Fair Trade

In the movie adaptation of Frank Miller’s Sin City a cop on the verge of retirement goes after a high profile pedophile in the hopes of saving a little girl. His partner tries to talk him out of it, telling him his adversary is more than his match, that he’s not as young as he used to be. He’s earned his retirement, why not just let this guy go and enjoy it?

Later in the scene, after the big showdown, he doesn’t regret ignoring his partner’s advice. Heroes never do. The would-be victim stands beside him as he lies bleeding on the dock. The pedophile is in no condition to hurt her now, and police sirens are closing in the distance. In the voice over, this cop says the incredibly beautiful line, “An old man dies. A young girl lives. Fair trade.”

The other heroes in fiction would no doubt agree. Ask Luke Skywalker if overthrowing the Empire and confronting the dark side of the force was worth losing a hand, and I’m sure he’d say yes. Was the emotionally tramatic, soul scaring, body mangling trip into Mordor an experience Frodo is proud to call his story?

A hobbit loses a finger. A dark evil is vanquished in Middle Earth. Fair trade.

These are the stories we tell to our children’s children’s children. These are the knights who risk it all in the face of impossible odds to slay the dragon. These are the people we want to be… from our comfortable stadium seats at the local multiplex. But try to face those impossible odds in the real world, and the popcorn flies.

This is particularly true in the church where the warfare is a spiritual struggle against the hordes of hell. We sing our songs of victory and talk about the armor of God. And we do so from the safety of the castles keep while our enemy ravages the land. It rather pisses me off, to be honest.

I’d rather stand in defiance to the prince of this world, even though it comes at a price.

Jill, my beautiful wife, has recently been called on to help the friend of a friend deal with her daughter’s supposed imaginary playmate. But three-year-olds don’t retain imaginary friends for eight months. Nor are children inclined to spend the night on the couch to avoid said companion. The mother can’t research her daughter’s imaginary friend because every time she tries, her computer wigs out. She can’t talk about it over the phone, because static fills the line so she can’t hear what the other person is saying. Imaginary friends don’t behave like this. But demons do.

The mother has a copy of my book, Ripper Grimm, but every time she tries to read it, her daughter flips out and she has to put the book down. (Interesting that the book starts with a warning against this very type of occurrence.)

I’ve asked a lot of people to pray for Jill and against this entity. Most of them understood the importance of the task and the seriousness of the situation. One man even thanked me for bringing him into this.

But another—a dear lady whom I’ve relied on as a prayer warrior for years—replied with, “Nathan, I warned you this would happen if you starting writing what you’re writing. Please, write something else. Please, leave this alone.” I get this from my parents a lot, too. I get it from people who mean well, because they don’t want to see me come to harm. I understand this. I just don’t agree with the world view it represents.

We’re not meant to play it safe, which is why those great stories resonate so deeply. I looked into this dear woman’s eyes as she pleaded with me to write something else. Write a story about puppy dogs and butterflies. Write anything, except your stories that challenge the darkness. Stop rustling the wings of the dragons in hell.

But how could I? I can’t walk away from where God has called me to be any more than that cop could leave that little girl. I can’t walk away anymore than Frodo or Luke could abandon their world to darkness. I said, as I’ve said to so many others, “I’d rather get to heaven with my armor beat to hell, than to stand before my King with the tag still hanging from my shield.” I said, “We have to take a stand against this sort of thing, because if we don’t, then we’re allowing it to advance unchallenged.”

Imagine being Bruce Wayne. Imagine Alfred pleading with you to abandon your silly bat costume and just enjoy your father’s money. That’s what it felt like. Have we learned nothing from the great stories?

An old man goes home and eats steak.

A young girl gets butchered by a sick degenerate because no one else will stand up to him.

Not a fair trade. Not by half.

Batman doesn’t play it safe, and we love him for it. Buffy the Vampire slayer didn’t play it safe. Neither did Indiana Jones. Neither did Flash Gordon Neither did Buck Rodgers. Neither did the Lone Ranger. Neither did Zorro. I could list those who did play it safe, but you wouldn’t recognize any of the names. Those aren’t the stories we pass through the generations. Those aren’t the people we dream about being.

My father asked if I might be under spiritual attack because I’m writing books like Ripper Grimm, and my current project, Burlesque. Absolutely! I’ve been dealing with chronic fatigue over the last five years. I’m hit with depression on a regular basis. That feeling that I’m wasting my time, that I’m writing garbage, which no publisher would ever want, which no reader would ever want to read? Welcome to my world. And of course I’m snipped with the urge to hang myself several times a week—a momentary impulse, not a planned or contemplated course of action. Most normals freak out when they hear about this.

Sometimes calling people out of the darkness means going in after them. This is me not playing it safe, and yes, it’s coming at a price. Sure, I could save myself a lot of mental instability by abandoning my quest. The latest temptation has been to lose myself in the world of roll playing games. It would be easier. It would be much more fun, not to mention more pleasant. That, and I certainly wouldn’t be putting my wife and child in the cross hairs of a dragon’s rage.

But when I get to the end of my life and look back over what I’ve done, will I be proud of myself for taking the easier road? I doubt it. I’ve already spent too much time rolling dice for imaginary heroes who’ve shed imaginary blood to accomplish nothing. Fun times, but I don’t look back at them with pride. I’m much more pleased with the songs I’ve written that changed peoples lives, or the puppet scripts and characters I’ve brought to a world who loved them. I’m pleased with the years I’ve spent as a puppet team director investing in the lives of youth. I’m pleased with taking the road less traveled.

And now that I’m hacking my way through a danger infested jungle, creating my own road, I can honestly say I’m proud of Ripper Grimm. I’m proud of the unpublished novel I wrote about cutting, even though I spent a month feeling very suicidal and self destructive. A year from now, when Burlesque is finished—a book about dealing with our disappointments when God says no, a book about adult entertainment as an industry of human sacrifice, a book that has dragged me through the dark shadow of my soul for months on end (and no, I’m not being dramatic)—I believe I’ll be just as pleased. After all, if demonic imaginary friends don’t want my work read, I must be doing something right. And given the trouble I’ve had in writing Burlesque, my friend might be right when he says it might be the most important work I’ve ever done.

This is a rocky road, and I’m certainly feeling banged up for being on it. But I want to look back on my life the way the heroes do in those stories. And when I look back, I want to see a thousand souls who worship Christ because I lived. Give me that when all is said and done, and I’ll limp through the Pearly Gates in duct taped battle regalia, whispering through smiling lips, “Fair trade.”