This picture
, which consequentely was probably taken illegally from some honest artist's website, reminded me of a the distorted nature of heroes. Much of my musings lately have come from the novels that I have been studying. Most recently I have finished (actually I have 9 pages I need to finish when my students leave the room, but it's all just filler towards the end anyway) reading Nickolai Gogol's Dead Souls. (side note: I'm in a 19th Century Russian novel class....I know, you've all been there, right?)
The proclaimed hero of the novel appears at first to be something akin to a used-car-salesman, but he then takes on an almost charming quality that puts the reader under the same spell that as those characters in the novel themselves. By the end he is shown to be exactly who you assumed he was in the beginning. His redemptive qualities vanish, and he is shown for what he really is; he is ugly, flawed, degenerate, and yes, the hero.
Is this who I am as a Christian? When those "redemptive" qualities in me, the ones that I try so hard to display, are stripped away I am nothing more than a distorted image of something true. My goodness is mixed with evil, my purity with filth, my love with hate. I am a mass of contradictions and flaws, but can I still be what God has called me to be? Can the hero be this confused?
, which consequentely was probably taken illegally from some honest artist's website, reminded me of a the distorted nature of heroes. Much of my musings lately have come from the novels that I have been studying. Most recently I have finished (actually I have 9 pages I need to finish when my students leave the room, but it's all just filler towards the end anyway) reading Nickolai Gogol's Dead Souls. (side note: I'm in a 19th Century Russian novel class....I know, you've all been there, right?) The proclaimed hero of the novel appears at first to be something akin to a used-car-salesman, but he then takes on an almost charming quality that puts the reader under the same spell that as those characters in the novel themselves. By the end he is shown to be exactly who you assumed he was in the beginning. His redemptive qualities vanish, and he is shown for what he really is; he is ugly, flawed, degenerate, and yes, the hero.
Is this who I am as a Christian? When those "redemptive" qualities in me, the ones that I try so hard to display, are stripped away I am nothing more than a distorted image of something true. My goodness is mixed with evil, my purity with filth, my love with hate. I am a mass of contradictions and flaws, but can I still be what God has called me to be? Can the hero be this confused?
Hey stoner! I didn't even know you had a blog. Mighty cool. Now I will check it and annoy you until you update it. Hooray beer!