Top Five

Has anyone seen/read High Fidelity? It is one of my favorite books and movies, excellent all around an extremely accurate peek into the male brain. Most importantly though are the top five lists. I love top five lists, I will give you a top five for anything, movies, pizza toppings, songs, 80's cartoons, track one side ones... you ask I will list. I am not sure we as people feel the need to rank everything, and why five, or ten seem like the perfect numbers, but that's the way that it is.

Below I will do a top five list on the people that have most inspired me. A couple of rules though; 1) these are not going to be people I actually have met. While my parents have obviously done more to shape me than anyone on this list, it's just too easy and not very interesting for you, the reader. 2) this is list, like any other top five list I will ever do, is not definitive. I am a work in progress, thus my lists must be to. 3) This list is in no particular order.

I should also point out that this idea came from hanging out with some friends Jacob and Sue. Jacob asked for my list after telling us about Soul Survivor, a book by Phillip Yancy about this very topic. In the immortal words of Marvin Gaye "Let's get it on"!

1. CS Lewis
So a good general rule when doing a top five list is to start with a safe pick. The old professor qualifies as this. The man was an absolute genius, possibly the greatest Christian writer not in The Book (you know the book I am talking about). He can actually communicate the words of Jesus in a way few others can.

The list (within the list) Mere Chistianity- The greatest Christian book for non-Christians EVER. Screwtape Letters- Who knew the professor could be have such insight into evil. The uncle/nephew demon book opened my eyes to the spiritual world that I had to acknowledge when I became the Christian. The Great Divorce- A terrific allegory and as convicting as anything I have ever read. The first author that I ever read that showed a level of INDIVIDUAL responsibility when it comes to heaven and hell. The people from hell, didn't like heaven, because they loved themselves more than God. It seems so simple. But who else ever wrote it down?

I have to give special mention to the Chronicles of Narnia. My favorite books when I was a kid and had no idea that they were an allegory for the Christian life. They are so rich. The world Lewis creates at the same time is the world of scripture and the world we want to live in. It has hero's, villains, adventures, beauty (not to mention the only place that animals speak outside of an LSD trip). Besides my favorite seen in ANY piece of literature is Aslan (the Christ like lion) removing the dragon scales for Eustice. God removing our crap is hard. It hurts. It can't be done right unless it's deep. But it's the only way. This out of a kid's book.

Lewis also gets props for the way he converted. Years of study. Of argument. Of studying all of the religions of the world. It all led to one conclusion, this only works with a savior. So what does he do after converting? Oh, he just goes and writes books about the things that are hardest for him to deal with. Miracles are hard for a sensible professor to buy. Step 1; wrestle with God. Step 2; write a friggin book defending the essential role of miracle to the gospel. Genius+stubbornness+God's presence= essential books on faith that have changed me in so many ways.

2. Stan Lee

If you know who Stan Lee is you are laughing at me right now. If you don't you are just confused. Stan Lee is the single most influential person in the history of comic books. Here is a short list of the books that he co-created; Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, Hulk, X-Men, Daredevil, Iron Man, Captain America, Avengers. Oh there are more, but I am done typing. His nickname is "Stan the Man", I hope you now know why.

It must be said though that it is not the amount of characters he has created that makes him great. It was the kind of characters that he created and the worlds that they inhabited that makes him "the man". First of all, location. These characters are not from Metropolis, or Gothom City, or Smallville. They are mostly from New York. Our world, with all of our problems. Unlike other comic authors of his era (the 60's by the way), Lee didn't want his books to exist fantastical places, he wanted his villains and heroes to inhabited our world. This seems subtle, but it is one of just many ways that his characters seem to accessible. Another way are the heroes themselves.

Look at Spider-Man. Spidey is a kid named Peter Parker. Peter is a nerd. He looks like a nerd. He acts like a nerd (especially around women). He has no muscles. He is constantly broke. His parents are dead. His uncle is dead (partially because of Peter's wrong-doing). He is constantly struggling to maintain his own life, with his heroic responsibilities, in fact his powers are often more of burden than a gift. Nobody wrote like that before Stan Lee. Stan Lee is not only "the man" because he writes a good nerd. He is "the man" because he has the ability to package the world into insanely keen allegories that reveal many hard truths. Look at the X-Men.

The X-Men were born in the sixties. The US was going through more changes than a fourteen year old boy. One of these was the Civil Rights Movement. So unless your high school skipped teaching about the Civil Rights Movement, I shouldn't have to go into much detail. Martin Luther King Jr, Malcolm X, separate but Equal, Rosa Parks, JFK, protests, jailings, Birmingham, street wars, etc, etc etc. Stan Lee saw all of this and started writing a comic book.

Skeptical? Look at the facts. In the X-Men the world (remember, our world) is trying to deal with mutants, and their desire for rights. Mutants it seems are like regular people, some are good, some our bad. Unfortunately the bad ones can fly and make things explode. Also unfortunate, humans have had the world to themselves for a long time and don't really want to share it with their new co-inhabitors. "What if they take over?", "What if they move into my neighborhood?", "Who will protect my children", "What do we do with these mutants?". The world (again, our world) is torn in two trying to figure out what to do with these mutants. In the midst of this struggle to dynamic leaders emerge; Professor X and Magneto. Professor X (or Charles Xavier) and his followers, have a dream (I swear, this is right out of the books). They dream of a co-inhabited world, where mutants and humans live in peace. Where they respect each other. Engage in debate and work with each other to better this world. Magneto once shared this dream with his old friend Xavier. However little things like living through a Concentration Camp, seeing mutants arrested just for existing, being verbally attacked and labeled a "freak" shattered his dream. So his dream was adjusted. Humans are obviously inferior to mutants, thus it was time for mutants to rule and for humans to cower and hide and pretend they were something they were not. Two gifted individuals, the same injustice, two different responses that both seem reasonable. If you aren't seeing King and Malcolm X yet, then I need to work on my writing.

Lee understood that in order to write compelling stories he didn't need to imagine far away places and characters. He simply needed to open his eyes to the realities surrounding him. X-Men has spent the last 40 years telling stories of predjudice, justice, mercy and hope for a better tomorrow. Xavier's and MLK's dream are still being written about and fought for. They also still strike a chord in generation after generation of readers. It did for me when I was young and still inspires me now. I want to do what Lee did. No, not write comic books, but be able to communicate our most fundamental truths in accessible ways. To create worlds where are our battles our fought, in order to teach us how to fight in our own world.

Coming soon 3-5.
PS If you want to send me your lists, I will post them right here, for all of the world...er, my friends to read.