Wednesday, May 29, 2013

"The Great Gatsby" - The Little Green Light


I had not read F. Scott Fitzgerald’s, “The Great Gatsby,” since high school. My only lingering memory had to do with a green light at the end of a dock on the other side of a bay. Thus, with the advent of another cinema effort, I decided the time had come to read the book again.
Typical of a noteworthy author, Fitzgerald teases the reader with plot-line riddles which keep us involved with the story. He also inserts well-stated asides which invite thought. When Nick Carraway, the narrator, discovered he could give directions to a stranger in his new home town (New York City), he philosophized: “And as I walked on I was lonely no longer. I was a guide, a pathfinder, an original settler.”
Overall, I suppose, the reader could conclude that the book presents a shabby and disillusioned picture of life in the fast lane in the “roaring twenties.” Yet, that picture is developed on parallel tracks in the life of a mysterious man of wealth, Jay Gatsby, and the Middle Western transplant, Nick Carraway. As the story progresses I see what seem to me to be noteworthy parallels leading to an overarching theme.
  • Both Nick and Gatsby come from the Middle West. A place which Nick describes as “the ragged edge of the universe.”
  • Both Nick and Gatsby have been lured by the East. For Nick the lure was simply that of gainful employment and the experience of the life not afforded by his family home. For Gatsby, however, it was the place where he invested all his energies to satisfy a missed dream. Everything about him was “east” including the wealthy home of Daisy Buchanan, across the bay, in the community of East Bank. It was at the end of the dock of her home where the little green light beckoned him as he stood alone in the darkness and scanned the shoreline.
  • Both men settled in the less-fashionable community of West Egg. Nick’s house was “an eyesore;” but Gatsby’s house was a “colossal” mansion. 
  • Both of them were affected by the same characters in the dark moral soup of the story. In fact, all of the central characters had roots in the American west. Nick reflects, “I see now that this has been a story of the West, after all—Tom and Gatsby, Daisy and Jordan and I, were all Westerners, and perhaps we possessed some deficiency in common which made us subtly unadaptable to Eastern life.”[1]
  • The difference in the fates of Nick and Gatsby may be seen in that the Mid Western atmosphere did not leave Nick whereas it may never have been a part of Gatsby’s character. Early on in the narrative, Nick tells us, “Gatsby...represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn.”[2]
  • In the case of Gatsby, the east proved to be the place where he “paid a high price for living too long with a single dream.”[3] In the case of Nick, he himself tells us, “So when the blue smoke of brittle leaves was in the air and the wind blew the wet laundry stiff on the line I decided to come back home.”[4]

While the book affords many talking points, it is in this draw of “back home” where I find the overarching theme for the central talking point – the message of going back to your roots to find what you thought you would find somewhere else. Nick reflects at the end of his narrative, “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”[5]  That certainly would appeal to the nostalgia of the disillusioned man. It also speaks to the gravitational pull of Christians to the memories of their early walk with Christ. There is something about the atmosphere of memory which pulls us and becomes merged with Truth in our thinking. Thus, Nick reflects not on the real values of home but the memories of “coming back West from prep school and later from college at Christmas time.”[6]
God always calls his wandering children back to Truth. He rarely calls us back to places or things.  “Neither in this mountain nor yet in Jerusalem,” Jesus said to a disillusioned woman at a well.[7] Indeed, one could write a credible account of the emptiness of seeking satisfaction in the town or the church of one’s past. I would suggest it can be argued that Gatsby’s relentless pursuit of his dream was an effort to reclaim something from his past which had become an idol.
Someone has said of idolatry that it may be recognized by three symptoms:
  • Are you willing to sin to get it?
  • Are you willing to sin to keep it?
  • Are you willing to sin if you can’t have it?[8]  

 What we are willing to do to reclaim our memories, keep them or resent being unable to have them, exposes the fact that even nostalgia can become an idol; and more often than not, that idolatry has to do with an atmosphere rather than with Truth.
While all Truth is atmospheric as well as propositional in character, not all atmosphere is Truth and not all propositions are correct. “The Great Gatsby” is an excellent platform to examine the idolatry of atmosphere apart from propositional Truth. Jesus has freed us to delight in the atmosphere of Truth without regard to geography, time in history or cultural approval. He has also freed us to dream dreams which transcend personal “satisfactions” of the moment and embrace the big picture of His sovereign narrative for the ages. We look longingly, not at a little green light at the end of someone’s dock, but at the cross, the empty tomb and the glorious return of the One who is able to keep that which we have committed into his care.[9]


[1] Kindle location K 2185 (p. 176)
[2] K 34 (p. 2)
[3] K 2007 (p. 161)
[4] K 2193 (p. 176)
[5] K 2248 (p. 180)
[6] K 2173 (p. 175)
[7] John 4:21
[8] Heard at the Biblical Counseling Training Conference, Faith Baptist Church, Lafayette, IN
[9] 2 Timothy 1:12

Monday, May 13, 2013

Review of "THE TRACKER" by Tom Brown Jr.



In 1978, a “Reader’s Digest” condensed book section featured Tom Brown Jr’s, action-packed autobiography, The Tracker. I bought a copy[1] and thoroughly enjoyed it both then and in a recent re-read. The book, as told to science-fiction author, William Jon Watkins, recounts the journey of a boy as he and his best friend learn the skills of outdoor survival under the tutelage of an old Native American scout. The story takes Brown from age seven through eighteen in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey and concludes with a sketch of him as a grown man facing the rigors of the Dakota badlands, the Grand Canyon, the Tetons and Death Valley. Although there are those on the internet who doubt the accuracy of some of his accounts, there is no question that Tom Brown Jr. is, indeed, a tracking authority. He has even been interviewed concerning survival skills on national television.
My enjoyment of this book, as with most books I read in non-Christian and secular categories, has especially to do with the author’s observations and not his conclusions. The category into which I would place this book is Native American religious thought. The  “...world view in which Nature is a being larger than the sum of all creatures and can be seen best in the flow of its interactions,”[2] is woven throughout the narrative. Beyond that, the depth of Brown’s immersion in this world view is seen in the Trackers’ School he founded, which is heavily weighted as a philosophical study.
When I read a book of this kind I look for four things.
First, I look for valid observations about a subject (such as nature and even life) which Christian students of Scripture might miss because of clichéd blinders. That is, because of accepted ways of saying things which have taken on a semi-inspired mystique which allows for no other  way of expression. For example: Brown’s observation concerning fear can bring a fresh appreciation of that phenomenon when he writes, in the context of a terrifying situation in the wilderness, “It’s always in the imagination that fear makes its easiest bed.”[3]
Second, I look for exposure to human behavior which can also elude us because of prescribed outlines which we formulate and raise to biblical status without really doing our field work. Brown’s description of a period of depression after the loss of his best friend[4] is profound; and his description of the impact of depression on perception is stunning:

If I had been more alert, if I had not shut myself off from the flow of nature, I would have known something was wrong in the woods. If I had not allowed myself to be blinded by my grief, I would have noticed earlier the small signs of the poachers’ passage.[5]

Third, I look for rich analogies such as his last chapter which describes his arduous search for a lost man with the mental limits of a five-year-old. The account has forever enhanced my appreciation for the statement that Jesus came to “seek and to save that which was lost.” I would heartily recommend that chapter for an evangelism class as a paradigmatic study of informed and controlled intensity.
Finally, I look for insights into the thinking of the “new” forms of these Native American world views which are asserting themselves and finding their way into home entertainment such as Free Willy and Winter’s Tale, to mention a couple of the more innocuous examples. The “spirit-that-moves-in-all-things” may well be a handle that could be grasped to recommend a turn to the one “in whom we live and move and have our being,” who provides that which is not to be found in the religions of man – an explainable redemption which brings forgiveness of sins and hope to those who will receive Jesus Christ.




[1] Brown, Tom Jr. as told to William Jon Watkins, The Tracker. Berkley Books, Paperback. 1978. 229pp.
[2] The Tracker p. 14
[3] The Tracker p. 14
[4]The Tracker pp 161 ff.
[5] The Tracker p. 165

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Have A Care Rabadash



From Chapter Fifteen: Rabadash the Ridiculous
The Horse and His Boy by C. S. Lewis

Next moment Cor wondered why everyone at the table had risen and was standing perfectly still. Of course he did the same himself. And then he saw the reason. Aslan was among them though no one had seen him coming. Rabadash started as the immense shape of the Lion paced softly in between him and his accusers.

“Rabadash,” said Aslan. “Take heed. Your doom is very near, but you may still avoid it. Forget your pride (what have you to be proud of?) and your anger (who has done you wrong?) and accept the mercy of these good kings.”

Then Rabadash rolled his eyes and spread out his mouth into a horrible, long mirthless grin like a shark, and wagged his ears up and down (anyone can learn how to do this if they take the trouble). He had always found this very effective in Calormen. The bravest had trembled when he made these faces, and ordinary people had fallen to the floor, and sensitive people had often fainted. But what Rabadash hadn’t realized is that it is very easy to frighten people who know you can have them boiled alive the moment you give the word. The grimaces didn’t look at all alarming in Archenland; indeed Lucy only thought Rabadash was going to be sick.

“Demon! Demon! Demon!” shrieked the Prince. “I know you. You are the foul fiend of Narnia. You are the enemy of the gods. Learn who I am, horrible phantasm. I am descended from Tash, the inexorable, the irresistible. The curse of Tash is upon you. Lightning in the shape of scorpions shall be rained on you. The mountains of Narnia shall be ground into dust. The---”

“Have a care, Rabadash,” said Aslan quietly. “The doom is nearer now: it is at the door: it has lifted the latch.”

“Let the skies fall,” shrieked Rabadash. “Let the earth gape! Let blood and fire obliterate the world! But be sure I will never desist till I have dragged to my palace by her hair the barbarian queen, the daughter of dogs, the---“

The hour has s truck,” said Aslan: and Rabadash saw, to his supreme horror, that everyone had begun to laugh.

They couldn’t help it. Rabadash had been wagging his ears all the time and as soon as Aslan said, “The hour has struck!” the ears began to change. They grew longer and more pointed and soon were covered with grey hair. And while everyone was wondering where they had seen ears like that before, Rabadash’s face began to change too. It grew longer, and thicker at the top and larger eyed, and the nose sank back into the face (or else the face swelled out and became all nose) and there was hair all over it. And his arms grew longer and came down in front of him till his hands were resting on the ground: only they weren’t hands, now, they were hooves. And he was standing on all fours, and his clothes disappeared, and everyone laughed louder and louder (because they couldn’t help it) for now what had been Rabadash was, simply and unmistakably, a donkey. The terrible thing was that his human speech lasted just a moment longer than his human shape, so that when he realized the change that was coming over him, he screamed out:

“Oh, not a Donkey!”

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Morning On Bellwood




Pelicans, storks, herons and ibis
Silently pass overhead.
Something in the early hours
Calls them from their beds.

Ducks, coots, and assorted egrets
Join the unhurried flight
As, over the sleepy street,
Day replaces night.

© H Hamilton Comings  2013