Escapism tends to be frowned upon. "You're running away from your problems," they say. "You're making excuses." The rational mind understands that avoiding issues or burying them does not necessarily bring resolution or peace, but the human heart understands that life provides plenty of terrors that incite the urge to flee. I am by no means suggesting that one should ignore their burdens or give up the hunt for solutions-doing so only elongates the pain. However, I do not believe we should be so quick to judge those who may be inclined to do this, and I do not think we should view escapism through such a narrow lens as this. "Escape" in itself implies that there is a situation or force of a dangerous, even sinister, nature that necessitates flight.
J.R.R. Tolkien addresses the relation between fantasy and escape.
“Fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory. If a soldier is imprisoned by the enemy, don't we consider it his duty to escape?. . .If we value the freedom of mind and soul, if we're partisans of liberty, then it's our plain duty to escape, and to take as many people with us as we can!"
“I have claimed that Escape is one of the main functions of fairy-stories, and since I do not disapprove of them, it is plain that I do not accept the tone of scorn or pity with which 'Escape' is now so often used. Why should a man be scorned if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home? Or if he cannot do so, he thinks and talks about other topics than jailers and prison-walls?”
In Christ's salvation, we escape condemnation and judgment; we escape the eternal burden of our sins and the hopelessness of the human condition. In Christ's comfort and protection, we may even escape the day-to-day terrors of spiritual attack and persecution (and by escape, I do not mean that we escape their occurrence but we do not remain subject to perpetual and unending torment without relief). Many times we see the apostles sprung from prison through God's intervention. And the Psalms contain numerous pleas for rescue and deliverance from fleshly and spiritual enemies. Oh yes, the Christian doesn't mind those words: rescue, deliverance. They are more "Biblical"; they remind of us Exodus, they remind us of God's promises to deliver His exiled people from Babylon. Yet after looking through much of the Psalms and even the very nature of the Gospel as spoken of in Paul's letters, I do not think "escape" to be a lesser synonym of "deliverance", particularly when our escape necessitates the aid of One outside ourselves.
When we turn to our movies and games, our music and friends, our books and our work, we are running towards something as much as we are running away from something. Considering all that the human may experience on this earth- war, disease, betrayal, restlessness, depression- I do not think it is unwise to wish to escape these horrors. Even so, not all forms of escape are to be promoted. There are the obvious suspects- alcoholism, substance abuse, sexual immorality. But even the neutral platforms mentioned previously can be harmful, if not simply unable to provide permanent relief, if we do not stop to deeply consider what it is we are running from and why we should be mindful of what we are running to in an ultimate sense.
Is God left out of our notion of a safe haven? Is He second on the list, maybe at the bottom? Do we trust God to be our refuge and place of escape?
God can certainly use things like friends and music and books to speak to us; He may offer these as channels for escape, but we must not fail to recognize or seek out His very Person as the ultimate Escape. For we know He offers not only escape from the pain, binding up our wounds and hearts, but He comes that we may have life abundant. It is not merely escape from sins Christ offers us, but all the spiritual blessings under heaven. And "escape" in Christ is not limited to escape from hell; it's escape from cyclical sins of any sort, escape from a momentary emotional turmoil, from anxiety, from many quotidian obstacles. That doesn't mean our lives are without trial or obstruction; it means that these are not permanent and that we can rely on God to pull us up, out, and close to Him. Escape if contextualized properly neither relies singularly on our own willpower and strength nor suggests that thing independent from God are singularly sufficient to pull off successful escape from sin and consequential dismay. So we must think:
Do we invite Christ into the things in our life we wish to escape, overcome, and conquer? Our broken families and messy relationships? Our self-image and overwhelming work life? Our career aspirations (or lack thereof) and our anxieties about the future?
Or do we simply deem Him insufficient for these issues? In our discouragement and pain, have we given up on God? Have we given up on trusting Him with these things? Do we think He's past the point of rescuing us, of providing a satisfying solution?
Again, I don't think we should foolishly shun escaping into a good novel or TV show. I don't think we should refuse therapy or medication if recommended. We can acknowledge that God may use these things. But at the end of the day, is God even a major player in your hope for recovery, for escape? Do you have a hope of escape at all?
This past summer, I found myself in a place I never expected to be. I had, without much thought or recognition for it was a subtle and quiet descent, become bitter towards the Lord and somewhere in my heart I had stopped trusting Him to show up. I felt neglected because in my mind He was taking too long. Any sort of day-to-day escape felt impossible, and while I still prayed, I prayed with half a heart. I prayed with a shortage of faith. I prayed with an image of a god who had left me behind, who would refuse to rescue me because my pleas had seemingly gone unheard. I was bitter because I knew God was sovereign and that He must have intentionally been allowing me to be swallowed up in anxiety and trembling without any wise or loving intentions. I never admitted this to myself, and it took a long time to even realize that I was harboring this idea. And I am still in the process of allowing God to show me that He never left me, of separating the lies and false memories from the truth, of reminding me that He never left and that He had never been slow to scoop me up, that He had allowed thunderstorms to wash away the sin and the lies that were causing sickness and pain, that He had a plan for growth and power and strength and rejoicing, that my spiritual enemies would know only destruction but I would only know establishment and exponential beauty. That He loved me, though I lost sight of it.
Today was difficult because I experienced once again the suffocating interactions of my home life. I can't drive anywhere anymore, can't borrow any cars that aren't mine. I can't leave because of Covid-19; I am stuck here in a place that oftentimes carries a lot of hurt. I am stuck in a place where the side effects and burdens of my medical condition are ignored when convenient, or perhaps just forgotten. I don't want to say I have no good memories of this place, or that God hasn't done much to vastly improve the situation here; I cannot say that I have not contributed to the negative aspects of this environment and I can't say that I haven't behaved poorly myself, but nevertheless it is still difficult to stay here.
But by grace today I remembered my hiding place. God reminded me that He could be my escape.
And miraculously now, with 29 minutes to go, I can teach my class of second graders without having a panic attack. I can actually enjoy that time. And I can feel safe.
That's another thing- escaping can be about feeling safe, and I don't think any decent person can berate that.
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