More Application Stuff

In response to the question: Chose some book you consider to be excellent and write about some important aspect of it. Please do not write a book report. Your answer should be one to two full pages in length. This was the most draining thing I've ever written. I'm not sure why. I think I was too careful in choosing my words, and maybe that is why the writing style is so dense. As my history teacher says, "I want to see some senior level compound sentences, with colons, and semi-colons, and dashes!". I guess I've never found a historian who's writing style was readable. Same with German philosophers.

One of my most important spiritual lessons came from “The Blue Castle.” The only substantive theology in Lucy Maud Montgomery’s novel comes from the mouth of an alcoholic, but despite this the book delivers an important message about Christian freedom. God wants me to follow him like John the Baptist did, with reckless abandon for this world and a carefree nature for everything other than He who is worth of all our care. The character Valancy Sterling’s transformation from needing other’s approval to disregarding the opinions of others is a transformation that is necessary to follow God fully.

By no means did Christ preach worldly acceptance; He says, “If they persecuted me they will persecute you also.” Christians pursue a truth that others do not see, and really are weird because of it. Even more so in today’s society, devout Christians are a small minority and to be a Christian in public is to be essentially different. No doubt along with an active disgust of this world comes the persecution of others. This problem is faced by Valancy Stirling, the heroine of the novel. She has never had even a fleeting opportunity at marriage and has lived her life conforming to the traditions of the upper-class society she was born into. Surrounded by a laughable cast of family who firmly assert both their obnoxious peculiarities and their view of the world on young Valancy, she feels stuck in a life that is controlled by her society, not her will, and she is miserable because of it. She falls into the same hole than Christians can fall into, where the person that God created you to be is suppressed under the you that makes society function smoothly.

Valancy jumps out of this rut when she learns she is going to die in less than a year. She confronts her pitiable state of life that she was always aware of but never addressed. She begins to do what she knows is right and dispenses with the obnoxious formalities of her former life, to the horror of her family. Valancy begins her rebellion at a family dinner where she no longer feigns a laugh at her Uncle’s jokes, she points out the comedic flaws in her aunts and in all ways embraces the spirit of “living” before she dies. Next, she begins working for Roaring Abel, a drunk whose sometimes reckless behavior has earned him the unanimous disproval of Valancy’s town. Valancy begins to truly live, but importantly never does anything sinful. She does not rebel like Adam and Eve rebelled against God; she embraces her own human nature which unfortunately is rebellious. I think many Christians are scared of throwing away oppressive inhibitions like those that Valancy did because rebellion in and of it’s self is viewed as sinful. But clinging to these formalities stems from vanity, and man cannot be truly happy unless he throws away all desires but the desire for God.

Valancy becomes overwhelmingly happy after she begins working for Abel. She no longer lives for the approval of the world but she is lives the life that is natural to her. Christians need to live the same way, because unless we eradicate the pride that encourages us to follow false paths instead of the path God has designed for us we will be truly miserable. Valancy throws away the pride that she once relied on. While at Roaring Abel’s she meets another town recluse, Barney Snaith. After a few meetings Valancy asks Barney to marry her, and he does, albeit under the pretence that Valancy was going to die in less than a year. Valancy earns the rejection of her whole family after they learn that she asked Barney to marry her, yet Valancy is wildly happy, even though the disowning of her family would have crushed her before. Christians need to embrace the same spirit. While marrying the town misfit is unadvisable, living the life God wants you to lead is not only advisable, it is imperative. God does crazy things. Mary was unmarried and God called her to be the mother of His Son. That God actually became fully human and died for us should be crazy enough to assure us that something out of the norm is in store for us.
God calls all of us to do something crazy, like being the town drunk’s handywomen, or marrying the man the town gossips about. But while working for Abel, Valancy is able to nurse and comfort his ill daughter, and the marriage that she haphazardly entered into turns out to be a very good one. What at first seemed to be reckless and foolish really turns out to be something great. We cannot follow God completely unless we accept that God wants to do crazy things with us. We can’t even just accept God’s abnormal methods, we need to embrace them. God created us all to do his work in our own individual ways and to make everybody conform to the straightjacket of social acceptability is ludicrous. God wants us to be truly us and that might make us weird or crazy, but can we hope to be anything different if we truly, fully follow God.