The Interconnectedness of Past and Present (and Future)

In many ways, the narrative's three central themes are all quite tightly entwined between the past and present; event and reaction; reason and faith. If distilled into a single word or concept, that thread might best, or most accurately, be described as harmony, or balanced, interdependent connection - between past and present, between humanity and God, and between the individual and identity.

The most apparent, and narratively relevant, thread of harmony that the book explores is the relationship between past and present, the one affected and/or defined by the other, whether moving forward from the past into the present or backward from the present into the past. Throughout the narrative, circumstances in the past are explained by insights realized in the present, while actions in both past and present each affect circumstances and actions in the other. The goal of...