Showing posts with label eternity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label eternity. Show all posts

Monday, October 24, 2011

The Perfect Ending

I'm sure Doctor Who isn't the only show that has recently reached an astonishing conclusion, before returning to entertain us all next year. But since it's the only show I've actually watched as it was airing it's the only comparison you're going to get.

Season six was season to top all previous seasons. Rumors of the main plot had been growing as far back as season five. Not typically having a plot that reaches across seasons this was somewhat unusual, and had everyone a bit excited. And the plot thickened, until the list of questions that had been asked was long enough that we were constantly forgetting something, and remembering new things, and waiting with bated breath for the finale. And the finale came, with all the brilliance we'd expected of the producer, all questions answered, all loop holes tied up. For not planning in advance it was amazing.

But, days and weeks passed. We talk and talk about the finale, making connections, figuring out complex time loops. And this unsettling feeling grows that there were things that weren't properly addressed. Story arcs that started, and never ended. A host of things that weren't explained to our satisfaction. But it's a TV show. They make it up as they go along. Sometimes things just don't line up, we live with it, and hope they do better next time.

We are born with an innate desire for completion. Whenever we read a book or watch a movie we like everything to be explained at the end. If something is really complex or involved we sometimes wonder how it's even possible for everything to tie together. If it does we admire the writer, if it doesn't we grumble about them. This is most easily seen in mystery stories. So often we get hung up on a particular clue, certain it's the answer, only to find it's only purpose was to mislead us, and what kind of purpose is that?

Let me present to you the most confusing story in the history of long running plots. It's most often referred to as the Holy Bible. Reading through the books of Daniel, of Isaiah, of Revelation it reads almost like gibberish. How can any of it make sense? Many, many interpretations have been made of what it all means, but do any of those take into account every last verse or prophecy? The ones that have been fulfilled are marked by startling accuracy, such as the fall of Jerusalem and the fall of Rome. But who can make sense of the ones yet to come?

We can guess, obsess and speculate. But ultimately we must wait for the finale. No, The Finale. The finale Finale. The end of all things, the beginning of all things. The Finale to end all finales. And do you know what? It's going to be a perfect ending. Every last word of prophecy is going to fit in somewhere. There aren't going to be any loose ends or superfluous remarks. Every last, tiny detail is going to fit into that ending in complexion that we can only stare and wonder at. It's going to be brilliant. It's going to be the most awe-inspiring complete ending that the world will ever see.

Remember that. Every time you see an ending you think was well done or poorly done, it's only our feeble attempt to achieve that Ultimate Finale; the Perfect Ending.

Monday, July 11, 2011

A Glimpse of Eternity

"That's what I see. All the time.
And doesn't it drive you mad?"
"It's like when you're a kid, the first time they tell you that the earth's turning and you just can't quite believe it because everything looks like its standing still. I can feel it. The turn of the earth. The ground beneath our feet spinning a thousand miles an hour. And the entire planet is hurtling around the sun at sixty-seven thousand miles an hour. And I can feel it. We're falling through space, you and me, clinging to the skin of this tiny little world and if we let go... That's who I am."

A few weeks ago I was attempting to explain time loops and time paradoxes and time-space continuums to a friend of time.  Her reaction was to get increasingly dizzy as I expounded upon fixed and flux time, and how something could be everywhere and everytime.

"You are tiny. I can see the whole of time and space; every single atom of your existence. I can see everything. All that is... or was... or that ever could be."

I explained about the time-space vortex, and how it was everywhere, not in just one location. Time is like a sphere, and we are tiny threads running over it. And I tried to give examples of how something affects all of space-time, not just one part. Not just one time period, or one location. It's more than being everywhere at once, it's being everytime at once. Literally everywhere, all encompassing. No beginning or end. It doesn't exist in time for it is time.  Then I was struck by a sudden thought.


"And the Word became flesh
and dwelt among us."
That's what Eternity is. It's not a measurement of time... it is time. It's all of time. It's past, present and future. When the bible talks about being with Christ for Eternity it doesn't just mean for the rest of time. It's not from here on out. It's here, and always. We're not just with him for forever, we always have been. From the beginning, to the end, and back again. We were never without him. It's Eternity, Forever, and with everything. Every moment in history, every part of time and space, outside it and beyond... so completely, utterly, and totally encompassing, beyond any restrictions or dimensions that logic or rationality can explain. And that's dizzying, eh?


"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God and the same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not."