We are monstrous…we humans. In this I feel no hesitation to say what I say…we, all of us, are monsters of one sort or another struggling to hide or contain our various secret, shameful monstrosities. Some hide their monsters better than others because some monsters are socially acceptable. The monsters of hubris, avarice and gossip are practically worshiped as idols.

I have been fascinated with monsters for as long as I can remember. I am not sure why. Perhaps because my life has been filled with them…mostly the human variety.

Monster comes from the Latin word monstrum which means portent or omen. It is a warning…but what do monsters warn us of except impending doom, destruction and death?

The brilliant 18 year old Mary Shelley explores the idea of the monster in her classic novel Frankenstein, also called The Modern Prometheus. In it she tells the story of a man driven to create life from death. To take the tattered remnants of humanity and to shape something he felt would be superior. In the end he is horrified by his creation and seeks only to destroy it despite its life. Frankenstein refers to the creature as his monster. Of course while the book explores many themes including the nature of humanity’s relationship with a creator God it is built around a great irony. The monster in the book is Victor Frankenstein himself for despising his own creation and leaving it to fend for itself becoming a mirror of its own creator.

We are afraid of monsters. I think we are afraid of monsters because monster reflect our own human nature and what we are capable of. They are portents and omens of our own self-wrought doom. We are not afraid of the monster so much as we are afraid of what the monster reveals about ourselves. This is why the monster story is so compelling to people…more than any other narrative form the monster story can tell us about our own broken nature. Modern television shows like Dexter or The Sopranos are simply shows about the human monster…we empathize with the characters because the characters are us…we cannot empathize with that which we cannot identify with.

I often hear people say “you and I – we have been created in the image of God” and it is meant as a comfort and I believe we are all image bearers…however…the image is shattered, scarred and broken. We, like Frankenstein’s monster, are not what the creator intended. Thankfully our creator does not hunt us down and seek our destruction as Frankenstein does.

It is not the dark we are afraid of, it is the thing in the dark and that thing is ourselves. We are alone in the dark, there is nothing else to fear.