Pancakes, Dostevsky, & Hellboy

There is nothing in which deduction is so necessary as religion. It can be built up as an exact science by the reasoner.
Our highest assurance of the goodness of Providence seems to me to rest in the flowers. All other things, our powers, our desires, our food, are really necessary for our existence in the first instance. But this rose is an extra. Its smell and its colour are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it. It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers.   –Sherlock Holmes, The Adventure of the Naval Treaty

I am a big fan of things that seem insignificant, but in Truth and Reality are extremely important.  Sometimes you can go for days and years looking over something extraordinary, and then you suddenly see it anew.  Have you ever taken a “shortcut” (that word must have quotations when used in reference to Nashville) you’ve never taken, and find yourself at a T-intersection with no street sign?  Everything looks strange for a moment, then you realize you not only know where you are, but you are on a road you travel often?  You don’t recognize it because you’ve come at it from a different angle.  This event is known as “mooreeffoc” and I enjoy those moments.

Take this quote from Dostoevky’s The Brothers Karamozov.  It’s one of the last lines of the book.  The protagonist, Alyosha, a young priest, is returning from the funeral of a young boy and walking down the street with some of the younster’s friends.  These children, being unacquainted with death, are not sure how to act at the upcoming memorial dinner.  Alyosha tells them:

‘Don’t be disturbed that we’ll be eating pancakes.  It’s an ancient, eternal thing, and there’s good in that, too,’ laughed Alyosha.

Pancakes.  A simple goodness that God gives us.  It is one of the little good things among millions of other good things we have.  When people recognize this, and show us the mooreeffoc of pancakes, then it can show us just how good God is.

Which brings me to Hellboy.  Not the movie.  It was a comic long before it was two films.  (I enjoyed both of them by the way).  The big story is the redemption of a demon.  Set aside the theological consistencies for a moment.  I’m aware.  My point is that Mike Mignola, the creator of Hellboy, can tell a short story very well that makes you stop and think.  I’ll leave you with this two pager.  Makes you think.

I’m hungry.

(Hellboy (c) Mike Mignola, published Dark Horse)