daredevil

i am watching daredevil on FX. this is my saturday morning/afternoon. heidi is gone and i am not quite sure what to do with myself. and as i am watching daredevil, i am looking at two plus years of myspace messages between heidi and i. the ones from the beginning. the story.

so daredevil is a terrible movie. i have never seen it before, and i don't care to ever see it again. but here's what's important about daredevil, and here's whats important about myspace messages.

story.

this is what is important. this is life. this is what gives us meaning. this is what we care about.

according to my friend tim keller (i've never met this man, but he is a preacher i have been listening to relentlessly over the past few weeks) story breaks down this way:

the way things are supposed to be. the introduction of characters. the plot. etc.

the interference. the evil that makes itself evident. murder, theft, heartbreak, death, the bad guy. etc.

the resolution. how to defeat the interference/the evil. and get back to the way things are supposed to be.

that's a good story. that's every movie ever made. that's the story of how my wife and i met, became fond of one another, fell away from each other and lost our love, and found our way back. how we fell in love and continue to fall in love every day.

it's why ben affleck fights collin farell. it's spiderman and superman and hulk. and it's little miss sunshine, juno, and rushmore, it's a wonderful life, and so on and so forth.

america is this story. every nation is this story. every human life is this story.

the gospel, the bible is this story.

God creates everything good - the way things are supposed to be.

sin enters the pictures and defaces the beauty of creation - graffiti on the mona lisa, van gogh, or picasso.

and Jesus comes into the world to defeat sin and restore the canvas to beauty. restoring shalom. peace.

buddhism says the problem in the world is suffering. that pain ruins the way things are supposed to be.
and that the ego is the problem. so if you can get beyond yourself, you can get back to a life without suffering.

but i'm not the hero. i can't be the hero.

cause i'm no good. i'm not strong enough and i'm not good enough.

like daredevil, i'm blind.

and i'm ok with that. because the gospel story says i don't have to be the hero. and that makes the most sense to me. that gives me hope. Jesus is a good hero. he is somebody we can trust to defeat the bad guys and restore order in the story. he's the one who can deliver the happy ending we all hope for in this life.

i accept this. i trust this. i live for this.

daredevil is now finishing, and it appears that elektra is coming on next. another story. i'm guessing it will be just as terrible as daredevil, perhaps even worse. but i'm guessing it will be the same story. and i'm looking forward to that.