Wisdom for life from Groot Comic, issue 6

Back in 2014 (was it that long ago?) I watched Guardians of the Galaxy and fell in love with it. As a film it's just a roller coaster of action, witty dialogue, special effects and has a great soundtrack to match.

The past eighteen months have seen the number of GotG toys in our house rocket (pun intended), as evidenced by this photo:

GotG Disney Infinity figures

It's hard to pick a favourite Guardian. But if I had to, I'd say my favourite character in the film was Rocket Raccoon. Cathy's favourite character was Groot, who is a talking tree of few words. Specifically "I am Groot." (Incredibly Vin Diesel who voiced Groot recorded all the lines of "I am Groot" in the film separately, in English and in all the other languages it was released in as well.)

GotG has also got me into buying comics. Not just the Guardians of the Galaxy title, which is back after a months-long hiatus, but the spin-offs as well. A six-issue run of Groot comic has just finished. I started buying it for Cathy, but I really enjoyed it as well.

In issue six, we get Groot's back story (although that has been in several of the other comics and there are many different versions of the tale), in which Groot is exiled from his home planet of fellow groots, for showing compassion towards a human child kidnapped by the groots for research purposes. Groot travels to Earth to meet the child he freed because he wants her to know that he still thinks about her. Along the way, he muses on some of the things he wants to tell her - that his exile wasn't dreadful, that through it he became a Guardian, that he wants to thank her for being the catalyst of his rebellion.

Comic books are generally dismissed as fairly meaningless. But this particular issue was quite emotional. It got me, I must admit. I had a lump in my throat at the end and was a bit blinky.

I'd freely admit I'm not a fast learner. It has taken me many years to learn some simple things in life. But one thing I have learned (the hard way) is to be open to wisdom wherever you find it. These panels seemed to me to be true and life-affirming and worthwhile lessons to dwell on. You will need to click on them to read them.

Groot Issue #6

Final panel of Groot #6

I love that last line. "Life is not about the shadow you cast on your enemies, but the shade you provide for your friends."

Turns out I (!) should listen to the voices inside the house

Cathy raised some very salient points about my post about how easy it is to ignore the wisdom in the room to listen to the ‘voices outside the house’. So, I have decided to write a rebuttal to my own earlier remarks, drawing on some of what she said.

Firstly, if we never listened to others from outside of the situations we’re in (church, work, whatever) we could become incredibly insular (and self-important). We might believe that we – and only we – had a monopoly on the truth, or that we – and only we – could find the answers to the problems we face.

Secondly, it’s good to know what other people are thinking from other areas / parts of the world. It’s good to know that other people think similarly to us, or to be challenged because they think differently. We only have to look at the insularity of some Christian factions to see that taking those people out of their comfort zones is a good thing.

Thirdly, some churches seem to operate in their own ‘bubble’ and seem to rarely look, listen, or step outside of what is their ‘norm’. I noticed that a while ago at Greenbelt. I was made uncomfortable by some of the things that were going on because they didn’t gel with the accepted (or implied) teaching of my then church. But maybe that’s a good thing.

If listening to the voices outside prevent us from going off on crazy tangents, and show us errors and deficiencies in our thinking, and affirm us in the more troubling things that we know we ought to do, then yes, I believe those are all good things.

I still think we have a tendency to put those outside on pedestals. I still think we can overlook the opinions of those sitting next to us to our own detriment. I think that maybe if we are going for outside voices they should be as far removed from our realm of experience as possible, not just outside our church, but outside our wing of the church, possibly even outside of the Church per se.

But I recognise that seeking wisdom somewhere is better than seeking it nowhere.

We always listen to the voices outside the house

My house has no front garden. You step out the front door and you’re on the pavement. Our living room window similarly opens out onto the street.

When people walk past you hear snippets of conversation. Arguing couples, people discussing their medication, parents moaning at their kids, teenagers gossiping about who got off with who.

I find it hard not to listen to the voices outside the house. Which I’m sure irks my wife when she’s trying to tell me something.

Recently I’ve been thinking about how much we do the same thing in church. Recently we had Shane Claiborne come to my church and talk about living ‘radically’. (That’s a word that is currently in vogue, will stay in vogue for a year or so, and will be in vogue again in about six years time – you get used to seeing things spin round again in Christian circles).

I’ve got nothing against Shane. He won me over and I went perfectly ready to find fault. But I do wonder whether we really needed to ship a guy in from Philadelphia to tell us about how to love the people around us.

We have people living sacrificially and working (hard) in our church. We have people going out day in day out to interact with a community that really doesn’t give a shit about what we believe. But these guys keep on going out and serving. What could they tell us about loving the people around us?

Or are we just used to them? Their voices are the ones we know, and we can just about hear tantalising snippets of conversation from outside the house.

I’ll give another example. Soul Survivor last year shipped in two speakers from down under – one Australian and one New Zealander. Again, nothing against those people, one was very good in what he said, one less so. But again did we really need to hear what was essentially very middle of the road commentary in an antipodean twang?

Or did the fact they’d travelled so far make the things they said seem more valid?

We do the same thing in workplaces as well. The place I just left chronically under-invested in an essential part of its business. Just before I walked out the door forever (dangerous, using that word I know, but hey) they got a consultant in. The first thing said consultant said was that this particular department was ridiculously small.

Helloooooo? That’s what several staff members had said over and over. Why does it take a voice from outside the house to be heard? Why do we overlook the wisdom sitting right next to us?

We chase after new knowledge. We hanker after hearing something new and exciting from an exotic speaker hailing from a foreign land. And we think we’re smart to track down these dispensers of wisdom.

But maybe we’re just so dumb we ignore the people in the room who have grown tired of trying to be heard by us.