I wrote this a month ago and I am currently at a men's retreat where we studied the book of Jonah. I discovered that THIS is a book for me. Jonah was a normal guy (pun intended); not a king, a rich man, or anything else special. I understand that people argue about whether he was "real" or whether Jonah is a work of "pious fiction". (Funny that, I know lots of people who are neither pious nor fiction writers who use fictions to make a point. You're reading one of them...). I am posting this again because after re-reading it, I think it makes some important points and I found myself agreeing even MORE with my own writing. So if you thought you read this before, you did...
I’ve sort of been doing a lot of non-fiction reading lately.
I’m almost done with STAMPED FROM THE BEGINNING: A Definitive History of Racist Ideas In
America (Ibram X. Kendi); the men’s group at my church have been reading MERE
CHRISTIANITY (CS Lewis); and for our upcoming men’s retreat, our pastor
recommended THE PRODIGAL PROPHET: Jonah and the Mystery of God’s Mercy (Timothy
Keller)…
I’m going to go off on a few tangents here, but I’ll tie it up into a
coherent thesis statement shortly (I hope).
I don’t read much fantasy, but with my daughter’s guidance, I’ve been
exposed to a fairly broad, strong base that supports the quote I use in my IDEAS
ON TUESDAY posts when I suggest fantasy ideas: “I see the fantasy genre as
an ever-shifting metaphor for life in this world, an innocuous medium that
allows the author to examine difficult, even controversial, subjects with
impunity. Honor, religion, politics, nobility, integrity, greed—we’ve an
endless list of ideals to be dissected and explored. And maybe learned from.” –
Melissa McPhail
I’ve read DR. STRANGE AND MR. NORRELL; (of course) LORD OF THE RINGS;
THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA; THE CHRONICLES OF THOMAS COVENANT, UNBELIEVER;
CHILDREN OF BONE AND BLOOD is on my “to read” list; the DERYNI books; THE
SHADOW SPEAKER; and very few others…
Octavia Butler, without a doubt, was one of the most profound speculative
fiction writers of the 20th Century and she started very young: “At
12, she watched the televised version of the film Devil Girl from Mars (1954)
and concluded that she could write a better story. She drafted what would later
become the basis for her Patternist novels. Happily ignorant of the obstacles
that a black female writer could encounter, she became unsure of herself for
the first time at the age of 13, when her well-intentioned aunt Hazel said: ‘Honey
... Negroes can't be writers.’ But Butler persevered in her desire to publish a
story, even asking her junior high school science teacher, Mr. Pfaff, to type
the first manuscript she submitted to a science fiction magazine.” While
obviously a science fiction writer, her work can also be read as fantasy as she
wrapped myth and parables in future trappings. Nnedi Okorafor, a relatively new
speculative fiction writer wrote, “Wild Seed showed me that the
publication of the type of stories I was writing was possible. It showed me
that I wasn’t alone and that what I was writing was ok. Octavia gave me
strength.” (https://bookriot.com/2017/06/22/writers-inspired-by-octavia-butler/)
OK – now to pull the reigns in all of this together.
Keller mentions in his book, an encounter with Gimli the Dwarf
with Galadriel, Queen of the Elves in Lothlorien. Gimli is a foreigner in the
land, in fact, a victim of racist ideas – the Elves have long seen the Dwarves
as inferior simply because of who they are, that is, ALL Dwarves are ugly,
greedy, evil…
Kendi, in his book defines a racist idea as “…any concept that
regards one racial group as inferior or superior to another racial group in any
way…‘intersectionality’, prejudice stemming from the intersections of racist ideas
and other forms of bigotry, such as sexism, classism, ethnocentrism, and
homophobia.” (SFTB, Prologue, p5)
In LOTR:FOTR, Galadriel says, “‘Dark is the water of Kheled-zaram,
and cold are the springs of Kibil-nala, and fair were the many-pillared
halls of Khazad-dum in Elder Days before the fall of mighty kings
beneath the stone.’ She looked upon Gimli, who sat glowering and sad, and she
smiled. And the Dwarf, hearing the named given in his own ancient tongue,
looked up and met her eyes; and it seemed to him that he looked suddenly into
the heart of an enemy and saw there love and understanding…” (Chapter 7, “The
Mirror of Galadriel”)
CS Lewis writes in MERE CHRISTIANITY, “…whenever we do good to another
self, just because it is a self, made (like us) by God, and desiring its own
happiness as we desire ours, we shall have learned to love it a little more or,
at least, to dislike it less.” (Book 3, Chapter 9)…
*drawing a deep breath*
For me, the speculative fiction community has ALWAYS intersected with
my faith, just as it has for Gene Wolfe, Mike Duran, Madeleine L’Engle, Kathy
Tyers, Gray Rhinehart, Orson Scott Card…I’m sure there are others I don’t
remember. (io9 published this almost ten years ago: https://io9.gizmodo.com/christian-readers-demand-more-science-fiction-books-wh-5574733
and got quite a bit of discussion. I was corresponding with Mike Duran a bit
before he was quoted there.)
By reading all of my current books (MERE CHRISTIANITY for roughly the
sixth or seventh time) it sparked in me an entirely new idea. I opened myself up to the Holy Spirit,
and along with hearing sermons like the one I heard
today in context of what I’ve been studying, (based on Mark 2:1-12, and from
which I took the single message: after Jesus told the paralytic first, “Your sins
are forgiven.”; then asked the pharisees “Which would be easier?”; then told
him, “Get up, pick up your pallet and go home.” Then came the part that I found
startling this morning: “…they were all amazed and were glorifying God, saying,
‘We have never seen anything like this.’”), I may have become both a better man
and (I hope) a better writer to add this point of view to my stories.
I noted that “…THEY WERE ALL AMAZED AND WERE ALL GLORIFYING GOD…”. Not
just the paralytic, not just his friends, not just those listening to Jesus –
but the pharisees as well. All of them had witnessed and seen the change and (possibly)
believed on Jesus’ name, that he was God (who could forgive sins).
I have never published a piece
of Christian science fiction (not for lack of trying!), but as I reflect on it
now, that may be a good thing. It allows me to integrate a number of ideas into
my stories. This intellectual journey has given me the foundational paradigm for a set of stories I’m writing and (finally) defined by the question: “What if
entry into an interstellar union required a ‘charity’ factor in the entire
population of an intelligence?”
Resource: https://www.cafonline.org/docs/default-source/about-us-publications/wgi2018_lozengemap.pdf
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