Out Of This World

The Event!

I watched more television in the last ten days than I have in years because of Hurricane Harvey. There are few good shows on regular TV anymore and I don't have cable or a satellite dish. This  entry, from November 23, 2010, is about one of the few shows I have liked in the last decade!

I'm not a big TV watcher- I don't have a cable subscription- but I do have a couple of favorite shows. On Sunday night, Dave, Sally, and I watched Undercover Boss on CBS. It was an especially good episode with the Chief Development Officer of Subway going into his own stores incognito and finding out he was incompetent at many of the most basic job skills his company requires. Back in September, I found myself drawn into a new offering on NBC, The Event. The preview/teasers intrigued me and I started watching with the first night. The best way to describe it might be like a cross between Lost and Twenty Four, two big hits which I never watched myself. The basic plot for The Event is as follows: In 1944, a vessel of aliens crashed in Alaska at the tail end of WWII. Most were captured by US forces but a number, unbeknownst to the military, escaped and submerged themselves into the human population. Their DNA is more than 99% human and they look like us. The biggest differences seem to be that they have some undefined telepathic powers and they age very slowly, so much that they appear virtually unchanged more than half a century later. Fast forward to the present where a new president discovers the TOP SECRET prison camp and after speaking with one of the aliens, decides to release the group from their confinement of close to seven decades. Mysterious forces in our culture, both governmental and non-governmental, are adamantly opposed to the release and try to derail the process, going so far as trying to kill the president and his family with a hijacked plane. The show revolves around several subplots which jump around from present to past, teasing us with bits of information which add pieces to the solving of the puzzle. WHEW! I'm exhausted just typing a short synopsis of the action! I think there is one more fall episode and NBC will air more new installments after Christmas. I admit, I'm addicted but I never thought it would happen to me. My weakness is now a matter of public record but I know admitting the addiction is the first step to recovery.

Each Monday evening, a little more is revealed but the viewer still is faced with gaps in information. One thing that we know is that the original intent of the group was to return to their own solar system/planet but this required some technology not quite available on earth. The aliens who escaped were to help speed along the process of some nuclear developments which would make the trek home possible. Several interesting details have come to light that I think are illuminating. One is that these escapees have been undetected for sixty-six years, living side-by-side with human neighbors without any suspicion that they were different or unique in any way. And last night, we learned that a large number of the aliens like it so much here on earth in human society that they want to stay here and not return to where they belong. Somewhere in that span of those sixty-six years, the allure of life on planet earth became irresistible.

Is it just me or are there some parallels between these extraterrestrials and those of us who claim to be believers? Paul reminded us in Philippians that our citizenship is in heaven but we find ourselves liking our earthly environment to the point that we are reluctant to consider the time we pull up stakes and relocate to our permanent dwelling with the Savior. And Jesus implied we would be recognized as believers by our love but if people don't make the connection between us and the Lord, we are as invisible as those aliens. Something should set us apart from the six billion other inhabitants in a positive, world altering way so we just don't seamlessly blend in. Sixty-six years: that's how long we have if we become a Christian at about age fourteen and live to the normal life expectancy of eighty. I hope I make it to eighty.......and I hope I am detected.

Applicable quote of the day:
"I don't believe that there are aliens. I believe there are really different people."
Orson Scott Card

God bless,
Steve
Luke 18:1
www.hawleybooks.com
E-mail me at steve@hawleybooks.com