As the Deer

Since I confessed I liked Glee last week, I thought it would be good to give you just a bit more insight into my brain and I hope you will enjoy it, and we will become closer through it. If you have not yet guessed - the above cookie jar (I know, there’s something underneath those cookies?!) is a TARDIS.

What is the TARDIS you might ask? I’m glad you did. The Time And Relative Dimensions in Space machine is the starship of Doctor Who of BBC fame. The Doctor has recently begun to surpass cult fame, but has been an institution almost continually since 1963. The doctor is allowed to do this through the simple death cheat of regeneration, thus creating and preserving new story lines, characters, and actual set change.

This does not explain why I like Doctor Who though. I like Doctor Who because of his messianic complex, his strange brilliance, and his knack for picking up earthlings and helping them learn about themselves while traveling the stars and saving the universe. The Doctor calls them companions but really they become disciples. You can especially see this in the second series of the “New Who”, which is when David Tennant took the role of the good Doctor.

Two cases to make about Doctor Who as a nerd religious symbol:

1) School Reunion: Old companion Sarah Jane meets then current companion Rose (Giles from Buffy plays a memorable villain). Current companion learns old companions don’t fly with the Doctor forever and perhaps she is not as special as she thought (well, she is, but that’s because Rose was the best companion pretty much ever). Her faithful discipleship of the Doctor is shaken. Donna Noble is a later companion who comes to this grim realization when she almost dies saving 27 planets (including Klom and the lost moon of Poosh).

2) New Earth: Perhaps the most blatant of messianic (savior) visuals comes from this episode. I actually love this episode quite dearly but the ending with the water and cleansing (I won’t spoil if you haven’t seen it) makes a case for the goodness and belief in the Doctor. I couldn’t find a decent clip to visualize, but I wish I had.

So what is the point and how does this relate to Christian music? Well, it relates to any Christian music in which Jesus is discussed as the savior and only God. I mean, people believe in Doctor Who and Joss Whedon. People are hardcore Harry Potterites (though less crazy) and some people even still have grand fervor for Ayn Rand.

Whether or not you want to argue, you can look inside and see for yourself that everyone has a god they bow too, whether it be God or god (and sometimes there is a terrifying duality inside the person which causes painful warring). Truth be told, if I didn’t believe in God, I would fully embrace the Whovian (Doctor Who) lifestyle with the same reckless abandon I took for being an Angel aficionado (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), Green Lantern, and even the Power Rangers.

Interestingly enough, a god that is not God will often be modeled after the so called seven deadly (or cardinal) sins: Greed, Lust, Pride, Sloth, Gluttony, Envy, and Wrath. Those little gods that we tote around might be simple daily things (“I cannot get through my day without coffee!”), things that are means to an end (workaholic, alcoholic, Fight Clubaholic), escapism (voyeurism, bondage, fan fiction), and even other actual gods (pagan beliefs included here).

People try and debate me on this, but we love stuff that is not god. We’re guilty of it -sometimes even after we actively choose the real Christ. Its sin in its truest form, the dark whispers from the garden. Anyone who states otherwise is lying to themselves and I used to be that way too, so trust me when I say you are not alone in that one.

So what do we do? How do we recognize the emptiness in us that comes from other gods? How do we let the true God fill us and replace that? How do we long after him the way he longs to come for us as though we are a lost sheep or Mary? (Luke 15: 3-10)

The first thing is to recognize how unfulfilled you (we) are. Truth be told, you may not actually think you are. Percentages work in my favor here because blogs are still relatively youthful enough, but those mid-life crises that movies make fun of or that we read about as runaway brides and such on slate? That is a lack of true fulfillment. That’s how you know its counterfeit to Jesus.

And there may be nothing outward about it. After awhile, a callous may easily build against your heart and soul, numbing out God and the thing you’re running after that’s not God. Dullness, desensitization, a lack of quietness in the confusion all come next. And its not pretty. Sometimes someone will end up cutting themselves or committing suicide because of that feeling. Sometimes it will motivate them to physical healthiness (jogging, for instance). And sometimes, it takes God wresting with them and their demons for someone to understand.

Don’t mistake this wresting for a lack of power on the part of God. There is biblical prescient for wresting, as when Jacob became Israel and would go on to birth a great nation and a great peoples and eventually the Messiah. (Genesis 32)

The best illustration in song I can think of right now is As the Deer. As the Deer is not quite a hymn, but its not a new song. It was represented and became quite famous about the same time as God of Wonders but it predates God of Wonders. Also, you may recognize some of it as Psalm 42.

As the Video Panteth For The Water: http://youtu.be/TF27EczT_pU

God’s spirit and holiness are the waters here that fill. Jesus talked about with the woman at the well (Gospel of John Chap. 4), also using things like bread to make the same point. The point of us being naturally more like deer and him naturally more like that pure water.

Remarkably, as the Deer continues a tradition of giving names to God that are intimate: Friend, Brother, Strength, Shield.

The author also talks about wanting God more than gold or silver (something only a handful of Israelites could say) and even more than anything.

And that, my friends, seems like an incomprehensible love. At least it does to me. I pray more out of need that love or praise. I don’t follow through with Christian things like telling people about Him (though in my defense I am working on that kind of). I don’t discipline myself or even read the Voice every day like I should to be fresh and renewed (there’s that water metaphor again!). And sometimes it doesn’t bother me that I don’t do these things like I should.

And it should bother me more. It should bother us more. And I’m not talking about shouting through megaphones, I’m talking about Peter. Peter whose love for God redeemed him. And Stephen, whose love for God ended in his death. And David. And Ruth. And Jonathan. And John. And Paul. I’m talking about us. Not our holy wars or the wages of sin.

I’m talking about loving God back with a microscopic version of what he gives us. And it haunts me sometimes that I cannot give him enough. That I don’t deserve his love and yet, there it is, waiting to wash me. I go off and I sin lustfully with men, for one of the worst examples. And the weight of it might not be biblical. It may be shame rather than the easy burden and light yoke that we’re actually supposed to have as Christians, but I don’t think we’ve ever known that burden and yoke because we expect to work for our salvation and feel like… hey! Good deeds!

And good deeds are good. But they are not salvation. They do not fill you. You are not Scrooge from the Christmas Carol. And I am not Mother Theresa. I am John and I am loved but I do not love back enough.

Thanks for reading,

John