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Last night, I read pages 650-670 of Stephen King's The Stand: The Complete and Uncut Edition.
There were good things in last night's reading. Mother Abagail reflects back on a friendly traveling salesman who offered to sell her a vacuum cleaner so that she'd have more time for leisure. In addition, as she considers the issue of good vs. evil, Mother Abagail thinks that God may allow the sinister Randall Flagg to win, the same way that God permitted the Egyptians to subjugate the Hebrews for so many years, but that evil will ultimately undermine itself, since evil entails destruction and emptiness rather than construction. Mother Abagail also contemplates sin and how each commandment is a violation, in some manner, of "Thou shalt not steal" (i.e., don't steal a man's wife, don't steal a person's life, don't steal God's name, etc.). Mother Abagail meets Nadine Cross and detects that something is off about her, and she wants to retreat into solitude so that she can hear from God what it is about Nadine that gives her the creeps. But Mother Abagail chooses instead to welcome some newcomers to the Free Zone (who dreamed about her) and to make small-talk with them.
What most intrigued me, however, was what Mother Abagail and Nick Andros thought about Harold Lauder. In the television miniseries, Harold was not included to be in the committee that was his idea, and he tried to prove that he was a good sport about it by motioning at a Free Zone meeting that Mother Abagail's committee be accepted in its entirety. But Harold was still bitter that he was left off of the committee. I wondered why he was left off. Did Mother Abagail not like him?
The book does not say that the committee was Harold's idea, at least in what I have read so far. Rather, it appears to be the idea of Stu Redman and Glen Bateman. In addition, Mother Abagail had no say-so about who would be on and off of the committee. She didn't like Harold and did not want him in the higher echelons, but she figured that Glenn, Stu, etc. would put him on the committee. Nick Andros, however, did have strong negotiating power over who could be on the committee, and he did not want Harold on it. Mother Abagail and Nick overlapped in their impression of Harold: they felt that Harold was friendly at the surface level, but that there was a coldness inside of him. Nick admired Harold's intelligence, but he doubted that Harold was over Fran (on whom Harold had a crush), plus he thought that Harold might be crazy.
I do not understand why Harold was pretending to be friendly, when deep inside he was hurt and angry. Was he trying to fit in? Did he not know how to express his anger? Did he want to give people a false sense of security as he prepared to strike? I think that there was a part of him that wanted to help people, and I know that, if I were rejected by the woman of my dreams, I would be super-nice---not because I'm preparing to strike, but rather because I do not know how to handle anger, and I'm reluctant to express it publicly. I wish that Mother Abagail, a servant of God, had reached out to Harold rather than judging him. Granted, Harold would have kept up his nice veneer rather than being honest with her about his feelings, and that could hinder his healing. But perhaps he would learn more and more to do what was necessary for his own healing after he saw that Mother Abagail accepted him---not necessarily for the committee, but as a human being. Instead, Mother Abagail liked some people, but not others. I tend to think that servants of God should love everybody, but perhaps that is too high of an expectation, on my part.
But did Harold seek healing? Not so far. Perhaps he could have talked with Mother Abagail about his feelings and gotten some wisdom, but he chose not to do so. Rather, he acted like he had his act together, when inside he was simmering, making himself vulnerable to evil.
