{"id":93,"date":"2014-09-24T06:12:19","date_gmt":"2014-09-24T12:12:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/?p=93"},"modified":"2014-09-24T06:12:19","modified_gmt":"2014-09-24T12:12:19","slug":"the-maze-runner-just-like-faith-only-with-cyborg-spiders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/2014\/09\/the-maze-runner-just-like-faith-only-with-cyborg-spiders\/","title":{"rendered":"The Maze Runner: Just Like Faith, Only With Cyborg Spiders"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"maze_runner_a_l\"<\/a>Life just doesn\u2019t make sense sometimes.<\/p>\n

Just ask Thomas (Dylan O\u2019Brien) from The Maze Runner<\/em>. One moment he\u2019s \u2026 well, he doesn\u2019t quite know what<\/em> he was doing, come to think of it. But whatever. The next, he\u2019s zipping up, up, up in a super-fast, industrial elevator with some sort of pig. And when he gets to the top, he finds himself in the midst of a green glade surrounded by a bunch of teen boys. And none of them know that much more about where he is than he does.<\/p>\n

Now, these kids aren\u2019t completely clueless. Thanks to leader Alby (Aml Ameen), they\u2019ve all got jobs. They all adhere to a few basic rules. They know how to survive in the glade, and that\u2019s not nothing. But they sure don\u2019t know where they came from, what they\u2019re doing there or, most importantly, how to get out. See, the whole glade is surrounded by massive gray walls. And beyond those walls is a bewildering maze filled with drops and dead ends and moving walls. Worst of all are the Grievers\u2014nasty half-organic, half-mechanized spiders who like to \u201csting\u201d any teen who might stumble into their concrete web.<\/p>\n

But while many of the boys are satisfied to spend the rest of their days in the glade, Thomas has other ideas\u2014cyborg spiders or no.<\/p>\n

The Maze Runner<\/em>, based on a bestselling book by James Dashner, may have been intended to be a dystopian metaphor for growing up. Childhood would be the comfy-but-constricting confines of the glade, adulthood would be the frightening and unknown world beyond. Some might want to stick around the glade forever, but in the end, it\u2019s not possible. \u201cWe don\u2019t belong here,\u201d Thomas says. \u201cThis place isn\u2019t our home.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a line that recalled a quote from C.S. Lewis\u2019 classic Mere Christianity<\/em>: \u201cIf we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.\u201d Which got me to thinking about another potential twist to The Maze Runner<\/em>: Thomas and the others are taking not just a literal journey through the maze, or a metaphorical one to adulthood, but an inherently spiritual one: In running through the maze, they are searching for meaning.<\/p>\n

When people have near-death experiences, one of the most common things they report later is rushing through some sort of tunnel toward a light. This tunnel-like imagery has been interpreted by some as a weird sort of memory of being born \u2026 going from womb to the open air. And in movies, tunnels can often\u00a0symbolize the moving of the character from one world, or one type of existence, into another. Thomas, in a way, was being \u201cborn\u201d into a new reality.<\/p>\n

Thomas was going through a birth experience, in a way (which fits nicely with the whole \u201cgrowing up\u201d metaphor, too). And there are some similarities between Thomas\u2019 first impression of the glade and our own \u201cconfusion,\u201d if you will, when we\u2019re ready to start living. For a lot of us, life can sometimes feel a little glade-like. We don\u2019t know what this place is initially. We don\u2019t know what it\u2019s for. We\u2019re not given instructions on what we\u2019re to be about once we get here. We don\u2019t remember where we came from. We come into the world clueless and frightened. No wonder so many of us cry at first.<\/p>\n

But as time goes on, we learn the ropes. Like Alby, our parents and others show us how to live in this strange world we find ourselves in. They teach us the rules we need to get along. They encourage us to work hard. They warn us about the world\u2019s big dangers. They pass on the lessons that they learned from their parents, who learned it from theirs and so on. But they, like Alby, arrived on this earth just as clueless as we were.<\/p>\n

With the help and guidance of others, we find a place in our own glade. But there\u2019s a sense that there\u2019s more to life than that. Every now and then, we wonder whether this is really our home. Whether there\u2019s more out there than what we see.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat if we were sent here for a reason?\u201d Teresa, another newcomer to the glade, asks Thomas. And we ask ourselves the same thing.<\/p>\n

\"maze<\/a>And so we, like Thomas, look more closely at our world, and it seems to us that it was built. Created by some unknown hand. We didn\u2019t land in this world by whim, but rather by design<\/em>. And so, as we try to ascertain what that design might mean, we poke and prod and find a door that leads beyond \u2026 and a confusing maze beyond that.<\/p>\n

For some, faith comes pretty easy. But for others, like me, it can feel a little maze-like. We ask ourselves unanswerable questions. We run into dead ends. And yet even in the midst of the maze, we still see a design in play, a hand at work. We know the glade holds no answers for us, no real freedom, so we brave the maze. And eventually, God willing, we find what we\u2019re looking for.<\/p>\n

Now, this analogy is hardly perfect. I won\u2019t say too much about the end of The Maze Runner <\/em>here\u2014the movie\u2019s still relatively new, and I\u2019d hate to spoil it for anybody. But what measure of \u201cfreedom\u201d they find here leads inexorably \u2026 to a sequel.<\/p>\n

But on some level, it does reflect a bit of my own confused but thrilling walk through faith. And the freedom we find at the end of our maze is\u2014while not the comforting security the glade might offer\u2014is a much more hopeful, bracing sort of freedom. We find the sort of life that the glade cannot provide, because it was never designed to. We find purpose that the glade can never offer.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Life just doesn\u2019t make sense sometimes. Just ask Thomas (Dylan O\u2019Brien) from The Maze Runner. One moment he\u2019s \u2026 well, he doesn\u2019t quite know what he was doing, come to think of it. But whatever. The next, he\u2019s zipping up, up, up in a super-fast, industrial elevator with some sort of pig. And when he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2036,"featured_media":95,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[31,26,25,30],"class_list":["post-93","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movies","tag-doubt","tag-faith","tag-freedom","tag-maze-runner"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Maze Runner: Just Like Faith, Only With Cyborg Spiders<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Life just doesn't make sense sometimes. Just ask Thomas (Dylan O'Brien) from The Maze Runner. One moment he's \u2026 well, he doesn't quite know what he was\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/2014\/09\/the-maze-runner-just-like-faith-only-with-cyborg-spiders\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Maze Runner: Just Like Faith, Only With Cyborg Spiders\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Life just doesn't make sense sometimes. Just ask Thomas (Dylan O'Brien) from The Maze Runner. One moment he's \u2026 well, he doesn't quite know what he was\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/2014\/09\/the-maze-runner-just-like-faith-only-with-cyborg-spiders\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Watching God\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-09-24T12:12:19+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/469\/2014\/09\/maze-runner.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"768\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"432\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Paul Asay\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Paul Asay\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/2014\/09\/the-maze-runner-just-like-faith-only-with-cyborg-spiders\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/2014\/09\/the-maze-runner-just-like-faith-only-with-cyborg-spiders\/\",\"name\":\"The Maze Runner: Just Like Faith, Only With Cyborg Spiders\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2014-09-24T12:12:19+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2014-09-24T12:12:19+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/#\/schema\/person\/b7d54df93630808a5dce9d242d5e0183\"},\"description\":\"Life just doesn't make sense sometimes. Just ask Thomas (Dylan O'Brien) from The Maze Runner. One moment he's \u2026 well, he doesn't quite know what he was\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/2014\/09\/the-maze-runner-just-like-faith-only-with-cyborg-spiders\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/2014\/09\/the-maze-runner-just-like-faith-only-with-cyborg-spiders\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/2014\/09\/the-maze-runner-just-like-faith-only-with-cyborg-spiders\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The Maze Runner: Just Like Faith, Only With Cyborg Spiders\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/\",\"name\":\"Watching God\",\"description\":\"Finding faith with a box of popcorn.\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/#\/schema\/person\/b7d54df93630808a5dce9d242d5e0183\",\"name\":\"Paul Asay\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/be136f94fadd74743ab6da681563930d?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/be136f94fadd74743ab6da681563930d?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Paul Asay\"},\"description\":\"Paul Asay is an author, journalist and entertainment critic who now serves as a senior associate editor for the popular Christian entertainment review site Plugged In (pluggedin.com). He has been published in a variety of other secular and Christian publications, including The Washington Post, The Gazette in Colorado Springs, YouthWorker Journal and Beliefnet.com. He has a love of old movies, a disturbing affinity for bad ones and an appreciation for all things geek.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/author\/paulasay\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Maze Runner: Just Like Faith, Only With Cyborg Spiders","description":"Life just doesn't make sense sometimes. Just ask Thomas (Dylan O'Brien) from The Maze Runner. One moment he's \u2026 well, he doesn't quite know what he was","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/2014\/09\/the-maze-runner-just-like-faith-only-with-cyborg-spiders\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Maze Runner: Just Like Faith, Only With Cyborg Spiders","og_description":"Life just doesn't make sense sometimes. Just ask Thomas (Dylan O'Brien) from The Maze Runner. One moment he's \u2026 well, he doesn't quite know what he was","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/2014\/09\/the-maze-runner-just-like-faith-only-with-cyborg-spiders\/","og_site_name":"Watching God","article_published_time":"2014-09-24T12:12:19+00:00","og_image":[{"width":768,"height":432,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/469\/2014\/09\/maze-runner.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Paul Asay","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Paul Asay","Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/2014\/09\/the-maze-runner-just-like-faith-only-with-cyborg-spiders\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/2014\/09\/the-maze-runner-just-like-faith-only-with-cyborg-spiders\/","name":"The Maze Runner: Just Like Faith, Only With Cyborg Spiders","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/#website"},"datePublished":"2014-09-24T12:12:19+00:00","dateModified":"2014-09-24T12:12:19+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/#\/schema\/person\/b7d54df93630808a5dce9d242d5e0183"},"description":"Life just doesn't make sense sometimes. Just ask Thomas (Dylan O'Brien) from The Maze Runner. One moment he's \u2026 well, he doesn't quite know what he was","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/2014\/09\/the-maze-runner-just-like-faith-only-with-cyborg-spiders\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/2014\/09\/the-maze-runner-just-like-faith-only-with-cyborg-spiders\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/2014\/09\/the-maze-runner-just-like-faith-only-with-cyborg-spiders\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Maze Runner: Just Like Faith, Only With Cyborg Spiders"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/","name":"Watching God","description":"Finding faith with a box of popcorn.","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/#\/schema\/person\/b7d54df93630808a5dce9d242d5e0183","name":"Paul Asay","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/be136f94fadd74743ab6da681563930d?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/be136f94fadd74743ab6da681563930d?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","caption":"Paul Asay"},"description":"Paul Asay is an author, journalist and entertainment critic who now serves as a senior associate editor for the popular Christian entertainment review site Plugged In (pluggedin.com). He has been published in a variety of other secular and Christian publications, including The Washington Post, The Gazette in Colorado Springs, YouthWorker Journal and Beliefnet.com. He has a love of old movies, a disturbing affinity for bad ones and an appreciation for all things geek.","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/author\/paulasay\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2036"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}