God & Ayn Rand

Though Ayn Rand grew up ensconced in the atheist ideology of the Soviet Union, after she escaped to the United States, she remained an ardent Atheist. 

A beautiful truth is that all good things point to God. Rand's John Galt is a good character, because he is Christlike. 

An interesting thought: Maybe God has gone on strike, like the tycoons in Rand's novel.  

My middle name is Rand. Back in my bleeding-heart-liberal days, I was nervous that people might associate my middle name with the Ayn Rand, the author who championed the virtue of selfishness. My lefty friends considered her to be an arch-nemesis. 

In fact, my parents tell me that I am named after a small town in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado where they went to dance to country-western music before my sister and I were born. 

Recently, while trucking through these mountains, on a whim, I started listening to Ayn Rand's novel, "Atlas Shrugged." I was thrilled by her description of an exhilarating train-ride through these very same mountains. It's the longest audiobook I've ever tried to get through. I've heard that Rand was taking a lot of amphetamines while writing this novel, and it certainly has the uppers vibe. Being a writer myself, I sometimes indulge in the "write drunk, edit sober" method, and I think Rand's writing could have benefited from some more sober editing. 

But the message of her novel is clear, bold, and unique. If I had read this book back in my wayward twenties, I might have been saved from wasting a lot of time on liberal utopian schemes.