Star Trek: The Wrath of My Lawn

I saw Star Trek Into Darkness recently, and I liked it: Probably my favorite movie of the summer so far. And ordinarily, I’d write a lot more about it. The ending was, in its own way, kinda nice and spiritual-y.

But to get into that here  I’d have to get all nice and spoilery, and there’s no need for that. Plus—and let’s just be honest—I’m tired. A couple of freelance projects have been kicking my keester. I’ve got to run a marathon this weekend and still need to find time to mow the lawn (curse that rain!)

So with that in mind, let me offer up something a little different this weekend: An excerpt from a book I was cobbling together at one time (and may yet finish, if anyone wants to publish it) about the spirituality of Star Trek. "Cause even though its creator Gene Roddenberry was pretty close to an atheist, there’s actually a lot to explore.

But for this post, we’ll keep it simple and personal and, hopefully, a bit less geeky than I tend to get. It’s long. But all my posts are long. Anyone who’s stuck with me and this blog this far knows I’m not the briefest of writers. But I plan to change that in the weeks ahead. Shorter posts, but maybe more of them? We'll see.

Anyway, about that excerpt. Here it is.

To Seek Out New Life

God and I go way back. I was baptized when I was 7, went to Sunday school almost every week (“religiously,” you might say) and on Wednesdays, a few hours after Star Trek, I’d be chauffeured over to youth group. I was a pretty churchy kid at 13.

           

And I kinda hated it.

           

Having a faith like a child is a great thing. Jesus said it. Your pastor’s probably said it. Jars of Clay sang it. But no one ever encourages us to have a “faith like an adolescent,” and I think I know why. Adolescence is when our spirituality leaves the straight-and-narrow path and starts tromping through the bogs. Our hormones explode. Our insecurities rage. Our parents turn dumb and the kid in detention turns into a mysterious, disaffected sage. We start blasting all sorts of lovelorn or angry or angst-filled songs through our earbuds, and let’s face it: It’s hard to hear God and His still small voice over all that noise.

           

And almost without warning, the faith of our childhood—a religion full of flannelboard Bible stories and VeggieTales cartoons—turns into something else entirely. If you're lucky, you can navigate this time of life with a faith that seemlessly transitions from the flannelboard to your soul. But for some, the transition is harder: We doubt. We ask hard questions of God, maybe for the first time. And sometimes, we start saddling God with our own baggage.

For me, it wasn’t that I grew angry with God or felt like His morality cramped my style. I didn’t doubt that He was out there, somewhere. But I did doubt that He cared much for me.

           

Remember, I was 13. I had braces and glasses and a smattering of pimples and looked like a prime subject for a documentary on junior high geekery. I never told anyone (other than my best friend, Bret, who sometimes watched with me) that I watched Star Trek. I mean, I looked like a geek and acted like a geek … I didn’t need to tell the world that I even watched television like a geek, too.

The other kids in my youth group, they weren’t like me. They were popular and pretty and almost completely free of pimples. They were smart. They dated each other. Their parents were unashamed of them when they walked through the mall. And worst of all, many of them were horribly, horribly nice.

           

And the most terrible thing was this: I knew they were just being nice. What did I have to offer them? Was I being fair? Probably not, but that doesn't help how I thought at the time. I was a curiosity at best, and more likely an object of pity—a project through whom the popular kids might earn points with the Guy Upstairs.

           

And because most of the Christians I saw were so obviously blessed with good grades and athletic talent and pimple-free skin, I started making some crazy (and mostly subconscious) assumptions about the nature of God and how He works in our lives: Maybe these youth-group peers of mine are how Christians are supposed to look, I thought. Maybe, because I'm not like them, I'm not really a Christian. Maybe I can't be one. Maybe God doesn’t want me to be one.

           

Maybe, when He says He loves everyone, He's just being nice. Just like the church kids.

           

And I wasn't the sort of guy who's going to bother someone who doesn't really want me around—particularly someone as busy and popular as God.

           

Now, no one taught me this. This wasn't bad parenting or Sunday school teaching at play here, but rather my own addled, adolescent mind messing with me. If anyone knew I was thinking stuff like this, they would’ve given me hugs and enrolled me into biweekly counseling sessions.  And if that had happened, I'm sure I'd be better adjusted and more secure today.

           

But it didn't. And as much as I liked my youth leaders and looked up to my peers and wanted to act and be the sort of cool, self-assured Christian they were, I couldn't. Every time I went to youth group, I felt ... alien. I was a carbon-based life form on a silicon planet. And no matter how much I wanted to belong, I knew I never could.

           

“Believing in God is as much like falling in love as it is making a decision,” Don Miller writes in Blue Like Jazz. And he’s right. But in the teeth of my insecure adolescence, falling in love wasn’t an option. If I loved God, I might be rejected.

           

But to understand God? Or, at least understand Him better? That's a goal I could get my head around. It was easier then to engage God as a puzzle than a person.

           

The strategy seemed as viable as any and more realistic than some. After all, they did it on Star Trek all the time.

If there is a God, how can we fathom Him? If there is a soul, what can it be?

           

These are questions that seem to weigh heavy in the Star Trek universe—the questions that escape the tricorder. For all the show's scientific worldview, it embraces mystery: the mystery of love, of intuition, of instinct. It suggests there are things we might never understand but are worth exploring anyway. And even as false gods come and go in Star Trek—debunked and defeated at every turn—we're left with the tantalizing possibility that in a universe as unfathomable as this, the greatest mystery lies beyond space and time. Even the Enterprise cannot plumb the mind of God, and it doesn't even try. But indirectly, it seeks and finds evidence of a truth too massive to comprehend.

           

We're seekers. From the time we're children, we long to explore. What's behind the door? What's at the end of the street? What's outside? What's beyond? We search for things, we think—new vistas, new opportunities. But I think the instinct taps deeper waters, because each set of discoveries sparks new investigations, each answer forms a new question. It's like we're playing with Russian nesting dolls, but each inside is larger than the last. When the universe is mapped, would our own searching cease? Our questions finally sated? No. Deep down, we know there is more. We feel it. We hear it.

           

Curiosity is God's call.

This call is how my relationship with God began in earnest—or, more fairly, how my relationship with God began its renewal: Not as a love story, but as Star Trek. Without even really understanding what I was doing, I began looking for God—the real God, not just one that I've been told about, but one I could "see" and "hear" and "feel" for myself. Not the God of my fathers or my childhood church or my youth group, but the Spark that made them—the Alpha and Omega, the "I am that I am," the LORD, writ in caps. I couldn't fathom having a "relationship" with something that mighty. I couldn't imagine falling in love. So I began my search for something paradoxically more in my limited reach: A concept. A theory. A Creator.

           

It wasn't the easiest way to get to God. I made it far harder than it needed to be.

Some people come to God as if they were dogs rescued from the pound—all tail wags and slobbery tongues and boundless energy, thrilled at the prospect of having a home. I was more like a mangy stray cat, alone and cold and so very scared, slinking around God's house for reasons unguessed. And night after night, God would leave some water on the step and the back door open a crack.

           

Because God—all-powerful, all-good, all-knowing—knew me. He knew how weird and insecure I was. He knew how stupid and stubborn, too. And He wanted me to get to know Him anyway. To draw close to Him. To fall in love.

           

And yet, the search continues—not because I haven't found God, but because there's still so much to find. And that, too, feels very much like the world of Star Trek. The universe, like God, is filled with new adventures, new revelations. The more we know, the more we long to know. In a way, that’s what relationships are—voyages of discovery, where we learn more and more about the ones we love with each passing day. We too are like Russian nesting dolls, with another surprise under every lid. And when our relationship is with God, how could we expect to "know" him, even in a thousand lifetimes?

Mystery, as the folks on Star Trek will tell you, can be a beautiful thing.

A Deal Even Bruce Wayne Couldn’t Pass Up

What would be the perfect Christmas gift?

Naturally, it’d be indescribably cool—both entertaining and inspirational. It would be something you wouldn’t have to wrap. Oh, and ideally, it’d be free.

But where could you find a gift like this? Shangri la? Never Neverland? The North Pole?

Well, OK, so probably all those places have really great gifts, too. But they’re pretty hard to get to on a budget and their Internet connectivity is spotty. And let’s face it: When it comes to the North Pole, those elves can be a cantankerous bunch.

But thankfully, there is a gift that you can get right from the comfort of your own computer (or tablet or smartphone or other super-techy device). And unless my eyes are deceiving me, you’re at one of those devices right now. Which means you’re just a click or two away from a gift that will make you a legend among your family and friends, a gift that, if your place in heaven was based on works, would surely get you a place in a trendy heavenly neighborhood.

What gift could do all this? An e-copy of my book, of course. Tyndale is offering God on the Streets of Gotham: What the Big Screen Batman Can Teach Us About God and Ourselves absolutely free starting right now and lasting through Dec. 8. Naturally, you gotta have some sort of e-reader like a Kindle to actually read the book. But trust me: Spending a few hundred dollars on a tabletish-like device is a bargain for the wit and wisdom found in this book (if I do say so myself). It looks like it’s available through Amazon and the Apple bookstore and who-knows-where-else.

Of course, if you wanted to have a real, paper-and-ink copy of the thing, I’m sure Tyndale has a few of those available, too. But you’ll have to pay for those.

At any rate, I’d love it if you passed this bit of information onto anyone you think might be interested … or, as I say, give it as a gift. I’d like to think that it’d be a nice little addendum to a Dark Knight Rises Blu-Ray.

Alas, I cannot sign e-books. But, should you download one and wish to drop me a line, I’ll send back a picture of my signature that you can print out and paste on whatever nifty device you happen to use.

Best wishes, folks, and happy reading.

Heaven's Gate

I have trouble with heaven.

It’s not that I don’t want to go there. I very much do. I just have a hard time envisioning where “there” is, and what we’ll be doing once we get there. Will there be football? Hamburgers? Hiking trails? Are the streets really paved in gold? Do we get to pick what age we’ll be? What if there are people I don’t like there? Do I have to hang out with them?

Yes, yes, I know. These are all horribly superficial questions. Folks who know loads more about such matters have tried to tell me that all those concerns are superfluous; that heaven is indescribably better than any joy or pleasure we might know down here.

But that’s part of the problem, isn’t it? There’s nothing to compare heaven to, which leaves its nature frustratingly unimaginable. The harp-and-halo trope seems a bit too cartoonish. The biblical version of heaven, taken literally, can read like a monotonous fever dream. (Let’s be honest: Does an eternity of singing praises with multi-winged, many-eyed angels sound like “heaven?” I feel awful for saying this … I’m sure there are those who feel that’s exactly how they’d like to spend eternity, and I truly respect them for that. But part of me thinks heaven should include a quiet nap on the couch.)

And then there are those moments—dark moments—when the very concept of heaven seems just too good to be true. Intellectually, we can piece together a case for an all-powerful, loving God. We’ve been given evidence to validate Jesus Christ and His claims. But my brain can’t wrap itself around the concept of eternity and everlasting joy. My mortal self can’t grasp it. When it comes to finding such eternal truths, our gray matter can take us only so far. To get the rest of the way requires faith and trust: We stop trying to feel our way through the dark and instead grasp the hand of the One who made us, counting on Him to lead us the rest of the way.

Still, my brain can’t help but flail around in the darkness every once in a while, clawing for some additional evidence. And as such, I’m always interested to hear the stories of people who say they’ve gone to heaven. And I was particularly interested in hearing what Dr. Eben Alexander had to say.

In his article for Newsweek (and his book Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife), Eben, a neuroscientist, chronicles his weeklong trip through the pearly gates when a critical part of his brain was, as he says, “inactivated.” In Newsweek, Eben writes:

There is no scientific explanation for the fact that while my body lay in coma, my mind—my conscious, inner self—was alive and well. While the neurons of my cortex were stunned to complete inactivity by the bacteria that had attacked them, my brain-free consciousness journeyed to another, larger dimension of the universe: a dimension I’d never dreamed existed and which the old, pre-coma me would have been more than happy to explain was a simple impossibility.

 But that dimension—in rough outline, the same one described by countless subjects of near-death experiences and other mystical states—is there. It exists, and what I saw and learned there has placed me quite literally in a new world: a world where we are much more than our brains and bodies, and where death is not the end of consciousness but rather a chapter in a vast, and incalculably positive, journey.

Eben is a Christian, and was before he ever fell into his coma. But before his experience, he was a Christian largely in name, he says—professing envy for those who had stronger faith in God and the afterlife than he had. Now, he’s one of the envied. Because he knows a thing or two about the brain, Eben says there’s no way that he can chalk his experiences up to hallucination or some weird memory hiccup. The part of the brain that made him human was, he says, as good as dead. And yet, there he was—alive and observing a wonderful world full of strange creatures and indescribable beauty and love. Eternal love.

Eben’s so convinced of his experiences that he says he’s going to spend the rest of his natural life discussing, and finding better proof, of the one that comes after.

And that doesn’t sit well among those who believe this is all there is.

Daniel Engber of Slate dedicated a hefty article (“Heaven Help Us”) to critiquing and ridiculing Eben’s experience. He allows that Eben is a neuroscientist, but Engber tells us that Eben’s experience is as a surgeon: He knows how to fix the brain, but that doesn’t mean he knows how it works. (Which, to me, feels a bit like expecting a plumber to be able to fix your kitchen sink without knowing where the hot and cold water comes from). Eben’s faith makes his claims further suspect in Engber’s eyes. He rejects the notion that Eben might’ve been struggling with aspects of faith before the coma. “He was just like you and me, you see [Daniel presumes the “you” here is a skeptic], at least until he fell into a coma—and flew into the sky, and entered the mind of an earthworm, was forced to reconsider all his Harvard science skepticism about the loving Lord above.”

Engber suggests that Eber’s brain wasn’t really as damaged as he claimed, and that whatever experiences the neurosurgeon had were augmented by stray memory fragments, his belief system and some lingering, post-coma psychosis. It’s a rant with little real cohesion—something that true believers of any faith might write when they find a fondly held belief challenged.

But really, that’s all he can do. Engber, nor anyone else, cannot disprove what Eben experienced. Nor, in spite of the title of his book, is Eben’s experience absolute, incontrovertible proof that heaven exists. He could be lying. His brain could’ve been more functional than what he was led to believe. Engber, however frustrated his writing might appear, could be right.

But when you think about it, most of what we know (or think we know) is based on very similar evidences. There’s a great deal we take on trust.

Say John and Jane Malaprop invite you over so they can tell you all about their vacation to Key West. They show you their pictures and give you a cheap souvenir T-shirt and tell you about the time when Jane nearly fell off a pier (“Hoo boy, did the skipper laugh!”). Does any of that prove they went to Key West? Of course not: They could’ve made up the stories, photoshopped the pictures and bought the souvenir off eBay. Does the fact the Malaprops say they went to Key West even prove the place exists at all? Of course not. They could’ve just made the whole place up. The fact that it’s on maps and in history books and lots of people have said they’ve been there just means it could be some sort of global conspiracy or a bit of collective insanity (much as some atheists insist that religion itself is). Unless we’ve been there ourselves, we base our understanding of what Key West is through the evidence of others.

I can’t say that, after reading Eben’s account, I have a great understanding of what heaven will be like. It is still too glorious for words. But if he says that he’s been there and that it’s a great place—way better than Key West could ever be—I’m inclined to believe him.