half-price books is a great delight of mine. today, after taking glorious and guiltless advantage of their 20%-off-everything-memorial-day-sale, i exclaimed to christopher that they have utterly RUINED me for the regular bookstore. from this time on and henceforth forever more, never shall i be found paying $14.95 for that particular paperback i've been eyeing. oh what wondrous joy is to be found in their isles!
today, for example, i acquired: a gensis CD, a jeff buckley CD, three annie dillard books, a bob dylan documentary, "the elephant," "stranger than fiction," and "until the devil knows you're dead" ... for $40.
what a glorious day today!
so tonight, i reheated some delicious leftover chicken casserole and popped in "stranger than fiction."
i came to a stunning realization. (stunning to me, anyway.)
the beauty of the gospel can be found everywhere, BECAUSE it is true. it is no contrived effort of human imagination. it is true, and as such, it is everywhere...
in the past, whenever the theme of some work seems to have echos of biblical proportions, my first thought is, "this writer must be a covert christian with a subtle evangelistic bent. i will google their bio to find out more."
but today, as i watched a story unfold with erie whispers of the goodness of Christ, i began to wonder if maybe this perfectly arranged tale of willing self-sacrifice was not so much arranged but actually intuited. maybe the storyteller is so naturally drawn to that story because even the frailest of human hearts was created to hear it.
maybe the screenwriter has stumbled so perfectly into a biblical allegory only because of the vibrant truth that such an allegory upholds.
in the end, is it not so that truth (if it be truth) should be found everywhere?
and so harold crick goes willingly to his death, knowing how and when and why, forsaking his own (and new found) good life, so that the life of another be spared and so that the good and perfect will of his author be fulfilled. and once the work is accomplished by his compliance, the author resurrects him, so as to write a completely new and better story.
i mean, really?! it's a wonder God's not suing for plagiarism of original intellectual material. i guess it's a good thing that the truth is public domain, right derek? that means we can find it everywhere ... even those of us who aren't even looking for it.
it beats in our veins. it arises in our thoughts. it takes over our literature, music, and movies. it's truth. it's inescapable.
i wouldn't have it any other way.
I just stumbled across your blog, and I really like it!
ReplyDeleteIt is true that God's story of redemption seems to show up in a lot of unexpected places simply because it so clearly resonates with the human spirit ("beats in our veins...arises in our thoughts..."). And I just want to say thanks for pointing that out in this particular movie.
See, when I first watched Stranger Than Fiction, I was disappointed with the ending. A large part of me had wanted the author to kill Harold! This kind of disturbed me, and I spent a while asking myself why I felt that way ...In the name of good literature, maybe? Or perhaps I was just curious. I don't know.
But thank you for offering a different perspective that provides insights into not only this movie but also into the sacrifice of Jesus. I'm not convinced this allegory is as perfect as you say it is, but it definitely gives me some new things to think about.
Keep blogging! :)