Stage 2 “I will change the world”: determining to set things right again



In Batman Begins, Bruce sets out to “find himself” by giving up his life of luxury and embracing instead the life of a beggar.  It is a familiar story to adherents of the fourth largest religion in the world. 

Buddhism begins with the story of a man named Siddhartha Gautama who had lived all his life shielded from the existence of aging, sickness, and death.  On three successive secret trips out of the royal palace, Siddhartha encountered one of these three afflictions.  On the fourth trip he encountered a religious man who possessed a spirit of peace with life despite the brokenness of the world.  This prompted Siddhartha to walk away from his family and his wealth and seek out a way of living life that would overcome the suffering of the world.



This is the story of Bruce as well.  Raised with the benefits of his father’s enduring business, Wayne Enterprises, Bruce wants for nothing in life.  Nothing, that is, but what the loss of innocence had taken from him, which to him became everything.  So he sets out to find what he is looking for.  And just as Siddhartha wandered down many fruitless alleys in his search for truth, in Batman Begins we find Bruce wandering the alleys of Gotham City determined to avenge his parents’ murder.  When he finds that he cannot bring himself to kill, he takes off his coat and trades it with a homeless man.  He burns his wallet, giving up his identity, and he runs away.  His running eventually leads him to, of all places, the same part of the world that Siddhartha wandered many years before, Southeast Asia. 



Bruce has become emotionally imprisoned in his attempt to understand what makes people do evil things.  He eventually becomes physically imprisoned as well in Bhutan.  There he meets and becomes the disciple of a man named Ducard who similarly suffered tragedy and sought out a way to set the world right. View an important scene between Ducard and Bruce here. 











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However, as with Siddhartha, Bruce comes to see that the ways of the teacher he is apprenticed to will not ultimately lead him to where he wants to go.  In fact, Bruce comes to realize that the group he has taken up with has plans to destroy Gotham City in an attempt to erase its evil mark on the world.  In their own twisted reality, they see evil as a necessary tool for fighting evil.  (Similarly, the Joker in The Dark Knight and Bane in The Dark Knight Rises, see themselves as “Gotham’s reckoning.”) Bruce, however, realizes that evil is not the way to overcome evil and, with no option for leaving the League of Shadows, he chooses to destroy the League’s compound, saving only his beloved mentor Ducard. 



 

Despite this initially fruitless foray into the underworld, Bruce emerges from it stronger and with the skills he believes he now needs to set the world right again.  And such often is the case with us all.  It is only in confronting evil that we can ever hope to respond to it and understand where it comes from in ourselves and in others.  It is in battling our demons that we come to find our own initial strength to fight the good fight.  Whatever your demon is, your struggle with it may seem to have the power to destroy you.  But the struggle itself oftentimes gives you a sense of just how powerful you can become.

 



Bruce returns to Gotham and begins to explore the resources he has there to create a way to fight the injustice of his world.  He finds that his power comes from making peace with his fears and he takes on the image of a bat to strike fear into the hearts of his adversaries.  This is a logical thing to do, though we will later see it is somewhat misguided.  For now, suffice it to say that what we do after this initial struggle with the brokenness or evil that caused our loss of innocence is to simply exchange one mask for another.  Our new mask may well hold new possibilities, but it is still a mask nonetheless and . . .



Every mask has its limitations.



Bruce takes on the mask of the Bat and sets out to reform Gotham into the city it should have been if his father had lived.  Through trial and error he comes to create his altar ego, Batman, who can simultaneously strike fear in the hearts of those who do evil and hope in the hearts of those who fear it. 



Once we come to realize that the world is not as it should be, we too can set out with a valiant determination to set things right again.  I sometimes hear older people make fun of the youth who do this.  They are wrong to do so.  They are grouchy old codgers who are so embittered by their own failure to make a difference that they begrudge anyone else the opportunity to do so.  If you are someone who is still seeking a way to set the world right again, do it with all your might!  You CAN make a difference.



 

As Rachel Dawes says in Batman Begins, “What chance does Gotham have when good people do nothing?”  Never let anyone seek to take away your good fight by calling you naïve or misguided. 

Alfred didn’t - and it was to his credit.  He supported Bruce’s search for meaning and purpose, even when he worried that Bruce was making the wrong decisions.  He would simultaneously caution Bruce to think carefully about the path he had chosen while at the same time bandaging up his wounds so he could go out and fight it all again.  This wonderful clip illustrates the relationship between Alfred and Bruce at this stage of his journey nicely.













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The world is always in need of people who can determine to make a difference.  Two valiant fighters are worth quoting here.  The first is Margaret Mead, a devout Episcopalian, who once said,



“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”



 

The second is Mahatma Gandhi, the spiritual crusader for the rights of the Indian people, who said,



“Be the change you wish to see in the world.”



This is the necessary next step in the spiritual journey.  We must make of ourselves that which we believe to be good and true and right.  Like Bruce, we must take up our calling and seek to make our world a better place.  And we will make a difference in doing so. 



Jesus went through his own period of trial and formation immediately following his baptism.  The Bible recounts that he is driven by God’s Spirit out into the desert where for forty days and nights he is tested.  First he is tested with physical desire to turn rock into bread to fill his hunger.  He resists misusing his power in this way. Second, he is tempted with spiritual desire to show off his own honored place in God’s family before everyone at the Temple in Jerusalem.  He resists misusing his power in this way.  Third, he is tempted with political desire by being offered a shortcut to ruling the world.  He resists misusing his power in this way.  In each case, Jesus is able to resist the temptation to exercise his power in a way that would lead to him being someone other than who God the Father desired him to be.  (Matthew 4:1-11)



This process of refinement is common to every spiritual pilgrim.  The details will differ be it Siddhartha, or Bruce, or Jesus, or me, or you.  No pilgrimage is exactly the same as the other.  And yet there are undeniable common threads woven throughout each story. 



For some, after their innocence is taken from them, they give up and go no further on the spiritual quest.  Instead they succumb to the temptation to hate the world as they feel it has hated them.  They repay evil for evil.  These people are sad and are to be pitied (and ultimately redeemed through the power of love). 



 

The better course is to take your pain and transform it into a force for good.  If you are at this crossroads in your journey, I encourage you to make the better choice.  Seek out an “Alfred” figure if you do not have one already.  Perhaps it is an extended family member, a friend of the family, a pastor, a teacher, a counselor, . . .   The important thing is to seek out a confidant.  Some of their advice will help you and some of it will hinder you.  Such was the case with Ducard for Bruce.  Such was the case for my mentors with me.  Ultimately God has the power to turn all things, from that of evil intention to that of the best of intention, away from death and towards life.

 

There is nothing that God cannot redeem.



So put on your mask and go out to fight the good fight.  Slip out into the darkness of this world and seek out your life’s true love. Slip out into the darkness of your own world and be not afraid.  Put on your mask and steel yourself for the battles that await you.  For as sure as you do you will find that your greatest adversary is not in the heart of any other, but instead lies deep within. 



 

In one particular scene in Batman Begins, it is clear that Christopher Nolan is trying to make a point about this issue.  After Bruce Wayne has spent the evening bolstering his “billionaire playboy” credentials by buying a hotel with a woman on each arm, he runs into his childhood friend, Rachel Dawes, as he is leaving.  Caught in the middle of his lie by someone whose opinion of him he truly cares about, Bruce says to Rachel, “All of this – it’s not me.  Inside, I am something more.”  To which she replies, “It’s not who you are underneath. It’s what you do that defines you.”



In the second stage of the spiritual journey, this is very much the case.  Who you are becomes defined by external, measurable accomplishments and actions.  This is a good and necessary stage.  The biblical book of James speaks passionately about the importance of concrete actions:

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What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you have faith but do not have works?  Can faith save you?  If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill”, and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that?  So faith by itself, without works, is dead.  But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works,”  Show me your faith without works, and I by my works will show you my faith. You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe – and shudder.”  James 2:14-19​​



Too many Christians have been convinced, or convinced themselves, that the key to being a follower of Jesus is to simply believe something about him.  This is a hollow and empty kind of faith that requires little real commitment or sacrifice.  If our faith in Jesus does not lead us towards giving everything we have to help others, then ours is a dead faith.  Bruce Wayne is a great example of what this kind of commitment looks like.  Sitting atop a great personal fortune that would afford him the self-indulgent life he projects to the rest of the world, he chooses instead to invest his money, his time, and his heart into creating a better world for others.



You might be saying to yourself, that’s easy for him to do.  He is a billionaire without a care in the world.  But I’m willing to bet that you are in the top 10% of the wealthiest people in the world.  Check it out at www.givingwhatwecan.org/resources/how-rich-you-are.php



If you live on anything above the national poverty level for an individual of $11,170 in the U.S., you are still richer than 88% of the rest of the world.  So the truth of the matter is, you are much richer than you think and your wealth has tricked you into thinking you do not have enough.  Money does that.  But the basic fact of the matter is that you do have enough, enough to invest more of your time, money and heart into helping others.

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We each can and should become a “Batman” in our own right.  Because of the pain we endured in the loss of our innocence, we have a gift from which to forge an identity built around combating the evil in our world.  The danger lies in becoming stuck in this stage, which sadly many people (and probably most men) do for much if not all of their life.  If we experience any success at all, we can convince ourselves for a long time that we can do it all by ourselves.  But what happens when we fail?  What happens when everything we have to give is not enough?  Will we deny that reality and forever live in Stage 2?  Or will we accept that reality and become transformed once more by it?

 

This struggle is the work of a person in Stage 3: experiencing frustration at our own limitations . . .



Discuss: How are you working to redeem the world?​