In the new movie, Cast Away, Tom Hanks plays Chuck Noland, a time-obsessed Federal Express employee. His plane goes down in the Pacific, and he is cast ashore on a deserted island. The film depicts in harrowing detail Chuck’s efforts to survive. (These scenes will make any moviegoer more greatly appreciate a hot shower and all the modern comforts when he or she returns home from the theatre.) Chuck also acutely feels the pain of his separation from Kelly, the woman he hopes to marry. (Warning: Don’t read any further if you don’t want to know the outcome of the story. Actually, the movie is so good I believe you will enjoy it even if you do know what happens).

After four years, a port-a-potty washes ashore which Chuck is able to fashion into a sail. He mounts the sail onto a raft constructed of tree limbs. He escapes the island and is picked up by a passing ship.

After his rescue, he finds that he has been given up for dead. He learns that a funeral had been conducted for him and even that an empty casket had been buried. Most painful was the discovery that Kelly had married another man and borne children by him. For Chuck, it is like losing his life a second time. A friend wonders if it will be possible for Chuck to go on.

Chuck tells him of his lowest point on the island when he had decided to hang himself. Being a consummate planner, he decides to first perform a test by hanging a log. The log was so heavy that it broke the limb to which the rope was tied. He realized that he was helpless to the point that he didn’t even have the power to kill himself. “Then,” he said, “a warm, comfortable feeling came over me like a blanket, and I knew that I had to live... Then the tide washed up a sail. Who knows what the tide may wash up for me now?”

Who knows what unexpected events, good or bad, may be awaiting any of us in the new year? I know of some who entered 2000 with no anticipation that it would bring death to them or a loved one, but it did. The tide also brought blessings in 2000. I can easily think of at least 8 people who regularly worship with us now, whom none of us had even met before the year 2000 began. Who and what will the tide wash up for us in the new year? I don’t know, but the thought of it fills me with anticipation and hope. 


©2000 C. David Hess

I went to see Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone the other day. I have to admit that I went out of a sense of obligation. I knew that a zillion of the Harry Potter books had been sold and were gobbled up by school children everywhere. I figured I had to go see it just to stay in touch with the popular culture. I knew too that there were some Christians who were loudly protesting it because it supposedly teaches witchcraft and would corrupt our youth, if we let it. What was my reaction to the movie,? I absolutely loved it!

The actors were great. The special effects were wonderfully done. The story was well told. It taught great moral lessons: —(as listed by Peter Chattaway) "It takes bravery to stand up to your enemies but even more bravery to stand up to your friends; evil isn't always as obvious as you think it is; sacrificing yourself for the greater good is a good thing; and, perhaps most important of all, it is better to be loved than to know all the tricks of wizardry."

But the thing that absolutely captivated me was the magic. Yes, I know the Bible condemns such, but I don’t mean “magic” in a technical sense, but magic in the general sense that there is more to this world than the humdrum and the coldly rational and material. Harry Potter points to the possibility that beyond, and around, and beside the material world is one of magic, miracle and wonder. The two worlds are not entirely separate either. They impinge upon one another, and travel is possible between them in both directions at “King's Cross, platform 9 3/4” and other places.

This view is foreign to our modern scientific one, but one which is common to all our fairy tales whether it be Alice in Wonderland, or Peter Pan, or The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe. The amazing thing is that with our scientific world view, the fairy tales persist. We think we have left them behind with our childhood, but their power often recaptures us unawares, as many adults have been captured by the Harry Potter stories. We realize anew that a materialistic, scientific world view is too shallow. It explains too little. We live in a universe of magic. We just know it.

That is what captivates us about the Christmas story too with its talk of angels singing to shepherds, and a Visitor from the greater world coming among us. It, like Harry Potter, describes a momentous struggle between the forces of evil and good with the promise that good is the stronger and in the end will triumph.

Frederick Buechner has written, “No matter how forgotten and neglected, there is a child in all of us who is not just willing to believe in the possibility that fairy tales are true after all but who is to some degree in touch with that truth.”

We are never more in touch with it than we are at Christmas, when we celebrate a fairy tale become fact.


©2001 C. David Hess