Zombies and Life!

Zombies seem to be everywhere these days. The latest buzz is the recently issued movie, World War Z, which I recently saw and thought it was a very good movie and would highly recommend. However, I was even more fascinated with Warm Bodies, a novel by Isaac Marion which was also been made into a movie which was released last winter. The movie is good, but the book is great. An interesting take on the end of the world, the Zombie craze, but where zombies actually become human again and provides a great examination of the human condition. There is a some dialogue in the novel between the main characters R and Julie, where they are trying to explain the reason for the plague and the "changing" to zombies and goes like this, quoting below;

" This plague... I don't think it's from any spell or virus or nuclear rays. I think it's from a deeper place. I think we brought it here. “I think we crushed ourselves down over the centuries. Buried ourselves under greed and hate and whatever other sins we could find until our souls finally hit the rock bottom of the universe. And then they scraped a hole through it, into some ... darker place.” We released it. We poked through the seabed and the oil erupted, painted us black, pulled our inner sickness out for everyone to see. ― Isaac Marion, Warm Bodies

I think the author hit it on the head and I fear we are headed in this downward spiraling direction the way our current culture is headed. However, there is hope, and Warm Bodies ends in hope for the world, the reversal to becoming human. To bring ourselves out of the pit of hell. How is that achieved? Here are some awesome quotes in the transformation back to human...

"We're fumbling in the dark, but at least we're in motion."

"We smile, because this is how we save the world. We will not let Earth become a tomb, a mass grave spinning through space. We will exhume ourselves. We will fight the curse and break it."

The below quote is from the main zombie character,R, who is becoming human again. 

“I look down at myself, but I don't need to. I can feel it. My hot blood is pounding through my body, flooding capillaries and lighting up cells like Fourth of July fireworks. I can feel the elation of every atom in my flesh, brimming with gratitude for the second chance they never expected to get. The chance to start over, to live right, to love right, to burn up in a fiery cloud and never again be buried in the mud."

 "There's a shiver in our legs, a tremor like the Earth speeding up, spinning off into uncharted orbits. Scary, isn't it? But what wonderful thing didn't start out scary? I don't know what the next page is for you, but whatever it is for me I swear I'm not going to f@#$ it up. I'm not going to yawn off in the middle of a sentence and hide it in a drawer. Not this time. Peel off these dusty wool blankets of apathy and antipathy and cynical desiccation. I want life in all its stupid sticky rawness.

"Okay."

"Okay, R."

Here it comes.”  Isaac Marion, Warm Bodies

Are we ready to take it on? How much do we want life in its fullness or will we go through the motions as dictated by the culture? Our choice, always has been. God gave us the freedom to choose. So often we don't choose God. We are always brought down by sin and evil but Jesus offers us hope through grace to overcome.  How will we respond to our current culture?

In the book he provides another powerful quote.

“There's no benchmark for how life's "supposed" to happen. There is no ideal world for you to wait around for. The world is always just what it is now, it's up to you how you respond to it” 

Where is Theology of the Body in this novel? Check out this quote and have a look at Genesis 2: 23-24...

“I crush her against me. I want to be part of her. Not just inside her but all around her. I want our rib cages to crack open and our hearts to migrate and merge. I want our cells to braid together like living thread.” 

I highly recommend reading Warm Bodies by Isacc Marion and take a look at the movie as well. The movie does not go as deep as the novel but still an interesting twist that you do not see in Hollywood movies.