Divine Plagiarism

If you haven’t seen the series Firefly, watch it. It’s awesome. Imagine the Millennium Falcon in the Old West. The movie Serenity picks up the story where the series leaves off.

If you’ve seen the movie Serenity, then you remember the scene where River saves the entire crew, single-handedly fighting off an army of Reavers. This half-schizophrenic and completely misunderstood girl who has been a strain on the crew’s social networks and a threat to their continued existence, this girl who has caused tremendous frustration in those around her just by being who she is, in that one moment is absolutely irreplaceable. She finds in that moment the one place in the universe where she and only she can fill the role set before her. The moment she can say, ‘This is what I was made for.’

Something deep within us yearns for that moment. We find that yearning in our favorite chapters in books, in our favorite scenes, in the stories that strike deep chords in our hearts. We identify with the with all the Solos and Skywalkers of myth because part of them lives within us. Or perhaps, those parts of us live within them; they exist to express something deep inside of their viewers. So a storyteller is one who speaks of echoes, they give us a mirror that reminds us of the nobler parts of ourselves that we have forgotten in the name of practicality. So if there is an element of myth that moves us, it does so because it is already present somewhere deep in our hearts.

Frodo is the only one who can take the One Ring to Mount Doom. The fate of all in Middle-Earth hinges upon this mild-mannered Hobbit, whose gifts would have gone largely unappreciated otherwise. Luke is the only one who can stop the Empire So with Wedge Antilles on his wing, he finds his ‘one place’ in the Death Star trench run. (Begin Irrelevant Digression. Though, apparently, X-Wing Starfighter Pilot training takes approximately thirty minutes, provided you already have your land speeder rating. After all, flying couldn‘t be that hard… with a Cessna 172 checkout, Doug Masters managed to fly across the world and kill like five hundred MiGs in a magical F-16 which apparently had the ‘invincibility’ and the ‘unlimited fuel and ammo’ cheat codes enabled. I think it has something to do with playing Twisted Sister really loud instead of listening to the radios. Hey, it’s a cool movie when you‘re five and you don’t know any better. Anyways…) Beowulf is the only one who can slay Grendel. (That is, if he can manage to say anything in words that are actually understandable and don’t sound like ‘ansgeltenshmacht.’ I don’t read Old English. So sue me. Sorry… I‘ll stay on topic. I promise. Sort of.)

As the heroes of myth find their quest, they find themselves. They find their ’one place.’ This is no less true for the characters of the One True Myth. Queen Esther finds herself wedded to the most powerful man in the world ’for such a time as this.’ His throne room is her ‘one place.’ Samson, despite his failings, finds his chance for redemption between two pillars of the temple of his enemies. What is true for the minor characters is certainly true for the Hero. Jesus Christ is both Author and Character. He steps into a role of His own creation. The world does not script His story, yet His story scripts the world. His ’one place’ was on the hill of Calvary, and He spent each day in anticipation of that fact. He is the first of heroes. Heroes want to save the world. He actually did.

We are made in His image. So we want to be heroes. We want to save the world. We want to find our ‘one place.’ Our hearts tell us that there must be a story under these skies for us. There must be a role, somewhere in this world, that we and only we can play. Whether we become somewhat important to many or tremendously important to a few, there is a place in this world made specifically for us. Somewhere, there is a story that is waiting for a hero. Our yearning pushes us toward that moment of passionate belonging, where we become a part of that story as it becomes a part of us. This is a good desire. Like any other desire, though, it has been corrupted in the fall.

It is the slow blade that penetrates the shield. (Yes, it’s from Dune. Not the cracked-out rock opera movie. The book.) Our enemy subtly turns this desire into pride. The thought goes something like: If there is one place for me, one story where I am irreplaceable, then it is my obligation to fill that role. It is not wrong on the surface, for to whom much is given, much is expected. But it was the Pharisees that piled obligations upon people’s backs and would not lift a finger to help. We have been given destinies as a joy and a privilege. Using the weapon of obligation, our enemy turns the joy of destiny into a burden. So we toil toward our grim-faced martyrdoms. But we forget so easily. It was Socrates, not Stephen, whose face was stern and determined as he drank his bowl of hemlock. Stephen‘s his countenance burned with joy and eager anticipation as he looked upon the face of His Savior.

Consider the One True Hero. Paul tells us that Joy and Love held Christ to the cross. Jesus’ one place was worse than any other place, and yet He embraces His cross. It was no detached sense of duty that drove Him along the Via Dolorosa; cold obligation held him to the cross no more than nails did. And He was the only one who was truly irreplaceable. He was the only one who could ever play His part.

Duty is an approximation of what perfect love would do in a given situation. It teaches us to act rightly when our hearts desire the wrong. Duty trains us to act with wisdom, it safeguards us from many dangers. There are times, surely, when you must say ‘if I loved you, I would do this. Therefore that is exactly what I will do.’ But you cannot say that all the time. Duty is the autopilot of love, it makes sure you keep going in the right direction even when your heart isn‘t where it should be. You can’t fly the whole flight on autopilot. Duty is tremendously valuable, but it cannot be an end in and of itself. And it cannot last forever without love. Love keeps duty malleable, breakable, reachable. Without love, duty crystallizes. It hardens and becomes impenetrable. It becomes pride.

Imagine an actor recruited to play a role for which they are completely unprepared and unequipped. The director makes sure the actor gets the props, the costumes and the training to play the part. Now imagine that the actor begins to believe that the story hinges upon him and his inherent aptitude for the part. He begins to believe that he is doing the director a favor to participate in his movie, even more, he believes that he is entitled to respect and privileges from the director in accordance with his essentialness. What tremendous arrogance! Yet we do this. Jesus was irreplaceable. We are not. None of us have a destiny that is truly and inherently irreplaceable. Obligation is borne of need. Therefore, none of us truly merit the burdens that we place upon ourselves. God has been writing history quite well since long before any of us were born. I’m sure that He is more than capable of doing so without our help. Obligation is borne of another’s need. He doesn’t need us.

Yet He loves us. So perhaps we are irreplaceable after all. Not because we have a certain skill-set, but because we are loved by Him. We are irreplaceable in a far more important way than just being another widget in the machine of destiny. God loves each of us enough to die for us. He demonstrated that in no uncertain terms. We are each unique and amazing to Him. So in this, we are all irreplaceable. And in this, we move from obligation back to joy. He allows us to participate in His will. He gives each of us a role sculpted uniquely to our gifts and personality. He prepares us for that role, and makes sure it finds us in His time. So destiny is an honor and a privilege, rooted in His love for us.

Perhaps destiny is like the gift of a parent to a child. The parent does not have any particular need to give a child a gift, nor do they need anything that might result from the child playing with the gift. But they give the child a gift, one specially chosen to match the desires and gifts of the child, to see the joy on the child’s face. But remember the parable of the bridegroom. Just because a gift is made for you does not mean that it cannot be given to another.

Perhaps it is like a parent inviting their child to participate in an important task. A mechanic, fixing his car, has little need to have his son pass him tools. In fact, the job might go quicker if his son didn’t take part at all, handing him the wrong kind of wrenches and the like. But he enjoys the joy his son gets from taking part in the work. Just as important, he enjoys seeing his son become more like him. So we are the jars of clay that the Scriptures talk about.

So we are Ender Wiggins, the child going off to war. We are protected by our innocence, and strengthened by our joy. This was the plan all along… we were to have the innocence and the joy of the reclaimer. We were to be the ones who fight from love and love the fight. The girl playing light sabers with sticks does not fight from duty, but from love. She believes herself the heroine, the one who will save us all.

As Dashboard Confessional reminds us, Ender will save us all. Why? Because Orson Scott Card is writing the book. And because Mr. Card knows the ending he wants. So even if Ender somehow failed or refused his role, the author will still make the ending work. If a finite human storyteller is able to craft a story to accommodate his characters, how much more story crafting skill must the One True Author have? And in this, once again, is our true irreplacability. Ender is not irreplaceable in his role because the author is depending on him. He is irreplaceable because he is made by the author to enjoy that role. No one else could love doing what Ender ends up doing in quite the same way that Ender does.

We are made by the One True Author with a role in mind. He makes a story for each of us where we are irreplaceable. It is a beyond me whether those roles are set in stone or whether they are fluid. I do know this, though, we will never enter into the joy of those roles as long as we do them out of a sense of obligation. When we gain the humility to realize He does not need us, we will find how amazing it is that He still loves us. Lay your duties down at His feet. Pick them up again as labors of love. After all, we are reclaimers. Only when we walk in love can we reclaim this world for love. And that was our destiny all along.