The Pilgrim's Regress

C.S. Lewis is easily my favorite author, and it’s entirely possible I over-reference him. I often find myself prefacing such references to friends and family alike by saying “I know I used a Lewis quote last time, but it really, really applies.” It may not be the same for everyone—nor do I expect it to be—but something about how Lewis thinks and communicates resonates deeply and effectively with me.

As a result of this, I’m always happy to find that there’s more Lewis out there as yet unread by me. Some years ago I was running my eyes over the books in a bookstore and saw “The Pilgrim’s Regress” by C.S. Lewis. I was very intrigued. Now, I have never read Pilgrim’s Progress (to my shame. It’s on the list) but I know the story from various sources: children’s books, general Christian pop culture, and—believe it or not—an old radio program called “Adventure’s in Odyssey.” Eventually I bought “The Pilgrim’s Regress” and told myself that I was not allowed to read it until I had read the Bunyan book, that I might better understand them both.

My discipline failed, and this last year I broke down, skipped ahead and read “The Pilgrim’s Regress.” Twice. This is not one of Lewis’ more popular books…and understandably so. It is very obscure. But I love it and come now to advocate on its behalf, despite the fact that it is very particular and thick. Lewis himself wrote an afterword in a later edition marking the presence of “needless obscurity and an uncharitable temper.” He added to it summaries of the allegorical intent and explanations of certain terms which were clear to him, but became unknown to later generations, so that the meanings would be rather more accessible to the readers.

There is, in fact, a helpful manual for this book which does much to clarify it…but it is not “Pilgrim’s Progress.” It is “Surprised by Joy.” “The Pilgrim’s Regress” is essentially the story of Lewis’ conversion to Christianity…allegory-style. The obscurities are due to philosophical musing and encounters that Lewis personally experienced, and which are not necessarily universal, or currently widespread in education. The book also has much Greek, Latin, and French and draws upon a greater body of literature and philosophy than I may ever hope to consume in my entire life. There are a few unfortunate metaphors used by C.S. Lewis which smack of Euro- and Ethnocentrism (though, I think, not as badly as some might suspect), and several references to specific trends of the 1920’s and 1930’s. Thus, this book was something of an effort.

But it was worth the effort, and I feel compelled to explain why.

THE TALE

Told as a dream—dreamt by an unnamed narrator—the story follows John, starting from his youth in the land of Puritania (Which is traditional Christianity or perhaps, more accurately, nominal Christianity) and on to his travels throughout the land depicted in the map below:

A few major things define John’s youth: 1. the fear of the Landlord (God as described by parents and clergy alike) and of the great “Black Hole” (Hell as described by the very same), 2. The hypocritical behavior of the Puritanians, and…3. Something which he calls “The Island” or “Sweet Desire.” Sweet Desire comes when one day he looks out and sees an Island which fills him with such longing that, if nothing else in all the world, he longs to long for it. The search for this Island leads him away from the rote Christianity of his youth and towards many dead ends: lust, sensuality, and sentimentality.

It leads him further through many of the beliefs and philosophies of both the current age, and of all ages, as John tries to capture his Sweet Desire through Romanticism (Called “Mr. Halfways in this story…ostensibly because he only gets you halfway there?), as it is nearly killed by Freudianism which attempts to distill us down to very much less than the sum of our parts, then as John (and his Desire) are subsequently rescued by the armor-clad woman Reason, cultivated by the old man Wisdom—father of many philosophers—informed by the hermit History, and finally brought face-to-face with the fact of God, forced by Reason to follow the path towards him. (Of course he could have fought reason, but then he knew he would have fallen with her.)

John’s traveling companion for the majority of his journey is a man by the name of Vertue whose allegorical office lies explicitly in his name. Vertue stands in intended contrast to John. John is driven by desire. Vertue is driven by moral will. The two are often at odds and drawn in different directions, and John parts with Vertue on occasion. John is less concerned with the Landlord’s rules (God’s Law/Morality), and more concerned with finding his beautiful Island. Vertue doggedly, calmly follows the rules, knowing them to be written in the skin of the earth. The only time when Vertue falls—at which time Virtue must be carried by Desire—is when he witnesses the coming nihilism of the peoples of “Marxomanni—Mussolimini, Swastici…”

This book was published in 1933, but Lewis did not feel any express need to heavily veil with metaphor the danger he saw posed by the “revolutionary sub-men of the Left or the Right.” He portrays them as a return to barbarism, causing Vertue himself (itself) to take ill.

The allegorical style gives great room for analysis of philosophy, theology, and of Lewis’ very specific intellectual and spiritual path towards conversion. There is so much being said, that I will not try to get it all down here—rather I will simply examine a few of the driving points in the story which most struck me and encouraged me to read ahead the first time despite “Pilgrim’s Progress” and read the entire thing aloud to my husband the second time, and to now try and convince as many of my family members and friends as possible to read it, so that I can discuss it with them!

THE VERY SHARPEST EDGES

Sweet Desire:

For anyone who has felt that piercing, painful Sweet Desire, the drive John feels to seek it out will easily be understood. Unlike Vertue, who seeks to do right for right’s sake and disdain’s the idea of obeying on behalf of punishment or reward, John is swayed by this desire both below and above Vertue. When Vertue sees Savage Nihilism and falls ill, it is John who must carry him—though he was always the weaker and less willful of the two—for Desire has not died by hearing of depravity.

The trouble with Sweet Desire is that we so easily mistake lesser things for its satisfaction. Then we often become disappointed and confused that the “Desire” has failed us, or wasn’t all it seemed it should be in that moment.

But “It comes from the Landlord (God),” old man History tells John. “We know this by its results. It has brought you to where you now are: and nothing leads back to him which did not at first proceed from him.”

Reason Defeats Freudian Philosophy:

One of the darker sections of the story occurs when John and Vertue part ways, and John finds himself imprisoned by a Giant. Having had his hopes disappointed by Mr. Halfways and his daughter, Media, John realizes that Romanticism is not quite the solution to his question about the Island. John then runs into “Sigismund Enlightenment” (or New Enlightenment) who explains to him that all his desires are merely wish-fulfillment dreams. New Enlightenment claims that “the Island was the pretense that you put up to conceal your own lusts from yourself.”

John is imprisoned by this philosophy which causes him to see himself and his fellow man as nothing more than their innards and sinews and fluids, for the Giant who holds them hostage makes everything “transparent.” The Philosophy desires to ever “uncover” us to our basest, rawest form and, in so doing, makes each man a horrifying concoction of parts to one another and dark or meaningless to himself. John decides that, though he had doffed the belief in a Landlord and a Black Hole, this new philosophy—if true—makes all the world a Black Hole and all men and women residents in it, whether they know it or not.

Then comes Reason: “…a woman in the flower of her age: she was so tall that she seemed to [John] a Titaness, a sun-bright virgin clad in complete steel, with a sword naked in her hand.”

The Giant bids her pass out of his land with all haste. But she will none. She asks him three riddles that, because of his philosophy, he cannot answer. Then she plunges her sword into his heart and defeats him.

She proceeds then to explain to John that the New Enlightenment makes three grave errors of reason. First they say that higher things are the copies or covers of lower things (love a copy of lust, or sweet desire a veil for lust). But how can they tell which is the copy and which is the original? Is not the original normally the higher? An oil painting is better than a print, and lamplight much dimmer than sunlight.

Second, she explains the trouble of our foul-looking innards, which so bothered John and made him feel that all was base and vile forever: “He [The Giant”] showed you by a trick what our inwards would look like if they were visible…But in the real world our inwards are invisible…the warmth in your limbs at this moment, the sweetness of your breath as you draw it in…these are the reality: all the sponges and tubes that you saw in the dungeon are the lie”

(John is unconvinced): “But if I cut a man open I should see them in him.”

“A man cut open is, so far, not a man: and if you did not sew him up speedily you would be seeing not organs, but death. I am not denying that death is ugly. But the Giant made you believe that life is ugly.”

Though she reminds John of some truth mixed in the Giant’s trick—for here our innards represent both themselves and our basest thoughts and desires—“it will do you no harm to remember from time to time the ugly sights inside. You come of a race that cannot afford to be proud.”

Reason’s final killing blow against the Giant is simple. He believes in the doctrine of wish-fulfillment while failing to acknowledge that, for many, the idea that there is no God, no moral law, and no hell would be the wish, and Freudian enlightenment the fulfillment. New Enlightenment does not wish to apply to itself its own doctrine.

And so, by aid of Reason, John passes through “Darkest Zeitgeistheim” and the chains of the Spirit of the Age are broken off of him.

John and Vertue

Lewis makes a point that John and Vertue must ultimately travel together. John, it is implied, comes of Pagan blood…thus the Landlord reaches out to him with Sweet Desire, and images of an island (images that are often, sadly, turned into Pagan idols). Vertue is hinted to have come of the “Shepherd People” (the Jews). Since the Shepherd People were able to read, they were given rules, rather than images.

“But who wants rules instead of islands?” asks John.

“That is like asking who wants cooking instead of dinner,” explains History, who is an old Hermit retiring from the world. He says that the Shepherds were made to begin at the right end, rather than suffering through cycles of mistaking images for reality, and feeling desire followed by despair.

“But were the Shepherds not just as bad in their own way? Is it not true that they were illiberal, narrow, bigoted?”

“They were narrow. The thing they had charge of was narrow; it was the Road. They found it. They sign-posted it. They kept it clear and repaired it…”

History tells John that he must swear blood-brotherhood with Vertue for each the Pagan and the Shepherd is only half a man without the other, and only one—the Landlord’s Son—can reconcile them. So John and his Desire must be reconciled with Vertue and his Moral Will.

Nihilism as three steps North of Humanism

A short but valid point that is as relevant now as it was almost eighty years ago when this was written: John meets in his travels North, a certain fellow named Humanist. I agree with the assessment that Lewis puts forth that Humanism is an intellectually dishonest philosophy. It goes almost all the way along the road of eschewing religion, faith and origins of moral principles (other than “society” or “self”). It wants to get down to the bare essentials of humanity and live at that, but does not want to acknowledge that under such principles as have just been mentioned humans are simply animals, and have every freedom to act as such.

Though the Humanist of Lewis’ day was certainly colder and harder than his current heirs, Lewis says something very powerful and very true when he places Mr. Humanist only a few steps away from total Nihilism, even calling it more foolish than nihilism. Humanist attends the needs of posterity? “And who will posterity build for?” Asks Savage nihilism. “If all men who try to build are but polishing the brasses on a sinking ship, then your pale friends [Humanist and his two friends, Neo-Angular and Neo-Classical] are the supreme fools who polish with the rest though they know and admit that the ship is sinking. Their Humanism and whatnot is but the old dream with a new name. The rot in the world is too deep and the leak in the world is too wide. Better give in. Better cut the wood with the grain. If I am to live in a world of destruction let me be its agent and not its patient.”

And but for the fact of the Landlord, Savage would indeed be right.

Northern and Southern Diseases of the Soul

The aforementioned Savage resides in the extreme North of the allegorical land. It is a place of frigid, barren rock. To the extreme South live the witches and magicians, and it is a festering swamp. The “North” of this story and the “South” of it represent two equal and opposite falls from Grace. Lewis calls them the Northern and Southern diseases of the soul. I found this aspect of the story so poignant that this is actually the second time I have mentioned it in this blog. Briefly, both John and Vertue have to fight the Northern and Southern dragons after they have together taken the plunge (given themselves up for Christ). John must fight the Northern dragon because John has the Southern disease in him, as he was always driven by sensation and feeling, and was weak-willed. Fighting the Northern dragon will gain him toughness of mind and body which he desperately needs to keep to the road.

Vertue must fight the Southern dragon because he suffers from Northern pride and rigidness. If the “Southerners” sink wholly into the flesh, the “Northerners” try madly to scrape it all off to the bone. By fighting the Southern dragon Vertue gains fire—passion and raucous joy. These are the things regarding which his moral will was so wary, but now he may freely enjoy.

In summary, the extremes and follies of mankind are not new, they are old, and both are falls. They are not thought up, they are reacted to: “Widespread drunkenness is the father of Prohibition and Prohibition of widespread drunkenness,” Lewis claims in his afterword.

“With both the ‘North’ and the ‘South’ a man has, I take it, only one concern—to avoid them and hold the Main Road. We must not ‘hearken to the over-wise or to the over-foolish giant’. We were made to be neither cerebral men nor visceral men, but Men. Not beasts nor angels but Men—things at once rational and animal.”

If it sounds like Lewis wants to have his cake and eat it too, I think that’s exactly correct. The crucial point is that he also claims there is only one means by which such a thing is possible…and in order to do that thing, one must first give up the cake, the eating of it, and everything else: the self’s desires and the self’s will.

Last Note: Why is it the Pilgrim’s Regress? It refers chiefly to what happens after conversion…to living in the world and traversing back through it, only now seeing it with the veils lifted.

The Sirens Come

I often have the experience of finding that the world is, in fact, flooded with things of which I only recently became aware. Of course they were there all along, but I simply didn’t notice them until some incident or another brought them to my attention. I think this is a fairly common experience; you don’t notice a certain make of car until you’ve been researching it, then suddenly you see it everywhere. You become apprised of a TV show or band, and suddenly avid fans and frequent references appear, as if by summons, to greet you. Or, as in the case that follows, you don’t know how pervasive a certain theme is in art and literature until you really truly begin to get it.

I have known of the siren story long before I became aware of it. Like many, I was made to read "The Odyssey" in high school. I did not particularly like it. I don’t think it was a very good translation. But that is beside the point. It is the best known origin of the siren story. Herein we have this idea that a beautiful enchanting song will lure passing sailors to their death, and the only means to avoid it is to either stop up your ears (as Odysseus’ sailors were instructed to do) or physically tie oneself up so that you could hear the enchanting song, but not be doomed by it (as Odysseus did himself). It is of interesting note that, in many languages, the word for mermaid is some variation on the word siren; they are dangerous, beautiful things that live in the abyss and mean to bring you into it.

But as I said, Homer and Odysseus did not enlighten me much on this score. It was only recently that I suddenly began to be lambasted by this siren metaphor from myriad angles and the strength of the thing hit me between the eyes. The use of the metaphor tends towards the following instruction:

“Do what you can to fix yourself to the right course now, so that when trials and deceits come, and you no longer want to stay the course, you still will”

Singer Laura Marling pitched the metaphor in terms of love and commitment:

“The sirens come…they always will.

But the dart between my heart and his

Is as good as a diamond chain”

People love to portray a version of the “stay-the-course” attitude in films; how many romantic comedies have a running-through-the-airport-to-try-and-stop-the-beloved-before-the-plane-takes-off scene? Many, many. The idea of overcoming a lot of obstacles on behalf of love is, of course, appealing. And right. But the romantic films often fall short of the real meat of the siren metaphor. The sirens are not challenges so much as they are distractions. Lures. They cannot be barreled through, or leapt over. They have to be denied. Ignored. And, according to legend, this is impossible to do if you allow yourself to hear them without something more than your own will to restrain you because:

“The devil has a pretty voice

If you listen, you’re the fool that I became”

-ZachWinters

Another use of the metaphor—more closely tied to the original—is that of returning to where you ought to be. You’re going home, in every possible good sense of the word. Like Odysseus, back to his wife and son after years of hardship:

“I’m sailing home to you

I won’t be long

By the light of the moon

I will press on

Until I find my love

…Sirens call my name, they say they’ll ease my pain

And break me on the stones

But true love is the burden

That will carry me back home

Carry me with the memories of a

Beauty I have known

…So tie me to the mast of this old ship

And point me home”

-Josh Garrels

That song is, in fact, called Ulysses (another name of Odysseus) and the album from which it is drawn is very aptly named “Love & War & the Sea In Between.” The thing I love about this usage is the emphasis on what drives him home: true love and “memories of a beauty I have known.” That line implies that he is being driven, not by how he feels now, but by what he knew for sure then. There is a beauty he had known, and no mimicry or shadow along the way should supplant it, even though the mimcries can perhaps be seen or felt…whereas the beauty he knew is still a long way off and vaguely remembered.

Our culture constantly tells us to ‘live in the moment’ and insofar as that connotes the ability to be content wherever you are and appreciate the present, I applaud the notion, as it is not an easy thing to do. But what it should not mean, and very often does, is ‘do what you feel when you feel it’; it implies a readiness to give up a belief or a love the moment it seems to be out of reach, out of vogue, or in some way difficult to reconcile. Love is a commitment. Faith is a commitment. Sometimes feelings precede, sometimes they recede, and sometimes they follow a long way in the wake of decision. As the band Mumford & Sons put it in another song, you must:

“…Hold on to what you believed, in the light

When the darkness has robbed you of all your sight”

These lyrics are sung in the context of someone who is terrified to make that initial commitment:

“I ran away, I could not take the burden of both me and you…

It was too fast, casting love on me as if it was a spell I could not break

When it was a promise I could not make.

But what if I was wrong?

Oh, hold on to what you believed, in the light

When the darkness has robbed you of all your sight”

                                                                                                         

The singer realizes that it was fear that kept him from making the promise. He admonishes the hearer not to give up what they knew when their eyes were clear...when they chose to make the promise. The point of a promise is that you’re not to escape from it. It is like ropes, lashing you to your word even when you no longer want anything to do with it. It is swearing to your own hurt now, for the joy of truth and purpose in the long run:

“So tie me to a post and block my ears

I can see widows and orphans through my tears

I know my call despite my faults and despite my growing fears

…So make your siren’s call

And sing all you want

I will not hear what you have to say

‘Cause I need freedom now

And I need to know how

To live my life as it’s meant to be”

This example is much more about purpose and duty, whereas the others were about love and return. I cannot say for certain what the lyricists intended, but I get the sense that the sirens in this song are not what you might think. Is the singer saying that sometimes the distractions from purpose might even be causes that are socially and morally laudable (speaking of the widows and orphans)? Or is he saying that the ‘widows and orphans’ are his call? I suppose it could be either.

There are many just causes in this world, but that doesn’t mean that people don’t often take them up for very wrong reasons. Sometimes the sirens are our desire to appear right, rather than to be right—to be viewed as just rather than to be just—to be commended rather than to be commendable "before the eyes of him to whom we must give account." (Hebrews 4:13) The point is that the singer “knows his call” and he will not be distracted from it by any manner of siren. And notice how he sings “'Cause I need freedom now”...and the way in which he manages to gain that freedom is to give it up, by being tied to the post. Very counter to the logic of the age, I’d say.

So, the sirens come. In all forms, both as obvious and less obvious temptations to destruction, and seemingly benign distractions from a once-known purpose. If God is the ship, and faith is the mast, best batten down, because the seas are rough.

Lastly (and this one not from a song):

“God’s relationship to Israel is most commonly described as a covenant. The word “covenant” conveys permanence, steadfastness, and mutuality rather than the personal depth of that relationship. Is the covenant a tether, a chain, or is it a living intercourse?

In the domain of imagination the most powerful reality is love between man and woman. Man is even in love with an image of that love, but it is the image of a love spiced with temptation rather than a love phrased in service and depth-understanding; a love that happens rather than a love that continues; the image of tension rather than of peace; the image of a moment rather than of permanence; the image of fire rather than of light. But God said “Let there be light.””

-Abraham Joshua Heschel

I would add but one thing to Heschel’s unintended summary of the difference between a siren and the Truth (obviously he said nothing of sirens): God is also described as a consuming fire. Fire and light. Passion and permanence. The point is that the covenant comes first and sets the course.

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.

Searching for the Right Things in All the Wrong Places

Below is my attempt to delve into the appeal of Paranormal literature. Though not so old, it is already becoming dated (Dystopias are the new thing, it seems). Trouble is, I don’t read Young Adult Paranormal literature. I like reading about it, because it produces interesting discussions…I just don’t enjoy reading paranormal romances. Not my thing. The real reason that I even had enough information to write this is because I have a book-review addiction, and an affinity for snark: YA (young adult) paranormal romances produce scads of both. So, having read more reviews and snark pieces on this style of novel that I care to admit, I was more or less able to pick up on the trends as an outsider, and form on opinion on the ‘why’ of the thing.

Bookstore shelves are stuffed to bursting with Young Adult paranormal novels these days. Not only that, but the contents of these novels, per most genre fiction, fit neatly into a comfortingly familiar plot structure; young girl meets mysterious, inexplicable boy who also inexplicably loves her despite her plain humanity. The boy will turn out to be one of the following; fallen angel, vampire, werewolf, faerie king or some such mystical being.

It is not a bad set-up and though the famous (or infamous?) Stephanie Meyer had a firm hand in popularizing the sub-genre, she was hardly the first person to put this fantasy to paper. The appeal is obvious; the tension of two different worlds, a heavily exaggerated version of a cultural or class conflict—a ‘higher’ being drawing a lower into some epic, earth-shattering romance. ‘Meant for each-other’ to the impossible extreme.

Catering largely to teenagers, but appealing to almost the entire age spectrum, the gist I get from my critical-book-review addiction is that most of these tales break down into a series of tension-fraught make-out scenes, with the paranormal conflict laced throughout so as to make all this hormone-charged behavior so much more epic than it would otherwise be.

Is it surprising that teen girls want romance? Hardly. Is it a shock that they find the exploration of sexuality in these books fascinating? Not at all. Is there more to this obsession with otherworldly romance, than meets the eye?

Absolutely. And the desires buried in the text go beyond the secularly obvious.

So let’s begin at the beginning (“and then, when we get to the end, let’s stop!”): Otherworldly. Something beyond our normal parameters. What is it that draws people to the “other” which can’t be defined, contained or at all transformed? It can’t be discarded. The lure is too strong. The mysterious “other” is what it is and it’s worth your time (Why? Because). Some people wonder and question. But she knows. That nameless girl who represents all the heroines in these stories knows. Therein lies the appeal. The very idea that there is no concrete explanation is half the draw.

But, wait a minute…why is it always a girl being drawn “upward” into this mystical romance, and not the other way around? We could cite sexism or marketing strategy. The trope sells like hotcakes. But that’s an insufficient explanation. Why does the formula resonate?

Well first of all, from a strictly story-standpoint…it’s the most basic Cinderella tale: being rescued from the normal, from the mundane, from the unpleasantness of regular life.

But from a broader, spiritual stand-point, I think we can answer that question of resonation when we recall that the church is referred to as the ‘bride’; a woman, plucked from obscurity to become something far beyond her natural capabilities. The same metaphor is used in the Bible to describe God's relationship with Israel, most particularly through the prophet Hosea. She was meant for it, somehow...in spite of the circumstances, and in spite of herself, even.

It should also be noted that there is a male version of this trope and the sci-fi/fantasy world is positively saturated with it. The farm-boy/rogue/outcast who turns out to be the ‘destined-one’/king/savior-of-all-mankind. The parallel here is a bit more overt and accepted than in vampire “chick-lit”. ‘Messiah’ figures in literature are very common. But, for some reason, it’s the bride/Cinderella figure that is the current money-maker, cultivating avid fans who line up for book-number-whatever like it’s Harry Potter or something. (I definitely get the appeal of both tropes, but I like the more action-y fisticuff characters my own self…those are on the up-and-up in YA female-oriented literature as well, a la Hunger Games). It’s a dime novel that doesn’t look like a dime novel, essentially.

The trouble with both tropes is that these messiah-types and lover-hero types, however otherworldly, are inevitably filled with human flaws and selfish actions. Even the ostensibly ‘perfect’ ones come off as tin men and nobody likes them because there’s no such thing. We do not know how to make what we do not understand. We write human messiahs with supernatural powers, because that’s all we can manage. We turn them into the ideals of what we want to be, or how we wish we would be loved. We are trying to satisfy a desire we were created to have…and which can be fulfilled...but only by God.

Vicariousness isn’t gonna cut it…but it sure has oceans of market-appeal: Romance, Sci-fi, Fanstasy, Video Games, Role Playing, Chick-flicks, Super Hero movies etc.

Now what about the fact that, in many of these teen novels, the mysterious male lead often treats the smitten girl condescendingly...even unkindly? He’s a “bad boy.” He’s “dangerous.” What does this say about our society? Do women want to be pushed around without explanation? Do they want to be treated poorly? Must the man keep his epic secrets from them? Must he deal with her so strangely? Must he be so difficult to understand? Must the heroine feels like she’s kept in the dark?

(Frankly that would annoy the ever-loving daylights out of me in a guy character, but okay, it seems to be really popular)

Well, I’m not alone in my belief that women don’t want to be treated like this by any actual, human man (that’s a different discussion called “unhealthy relationships”) but only by a fantasy ideal whose otherwise inscrutable behavior is derived of irrefutably loving motives. They want to be loved and pursued in this very unique way by this incredibly unattainable person. So he gets invented on the page. These heroic figurines can’t live outside of the lines they’re typed in, yet they represent the notion of something powerful and all-knowing that we less-knowing humans long for.

To suss this out, I can only recall that the heroes of both the Old Testament and the New struggled with the genuine hardship of following God. He didn’t always make sense to them. He was not always easy to obey. His judgments could be devastating. His followers have been known to endure heartbreaking delays, persecution and periods of silence, loneliness and pain. Sometimes he permits horrible things to happen to those who love him, as in the cases of Job and Joseph.

But He was worth it to them. He is worth it to us. Also they were worth it to Him, which is the confusing bit. His thoughts are not our thoughts neither are our ways his ways. I’m tempted to say to this entire genre of paranormal romance, as if to a person, “close…so close, but no cigar.” The crucial facts are missing, so the passion is misdirected.

This is where the central problem is. No human is worth this particular breed of trust and devotion. No glittery hero either. So obsessions are created around these human impossibilities to compensate for this giant misdirection away from God towards Man. We should love and serve each other, not idolize each other. Are we setting young girls up to idolize and idealize the men they date/marry? Yes, I suspect so, and it’s easy to see how that will go awry.

It’s perhaps too simple for me to dismiss these teen fantasies as merely that. But in our modern world, in which ‘youth culture’ is dominant and worshiped, the vamp-and-werewolf literature of today probably bears a more accurate representation of people’s deepest desires than the Andy Hardy-and-Nancy Drew of yesteryear. Young adult literature is dubbed excellent if it is bilingual; speaking equally to its target audience and to the generation that raised them.

This is the tricky part; these sorts of books are the fluff of our day. These are the sugar-coating idealists. The wistful dreamers. The seekers of happily-ever-after, producing ‘spunkified’ versions of old-fashioned damsels-in-distress. The cynicism which surrounds these mouthfuls of cotton-candy can quickly melt their thin cry for something ‘other’—oh how much hilarious snark they have produced!—because it is so very thin. It hardly knows what it’s asking for. It’s caught in the mire of a life unperceptive of God.

As C.S. Lewis observed about ungodly or perverse affections, “Eros, turned upside-down, blackened, distorted and filthy, still bore the traces of his divinity.” So, are sewage weeds better than nothing growing at all? At the very least, they show a lack of resignation to the pervading philosophies in which all deep desire is dismissed as childish folly; love is a lie, faith is a fairytale and destiny is for dungeons & dragons.

So perhaps my respect for these pieces of literature is scant, but my empathy is substantial. This washed-out fantasy love can be seen for what it is beneath all the teen angst: yet another translation of a deep, unshakeable desire to know, love and be loved by Someone enigmatically “other”—the only One who stands so wonderfully beyond our natural selves—to be in the otherworld, with the One who created the world.

Means and Ends

A musician by the name of Chuck E. Costa once decided to put a handful of Rudyard Kipling’s poems to music. For this I am deeply grateful because I have now memorized three-quarters of Kipling’s poem “If” although I’d probably have to sing it instead of say it if asked to recite.

“If” is a poem about virtues and honor in general, but in particular it’s about swearing to your own hurt. It’s about the hard virtues. The ones that don’t feel good. The ones that go against our grain. The ones that are almost impossible to remember in the moment of anger, betrayal or frustration. Or hard to remember in moments of triumph and superiority.

I had intended to post a video containing the Chuck E. Costa song, which is a slightly trucated version of the original, because it is beautiful the way he sings it. But I was unable to find it on youtube, so I simply advise it to you if your interested (the album is called "Never Seen a Jaguar" and the song simply "If")

Anyhow, here is the original:

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

There is so much to talk about and delve into in this poem—not to mention one or two bits that might be points of contention for some—that I have chosen only two lines to expound upon—those highlighted in bold: dream and not make dreams your master; think and not make thoughts your aim.

Those two lines are more of a knife through the modern psyche than anything else. We would all most likely agree that it is wise to not become too proud, and noble to push yourself to spite laziness and fear, and virtuous to refrain from lying no matter that others are doing so about you. But in current thought processes dreams are a sort of master, and thoughts surely are the aim, are they not?

These lines hit me hardest because I do have the horrifying tendency to let dreams become my master—to drive my thoughts and feelings, thence to drive my anger and disappointment. The dreams are not wrong, but their preeminence is. If the loss or failure of them ruins someone—sunders them and puts them to the ground—then that someone held those dreams too high aloft. They gave them too much weight. They made them god and master.

A fairly predominate theme in so many inspirational movies these days is “chase your dreams.” And that’s not wholly bad. If someone is afraid of taking risks, afraid of stepping outside and making things happen, then they probably do need to be encouraged in that manner. But underneath that benign theme lies the potential to make dreams a master that rules you ruthlessly for your entire life. It’s strange how something so sunny on the surface can be shudder-inducing after the sheen’s rubbed off.

However, even more pertinent to face against post-modern thinking is the line “to think and not make thoughts your aim.” Such a subtle, elementary idea and yet it flies in the face of much of modern western academia and of youth culture. Sitting around in the coffee-shop and producing “thoughts” and things to “think about” and mulling over the “exchange of ideas” is often—rather than the means to an end—a goal in and of itself. It becomes a game of throwing thoughts out on the table like cards to see who has the best hand.

Thinking without purpose, thinking without aim—thinking without desiring or intending any true conclusion. Thinking, perhaps, without believing there can ever be any conclusion. That's post-modernism 'to a T'; it is more than happy to run on a treadmill, dutifully moving its legs, going nowhere—exercising the mind often without knowing how to use it in real contexts to reach real solutions…or find real answers.

It just so happened that while I had already decided to write about the “If” poem I happened upon this verse in Acts:

“All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas”

And a few of the Athenians actually listened, discussed and thought until they reached a conclusion but only a few, it seems. And we are a very Athenian culture these days—in ways both good and bad. It’s wonderful to be willing to hear, engage, argue and indeed “exchange ideas”—it’s deadly not to put all that to use in making concrete choices that follow from good thought.

Point being, I don’t want to be as some high-minded cook that will go on forever adding spices and ingredients without ever feeling a need to pause and taste what it is I have been concocting. That’s what thoughts being the aim is; cooking without tasting or eating; theory without application; experiment without viewing the results; or, simply, fear. Thought in and of itself is not going to sustain you when times get rough. Thoughts, however rich and good and enjoyable, are a means to an even better end.

I know I left the last post with a lengthy C.S. Lewis quote, but he keeps managing to have pertinent things to say, so here is a section from “The Great Divorce” in which a ghost from gray purgatory-like “hell” goes up to visit an old academic friend in Heaven and decide whether or not he might stay up there. One is referred to as the ghost (and occasionally the Episcopal ghost) and the heaven-living one is real or ‘the other one’.

(the real one)

“I have nothing to do with generality. Nor with any man but you and me. Oh, as you love your own soul, remember. You know that you and I were playing with loaded dice. We didn’t want the other to be true. We were afraid of crude Salvationism, afraid of a breach with the spirit of the age, afraid of ridicule, afraid (above all) of real spiritual fears and hopes”

(The conversation regarding this carries on, with the ghost saying things like “ah yes, that is a point of view. Certainly it’s a point of view,” until the real person invites the ghost into heaven)

“Will you come with me to the mountains? It will hurt at first, until your feet are hardened. Reality is harsh to the feet of shadows. But will you come?”

(and the ghost says)

“’Well, that is a plan. I am perfectly ready to consider it. Of course I should require some assurances…I should want a guarantee that you are taking me to a place where I shall find a wider sphere of usefulness—and scope for the talents God has given me—and an atmosphere of free inquiry—in short, all that one means by civilization and—er—the spiritual life’

‘No,’ said the other. ‘I can promise you none of these things. No sphere of usefulness: you are not needed there at all. No scope for your talents: only forgiveness for having perverted them. No atmosphere of inquiry, for I will bring you to the land not of questions but of answers, and you shall see the face of God.’

(the ghost): ‘Ah but we must interpret those beautiful words in our own way! For me there is no such thing as a final answer. The free wind of inquiry must always continue to blow through the mind, must it not? “Prove all things”…to travel hopefully is better than to arrive.’

(the real one): ‘If that were true, and known to be true, how could anyone travel hopefully? There would be nothing to hope for.’

(the ghost): ‘But you must feel yourself that there is something stifling about the idea of finality? Stagnation, my dear boy, what is more soul-destroying than stagnation?’

(the real one): ‘You think that,  because hitherto you have experienced truth only with the abstract intellect. I will bring you where you can taste it like honey and be embraced by it as by a bridegroom. Your thirst shall be quenched.’

(and finally, later, the heaven-living one says): ‘Once you were a child. Once you knew what inquiry was for. There was a time when you asked questions because you wanted answers, and were glad when you had found them. Become that child again: even now…Thirst was made for water; inquiry for truth”

‘Think and not make thoughts your aim,’ lest we grow afraid of finding answers. When the ghost fears stagnation, what he does not realize is that inquiry for the sake of inquiry is the stagnant and cyclical thing, NOT the finding of answers and the standing on solid ground. The first is the house on sand, the latter the house on rock. One washes in and out with the tides, the other holds strong and provides shelter. Our thirst will be quenched.

Must Leave, Don't Want to Go

A film I watched recently—a film neither bad nor fantastic, and not the subject of the day in any case—in its best moments called to mind the poem “The South” by Langston Hughes. And once that poem was on my mind I could not get it off, so here it is.

The lazy, laughing South

With blood on its mouth.

The sunny-faced South,

            Beast strong,

            Idiot-brained.

The child-minded South

Scratching in the dead fire’s ashes

For a Negro’s bones.

            Cotton and the moon,

            Warmth, earth, warmth,

            The sky, the sun, the stars

            The magnolia-scented South.

Beautiful, like a woman,

Seductive as a dark-eyed whore,

            Passionate, cruel,

            Honey-lipped, syphilitic—

            That is the South.

And I, who am black, would love her

But she spits in my face.

And I, who am black,

Would give her many rare gifts

But she turns her back upon me.

            So now I seek the North—

            The cold-faced North,

            For she, they say,

            Is a kinder mistress,

And in her house my children

May escape the spell of the South.

This poem was first published in the 1920’s and, while I think it a beautiful poem in context, I think it so outside of context as well. There is a certain theme here that doesn’t really have anything to do with the North or South of Hughes’ day…nor necessarily with race.

It’s to do with home or that one place (or even that one person). It’s the place that raised you or fostered you, and it flows in your veins. The good, bad and ugly of it. Not everyone is going to have so contentious a relationship with a given place as that described in “The South”, but many do and it’s a heart-breaking thing.

The imagery Hughes provides puts into the mind’s eye a picture of a woman—a provocatively alluring woman—shamelessly scorning a man who would do almost anything for her. It’s sad enough when put in such finite, personal terms. But if that woman is a place? A city? A country? A way of life?

It’s a maddening push-and-pull as in the song Mehendi Rachi: “Though I’d love to leave some day, I dare not ever go”...though perhaps the other way around: though I’d love to stay someday, I dare not, I must go.

(And, by the by, it’s not entirely unlike Jane Eyre, who was fiercely tied to Mr. Rochester—and he to her—but she had to leave him first because he would have had her stay as a paramour rather than as a wife. And that would have been wrong and demeaning to her. Satisfying at once, and damaging in the long run.)

The circumstance the poem most reminded me of, though? That of Iraq, oddly enough.

Iraq is a place with beauty and history and roots and violence and prejudice. It is often called Bilad Al-rafidayn: The land of two rivers. Or Wadi Al-rafidayn (valley of two rivers, sometimes simply translated “Mesopotamia”.) These two rivers are the famous Tigris and Euphrates.

However there is a saying—common enough to have become the title of a book, even—that Iraq is the land of three rivers. There are two versions of what this saying means: Some claim the third river is blood. Others claim it is tears. They say this because the history of violence in Iraq is much longer and more complicated than our witness of the past decade.

And yet Iraq can make itself loved in spite of it all. When Iraqi poet Shawqi Abd Al-Amir catalogued a visit to his native country in 2007 he mentioned it’s allurement, despite his long absence.

(translations mine, from original)

“None of us had dared to talk or suggest an outing, but the sun of Baghdad, the relaxation of Friday, and my arrival from Beirut all, in silence, called us to go out on this sort of tour, but we all know the dangers hidden behind such an endeavor.”

And, later, he makes note of people spiting the state of chaos in which they live. By living.

“The baffling thing is that when you are coming in from abroad—coming from the channels of television screens by which you only see the place bloodstained with its people, and blackened in appearance and imagery—when you enter the street and see how people are living and how they engage in their lives and daily work schedules, you almost forget. You forget all you’ve seen and you go down to the coffee shop and sit just like everyone else sits, as though nothing ever happened. This is precisely how life is more infectious than death.”

…and it is how the blood-ties remain in spite of everything. And why Langston Hughes wrote that he would love the South and give her gifts though she was passionate and cruel. And it’s why the ending of the poem is so painful. It doesn’t sound like a joyful flight from misery. It sounds like the heavy-hearted pulling away from a dangerous loved one. I wonder and wish if he could have—or should have—stayed and tried again to wipe the blood off her mouth.

Hard to love a place that might kill you.