Ray Bradbury. The Man.

As many of you know by now, and those who don't are about to find out, I'm a big fan of Ray Bradbury, who died today.  He passed away at 91 years old, and leaves behind himself an awful lot of stories.  Some of them are famous and well-known, like 'Farenheit 451' and 'Something Wicked this way Comes.'  It is this second book that first drew me into his world.
I was doing my best at the time (probably about 18 years old) to collect the entire works of John Wyndam, another sci-fi author, best known for 'The Day of the Triffids,' and I'd pretty well exhausted the local used bookstores.  So, my father sent away for some that I was missing, and because shipping was fairly expensive, and the books were so cheap, he added a bunch of Ray Bradbury books, for quarters each, to fill in the space.  In my university days, when I was supposed to be studying, I would go to the tenth floor of the library tower at the U of C, and read Bradbury.  How I passed all those classes, I'll never know, since the main thing I was studying was 'Something Wicked.'

Now, as I say, some of his stuff is well known, some less so.  And there are a great many short stories out there.  The short story that I want to focus on today, is 'the man,' from his collection 'The Illustrated Man.'

There are many covers,
but this is the one I have.

I'll try to find the full text, but until I do, you'll have to make do with a synopsis.  The way the story proceeds is as follows:  A rocket lands on a distant planet, and nobody cares.

The end.

Okay, there's more to it than that.  A rocket lands on a distant planet and nobody cares, because there has recently been a far more important visitor.  Someone who 'healed the sick, and comforted the poor.  He fought hypocrisy and dirty politics, and sat among the people, talking, through the day.'

That's the report from the people of the planet as to what has happened, to which the Captain of the rocket replies 'Is that so wonderful?'

Aha.  It's a good story, one of his best, precisely for this reason.  You see, the rocketmen who come to the new planet are really REALLY expecting to be taken seriously.  They want to be the big noise in the party, they really want to be the focus, they really want everyone to sit up and take notice.  Upon landing, the captain exclaims 'I don't know why we bother.  We build rockets, we go to all the trouble of crossing space, searching for them, and this is what we get.  Neglect.  Look at those idiots wander about in there.  Don't they realize how big this is?  The first space flight to touch their provincial land.  How many times does that happen?'

If you take the Bible seriously in any way, you'll know that one of the biggest problems that we, as humans have, is the sin of pride.  When CS Lewis talks about it, he does so by calling it the greatest of all sins, and certainly the most dangerous one.  And there's a lot of truth to that.  What was blinding the captain to the man who had come to town, was that he wasn't the most important thing to happen to the people that day.  The captain spends basically the entire story getting annoyed that nobody is pleased and overjoyed that he'd shown up that day.  What he wants is to be noticed.

After a while, though, the Captain becomes a bit more interested in this man, and demands from the people of this planet, to know what the man looks like.  And he is perpetually frustrated, because nobody seems to know what this man looks like.  When he asks the mayor of the city what the man looks like, the mayor responds:
"I don't believe that is important."

Later, when the captain talks to a woman of the city:

'Tell me about this wonderful man you saw yesterday.'
The woman looked steadily at the captain: 'he walked among us, and was very fine and good.'
'What color were his eyes?'
'the color of the sun, the color of the sea, the color of a flower, the color of the mountains, the color of the night.'

Nobody seems to have an idea about what this man looks like, but everyone seems to know what he did and what he said, and more importantly, who he is. The woman can tell you that he is fine and good, but she can't pin down what he looks like.  In the words of the mayor, that's not important.

For sure, this is not the man.

After a while, the first mate, Martin, finally gets to the core of what is bothering the captain when he says "I've had enough of your highhandedness.  Leave these people alone.  They've got something good and decent, and you come and foul up the nest and sneer at it.  Well, I've talked to them too.  I've gone through the city and I've seen their faces, and they've got something you'll never have; a little simple faith, and they'll move mountains with it.  You, you're boiled because someone stole your act, got here ahead, and made you unimportant."

Ah yes.  We don't want to be unimportant.  Even in the face of God himself.  Many Christians, many church workers, many pastors, don't want to be unimportant, even in the face of God.  We can't stand to be not the most important thing, we want to be the biggest and the best.  We crave attention in the most destructive way.  And the captain, wanting to be noticed and admired, wanting to have all eyes on him, couldn't bear the thought of the return of Christ, making him, his rocket, his guns, his money, seem unimportant.

Finally, though, the captain works out that Jesus has returned, the man has been there, and demands to see him.  Demands at gunpoint, demands to see this man who has worked miracles, who is important.  And as he brandishes his gun at the mayor, the mayor replies 'You're very tired.  You've traveled a long way, and you belong to a tired people who've been without faith for a long time, and you want to believe so much now that you're interfering with yourself.  You'll only make it harder if you kill.  You'll never find him that way."

The captain, when he gets no clear answer as to where the man has gone, ends up promising that he will go on chasing after the man, the most unusual thing in history.  He will go from world to world to world chasing after him, until he catches up.

The captain leaves, and half his crew stays behind on this planet.  The other half goes with the captain into space, trying to find the man, and trying to ask him for a little peace and quiet.  And after the rocket takes off, the mayor has this to say:

'He'll go on, planet after planet, seeking and seeking, and always and always he will be an hour late, or a half hour late, or ten minutes late, or a minute late.  And finally he will miss out by only a few seconds.  And when he has visited three hundred worlds and is seventy or eighty years old, he will miss out by only a fraction of a second, and then by a smaller fraction of a second.  And he will go on and on, thinking to find that very thing which he left behind here, on this planet, in this city.  "
Martin looked steadily at the mayor.
The mayor put out his hand. "Was there ever any doubt of it?" He beckoned to the others and turned, "Come along now, we mustn't keep him waiting."
They walked into the city.

The Captain wanted to be the big noise amongst the people.  Then he wanted to be noticed by the Man, on his own terms.  He wanted to be part of something huge, something notable.  And when he left, he left behind him what he was not willing to actually look for.  Ever since Darwin, as the captain says, people had lost that sense of the divine power, had lost their sense of awe and majesty.  And here they were, in the stars, looking to be the centre of attention because of what they'd accomplished, and what they'd done.  And what did they find?  Only that the God they'd left behind on earth was there amongst the stars anyway, doing what he'd always done, being fine and good.  And in the face of that, the captain had to keep looking, because he couldn't work out that what he was looking for was right there with him.  What he'd been chasing for so long, the whole reason for going to space, was right there with them, and maybe always had been.  For where two or three are gathered in His name, He is there with them.

It's a beautiful story, and one that I recommend reading.  it's in my office, if you'd like to give it a look-see, and especially in light of the author's death, I recommend it.  We, who are a faithless people, we, who look for God in all the wrong places, we who seek where he is not, and ignore where he is, it does us good to read an allegory like this, and to remind ourselves of where God actually is.  Where he's always promised to be.

PJ.