GET REAL

From the Preface:

"Get real" was a slang term that became popular in the 1960s when Michael Hickey was growing up in East Boston. It implied that someone wasnt in touch with reality and had to change their way of thinking or living. If you put on the television today, all you might find is one of the hundreds of so-called reality TV shows. More often than not, these reality shows are illusions of reality because the "real persons" utilized as actors/performers are seemingly coached to act in certain ways by the directors, judges, or producers who really control the reality. Nonetheless, reality TV is a modern phenomenon; people watch it constantly, and that does indicate a high degree of the publics interest in some concept of reality. As for "mystery," it seems we are approaching an age where there will be the death of mystery, and we will have only reality. Hickey believes this is because the vast majority of the populace doesnt view reality in the context of mystery. They imagine mystery to be something which is just obscure or ambiguous, which given enough time, will be solved by reason and logic and become reality. Hickeys goal is that Get Real will give the reader a fresh understanding of both reality and mystery as seen from a theological and philosophical viewpoint. Ultimately, he intends the reader to move beyond the perceived duality in order to establish that mystery is truly the home of all reality.