The Dark Tower...reading as a journey.
When
we read we take a journey. We ramble through pages and pages trying
to accomplish something. Maybe it's simply to say that we finished a
book but I think, at a deeper level, maybe one we're unaware of,
we're searching for something.
We
read the Scriptures so they will show us something, or because we
want to show others how committed we are to God, or maybe...maybe we
want to show ourselves. We read comics because we want to laugh, we
want to find joy. The best comic strip I ever read was Calvin &
Hobbes, which my mother introduced me too. It was full of such sheer
joy that I could just look, even now, at a drawing, without reading
the words and be amazed for long stretches of time.
We
read romance, fantasy, dark poetry or biographies because, and this
may be a stretch, but maybe because we want those things in our
lives. We want that adventure, we want that honey sounding couplet
to bounce off our smooth tongue. The romance with the twists and
turns, how exciting! Because real life, as if often the case,
doesn't measure up to the books, to the movies, or even the
soundtrack.
I
don't know for sure but I suspect it's not so much that we search for
an outlet from the doldrums of life as the reason we read, or watch movies or listen to music. But I tend to see our
escapades in reading, in listening to music, in watching good plays
as practice for the life that is to come. A shadow, if you will.
Yes, yes this has all been covered before, especially by C.S. Lewis
among others but I can't help but think he's right.
In
the book series I am currently in, The Dark Tower by Stephen King,
the main character, Roland, the Gunslinger, is on a quest. But his
quest in getting to his final destination, he finds, is full of
meaning and fulfillment that he did not see coming, it's also filled with hardship but that's another post. I wonder if we
examine ourselves and find our lives the same way, if we look at
it right. After all, if someone else read a book of your life,
wouldn't they see many things along the way as good and exciting or redemption worthy? Even if you didn't? Yes, we write our own story,
in a general sense, but get a second set of eyes on it, get a fresh
set of ears and you may
see something you have been searching for and found, and you didn't
even know it.
No comments:
Post a Comment