Bully's Blog

or The Modern Absence of Quest

A review of the movie of Maurice Sendak’s classic children’s book observed that the absence of a quest, something to be overcome or achieved, makes the film bland. It has everything else: family issues, fantastic characters and first-rate special effects. But at the end of the day, without a “holy quest” all that is left is a lot of bumming around discovering how cool the world is. Or, worse, like much modern infants’ education, how cool we are.

I remember seeing a pre-school class where each child, in turn, was asked to crawl into a cardboard box with a colourful veil obscuring what was inside. The kids were told that “the most important person in the world” was in there. Of course, they came face to face with a mirror. It was the Temple of Me.

I AM THUS A GOD

Without a God to be feared or loved, I am left alone with myself writing Hymns to Music and Odes to Poetry. My quest becomes self-discovery and I pump all I can out of Pandora’s Box, or, more biblically, the ephah with the leaden lid. With only self-reference available my culture becomes the elemental squeal of video feedback. There is no “other” to reflect and expound upon. There is no eternal “word” to be gradually unwrapped and applied and unpacked in history. “I am.”

I AM THUS A BEAST

I think all is just as it should be and stay home from holy war. I am well-fed, clothed and housed. The wilderness is just another cool place to discover. There is no beast to slay because I think I am one of them. And there is no hope, so I commit actual or moral suicide.

A NEW QUEST

Jesus tore the beautiful veil and brought us face to face with THE LAW OF GOD. It, too, is a mirror. It, too, demonstrates our deep, God-given significance, but it also exposes our hearts. We are gods and beasts, but gods and beasts with a referent. As Philip Yancey observed, David lived his entire life, faults and all, before an audience of One. He was constrained, held in orbit, by the love of Christ.

Jesus’ sacrifice didn’t remove the quest. It intensified it. It gave us a commission to go where the wild things are, to be slain and to slay, even in suburbia. We don’t have time for Bathsheba. Our desires are larger. We are not about self-discovery but conquest. And with the conquest, as with Solomon’s wisdom, the Lord also gives us everything we didn’t ask for. As Peter Leithart wrote recently, adventure was invented by Christians. [1] But that kind of adventure is about growing up.

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[1] Peter J. Leithart, Desire.