Help!

I lift up my eyes to the hills-- where does my help come from? My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth. (Psalm 121:1-2)

Tristran Thorn is on a journey. The protagonist of Neil Gaiman’s Stardust promised anything in the world to the girl he thinks he loves, and she asked for the star that they had just seen fall from the sky, so Tristran takes off into Faerie in search of this treasure. When he reaches the place that he knows the star landed, he finds not a lump of molten rock and metal as he expected, but a beautiful girl in a sparkly dress whose leg was broken in her fall from the heavens.

He claims the star and begins to take her back to his home in the village of Wall, but she is not very pleased to be captured. When at one point she escapes, he fears he will never find her again, especially when sheer exhaustion forces him to sleep beneath a tree. When he wakes, he finds that the tree is talking to him and offering to help him, but having been warned to be wary of everything in Faerie, he is sceptical.

The tree rustled. 'Why don't you tell me your story so far,' said the tree, 'and let me be the best judge of whether or not I can be of help.’
Tristran began to protest. He could feel the star moving further and further away from him, at the speed of a cantering unicorn, and if there was one thing he did not have time for, it was the recitation of the adventures of his life to date. But then it occurred to him that any progress he had made on his quest so far he had made by accepting the help that had been offered to him. So he sat on the woodland floor and he told the copper beech everything he could think of…

I think the same could be said of everyone — we get by with a little help from our friends, to borrow a song lyric, but help is not always easy to accept. Pride gets in the way sometimes, or maybe, like Tristran, we fear the ulterior motives that might be lurking behind the seemingly kind gesture. In the end, though, we have to realize that we will never make any progress unless we accept the help that is offered to us — from family, from friends, from complete strangers, and ultimately, from God. We will never catch our fallen stars without it.

The Unseen

Then the righteous will answer him, "Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?" And the king will answer them, "Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me." (Matthew 25:37-40)

Neil Gaiman first wrote Neverwhere as a screenplay for a BBC television mini-series before turning it into a novel (and I highly recommend it in either form). The story revolves around Richard, a typical English office worker, who is plunged into the strange world of "London Below" when, ignoring his fiancée's protests, he helps a battered and bloody girl who suddenly appears on the sidewalk in front of them. Her name is Door, and by taking her in, Richard becomes like her and the other residents of the city below, literally unseen by the denizens of "London Above."

When the original idea for Neverwhere was presented to Gaiman, the unseen ones were the homeless. Not wanting to romanticize life on the streets, however, he turned it into a fantasy world of earls, friars, swords, and great, fell beasts. Regardless of the characters' plight, though, the upshot of the story remains the same: when you reach out and help someone in need, you life will be changed, completely and irrevocably, and even when you are allowed to return to your safe and comfortable world, things will never be the same.

I have a cyber-friend who has made it her mission to help the otherwise unseen ones on the streets of southern California. She buys packages of socks and puts into each pair a pop-top can of Vienna sausages or something similar. She keeps these care packages in her car, and when she sees a homeless person as she's driving around, she hands food and comfort out of her window. Instead of ignoring them as I tend to do, she chooses to see them and she reports that this has changed her own outlook on life. What a testament to the power of sight – I pray that I may be able to start seeing instead of simply looking, and that I may not be afraid to rock my entire world.

The Eye of Orion ... or Somewhere Else?

For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. (Jeremiah 29:11)

"You didn't always take me where I wanted to go," said the Doctor to the TARDIS-in-human-form. "No, but I always took you where you needed to go," she replied. This pivotal conversation in "The Doctor's Wife" made a big impression on me, as you already know if you read my previous post. Just recently, however, I saw another scene from that episode that made me think some more.

After the adventure is over, Amy and Rory have been saved, and the soul of the TARDIS has returned to her mute home in the pan-dimensional blue box, the Doctor prepares to depart. He races haphazardly around the console, turning dials and flipping switches while keeping up a running dialogue with himself. He turns one last dial and announces his destination: "Ok. The Eye of Orion, or wherever we need to go." Before he has a chance to pull the last lever, it moves all by itself, the machine's acknowledgement of the Doctor's willingness to give up any illusions of control he might have had, because he now realizes that he was never in control to begin with.

How much less stressful would my life be if I stopped trying to be in control of everything, if I stopped getting angry at finding myself in a difficult situation or not being where I wanted to be? What if I faced each situation with a different attitude, that of seeking to discover what purpose I am to serve in my present circumstances, however negative or unwanted I think they are? As much as I'd like to think it or make it so, I'm not really in control, and even though I really want to go to the Eye of Orion, that doesn't appear to be in the cards right now. To have the Doctor's attitude about the whole thing - to stop fighting the inevitable and to make the best of what comes - is my goal right now.

Where Are We Going?

We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28)
 
My current favorite episode ever of Doctor Who (so far) is Neil Gaiman's masterpiece from series 6, "The Doctor's Wife." In it, the Doctor and his companions land on a sentient asteroid that steals the TARDIS after transferring the machine's consciousness into a human body. As a result, for the first time in their centuries of traveling together, the Doctor is able to have conversations with the one object that has been with him almost constantly.

Frequent viewers of the show know that many episodes are set up by the fact that the TARDIS fails to land at the time and place the Doctor had directed it to go - sometimes they end up in the wrong place and sometimes it's the right place but the wrong time, but at any rate, they find themselves in the middle of a crisis, followed by lots of running around and day-saving. Now that he has the TARDIS in a form that can answer him, the Doctor confronts her with the fact that she doesn't always take him where he wants to go.

"No," she replies, "but I always took you where you needed to go."

It was not until I was thinking about the episode later that I realized how profound that statement is, especially in regard to my life at the moment. "Why, God?" I ask. "Why are things going this way for me? Why aren't you answering my prayers? Why can't things go right for a change?" I wonder - if I stopped to listen to the still, small voice, would I hear the same answer that the Doctor heard? I suspect so, even though that's not always exactly what I want to hear....