Falling Prey to Twilight - the Saga - Part II - "Twilight and the Myth"

In my last blog post I admitted that I fell into the Twilight black hole. There, I was mesmerized by passion and romance and adventure and mystery; it lasted until I read the words “The End”. At that point, I felt the acute angst of the forces of real life pull me back; kind of like the scene from Somewhere in Time – an old Christopher Reeve and Jayne Seymour movie – the scene where Reeve's character pulls the penny out of his pocket dated 1979, and his passion and romance and mystery back-in-time world which he had arrived at via time travel came to an anguishing abrupt halt.

I asked the question: Why? Why me? Why a good portion of the rest of the world? Did you know that Twilight has been translated into 37 languages – all with differing cover artwork that expresses the spirit of the book in unique cultures?

I heard from a few of my good Christian friends after the last blog post. They asked the question “Should I read it”? Hard question to answer. If you are looking for something to build your faith, strengthen your character, or add to your library of great literary works, no, at least, not directly. But, I further told them I loved them, and urged them to give it a try if they don’t mind the month-long hangover when finished (read the part above about the forces of real life pulling you back).

I googled “Twilight from a Christian perspective” and got some interesting viewpoints. I’ll put a couple of links here if you are interested in taking a look.

http://www.christianromancenovel.com/fiction/a-christian-perspective-on-the-twilight-saga

http://christianteens.about.com/od/christianentertainment/a/TwilightDebate.htm

In these articles you’ll see how many Christians have concerns that the main characters of the story are vampires, which, traditionally, have no souls and are inhabited by evil spirits. They struggle with some moral gray areas in relation to Bella, who wrestles with her fleshly desire of Edward, and is somewhat ho-hum when considering giving up her soul in order to be with Edward forever.

On the flip side, some Christians (including me) praise Twilight because abstinence remains to Edward a non-negotiable, to which he stays true until marriage despite immense desire. They also laud the portrayal of the characters’ high esteem for the value of human life, and for its treatment of the weighty importance of one’s soul – at least in Edwards’ mind.

But again, I’m not trying to determine if Twilight is worthy for Christian eyes, whether they be fourteen-year-old or forty-year-old eyes. It appears there has been plenty written on that. I’d like to go a little deeper, below the upper crust of moral fiber down into the hot magma that is drawing people down into it – to live there for a while, and when done with the books, to want to stay there.

I’d like to go down into the magma of myth.

You see, I think we miss the heart of our story as Christians when we behave as if all that matters is morality. Absolutely this is important, but, we need to go deeper to see why it is important, and what motivates us to act - what lies at the core of who we are, what we were made for, what we desire, what we ache for. Where does love and longing come from? Deep down in the magma of our souls. Remember we are made in the image of God, and He loves and He longs and He desires, or else, we would not exist, because He WANTED us and still WANTS us (I know, most days that’s hard to believe).

Thanks to the Enlightenment period which preceded us, we are all about facts and numbers and efficiency and bullet points and logic and intellect. The heart, (which actually has more to do with our decision making than we realize) is no longer needed. So, to get down to this level of the heart, we need a little help.

This is where stories come in to play. Fairy tales.  Myths - not in the sense of something many believe but that is not true (thanks, Enlightment period for “enlightening us” on this derivative meaning of myth). Myth - meaning, a story that uncovers something. A story that digs something up within us that makes us feel something because of the way that God designed us. John Eldredge calls myth “a story that brings you a glimpse of the eternal”, and then he quotes a Christian professor Rolland Hein “Myths are, first of all, stories: stories which confront us with something transcendent and eternal…a means by which the eternal expresses itself in time” (1).

This, my friends, is what I believe the Twilight series has done. It has dug up something in millions of people; something many are completely oblivious to. They are staring at something eternal, something real for which they were created, but are not only unaware of what it is, but what to do with it.

What is it that this series digs up, that stares us in the face after “the End”? Let's talk - see next blog.

(1)    Waking the Dead, John Eldredge, p 25

By the way, I’m assuming all who are reading this have either read the books or seen the movies and am aware of the storyline. If not, and you are interested, here are some good summaries:

http://cliffnotebooks.com/tag/twilight - Cliff Notes of all 4 books, starting with the last book

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twilight_%28series%29  - short overviews – see “Plot Overview”