Mainspring

Last night I went with my very very small church to go see Ironman instead of our usual bible study-like service. We decided as a group to go for an outing and joking claimed that we would watch Ironman and see what 'theological' message could be found in the movie. I think we would've had a much easier time finding a message from Jay Lake's Mainspring.

The book appears to take place in early America following a young apprentice clockworker named Hethor. He is visited by the angel Gabriel and tasked with the mission of saving the world. The world is not what it seems at first, even though he travels to Massachusetts. The angel is not just an angel, but a brass one made of gears and feathers of razor-sharp silver. The world turns on one mainspring; the sun, moon, and stars all travel a brass tract through the sky. The world is not a world as we know it, but one of clockworks and springs, all done by God and his hands.

"Our Father, who art in Heaven
Craftsman be thy name
Thy Kingdom come
Thy plan be done
On Earth as it is in Heaven
Forgive us this day our errors
As we forgive those who err against us
Lead us not into imperfection
And deliver us from chaos
for thine is the power, and the precision
For ever and ever, amen"

It is a beautiful story of faith, hope, and love that Jay Lake writes. Young Hethor runs into so many of his own trials and tribulations that test what he believes and opens his eyes to the best, yet most unnoticed, things of the world. His actions are based solely on his faith, and his task even though his 'guides' throughout the book constantly end up being the devil in disguise. It isn't until Hethor runs into the 'correct people', the people who speak in the language of the clockworks that run the earth does he find people who have the same faith as he does.

Faith, hope and love works wonders for both Hethor and for anyone reading it. Perhaps its the misty-eyed female in me that goes 'awwwwww' at the ending of this book. Perhaps its my faith and how close to home this book hit. Either way, Mainspring is written with wonderful words of brass and gears, clockworks that transport you to the world where precision mechanisms reign.