Marvel vs. DC vs. Zondervan

I feel the need to follow up on my last post, partially because I feel like I left a lot of loose ends with what I said, and partially because I happen to think about the concept of identity pretty frequently as of late. Thus, I apologize in advance if I, as usual, seemingly meander a bit on and off topic.

Superman is bull-crap. Not just the comic books or the film series, but the entire concept itself. Bull-crap. The guy can chunk a runaway train toting radioactive isotopes into outer space, fly against the orbit of the earth so fast that he transcends the space/time barrier and reverses human history, and melt a titanium wall with his flatulence, but slap on a pair of plastic eyeglasses on him and you’ve got this incredibly muscular doofus with no social skills. Superman is like that kid that everybody knew of growing up who spoiled whatever make-believe game he was involved in by refusing to adhere to the phantom rules.

Me: “Bang! I shot you with my stick!”

Super-kid: “No you didn’t, I’m wearing a bullet-proof vest!”

Me: “Um, ok, but my stick, uhh…it’s a laser-stick. With guns on it. That are also lasers.”

Super-kid: “Well my vest also has a force-field built into it. And, it can cook macaroni and cheese. Waaaay better than that stupid macaroni that your mom makes with the ham in it.”

Me: “The ham is awesome, and my mom says it’s a good source of protein. Besides, I poisoned the macaroni and cheese, so now you’re dead. For real.”

Super-kid: “I know you poisoned the macaroni and cheese, but now I’m a ghost, so you can’t kill me and I have ghost powers. I just turned you into a butt. A girl butt. This game sucks anyway. I’m gonna go home and play Toejam and Earl.”

Me: “Yeah, well, my name’s in the bible! Both my first and my middle. Loser!”

The deal at stake is that, as a person, Superman adds up to this gigantic question mark. I can’t remember any point in the Superman continuum that you ever get the opportunity to actually see him reveal anything about who he really is on the inside. Alter-egos (and you can make the argument that Clark Kent is his false identity and Superman is the real guy if you want, I don’t care) and monologue thought bubbles aside, the only side we ever see of Supes is this blue and red beast of a man with a serious savior complex. Sure, he fights off armies of jellyfish robots and came back from the dead, but what does he do or think when he’s not pummeling something? Is he closed-off emotionally due to being insecure about his abilities, or because of familial issues? What does he, being nearly indestructible, think about life and death? What does he freaking eat?

I’m not going to lie: I read comic books compulsively up until I graduated high school, long beyond the point that such a habit is no longer considered socially acceptable. In fact, I wonder if one of the reasons comic book readers like superheroes so much is because they are forced to hide a portion of their identity (read that as, the fact that they are huge nerds) from the world in order to be accepted by society. This sort of behavior is actually a common denominator in the life of nearly everybody I know in some shape or form, but I’m getting ahead of myself…

When I was a kid, my allowance came in weekly increments of change that never really belonged to me; my pockets were more or less a form of pre-debt consolidation for the local baseball card and comic book stores. Every Saturday after baseball practice (or, as my Dad fondly referred to it, “Watch Jordan play tic-tac-toe in the dirt behind second base along with the shortstop”) or soccer practice (also lovingly referred to as “Watch Jordan run back and forth awkwardly because he doesn’t understand what the ‘wing’ actually does”), I’d visit the local comic shop down the street from my grandmother’s apartment complex to find the best means of spending what would have been my seed money for college. I’d spend hours digging through bins with my little brother, looking for back issues of X-Force and Shadow of the Bat, waiting for my father to get exasperated and go sit in the car so I could sift through something really bloody and masochistic like Spawn or Barbie. Keep in mind, Spawn was still cool at this point because they hadn’t ruined the character by making a movie with John Leguizamo in it yet.

Now, I’m aware that amongst other nerd obsessions that have recently become socially acceptable cultural phenomena – cardigan sweaters, Star Wars, and Dance Dance Revolution come to mind – comics have received heavy vindication (I hope) due to Hollywood marketability and sheer storytelling abilities. Batman, the X-Men, and the Fantastic Four receive credit where credit is due, but apart from the camp humor of watching guys with stretchy arms or adamantium claws, there are many truly fascinating graphic stories out there. Road to Perdition was this viscerally emotional tale about a mobster and his son that was adapted into one of the best movies Tom Hanks has ever done, and Neil Gaiman’s Sandman provoked more thought than any other piece of fiction I’ve ever read. Watchmen, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Maus, The Killing Joke. There’s a lot of good nerd reads out there. Pick a weekend, buy a couple at Barnes and Noble, and make sure to hide them from your roommate/spouse, for the sake of keeping up appearances.

Anyway, I’m just going to go ahead and admit that I’m a sell-out: my favorite superhero, by far, is Spiderman. And this, kids, is where I actually start to tie everything together. See, just like Tobey Maguire, and Stan Lee, and MTV, and your eight-year-old cousin will tell you, no matter how he’s packaged, Spiderman is a head case. He’s one of us. Peter Parker isn’t a case of ‘roid rage with a conscience, he doesn’t have a cool gun, and to be honest, his powers aren’t necessarily even all that cool. Peter is already suffering under the weight of insecurities regarding the nature of his existence, his masculinity, the death of his parents and subsequent “adoption” by his aunt and uncle, and his inability to find acceptance within the social realm he finds himself a part of when we first meet him. Forget the radioactive spider and the “with great power comes great responsibility” speech: the story is interesting because it’s ours. Let me explain.

I love Spiderman because I can forget that Peter Parker is Spiderman. Mask on or off, Peter is dealing with the complexities of becoming an adult, a husband, a father, a person in a world that is analyzing his every move. He faces social games, marriage, depression, guilt, infidelity, addiction, and mortality with the same fear and subsequent shame that many of us do; the only difference is that he fights supervillians and climbs the Brooklyn Bridge in what could feasibly be called his spare time. This is a guy who is at much at war with himself as he is with Dr. Octopus or Electro. Peter Parker has some serious personal demons, and his battles in costume make for an interesting parallel to the war that takes place within the confines of his soul. He wants so badly to reveal to the entire world just exactly who he is (and I’m aware that in the current storylines, he recently did – yes, I’m still a nerd), but the fear of the repercussions of judgment and further attack keeps him in stasis. And so he fights and fails as a man, fights and fails as a husband, fights and fails as a hero, and dies a little bit more inside with each issue.

Spiderman is fascinating because as much, if not more, of the story takes place in the relational realm, as opposed to the usual trend of “fight, fight some more, reveal even worse bad guy behind the plot, to be continued…” The whole mythology behind Spiderman begs the question: Can a man bear the strain of trying to maintain two identities at once? The conclusion is a compelling no, as is evidenced by the number of times that the character has been forced to temporarily walk away from one persona or another. The tension of trying to lead to lives at once destroys his marriage and his friendships (I’ve never had a friend get so mad at me that he dressed up as a goblin and chased me around on a hang glider), and he repeatedly reaches the threshold of tolerance, entertaining thoughts of abandonment or suicide.

I don’t think I really have to spell out the application point here. And please don’t take this as some indicator that I have some heavy sin issue in my life that I’m trying to allude to without confessing aloud; I wouldn’t abuse such a public forum to do so. I believe that we all, Christian and non-Christian alike, face this impossible and unnecessary battle of trying to pretend we don’t differentiate between the face that we wear on the inside and the perceived face that we wear for the outside world. The truth is that most of us are hurting, very deeply and very visibly, but we will fake whatever we have to in order to keep that from escaping. We wear one face at work, at church, at community group, at the dinner table, this carefully constructed facade that invokes, hopefully, a more than suitable abstract of someone who “has it all together.” We see the truth when we look in the mirror, when we pray, when we cry.

The character of Christ is assumed by any and all who are called to salvation by His glorious name, and yet…the deeply rooted fears in our hearts eat away at us, personal demons trying to convince you of anything other than an identity change at the foot of the cross. The bread and wine slowly, inattentively, are relegated to the back of our minds, muffled by the indictments of a past that is refuses to be forgotten:

“You’re too emotionally needy. Seriously, the only reason that you don’t feel like you can handle all these “trials and tribulations” is because you’re weak and pathetic. Jesus is already tired of you coming to Him with all of your shame and your baggage. No wonder your father left.”

“You gave up your virginity to him and you didn’t even love him; now he’s gone. Do you honestly think that God forgets that kind of thing? There are so many out there like you, and you seriously thought you were special. Not even close. Idiot. You couldn’t trust him; what makes you honestly believe that God will be any different?”

“Do you really think that you’re going to make a career out of this? You’re too stupid to make this decision, and you know that based on past failures. Let’s face it: you aren’t cut out to do the things you think you love to do. Maybe you don’t even love to do them, you’d just like to think you do. Are you confused yet? Good…”

The suit of fig leaves may have originated in the Garden of Eden, but Adam’s handicraft has yet to fall out of style. The beauty of that illustration is the sheer frailty of the veneer that Adam and Eve, that consequently we, apply to themselves, ourselves. Adam and Eve become aware of their nakedness, of their vulnerability before God and one another, and their first inclination is to cover it all up But leaves tear easily, and they still take the rough shape of whatever it is that they’re intended to cover. The shock and subsequent fear of being seen for what they really are – frail and weak – pushes them into full-on retreat mode, and the ramifications of this are still being played out in our churches and homes today. We prod and we poke at each other, and because we all want to appear perfect, that’s what we weigh ourselves against. The result is generation upon generation that come up short, scared, and defensive.

What I really intended to communicate in my previous post was this: I am constantly learning the same lessons from God over and over again, not because I’m stupid and not because I don’t understand the application of them, but because I don’t like what is being revealed in myself. I don’t like it when Scripture and circumstances collide in this thing we call life, and I’m suddenly revealed for who I really am in light of the message of the gospel. So I add more leaves to the exterior, do a little sewing, and return to my contented statement of concealment, from God, from family, from friends, from pastors, and resolutely, myself. I don’t want to face the truth about myself, I don’t think any of us do. I’m offended by the notion that I can’t save myself, and in a direct contradiction of my dependency upon the salvation of grace by faith alone, I’ll do anything and everything to prove that I can. And fight and fail, fight and fail, and end up where I was last week all over again. Somebody made a joke last weekend about the Christian life often feeling like that Bill Murray movie Groundhog Day; I’m not laughing.

I wish I had a repentant heart more often, a truly repentant heart. I wish I wasn’t so hard and arrogant that I didn’t have to be repeatedly humbled by my mistakes and big fat mouth. I wish I wasn’t so opinionated on things that I don’t really have an opinion on. I wish that I could speak with passion about the things that I care about, and mean hose things when I say them. I wish I loved myself as much as Jesus Christ does. I wish I didn’t worry so much, more than I think I do, or that I had more confidence in God to “provide me this day with this day’s bread.” I wish that I trusted myself more often.

The beauty of my situation is that wishes simply reveal the fears of an insecure heart. If a dead heart can be revived, a fearful one can certainly be comforted, and I’ve assuredly felt that in the last fortnight. Yup, I just used fortnight in a sentence, and its 2007. I have security in Christ, but I may very well have put Him inside a box, oh anonymous commenter. I’m currently experiencing the joy of “isolated authenticity of faith,” i.e. seeing the promises of God revealed outside of the context of a bible study or banging on a drum in the woods with a bunch of dudes in our underwear. Whoa, weird. Anyway, I thank you for your prayers for me, as I have felt the immense joy that I have come to associate with intercession for the pains of my heart. It’s not that, as the popular aphorism goes, “a ship’s course has been righted”; it’s that a portion of its weight has been cast off, freeing it to pursue the intended course from which it never truly deviated.

This morning was spent searching for a working ATM and enduring the stress of the immigration office, and the evening in a Nepali emergency room with one of the boys from the hostel, Prakesh, who broke his arm during an impromptu football match. The doctor asked me to help set Prakesh’s arm since I had proven my worth by crafting a makeshift sling out of a sweater back at the hostel, while a nurse requested that I simultaneously restrain a drunk man in the next bed from removing his IV because he’d suffered severe internal injuries after falling out of a tree. I’m not even going to begin to indulge you with a description of what that experience was like, not because you can’t handle it or because I’m running long, but because it didn’t define my day. What did was this passage by Adam Clarke I ran across in the waiting room after washing plaster and blood off my hands, and thus, I leave you with it. God is:

“…the eternal, independent, and self-existent Being; the Being whose purposes and actions spring from himself, without foreign motive of influence; he who is absolute in dominion; the most pure, the most simple, the most spiritual of all essences; infinitely perfect; and eternally self-sufficient, needing nothing that he has made; illimitable in his immensity, inconceivable in his mode of existence, and indescribable in his essence; known fully only by himself, because an infinite mind can only be fully comprehended by itself. In a word, a Being who, from his infinite wisdom, cannot err or be deceived, and from his infinite goodness, can do nothing but what is eternally just, and right, and kind.” (Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature, 1894)

That there…that there’s my identity. My finite little brain is going to sleep a little more infinitely at peace tonight.