Ghosts, Spooks, Aliens and other things that go bump in the night.

The Land of Living Skies

Funny how events that coincide sometimes suggest that they’re connected.

      The two weekend events that had “coincidental” components for me were a delegate assembly of my Mennonite area church and the reading of a number of pro-UFO articles to which I’d been referred. Apparently former Canadian defense minister Paul Hellyer has become convinced through what he has seen and heard that an alien presence on earth is an indisputable fact. In connection with this, he believes that the star leading the magi to Bethlehem, for instance, may in fact have been an alien presence directing them.

      The other event—the assembly—was extremely sensory: robust singing, near continuous talking, dramatic reading, smells of coffee and roast chicken and repeated reference to an invisible presence in the room, the spirit of Christ: the Holy Spirit.

      What’s the suggested “coincidence?” It’s the perception that we earthlings attribute certain events and aspects of our existence to the presence of an extra-terrestrial force or forces. For us Christians, it’s the Son of God, the Father, and the Holy Spirit coming down from heaven and walking invisibly among us, leading us, forgiving our failings, restoring us when we’re depleted. For the UFO crowd, these forces come from some distant planet (I’ve never heard it claimed that they’re at home in heaven) and according to Hellyer, they try to guide us to a better, healthier, kinder life.

      It makes me wonder if the UFO stories and the Christian narrative share a common root.

      Granted, I’m skeptical about pretty much everything I’m told unless it has a correspondence to the world I perceive, to whatever I’ve experienced. And I'm not necessarily proud of that. Attributing the messes of the world to outside forces (humanoids from one of Saturn’s moons, the devil, etc.) neatly allows us to duck under responsibility, frees us from blame, provides us with possible explanations for things we don’t get. And to hope that aliens will rescue us or that God will magically correct our mistakes, take care of the poor, the hungry, the lonely; produce for us a perfect life mate if we ask, intervene if and when we pollute our world to the point of making it uninhabitable, these wishful illusions are disproved by experience after experience of our living, of perceiving.

      I’ve been criticized more than once for throwing out assertions like, “if it doesn’t happen now, it didn’t happen then” when talking about Jonah being swallowed by a whale or Lazarus being raised from the dead or water magically turning into wine or the Reed Sea parting to allow a whole nation of people to march through it. Supposedly, suspending disbelief in order to accept these wonderful stories as factual rather than as figurative is supposed to give our faith a foundation. The effect, however, is the opposite. That we understand and accept that the governance of the natural laws of creation are immutable—that they are never broken—is a fundamental requirement of real faith. At least if we consider that faith is a verb, a way-of-being on a finite earth in an immeasurable universe. It’s faith in the perfection of creation as we find it that teaches us how a good and satisfying life might be lived, even if it’s shortness never ceases to disappoint us.

      There is much more to be gained—faith wise—from perceiving the earth and the events of our lives as marvellous . . . as opposed to miraculous. A mind that has been programmed to interpret the perceptions it’s being fed as consequences of extra-terrestrial phenomena, of ethereal, anthropomorphic good or evil labours under an unnecessary handicap. The problem it raises is that it diverts us from perceiving the world as it is, and this it does by suggesting an alternative to our experienced reality. Faced with two alternatives (or more), the likelihood of timely and confident acting is reduced, or worse. Furthermore, the possibility of maturing into a self-assured, contented person for the duration of a short life is jeopardized by the anxiety that what we are and do may prove to be all wrong, or illusory: a recipe for the desperate life.
      "Most men lead lives of quiet desperation, and go to their graves with the song still in them." Henry David Thoreau.

      Although William Ernest Henley’s Invictus may exaggerate the point (“I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul”) such a conviction comes close to being a starting point for faith, ironically. Creation groans for rebirth, according to Jeremiah the prophet (not the bullfrog) and as far as I can tell, humans cooperating with the orderly principles of creation are its only hope.

How long will the land lie parched and the grass in every field be withered? Because those who live in it are wicked, the animals and birds have perished. Moreover, the people are saying, "He will not see what happens to us." (Jeremiah 12:4)

      It’s we who devastate or nurture our earth, our relationships, our politics. Much as we wish we could attribute our suffering and our triumphs to the mysterious beyond, I’m sorry, but our hands and feet, our minds and words, our actions and inaction are all we have to count on.

      To misquote Pope Francis unashamedly . . . again: “Brothers and sisters. Pray for peace, then go out and make peace. That’s how prayer works.”

      And let’s remember that when two things coincide, we cannot take that as proof that they are related, otherwise it would become obvious, for instance, that frogs fall from rain clouds and the milkman causes the sun to rise.