If you are not too long...

...I will wait here for you all my life. -Oscar Wilde

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Today an episode of Futurama made me cry. I thought that I was just being extra sensitive lately (yesterday I burst into tears five separate times) but in fact that was not necessarily the case today, as I am about to prove. I wanted to find a picture for this post, and when I began my search I was surprised how much Google Instant filled in for me; I clearly wasn’t the first to look for it. I came across the episode’s Wikipedia page and saw that a critic described the ending as, “one of the saddest endings to a television program that I have ever seen.” A TV critic. I’d assume this man has seen his fair share of television programs, and of sad endings. So that made me feel better, but what really clinched it was the enormous amount of commenters on some site (and also below the youtube video) talking about how this made them cry, even though many of them said they weren’t the crying type, or hadn’t cried in five years or whatever. So in this particular case, it’s definitely not just me.

SPOILER ALERT, I’m going to ruin this 2002 episode of Futurama. I don’t feel that bad about it because the rest of the episode wasn’t that great (my overall personal take on this show is that it’s very hit or miss, but mostly miss) and it’s not like you were planning to see it anyway.

So, for necessary background, the character Fry was living in New York in 1999 when on New Year’s Eve of that year he accidentally fell into a thing (a freezer? A time machine? Who cares) that sent him to the year 3000, where he made new friends, etc. Life in the year 3000 is the show’s basic premise. In this particular episode (it’s called “Jurassic Bark”—very classy) Fry and his self-centered robot best friend visit a museum exhibit that happens to be of the pizza place where Fry was working in 1999. They see a few artifacts Fry recognizes, and then a gray dog-shaped fossil. Fry gasps when he realizes who this is: his loyal dog, Seymour, who was his best friend at the time he was suddenly sent to the future with no warning. Through flashbacks you see how close the two of them were. Examples: after rescuing the dog from starvation, Fry says something like, "you're nice, you don't judge me like other dogs do," (my translation from French) and they have a song they sing/bark together.

Bref, I mean, anyway, Fry's doctor friend says he can clone the dog, and that they can even restore his personality, and even his memory to the moment that he died. Fry is SO excited about this idea and buys his dog a collar and a bed and everything in preparation. The robot gets jealous of the attention (and the collar) and throws the fossil in lava, but then rescues it, this just serves to heighten the suspense, and then the moment of truth arrives and they begin the cloning process. First they see that Seymour was age 15 when he died. When Fry sees this, he decides not to go through with it, reasoning that he knew Seymour when he was three, so the dog had had 12 years to move on, find a different master, live a full life. He says, "surely he's forgotten all about me." This is sort of a touching/selfless idea, and who would want to be resurrected old?

It seems like the end of the episode. But then there's one more flashback. Seymour never moved on at all. He sat outside the pizza place every day for twelve years, in all kinds of weather, a fact made most poignant when you see the pizza chef grow old, with white hair, and the pizza place close and get boarded up. He waited for Fry for the rest of his life at the place they last saw each other. Finally Seymour lies down, just once, and closes his eyes and the episode ends. I'm tearing up just typing about it. (It's very findable on youtube but I don't think it would be as good without the more detailed backstory provided by the episode).

I think the idea that really got me was that after all, Seymour would have LOVED to see Fry. Even if it were just for a little while before he would die again, even just one moment. That would have made his life complete in a sense. Yet Fry didn't give him this chance because he was trying to be nice, because he didn't know any better.

When I (and/or others) have a really strong emotional reaction to something, I try to find some sort of way that the emotion-triggering-thing can relate to universal ideas, and/or to God.

In my opinion, a surefire trigger (if done well, of course) is this idea of two ships passing. Sometimes it's two people who physically occupy the same space, but in Grey's Anatomy and The Golden Compass it can also be people who are in a physical space that overlaps but that is spiritually a different/alternate dimension and thus at least one of the people has no way to see, hear, or feel the other person, though they might somehow sense their presence, a little, for a moment.

"All day long I have held out my hands to an obstinate people," -Isaiah 65:2a

I don't see God as a stray dog who waits for us outside a pizza place. Honest, I don't. But if this animated rescued-stray dog's 12 year waiting made me cry, then how much more powerful is it when God waits for us? Waits for we who were created to wait on him. He waits with open arms for his children to turn to him, and many of them never sense this. They never see that in their very own universe (not even an alternate one!) Someone holds out their hands, hoping for a response. I don't have an extremely clear picture of my theological beliefs in this area as regards every human who has ever lived, but I will say confidently that, at least some of the time, God waits for us, eager to share life with us. And his patience and forbearance are beyond all measurement or compare.

If we only knew how attentive God is towards us, even when we do not sense him at all. If we only saw all the ways he blesses us that we're not even aware of. "The Lord longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him!" (Isaiah 30:18)

I think these words are at the heart of the emotion for me: "If you only knew!" Someone could be praying for you right now, asking God for exactly that thing you need. You could be showing hospitality to an angel (Hebrews 13:2, lol). You could be days away from your next big break. Someone could be writing you a letter, or something could already be in the mail for you. Someone across the world, your next best friend, could be making the decision about what they'll do next in life, that will bring them into your neighborhood.

A closing thought. At prayer meeting tonight, our pastor mentioned that reading the Bible all the way through is something that should be completed by at least 1-3 years after someone gives their life to Christ. He's right, and I am not in any way denying that. But 1-3 years? How patient God is. I think the length of the Bible shows it as much as anything. God doesn't expect us to read the entire Bible in one day. Nor does he ask us to panic about it if we haven't finished yet. It's not about being finished reading the Bible, it's about reading the Bible every day. God just doesn't see time as we do: "With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but wanting everyone to come to repentance." (2 Peter 3:8-9)

God, thank you for allowing me to glimpse your truth and the beauty of faithfulness today through a scruffy cartoon dog.

Women's Bodies and 2nd-Best Friends: paradigms change your life, yo

I think a great deal of my angst comes from my chronic tendency to see things in black and white. This means, for example, that for a long time I assumed that participating in things meant I should be the best at them, and if I would not be the best, I was failing and it wasn't necessarily worth it to continue in what I was doing. A nice thing about improv is that it's so thoroughly a team sport that this way of thinking about it doesn't make any sense. I am more than lucky (I call it providence) that that was my main college "sport."

But now I believe the only thing I should aim to be the best at is being myself. Frankly, I don't have the self-discipline to be the best at singing or ice-skating or graphic design, though I like two of those things. There is no such thing as a best writer, because everyone's style is so different, though admittedly writing seems like a weird thing to do when you consider that everyone who is literate is capable of it, and there are thousands (more, even) of very talented writers out there doing their thing. Does the world need another one? Well, no and yes. No other writer is me. Thus no other writer has been and lived in all the exact combination of places I have physically and emotionally. And no one else has my mind. If writing was purely for entertainment value, well, no one will ever run out of things to read in their lifetime, so I'm adding to the noise. But if writing is to share viewpoints in a world where literally no two people have the same one, then it's not a useless pursuit.

This is meant to illustrate the importance of paradigms. I will take two personal examples to show how a correct vision of something can bring peace of mind, perhaps even joy, though the situation has not changed in any other way.

When I was, oh, I don't know what age(s) exactly, an adolescent, my body changed from that of a child to that of an adult. Pretty cool, huh. The thing was, though, that for years I didn't understand what a woman's body should look like. Or I will rephrase, the shape a woman's body normally has, on average. I never thought about it at all, and then when my body started looking different, I suddenly cared. But I was all wrong. I cannot imagine where I got all my warped views, but I thought the waist was located at the hips, and that it was supposed to be so small you could almost span it with your hands. I thought that thighs were to be completely straight with no roundness to them. I looked at my body and thought, "What the heck is going on here?! Why do I look like this?" I hated the tops of my little legs for each having one long curve down the front of them, because I thought that roundness was an indicator of fatness, and I didn't want to be fat. In retrospect, I guess most of the women I'd seen were curveless models, broken up by the occasional Disney princess. In fact, I'm sure that if I had tried to draw my mental image of what women look like (a combination of those two), it wouldn't have made any sense and I would have more quickly discovered my error. As it was, I don't remember how or when I was put right. I think I read something somewhere that jolted me out of my preconceptions. After this, I do remember noticing the hourglass shape on basically all women, once I started to look for it, and being surprised every time that we all look like that! But when I finally got it, I stopped being bewildered, confused, and vaguely resentful of my body. My body hadn't changed, but when my perspective finally did, it changed everything.

These are the waists I grew up seeing (the words I could take or leave, they're funny but not essential):

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My second example is shorter, and I'm keeping it vague. Basically, I often get jealous of other peoples' friendships. I make progress in this area, then regress again, and I don't know where I'm at with it now. But recently I had the idea that perhaps, just perhaps, I am not meant to be best friends with a particular one of my dearest friends. Maybe God chose before the foundations of the world that I would only be her 2nd or 3rd best friend. This changed everything for me. If this is the case, I don't have to waste one more second wishing I were different, or competing with (any) other girl (or guy). I can be exactly myself, and love my friend in a specific way, without constantly measuring the strength or closeness of our friendship against any other. I can stop keeping score and just do my thing. I don't have to be best friends with all my friends.

This is what I think life is about: we can stop keeping score and just do our thing. [Warning: the rest of this paragraph is repetitive.] God has put us in a position where our task is to love him the way only we can love him. At onething the year I went, 25,000 people sang a song together (to God, obviously): "No one else can love you like I love you, Lord, cause I was made unique in your heart, I was made to bring you joy." The first many times I tried to sing this, even in the privacy of my room, I cried. It's true, though.* No one can love God the father like I love him. No one can love Jesus like I love him. No one can love and honor the Holy Spirit like I love him. If I were missing, if my voice weren't here, speaking, something would be missing. I was meant to be here, and to love him. I was made unique, and my function was, and is, and always will be, to be me. No one is better at that than me. Others might be better at golf, or writing, or speaking French or German, or small talk, they might date or marry sweet people that I would not have said no to, they might even be better friends with friends I love, but no one can take my place. And God does not, will never, love them more than he loves me, no matter what goes down (or up) in our respective lives.

I want everyone to know that this is true of them, too. I will put it in the second person, to this end. God made you to be you. No one can be better at your primary task in life, which is to glorify God using your unique gifts. No matter what others have that you don't, be it adventures or money or relationships, they have not taken it out of your pocket, because you're not competing with them. You're not even to be compared to them. God sees to it that you have enough of the right things for you, for now. You are never short-changed if Jesus is your king; you can't be. He doesn't make mistakes, and he's an abundant giver.

Viewing life through any other lens (as I admit to doing like 90% of the time) brings anxiety, jealousy, perhaps self-disgust, sometimes fear, sometimes confusion, sometimes even shame. And this, my friends, is why I think healthy paradigms are essential.

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*Also the melody is charming and somehow lends itself to tears with all its high jumps.