I have yet to meet Caris in person, but I am sure that time is coming soon. We met on Twitter I suppose and I have loved watching her learn and grow. It has forced me to do more of that myself. I don’t really know anything about Dr. Who, but this piece is making me think I should give it a go.
The Kingdom of God is like The Oldest Question In the Universe
The Kingdom of God is fantastic!It’s living a life that doesn’t make sense to other people.
The Kingdom of God operates outside our ideas of time and place. It occurs all over all at once, on the linear plane and in the waves of the ocean of time. Trying to understand how and why it is what it is, is like trying to grab a big ball of wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff.
What if we really are surrounded by mustard seeds and empty fields? What if a little bit of faith is all that is needed?
What if the Kingdom of God is like a story we might not have heard. What if all the elements in our bodies were forged many, many millions of years ago, in the heart of a far away star that exploded and died. That explosion scattered those elements across the desolations of deep space. After so, so many millions of years, these elements came together to form new stars and new planets. And on and on it went. The elements came together and burst apart, forming shoes and ships and sealing wax, and cabbages and kings. Until eventually, they came together to make us. You and me, we are unique in the universe. What if that story is true?
What if the Kingdom of God is a story, and we need to make it a good one?
What if the Kingdom of God is an open wound? What if we can leave echoes of ourselves all across time and space? What if there were parallel universes. What if there really are more wonders in the universe than we could ever dream of?
What if the Kingdom of God is not a bland, generic ‘heaven’ out there somewhere but is instead the winds swirling through the air, and then shining, burning, bursting through and is actually blazing in front of our eyes?
What if there are crimson stars and silent stars and tumbling nebulas like oceans set on fire; empires of glass and civilizations of pure thought, and a whole, terrible, wonderful universe of impossibilities out there and we should be looking for them?
What if searching for the Kingdom of God is collecting the far-flung hopes and improbable dreams. What if there are days coming that we’ll never forget? What if there is a man who has waited 2,000 years for us to fall in love with him? What if we can give hope to the greatest people who ever live? What if we really could save a whale in outer space?
When I hear Kingdom of God, I usually think gold and peace, the faux-kind of peace where everyone values unity and kum-ba-yah. But what if thekingdom of God is more like fire and ice? Passion and clarity. What if it is ancient and forever and burns at the center of time?
What if the Kingdom of God is more than we learned in Sunday School. What if it is actually so much stranger, so much darker, madder, and better than we were told?
What if the Kingdom of God is big, vast and complicated, and ridiculous. And what if impossible things can happen and we call them miracles?
We are all just falling through space, all of us, clinging to the skin of this tiny little world – but what if we could feel the turn of the Earth? What if theKingdom of God was like being aware of the spinning ground beneath our feet and being determined not to let go?
What if looking for the Kingdom of God really is like going on an adventure to explore unknown worlds, where we defeat enemies like oppression and fear and injustice.What if the Kingdom of God is really about remembering over and over again that in all of time and space, we are all important and worth saving?
What if when we experience the Kingdom of God we find that there is always hope.They say there is an undercurrent of love and hope that runs throughout all the stories of all of the empires and exiles, slaves and revolts, prophecies and miracles of the Bible. What if that’s true?When church and Jesus and all the hang-ups we have with it feel like too much to handle – maybe that’s when we need to ask a question. Maybe the oldest question in the universe, hidden in plain sight, is simply ‘what if?’
*****
If you haven’t seen Doctor Who, you should know all of the above is essentially plagiarism. If you have seen it, you know that this is a love letter to the best part of it. Doctor Who has given me back my imagination, and in turn, has helped me to imagine even greater things about faith.
Every episode there is at least one line. Every time the TARDIS opens and we gaze upon outer space. Every time Rory *spoilers*, I just think – ‘what if this was real.’
What if the Kingdom of God was like this incredible scene.
What if.
I am passionate about recognizing the image of God in everyone, and seeing the truth of God everywhere. I’m continually looking for ways to disrupt my status quo. After spending 32 years near the shores of Lake Michigan, I moved to the Tidewater region of Virginia, and as we plant ourselves in our new community, I’m learning to embrace the discomfort that comes from exploring the tensions of life.
I blog at www.carisadel.com
Follow me on Twitter! https://twitter.com/CarisAdel
Abby Norman 
OH MY GOD I LOVE THIS.
Yes, amen, allons-y!
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ugh…yes!!!!!!! And I didn’t even have to watch the clip to get weepy.
I freakin’ love this post!
Fantastic! Brilliant!
Love this and we must now be friends.
are you on Twitter???? because yes.
The Lord said, “The Kingdom of God is within you.” I have been thinking about this for some time now, it can be both literal and figurative. Whenever I am with people, I want to ask, “if the kingdom of God is within each of us, perhaps we could meet there?”
That thought has come to me randomly over the past couple of years…..like what does it mean for that to actually be true???? It sounds all ‘woo-woo’ but…..like really, what if God is found in all the little things that make up who you are???? That would just be a most fascinating and complicated kind of God, which is probably the best kind to have.
I have met her in person and shared a meal and she IS incredible. (Yes, you may touch my arm and then never wash your hand again.)
Dr. Who uses sci fi to talk about the essentials…God, love, pain, faith, endurance, loneliness, friendship.
I’m dying right now. Haha. SAME!!!
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