When I was
young, I lived in a world of stories. Some of my earliest and most cherished
memories are of my father creating stories for my brother and me. The story
that survived the longest was the ongoing adventures of Spaceman Spiff (a
heroic space ship commander) and his seemingly constant battles with the
Dreznaks (evil and grotesque aliens who had constantly-running noses). My
brother and I were absolutely captivated by these stories and thrilled when our
father would sketch scenes from these on the back of church bulletins.
As I
learned to read, I kept myself immersed in stories—Star Wars movie books, comic
books, and novels. Each book I read was a sort of temporary reincarnation as I
experienced new lives and new worlds. Stories were part of my life throughout
my youth and helped carry me through even the most difficult of times.
Near the
beginning of my college career, an intense thirst for knowledge inadvertently pulled
me away from my home in the world of stories. Thinking that straightforward
non-fiction books and other classical literature were a more “concentrated”
form of knowledge (and therefore more valuable), I focused my attention on
books such as the Meditations of Marcus Arelius and the Analects of Confucius. These works had great lessons to teach me,
and that fact further convinced me that non-fiction books and related
literature (the more ancient, the better) were what I needed to learn as much
as possible.
It wasn’t
until I began graduate school that I “came to myself” and realized the wealth I
had forsaken in leaving the world of stories. One of my dear friends (whom,
years later, decided to marry me) began reading Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. I had read that book on
my own in 5th grade, and remembered really enjoying it. I wanted to
have something to talk with her about.
So I read.
The story
was as good as I remembered it, but it somehow seemed even more relevant to the
world I now lived in.
In the
process of finding a copy of Fahrenheit
451, I stumbled across a collection of short stories by H.G. Wells. As soon as I finished Fahrenheit 451, I started in on this one. Two stories in particular
really resonated with me: “The Country of the Blind” (where an overly ambitious man’s
attempt to rule a hidden village of blind people ends in disaster), and “The Man Who Could Work Miracles” (where an ordinary man is granted
the ability to bend the world to meet his own selfish needs, with disastrous
results). After I somehow—almost unconsciously—worked the moral of these stories
into an everyday conversation with a friend, I began to question the stance I’d
taken on stories.
Shortly
thereafter, I was in the middle of reading through all of C.S. Lewis’
theological writings when I learned he had penned a science fiction trilogy. I
was familiar with The Chronicles of
Narnia, but I’d never heard of this series. The intermingling of theology
and science fiction was too intriguing for me to ignore.
In Perelandra, the story’s protagonist travels to
an Edenic planet (Venus) where he meets the fairer of the planet’s two native
inhabitants. She looks relatively human (despite the greenish tint to her skin,
as seen in this illustration), but is surprisingly innocent. Another character
arrives, bent on corrupting Venus’ Eve, and the protagonist battles to prevent
this.
I was initially
struck by the incredibly vivid
imagery that Lewis used to describe this new world. It wasn’t until after I
began thinking about the dialogues between the characters that I realized the
theological and philosophical weight of their statements. Within this fictional
setting, Lewis was able to explore a wide range of important topics in ways
that would be near impossible in works of non-fiction. The force of this epiphany
carried me back to the world of stories, which practically ran to welcome me home with open arms.
The
Prodigal has returned, but he has returned a transformed man. I’ve re-immersed
myself in the world of stories over the past several years, and have continued
to increase in my appreciation for how stories function in people’s lives (both
past and present). I’ve actually become somewhat of an advocate (or maybe an
evangelist?) for the beauty and power of stories, which has bled into my
professional life. For instance, last year I presented a paper at a scholarly
conference proposing that instructors could easily use comic books to teach
unfamiliar religious subjects, and elsewhere delivered a talk on how to use
Batman to explain sacred clothing (the video of this presentation is available
on iTunes here).
This is the
first of a multi-part post I’m writing on the world of stories. In the
following weeks (and probably months), I’ll explore the history of religious stories (or “myths”),
modern uses of such stories, and the transformative nature of creating meaningful stories. Finally, I’ll
wrap up this series of posts with a list of some of the stories that have
impacted me most recently.
Enough
of all this talk—worlds await us.
