The Rats of Hamelin by: Adam & Keith McCune

The Rats of Hamelin
Adam & Keith McCune
Moody Publishers, Chicago, IL
August 2005

This is a complicated little story. A town at war with the pipers guild, a child at war with his father, both at war with memories of things from the past. All the people hold onto memories, stories and the past, and no one knows how to forgive or move forward. It is the story of justice and mercy. For too long Johannes the Master Pipers Apprentice, on his first solo mission focuses on justice and forgets mercy.

This is a great tale of mystery and suspense and redemption. The redemption is both personal and corporate.

In this story the Pipers Guild is the church and to enter the pipe-world through pipeing is to enter the spiritual realm through prayer. Though this story is not explicitly Christian much can be read into the story. It would be a great read for a Christian, a family, or the common man on the street. Barry Lopez in Crossing Open Ground states: “I felt exhilaration, and a deeper confirmation of the stories. The mundane tasks which awaited me I anticipated now with pleasure. The stories had renewed me in a sense of the purpose of my life.

This feeling, a inexplicable renewal of enthusiasm after story telling is familiar to many people.” These are the feelings this book invoked in me. Like other classics, This Present Darkness, or The Narnia Chronicles or many other. This is a book I will return to again and again and each time it will drive me deeper to prayer and to seek justice in this world but always justice tempered by mercy.

As Johannes states in the book “My life as a piper was going to be hard, harder than I had ever imagined. Apprenticeship was over – now the clubs and arrows were real. The grim weariness in the pipelord’s face, watchful for the next attack – now that would be my weariness. I would always be a pilgrim.” P. 255 I would r-write this paragraph for my life as “My life as a Christian is going to be hard, harder than I ever imagined. Apprenticeship is over – now it is time to enter the battle. Time to be on guard against the evil one who wanders to and fro in the earth. I will always be on a quest!” And with that this book calls us forth to enter the spiritual battle.

(First published in Imprint 2005-05-06 as 'Even Fear Factor fans will like this book.)

(First Published in Imprint 2005-05-06 as 'Traveling Through Life')