Solitude - Massi: Hall of Heroes
I have loved Jeri Massi's fiction for a long time. I always looked forward to her short stories in my BJU Press reading curriculum (grades 4-8, if I remember correctly), and when I was introduced to her longer juvenile and YA fiction, I was hooked. From Derwood, Inc.'s fantastic mattress heist to the stern joy of suffering and maturing in Valkyries to her profoundly theological (and trippy) Dr. Who fan fiction, Massi has inspired me and taught me about aspects of the Christian life that I don't remember learning about anywhere else as a child. Like Ted Dekker, Massi is a prophet: her stories preach, hard.
Hall of Heroes was published in 2013. It was originally intended as the seventh and final book in Massi's wonderful Peabody Adventure Series. After a disagreement with the publisher, Massi rewrote the story to stand alone. It's a novel for kids about what it means to take part in Christ's suffering. That's where solitude comes in.
In literature, suffering is the most common cause of isolation, and I think that's true in the real world, too. Few of us are isolated from everyone by superhuman abilities, like the Flash's speed or Superman's near-total invulnerability, but at some point, we all lose good times, good friends, and/or good health. The pain we feel when we lose one of those things is personal--it works on each person differently than it would anyone else. I think that's why pain is an effective megaphone for God: it gets us alone with Him, the Person who knows us more intimately than any other, who is closer than our breath and is moved by our infirmities.
In Hall of Heroes, the narrator, Jean, a preteen youngest child of three, is isolated from her peers even when she's with them by her lack of power. She's the youngest of the gang, the smallest, and the least able to fight back against the bullies hounding her friends.
The other main character, Martha, is a middle-aged woman who befriends Jean through a church program, becoming a mentor to her. Terminal cancer isolates her from almost everyone; hospice nurses and Jean are her only visitors. Her suffering in near-isolation puts her in constant contact with God's Kingdom, who God is and who she is. Her character is tested and deepened by the suffering she endures as she rejects pain medication so that she has the clarity to complete a Kingdom project before she dies.
In this story, isolation by suffering is the place where beliefs come into line with reality. Isolation is painful, and it reveals things about both Jean and Martha that each of them dislikes. Neither of them seeks out solitude--rather, solitude finds them both. They choose what to do with it: numb out (medicate, vegetate) or dig in (reflect, listen for the Spirit).
I often feel when I read Massi's books that her characters are pieces of her personality. This book, like her Bracken trilogy and Valkyries, uses the device of a mentor-mentee relationship to speak into the lives of her readers. Though Massi says that Martha in Hall of Heroes is modeled after a woman she knew when she wrote the book, it's hard for me not to see Martha and Jean as also being two Jeri Massis: the child and the middle-aged adult. I see this story as a means of allowing Massi's adult-self to say the discipleship-things to her child-self that most child-selves, young and old, need to hear. Like the character of Martha, Massi has endured unhealed pain and unanswered questions, and (judging from the things her character, Martha, believes) Massi bears the depth of a faith of sufficiency that only comes through isolating suffering. She gives her prophetic call to see life and suffering like God sees them through the voice of her character.
If even Jesus learned obedience through the things that He suffered (Heb. 5:8), we should expect to suffer as we walk behind Him in His path. We should expect to learn things as we suffer that we never would have learned otherwise--in fact, we should expect to share in the holiness of God Himself (Heb. 12:5-10). Hall of Heroes has shaped my imagination, contributing to the framework in which I process suffering.
Hall of Heroes was published in 2013. It was originally intended as the seventh and final book in Massi's wonderful Peabody Adventure Series. After a disagreement with the publisher, Massi rewrote the story to stand alone. It's a novel for kids about what it means to take part in Christ's suffering. That's where solitude comes in.In literature, suffering is the most common cause of isolation, and I think that's true in the real world, too. Few of us are isolated from everyone by superhuman abilities, like the Flash's speed or Superman's near-total invulnerability, but at some point, we all lose good times, good friends, and/or good health. The pain we feel when we lose one of those things is personal--it works on each person differently than it would anyone else. I think that's why pain is an effective megaphone for God: it gets us alone with Him, the Person who knows us more intimately than any other, who is closer than our breath and is moved by our infirmities.
In Hall of Heroes, the narrator, Jean, a preteen youngest child of three, is isolated from her peers even when she's with them by her lack of power. She's the youngest of the gang, the smallest, and the least able to fight back against the bullies hounding her friends.
The other main character, Martha, is a middle-aged woman who befriends Jean through a church program, becoming a mentor to her. Terminal cancer isolates her from almost everyone; hospice nurses and Jean are her only visitors. Her suffering in near-isolation puts her in constant contact with God's Kingdom, who God is and who she is. Her character is tested and deepened by the suffering she endures as she rejects pain medication so that she has the clarity to complete a Kingdom project before she dies.
In this story, isolation by suffering is the place where beliefs come into line with reality. Isolation is painful, and it reveals things about both Jean and Martha that each of them dislikes. Neither of them seeks out solitude--rather, solitude finds them both. They choose what to do with it: numb out (medicate, vegetate) or dig in (reflect, listen for the Spirit).
I often feel when I read Massi's books that her characters are pieces of her personality. This book, like her Bracken trilogy and Valkyries, uses the device of a mentor-mentee relationship to speak into the lives of her readers. Though Massi says that Martha in Hall of Heroes is modeled after a woman she knew when she wrote the book, it's hard for me not to see Martha and Jean as also being two Jeri Massis: the child and the middle-aged adult. I see this story as a means of allowing Massi's adult-self to say the discipleship-things to her child-self that most child-selves, young and old, need to hear. Like the character of Martha, Massi has endured unhealed pain and unanswered questions, and (judging from the things her character, Martha, believes) Massi bears the depth of a faith of sufficiency that only comes through isolating suffering. She gives her prophetic call to see life and suffering like God sees them through the voice of her character.
If even Jesus learned obedience through the things that He suffered (Heb. 5:8), we should expect to suffer as we walk behind Him in His path. We should expect to learn things as we suffer that we never would have learned otherwise--in fact, we should expect to share in the holiness of God Himself (Heb. 12:5-10). Hall of Heroes has shaped my imagination, contributing to the framework in which I process suffering.
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