DIVINE JEALOUSY

Last July I was down in San Diego for ComicCon International. It’s not just about comic books, though – computer & video games, films and television, they all get promoted there. Which is one reason J. Michael Straczynski is a popular draw.

JMS, or Joe (as he prefers to be called), promoted BABYLON 5 there while that show was being aired. ComicCon can generate a powerful amount of word of mouth, and Joe took advantage of that. He’s a very engaging speaker, and people fill rooms to hear him talk, about current projects (whether television projects he’s working on, or any of the comic books he’s also writing). Or to just listen to him talk about anything in general (I fit into that category).

He’s also a declared atheist.

That last bit often surprises parts of his audience, because for a non-believer, he’s demonstrated a remarkable understanding of matters of faith. One of the BABYLON 5 episodes he wrote, “Passing Through Gethsemane”, is an exceptional dramatization of forgiveness - how difficult it is to give or accept. So, at open Q&A sessions he is often asked about his being an atheist. As he was again this July.

His response to the question was that he had a major problem with the whole Jealous God thing.

I sat there thinking about that response as the Q&A went on. It intrigued me. I’ve heard other non-believers harp on the idea of God demanding worship as problematic for them, and I’d think that they didn’t quite understand what “worship” is. But the “jealous god” thing, that was interesting.

My attention came back to the Q&A when someone asked Joe about an original comic title of his that was stalled a couple of issues short of its finale. This was a story that had a specific beginning, middle and end, and his readers (I’m one of them) have been left dangling for some time, without the ending. The cause has to do with the film deal for the story.

Those who had optioned the book for film had commissioned a script - to be written by someone other than Joe. The problem was that the film script takes Joe’s creation, which was an intriguing look at what might happen if a set group of people were born among us with superpowers, and made it into an ordinary superhero story. Something the original material very specifically is not. So, until the film script matter is resolved to his satisfaction, Joe is holding up the last few issues of the comic book.

I sat there listening to this, and could only chuckle. Why should Joe have a problem with a Jealous God, when there he is, one himself! He doesn’t want his creation to be warped into something it is not. That, I think, is something God understands very well.

Which of course led me back to our own relationship with the Lord. Exodus 34: 14 says “for you shall not worship any other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God”. I don’t know about other believers, but I don’t often think about that aspect of God.

I suspect many people get uncomfortable with the word “jealous” because we think of it in the context of jealousy, that resentful feeling toward one whom one thinks of as a rival - something we should not be indulging in.

But, God... He’s jealous in the sense of having watchful care for his creation, for what is rightfully his.

This is something every creative person might have to deal with - especially in this business. Because the whole process in film and television is a cooperative effort, we frequently have to compromise our creation. How far do we go? What guidelines do we have?

I recently had to face this myself. I’ve been working on a book about mythic motifs for writers. The first publisher that looked at it found the opening section confusing. His suggestion for solving this problem ran completely counter to my intention in the book. If I did what he suggested, it wouldn’t be what I meant it to be. And I found I too was a “jealous god”.

So I had to find another solution to the confusion. I think I did, and I’m working on it.

But back to how we relate our work to God. Do we resist all suggestions for change? Will all suggestions run counter to what we created the work to be? Joe, after season 1 of BABYLON 5, was told to recast the lead actor. Since he had a specific story he was telling, this was a tremendously disruptive order. It involved reshaping his long story arcs and the relationships of various characters. Yet he did it and the solutions he came up with - they ended up strengthening his story.

How far do we go in being jealous gods with our work? I think we should indeed “fight” (without getting angry and hostile and disruptive) for what is truly important in our stories. That is, the things that reflect God and his love for his creation. But I don’t think we should fight against every little change. If we trust that God is indeed involved in our work, He’ll show us which lines to draw, which battles to fight. And who knows? The result may be even better than the original concept.