Why I love the fantasy genre

In "A Million Miles in a Thousand Years", Don Miller describes watching the Tour de France and actually peddling his feet in the air as if he, too, were cycling through the winding hills of the European countryside. I can relate.

I doubt that I would ever pretend to be cycling along with the likes of Lance Armstrong, but I do day dream about a lot of other things. Mostly I think through "perfect" scenarios, things that may or may not actually happen in real life, and the ideal way they would play out. This is part of the reason I'm so terrible about big surprises...I've already thought through the perfect way for a situation to turn out, so reality is often a let down (horrible, I know, and something that's getting better the older I get). I also find myself imagining that I am a character in a story that I love, or that I am involved in another life...usually one where I sing really well. This usually happens in the car where I can belt out tunes with my average-at-best voice, but pretend it's really really good. I've also been known to attempt a Harry Potter spell or two.

I don't use day dreaming to escape my real life, because, quite frankly, my real life is just fine. There are just so many stories out there that could be lived! And why not by me, even if it's just in my head?

So how does all this relate to the fantasy genre in literature? Fantasy stories take us somewhere else. They indulge the feeling that all of us have that we somehow belong somewhere else, that there is more to this world than we currently know, or that we possess untapped powers and we just need someone to show us how to use them. C.S. Lewis describes this feeling as Joy, a longing for something else that we can't explain. And that is fantasy literature. It's the story of the "other" that we are all longing for.

There's more to it than all that, though. In "Mere Christianity", Lewis says, "If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world." I believe that God is the ultimate fulfillment of our longing, that heaven is the other world we are looking for. I also believe that we are born with a longing for a real "other" place so that we will seek after it.

I love fantasy literature because it allows me to indulge that part of me that knows there is more to life than my experience has shown me. I love that it exercises my imagination and opens me up to other levels of creativity. And I love that it points me toward something greater than myself.

When I get to heaven, I know that the longing I feel will be fulfilled. But maybe I'll still get to use the "accio" charm to summon objects. We'll see.