Real Life Fiction

As you may have guessed by now, we made it back safely from our vacation. A fun time was had by all, especially the no-see-ums that attacked me on our first night there. Around about Wednesday of our vacation week, I discovered that my sister-in-law had a copy of Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince. By the time we left on Sunday, I had read *almost* all of it and then for the next week I kept thinking about the various plot twists and character development.

All of this got me to thinking about whether or not reading fiction is good for our spiritual life. I mean, it shouldn't take up so much of our mental energy, right? Surely that can't be good... except I think it can be good, actually. I think reading about these fictional characters offers us a chance to examine our own inner fabric without having to experience the same traumas and challenges as the characters we read about. Sometimes I find a new way to relate to God by thinking about how fictional characters relate to one another (anyone else think Dumbledore is a bit like a Bishop?).

So did people who lived in earlier times have anything similar to the modern fiction novel to assist them in analyzing their emotions and relationships? At first I thought probably not, but then I got to thinking about certain stories in the lives of the saints. Some saint's lives are *so* unrealistically portrayed that there is no way they can be literal. I'm sure that they are based on fact at some level, but they have obviously been embellished with re-telling over the centuries. So I think some of these truly over-the-top stories might have had the same effect as the modern fiction novel in that they allowed people to examine how they might respond to a spiritual crisis before finding themselves face-to-face with temptation. I am reminded of a story from the life of my own patron saint, St. Marina the Great Martyr... at one point she was apparently swallowed whole by the devil in the form of a great dragon. While in the stomach of the beast, the martyr made the sign of the cross and immediately burst forth from the dragon, killing it. I'm not convinced the saint had that exact literal experience, but I'm quite sure that her faith and devotion to Christ assisted her in overcoming temptation and sin in her holy life.

The embellishment makes us more likely, in our fallen human state, to find the hagiography interesting and to dwell on the spiritual mysteries it contains, doesn't it? That's what I think is probably most important. Spending a lot of time thinking about the intricate relationships within the Harry Potter stories doesn't help me spiritually as much as cogitating on the lives of holy people who actually existed and fought the great fight. If it takes stories of being swallowed by dragons to get me to pay attention, then I thank God for the opportunity to learn from these stories.