Doctor Who: The Time of Angels - Faith in the Dark

So... the Weeping Angels are returning with a vengeance....

I honestly didn't think I could be terrified any more by them... it's bad enough they have forced me to develop a phobia of stone statues in a churchyard... now I'm terrified of them coming out of the television!

There was certainly a lot to take in during the course of this episode... Moffat has certainly tossed a lot of cards onto the table.

Firstly there was the return of the mysterious and enigmatic River Song. Moffat certainly teased and tantalised us with tidbits. There were playful hints (again), as to exactly what the nature of her relationship with the Doctor is/will be. We also know now that she has a shady past... something that at this stage of his life, the Doctor may not be ready to accept. We also know that she has had flying lessons in a TARDIS... and appears to be more proficient than the Doctor (although I suspect he "leaves the brakes on" for dramatic flair), but the question remains... who exactly taught her? I'm also personally curious as to whether or not there is a link between Amy and River... they both used the exact same term of phrase to describe the Doctor's reason for museum visits.

Next we have the militaristic clerics led by their bishop, Father Octavian. Being a Christian I took special interest in this faction of soldiers. At a guess I'd have to say that their presence and the name of the crashed starship (the Byzantium), are a nod back to both the Roman Empire and the militaristic Roman church of old. Octavian was the original name of the Emperor Augustus and Byzantium was the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire. Whilst they appear both pretty conservative and militaristic (particularly Octavian), I don't think they came across as negative. Quite how their involvement figures into the big picture I'm not certain... but lets not forget they were on a mission to protect the human colonial inhabitants of Alfava Metraxis and were sent to "neutralise" the angel. Curiously Octavian appears to be aware of who the Doctor is.

Then finally of course we have the angels themselves. As I said... terrifying as they were in Blink, Moffat has expanded on their background and abilities and made them much more formidable. Just as the daleks eventually neutralised the "staircase escape technique", the angels have a workaround for their quantum lock weakness. If you don't blink... and you look them in they eyes, they begin to turn you into one of them. The same goes with technical equipment or anything used to record their image.

"That which holds the image of an angel itself becomes an angel"

Amy inadvertently finds herself staring at the image of the angel onscreen... as it projects itself through a television screen and starts to attack her. This has dangerous repercussions for her as she herself finds herself (through psychological manipulation), turning slowly into an angel. The Doctor temporarily saves her from this fate by biting her hand which she believes to be stone.

Furthermore, the angel the clerics were sent to neutralise was a creature of incredible cunning and infinite patience. It bided its time, lying dormant for centuries until it sensed an opportunity to revive others of its kind on the planet. I thought it was curious that the characters were referring to the native Aplans as double-headed creatures when none of the statues had two heads... and then  in a marvellous twist we found out why! The statues were not Aplans but deteriorating angels who were now slowly being restored by radiation leakage from the Byzantium's engines.

As the Doctor, Amy, River and the surviving clerics run to the Byzantium crash site, they find themselves closed in by the angels (now communicating with the Doctor having killed cleric Bob and used his cerebral cortex to fashion a means of communication - this I thought was very similar to the way in which the Vashta Nerada communicated with the Doctor in Moffat's previous River Song story). As the lead angel boasts of its imminent victory and the characters' impending doom, it also tries to provoke the Doctor tino rage. The Doctor responds by stating the one thing you shouldn't put in a trap if you have any sense... is him. He then fires a cleric's pistol into the gravity globe... the sole source of light and protection from the nearing angels... and the show ends on a cliffhanger.

I think the name of the globe is a hint at how they might escape their initial peril (gravity globe... by destroying it, my guess is they will float or fall out of harms way), but this is pure speculation.

A couple of things stood out for me in this episode with regard to spirituality. The first unsurprisingly is the nature of angels - or more specifically... fallen angels. in the episode, the Doctor talks of the power of the angels being in their image. This is so true. One of my major concerns about the modern world's obsession with the occult, is the mistaken belief that all spiritual forces that make themselves out to be benign or benevolent... are exactly what they pertain to be. I'll be focusing on this in a later post that has been brewing for quite some time in my head.

In one passage, the Bible speaks of Satan masquerading as an angel of light. By wooing us with what appears to be kindness, he lowers our defences and opens us up to his more nefarious plans. In the Narnia stories, the White Witch appears to be benevolent in some scenes... until her dark schemes are revealed. When Jonathan Ross criticised the film version, for "confusing the audience" about who was good and bad between Aslan and the witch I had to break out with a wry smile. He was missing the entire point!

I don't know if you've ever seen the Usual Suspects, but there is an excellent line in it which is very telling:

"The greatest trick the devil pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist."

In the latest episode of Doctor Who, Amy has been put in personal peril because she was drawn into the gaze of an angel. Similarly if we become enamoured with the occult, we too can be drawn in and find ourselves in great physical, psychological and spiritual danger.

The other spiritual point I wanted to make was with regard to the Doctor himself; it's from the cliffhanger:

"There's one thing you never put in a trap if you're smart. If you value your continued existence, if you have any plans about seeing tomorrow, there's one thing you never, ever, put in a trap: me."

That to me sums up the relationship between Jesus and Satan. In Gethsemane, Satan must have thought he'd got the ultimate one over on God... killing his Son in mortal form. He put Jesus in a fatal trap... but what he failed to anticipate was the fact that Jesus being in the trap was actually part of God's plan. When the lights went out on Good Friday, it was the ultimate cliffhanger.

However on Easter Sunday... Satan got utterly owned. Jesus may have subjected himself to The Law... but because there was no sin to be found in him, it had no power over him.

The Doctor asked his companions whether they trusted him, whether they put their faith in him... and they responded positively.... this was just before he plunged them into darkness and risk.

Similarly, God can ask us to put our faith in him whilst we find ourselves in the midst of very strange or nerve racking circumstances. I suppose the question we have to ask ourselves is when these times come... are we prepared to put our trust in him?

Doctor Who: Victory of the Daleks and the Supremacy of Love

I had mixed feelings about this week's Doctor Who episode, Victory of the Daleks:

Firstly, on the plus side I feel it has to be said that Matt Smith continues to hold his own as the last of the Time Lords. He echoes multiple Doctors of the past and channels his own unique energy into each performance.

There were brief glimpses of genius in the script: The Doctor using a jammy dodger biscuit as a fake TARDIS destruct button, Spitfires in space, and of course the creepy apparently subservient Daleks (which of course were nothing of the sort). There's just something a little darkly kinky about a Dalek drifting around proclaiming "I am your sooooooooooldier!"

"Would you care for a cup of teeeeeeaaaaaa?!???"

Most... hilariously surreal Dalek line... EVER!

All this is the kind of stuff that makes Doctor Who unique... that the amazing, fantastic, wonderful and terrifying things can all be found or suggested in the everyday mundane.

On the negative side it has to be said that the newly reincarnated Daleks look foul. The angles are all wrong and they look like they have been made out of cheap vacuum sealed plastic. It's almost as if they've been cross bred with a cheap Nissan Micra or Smart Car. I suspect they've been bulked up for the comfort of the operators. The mixed paint jobs are probably a nod back to the 60's film versions, but I don't think a variety of bright colours really work on Daleks. They are supposed to be a totalitarian supremacist race bent on destruction of all non-Dalek life, it seems fitting to me that their colour scheme should be restricted and repressed. Still... at least they didn't have fire extinguishers for extermination beams.

When they emerged in formation and confronted the Doctor, I wondered what they reminded me of... and then somebody hit the nail on the head on Twitter:

No wonder the poor Doctor looked so bemused!

I also felt the pacing was a bit off. When the Power Rangers new Daleks were revealed, it felt like there should have been a "To Be Continued" after the Doctor's reaction. It really could have benefited from being a two parter as some important elements were left rushed or unexplained. You could really tell the difference in quality between Moffat's episodes and this one.

In the climax of the story we discover that Bracewell - the Daleks' sleeper android, is a walking Oblivion Continuum bomb capable of destroying the Earth. The Daleks trigger his countdown mechanism as part of their exit strategy, and the Doctor has to abandon his plans to thwart them in a desperate bid to diffuse Bracewell as he builds up to critical mass.

The Doctor quickly realises that  the way to disarm Bracewell is to break the Daleks control over him... and to do that he has to help Bracewell reassert his sense of humanity. In trying to elicit an emotional response, The Doctor appeals to Bracewell's sense of sadness, despair, hurt and loss... all of which have no effect whatsoever.

Once again it is Amy who has an epiphany about how to resolve the situation. She copies the Doctor's strategy of appealing to Bracewell's emotions but instead appeals to his positive emotions... principally love.

Although perhaps not the most scientific of resolutions, I liked it. To quote William Hurt's character in The Village: "The world moves for love, it kneels before it in awe."

When she was still alive, my grandmother's favourite Bible verse which she knew from memory was this:

"If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."

1 Corinthians 13

As powerful as negative emotions are, love (in it's many forms), is supreme. Perhaps that's why we prize the emotion so greatly when we are enthralled by it, covet it when we are deprived of it... and grieved so deeply when we are robbed of it. That is why when, like the Doctor we are at the end of our resourcefulness, love in its supremacy will have the final word.... especially God's love.

In a dark world it's often very easy to lose sight of this truth and so I'd like to finish by quoting another doctor... namely Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr:

"I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant."

Terminators Have It Easy

Lately I've been pondering the frustration caused by the lack of "surface information" available to me in daily life. This is a general thing but I must confess that it probably has a specific root... 

Girls.

Being flesh and blood and heterosexual in nature, from time to time I find myself encountering what I perceive as beauty and being drawn inexorably in by it  (oh come on... how many times has it happened before and I've blogged on it here).

Most men would just go with the internal girly whirly detector in their head... however, I am not most men. I find that I don't have the luxury of just going with my instincts.

Annoyingly.

You see there are two important things you need to know about me in respect of this. The first thing, is that psychologically and emotionally, I find it a little too easy to fall in love... don't ask me why it is... it just is. The second thing you need to know is that I recognise the need for spiritual responsibility and accountability in my own life both with regard to myself and to others.

If I commit myself to a romantic cause of of action (however innocuous), in the past it generally hasn't taken me too long to get in over my head... and I find myself caught in a tug of war between the giants of romantic love and spiritual well-being.

What happens when an irresistible force hits an unmoveable object?

If I go out with someone who doesn't put similar stock in their ethics and beliefs, one of two things (usually both in tides and seasons, depending on how long things pan out)eventually happens:

1. I get emotionally attached and conflicted and tend to get melancholic, miserable and spiritually ineffective.
    
2. The other person can't cope with the importance I put on my faith and it becomes a source of friction and argument.

Having this knowledge makes it a great burden for me to carry. I am naturally more acutely aware of it at this time of year as all my hormones tend to kick into overdrive as we emerge from winter.

In fact there are potentially as many as 4 girls (5 if you include Fliss Walton's appearance in this Halifax advert), who I semi regularly run into who catch my eye in this manner... but for the reasons stated above, I won't do anything about it.

When I get thinking like this, I start to think how easy life could be if we were all like the Terminator. No, I don't mean that I'd like us all to be pathological cyborg killing machines. I'm referring to "Terminator Vision"...

Imagine how much simpler the dating game would be if you could just walk into a bar or town square, scan the individuals there... and be presented with a list of pointers with regard to "surface" compatibility with those people (just pointers mind... nothing should take away from the fun and stimulation that comes from getting to know a person one to one).  Oh and before you ask... another essential divergence from the Terminator films - we shouldn't have to walk into those places naked in the first instance lol.

If the word "Christian" popped up on any one of those girls heads while scanning.... I'd lock on and totally go for it... but as it stands I'm somewhat of a reluctant hermit.

In fact, whilst I may be joking... we potentially in the future may have this very ability. Advances in the field of augmented reality are bearing fruit along these lines. Last month I read this article in the Guardian. I was particularly drawn to this segment: 

"A prototype application demonstrated at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February took things a little further again. Point the phone at a person and if it can find their details, it will pull them off the web and attach details – their Twitter username, Facebook page and other facts – and stick them, rather weirdly, into the air around their head (viewed through your phone, of course)."

Naturally whilst this is exactly the kind of technological advancement I need to overcome my ethical romantic problems... I recognise that the issues of privacy and data protection are immensely important and perhaps this needs to be thought through a bit before we start walking down that road.

Until then, I guess I'm stuck trying to work this out by developing telepathic powers.

The Wolf is at the Door

I day I have long feared coming is finally upon us. Earlier today I logged on to the BBC Election coverage page for my constituency and saw... this:

That's right, for the first time as far as I can remember... the "British" National Party are fielding a candidate for Stratford-on-Avon's parliamentary seat in just a little over four weeks.

Truthfully, although I am genuinely grieved in my spirit, this really didn't surprise me and as mentioned previously, I've been bracing myself for it... mainly for three reasons.

Firstly I've known for some time that there is a small clique of BNP supporters in Stratford-upon-Avon. During the last Local/District/European elections, I saw one of the terraced houses along Birmingham Road bearing a supporters window sticker. I've also seen the telltale red buboes on the Google Map of leaked BNP supporter locations... and while I am thankful that my own hometown has no official support... I am angered that Stratford and other local towns do have BNP supporters.... even if it's a minimal number, one supporter is one too many!

Secondly, thanks to their atrocious successes in Europe last year, the BNP now has a more substantial war chest and has the resources to expand their influence by fielding more candidates across the country.

Thirdly, the Conservatives decision to elect an Iraqi born Kurd as their candidate has ruffled the feathers of some of the more traditional core vote... and what has almost exclusively been a Tory safe seat... now looks just a little wobbly (especially when you consider that there are feelings of antipathy towards the town's contingent of Conservative district councillors... and the Tory control of the council is  largely supported by their councillors in outlying towns. This antipathy could easily impact on the General Election seat result).

I wouldn't be so concerned, but many voters in the area being quite, quite racist.

Given his background, many have asked if Nadhim Zahawi is Muslim. I am told by my sources that he is at least nominally speaking, a Christian and that his family escaped the Saddam Hussein regime by the skin of their noses. Although that's nice and favourable to someone of a Christian background,  that someone of the faith should be representing is in Parliament... why that should matter in a secular election is beyond me. It certainly didn't matter when John Maples took the seat, or Alan Howarth... but then they weren't foreign nationals and they "ticked all the right boxes" in terms of appearance and cultural perception.

Some of the "smarter" critics cite the fact that Mr Zahawi would be more palatable if he had moved into the area previously and had some working knowledge of the people of Stratford. Isn't it funny that this same argument didn't matter one jot when John Maples was drafted from Lewisham!

I'm not a Conservative supporter, I leave my direct political allegiances deliberately ambiguous (largely because there is no "nearest fit"... although I'm sure my beliefs and opinions on various political issues are quite clear). However once your MP is elected you make the best of what you've got. On two occasions I've written to John Maples and on both occasions I have felt that my opinion has been ignored and his interpretation of what I had expressed was all that mattered. In short, he was the patrician and I was the plebeian. He came across as a typical Tory. Now Zahawi in his PR comes across as someone who genuinely wants to know the opinions of those around him... so I already prefer him to the predecessor.

Although I don't particularly want to be troubled on the doorstep... I am keen to know what makes all the [reasonable] candidates buzz and which ones best represent my views.

Anyway back to my main point. Zahawi is the perfect target for the BNP. If they can pull of the darkest of unholy miracles and claim the seat... it would become like the sounding of a feudal horn. In their warped and deluded tiny little minds, it would be an endorsement of their opinions... and a declarataion that Middle England could be swayed to their vile opinions. The Daily Telegraph has a flawed application on Facebook that gives you the nearest political party match based on opinion. However it only matches on one scale... and so even if you [rightly] find their social policies repulsive, you can score quite highly with the BNP (because their economics are middle of the road).

God forbid anyone uses that app to sway their decision making on polling day. All things being equal, my current prediction is that Stratford will be a Conservative hold... albeit with a significantly reduced majority.

As for the BNP.... now that we know the wolf has come to our door, we can prepare for battle. We can wait for the BNP to begin their campaign in earnest and shoot them dow at every opportunity.  have special vitriol for the BNP... they constantly try to misappropriate Christian favour by misquoting scripture and suggesting that the unpopularity they suffer is on some level akin to the suffering of Christ and the early Church.

The BNP are not martyrs... they are morons and they certainly do not speak for Christians or Christ!

There is a wolf at the door... and I intend to slay it and take it's pelt!

Doctor Who: The Beast Below, and Musing Over Responsibilty & Love vs Fear

Another cracking episode which helps to further cement Matt Smith's tenure as the Doctor, and brings Amy Pond more into the limelight as a character in her own right.

I'm glad that one thing Moffat has retained from previous "New Who", is the practice of tipping the hat to other science fiction creations. Amongst the more obvious nods were a tribute to the garbage compactor/space slug scenes in Star Wars from A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Arthur Dent/Amy Pond travelling the universe in nightclothes), and Terry Pratchett's Discworld series (the featured starship is a self contained world travelling on the back of a star whale... in a manner not unlike Pratchett's Great A'Tuin).

Amy's first adventure with the Doctor lands her in the far future onboard the Starship UK, a vast vessel that carries all the citizens of Britain onwards towards a new home among the stars (well, apart from Scotland which demanded its own starship... *sigh*).

However all is not as it seems.

There is a dark secret concerning the ship's existence. The Doctor realises this when noting that a ship the size of Starship UK should have engines so big, that the decks vibrate. He's not alone in this realisation... the mysterious Liz 10, who turns out to be no less than Queen Elizabeth X of Great Britain also has suspicions that something is amiss. In actual fact the dark truth behind Starship UK is available to everyone above voting age, it's just that when they decide to learn the truth... they find the knowledge so disturbing that instead of protesting (or in the case of the Queen, abdicating), they choose to have their memory of being educated, erased. Those few who do protest are cast into a pit of food waste and digested as The Doctor and Amy discover, when after having her memory erased... they decide to investigate the booth again (although as the booth doesn't recognise the Doctor as human he can only trigger the protest/forget mechanism).

It is at this point that they realise that far from being in a conventional rubbish dump... they are actually inside the maw of the titular "Beast Below".

Ever inventive, The Doctor forms an undignified exit strategy (stimulating the creature to vomit and hence flushing him and Amy out through another orifice). Upon their escape, they are met by Liz 10 and the whole party find themselves taken into custody and escorted to The Tower of London.

It's at this point that we as the viewers learn the truth behind Starship UK. It was built upon the back of the last Star Whale which was thought to be drifting aimlessly around the Earth as it entered its last days. The Government of the day captured the beast, built a self contained world on its back and attached pain giving implants that tortured it into being subservient. The Doctor is incensed and angry at humanity for putting him in the position of making a terrible choice of his own. Even Amy doesn't escape his anger because even though she is not involved, she still decided to conveniently lose her knowledge and left herself a message to try and dissuade the Doctor from learning the truth.

"Nobody human has anything to say to me today!"

Believing that if he frees the star whale the migrating Britons will die and if he doesn't, the beast will continue to suffer in agony; The Doctor reasons that the only choice left open to him, is to overload the pain giving equipment and send the star whale into a persistent vegetative state... where it will continue in slavery but be unable to feel its pain.

However as he is about to carry out his plan, Amy has a sudden epiphany. She realises that the star whale is like the Doctor... being the last of its kind, it cannot bear to see the children of another species suffer, and so far from drifting into the vicinity of Earth by chance... had actually chosen to come to offer itself freely. She grabs the Queen's hand and slams it down on the "Abdicate" button. The clamps and implants are retracted from the star whale... but it does not fight free, instead it chooses to continue on its journey as willing saviour of the British people.

For me, the two most important themes explored by the episode were responsibility (the importance of the choices we make when we can no longer claim innocence from the truth), and the contrast between fear and love as motivational forces.

When I think on the subject of responsibility, it is clear to me that the human race has an amazing knack for going into denial... by either shifting responsibility, or simply finding new and ever more elaborate ways of perfecting the *shrug* gesture.

Biblically you can see this trait from the outset... it starts with Adam "What fruit? Oh this fruit? Oh... I didn't know... it's the woman's fault!" and then Eve "Me? Oh I only ate it because I was tricked so even though you told me not to eat it in the first place... it's not my fault".

Historically we've been the same ever since. One might argue that the current troubles engulfing the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, stem from this very same attitude... but although that's a rather extreme example, let's not forget we are all capable in our own way of covering up things we should not have done in the first place..

I guess we find it easier to get on with something if we bury our heads in the sand and hope that it will go away. None of us likes to admit to our own fallibility.

I think that's because when we are confronted with our fallibility, we are equally confronted with the truth that we are not safe drivers when it comes to life... and there is a fundamental problem when we put ourselves at the centre of our universe (it's a place we as human individuals are not meant to occupy).

As for fear and love, I'm always reminded of the following passage written by the apostle John:

"There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love."

1 John 4:18

It's a favourite passage of mine admittedly, and I'm sure I've quoted it here before... but it seems relevant here. The Government of Starship UK were so governed by fear that it didn't once enter their mind to consider that the star whale had come to Earth to help... they just saw it as something to take advantage of. They substituted their fear of death for a fear of consequence.

What would happen if they ever did the right thing by the star whale? It would save itself and destroy them wouldn't it?

Wouldn't it?

However... the star whale was not ruled or motivated by fear. The star whale was motivated by love. It came to Earth because it heard the cries of children... and it came to lend whatever help it could to aid them in their plight. It didn't expect to my enslaved and tortured... but do you know what the wonderful thing was? It never stopped loving. Sure, it lashed out at its persecutors...  but in the end when they let go of the fear that motivated them... it continued to bear them across the stars.

For me, the love of Jesus goes beyond even that. He didn't even lash out at the people who conspired to kill him. His love extended even to those who punished him... "Father forgive them".

One of the major difficulties I have with various religious institutions is that they can become so wrapped up in their own fear that they don't give God's love, breathing room. For some it's a fear of looking stupid if asked to step out and do something radical for God - like praying for healing and "what if nothing happens?" For others it's a fear that the mistakes/sins of individuals will reflect badly on the Church as a whole, and so a conspiracy of silence is embraced. For still others there is a fear of losing the traditions and patterns of worship they are most comfortable with, and so a rod of iron and inflexibility is embraced in services.

But God is not like us, not in that respect. He is not bound by fear (even though in Jesus he experienced our fears).

So what would happen if we took the courage to let go of our fear... and embrace his love? What if we took the courage to stand up and take healing to the people despite our fear? Or if we stood up and said... "PR isn't as important as doing the right thing by God and his people"? Or if we allowed worship to be directed by God instead of our timetable/sense of order?

Maybe some of our fears might be realised temporarily... but we have this reassurance:

"Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

Matthew 11:29-30

Even in the midst of our fears, God's love is working. Even when things go wrong... especially when they go wrong. We have a greater power, a greater force to cling to in the midst of our fears... God's immeasurable grace and boundless love.

And just as the star whale continued to carry the people of Britain to a new home... Jesus Christ will bear us through our journey... both now and into eternity.

Worth the Wait (Some Doctor Who SPOILERS)

I'm writing this blog hot on the heels of having watched the new Doctor Who opener The Eleventh Hour.

I had faith that Stephen Moffat would look after the series, even when my initial reaction to Matt Smith's inheritance of the role first became known was a little queasy... and when the naysayers and doubters came out in force.

I didn't understand how it could work... but if you are a long time fan of the Doctor, you learn to look beyond these things and trust that things will work out.

The Eleventh Hour was brilliant. I think it was paced really wisely. The script gave breathing room for Smith to work into the role by injecting regular bouts of humour. In truth one of the things that makes Doctor Who magical anyway is its ability to offset dark plots with excellent humour and multifaceted characters... that and of course it's unique in built regeneration plot device that helps keep the show eternally evergreen.

There were plenty of memorable quotes, especially the line about having nothing to fix the universe with except a post office which was closed... and the Doctor admitting he was a mad man with a box (but that this was a truth that one day your life might depend on).

Mothers across the country may very well be terrified at the prospect that their children will even as I type, be emptying the pantry of custard powder, the freezers of fish fingers... and emulating the Doctor's new culinary invention - fish finger custard.

Who dares me to try it? ;)

Some people have been a bit critical of Karen Gillan... but I don't see why, she did pretty well. Maybe those critics are just paranoid racists and think that she's going to to turn out like Bonnie Langford just because of the hair.

Bonnie Langford was just "naturally" annoying in Doctor Who... it had nothing to do with her hair.

I liked her (No not Bonnie, I mean Karen!!!!! Phew I think I got away with that).

I found it quite appropriate that the episode fell on Easter Saturday. The Doctor promised his companion (then, companion to be), that he would return. However he then disappeared and she was left to wonder if she'd gone crazy and had an imaginary friend throughout her childhood... felt let down. Similarly, it's no secret that Jesus had told his followers on several occasions that he was going to return... but future promises are often a cold comfort in the face of disappointment (in Amy's case), or desperate grief (in the case of the apostles). As human beings we experience things emotionally and deal with things in the here and now. We are linear creatures and struggle to see the big picture.

Stephen Moffat described Amy Pond as being the kind of person who had become bitter and cynical about things like Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy at an early age because of the Doctor's failure to return when she expected.

I liked the way that the Doctor returned to a cynical, hard hearted Amy Pond years down the line and convinced her to trust him. Ultimately he understood that the inner child that craved adventure and yearned to believe, still existed deep within; I think it was to this that he was appealing to. Certainly at the end when he invited her to join him, he pretty much explicitly states this.

When Jesus returned to life (and importantly he wasn't late in keeping his appointment), his disciples probably had the same issue. They had to choose between trusting their cynicism, fear and depression... or open themselves up to the possibility that the wonderful but unimaginable was true... and the latter is something our inner child is equipped to do.

This is something that interests me generally, but also particularly at the moment because I see many people I have grown up with filled with bitterness and cynicism to matters of faith. They unconsciously do this because of how God, Jesus and the whole topic of faith and spirituality was presented to them in their youth. Life and love were exorcised from faith and the truth was substituted cold religion... and that was something that they had no love for.

I wonder what would happen if they realised that the risen Jesus is not like the Tooth Fairy at all, is VERY real... and that he's there appealing past their hard heartedness and towards their inner child (not their naivety... it is possible to be childlike without being naive).

Upon his return, the Doctor asked Amy to trust him for just 20 minutes. It was only after that time was up that she finally understood that he was that person who she initially trusted and laid her hopes upon as a child.

Maybe that's where my friends need to be. Maybe that's where you need to be. Perhaps you aren't ready to trust God on a journey of a lifetime just yet. However... maybe, just maybe you need to give Jesus 20 minutes... or however long is relevant in your circumstances. Give him that chance to reaffirm with you that he is not an imaginary friend and not a tooth fairy; nor the taskmaster who demands robotic followers... but a real person, the fantastic one who can be relied upon in life.

Maybe this is your time to get reacquainted.

"Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me."

Revelation 3:20

Once Upon a Time...

We remember that an important event happened today as I'm sure you are all aware... and just in case you had forgotten, Google wants to leave you in no doubt...

That's right... today is the anniversary of the birth of the Danish author, Hans Christian Anderson.

Of course I write with something of an air of sarcasm... despite Google's political correctness, we recall that something much, much greater occurred on this day... because it just so happens that (this year at least), Anderson's birthday falls on Good Friday.

Many fundamental atheists may scoff and feel that is fitting that Anderson - the writer of children's stories and fairy tales, shares this day with what they consider to be the ultimate fairy tale story - the Gospel.

Amazingly, I agree with them but for entirely opposite reasons.

What do I mean?

Well... amongst his other works, Hans Christian Anderson wrote a little fairy tale you might have heard of - The Ugly Duckling. We all know the story... a mother duck lays a clutch of eggs and broods over them... but one of the eggs she warms does not belong to her... it found its way into the nest by some other means... but she doesn't notice. As the hatchlings emerge, it soon becomes clear that one of the ducklings is very different indeed. He suffers abuse at the hands of his siblings and fares little better in the wider world. Eventually the duckling ends up alone in a bitter winter... expecting to meet his end. However, when spring arrives his visage has utterly transformed and he has become a beautiful swan... capable of winning the hearts of his former abusers.

That tale, although largely written by Anderson as an autobiographical parable, shares similarities with the ministry of Jesus. Today a passage from the book of Isaiah is often read out... it is a prophecy that speaks to us of the life of Jesus. It begins:

"Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted."

Isaiah 53:1-4

You may think (and one could hardly blame you because of the way he is often portrayed), that Jesus Christ is someone you might find hard to relate to. I disagree. He was born upon this Earth to live as one of us. He experienced the full spectrum of human emotions available from his experiences. He knew what it was like to be different... and what it meant to be despised for being different. He knew loneliness, he knew the deepest sadness... and by virtue of his passion... his suffering, he knows exactly what it's like when we are experiencing pain and sorrow.

Upon Good Friday, it seemed that all that suffering was in vain. Jesus - suspended from a crude wooden cross and apparently abandoned by God... died. He entered into the bitter winter that is death.

But it was not for nought:

"But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away. And who can speak of his descendants? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was stricken. He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth."

Isaiah 53:5-9

You see... Jesus, although he was raised as one of us, lived as one of us and completely shared our humanity... in as much as he was all these things, he was also equally God. Just like the ugly duckling, his origins were different. If you go to various old churches and look in the stained glass windows, you often see an image of a swan. This may seem obscure but it is no mistake. In the older days, people mistakenly believed the swan fed it's cygnets by plucking food from its own breast (presumably the y mistook the bird's preening of itself for this). Artists inspired by this image drew the analogy and made the point that Christ was God granting his people life, by sacrificing his own body. There are many other allusions to swans and Jesus, you can read a few of them on this page that I discovered.

"Yet it was the LORD's will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the LORD makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand. After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities. Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors."

Isaiah 53:10-12

You might think it cold and capricious of God, the Father to desire the crushing, suffering and death of his Son... let alone actually allow it to take place... but to think that, is to misunderstand the relationship between Jesus and the Father. John's gospel in particular speaks a lot about the oneness in the relationship between the Father and the Son... and in another prophecy God tells his people that they will "look upon me, whom they have pierced". So whilst the Father speaks of Jesus as a separate person here... it's clear that they are (along with the Holy Spirit), also one person. So when the crucified Jesus spoke of God forsaking him... he was speaking on an entirely different level to what we normally comprehend when saying that.

You've seen the awesome power that is released when the atom is split... how much more so was the power released when the Godhead was split; for the power of God goes unimaginably far beyond the nuclear.

If the ugly duckling had died in the bitter winter that followed its suffering, it would forever have been known as the ugly duckling. Similarly, if Jesus had remained in the grave... there would have been nothing special about his death. Just as spring revealed the swan... Christ's resurrection on Easter Sunday revealed his sonship... and confirmed that his sacrifice, intercession and atoning sacrifice had been acceptable in the Father's sight.

There's an interesting fact about the word atonement. When the Bible was first being translated into English, there wasn't a word that described what it means. William Tyndale had to invent it. It literally means exactly what it says on the tin: at-one-ment (being returned to a state of oneness). That's the great thing about Jesus Christ... he didn't just return to life, he opened a door that allows us all access to that oneness with God.

When the ugly duckling became a swan, nothing else changed... but Jesus offers us all the opportunity to become "swanlike", to quote an old praise song he "lifts our humanity to the heights of his throne". The ugly duckling's story ended... but the story of Jesus goes on because his story is our story... the human race learning soul by soul to kneel in humanity before God's utter compassion and being changed from glory to glory because of it.

A few years ago at Easter, I posted the lyrics of a Phil Overton Song "Golgotha"; I think I want to leave you with the final verse of that song as my parting thought. You see, despite the fact that Good Friday and Hans Christian Anderson share today; despite the fact that there are similarities between The Ugly Duckling and the life of Jesus, there is a greater fact in the contrast. The Ugly Duckling is just a fairy tale... but the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the truth... and the truth shall set you free:

And this is no fairy story but reality.

Death it couldn't hold him.

He arose in victory!

From the place of a skull, to a place of majesty,

From the place of a skull, to a place where we can see that He’s alive…

Oh yeah, Jesus is alive

Jesus is alive,

Jesus is alive.

...and one day we'll all live happily ever after.

"THE END"