love | Adam B. Shaeffer

First, let me express my hearty thanks to Anton Rose (@antonjrose) for letting me raid his bookshelf so that I could finally read this masterwork of speculative fiction. Second, how did it take me so long to get around to this wonderful little book?

There are a lot of things I could write about when it comes to A Wizard of Earthsea, but I’m going to focus on just one here, and it comes from the end of the book so beware: SPOILERS AHEAD!

If you’re still with me, then let me proceed. For a large chunk of this book (and it’s less than 200 pages long, by the way), Ged is either fleeing from or pursuing a shadow, a denizen of the darkness who was allowed to enter into the real, physical world through Ged’s carelessness and arrogance. The turning point in the story is when Ged transitions from fleeing the shadow to seeking it out. In seeking out what has terrified and crippled him, that thing loses its terrible power over him. All that is well and good, but at the end of Le Guin’s tale, after Ged has finally confronted the shadow and named it with his own name (see, I told you there would be spoilers), his friend Vetch sees that

Ged had neither lost nor won but, naming the shadow of his death with his own name, had made himself whole: a man: who, knowing his whole true self, cannot be used or possessed by any power other than himself, and whose life therefore is lived for life’s sake and never in the service of ruin, or pain, or hatred, or the dark.

This is a powerful narration of the spiritual formation process. We are so prone to emphasizing those facets of our character and personality that make us look good, that make others respect, admire, or appreciate us. But at best that is just a snapshot of who we really are – it’s just the tip of the iceberg. At worst, it’s an outright lie, a fabrication set up to mask and disguise reality.

But wholeness – at least as far as life within the world as we know it is concerned – necessitates acknowledging, embracing, and welcoming our shadow-selves (naming our darkness with our own name and knowing that Christ died for that aspect as well as our “more presentable” side; or as Thomas H. Green, S.J. might have encouraged, we need to learn to sit among our weeds, not just within our wheat). Wholeness rests in allowing Christ to shine his light into the darkness of our souls, welcoming the Spirit into more and more of our hidden places so that they too can be seen and known and redeemed.

Le Guin has not written an allegory of the spiritual life in her little book, but the insight she narrates sheds light on the world around us, on what is true both psychologically and spiritually. And because she has narrated this reality rather than simply telling us that this is the case, the insight is more striking and resonant. We experience it through another’s perspective and we might just see how we can experience it in our own. We might see ways in which we can name our shadow-selves with our own names, and in doing so experience the love of Christ even there, where we may feel darkest and least lovable.

In church yesterday we were reading from the book of Acts, focusing on the martyrdom of Stephen. It’s a tragic story; heart-breaking and painful, and we turned our attention to the persecuted church, to those who–like Stephen–are being murdered for their faith in Jesus today. We prayed for them, calling out to God to help them endure in the midst of something that we in the West will honestly probably never have to experience. As we were closing I was reminded by my lovely wife of a blog post that first started germinating back when the tragedies in France were fresh and aching, but that I hesitated to post. Here it is:

What would it look like if we were to actually take Jesus at his word? What if we did what he invited us to do? And more than that, what if we did what Jesus, and Stephen after him, actually did? Specifically, what if we loved our enemies and prayed for those who persecuted us? Or, since we may not experience major persecution where we live, what if we prayed for those who persecuted our brothers and sisters, who butchered and murdered our Christian family? What if we started to fervently pray, not against ISIS and the atrocities they commit, but for the people who compose it? For it is people who make up ISIS. It is not just some faceless and malevolent network reaching out to kill and destroy. It is people. People who need to know the love of Jesus and his power to redeem. What if we prayed that the he would do that? What if we prayed for the risen and resurrected Christ to reveal himself in majesty to the people within ISIS? What if, somewhere in their network, we have future brothers and sisters in Christ that we have not met and will likely never meet in this life, but who we will meet and celebrate with in the life to come?

I have an idea of what that might look like, and we only need to turn to the pages of Acts to see it. What happened when the risen Christ introduced himself to the early church’s most hateful and violent persecutor? What happened when that man came face to face with the Jesus he scorned and despised? What happened? The world changed forever. I don’t think I’m overstating the case to say that when Saul met Jesus and became Paul, the world became a different place. It was Paul who brought the faith to the Gentiles and began the work to fulfill God’s intention for his people to be from every tribe and tongue and nation the world over.

This generation’s Saul might be actively and vehemently persecuting the church as a member of ISIS, or an agent within North Korea, Afghanistan, Iraq, or Iran. He may be out there right now doing what he believes is right, ignorant of the calling God has in store. What if we prayed that God would turn Sauls into Pauls in each of the countries that are most dangerous for Christians? What if we prayed that God would change the hearts of those who hate and despise us? What if we prayed that God would have mercy on our enemies and show his love to those who persecute us?

Perhaps the world would change again. Perhaps.

There’s only one way to find out…