nothing more astonishing than a human face," because every human face displays the "singularity, courage, and loneliness" of the person. This shows that John cares about people as individuals, not as an abstract concept. Also, it shows that for all his love of nature and literature, he sees human beings as the crowning creation of the world. This flows from a Christian belief system in which people are...