Guest Geek

I have been reflecting and praying over whether or not to begin blogging again—and what form it would take if I did—for a pretty long time.  One of the reasons I decided to go ahead with this blog and to explore theology from a geek perspective is the simple fact that I know I'm not the only one out there!  In fact, in the wake of the Aurora Colorado mass shooting at the midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises, I had the honor of reading a thoughtful and appropriate geek response on Facebook. I immediately asked the young man who wrote it if I could repost it sometime. Well, Brendan has gone one step further and revised it one more time—and so he is the first (and hopefully not the last) of my guest geek bloggers! So without further ado, here's Brendan's response to the Aurora Dark Knight shooting:

I have always been a Batman fan and, for a time, I held that childhood innocence making all the world appear bright, rosy, and uncomplicated. There was perhaps one event, more than any other, that changed that. When I was still very young, I asked my mom a question one night as she was tucking me into bed. I had just been playing at my best friend's house and a sudden doubt was gnawing away at the back of my mind.

"Are bad guys real?"

I wept when she told me the truth, although even then I thought she meant people like Mister Freeze and the Joker, people who could not be caught, people who always escaped.

I never asked if Batman was real.

In Aurora, Colorado, a supervillain became real. He walked off the screen and slaughtered people for believing in heroes, people who, if they were anything like me, had spent years waiting for this film and paid far more than the price of a ticket just to see the beginning.

Nowadays, I don't need to ask if heroes are real. Batman is not my favorite superhero because he's smart or strong or honorable: it's because he's human. There's a quote in the Dark Knight Rises: "the point of Batman is that he can be anyone." The world does not have anymore superheroes than it has supervillains, but one man with a gun can do more harm than any hero can repair, though so many try. It is up to the everyday heroes, the little heroes living their lives as courageously as they can to make a difference. Christian Bale going to the hospital where the victims were being treated is just one example of an apparently small (and very important) heroism, but Batman does not stand alone. Everyone needs to stand against acts of terror and violence like this and do their part to show that bad men do not control this world: the heroes do.

Thank you, Brendan.

Be good to each other,
Rev. Josh
012813