Where's Waldo? and the Christian Life

When my children were little, we took great delight in the Where's Waldo books, which I gather were published as Where's Wally in other parts of the world. On each page there were hundreds of little figures, doing a wide variety of things, but somewhere, carefully hidden in plain sight, would be Waldo, with his easily recognized red and white shirt. It could take quite a lot of searching, but he was always there to be found.

This morning as I woke up, it occurred to me that this is like the Christian life. Sometimes we lose sight of the fact that God is there, is here in the tangled mess of our lives. Paul says in Romans 8:28 that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who are called according to his purpose. Colossians 1:17 says that in God "all things hold together." But sometimes our lives do not seem to be holding together at all, and it becomes difficult to believe that anyone, let alone an all-powerful God, is really doing anything good in them.

David and Karen Mains, in their allegorical book Tales of the Kingdom write about a magical place where the children have special days to look for the King who comes in various disguises. The boy the story follows has a hard time, because even though he is encouraged to look with his heart and not his eyes, he is not sure what that means or if he is willing to believe in anything beyond what his eyes can show him. "Seeing is believing" he says, and is told that in the Kingdom, believing is seeing. Finally he realizes that the one who has been showing up all day, as a poor beggar, as a young man delighting the children, in other guises, was actually the King.

Mother Teresa looked for Jesus, and saw him in his "distressing disguise" in the poor of the world.

Gerard Manley Hopkins, in his poem "God's Grandeur" tells us that "there lives the dearest freshness deep down things...Because the Holy Ghost over the bent world broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings."

So where will we see God today? It's a matter of looking with eyes of faith. Sometimes our problem is not having faith that He is there to be seen. Sometimes, at least for me, the problem is that we do not take the time to look carefully.

Fan-dom and God

In the past year or so, I have discovered the interesting world of fan-dom. Up to this point, I have occasionally admired actors, directors, authors, and politicians but the desire to connect with them never became acute. I figured that there was nothing I could say or do that would ever register on their radar, and so there was no particular point in making any effort.

And then, in the process of doing some personal research on Bollywood, I stumbled on the blog of Amitabh Bachchan. I admire the man's work, and would ordinarily have left it at that. But in the blog, I discovered an invitation to see the world through his eyes, to be a part of his "FmXt" (as he calls the extended family of his blog readers and commentators). Having never gathered an autograph in my life nor wanted one, I even joined the throng of those who asked for a "yellow line," the virtual equivalent of an autograph, Bachchan's way of responding to comments on the blog. It shows you that Amitabh himself has actually read your comment--he claims to read all of them--and taken a moment to respond. Yes, the day I got one, even though I asked for it, it made my day, even though I felt silly about caring so much.

All of this got me thinking about what it is that these throngs of fans actually want from the person that they clamor to be near. A movie star comes by and is inundated with requests for photos, handshakes, autographs--some proof that we have been in their presence, some acknowledgment that we exist. "Me, me, me, look at me" we cry. If we could, we would have them actually relate to us, though I suspect that most of us would be tongue-tied if we really came face to face with these greats that we admire. What would you say, what could you ask that would be meaningful? "I love you, I love your work, it has touched me so deeply." Here's what happened to one person.

So what does this have to do with God?

First of all, God is greater than any person that I may admire. I fervently hope that my admiration for any person does not approach worship. And yet this pale copy may show me something of what real worship entails. "Dear Sir, I am in awe of your work." "O God, all that you have made is amazing. When we look at the stars, we see the work of your hands; even a handful of sand or dirt is an amazing thing full of complexity and wondrous possibility." "Dear Sir, your book or your performance changed my life." "O God, you heal my heart, you transform my life in ways beyond counting."

God is greater, and yet he is also much more willing and able to pay attention to us than these human stars. We clamor for a Tweet or a wave, an autograph or a handshake. For years, fans have been mobbing Amitabh Bachchan's house in Mumbai every Sunday evening that he is home,just for the chance to see him wave to the crowds.
Yet when we pray, we have an assurance that God hears us, that he knows us through and through. For God, we are not one face in the thronging masses of admirers. We are intimately known and personally loved. It's a wonder to me.

--A Fan of God