Why Literature?

I'm at the University of York Library now, sitting across from Ali, a man who emigrated from Turkey to the UK in the 80's, and after a couple decades in London, is now at York earning his MA in Social Work. Ali talks with a wide smile, laughs often, and after a few minutes, we connected about our common love of the Russian novelists.

"Dostoevsky!" Ali shouts in a whisper, above the construction noise from three floors below us. We sit at opposing desks by a window that opens onto a panoramic view of the upper portion of campus.

"What was your favorite novel of his?" I ask.

"Crime and Punishment, definitely Crime and Punishment. I read it three times--and every time Raskolnikov's inner life is more and more rich, more complex than the time before!"

I remember reading the book a decade ago when I was in England for a year abroad. My professor gave me one week to read the thing, and--as a slow reader--I spent about nine hours a day reading. I was enthralled by Raskolnikov's mental premise that God does not exist, and that truth and love, therefore, are imagined notions whereby no absolute actually justifies or negates any of our actions. Instead, Raskolnikov posits, how we think about things is what makes them so.

So Raskolnikov commits an act of murder against someone towards whom he feels no hatred. If his premise is substantiated, then he will be able to continue on with his own life and feel no deep remorse, no inner turmoil.

He cannot.

Raskolnikov's every move becomes more and more laborious, his very heart is ripped inside of him, and it is only the love of Sonia--a woman who sees the very depths of his violent action and loves him nonetheless--that "saves" him from being forever lost to his own notion of nothingness.

In short, Sonia, thorugh action, shows Raskolnikov both the power of love and the power of grace--and that our words, our actions, our lives matter. Nothing is for nothing. God exists, and Dostoevsky writes his soul out to prove love in a way that no research, how-to, scientific, or analytical book can.

In short, literature proves love.

Ali asks me what I'm working on in the library, and I tell him about the novel in progress, Fortress, about a Palestinian boy and a Jewish girl--both of whom have emigrated to America due to violent attacks on each of their families near Gaza. They become friends through an unlikely encounter at the high school, and through a  run-down movie theater in their town, a Grandma with Alzheimer's and her precise recollections of 12th century York, England, and a court case, their friendship creates something neither of them could have expected.

Ali nods, explains that he is from Turkey, and says that we need literature that aren't often popularized in the mainstream.

When I ask him what purpose literature serves, he looks away for a few moments, then looks back at me with a broad smiles and he laughs. "Novels show us voices and stories we might never have known."

As Ali continues working on his essay for his Social Work class, and I work on the novel, every once in a while we look up and talk over the small end-boards on our desks. I ask him what the essay is about, and he says it explores mental health care in the U.K. He asks me why I type so fast with my pointer fingers. I can only laugh for a reply.

Working across from Ali, the world feels small. In a good way. Not only is literature a bridge for compassion and understanding of other characters and situations, it is also a way to enter into the life of another--however brief that entrance might be.

And when a man from Turkey and a man from America can meet in a library in Britain and talk about their love for Russian literature, it the truth of Dostoevsky's claim feels pretty dang solid: literature proves love. And maybe that's why we get lost in a truly great novel: because as we read, something about us is found.

Wisdom from Hemojababala

Today, Tyler and I made a return journey to our old, ancient friend, Hemojababala. It had been months since we last chatted with the stone man of Rowntree Park who speaks wisdom as though it were water rushing quickly from a very, very long and bendy straw.

Today, Hemojababala graced my young son and I with these remarkable gems--which we held in our hearts and hands, and which were like a fire that did not burn us, but warmed us to the point just-before-burning:

• Falling down is sometimes the best thing that can happen to you. It forces you to look up at the broad, blue (sometimes) sky above you. Alternately--if it happens to be raining--falling down enables you to remember that water is an important part of life.
• Mud is awesome. It's not dirt. Nor it is water. It uses both but becomes something new. This, Luke and Tyler (and all of humanity) is paramount because you, too, must be like mud. Mud sticks to stuff. It is thick. If you try and tell mud, Give up, why don't you! mud will only slurp back at you, No way, dude. I'm not going anywhere.
• Consider God's sense of humor: giraffes; kangaroos; the essential fact that all humans fart; the sound of flatulence itself--which is a daily reminder not to take oneself too seriously, even though many attempt to live in a way that denies the fact of their own flatulence.
• I wasn't always stone. Before I was stone, I do not know what I was. This is a good thing. It reminds me that even I--the Great and Ancient Hemojababala--do not know everything. (I know more than most anybody else who visits me, but I do not know everything.) You, too, must remember that you do not know everything. And you definnitely do not know nearly as much as me.
• Sometimes, when you feel as though everything is simply too hard: eat a lollipop. Consider the lollipop--it neither whines nor complains. Eat the lollipop, yes, but also BE the lollipop.
• Take Andre Gide's words to heart: "In order to discover new lands, one must lose sight of the shore for a very long time." (I gave him that line, and I hold no grudges (even though he didn't properly credit me.))
• Michelangelo once said: "I saw the angel in the marble and I carved him out until I set him free." (I also provided that line of wisdom when Old Mike visited me centuries ago; he was agitated, as I remember it, and I simply reminded him that the angel is already (and always) there: one must only carve, and carve, and carve it out until one sets it free: the creation is already accomplished, the carving remains.)

Thank you, Hemojababala, for the above gems of prodigious wisdom which you've dispelled to Tyler and I today. Whenever we drink from straws, we will remember your words, ponder them deeply, and then squelch through the mud.

What Did I Do, Daddy?

Tonight, during goodnight kisses and hugs, I said to Tyler, "I'm so proud of you son, and I love you so much." Jennifer and I both tell him this every night--we believe that his knowing these two things is essential. That no matter what has happened during the day, we still love him; we're still proud of who he is.

But tonight, the look in Tyler's eyes told me, essentially, this: frontal lobes, dude. Frontal lobes are kicking in. It's true. All the toddler books say that around the third birthday, the frontal lobes of a child's brain really start coming in strong. (The frontal lobes, by the way, are the area of the brain that involve reasoning and step-thinking and action-result analysis, in other words, the parent's Hallelujah! lobes of a child's brain.)

So tonight, on Christmas Eve, as I said the words to Tyler, he looked back at me and I could see his frontal lobes doing somersaults. Olympic rings. Synchronized swimming. And Tyler said to me, "What did I do, Daddy?"

"You mean, what am I so proud of you for?"

"Mm-hmm."  Tyler's wide eyes really wanted to know. The lobes had spoken.

I returned Tyler's gaze and said, "Because you are you. I am proud of you and I love you no matter what, because you are Tyler and you are my son."

He smiled, asked for another kiss, and that was that.

Walking out of his bedroom, it struck me as highly appropriate on the night before we celebrate Christ's birth--the fact that Tyler's frontal lobes decided to really kick up just now. Because the Creator of the universe loves me and you and all of us in exactly this way--unconditionally and because we're His kids.

Not because of how much money we have or don't have; not because of the fact that we haven't cursed at all in the last seven years and three months (or because we have cursed every day of the last seven years and three months); not because of our successes or our failures.

There is no other love like this--so unconditional that it encompasses all we have ever done or thought and all we ever will do or think and it fully holds us just the same. Few modern books have been able to really touch the heart of the gospel message in this regard as poignantly and boldly as Francis Chan's Crazy Love or Shane Caliborne's The Irresistable Revolution. They reveal the wonderful absurdity of this kind of love and return a question to us: what will we do with it? How will we receive and use this love to help heal, grow, and restore the earth? How will we use this unconditional love of God to care for the broken, the poor, the hungry?

God's love is crazy because it is freely given with no measures and no standards. A love like that can't be contained--it can't be measured by hours on a Sunday, or group meetings on a Wednesday. Instead, a love like that throws logic to the wind, bids propriety adieu, and says to the status quo, No. Instead, a love that responds to this kind of crazy love does one thing: it keeps going.

This Christmas, I want to look at my Creator and ask the same question Tyler asked me--my frontal lobes kicking in, all my reason, all my logic, all my measure-for-measure standards--What did I do, Daddy? Why are you so proud of me? Why do you love me?

I want to ask so I can hear the words in reply--those glorious, unearned words: I love. I love. I love. You.