Hi All, the blog this week is from John Morley and we will be meeting at The Enigma Tap at 7:30pm if you are wanting to join us.
In the days before the internet there was a bookcase. In the days before streaming there was a library.
In the days at the end of the moon landings there were stories. In the days of the cold war before the climate crisis was discovered there were stories about spaceships, planets, robots and other worlds. A treasure trove of ideas, images and possibilities for a boy finding escape from the boring day to day world. And there was the Hobbit too read to me by my dad and Lord of the rings on my grandpa’s bookshelf. C.S.Lewis wrote a lesser known trilogy on Mars, Venus and Human extremism on Earth ‘Cosmic trilogy’ (1945) at the time he wrote on Narnia.
These stories were all about adventure for me as a child. I didn’t read much deeper or think how it applied to life. There were also end of the world stories: The day of the triffids (John Whyndham 1951) where people eating plants take over the world, The Death of grass (John Christopher 1956) about a global collapse around crop disease and people fighting to survive. Of course there was 1984 possibly read around 1978. I those days there started for me reading and a love of sci-fi. Sci-fi films followed too: The day the Earth stood still, The incredible voyage, Journey to the centre of the earth, Star Wars of course . Across various media in recent years fantasy and Sci-fi have become increasingly popular with Harry Potter and even more recently the Game of Thrones and Handmaid’s tale where book, film and TV formats have been huge popular phenomena’s.
The stories I’ve engaged with over the years has other tracks too but sci-fi and fantasy was and is still a big part.
Many people are put off these genres by the imagined worlds often extensive detail imagined creatures, technologies and other world’s languages, cultures and histories. The relationships and characters in these genres can seem shallow too at times. But I followed the excitement of action adventures and mysterious worlds and people. The detail appeals to some and a barrier to others is just on the surface though in better writing. They aren’t about that at all at heart. I’d say these stories at their best are really creating a place to help us look at the here and now, our fears and hopes as humans, helps us ask questions about God, the environment, human relationships.
In fact the sci-fi and fantasy genres often carry other genres within themselves too. an early sci-fi by Isaac Asimov I Robot (1950) is a whodunnit about the ten commandments and AI. George Orwell’s1984 (1949) politics. Frank Herbert’s Dune,(1965) a desert world Sandworm story which is about a religious Messiah for a downtrodden people oppressed by a powerful empire. Philip K Dick’s Blade Runner (1968) about the morality of killing/destroying Artificial Intelligence (AI) that might be dangerous and asking could AI have a life as valuable as a human’s? Jumping to film Avatar is about dominant cultures destruction of other cultures and the environment for financial gain so relevant today.
So why write a blog about Sci-fi and Fantasy stories in a spiritual space like this?
Well if I look at my faith and it’s exploration and continuing development, I think it’s helped me think outside the box, I’ve used my imagination and everything can be considered and argued it’s been a place that’s helped my thinking and stretched it. In a conversations which surprised a friend introducing me to faith years ago I remember saying to his surprise, ‘oh Lord of the rings is quite like the bible’ he was shocked thinking I was speaking of the faith as a made up fantasy but it was more the darkness and light, good and evil and a lead character who embodied goodness, fights evil and comes back from the dead, that I was finding in both.
Questions
What are your favourite story genres?
Where have you got your stories from reading/TV/film/ history/ people/ music? and who helped you?
What parts of your life and faith have books/stories informed you in?
What are the stories that speak to you now?
What are your favourite Bible stories? What is it about them that you like?
Who are the main characters that speak to you that you can identify with?
Are stories meaningful to you. Have they affected your life or are they just recreational/escapism?
Does your life have a story and what is it?
Is the Christian faith about a story, history, fact, fiction or something else and if it’s a story what is it?
Footnote.
I’d recommend Brian McLaren’s and Gareth Higgins ebook and Spotify podcast series part of the Learning to See Podcast which is titled ‘The seventh story: us them and the end of violence’. Identifies 6 harmful storylines that exist in our world with a seventh that provides an approach to bringing people together in healing reconciliation. Check these out.
Photo by Paolo Boaretto: https://www.pexels.com/photo/ufo-parking-sign-16794996/
This post is written by one of our many friends. At BeachcomberFX we love to hear what others have to say and are always on the lookout for people who want to share their thoughts or stories with us.
