Philosophy, Morality, and Captain America, Part II

(For the first part of this gripping tale, see PM&CA, Part I.)

In college, I came to love Borders. It was across the street from Barnes & Noble's, and I quickly came to realize that Borders was the store for me (but that's another post). I would head there after – and often between classes – and get my coffee, sit in the Literature section, and do my studies.

When I moved back to Fort Wayne and joined the "real world", I kept up the habit of visiting and studying at Borders (although the frequency has thinned out significantly). About a year or two ago, I entered our newly remodeled Borders to find that (listen for the angelic, "Aaaaaaawwwwwww!") Borders had decided to take up the oft neglected practice of selling comics. The selection consisted of 67% Marvel, 18% DC, 9% Archie and Gang, and 6% "Other" publishers. The purchaser was obviously trained in the X arts which showed in the vast number of X-Men titles that were present. There was also a large selection of Spiderman and, in the DC realm, various Justice League periodicals.

I instantly resumed my interest in the tales of my childhood. Several things had changed. First, I identified several "pencil artists" that were doing incredible work. Amazing stuff. Also, I realized that the depth of several of the story lines had much more depth than most of the ones I had read during my younger days. Behind the standard "save the world from diabolical aliens, miscreants, and spiritual deviants", were deep, thought-provoking thoughts about power, loss, loneliness, pride, loyalty, death, spirituality, anger, revenge, and life. I was just shy of amazed. (I have since found out that several companies have begun to hire novelists to write the storylines.)

As I began to catch up on the lives of Wolverine, Night Crawler, Spiderman, Marvel Girl, Iron Man, Professor X, and Captain America, I for the first time started to be more interested in the Logan, Kurt, Peter, Jean, Tony, Charles, and Steve behind the spandex and masks. I started to be more interested in why each chose the path they did. What motivated them to fight, resign, protect, fear. In short, I realized that I had something to learn from these people. Although there was much I didn't agree with, I realized that I was intrigued with what I could learn from these fictional action heros. What shaped the worlds they occupied and did it relate to the "real world" where I found myself…

Crash and Relational Truth

Another brief delay in the second (and last?) installment of the Comics post…

I saw the movie "Crash" recently and liked its premise very much. I've heard the movie described as another "race movie" and while that is completely true (the theme of racial prejudice and profiling IS a blatant theme) I found its more "subtle" theme more intriguing. The movie follows a handful of characters through a period of two days and in the end we see how all these characters' lives are woven together to intimately effect each other – even though few are aware of this fact. I've always been attracted to this idea because I am often struck with how dependant we all are on so many people.

(Homework: Tomorrow morning while you're eating your Lucky Charms, think how many people made this simple act possible: truck drivers, grocery store shelvers and checkers, the manufacturer and all its employees, the employees of the equipment the manufacturer uses, the farmer, the sales people who sold the farmer his seed and fertilizers, the ad agencies, the wholesalers, the company that bags and sells the grain, on and on… It's really amazing.)

Anyway, besides the interesting "fact" of how interconnected all the characters were, the main point I was left pondering was how isolated each of them felt. They were all connected and yet very alone with their "own" problems and concerns. That, in turn, reminded me of a podcast I listened to this week.

The podcast was from the Emergent Podcast (look it up in iTunes) and was by a guy named Jake Wobbrock. He was talking about "Relational Truth." His point was that we spend so much time talking about "propositional truths" that we forget that the Gospel is, at its heart, relational. God created us for relationship, and it's the one thing we all desire. On our deathbeds we care about each other. Weddings and funerals strike deep and true chords within us. All our songs and movies and books deal in relationship. We talk about how we're gaining, loosing, deepening, neglecting our relationships. We were created out of community – there are three in the Godhead after all – and created for community. Created for relationship(s).

He also mentioned how we spend so much time concerning ourselves with do's and don'ts, and forget that relationships are what matter. And are what people are dying for. He made the point that Judaism is about law. Islam is about submission. But Christianity is about relationship. According to Christ, Truth is Love.

Thinking about that and watching the characters in Crash made me wonder what we'd be like if we'd remember how connected we all are. How we really are, in so many ways, one.