Understanding Creation Through Frankenstein

Popular culture has turned the Monster in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein into a lumbering oaf devoid of intelligent thought. In Boris Karloff's film interpretation, we see a Monster that merely roams around zombified with his green arms extended, appendages stiff and rigid, while issuing unintelligible grunts and moans. Actually, in Shelley's terrific novel, the Monster is quite the student, learning language and reading many books and classic works that inform him on humanity, human behavior, and on his unique position in the world. The Monster states:

Like Adam, I was apparently united by no link to any other being in existence; but his state was far different from mine in every other respect. He had come forth from the hands of God a perfect creature, happy and prosperous, guarded by the especial care of his Creator; he was allowed to converse with, and acquire knowledge from, beings of a superior nature: but I was wretched, helpless, and alone. Many times I considered Satan as the fitter emblem of my condition; for often, like him, when I viewed the bliss of my protectors, the bitter gall of envy rose within me.(1)

As the Monster comes to understand his terrible plight as a secondary creation of man and not of God, he breaks open:

"Hateful day when I received life!" I exclaimed in agony. "Accursed creator! Why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust? God, in pity, made man beautiful and alluring, after his own image; but my form is a filthy type of yours, more horrid even from the very resemblance. Satan had his companions, fellow-devils, to admire him; but I am solitary and abhorred..."

No Eve soothed my sorrows, nor shared my thoughts; I was alone. I remembered Adam's supplication to his Creator. But where was mine? He had abandoned me, in the bitterness of my heart, I cursed him.(2)

The loneliness of the Monster leans on the reader throughout the book. Some of his lamentations read like Psalms of David crying out to God for mercy and for answers. The horror of the novel is not so much in the physical hideousness of the Monster (although his countenance does cause other characters to recoil), but the crushing loneliness of this abandoned creation.

Left to a lesser God, such would be our lot. A lesser God might look upon our "filthy type" and dismantle us much like the Monster's would be bride is dismantled by Dr. Victor Frankenstein. But, through His mercy, we are monsters restored. What might have been horrific and terrible to look upon is made beautiful by Him. For example, a horrendous crucifixion and death births a glorious resurrection. Further, we have not been left to toil in loneliness. We have been provided with human communities, relationships, marriages, parents, and children. We have not been abandoned. We have the spark of our Creator and may even glimpse Him in His created beings in our best moments.

The Monster's rejection so stained him that he killed Victor's wife on their wedding night, and this after he had killed Victor's closest friends. This led to a pursuit of the creature on the northern seas to the icy reaches of the earth. Finally, the Monster was being pursued by his creator. Although Victor sought to destroy the Monster and undo his unholy creature for good, the Monster took twisted delight in the fact that his creator pursued him at all--even if it meant his death at the hands of his creator. In fact, that likely would have been comforting for the Monster.

The Monster serves as a sort of anti-Adam. Instead of pursuing us to destroy us, God pursues us for life. Instead of trying to end our life, he desires for us life to the full. Instead of recoiling at our ugliness, he makes it beautiful. Instead of our Creator dying as we float away on a chunk of ice in a distance ocean, we are pulled toward Him even as we struggle to escape.

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(1) Mary Shelley, Frankenstein: or the Modern Prometheus, (Hertfordshire, England: Wordsworth Editions Limited, 1999), 100.
(2) Ibid, 101.

Understanding Creation Through Tortillas

I recently tried to make a batch of homemade tortillas for our Mexican dishes. It took awhile. I was slow and clumsy. I made a total mess in the kitchen. I overcooked a few of them and those poor wretches were akin to a crunchy, leathery sow's ear. Others were like ultra-thin crackers that broke into tiny flour-shards--little wheat-y razors.

But a few were REAL beauties. The kind of whole grain flour taste that one cannot find in an air-tight sealed bag of Old El Paso brand or Kroger brand tortillas that have endured an interstate journey. Each hand-rolled tortilla had a shape all its own. Some were oblong. Some evolved with an unfortunate protrusion or deformity. Some thickened a bit too much. Some rolled out wide and paper thin, while others resisted and kept shrinking back no matter how vigorously I pressed and rolled them. These stiff-necked tortillas resisted the poking and prodding of their (sometimes) benevolent creator. While all of them had little golden-brown spots after they exited the griddle, no two patterns or colors were exactly alike.

What they all had in common was that they were fashioned by the same creator with loving care and a heart bursting with hope. A creator with a taste for the real thing--not just enjoying "adequate" tortillas of conformity rolled off a machine with perfect ratios of flour and water (and partially hydrogenated oils for longer shelf life) and uniform 10" size. A motivated creator willing to invest an hour in fashioning his own bread instead of purchasing the mass-produced bread largely created by a machine.

Some were broken. Some went bad before being used. Some were consumed in pure delight as they were wrapped around hearty black beans or maybe some peanut butter and a banana.

There are literally millions of better tortilla-makers on this celestial ball, but there is something to be said for taking a role in creating one of the food staples that sustains one's life.

Please read this post from the Ochlophobist. Here's a teaser.

One can teach one's daughter to bake bread in the worst of Bauhaus sky rise apartments. One can hand one's Bud drinking neighbor a bottle of homebrew. One can, as the Honduran family down the street from me did, grow a vegetable garden in one's front yard. One can stay put whenever possible. One can do everything in one's power to keep and help the little and aged. One can make use of used things and fix what is broken. One can take the walk a bit more slowly. One can move one's thumb over wool. One can stand in the corner of the most humble home, before flame and window, and re-member on earth what is remembered in heaven.

Thanks to Kevin for pointing me to the Ochlophobist. His/her blog convicts me.

And it inspires me to create things: silence, songs, conversations, and tortillas.