My original thoughts were to post a list of my favorite films. I decided against that for a couple of reasons. First is that no one really cares of my opinion and analysis, second is such lists are overdone in the blogosphere.
As I mulled over some of my favorite films, literature, video games, music ect. I thought about why I like them. Without using words like, "Architectonic meta-narrative" or what have you, I find they resonate with my deepest longings.
So what do I mean by that?
In the opening credits of "Laputa: Castle in the Sky" a world is shown with fantastic flying islands which crowd out the skies.
And I watch that, and think, "I want to live there. Whatever happened to that world?"
Two of my favorite video games, Legend of Zelda and Chrono Trigger both reference Laputa heavily and give the most fleeting glimpses these wonderfully pristine worlds that seem untouched by corruption.
In Zelda, particularly Link to the Past, there's Golden Land or Sacred Realm that has the imprints of divinity left on it.
In Chrono Trigger, there is an attempt to create an enlightened world free of earthbound influences.
But both places fall because of corrupt ambition.
These stories reminded me of Tolkien's Silmarillion, which is my favorite book. In the creation account of Middle Earth, it begins with Eru, The One, gathering his children the Ainur to sing before him. They sing a grand, beautiful theme. It continues until Melkor sees himself as greater than his creator and begins to weave his own designs into the theme.
Unlike the grand theme, his is vain and clamourous and repetitive. Even though others join Melkor, his song is nowhere near as glorious as the one he is meant to sing. Before Melkor and his rebels are cast out, everyone is given a glance at the grand theme and their role in it. There will be a new song sung in a new world unmarred, that is more beautiful than the first, but not until there has been great conflict.
The same holds true in some of my other favorite books. These are stories that show the brokenness and fallenness of this world, which resonate because we long for the harmony of the world we've been denied.
The chorus in the finale of "Les Miserables" asks, "Beyond the barricade, is there a world you long to see?"
In Moby Dick as the Pequot sinks into the great shroud of the sea that rolls as it did five thousand years ago, our imaginations are cast back to a world before it fell. As Ishmael awaits rescue he is surrounded by "unharming sharks" and seahawks with "sheathed beaks" as though they have come from the world we long for.
I wrote some time ago about how I long for things that don't exist such as espressosaketinis and Riskopoly. These longings still have their roots in reality.
The longings that resonate with these stories and the worlds they give ever brief glimpses into are rooted in the reality we have not yet experienced.
What do I mean by that?
Proverbs 13:12 says, "A longing deferred makes the heart sick, but hope fulfilled is a tree of life."
Longing, as used by the ancient Hebrews, meant what we in our deepest inner core thirst for.
Tim Keller explains it by saying, "Our deepest longings, the things we put our hearts upon to fulfill our deepest longings, we will never fulfill them because we are searching for, in everything we do, is the tree of life."
Commentators says, "the Tree of Life is an image of immortal, eternal life, but also an image of irretrievable loss, some cosmic nostalgia. A longing for something that we remember but never had."
When I listen to music, I'm listening for a song that I've never actually heard. When I look at art, I'm looking for a world I haven't seen. When I'm out in the woods, I search for a path there.
When I photograph the sunset, I hope to catch a glimpse.
I haven't seen it but I know its there.
Lewis explains it that when we look into our own hearts we are searching for something that we are acutely aware that we cannot have in this world. "There's always something we grasp at in that first moment of longing that fades in reality, our lifelong nostalgia, our longing to be reunited from something in the universe which we have been cut off is no mere neurotic fantasy but the truest index of our real situation."
These worlds that I long to explore through these stories give me foretastes of the world we long for that we have not set foot in. There have been moments in my life, that if they were to last forever, I would be content. But they all end in grief.
This longing creates conflict in my story.
I find I am compelled to conflict and story. Trafalgar and the American Civil War were both pivotal moments in the stories of three nations. The same is true in Mixed Martial Arts, when two fighters step into the cage, we are seeing the intersection of their life stories. Even two professional wrestlers with good in-ring ability and workrates can tell a riveting story with their match.
There is a grand battle being fought all around us as we are daily being put to death, and we battle not with forces seen, but with unseen powers and principalities. The beauty is that the victory has been won on our behalves.
The beauty of God's grand story, is that we do not get just walk-on roles. We're more than just extras. We are the stars of the grandest story in creation. God weaves our personal own narratives into the epic cosmic narrative that began with Him speaking creation into being and will end with Him sharing His glory with us.
Jonathan Edwards says "We are stars in the hands of the Christ."
The beauty is that our longings will be fulfilled by the One who created us with longings so that we may seek Him as our fulfillment. The Tree of Life that we lost in the world we were evicted from will be made new. The song will be sung again, more beautiful than it was at the beginning, and it will go on without end, giving us what Tolkien calls, "joy above the walls of the world."
We're told in the book of Daniel, "Those who have insight will shine brightly like the brightness of the expanse of heaven, and those who lead the many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever. "
