I’m a subscriber to The Washington Post’s daily e-newsletter, and when I opened my email this morning, I misread a headline. The words said, “Trump’s Oman threat,” but I read it as “Trump’s omen threat.” For a nanosecond, I thought the journalists at WaPo were getting metaphysical on us, and I liked it, but then just as quickly, my logical brain corrected the error and I read it for what it was. I didn’t click on the article because I’d rather read about omens than Oman.
Perhaps I wouldn’t be thinking about omens had I not recently read “The Alchemist” by Paul Coelho. This was the second time in my life reading this classic text. The first time, I wasn’t old enough or wise enough to grasp its depth. I joined a book club in my early twenties, and the first book we were assigned was “The Alchemist.” I flipped through the first few pages and at first glance, found it to be boring, especially in comparison to the Dean Koontz thrillers and Jodi Picoult legal sagas I’d been devouring.
