“I don’t understand what I do. I don’t do the things I desire, I do what I despise” (Romans 7.15).
Released in August 1958, It! The Terror from Beyond Space tells the story of a rescue mission that finds a sole survivor. And after surveying the site, they take that survivor into custody and under guard so he can stand trial back home for the murder of his crewmates.
Col. Edward Carruthers, the accused, maintains his innocence. He didn’t kill anyone. Something, some creature did it, he maintains. Uh huh, Commander Van Heusen says nodding, of course it did.
But members of the rescue crew begin dying, and it isn’t by Carruthers’ or any human hand. Something climbed aboard the ship before it left Mars, and nothing—not bullets, explosions, gas, or even radiation—can stop it. And no one is sure if they’ll make it back home alive.
It! The Terror from Beyond Space is far better than your average sci-fi monster movie. A large part of this, I think, comes from Jerome Bixby’s screenplay. Bixby’s name probably isn’t familiar to you but some of his work may be. The Twilight Zone episode “It’s a Good Life” about a small town that’s at the mercy of a young boy with godlike powers was penned by him. Oh, and another writer, Dan O’Bannon, cited this film as one of the inspirations for a film he wrote: 1978’s Alien (spoiler: nothing attaches to anyone’s face or bursts out of anyone in this movie).
Most monsters from outer space seem to be bent on conquest. The Martians of War of the Worlds have come to take the planet for themselves, for example. Maybe it’s because they’ve destroyed their own world and need a new home, perhaps it’s because they feel we, their stellar neighbors, are beginning to rival and potentially threaten them. Well- or ill-defined, they seem to know why they’re trying to kill us. The “It” in this movie probably doesn’t know why it does what it does.
Paul’s words above come near the end of a long section about righteousness, Torah, and sin. It’s one of his more complex arguments that, in my opinion, obscures rather than illuminates the point he’s trying to make, which is the need for a whole new spiritual life provided via the resurrection of Jesus. Despite the fact I can read this entire section multiple times and feel even less enlightened, this statement is up there with Paul’s wisest statements.
Maybe we succeed some or even most of the time in resisting temptation, but our lesser angels win out at least some of the time, don’t they? But what Paul’s talking about is beyond those often selfish things we do with full awareness that we’re choosing to do what we’re doing. He’s talking about something deeper. Paul’s statement is about the things we do without thinking because they’ve, somehow, become a part of us.
I’m, deep down, an arrogant person. I’ve been that way since I was a kid. I remember saying things to others (adults included) about how dumb something we were doing actually was (in some church music class I said this exact thing about some song we were singing, to the adult instructor). I’m aware of this. I work on it. I recognize, usually, the thoughts that, ultimately, are born out of my insecurities. I can, occasionally, trap and subdue them before they come spilling out of my mouth, leaving me, like Paul, having done not what I desire, but what I despise.
Mars is a desert world devoid of moisture and breathable air. A creature, any creature, living there would have to learn to adapt, to evolve in some way to obtain oxygen and water. And for the creature in this week’s movie, it’s method is to take those things from another living being.
We’re not told if the creature is one of intelligence or instinct, all we do know is that despite the horror, suffering, and destruction it brings it will continue attacking the crew to get what it needs, even though both those things (air and water) are readily available from the spacecraft. No matter its level of awareness, it seems, it no longer matters what it does or what impact those actions cause, it apparently can’t help itself. And it no longer sees others as anything more than a means to feed a part of itself.
Arrogance looks like confidence because it’s a means of disguising insecurity. That kid who was so smart that he knew what we should and shouldn’t have been singing was just as worried about looking silly or being perceived as less than grown-up as the adult he’s become. Sure, it’s not essential for life like moisture and atmosphere, but some part of me believes it is. In some walled-up section of myself, there’s a part that remains afraid of someone seeing me as less than completely competent, smart, and unafraid. And that part acts, even when I don’t want it to.
How about you? What are your instincts, the ones that have developed within you over the years, that can take the controls of your brain when you’d rather they didn’t? Do you, like me, need to be smarter than everyone else? Or do you find yourself feeling better when others are hurting? Do you deal with the times you miss the mark by pointing how someone else has done the same, or maybe you turn and blame those sins on those around you?
We are, like Paul and the creature from this week’s movie, capable of acting in ways we don’t want to, that we, hopefully know are hurtful, destructive, and demeaning to others. We act in those ways in spite of all our will. Paul’s words in Romans point us toward Jesus, toward grace and the power of love that can live within us and strengthen our will and resolve.
It is, of course, a choice, an acknowledgement of that love and it’s availability to transform us, to bring us wholeness no amount of work or thought within ourselves can fully accomplish. It’s a giving up of what makes us do those things we don’t want to do in order to become those who act in ways that bring life, healing, and joy.
Because, otherwise, we’d likely just be terrors, from Earth, space, or beyond.
Jesus help me do the things I love rather than those I despise.