(urth) Slow Children at Play
JBarach at aol.com
JBarach at aol.com
Wed Sep 12 10:15:12 PDT 2007
In a message dated 9/12/2007 9:56:15 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time,
JBarach at aol.com writes:
The cherubim tells the three that he will bring them again to the sun, but
that it will not be for Gene's sake and certainly not for Mark's (and he looks
disdainfully at Mark, which again suggests to me that he may be a fallen
angel), and not even for Joe's (and he speaks to Joe "more kindly," which again
suggests to me that Joe isn't human or angelic and may therefore be ... an
animal?). It appears to me that Joe and Mark get to enter the Garden and
play, but Gene, seeing the cherubim's other faces, flees. He is not (yet)
allowed to enter into the Garden. You have to become like a little child in order
to enter the kingdom, Jesus says.
In this connection, I should also point out that the narrator, Gene, is
reminded of the three Magi following a star and coming to Christ, which (I should
think) is a pretty good hint about the meaning of their quest.
Note, too, that Joe's attempt to dive through the window (i.e., commit
suicide) is an attempt to reach Paradise, but that it's not the right way, and so
Mark rescues him.
It's interesting to me, too, to see how Wolfe has grouped the stories in
Innocents Aboard. Like "Slow Children at Play," "The Old Woman Whose Rolling
Pin Is the Sun" is also about the winter solstice, the darkest time of the year.
And like "The Friendship Light, "Slow Children at Play" was, according to
Wolfe's Introduction, "based in part on an actual light -- a mysterious light,
in this case -- which I saw once and have never seen again." It sounds from
that statement that both of them were based in part on the same light. At
any rate, they have the light theme in common, except that in "The Friendship
Light" the light's flickering seems to attract demons and results in evil,
whereas the beacon in "Slow Children" draws men, angels, and ... whatever Joe
is, in a way that is intended to be good (though not understood as such by
Gene).
John
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John Barach (541) 531-2906
Pastor, Reformation Covenant Church (CREC)
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Medford, OR 97501
_http://barach.us_ (http://barach.us/)
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