I saw “Cast Away” with Tom Hanks the other night. Superb movie. Superb directing. And definitely superb acting. But that’s not why I liked it. All great stories, and this one is simply “Robinson Crusoe” retold, speak to that certain something within our inner person, and this movie spoke loudly to me. It was definitely a “been there, done that” experience and I just don’t mean drinking from a coconut or relieving oneself on a moonlit beach.
I first read “Robinson Crusoe” in 1982. Like many books I buy, it remained on the shelf unread until something happens in life that causes a title to call out to me. There couldn’t have been a better book for the occasion for in that year I indeed found myself physically, emotionally, and spiritually stranded, and on a desert island to boot.
St.Croix, in the U.S. Virgin Islands is not un-populated and one would hardly consider oneself stranded there unless you had no money to leave, which was my case. But even if I could leave I could not go back from whence I came because I had left a time and a place that didn’t exist anymore. Anyone who graduates from college, especially when the experience was full and intense, will know what I’m talking about.
Though many may think “Crusoe” an adventure tale, it is actually an allegorical conversion story. And anyone who has experienced a profound spiritual conversion will recognize the process: forcibly divorced from all that one holds secure, confused, devastated, alone, despair, ultimately humbled, reaching bottom, dark night of the soul, keep breathing, surrender, conversion, bit by bit, light, discovery, more darkness, keep breathing, light again, slow ascent from the dark pit, daylight, freedom, new man, sort of...
I thought I had gone to that far flung island as a result of having accepted a teaching job, but in 20-year hindsight, I have long since known that my Maker simply used the place and the occasion to first unmake what I had made of me and remake the me He intended. The refiner’s fire burned hot in the Caribbean sun and the long nights echoed with the sound of much hammering, but “eye has not seen and ear has not heard, nor has it so much dawned on man what God has prepared for those who love Him.”(A scripture that kept me “breathing”)
Perhaps someday I’ll tell you the whole story, but it wouldn’t be all that unique for I believe God crashes, washes up, beaches, and strands all whom He loves at different points and places in our lives. The idea, as Hank’s character relates, is to “keep breathing”. So before I get too spiritual on you, see the movie...and read the book, too. And no matter what, keep breathing.
-Tim Rohr
1/7/2001