A Charlie Brown Life
The whole world seems to be conspiring against me. I am just asking for a little help for ONCE in my life! - Charlie Brown
There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil.
Job and His Friends, Ilya Repin
God is life, and life is God. In talking or reading about life and God, I like to replace the word “God” for the word “life”, and vice versa. Simple phrases like, “I love life” become “I love God”, or “life is hard” becomes “God is hard.” This seemed to be the case with the Hebrew god of the Old Testament. Cain experienced that life, or God, for some unknown reason does not always accept our sacrifices, and we are not always rewarded for our efforts. He therefore became bitter and slew his perfect brother who seemed to have all the breaks, whose sacrifice was accepted and rewarded.
Job was also a man who offered his best efforts, and his sacrifices also seemed to be rejected, as he suffered the death of family, loss of fortune, rotting skin and stench, and was betrayed by friends. Yet he remained true to God and life, and was rewarded in the end for his perseverance.
My favorite comic strip as a kid was Peanuts. It was always the main feature on the front page of the color Sunday comics. Those kids with big round heads and their ridiculous human-like dog provided more than just humor. It was much deeper, and the main character, Charlie Brown, is reminiscent of an ancient archetype.
In addition to the comic strip, Charlie Brown was the central figure of subsequent TV shows and movies. Most recently released was The Peanuts Movie in 2015. It is a fun and silly cartoon which pays pleasant homage to every major Peanuts theme. I found this movie to be one of the most moving pieces of cinema art I have seen in recent years.
The decades of comic strips portrays Charlie Brown as desperately trying his best to succeed, and to make the right sacrifices while staying true to his friends. Yet no matter how many times he tries, he fails, and not only that, but he is hurled to the ground so hard that he is knocked senseless. His baseball experience is classic. With great determination and hope, he stands on the pitcher’s mound. One last pitch will strike out the batter, and win the game. He hurls his best fast ball, and it comes back at him like a cannon ball, line drive and hurls him into the air, all of his clothes flying off, and he slams into the ground in a dizzy stupor. A similar thing happens when he tried to fly kites.
Most famous of his fails, come with his attempts to kick a football. He trusts his “friend” Lucy to hold the ball for him, and despite being betrayed by her countless times before, he always trusts her again. This time he will do it, he will kick the ball through the goal. Lucy has promised she will hold the ball this time. This time she will be true. As his hopes mount, you share his optimism, you believe he will actually kick the ball this time. And then he runs, full of determination and perfect hope, and as he puts all of his speed and swing into the kick, Lucy again moves the ball, another betrayal. Charlie Brown once again flies into the air, and crashes hard into the ground, laid out on his back, dizzy and reeling, confused and dejected. Then Lucy stands over him again and pronounces the great philosophical concept he has just learned.
Betrayal
The Peanuts Movie continues with the theme of Charlie Brown failing over and over again. Yet he always succeeds at continuing to hope, at not becoming bitter, and at being true to principles of good character, namely friendship, honesty, kindness, and determination to keep trying.
Toward the end of the movie, Charlie Brown has a very important personal mission to fulfill. He has a special pencil that he is to return to the girl of his dreams, the famous “Little Red-haired Girl. He has a huge crush on her, and this has caused such self-consciousness and fear, that up until that moment he has not succeeded in finding the courage to approach her. She is about to leave on the a bus for summer camp, and this is Chuck’s last chance to return the pencil and speak his heart to her.
Laying between Charlie Brown and the bus is an amusement park, filled with school kids having the times of their lives, oblivious to the desperate need of Charlie Brown. It is a gulf he must cross. As he navigates this uncaring world of amusement seekers, everything seems to go wrong. He is blocked, tripped, trapped, or misdirected at every possible turn.
At the final turn, he is blocked again by an ice cream truck and all the other children who in their glee have run to it, creating an impassible barrier between him and the red-haired girl. Hope is all but dead, and he utters, “The whole world seems to be conspiring against me. I am just asking for a little help for ONCE in my life!” Unexpected help does come and literally lifts up Charlie Brown and delivers him with a few bumps and bruises along the way.
When I first saw this movie with my family years ago, I sobbed at that moment in the movie, and my kids didn’t understand why I would be crying at a cartoon. I understood what it meant, that God would lift us and grant a miracle, but that miracle still would deliver some bumps and bruises. I also knew that my miracle would not be the kind I was hoping for.
At that time, my late wife Julie, had two years to live. I knew she as dying, and I was trying to hope for a miracle, “for once in my life.” The looked for miracle, the one that I prayed for, didn’t come, and the rest of the world didn’t care, they were happy and eating ice cream. Or, that is how it seemed for a time as I allowed bitterness in. Yet many in the world did care, and showed our family great love in action, and came to my rescue. A miracle of caring people.
I am no Charlie Brown. My character has not always been 100% steady. My sacrifices have mostly paid off. Life and God have been merciful. The tragic loss of my wife was a bitter experience and is still a hard trial for me. I hope to never experience anything like it again, but there is a good chance I will experience other tragedies. Life is hard at times and still, I love life.
Sooner or later most of us will experience a portion of the Charlie Brown life. Our sacrifices won’t be good enough, and life will not give us the success we think we have earned, or the love we think we deserve. The world can seem especially lonely, with few that care about anything but their own amusement. Then what. Do we withdraw, stop trying, too tired to hope again? Do we become bitter and full of contempt for others?
Job, like Charlie Brown, may be a mythical character, yet mythical characters have deep truths they are representing. Truths about the power of faith, hope and love. Truths that a divine power will redeem and lift us in the end. Until that end comes, Charlie Brown, as Job, is a pretty good model of persistence, to keep working and keep hoping, to keep trying to live a virtuous life, to keep trying to reach out to others and to be a friend.
Philosophers and Friends, A Charlie Brown Christmas
The creator of Peanuts, Charles Schulz, was a religious and spiritual man, who often included overt christian themes in his cartoons. He passed away 15 years before the release of The Peanuts Movie, yet it was an amazing reproduction of his ideas and ideology.
Schulz made it a point to emphasize the true meaning of Christmas in the 1965 TV cartoon, A Charlie Brown Christmas, by having Linus read the account of Jesus’ birth from the King James Version of the New Testament:
And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.
And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.
And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.
And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.
And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,
Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.
Christians believe that Christ has the power to redeem the sinner. In The Peanuts Movie there is also the message that God will, in the end, lift the suffering soul who is trying in earnest. It is the Job story. I don’t know how intentional Schulz was in modeling Charlie Brown after the Job archetype, but he apparently understood Job, who uttered, “And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.”
Merry Christmas
The Birth of Jesus Christ, Carl Bloch
