Perspective II

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28)

From the very beginning of Falling Skies, one of the worst things about the invading alien force is the way they kidnap human children and attach “harnesses” (actually creatures from somewhere they had taken over previously) to them in order to control their actions, basically turning them into mindless slaves. In the early episodes of the show, one of the great accomplishments of the human survivors is figuring out how to remove the harnesses without killing the children.

By the third season, the humans have allied themselves with another alien race that had also been enslaved by the invaders, and one benefit of this alliance is the access to technology that lets them remove harnesses completely and safely from children who had been captured. It also allows them to take out the spikes left over in the backs of those who, like Ben Mason, had their harnesses removed before this advanced technology was available.

In the episode “At All Costs,” Ben must decide if he wants those spikes removed or not. On the one hand, he would really like to be a normal teenager again, with nothing that makes him stand out from the crowd. On the other hand, having the harness remnants gives him certain “superpowers” - superhuman strength, for one, and the ability for potential alien allies to speak through him and communicate with the humans. These abilities make him feel needed, like there is something useful he can do. He is no longer just a kid who is in the way and has to follow the directions of the adults. As Ben tells his younger brother, being harnessed was a bad thing, but the harness remnants allow him to do good.

In thinking about this situation, I find myself returning to what I said about Paul in a recent post about perspective in the novel Ender’s Game, but I think Ben's dilemma here is an even better parallel with Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” and how it affected his ministry. I don’t believe God causes bad things to happen to people. I do believe that he gives us the strength to carry on as we walk through those dark valleys, and also the ability to learn from our trials and put that knowledge to use once we reach the other side. Paul learned that weakness made him strong by forcing him to rely on God’s grace, just as Ben has learned that having the spikes gives him a greater purpose in his community.

We all have thorns of one kind or another, and negative circumstances are never easy to deal with. I can only pray that we will let God change our perspectives in these situations and help us to see the good we can do in spite of it all.

Waiting for the Harvest

Let the wicked forsake their ways and the unrighteous their thoughts. Let them turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will freely pardon. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. (Isaiah 55: 7-8)

Much of the third season of Falling Skies revolves around the strange things that are happening to Tom and Anne’s daughter Lexi as a result of her hybrid alien/human DNA, the most notable of which is the fact that although she is only eighteen months old, she looks like a young adult. In the episode “Door Number Three,” we find Lexi in a cocoon, metamorphosing into who knows what, while the rest of the community debates what to do about her. Many think that she should be destroyed lest she emerge with tremendous power and the ability to destroy or enslave the humans once and for all. Tom tries to be, if not the voice of reason, then the voice of compassion and love. For the sake of his child, he has to convince everyone else not to do anything rash and out of fear. He wants them to wait and see what comes out of the cocoon - there is a chance she might come out completely on the side of the aliens, but they have no way of knowing this for certain.

In Matthew, Jesus tells a parable about a farmer who plants some wheat, but his enemy comes along and sows weeds in the same field among the farmer’s good crop. When both wheat and weeds start sprouting, the farm hands want to pull up the weeds. After all, it would be irresponsible to let the weeds grow along side the wheat, taking the nutrients from the soil that should be going only to the good plants. They want to make a preemptive strike, get out the Roundup, get rid of the potential threat before it has a chance to do something bad.

God, like the farmer in the parable and Tom Mason, says, Stop! Wait! Don’t do something stupid that you can’t reverse! You need to wait for the plants to grow up so you can be sure of the difference between them or you will pull up the good plants along with the weeds. You need to wait for Lexi to come out of the cocoon and find out for sure what has happened to her so you don’t kill her for no good reason.

May we always love people and have compassion for them, never writing them off as irredeemable, never trying to do God’s work for him - only God can tell for certain what a person will become and only he can make the determination of Wheat or Weed.

Question Authority?

The people quarreled with Moses and said, “Give us water to drink.” Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?” But the people thirsted there for water; and the people complained against Moses and said, “Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?” (Exodus 17:2-3)

It’s a hazard of leadership - no matter what you do, someone is going to be unhappy. And quite often, one very vocal somebody can turn an entire crowd against a leader who often has just been doing his or her best in a tough situation. Case in point: Tom Mason, the main character on the sci fi TV series Falling Skies. Before the alien attack he was a college history professor. In the aftermath, he finds himself in a leadership role, even being elected President of a remnant of the United States at one point. He works very hard to make decisions for the good of the entire group, but just as often as people look to him to get them through the continuing alien nightmare there are those who are constantly stirring up negative sentiment against him.

I don’t completely blame the alien attack survivors for not always trusting Mason’s leadership, nor do I completely blame the Israelites for lashing out against Moses. Both scenarios are extremely stressful, and stressful situations are not always known for bringing out the best in people, especially the longer the hardship goes on. When all hope seems to be gone and our faith and trust starts to wane because no good results seem to be forthcoming, we begin to take out our frustrations on the closest thing, whether that happens to be a former professor, a fellow Hebrew and former prince of Egypt, or even God himself.

So what do we do? How do we keep from becoming the grumblers and complainers and whiners? Maybe these stories remind us that instead of continuing to look through dirty, smudged glasses, we need to put on fresh “perspectacles” (my new favorite word, thanks to Glennon Melton) and look for all the good that has happened despite the stresses and hardships. How much sooner might the Israelites have reached the promised land if they had been grateful for the manna, for the quail, for the release from slavery, instead of constantly whinging about what they perceived to be lacking?

To be sure, it is easier said than done. But isn't it a goal worth striving towards?

Go Away and Deal With It

Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns….When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.” Jesus said to them, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” (Matthew 14:13, 15-16)

Last week’s episode of Falling Skies, titled “Door Number Three,” begins with the reunification of Tom Mason’s family. For the first time since the beginning of the season, when yet another alien attack scattered them in many different directions, he is finally in the same place as all four of his children and the woman he loves. All is not well, however. It is stressful enough for Tom to deal with the fact that the young woman before him is his less-than-two-year-old little girl, thanks to her weird human/alien hybrid DNA. Now, Lexi is in a cocoon, and only time will tell whether she remains mostly human or emerges more like the enemy Espheni.

Family issues or not, Tom is a leader and many people now look up to him for guidance and direction in the fight to survive. His oldest son, Hal, comes to him to ask what the next move is, what he should tell the people who are clamoring for answers, listing all the possibilities while Tom mostly tunes him out.

“Yeah, that makes sense,” Tom replies. “Yeah, we’ll do that, we’ll do all that. Stop them from making more human skitters, liberate ghettos, rescue the kids from Matt’s camp. But not today. I just got my family back in one place, in one piece. I’m not going anywhere.”

Hal is not satisfied with this answer: “What should I tell the people? Take a breather? Pretend like we’re not facing the extinction of humankind?”

“You can tell them whatever you want. I’ve given everything to these people. And to this fight. Today I’m going to be here for my daughter.”

Even Jesus needed time away from the people he gave his all to. Matthew places the feeding of the five thousand directly after an account of the beheading of John the Baptist by Herod. The “this” that Jesus heard and that caused him to seek quiet and solitude was the news of his cousin’s execution. Time and space to grieve was not to be had, however, as hordes of people took off on foot and met him on the other side of the lake, clamoring for attention, healing, teaching. As usual, Jesus put aside his personal needs at that point and showed his love for them, but he seems to have run out of patience by the time his disciples get to him. They lack authority or initiative to carry out the plan they have devised, so they bring it to the Teacher. “The people are hungry, send them away so they can find something to eat.”

“You feed them. You are fully capable, adult men. Use your God-given brains and figure this one out. Go away and leave me in peace for a few minutes and don’t come back until you have a solution.”

Amazingly enough, that’s just what the disciples did. It wasn’t much of a solution, granted, and they seem to see it as proof only of the lack of another viable alternative to the plan they presented initially, but Jesus blessed their efforts by blessing the food, and all of the people ate supper that night.

So what are you waiting for?