Keller en Tolkien willen een Happy Ending

Ik zal het maar eerlijk zeggen: ik wil een Happy Ending. En ik beken ook, dat ik door Tim Keller op dat spoor gezet ben.

Sinds kort ben ik de trotse eigenaar van de tekst van een preekcursus van Tim Keller. Hier volgen twee citaten, eerst van Keller en daarna van Tolkien (geciteerd door Keller):

(Keller:) We live in the first era of history that considers ‘happy endings’ to be works of inferior art. Fairy tales are considered for children only. Why? The modern world is sure that ultimate reality is not expressed through a happy ending. Life is not like that! Life is full of brokenness and paradox and irony and frustration. (Steven Spielberg was refused Oscars until he stopped making movies with happy endings!) But this view—that 'happy ending' fairy tales are only for children who don't know better--was never the case until recently. When we read ancient fantasies, romances, and fairy-stories, we see that they are far too frightening for children.

(Keller:) Tolkien recognized that Fairy-stories originally were written and read because they had a very unique and peculiar effect on the reader. He refuses to call them 'escapist'. Later in the essay, he shows his hand.

(Tokien:) This 'joy' merits more consideration. The peculiar quality of the 'joy' in a successful Fantasy can be explained as a sudden glimpse of an underlying reality. The Gospels contain a story of a larger kind which embraces all the essence of fairy-stories. They contain the greatest and most complete conceivable eucatastrophe. But this story has entered history and the primary world. The Birth of Christ is the eucatastrophe of Man's history. The Resurrection is the eucatastrophe of the story of the Incarnation. This story ends in joy. There is no tale ever told that men would rather find was true, and none which so many skeptical men have accepted as true on its own merits. For the Art of it has the supremely convincing tone of Primary Art, that is, of Creation. To reject it leads either to sadness or to wrath. This story is supreme: and it is true. Art has been verified. God is Lord of angels, and of men --and of elves. Legend and History have met and fused.

(Tolkien:) But in God's kingdom the presence of the greatest does not depress the small. Redeemed Man is still man Story, fantasy, still go on, and should go on. The Evangelium has not abrogated legends--it has hallowed them. It has long been my feeling (a joyous feeling) that God redeemed the corrupt making-creatures, men, in a way fitting to this aspect, as to others, of their strange nature.

Zo, dat is nog eens een oproep naar heilige feelgoodmovies. En een oproep om vanuit de Happy Ending te leven.