John Donne famously wrote, many, many years ago (it was in 1623, if you must know) that “no man is an island, entire of itself.” This English poet saw, even 400 years ago, that a life lived completely alone is a dull thing.
There is no historical record as to whether Donne said, “I’m getting married in a church,” but Mary Jane says it to Peter early on in Spider-Man 2. He had been sure that she would get married on a hilltop, but no, she flatly corrects him. A church it is.
And what a church! At the end of the movie, we see the church that Mary Jane meant, a giant, ornamental cathedral, spires reaching to the skies. The architecture itself is a cheery celebration of joy.
Ah, but within the ornate décor, Mary Jane’s lonesome expression stands as a perfect counterpoint to the opulence around her. Yes, she’s a beautiful bride, but she’s begun to realize that she’s marrying the wrong man (his astronaut status notwithstanding).
Cut to the wedding—a lavish, extravagant affair with flowers all over the place … and a jilted groom, who is handed a note by, one assumes, Mary Jane’s friend or maid of honor or someone like that.
Never one for subtlety, Sam Raimi, the film’s director, then treats us to a shot of Mary Jane running through a sun-dappled park, trees in full bloom, white doves fluttering behind her, the fountain joyously erupting, all shot in gauzy hues that lend the whole proceedings an aura of heavenly light. MJ is taking her life into her own hands! Who cares that she now knows Peter is Spider-Man? Or that he’d told her they can’t be together? Or that he views rejecting her as a means of protecting her? She’s smiling, following her own heart.
And where is she running? She’s headed to Peter’s apartment, where he is morosely looking out the window, his back to the open door (why is it open, exactly?). He notices her presence and she tells him, “I had to do what I had to do.”
Much speechifying follows, where she points out to him that it’s not up to him to decide how she should handle her heart. If she wants to be with him and sign up for all the dangers that connotes, then that’s her right.
But what she says in the midst of that cuts to the core of everything that sucks about being a superhero: “Isn’t it about time somebody saved your life?”
It’s the catch-22 of superhero-dom. Sure, you do a lot of good for people and, you know, save the world again and again … but you do it all alone. You don’t have anyone to confide in, anyone to share your troubles with, anyone to give you a hand when you really need it.
And make no mistake, you’ll need it. Peter says as much toward the end of Spider-Man 3, when he’s rushing off to take care of Sandman and Venom and pleads with his friend Harry Osborn for help. He says it in Spider-Man 2, when faced with the prospect of his own demise at the hands of a vengeful Harry, when he tells his friend, “There are bigger things here at stake than you and me.”
Even superheroes need help. And if superheroes need it, you better believe we mere mortals need it. Except here in this life, we don’t just call it “help”; we call it “accountability.”
The often-quoted biblical passage for this concept comes from Proverbs 27:17, which says, “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.” Peter saves Mary Jane from the clutches of the Green Goblin and from Doctor Octopus, and now it’s time for Mary Jane to save Peter from a life of loneliness, despair and pent-up emotion.
We see the idea of accountability and assistance in the actions of Jesus, who did not operate in isolation. He had the 12 disciples with Him, and whenever He sent them on special tasks, He sent them out in pairs, never alone (see Matthew 21:1; Mark 6:7; Mark 11:1; Luke 10:1). During the apostle Paul’s missionary journeys, he always traveled with someone else and never went out on his own.
This concept of accountability can also be found in the Old Testament, in the story of Nehemiah and the rebuilding of the wall around Jerusalem. The wall had been ransacked and torn down by Israel’s enemies, and Nehemiah led the effort to get it back up. The entire book of Nehemiah is about this task, and chapter 3 lists each person that participated in the rebuilding process and which part of the wall they rebuilt. It’s a classic example of people helping each other out to achieve an objective greater than themselves.
While most of us will never take on the colossal job of rebuilding a wall around an entire city, we all undertake the no-less-colossal job of living this life. And though we might get through it okay on our own, it is so much more sharp, diverse, rich and rewarding if we have at least one other person involved—and not just someone to help us, but someone we can help, too. Someone who sharpens us and who we, in turn, sharpen.
The time has come to get off our own personal islands. The time has come to get involved in other people’s lives, and to invite other people to get involved in ours. If we could get some accountability like that? That’d be super.