Back in 2007, attention was drawn to a Mr Philip Pullman, author of The Golden Compass fantasy books for children. At the time, this talented author was anti-God, anti-religion, and his writing portrayed that, which was a concern for Christian parents trying to pass on the truth of God’s love for us.
I wrote a letter to Mr Pullman at the time, and I must not have had the correct address, because it came back to me unread. I post it here because I think about him sometimes, and I hope that he has found some healing since 2007.
Mr. Pullman,
I do not want to propose that I know you very well, or that I am someone of great insight, but I do think I’ve spent an amount of time “listening” to you with an open heart and an open mind, and it is my hope that you will grant me the same respect. I’d like to offer back to you a bit of myself, a bit of faith, and what I hope will be a bit of charitable constructive criticism.
What struck me most about you when reading through your online responses to various questions, as well as your acceptance speech for the Carnegie Medal, was how much you actually have in common with the Christian God. Let me share a few observations with you:
Your love for stories.
I very much like how you worded it –
“There’s more wisdom in a story than in volumes of philosophy,”
“we need books, time, and silence. Thou shalt not is soon forgotten, but Once upon a time lasts forever.”
You may recall the first few words in some of God’s many books are “In the beginning,” “It was the twelfth year of the reign of Nebucadnezzar…” and “In the land of Uz there was a blameless and upright man…” All these sound a lot like “Once upon a time.” Jesus himself told many parables as a way of teaching his followers. And God’s stories have been on the Best Seller lists for centuries!
How you understand the use of stories.
“All stories teach, whether the storyteller intends them to or not. They teach the world we create. They teach the morality we live by.”
God understands this very well. That is why it is so vitally important that the morality that we teach our youth in those stories be God’s morality. In fact our very lives are stories that we create with God as we go. These stories are what we will present to him at the end of our lives as a gift to him, to show our gratitude, really the only gift we have.
Your enjoyment in creating & your affection for your creation.
It is very obvious that you enjoy creating. Even though you comment that it is laborious and depressing, you’ve not hidden your passion for it very well.
“Then I read it all again and think it’s horrible, and get very depressed. That’s one of the things you have to put up with. Eventually, after a lot of fiddling, it’s sort of all right, but the best I can do”
“You’re much better off supplying your own energy, and writing in spite of the fact that no-one’s interested, and even learning to put up with other people’s contempt and ridicule. What do they know, anyway?”
Why press on in misery? I believe it’s because you love to challenge your mind – so do I. God’s creations and mysteries are infinitely challenging and fulfilling to discover. The difference between our imagination and God’s is that His creations become real, by the sheer power of his will and his love. We call it conception, and our actual, real-life, here and now physical world is entirely new and different, never to go back to the way it was before he did it.
There are many people that can appreciate and enjoy your creations, but no one knows them as intimately as you do, and no one knows the exact experience of having created them, no one can love each of them precisely as you do. That statement applies to God as well.
Your discipline and dedication to creating.
“If not, it’s back to the desk until the three pages are covered. I write with a ballpoint pen on A4 sized narrow-lined paper. The paper has got to have a grey or blue margin and two holes. I only write on one side, and when I’ve got to the bottom of the last page, I finish the sentence (or write one more) at the top of the next, so that the paper I look at each morning isn’t blank.
“The work of being a schoolteacher (for instance) is regular and timetabled, and you can build in your writing to the hour or so after midnight or before breakfast or whenever. But when you work full-time, the demands on your attention come flying from every direction and unpredictably, and it’s harder to find that regularity that is so necessary.”
God is very much this way. He likes structure, hierarchy, routine, and liturgy; his creation becomes most fully alive when it is surrounded by things being ‘just so.’ In fact, we rely on his discipline and dedication to us. I can count on the sun to rise each morning; I can count on the laws of physics, of chemistry and of mathematics, and the laws of morality, to be consistent. I’m not excusing the abuses of structure, but attempting to show that structure is necessary, and in fact, appealing. How amazing is it that using our understanding of His structures, we can put a man on the moon?
You know what it’s like to hurt.
“I was ignored. When anyone took any notice it was to point out what a twit I was, and laugh at me,”
“You’re much better off supplying your own energy, and writing in spite of the fact that no-one’s interested, and even learning to put up with other people’s contempt and ridicule”
“I feel sad to live in a world where there are such poor critics.”
Coincidentally, this is how Jesus felt on the cross, and this is how His Church feels daily, scourged quite brutally from all sides. Look around at how much hate is directed towards her – it is so easy for people to despise something they don’t even try to understand. To some, your books and accusations are another slap in the face – they are painful. You may think we deserve it, and perhaps that is what hurts the most.
I’d like to briefly point out a misunderstanding of yours regarding God. It’s funny because at times you seem so in touch with children, and at other times you missed it –
At one point you said, “In a book for children you can’t put the plot on hold while you cut artistic capers for the amusement of your sophisticated readers, because, thank God, your readers are not sophisticated.”
At another point you said, “if he is keeping out of sight, it’s because he’s ashamed of his followers and all the cruelty and ignorance they’re responsible for promoting in his name. If I were him, I’d want nothing to do with them.”
He’s not keeping out of sight because he’s ashamed, that would be putting the plot on hold. He is keeping out of sight because he wants to be sought, which is the very plot itself! What is the most common children’s game? Hide and Seek. Why? Because young children (and adult children) long to be “looked for” and “found.” We want to be wanted, and understood, and loved anyway. Throughout history, there are many religious people who have understood that, and acted with far more compassion and heart and bravery than you or I could possibly imagine, but sadly, they don’t get as much press as the fools.
The last thing I’d like to say is really a plea on behalf of Roman Catholic Christians. Our Church is not a monster to be hated or feared or rebelled against. She recognizes that God loves each and every human, and tries to imitate Him. We recognize that we’ve made mistakes in the course of history, that certain members have lost sight of God and have sinned. You are right to be disgusted by sin. I am asking for your mercy and forgiveness, not because we deserve it, but because it is God’s will.
For elected officials, that they may govern according to the truth about the dignity of every human being, born and unborn.