That "Deep" Post I Promised

Heroes

People like stories about heroes. They want exciting characters full of courage, stories full of love, betrayal and adventure. Movies that make the most money in the box office--they are stories about heroic people. Sometimes the characters make mistakes, but in the end, they come out on top. They struggle through to the end, they fight oppression, hate, ignorance, discrimintaion--they fight evil. Stories might have to be told in trilogies, sometimes even longer. All may seem lost in the beginning. Perhaps the intended hero fails and turns away from the good the world thought he would accomplish. No matter, worries aside, he will be superseded by a stronger, better hero. Everything will turn out right.

These are the stories that people read. The bedtime tales they listen to. The movies they see. These are the stories they love, the ones that touch their souls in a way they do not completely comprehend. Stories that are larger than life. Places where impossible things happen. Endings where there is always a hero. Good always wins.

What is it that makes us love these stories so much? Why do people love stories about amazing and unreal people? I don't really know. I wish I could give you an answer, but I can not even find one to completely satisfy myself.

The only thing I can find that perhaps makes sense is basically spiritual. People have this gaping hole in them, one that yearns for God. I once read that every story is really a great love story. There is the beloved, or what is being fought for. There is the adversary, and the hero. Like the greatest love story of all time--ours and God's. We are the beloved, Satan is the adversary, God is the hero, manifested through Christ on the cross. I think that perhaps, we love stories about heroes because deep inside, our soul cries out that it must be true. That here is a place where impossible things happen. An ending where good always wins. A hero full of love and courage, and a story full of betrayal and adventure. The perfect story, with the perfect hero. But we are so blind, that we must find it, not in Christian spirituality, but rather in movies and books. So blind that we can not see the true living story of the ultimate hero right in front of our eyes.

This is of course, all speculation. I hardly know what the human soul thinks, or how the brain functions. But if these are things that we value, stories that we love to hear over and over--there must be something instilled deep within us that yearns for them. Or it--the one true storie about the hero.

Sarjak,
sara