I've been pondering zombies. Why in the heck are people so fascinated by zombies? This is a question that actually has ancestors. Why were trekkies fascinated with the BORG? Or an even older question. Why is there a market for horror in entertainment at all?
Two thoughts come to mind. The first raises yet another question that the second attempts to answer. So firstly, it's worth mentioning that all of our various horrors are more or less absurd. And we know they are. Zombies. Think of it. An army of mindless brain eaters. Where's the precedence for that? It's as laughable as the Addams Family. Looks to me like we're trivializing and then debunking our fears as a way of hiding from ourselves the source of our real fears. Question: What is the source of our real fears?
You're not going to like this: I think it's God. Do you remember that feeling that comes when your parents have assigned you a list of jobs to do on their weekend away and you've done half of one of them and now they're coming home in half an hour? That's a legitimate fear. Now multiply that by about a jillion and we've got a serious reason to mask that fear with stupid zombies.
haha. Zombies. I like your take. How about this one?
ReplyDeleteZombies. I used to watch this show “The Walking Dead” when I had free cable. Might be surprising, coming from someone in my vocation. I mean, I didn’t watch it with my kids or anything – personally I found the “gore” of the show fairly repulsive. But I was intrigued more than anything by the drama that unfolded for the poor people who watched as their loved ones inevitably succumbed to this disease that made them “the walking dead” – people who breathed and ate, but were walking around really just…dead.
Some people may be attracted to the zombie stuff because they’re into the horror. But I think what really attracts people to it is because it resonates with our existence, our real life existence. The simple reality that horrifies us all when it comes to zombies…there are worse things in life than death. Worse than death is being alive and living as though dead.
The word “zombie” came to me as I was praying for someone this week. It came as a counter example to what I had been observing in a few people’s lives in the last few weeks as they walked through seemingly impossible and hopeless and depressing situations. Whereas most people would be overcome with grief or anger or despair, these people were filled with hope, thankfulness, love…even joy and laughter. Where I expected to see people barely hanging on, I actually saw people living life to the full – in the midst of grief and difficulty and suffering. It was so counter-intuitive, so other worldly. I mean, weren’t these people (of all the people out there) to be the ones that were SUPPOSED to be the “walking dead”? Weren’t THESE the people who would be whittled down by the troubles of life so that their existence would be one of “just trying to make it through the day?”
I’m reminded of that quote (and I don’t know who said it first, though I’m sure Jesus probably did but paper was expensive back then and it probably didn’t make the cut), “Everyone dies, not everyone really lives.” – aka – Zombies (there are worse things than dying).
There are too many of us who allow the consumerism, the materialism, the hedonism, and practical atheism to push us into a place where all we do is breathe and consume (eat) – like a Zombie. We are the walking dead – we lose our centre, our ability to marvel in the ordinary (which is really extraordinary), we treat people as a means rather than an end, and we miss out on all the moments that make life REAL.
I don’t like death, we’re not friends. I don’t like the separation he causes or the emotional pain he can bring. But I’m not scared of him either, ‘cause Jesus kicked his ___, and he no longer gets the last word. But one thing that really bugs me about death is how (having had his real sting taken away), he’s intent on exerting his power in our life NOW, forever pulling us into being the “walking dead”. What too many of us don’t realize (especially Christians) is that Jesus came to defeat death in the future BUT IN THE PRESENT AS WELL. “I have come that you might have LIFE…and have it TO THE FULL.”
Oh and those people I know, the ones who should be floundering…they’re really living NOW. I only hope that when people look at me and get to know me, they’ll say the same thing, and maybe ask me how I do it.