Today was Wednesday, which makes it special. Tuesday is typically when new music becomes available and Friday is when new films are presented in theaters. But Wednesday? That is when new comics stock the shelves of retailers. Collecting series is one of my current hobbies, and I enjoy the ability to patronize the intersection betwixt artwork and writing in the storytelling medium.
Of course, I could just buy picture books. But the plotting tends to be better in these offerings, even though it can run more expensively in the long run. (Pun intended.).
I saw that Kieron Gillen & Jamie McKelvie's Wicked & the Divine trade was available last week. It was beautifully designed: a white cover featuring a single feather quill aflame. Volume 1: Faust Act. Very clean and only $10 for the collection of 5 issues. I had already bought the individual issues from the same shop, and had pre-ordered this collection online.
However, I had not heard back from when it was being shipped. So I bought the book at the store today.
This raised many questions in my head. Why did I need the trade when I had bought it twice over already? Why haven't I even read the individual issues? Why wasn't the trade I ordered being shipped yet to me?
The answers are: Because it was there; The issues are equally as beautifully designed and I wanted the additional content featured at the backs of the issues for later reading, but not for the first go through; and Amazon is stubborn and publishers don't want to accommodate the giant online retailers' bullyish demands.
The point is, I like the creative team of Gillen & McKelvie, having followed them from other projects such as Phonogram and the Marvel:Now 15 issue run of Young Avengers. The pair of creators are innovative in their layouts, imaginative in their plotting, and clever in their execution.
But there is a greater issue involved, apt in irony or portent. Somehow, I had a creative reverence for the idea of them scripting this series concerning a pantheon of gods who are fated to rise like shooting stars and burn out brightly. I read the first issue over lunch and was delighted that my anticipation was met by the actuality of the content.
I wanted the issues because the covers were just wonderfully designed, but didn't want to open them. This, I realize, is idolatry: I have taken something that was intended to be read, and denying myself that use of it. They just sit in their protective plastic sheathes and look pretty. I have rendered them useless to me, it is a wasteful and foolish choice of action.
I have full knowledge of this, and yet I am disinclined to change my mind. This was not originally intended as an ironic performance of an object lesson, but it could be one now that it has happened. It is a metaphor and symptom of a greater habit of mine. I sometimes idolize and idealize people and things external to myself. Recognizing that I do not naturally have control over them, I categorize them within a mental box, resisting attempts for them to grow in purpose and direction. This is a type of weak control and ownership over the object, a smaller reflection of a greater reality.
First impressions stick with me because they are easier to remember and require less energy to maintain. As a resistance to this tendency to simplify things, I am even more delighted when people and things surprise me. This allows me to see them anew and reassess the dimensionality and potential abilities. I have to adjust my "box" and acknowledge that I have been limiting them in my mind.
Reverence is an attitude. But whether it is a healthy or a crippling one depends on how it is leveraged in relation to the object. If the object's usefulness to me is the focus of the reverence, it is idolatry. Sooner or later, it will disappoint me and there will be an uncomfortable period of wondering whether the fault is in the object or myself for trusting it to serve that purpose for me. It is a jealous and internal worship. If anyone else is perceived to lay claim to my use of the object's properties or claim better understanding of it, I become aggressively defensive and sensitive of my bond to it.
But there is a reverence which can be used for healthy purposes. When I focus instead on the object's relational usefulness to everything else, it converts into praise. I become an evangelist to everyone around me, seeing how much I enjoy the object, I believe everyone else's lives will be made better by acquaintance with it as well. I am open to new opinions and perspectives, because I want to have a greater understanding of its appeal. I want be able to explain its merits to everyone, the multiple layers of perspective and enlightenment. Every new piece of information and insight is a revelation to share.
I know that on a small scale, The Wicked & the Divine is just another comic. But it is one that I enjoy and through this enjoyment, I gain a greater goodwill that others might also find something that they will enjoy as much as I do. On a larger scale, I want my relationship with Christ to shine through in all that I do. My conduct and enthusiasm for His love and care for me, I want others to be as blessed as I.
But there are some people who look at comics and are prejudiced. It is a low art form; lots of capes; muscled men in tights and women as eye candy; wham pow bang; it is an expensive price tag for such a small thing; comics are for the immature who never grew up; and so forth.
It is a hard proposition to convince such people that they might be hasty in such judgments. Arguing with them that they are being wrong can make these people more stubborn and set in their ways. Without a relationship upon which to leverage trust, I would become just another passionate zealot to dismiss as irrelevant or even irritating.
The same principle can hold true with the concept of Christianity. People think that they understand it well enough already or that no one in their right mind can understand it because it is so much bologna. Preconceived notions about what religions are and what they mean can close people to different perspectives or ideas explaining who we are and what we can become.
Thoughts about religion and spirituality can be as messy as a comic book series with missing issues in between. Bits and pieces of scripture, commentaries, and theologies are stitched together, patched with scientific studies, philosophies, epigrams, and cosmological theories of everything. It is like putting Marvel and DC comics series next to each other and demanding that they make one streamlined continuity of logical plot. It is not that they are irreconcilable: rules in one universe can help you better interpret mysteries and points of confusion in the other. It is just that each universe has its rules and logic for how things are now and how they came to be.
Modern science is based in skepticism, that nothing is true unless it can be proven to be an accurate result for the majority of the time it is tested. But in order for science to be effective, some assumptions of constants and trustworthiness have to be in place. If the human mind itself is an unreliable or imperfect tool by which to measure other things, we as a race are screwed before we even had a chance. You have to have faith in something as a starting point, as an absolute by which you can measure all other things in comparison.
This is running long. I don't want my exercise in distilling the ideal of idolatry to idle away your time. I am grateful for you sticking around with me to the end. I hope that you encounter many things in your life that give you reverence for life and enthuse you to become an apologist in your own way. Good night.
