Spiderman Virtue

I finally got around to seeing Spiderman II the other day. I liked it. . .but not for reasons that I thought I would. I went mainly to get into all the flipping around through the air and stuff. But I ended up enjoying the film more because of the way it simply and unpretentiously displayed the virtue of self-sacrifice in such a non-apologetic way. It reminded me of something I've heard about an Orthodox monk who lived and died a few years ago in the Northern California wilderness. His name was Fr. Seraphim Rose. I've been told that sometimes when people would come to him seeking spiritual advice he would tell them to put down the Philokalia and instead read David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. Sometimes this scandalized the zealous convert to Orthodoxy who had traveled out into the wilderness to seek an Orthodox "guru". But Fr. Seraphim was onto something (in my opinion). He realized that most of us are so disintegrated that we hardly even know what is "human". . .much less divine. By reading well-written stories of authentic human relationships and struggles, we catch a glimpse of what an actual human being looks like. Sometime after that, perhaps we can access more "spiritual" literature such as the Philokalia. I'm not claiming Spiderman is on a par with Dickens. . .hardly. But I am suggesting that our culture continues to free-fall morally and that it takes a presentation of basic moral virtues such as self-sacrifice in a simplistic setting to get through to us. ALL of us. . .not just them (whoever "them" is).