Already Dead

A good long while ago, my husband and I were watching the Band of Brothers series, a dramatization of the wartime actions of Easy Company in the 101st Airborne Division, during WWII. I had never seen it, but I love history, particularly WWII history, so I was enjoying it immensely.

During the first few episodes we discussed the various characters—who are all drawn, however dramatically, from real men who really lived and really had these experiences—and how and why such and such a man would act such and such a way, etc. My husband told me that his favorite character wasn’t actually the calm, serious, eminently moral Lieutenant Winters—the ostensible series protagonist—but the almost silent, hard-bitten, rumored-to-be-ruthless Lieutenant Speirs.

Throughout a portion of the series, most of the soldiers hold this Lieutenant as a mystery, and tell semi-mythic stories about his brutal wartime actions. He is not the classic protagonist, but he is tough and enigmatic, and it is one of his lines that struck me as the most powerful.

In one scene, there is a soldier who is paralyzed by fear. He is hiding in a foxhole when he should be taking action. He is ashamed of himself, but he can’t seem to break out of the fear strait-jacket.

Lieutenant Speirs walks up to him, crouches at the foxhole and tells him the ultimate paradox: “The only hope you have is to accept the fact that you’re already dead. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you’ll be able to function as a soldier is supposed to function.” The reason that soldier had become useless is because he was unwilling to give up his life…to give himself wholly over to the task at hand.

Lieutenant Speirs, on the other hand, figured he was as good as dead already, and for this he was able to be courageous, decisive, and capable in the midst of a horrible and life-threatening situation.

This is the classic Christian paradox shown true in an entirely secular context: the harder you try to cling to your life, the more useless that life is to you. It becomes a waste. You become paralyzed—“dead” in effect, as far as anything meaningful or purposeful is concerned. Try to save your life, you lose it. Give your life up and you might survive, and save many other lives along the way.

True in battle, true in life.

More recently, I watched some films and TV shows in which characters—who were not the heroes—sacrificed themselves for the sake of the greater goal. They got no glory. In some cases they scarcely had names or faces. In others, they were the convenient scapegoat which enabled the Hero or Heroine to live. This culminated in my watching Mockingjay Part 1; I was struck by two scenes in which nameless characters took coordinated action against the oppressive government and, in so doing, ensured their own deaths. It was very moving to me, but I found myself resistant to this idea. Perhaps a few survived, but most of the people in those uprisings had to know that they were going to die. They were cannon fodder for the sake of the higher goal of defeating the Capitol. If they didn’t believe in their cause with all their heart, soul, and body, one might say they had just been used and discarded in a heartless and utilitarian manner. But they had to want to fight, badly, to do that. It had to mean something to them.

It bothered me. It had me wondering if I would ever, for the right reasons, have the courage to be like that: to run into the cannon’s mouth without having any hope of survival, or any hint of fame or glory, just so that someone else can get past the cannon to do something greater. To die quietly so someone else can live loudly. Would I ever be willing to be the nameless not-hero who enables the victory without anyone ever noticing or caring?

I realized that I always want to be ‘the main character.’ Because not only is the main character the hero, but they usually survive, albeit with a few cuts and bruises. It’s those unnamed characters in the gray background that die in spades so that the protagonist can scrape through at the last second and see what all that fighting and dying earned. Because if you die without seeing the end, how do you know that it was really worth it? How do you know you weren’t being duped?

I find this mentality—mine—a problem. Not only are we “already dead,” as Lieutenant Speirs put it, but if we’re obsessed with being the hero—the name of renown—we aren’t going to get anything done either. Our role may be small. It may not be flashy. There may be a hundred other people doing the exact same small thing. But if it serves the higher goal, does it matter if no one ever sees us or knows our name?

Besides, if you’re not willing to sacrifice something—or yourself—because you can’t prove right now that it will have been worth it, you would never sacrifice yourself for anything. It takes faith—in a cause or in person. In God.

It reminds me of Brother Lawrence, a monk whose duties were very low and mundane; he worked in the kitchen, and it was tedious. No glory. No grandness. No heroism. Just simple work that has to be redone every day (like the dishes, which are the most depressing and endless of chores). But he took “do everything as unto the Lord” to heart. He did scrubbing as unto the Lord. How was he able to do this? How could he be so humble and patient in his heart with such dull work?

Because he had already died to himself. He yielded his goals and dreams and preferences to the Lord. The result? His words and advices, written hundreds of years ago, are still read today and influence many. His small work was a seed and it grew great. I don’t know that he ever lived to see it do so either. He couldn’t guess that, in the 2000’s, a young man would read his words and decide to volunteer in a kitchen at a summer camp in order to learn how to honor God in that simple work. He couldn’t know that I would remind myself of Brother Lawrence at times when I am tempted to be angry that my work or my life seem mundane, or lack the glory and adventure that I crave. When I try to cling to my idea of my life, instead of embracing the actual circumstances, I lose. I am paralyzed.

How can we be effective—in war, or in life, or especially in the Kingdom of God? By remembering that we’re dead already, and glad of it despite the way it sounds. Dead to things that chain us down, tether us to our selfish selves, and our foolish plans. We’re free to risk everything, free to be fearless, free to do things small or great with all our hearts, free from the need to be validated by others, free from the need to prove ourselves or measure ourselves against the achievements of others. Because we’re not clutching to our life (or our reputation, or our popularity, or our fame, or our accolades) like a security blanket. And, unlike Speirs, we haven’t given up our lives to become hard or nihilistic. We’ve given them into good hands. God’s. And, if we trust him, we will not regret letting go.

“The best way to live above all fear of death is to die every morning before you leave your bedroom.”

-Charles Spurgeon

Firefly and the Human Condition

When I fall for a TV show, movie, artist or novelist…I fall hard. I become a loud, pushy advocate. Ask any of my loved ones upon whom I have foisted all my favorites (Community! Gregory Alan Isakov! Brick!)…forced all but at gun-point. Minimal complaints so far, if I do say so myself.

Well once upon a time someone did this for me. They told me to watch some random movie called “Serenity” with them at the theater (Sci-fi? I was skeptical. Aliens aren’t my thing). This excellent movie was born of a short-lived TV show called Firefly, which concerns us here today. The show and the film both have a lot to say about the human condition, and so do I, so it naturally follows that we took to one another.

Truthfully I could use an awful lot of space detailing all the things I love about Firefly but I will try to be very conservative in both my summary and advocacy, because the themes are the thing here (Nevertheless you should watch firefly):

Notice the clothing implies psuedo-Western, but there transportation is space-ship, not stage-coach.

Firefly is a great genre masala—western, sci-fi (but no aliens!), action, drama, comedy, caper—and its basic premise is as follows: humanity spread out onto other planets which are made to be like Earth-that-was (as Earth is then called). A war arose between the Independent planets and “The Alliance” the former of which, as the name suggests, wanted to remain independent settlements, and the latter of which wished to unite all the planets in a progressive and regulated society. The Alliance won, and has become the central government of all inhabited planets—both their high-tech cities:

And their countrified back-waters:

Two of the protagonists of the story fought for the Independents during the war and have moved on from their loss to do smuggling and thieving work on the fringes of ‘the system’.

Zoe and Mal

The difference and tension between the outer planets (quite analogous to rural populations)—with the distant control/neglect they experience from the government—and the inner planets (rather like urbanites) and their appreciation for the government’s facilities and efficiency is pervasive throughout the show.

The excellence of the premise is that, although it shows “The Alliance” through the eyes of those that do not love it, it never claims that The Alliance is evil. It is real modern society in fiction: it provides roads, oversight, security (in the central areas at least), education and medicine. It is not precisely dystopian in nature in that it does not oppress groups, it does not ban art or literature. It has a high degree of physical authority, but it is not a police state. In fact, it is made rather clear that the Alliance truly does do many good things for the people. It is as though the UN were actually effective—moreover helpful—and set in space! It is based upon the most idealistic and humanitarian notions that mankind could bring to bear. The Alliance is, in most of the ways we tend to gauge political purpose and efficacy, a good government with good intentions.

But one of the themes of the show is that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and that human nature is not easy to keep in check; indeed our attempts to constrain or modify the worst elements of human nature may backfire. This is because the constraints are external, and the modifications superficial. And perhaps the most dangerous dystopia is one that believes utopia can be finagled…one that either refuses to acknowledge mankind’s fallen nature, or genuinely believes that by his own hands man can fix himself.

(I don’t want to spoil the story for anyone, so I will be as vague as I can…but be warned, details of show and movie are to be found here):

The Alliance does what many peoples and cultures have tried to do throughout the ages: to “weed out aggression in the population.” They want to make human nature better. They do it very benignly…as best they can, with no intent whatsoever to cause harm. If the image that pops into your head is that of a cop restraining an assailant and carting him off to jail, that is one legitimate way of weeding out aggression. So are anger management classes. Prisons, court systems, reform…these are all in that category.

So, too, is chemical behavioral modification. Likewise eugenics. Also, abortion. And massacre…and genocide.

If it seems like I’ve made a leap too far, I’m sad to say that I haven’t. We—society—like to believe that we can make ourselves better through sheer force of will: adopting this practice, excising that one. One would not say “survival of the fittest” any more, for social Darwinism has become scandalous for good reason…but this nevertheless remains the underlying principle in how societies, governments, laws, medical care and schools are built up. Or cultivated, rather. It seems like such an innocent aim until you realize that the holocaust in WWII—cold, systematized genocide of European Jewry—was derived in large part by a belief that Germany was eliminating that which was dangerous or unhealthy to it. In the minds that conjured the “final solution”, the Germans were “weeding” and “cultivating”, full stop.

Scholar Zygmut Bauman wrote chillingly and convincingly on the subject, showing good evidence that the distance between our desire to reform (which can, remember, be done benignly OR oppressively) and our willingness to do harm is not as far as we like to think. (I reference him here, because it is his eerie garden metaphor that I have just used.)

How does this relate to Firefly/Serenity? In the end of the tale about the Alliance’s attempts to improve human nature, the Alliance—via its great scientists, and its bright young social engineers—ended up causing a certain large percentage of the population to become overly complacent, and another small percent to become overly aggressive, exposing extreme reactions in human nature to these human attempts to modify it.

I must be clear. The complacency was such that, in the end, all those who reacted in that manner died of it. The aggression was such that it became violent madness. Blind suicidal pacifism on one hand and blind homicidal rage on the other. The pendulum swings. In this case a catalyst made it happen, but society does it all the time. We are pendulum swingers. Extremists. Reactionaries. Of our own devices, our reforms are normally just returns from whence we came and back again.

In Pilgrim’s Regress, as C.S. Lewis explores the spiritual and intellectual experiences that either waylaid or led to his conversion to Christianity, he discusses “Northern” and “Southern” ways of behaving—equal and opposite evils. He means by these directional terms metaphors for opposing tendencies of human nature…a thing which will automatically go awry to one of them unless anchored in God.

“Nature, outraged by one extreme, avenges herself by flying to the other”

-C.S. Lewis

We—people, art, literature, pop culture—are always trying to say “something” about the human condition. But in the majority of films and books, even the most poignant illustrations of life and death are merely a sober recitation of either that snide phrase; “life sucks and then you die” or that indulgent one “do what you feel while you can.” The former of these would be Lewis’ “Northern” fall from Grace, and the latter would be dubbed the “Southern” one.

Clearly neither of these are sufficient, but if there were no God, I think there would be no other conclusions to reach. I have several parts the cold-blooded rationalist in me and God is the only thing that renews me and keeps me from turning into what—in any story worth its salt—would be an outright antagonist. My very own nature gives me myriad reasons to be skeptical about human nature broadly speaking, and plenty of the things I’ve seen could make me one of those “life sucks and then you die” types.

This is part of why I like it best when the arts portray human nature as it is: broken and in need of repair; awry and in need of calibration; fallen and in need of salvation. The latter description may seem explicitly religious, but one can portray fallenness without asserting salvation (as is done all the time in popular culture), but at least this—in my opinion—is half the battle and far better than the other alternatives of either white-washing our nature or yielding to its worst vagaries.

That is why the story told in Firefly and Serenity strikes me so. It readily acknowledges that human nature is pretty well awry, but that us trying to doctor ourselves without the real surgeon present, presiding, and acting, is going to get us killed or worse. And human nature tends to toss back and forth, not quite understanding where on earth the solution is.

(Above) Captain Malcom Reynolds: “They’ll swing back to the belief that they can make…people…better, but I don’t hold to that.”

These wounds are much too deep to staunch through our own means. We often end up doing ourselves damage because our efforts are entirely unanchored. But we don’t give up and stop helping, caring, working, fighting, protecting, building…because when anchored in the Lord, it’s a whole different story. That’s the center passage, the plumb-line and it’s anything but some mere compromise or happy medium. It’s the Way, the Truth and the Life. In Lewis’ allegorical metaphor, everything “North” of it is frigid, barren rock, and everything “South” of it is fetid, seething swamp.

Thus it’s the only real, solid ground at all.

Patterns of Portrayal

The people of ancient Judea struggled with legalism in Jesus’ time, just as we struggle with it now...in our own, newer, flashier ways. They knew, and we know, that God’s laws are good, growing firmly out of his will and wisdom. But they lose their potency when we cut them off, take them into our own hands and make them into what is easiest for us. Sometimes we twist his words so badly to make them do as we wish, that we end up abandoning the mess we’ve made of them, tossing this and that word entirely out of our vernacular. We bounce back between legalism and relativism and never seem to hit the center-mark.

When Jesus admonished the Pharisees for giving a tenth of their mint and cumin, while neglecting their elders, he chastised them, not for obeying the law down to their very kitchen spices, but for doing so having cut the heart of God out of the law. They made the law their very own, and in so doing, ruined its purpose...like a child plucking out a flower who then wonders why it starts to wither from that moment on.

Some time ago, I inadvertently come across three television shows, each which had an overtly “Christian” character wherein celibacy is the primary indicator that they are Christian. Oh that and, of course, a small cross on thier neck. At first blush, I was foolish enough to think that this was a positive trend. I’m afraid I was mistaken.

The trouble with this TV “Christian” is that it is simply a caricature that settles amongst the classic list of high-school style stereotypes: the jock, the rebel, the punk, the slut, the goth, the geek, etcetera. As with most caricatures, the depiction is exaggerated, lacks nuance…and by and large, it’s grotesque.

The first example I encountered was on the posthumously popular “Arrested Development”. It is a clever off-center comedy about a severely dysfunctional family which I can recommend for wit, but not for content. The Christian featured in this story is the young girlfriend of a teenage character. She is presented as a drab girl who goes about protesting morally questionable people and events, and is generally disliked (no, despised) by other characters on the show. How much they all hate her is, in fact, a running gag.

At some point during the series, she claims (at age fifteen) that she wants to get married so that she can have sex. She asks her boyfriend to whisk her away to the secular world. Her Christian mother makes a very similar statement of wanting to learn ‘secular ways’, as though she has been living in a nunnery.

The theory seems to be that these poor indoctrinated girls are sexually repressed and secretly wish to escape thier cloistered Christian world. The girl’s “protests on behalf of morality” are also depicted as a hobby, or an opportunity to exercise intense emotions otherwise forbidden to her, rather than as derived of any sort of conviction. She is not a main character...she's mostly there for laughs in this ensemble show:

The second example seems more moderate at first glance but, ultimately, is just as damaging. Strangely, this example does not seem as though it is intended to be negative. Yet it still manages to leave a bad taste in the mouth about what the world believes Christians to be and represent. It comes from the show “The Secret Life of the American Teenager,” about a pregnant teen in high school. (I could not stomach more than a couple episodes of the show, but I looked up the events. Not my kinda show).

Theoretically the show’s objective is a good one; to teach teens the truths and consequences of sex. At least I’m guessing that’s what it is. It even seems to offer not having sex as a viable option. One character and her boyfriend are painted as strong Christians who speak loudly about abstinence. Yet the girl’s boyfriend grows increasingly desirous of sex and ultimately accepts a solicitation for oral sex from a girl he barely knows. He apologizes to his girlfriend for seeing someone else, but lies about the sexual nature of his behavior.

This does not scratch the surface of the unchecked hypocrisy enacted by the supposedly Christian characters in this show. The boyfriend pays someone to do his schoolwork for him. He lies and cheats and is a generally unsavory sort of boy. But of course he is a square-jawed, popular jock.

The girlfriend—initially quite genuine—is a blonde, peppy cheerleader who is very vocal about her Christianity. Later in the series, however, she gives in and has sex with her boyfriend, afterwards feeling shamed and recommitting herself to abstinence. This is a severely mixed message.

On the one hand, we all fall and we can all be redeemed. If that were the crux of the message, not only could I stomach it, but I could support it. But so far, the all-consuming factor for these Christians is sex: i.e. whether or not they’re having it. Purity is important, but what about all the other interacting facets of a God-centered life? Kindness? Justice? Honesty? What about the basic tenants of the faith? What about our Author and Creator? What about any other factors of what it means to be a person of faith?

I should point out that this show in particular was well-versed in ‘Christianese.’ The girl wore a purity ring, invited friends to church functions and her prayers made her sound like someone who had been to a youth-group meeting or two.

The third example is the most troubling by far. It comes in the form of the show “Glee,” about classic misfits finding a place and some joy in show choir. Interestingly enough, it’s about defying stereotypes, as it goes on supporting them every which way. It’s fun, musical and peppered with enjoyable quirks.

In this show, there is also a lovely, blonde cheerleader who wears a shiny silver cross. She is aggressively vocal about her virginity and that of others (dare I say “the Lady doth protest too much”...?) She is also rude, malicious and enjoys blatantly drawing her boyfriend to what she then makes clear he cannot have (and I mean very blatantly. The show was at pains to point this out, lest they be accused of 'blaming a girl for the guy's behavior'). The line “we’re about teasing not pleasing” is uttered in the second episode. This character is obsessed with appearances, reputation and is, of course, territorial with ‘her man’. She is meant to be despised and indeed she is despicable.

When this character was leading a school celibacy club (where the girls talk about the wonder of wearing sexy cheerleading skirts with which to tease their male counterparts), I rather sided with the secular teen who, watching the entire absurd display, proceeded to point out how skewed their motives and behaviors were. (Note: the show has veered far from this premise…this was only the launching point to serve the desired aim of pitting the Christian cheerleader character against the main female character)

It seems the secular world has reached the following simple conclusion; these Christian kids are really emphatic about abstinence, but they have no follow-through. Something must exist en force in order to be parodied, and this concept is being parodied left and right. A majority of the creative minds in television seem to have gleaned little more than: Christians are hypocrites and snobs, who either hold thier physical purity out like a vicious lure, or hold it close like a religious security blanket.

I can’t help but wonder if this perspective has its roots in the fact that today’s youth find it easier to claim obedience to a physical command, than submit to a spiritual lifestyle. I hope not, but if so, it is legalism and nothing more and its legs will eventually buckle out from underneath. Abstinence does not a godly person make. It’s supposed to be a strong indicator—an outflow, or by-product—of your life purpose, not the purpose of life itself.

Popular media has been producing its version of Christians for quite some time now, and some of their critiques are unfair. But some are fair. But stereotypes can almost always be distilled down from thier respective hyperbole into some grain of truth--or at the very least a point of origin--which must be examined.

It seems that, with the preponderance of purity conferences and bubble-gum style celebrities with “true love waits” rings, the concept is making its way into the very public sphere as a Christian criterion. The emphasis is perfectly understandable, since abstinence can be a hard ‘sell’ in a culture where the only stipulations for sex are that it be ‘safe and consensual.’ And, y’know, it helps if you kind of like the person too.

But if the virtue of waiting-till-marriage stands on its own to the world, without comprehension of meaning and without roots in a believer’s love for God, then that virtue will fall at earliest convenience. It should be noted that of all three referenced “Christian” characters, two had premarital sex, and one tried her hardest to do so.

The idea of abstinence is definitely on the secular radar screen, but the reason behind it clearly isn’t. Until the deeper motivation becomes clear from the inside out, then the whole thing will continue to be seen as some baseless, archaic idea, when viewed by a world that categorizes abortion under the term “reproductive rights” and says that following the blind-eyed demands of momentary desire is to be known as “sexual freedom.”

However, if our choices flow, not from moral checklists, but from seeking and abiding in the source, our Messiah, then the world will scratch its head in wonder when we refuse to fit into the confines of what we are imagined to be. Then the world will have a reason to search for the answer to such an anomaly, instead of simply labeling it with a cross and slapping on a purity ring…which they, not unreasonably, expect to fall off at any moment.

 POST SCRIPT (because I wrote this article a while ago):

Lo I did find a Christian character on TV that is neither coddled (as on Christian-made TV) nor demonized! Shirley on Community. (Awesome show, by the by). They deal in both stereotypes and complex facts. The show both criticizes her and adores her. She’s not perfect, but she strives to do right. She loves her non-Christian friends, but is often saddened by their choices and behaviors and can sometimes be harsh or judgmental towards them. It’s a rare show where a Christian is treated more as a person than as a concept. There are seventy-five thousand other reasons to like the show—it’s an ensemble cast—but her character is definitely one of them!

A little montage of Shirley clips which may or may not be appreciated if you haven’t seen the show: