Tag: Rachel Neumeier

Fantasy and Truth

When I was a kid, by the time I was in second grade I had become a full-fledged book worm. I read for entertainment, escape, and as a way to understand the world around me. Nowadays, as an adult, I go through different seasons of what I am reading and why. Escapism. A deep need to understand how different types of relationships work. A deep dive into how cultures and societies work. Exploring the ideas of what happens if humankind really messes everything up. 

Lately, I’ve really been into fantasy books and it has kind of been an exploration of what is God like and what do really good human relationships look like? 

Fantasy covers a large spectrum of writing. I’m choosy about which fantasy I read. The fantasy that I enjoy are the ones who simply use a fantasy world as a backdrop for their very human characters who have very human characteristics, weaknesses and strengths. The fantasy world allows those characters to have many wide and varied adventures, but in the end, the lessons they are learning, the personal growth they are going through, the conclusion they come to, they are all very human and normal. 

In the last year or so, I’ve found myself drawn to these books where usually one character has some kind of super-power. Magical, genetic mutation, gift given by the gods etc. Usually, these powers are on par with what I would expect my own God to be able to do. But, these powers are encased in a very human person. 

One example I’m thinking of is the character Aras in Rachel Neumeier’s “Tuyo” series. He is a sorcerer with many powers and abilities, but he is a good person. He wants good for people and he uses his powers to help, not hurt. One of his powers is that he can hear everyone’s thoughts. It’s not something he can turn off, and he actually finds it distracting and uncomfortable. But what is interesting is that this ability to invade everyone’s privacy leads him to compassion, not judgement. 

Whenever I run into a character that has god-like powers, I can’t help thinking about the real God and whether the insights from these characters could reveal anything about the One True God. I have to admit that knowing that God can hear every thought I think and that he knows my brain and emotions better than I do, sometimes I find that a little nervewracking. Oh shoot, You just heard that rather mean and horrible thought I just had. But, seeing this character in the book with the same powers and seeing how it leads him to compassion helps me to step back and think about God and then think about how many bible verses talk about his compassion and perhaps that’s how it works for God as well.  

There’s another character in Victoria Goddard’s “Hands of the Emperor” series, the Emperor, who also has a lot of different magical powers and he rules many worlds and he desires goodness and justice and good for each of his subjects. He is another character who is very human, but has god-like powers. But his journey is about seeking intimate friendships. And it makes me wonder what heaven will be like. Will we truly have a chance to intimately know Jesus, up close and personal, and what is that going to be like?? 

Not only do these books get my imagination going about what Jesus is like, but they also showcase all the possibilities of human relationships. In the Tuyo series we see a relationship between a father and his son that brings me to tears. Can family relationships really look like this? We see friends who step over the polite boundaries of social etiquette, and become truly irreplaceable in each other’s lives. We see employers and employees who somehow find the perfect balance of respect and camaraderie. And it sparks my imagination. Could the relationships in my life look like this? Does a path from here to there really exist? It makes me feel hopeful and gives me vision for what I want to achieve. 

Reading can be dangerous. There are books out there that expose you to just how evil humans are capable of being, that showcase just how dysfunctional you can let your relationships get. I think some exposure to that is good, because those books are also based in reality. But, I find life so much more hopeful when I read the books that focus on, what if we did things better? What if there is a way to help those around us? What if our relationships could be not only good but awesome? And then of course those characters that give you little glimpses of what all-powerful goodness and compassion can look like, and make you wonder, is this what Jesus is like? 

I will add that while you can learn a lot from all types of books, having the foundation of the Bible is kind of imperative. The Bible says Here is Truth. Fantasy novels have the ability to take some of that truth and say, ok, here’s how that would play out in this scenario. 

Reading, like any kind of activity, can go as deep as you take it. You can consume a comic book and just count it a quick distraction. Or you can think deeply about the story the comic book told you and think about what it teaches you about human nature and how does that line up with what the Bible tells us about human nature? And then you make conclusions and come away with a little more insight about the world around you, and maybe even a little more insight on how to live out your daily life. You can do the same with a tv show, a popular song on the radio, an interesting piece of art. God’s design and truth appear everywhere in the world around us, and if we’re looking for it, we’ll see it. I just especially love looking for it in a good book. And right now, a good fantasy book. 

“Almost Not Afraid at All”

I’ve been reading the “Tuyo” book series by Rachel Neumeier. It’s a fantasy series that takes place in a world where each region is separated dramatically from the next, with each region having its own extremely different weather, sky, peoples, customs, etc. I probably enjoy these books so much because they are very cross-cultural, as the people in these regions rarely interact, but the main characters are forced to leave their home regions and live among and befriend people who are completely different from them. 

One of my favorite characters is Tano who is rescued from a very abusive family/tribe situation. He is brought into a new tribe where he is treated well for the first time in his life and he slowly learns the things he needs to know to be a part of this new people. He struggles with a lot of fear and lack of trust, but he’s determined to overcome in these areas so he keeps pushing himself to do things that he logically knows are good for him, even though, physically and emotionally it terrifies him to try it. As he grows in these areas, and his fear lessons, he uses a line quite a lot, “I was almost not afraid at all.” 

I like that. I think that sums up how I live a lot of my life. Growing up cross-culturaly, I always struggled with not fitting in and the fear that evoked. I never quite knew all the customs and ways of doing things. I mostly got it, but there was always something that would make me take a misstep, draw attention to my ignorance, which generally drew mockery. I learned to get really good at observing people carefully and taking my cues from them. Every new situation felt fraught with danger. I don’t know where I’m supposed to go. I don’t know what I’m supposed to say. I remember in 8th grade we had been living in Haiti and due to the major upheaval and violence happening in the country, we had to leave and come back to the States. I came into middle school four months into the school year. At lunch everyone got in line to get their food. My mom offered to give me lunch money, but the idea of having to figure out where to line up, how to pay for my food, how to figure out the whole system, was too overwhelming for me, too many opportunities to mess up and draw negative attention. I just skipped lunch the rest of the school year and then ate a big snack when I got home from school every day. 

As I got older I was able to recognize that a lot of these fears were unreasonable. So, I would make myself do things that felt scary, but logically I knew I should/could do them. Fake it till you make it. I got good at walking into situations and being upfront about my ignorance. Hey, I’ve never done this before, could you show me how this works? I have also learned how to over-prepare in order to cancel out some of the fear. I’ll look at maps ahead of time so I know exactly where I will park, and exactly how long it will take me. Maybe I’ll write down notes on questions I need to ask, information I need to remember to get. Possibly I’ll talk through the whole scenario ahead of time with my husband, ok, so I’m going to do this first, and then this, and then this…does that sound right? I’ve learned to just do the things that make me afraid because the fear is unreasonable and things need to get done. 

This week I had a job interview. I can’t remember the last time that happened. All the things I’ve done on the side to make some money over the years have been initiated informally, by someone I know or a friend of a friend. So, extremely new experience. It was at a location I’d never been to with people I’d never met. (It’s a part time position, teaching a one-hour children’s music class once a week.) 

Ahead of time, I was expecting that I was going to be nervous. I was anticipating being nervous. I was ready to be nervous. But, a couple hours beforehand, I thought about it and realized that I was actually excited. Not nervous. I was curious and actually looking forward to meeting these new people and discussing the class. Yes, my heart was pounding a bit, and I took a couple deep breaths before I got out of my car, but practically nothing! 

The interview went fine. I’ll find out next week whether they want me or not. But, getting the position almost feels irrelevant. I feel like it was a big win to do something new where I wasn’t scared and actually enjoyed myself. I did something new, and “I was almost not afraid at all!”

1 John 4:18 says, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.”

My journey to overcoming fear is directly linked to my understanding of how much I am loved by God. The better my understanding, the less fear I have. I look forward to a day when I will not be afraid at all. Until then, I’m pretty excited about “Almost not afraid at all.”