How I Wish I Had a TARDIS

I am a huge Doctor Who fan.  I remember watching Tom Baker and his flipped-out scarf with my father late at night on public television.  I was always fascinated with the Doctor’s TARDIS (Time and Relative Dimension in Space).  It’s basically his time machine which looks like a blue, retro British Police Box.  One of the running gags on the show is that the inside of the TARDIS is bigger than the outside of the TARDIS.  Duh, it’s because the Time Lords use temporal engineering, and the inside of the TARDIS exists in a different dimensional space than the outside.

If I had the time I would write pages and pages on Doctor Who, but for now I want to meditate on the TARDIS itself.  First, it’s a time machine of sorts.  Don’t you wish you had a time machine at your disposal.  For example, last night my community of faith celebrated “Patriotic Family Night.”  Just before the program began, I noticed that the American Flag had not been placed in the Hall (A discussion about the relationship between Church and State is for another blog post.  In short, this was a concert, not a worship service . . . so I’ll suspend this particular discussion for now).  After all, I was asked to lead the community in the pledge of allegiance.  Difficult to face the flag without a flag present.  So I went into a Sunday School classroom and carefully lifted the flag and carried it into the concert.  I made sure to keep the flag from touching the ground, even though I was alone in the room.  I even took a long, winding route to the concert so that I wouldn’t have to navigate stairs.  So I carefully entered the concert hall and slowly, proudly walked the flag to the front of the stage.  Five steps into the hall the flag pole snapped in half, causing the flag to plummet to the ground.  This debauchery was met with an audible gasp from the tables near the entrance.  I thought, “Perfect . . . smashingly perfect!”

This may not seem so dramatic to you, but let’s take the TARDIS one month into the past (Imagine the sound of a congested Darth Vadar as we disappear into a wormhole).  It’s Tuesday,  May 10th and I receive a phone call from a church member alerting me to the fact that my name has appeared on a friend of the court brief asking for a mistrial in a capital conviction, and it’s not just any capital conviction.  It’s nationally known, politically heavy, and indescribably emotional.  My association with the case was news to me, so I contacted the responsible party and had my name removed from the brief within one business day.

How did my name wind up on the brief?  Well, let’s hop in the TARDIS and fly back in time to February (Darth Vadar sound resonates again).  One afternoon a clergy friend of mine asks me to attend an alternatives to the death penalty informational meeting.  I agree to go because I find it most appropriate for clergy to discern ways to maintain justice without reliance on execution (I’ll save a discussion about the death penalty for another blog post).  At the meeting we discussed capital punishment statistics, which were quite interesting.  You can check my archives for that blog post.  At any rate, I signed the sign-in sheet and left the meeting early because I had another upcoming appointment.  Months later, the organization which led the meeting sent a mass email around saying, “These names will be going on a brief unless we hear otherwise.”  Yep, you guessed it.  I missed that email.  I thought technology was supposed to make things easier.  Well, in this case . . . epic fail!

Hop in the TARDIS again.  Now we are in the future four months later.  After having my name removed from the brief I thought everything was fine.  In fact, I didn’t give it much thought.  Unfortunately news about church folk move faster than a frog on hot pavement.  When I came to church that Sunday, I could tell that something was very wrong.  Folks either avoided me, or they tried to force laser beams out of their eyes in order to burn a hole in my face.  Either way, no one said anything to me.  I’m not going to go into a long discussion of Matthew 18, but all Christians should read it (If a brother sins against you, go and talk to him alone . . . ).

It wasn’t long before some wild stories started to emerge.  In some versions of the story, I’m a board member of the ACLU and the NAACP.  I also heard that I’ve been lobbying legislators on church letter head.  Soon, I bet, someone will say that I’ve been drowning puppies.  It’s only a matter of time.

Speaking of time, Oh, how I wish I had a TARDIS.  I’d fly that little blue box four months into the past and stop myself from signing that damn sign in sheet; however it has been a difficult time seeing rumors and misinformation fly around the church.  I wish Good News spread so quickly . . .