Are You Listening?

Then the righteous will answer him, “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?” The King will reply, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”  (Matthew 25:37-40)

The Ood are a race of aliens who almost always appear in New Who as, at best, servants to humans, and at worst, their slaves. The Ood themselves seem to be a peaceful people, but when the Doctor is around, things are happening that make them aggressive. He and Donna Noble find themselves in the middle of one such event on Donna’s first trip to another world when they land on the Ood Sphere in the 42nd century. 

The Ood have a kind of hive mind, and they are all mentally connected to one another through a central brain. Although regular humans like Donna cannot hear it, psychically aware beings like the Doctor can listen to their communications through song. It’s not a nice tune to listen to, however; it is a song of captivity. After the Doctor tells her about it, Donna wants to listen also, so he does some kind of Time Lord mind meld to her. Just as quickly, however, she asks him to reverse it because she can’t take the heartbreak she feels while listening. The Doctor complies, but afterwards she asks if he can still hear it. “All the time,” he says simply.

The needs are so great all around the world and here in our own backyards. On TV and online we hear heartbreaking stories of natural disasters, war, poverty, and governments that are either oppressive themselves or seemingly powerless to stop those that are terrorizing and oppressing other people. In the face of so much suffering, it is all too tempting to turn off the news and refuse to listen lest it upset our comfortable lives. 

What if we, like the Doctor, couldn’t turn it off and ignore it at will? What if we were always hearing, always seeing? Maybe, if all these needs were clamoring for our attention all the time, we might be better able and quicker to find solutions to all of these barriers to social justice.  Maybe we might be able to alleviate more suffering. Maybe we might even see Jesus.

Still, Small Voices

He said, "Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by." Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" (1 Kings 19:11-13)

While the dwarves have been exploring Smaug's treasure hoard, things have been much different and much worse for the people of Lake-town. Not able to catch the dwarves hiding in the tunnel, the dragon turns his wrath on the men living on the lake because he knows they had to have a part in helping the invaders of his lair. The buildings are on fire and people are running for their lives, frantic to escape the fiery beast that is bringing terror and destruction upon them. In the midst of the chaos, one man continues to shoot arrows at Smaug, seemingly in vain, even after all the other defenders have given up and fled for their lives. His name is Bard, and just before he lets loose his last arrow, a small bird lands on his shoulder and tells him everything that he has overheard the dwarves and Bilbo discussing, including where to find the one tiny place on Smaug's chest where he is missing a scale. On the dragon's next pass over the town, Bard waits, spots the vulnerable place, aims carefully, and shoots, successfully vanquishing the dragon once and for all.

Bard didn't learn of Smaug's weak spot from a scholarly book on the subject of dragon-killing, and there was no military commander barking out the order to shoot his arrows. Help came from the wise words of an unlikely messenger – a little bird perched on his shoulder. Furthermore, he didn't shoo away the creature or dismiss its words because of its seeming insignificance but took its words to heart and was successful as a result. May we, too, remember to listen for the still, small voice, and pay attention to the unlikely messengers that God sends our way to help us defeat our monsters or just find our way along the journey.

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....