To See the Sun

BY DR. AGONSON

I have not heard the calumny in a while, and usually, when I do hear it, it is more of a silent assumption, a sort of snobbishness expressed, not in dialogue, but in coldness. Some hate fairytales, some fantasy, some are shocked you would even mention science fiction at all. In all, fiction of any sort is suspect and needs to know its place. The more “real” a bit of writing is, the better, and if we can do away with the imaginary aspects entirely, that’s for the best. Fiction is allowed to exist only because it cannot be rooted out.

I mostly knew of this attitude in college, where admittedly good people, professors and students, honestly had no tastes for fiction. Some understood it was just a world they had no part in and so couldn’t judge; some, on the other hand, could become very defensive of their anti-fiction sentiment. “I don’t read any fiction,” they’ll say, oozing with pride.

There have been many defenses of fairytales and fantasy and science fiction, but today, watching a sunrise through the black branches of leaf sheading trees and wishing I had driven somewhere to get a better view of the spectacle, a new angle on the controversy occurred to me. Though I have always thought it unnecessary to defend something so natural as storytelling and the sharing of tall tales, I heard in my mind some half remembered quote, a dialogue between C. S. Lewis and Tolkien: “Who are most opposed to escapism?” asks the Middle Earther. “Jailers!” understands the Narnian.

But as I looked out my window, a different perspective hit: Inside and Outside. A man’s nature is to, in some sense, escape nature. He builds houses, puts on a coat, makes a fire in the night. Yet, he longs, still, to feel the utter darkness of a new moon, to strip himself of garments and plunge into a river, and a restlessness often sends me out of doors for long, contemplative walks.

Man is a medium between heaven and earth, and is himself divided, male and female, longing to be rejoined. Man is meant to build houses that he might leave them, and he leaves his home that he might enter it. This cycle, this turning wheel; it is a mistake to take either end as the point or purpose, or to mistake the turnings for an end in and of itself. All things are for God, and Christ is the Α and the Ω. God is everywhere, in the wilderness and the temple, and sometimes we must shock ourselves by finding him where we do not expect him. Sometimes we must leave the warmth and comfort of our nests and fox holes to find him on a stormy sea, and sometimes we must leave the hills and enter a cave (caves are the homes of us cavemen who still believe in giants) to find him swaddled and in a manger.

In Him are myth and reality finally and perfectly joined. No one has seen the Father, but those who see the Son see the Father. The myths promised a satisfaction that was not real, and reality gave facts that had no sustenance. There was no life between the two.

But like a dove, the Spirit of Truth descended, rejoining Heaven with Earth, and the ideal, which lacked that ideal aspect of reality, and the reality, wanting distinction within itself before one thing could really exist apart from another, were finally at peace.

God rose from the waters, God spoke from Heaven, and God rested on the Son of Man.

Us little gods must also create. We must die in the ever flowing river of random, meaningless factoids and rise again. Fiction and reality are not divided in God, though we must move between them as the Spirit moves us hither and thither.

We are moved into fiction, at times; there we may find God. Sometimes, into thick philosophies or science or even just a walk beside the river, and here again, God is in his handiwork. Let the two sides be married; let them kiss and bear fruit. Here again, as they move into each other, giving unto each other—God is love, says the apostle—recreation, the soul is reborn.

Of the genres I love, science fiction, fantasy, horror, I feel the whole enterprise is wasted if it is not, somehow, real, if the events do not speak of things beyond the mere dream. If I cannot see the sunrise well, I leave the window and drive up some hill.

Fiction or non-fiction is right or wrong as it shows us or doesn’t show us the light. There are dark dictionaries and fetid fantasies which only blind us. We need our fantasies if only to have a frame through which we can see, and we need those odd bits of reality to build the frame, but after, we need to see the sun.