Stephen King's Dark Tower Reflections

I have always been a Stephen King fan and The Dark Tower has always been high on my list, maybe just under The Stand. I had finished the entire series many years ago, but thoughts from earlier this year drove me to re-read or in this case listen to the last volume (read by George Guidall).   As with many readers, I was disappointed with the ending but after a re-read, the ending sits a bit better with me as I relate it to the tremendous amount of biblical imagery in the story and how to relate it to our own lives.

Spoiler Alert: If you haven't read the books and plan to read them you may not want to continue. 

Roland's quest to reach the Dark Tower ultimately ends when he reaches the  Tower and climbs to the top where he opens one last door (or so we think). Once he opens the door, he realizes in horror that he has been replaying his life and journeys over and over in a sort of infinite loop. From the characters in Roland's life we hear the following dialogue to Roland;


"It'll be your damnation boy. You'll wear out a hundred pairs of boots on your walk to hell.

"Those who do not learn from the past are condemned to repeat it"

I believe Roland is in a sort of purgatory until he figures out how to set things right. In his quest for the tower, it was always about him and his quest to reach the tower. His family, friends, and his "ka-tet" had mostly all died, sacrificed for his tower and were ultimately discarded. In our end game it is how we live our lives and how much time we may have to spend in our own purgatory before we "get it right". There was some hope at the end of the story when Stephen Kings writes in a whispering voice to Roland;

"This is your promise that things may be different, Roland-that there may yet be rest. Even salavation." A pause, and then: "If you stand. If you are true."  

Through the volumes of the Dark Tower there are these beams which serve the tower which are being broken by what are called "breakers." In our world, sinners mayhaps?  There is a sequence of dialogue that the beams are speaking to Roland and his friends through a dream sequence and goes like this...

"why must you hurt me, when I love you so? When I can do nothing else nor want to, for love made me and fed me and kept me in better days. Why will you cut me, and disfigure my face, and fill me with woe? Now you scar me with nails and put burning drops of quicksilver in my nose...Even if the torture stops, I'll die. And you'll die too, for when love leaves the world, all hearts are still. Tell them of my love, and tell them of my pain and tell them of my hope, which still lives. For this is all I have and all I am and all I ask."

This is the dialogue that I kept coming back to, and for me here is the clincher line; "when love leaves the world, all hearts are still"  In some ways love seems to be leaving our world. In Stephen Kings world there seems to be less hope. However, through Jesus Christ, there is hope and redemption but we must take that step towards him and not away from him. Sometimes easier said than done.

It is all about love, isn't it?. Te belong, to love and be loved. God is love as we read in John's Gospel.
To me, there is a lot of Catholic theology through the Dark Tower as the beams seem like the the Holy Spirit and some of the references above from the beam (sounded like Jesus to me-scar me with nails). 

Then there was the imagery of the rose throughout the Dark Tower. I'll write more about the rose in my next blog installment.