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This will be a rambling post, in which I’ll be discussing my reading yesterday of Stephen King’s The Stand: The Complete and Uncut Edition, last night’s Desperate Housewives, and Tim Keller’s The Prodigal God, which my church’s Bible study group is reading.
On page 603 of Stephen King’s The Stand: The Complete and Uncut Edition, Trashcan Man is elated because Lloyd (one of the evil Randall Flagg’s lieutenants) has offered to shake his hand. We read here: “Trashcan Man shook the offered hand and had to struggle to keep from weeping with gratitude. So far as he could remember, this was the first time in his life someone had offered to shake his hand. He was here. He had been accepted. At long last he was on the inside of something. He would have walked through twice as much desert as he had for this moment, would have burned the other arm and both legs as well.”
The theme of acceptance shows up elsewhere in this book. Tom Cullen is a developmentally-delayed man, but he is on the side of the righteous Mother Abagail. On page 519, we read: “For Tom, Nick reflected, these last two weeks had probably been the happiest of his life. He was with people who accepted and wanted him. Why shouldn’t they? He might be feeble, but he was still a comparative rarity in this new world, a living human being.” I must admit that my heart is not warmed by the idea that Tom was accepted just because he was one of the few people left in the world. But, like the passage about Trashcan Man on page 603, this passage conveys quite well the desire many have to be accepted.
I somewhat feel bad for Trashcan Man. He was a person who had a hard life, and he desires some degree of comfort from God, but he does not believe that he will receive it, for he thinks that God has ditched him for teaming up with Flagg, plus he does not feel that God has done much for him throughout his rough existence. It would be nice if he could be reassured of God’s love for him, but things don’t exactly work that way for most people in The Stand, as far as I can tell. The rule is that people are either good or they are bad, either chosen by God or chosen by Flagg. There are some indications of nuance to this general picture, however. Larry Underwood has character flaws (he’s a taker), but he is well-intentioned, and he is growing, so it’s not a surprise that he’s on Mother Abagail’s side. Nadine Cross is a compassionate schoolteacher, so it’s odd that she has been selected by Flagg. Harold Lauder is probably one of the few characters of the book who is offered a choice between good and evil: he can either leave behind his resentments about his past life and his desire for Fran and embrace a new life for himself in which he contributes to society, or he can cultivate that resentment and serve Flagg as a means to take out his revenge.
But, overall, the Trashcan Man appears to be hopelessly lost. He has a dream about Mother Abagail when he is in Nebraska (her home state), and he is one of her troublesome weasels. He receives no comfort that God loves him from Mother Abagail, a prophetess. Mother Abagail does have a vague sense of pity for Trashcan Man (page 586), but that is like the pity that some evangelical Christians have for the “sinners” of society: it doesn’t exactly lead her to reach out and help someone who is lost.
I turn now to last night’s Desperate Housewives. One of the plot-lines that stood out to me was Lynette’s reunion with her sister, Lydia, who is engaged to some wannabe-mystic who goes by the name of Rashi. Lydia was often the basket-case of the family, whereas Lynette was the one who had her act together and was going somewhere. Now that Lynette has separated from her husband, Tom, Lydia is paying Lynette a visit in order to rub in Lynette’s face that she (Lydia) is happily in a relationship, whereas Lynette is not. When Rashi sees Lynette and Lydia fighting, however, he is disappointed in the “real” Lydia. He does not want Lydia to bring her negative energy to his long meditation session. A sorry Lynette interrupts Rashi’s session in order to convince him to take Lydia back, telling him that Lydia is growing and that Lydia only acted as she did because Lynette was pushing her buttons. But Rashi is reluctant because Lydia reminds him of his own stressful family. Lynette finally convinces Rashi, however, and Rashi takes Lydia back and encourages Lydia in her growth as a person. When Lynette and Lydia talk that night, Lynette regrets that she has often tried to force her will on people, which she thinks is what drove Tom away. Lydia responds that Rashi told her the the first step to solving a problem is to admit that you have it.
I liked this plot-line because, like many plot-lines of Desperate Housewives, it was about growth and redemption, something that I haven’t seen much in The Stand (as much as I enjoy the book). Lydia learned genuine rather than feigned compassion for Lynette. Rashi learned to cut some people some slack, even though they may fall short of the spiritual path he’s pursuing. And Lynette identified her character flaws in relationships. It is rather phony that all of this growth took place in a matter of minutes, but it’s still edifying to watch.
I turn now to my reading last night of Tim Keller’s The Prodigal God. Tim Keller talks about the elder brother in Jesus’ Parable of the Prodigal Son. The elder brother served his father for what he could get and was not fully assured of his father’s love for him. But the father did love him, for he did not leave the elder brother in his bitterness, but rather went out to him to assure him of his love for both of his sons. I fear that my Bible study group will take Tim Keller’s insights and try to turn them into rules, for example, that we shouldn’t be like the elder brother and spend a lot of our prayer time asking God for things, but rather we should spend more time adoring God for who he is and what he’s like. Trying to conform to artificial spiritual rules does not work for me, and it often does not last for me. But I can identify a number of elder brother traits in myself: I do not cut others slack (sort of like Rashi in Desperate Housewives), I am angry at God because I feel that he does not bless me as much as I’d like, I hope to gain God’s favor by doing religious activities, etc. I tend to disdain the self-righteousness of those who point out to me these flaws in myself rather than simply letting me be, for I do not see any humility in their pointing out my flaws, I wish that they wouldn’t assume that everything I do is out of a bad motive, and their identification of my flaws only produces resentment and defensiveness on my part, not anything productive. I hope, however, to come to the point where I rejoice that the lost have been found. I’m not talking so much about them saying a prayer and going to heaven instead of hell. I mean people who have made disasters of their lives finding a better way to live, a way that is more conducive to love, joy, and peace.
