Castaways

Since we moved last summer, we decided not to subscribe to cable television thinking we should watch less TV and perhaps we might use that time for better purposes.  So far so good me thinks.  I watch very little news, almost none on television.  We do though have internet and subscribe to a few online media channels.  Like some of you I’ve piggy backed on some family subscriptions where we can watch movies on occasion and catch some sporting events now and then.  When I do go to turn on our Samsung TV what first appears is a movie channel provided by Samsung called Miramax.  Always a movie is playing and usually it is some past blockbuster movie like Terminator, First Blood, Good Will Hunting and like last week, Marathon Man with Dustin Hoffman (Is it safe??). I often find myself immediately captured by whatever scene is playing such that I forget what it was I was intending to watch.  Mindless me, I know.

A few weeks ago, Castaway starring Tom Hanks appeared when I turned the TV on.  Love that movie.  Hanks plays a solo stranded Fed Ex pilot who was the sole survivor of his ditched cargo jet and finds himself alone on a tiny island somewhere in the South Pacific.  At the beginning of his odyssey in the movie there is virtually no talking.  He has no one to talk to.  He is all alone.  But soon he develops this quirky attachment to a Wilson volleyball that was one of several items from the downed aircraft which washed up on shore.  He names his new friend, of course, Wilson.  Now he has someone to talk to even though, obviously it is a one-way conversation. He hears nothing from Wilson but surely feels something.

Do you ever feel like your conversation with God is mostly, maybe exclusively “one way”?  Much has been written over the years on the topic of the “silence of God.”  Why?  You know why, of course.  We all thrive in relationships where we are in fact and in reality, relating to and conversing with other human beings.  Right?  That is a significant, arguably the most significant aspect of our being.  Relating to others through seeing, touching and hearing others, especially the others we love.  Hanks character, Chuck Noland, could see and touch, even smell Wilson, but never heard from Wilson.  Yet, he had a deep, profound relationship with Wilson. Later in the movie while at sea on Noland’s man-made raft taking a long shot to seek help and be found, Wilson accidentally drifts away from Noland and he is absolutely devastated, almost to the point of giving up completely. 

Think about our relationship with God, whom we can’t see, touch, smell, taste or hear.  No wonder we have religious icons to see, beads and crucifixes to touch, incense to smell and communion wine and bread to taste right? As far as hearing we say we look to the bible (the “Word” of God) to hear from God and some might even be willing to admit, for better or worse, we have the preacher, priest and the Pope as the mouthpiece of God.  Haven’t you yearned all your life to hear an audible voice coming directly from God?  I know, I know we all have someone in our lives or perhaps you are one of the lucky few who would claim that in some circumstance you heard an audible voice that was God giving you and answer to some perplexing question or concern in your life.  I find myself more jealous than skeptical to tell you the truth.  Yet most of us Christians do not ever hear an actual audible voice from God and we all work really, really hard at discerning what it is God is trying to say to us directly whenever we want to hear from God.  Our lives are full. We are busy enough.  We throw up prayers quite often though when a need arises or when a crisis appears in our lives or in the lives of others we know and love. 

Sometimes I ask God why he put us on earth and made it such that he can’t appear to us, at least not since the last time, which we would argue is when Jesus lived, died and rose again.  I trust he can’t for good reason.  Maybe, as most of us believe, we would all die if we were to behold his whole presence.  So, he saves us by not appearing to us.  What I do know or what I do believe, more than I know, is that we are spiritual beings.  We have a spirit.  God is at least partly, maybe all spirit.  We call an aspect of God as trinity, Spirit.  In the most subtle way, I have a true sense that God does communicate to us in our consciousness by his Spirit, mostly when we are seeking but sometimes even when we are not.  Of course, it is much better or easier to “hear” the more we are seeking, asking, searching and wanting to hear.  And we really must put our spiritual ears to the ground to discern his voice from our own and all the noise around us.  But nonetheless, this life falls short often because like Nolan, we find ourselves only relating to God as Wilson.  An inanimate object of our faith rather than the real deal shrouded in mystery.  Sometimes I feel like a castaway on planet earth waiting to be rescued, hanging out with Wilson (God).  Yet deep down I have a sense we are to take some risk and venture out to the vast sea of doubt and faith to find our way back to where we belong.  In relationships with other God lovers where find ourselves coming as close to God as we ever will in this life.