A Road Less Travelled

I just finished reading two books by Louis L’Amour and I am a fourth of the way through a third and, let me tell you, they are fine reading. I never thought I would enjoy Louis L’Amour. He was always filed under “Books that people read and like, but I would never enjoy”. They were filed under books my grandfather read and he and I didn’t like the same sorts of books. I assumed we never would. But now I am begrudging the time it is taking me to write this blog post because I could be finding out what happens to Kin Sackett in the West Indies. Does he find the girl who was captured by slavers? Is he able to bring the evil bad men to justice? What happens next? I am hooked in a way I never expected from a western. I does help that I have come to understand westerns in the last few months. They are about honor and honesty. They are about humanity. The hero in a western almost always lives outside the law. He lives on the edge of civilization. And on the edge there are three ways to go. You could lose your humanity and become savage. This was the part the Indians play in many westerns. You could become lawless and oppress the town for your own gain. These are the evil bad men. You could keep your honor and live honestly. This is the hero who rides in, fixes the problem, and rides out again. This is the man who tends to attract men to himself who will follow where he leads. In the first route there is no humanity and in the second there is no honor. In the third there is pain and struggle and honor and friendship. Seth wrote about the difference between Babylon 5 and Firefly, my two most favorite SF shows. Firefly is really a western, though. They live on the edge and must decide who they will be. I have decided I would much rather live in the Firefly universe than Babylon 5. I have decided I would much rather live in a western than a political and military world. On Firefly they became a family. If you’re going to live on the outside it is hard to do it alone. You need a community and those communities become so close it’s a thing of beauty. There is the understanding that we stand or fall together. On Babylon 5 to survive and win the war against darkness you have to suspect people. They are dishonest times and sometimes dishonesty is needed so secrets won’t escape. Even your closest friends could be, and have been, manipulated. You must be suspicious. I hate being suspicious. But God hasn’t granted me the Firefly world. In His wisdom and grace He has given me the Babylon 5 universe. Suspicion, dishonesty, secrets. But in His love and mercy He has given me a Firefly community.