O Emmanuel -- the last day of Advent

Today in  many liturgical churches, the seventh and final of the O Antiphons is recited.  On the 17th I started a short blog series explaining each Antiphon.  There's a short intro to the whole series at the beginning of that post.  Here is today's reading, O Emmanuel.

____________________________

Latin:
O Emmanuel, Rex et legifer noster,
exspectatio Gentium, et Salvator earum:
veni ad salvandum nos, Domine, Deus noster.

English:

O Emmanuel, our king and our lawgiver,

the hope of the nations and their Saviour:

Come and save us, O Lord our God.

"O Come, O Come Emmanuel" always begins with this verse:
O come, O come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear.

________________________________

We are finally here at the pinnacle!  The main reason we Jesus came is because He is God with us!  This is cause for great joy and exclamation points on every sentence!

I don't want to get annoying with punctuation, so I'll stop.  But, I hope you see why I love the O Antiphons.  Each day we remember one of the reasons Jesus came, and as we approach Christmas we remember the more significant reasons, until we reach the most significant of all--He is God With Us, Immanuel. 

As the Antiphons build on one another, they create a sense of anticipation, building towards the most important thing.  

As I wrote in the first post, the Christmas Carol "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" is based on the O Antiphons, and each day we've seen an Antiphon and its corresponding verse (or two verses in the case of O Radix Jesse).  Unfortunately, the first verse of the song doesn't have as much to do with the last antiphon as one would hope.  

The last antiphon summarizes the rest of the stanzas, and is placed at the end as the final exclamation to the crescendo of expectation.  On the other hand, the first verse of the Carol establishes that we are mostly talking about Israel, and not thinking as much about how much Jesus' coming impacts the whole world.  This also tends to make us focus primarily on Jesus' first coming, neglecting the fact that Advent was meant to both remember His birth and remind us to eagerly await His return.  

But, I still love the carol because it sounds so beautiful.  More importantly, if we can remember to celebrate the whole of Advent, even "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" reminds us to desperately await Jesus' coming.

Remember that the world waited for God to reveal his rescue plan for at least 4000 years (if you're a young earth creationist), maybe even billions of years (if you're anything else).  The feeling we get as children, waiting for Christmas morning to open a simple toy pales in comparison to the way all of creation eagerly awaited Immanuel.  

And we look forward to His return with equal expectation.  Romans 8:19-23 express how creation and the saints are groaning because we so want to live fully in the (re)New(ed) Creation.  

Jesus, you came to be God-With-Us.  That is so radical and mind-boggling, but we treat it as a familiar thing.  Wow!  Even though we had broken our communion with you, Father, you came up with this beautiful rescue plan.  Spirit, remind us today of how special and stunning it is that you did this.  Remind us of how much all of creation longed for its rescue.  

May we look forward to your return with great expectation.  May our anticipation grow each day, like a child looking forward to Christmas morning.  Like the child trying to figure out what the gift is ahead of Christmas, may we see glimpses of your New Creation in our lives, just as you promised (2 Corinthians 5:17).  

O Emmanuel, our king and our lawgiver,

the hope of the nations and their Saviour:

Come and save us, O Lord our God!

O Rex Gentium -- The 2nd to last day of Advent

Today in  many liturgical churches, the sixth of the O Antiphons is recited.  On the 17th I started a short blog series explaining each Antiphon.  There's a short intro to the whole series at the beginning of that post.  Here is today's reading, O Rex Gentium.

____________________________

Latin:
O Rex Gentium, et desideratus earum,
lapisque angularis, qui facis utraque unum:
veni, et salva hominem,
quem de limo formasti.

English:

O King of the nations, and their desire,

the cornerstone making both one:

Come and save the human race,

which you fashioned from clay.

"O Come, O Come Emmanuel" almost always contains this verse:
O come, Desire of nations, bind
In one the hearts of all mankind;
Bid Thou our sad divisions cease,
And be Thyself our King of Peace.

______________________________________
Rex Gentium sounds like the name of a country singer, but it's actually the Latin phrase for "King of the Nations."  Today's verse celebrates that Jesus is the King of all nations.  We have already seen how He is the Davidic King with ultimate authority (O Clavis David), so today we are paying closer attention to Jesus as the one who restores our relationship with other people, and asking Him to save the human race.

Today's stanza reminds us that Jesus was the Creator of all things.  In Genesis 1, God established a world where human beings had perfect relationships with Him, each other and nature.  When our communion with God was broken, we also found we could no longer have perfect relationships with one another or nature.

You'll often hear people say "Jesus would have died for you even if you were the only person on earth."  Well that's great, but it's pretty irrelevant.  Jesus came to unite us with God because He misses everyone, not just one person.  Today's antiphon asks Jesus to come and save the human race.  I don't believe this is a universalist statement because it is not saying all men will be saved.  We should pray for the salvation of all people!

Today's verse in "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" focuses on the relationships among the members of the human race.  Tomorrow we will celebrate that Jesus is "God With Us," which is the ultimate reason He is here, but today we celebrate something that is almost as important, that he is the King of all of us who brings us back into a place of perfect relationship with one another.

Jesus came to reverse the curse of the tower of Babel.  He has already paid for the reversal of this curse, but it has not yet been completed.  We will one day get along with people from every tribe and tongue who have joined His kingdom, which endures forever.


Jesus did not just come so you individually can be at peace with God.  He also came so you can be at peace with others.  Remember, you're not going to be spending eternity alone with God.  There are going to be a lot of other people there too!  And the point of today's antiphon is to ask Jesus that more and more people would be there.


Jesus, our prayer for today is that your will would be done on earth as it is in heaven.  We want to be a people of peace whose "sad divisions cease."  We want to see every person come to know you.  Come and save us!

O Oriens -- The 3rd to last day of Advent

Today in  many liturgical churches, the fifth of the O Antiphons is recited.  On the 17th I started a short blog series explaining each Antiphon.  There's a short intro to the whole series at the beginning of that post.  Here is today's reading, O Oriens.

____________________________

Latin:
O Oriens,

splendor lucis aeternae, et sol justitiae:

veni, et illumina sedentes in tenebris, et umbra mortis.

English:

O Morning Star,

splendour of light eternal and sun of righteousness:

Come and enlighten those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.

(Note: A literal translation of the Latin yields "O Rising Sun", but the poetic "O Morning Star" is often preferred.

"O Come, O Come Emmanuel" almost always contains this verse:
O come, Thou Day-spring, come and cheer
Our spirits by Thine advent here;
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
And death’s dark shadows put to flight.

______________________________________
I like this one of the O Antiphons because we usually sing it in "O Come, O Come Emmanuel."  Also, it has a bunch of Latin words that I sort of know from repeated exposure, like aeternae.

As you see noted above, the translation of O Oriens is literally "O Rising Sun," but usually is rendered "O Morning Star."  Some people get in big debates about whether the Morning Star refers to Jesus or Satan in the Bible.  The truth is, it refers to both at different times.  The phrase was used as a metaphor for something beautiful or spectacular, because the Morning Star is both when you see it in the twilight.

The Morning Star is the planet Venus.  If you go outside around sunrise, you will often find it near the rising Sun.  If you don't, that means it will probably be visible around sunset. The very simple astronomical explanation is that Venus is closer to the Sun than we are, so you can see it near the Sun, but the Sun is too bright at midday to see Venus, so you have to wait until dawn or dusk to make it out.

Anyway, I prefer the translation "O Rising Sun" because I'm 1/4 Japanese.

Well, that's true, but actually I prefer it because it makes more sense in context of the stanza.  The planet Venus is nowhere near bright enough to cast out shadows, but the Rising Sun is quite bright (Or so I've heard; as a night owl, I've seen it only a handful of times).

Incidentally, December 21 is usually the Winter Solstice (not this year because it is the year before leap year). The solstice which was and is celebrated as a religious festival in many pagan societies.  We Christians see the Sun not as an object to be worshiped, but as an object to remind us of Jesus, the "Sun of Righteousness"

In Malachi 4 (the last chapter in the Old Testament), we discover the worshipers of God will be blessed by the rising "sun of righteousness, with healing in its rays."  Check out the fourth verse of "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" for another reference to this passage.

O Oriens refers to Jesus as the light of the world, the Sun of Righteousness with healing in His wings, the one who casts out the darkness.   It's important for us to read the word "enlighten" as it was meant before the historical Enlightenment (the O Antiphons were written by AD 500 at the latest, while the Enlightenment wasn't until the 17th century).  We are not asking Jesus to come show us reason & knowledge, but to come cast out the darkness and light the way for us.

The theme of light and darkness is one of the most common, beautiful, and nebulous metaphors in scripture, and I really can't explain it.  I like to postulate ideas that try to synthesize the science of the Electromagnetic force with the beautiful statements we read about God being light, but I'm really not sure about them.  What I do know is that Jesus is the light.

Have you ever been in a pitch black room or cave when someone lights the smallest light?  It's incredibly bright.  Imagine how bright the rising sun would seem.  This is how sudden and jolting the coming of Jesus was to our world.  

Everything changed.

The world would never be the same.  This is the Jesus whose birth we are about to celebrate.

Come, Sun of Righteousness!

O Clavis David -- The 4th to last day of Advent

Today in  many liturgical churches, the fourth of the O Antiphons is recited.  On the 17th I started a short blog series explaining each Antiphon.  There's a short intro to the whole series at the beginning of that post.  Here is today's reading, O Clavis David.

____________________________

Latin:
O Clavis David, et sceptrum domus Israel;
qui aperis, et nemo claudit;
claudis, et nemo aperit:
veni, et educ vinctum de domo carceris,
sedentem in tenebris, et umbra mortis.

English:

O Key of David and sceptre of the House of Israel;
you open and no one can shut;
you shut and no one can open:
Come and lead the prisoners from the prison house,
those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.

"O Come, O Come Emmanuel" often contains this verse:
O come, Thou Key of David, come,
And open wide our heavenly home;
Make safe the way that leads on high,
And close the path to misery.

______________________________________
Yesterday's antiphon (O Radix Jesse) already keyed in (pun fully intended) to the fact that Jesus was a descendant of King David and his father Jesse.  So why do we have two Antiphons (and three verses of "O Come, O Come Emmanuel") devoted to this fact?

Well, yesterday's antiphon had more to do with the fact that Jesus was the fulfillment of God's promise to David, and looked forward to Jesus as the One who liberates us from "foreign rule" and our bondage to death.  Today's verse focuses more on the authority that the Davidic ruler has been given by God, but again reminds us that He came to free us from bondage to death.

Isaiah 22:22 says "I will place on his shoulder the key to the house of David; what he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open."  It looks like the writer(s) of the O Antiphons may have taken some liberty by calling Jesus "the Key of David" while the Bible seems to indicate Jesus has the key to the house of David.  But the point is that Jesus has the ultimate authority, the final say.

In Isaiah 42:7 and 61:1 we read that one of the reasons Jesus came to earth was to free the prisoners.  Today's Antiphon alludes to fallen mankind's imprisonment to death and despair, and asks our Savior to lead us out of prison.  One of the verses of "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" that we read yesterday also reminded us of this fact.

So today, let us remember that Jesus is both our Liberator and the ultimate authority in all the heavens and the earth.

O Radix Jesse -- The 5th to last day of Advent

Today in many liturgical churches, the third of the O Antiphons is recited. On Saturday I started a short blog series explaining each Antiphon. There's a short intro to the whole series at the beginning of that post.  Here is today's Antiphon, O Radix Jesse.

____________________
Latin:

O Radix Jesse, qui stas in signum populorum,

super quem continebunt reges os suum,

quem Gentes deprecabuntur:

veni ad liberandum nos, jam noli tardare.

English:

O Root of Jesse, standing as a sign among the peoples;

before you kings will shut their mouths,

to you the nations will make their prayer:

Come and deliver us, and delay no longer.


"O Come, O Come Emmanuel" actually has two verses related to this Antiphon:

O come, Thou Root of Jesse’s tree,
An ensign of Thy people be;
Before Thee rulers silent fall;
All peoples on Thy mercy call.

O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free
Thine own from Satan’s tyranny;
From depths of hell Thy people save,
And give them victory over the grave.

__________________________________

Today's reading and tomorrow's reading both look at Jesus' genealogy.  Tomorrow we learn that Jesus is the "Key of David."  Jesse was King David's father.  It is important to us that Jesus descended from David, because it shows he fulfills the Davidic Covenant (God's promise to King David that his dynasty would last forever).  Here we see God's faithfulness--He keeps His promises.  

In Jeremiah and Isaiah dynasties are symbolized by trees.  In Isaiah 11:1 we read "A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit."

At the time Isaiah wrote, the Davidic dynasty seemed to be over, as the Jewish people were under foreign rule.  The promise of Isaiah 11 is that the Root of Jesse would come one day and liberate God's people from other rulers.  One day Jesse's descendant would come and  deliver His people.

Advent remembers the Jewish people looking forward to the coming of Radix Jesse to liberate them from foreign rulers (the Babylonians, Medo-Persians, Greeks, and Romans).  It also looks forward to the day when Jesus comes again and liberates us from the rule of imperfect men and women who lead imperfect governments.  "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" points out that the Root of Jesse's Tree will not only liberate us from the rule of imperfect people, but from the rule of death.

O Faithful God, who keeps His covenant to a thousand generations, You never let us down.  We  praise You, our liberator.  Come and rule your world.  May you rule our lives today.  

O Adonai -- The 6th to last day of Advent

Today in  many liturgical churches, the second of the O Antiphons is recited.  Yesterday I started a short blog series explaining each Antiphon.  There's a short intro to the whole series at the beginning of that post, along with yesterday's reading and my thoughts on it.  Here is today's Antiphon, O Adonai.

____________________________

Latin:

O Adonai, et Dux domus Israel,

qui Moysi in igne flammae rubi apparuisti,

et ei in Sina legem dedisti:

veni ad redimendum nos in brachio extento.

English:

O Adonai, and leader of the House of Israel,

who appeared to Moses in the fire of the burning bush

and gave him the law on Sinai:

Come and redeem us with an outstretched arm.

Some versions of "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" contain this verse:
O come, O come, great Lord of might,
Who to Thy tribes on Sinai’s height
In ancient times once gave the law
In cloud and majesty and awe.

______________________________________

In the Old Testament, God reveals that His name is "YHWH," and that He is the Lord (Adonai in Hebrew).  Since the Hebrews did not want to take God's name in vain, they chose to say "Adonai" in place of "YHWH" every time His name would come up.  This Antiphon is mostly about Jesus' previous body of work, and is not really about Jesus' lordship (we'll get to that in a few days with O Clavis David).

It is important for us that Jesus is Adonai because it is our way of saying He is God.  Specifically in context of this Antiphon, it also is our way of recognizing that this Jesus is the same God who led Israel through all the events we read about in the Old Testament.

Jesus is not just the man who walked the Earth 2000 years ago, He is also the God who led Israel for thousands of years before that, who appeared to Moses and gave the Ten Commandments.  

I have a tendency to think of Jesus as eternally existing, and involved in the creation of the world, but as being pretty bored from then until He was born to Mary in Bethlehem.  Today's Antiphon is a great reminder that Jesus is our God and Yahweh is our God, and that they are one and the same.  

O Sapientia--The 7th to last day of Advent

For the next 7 days, I will (most likely--assuming I remember to) be sharing the O Antiphons.  The O Antiphons are a series of 7 stanzas anticipating the coming of Jesus.  One is read on each of the last 7 days of Advent--the 17th through the 23rd (Christmas and Christmas Eve are not a part of Advent, they are their own special things).  Most of us only are exposed to the O Antiphons through the song "O Come, O Come Emmanuel," which is actually not a Christmas song, but an Advent song.  That song is based on some of the words of the O Antiphons.

The O Antiphons are a reverse acrostic.  They spell "Ero Cras" when flipped around.  Ero Cras means "Tomorrow, I will come" in Latin, which is a pretty amazing little saying about Jesus' impending arrival.  With that introduction, here is day 1, O Sapientia:

__________________________

Latin:

O Sapientia, quae ex ore Altissimi prodiisti,

attingens a fine usque ad finem,

fortiter suaviterque disponens omnia:

veni ad docendum nos viam prudentiae.

English:

O Wisdom, coming forth from the mouth of the Most High,

reaching from one end to the other mightily,

and sweetly ordering all things:

Come and teach us the way of prudence

Some versions of "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" contain this verse:
O come, Thou Wisdom from on high,
Who orderest all things mightily;
To us the path of knowledge show,
And teach us in her ways to go.

____________________

Jesus is revealed to us in John 1 as "the Word."  The Greek word logos is translated as "Word" in most of our English Bibles, but logos can also mean "wisdom."  The Bible has wisdom literature, and it gives us principles for how we can live.  But that's not the most important or beautiful way we find wisdom as Christians.

Instead, we find that Wisdom is a person.  A person we can know.  A person named Jesus, who is God Incarnate.  

Wisdom is more than just knowing how to act.  To be wise means to know Jesus in a vulnerable and intimate way.  

In Advent, we anticipate the coming of Wisdom Incarnate in the person of Jesus.  He does not just come to show us a better way to live as our example, but comes as Wisdom Himself, who we can know intimately.

Learning to Not Plan

Been on a roll with the blogging lately, and I have been having really good thoughts and realizations.  I partly attribute this to the clarity and order brought to my mind when I write things down.

Last night Julie and I had a long conversation about the future.  It led to a realization that I have been learning a lot more from God than I realized.  Over the last 6+ months I've gone through phases of totally worrying about what I'm doing, where we're headed, money, and life in general.  I tend to slip into a week or two of being really dissatisfied with life and then I'll come out of it and be OK for awhile (2 months or so on average).

During these periods of worry I'll lay awake in bed until 2 or 3 in the morning just thinking--wondering about all the "what-ifs?"

I know I shouldn't worry...especially about the future.  Jesus says, "Do not worry about tomorrow, for today has enough troubles of its own."  But I still do it.  I hate it.  I know it's not only wrong but bad for me.

Worrying is a bad thing, because it is me trying to take the control that really belongs to God.  I can't have that control anyway, so why try to take it from Him?  When I do that I'm really saying "God is not enough."  Bill Randall, my pastor from Redding, wrote on Facebook yesterday that worry is "negative mediation."  It's like saying over and over "God is not enough.  God is not enough.  God is not enough.  I know better than He does.  I know better than He does.  I know better than He does."

My worry is based on uncertainty about the future.  What I realized last night is that in the midst of all those uncertain moments I usually have a handful of thoughts that are right and good.

I realized that I have stopped being such a problem-solver and such a planner.  In the past, I have tended to be a pretty disorganized person when it comes to keeping things neat around the house or around my office, but when it comes to figuring out the best practices and seeing how the pieces of a system fit together, I'm pretty organized.  I have an ability to load trailers so everything fits, and that tends to be helpful when I'm looking at an organizational situation where I need to figure out how different people and processes work together.

I know that God has given me the ability to solve problems creatively, but I was beginning to lean too much on my own understanding (Prov. 3:5-6).  I was getting proud of my intellectual abilities (not so much about knowing things, but solving problems).  Something needed to change, and last night as I talked to Julie I realized that I have become less of a planner, and that's a good thing.

Back in college I was opposed to the idea of goals.  It's weird and most smart people probably thought I was an idiot for being opposed to goal-setting.  Somewhere along the way I began to set goals again.

Goal-setting involves saying two things:
1. Here's where I want to be.
2. Here are a series of steps that will ensure I can make it to my goal.

My thoughts recently have been shaped by the book With by Skye Jethani.  Jethani talks about how we all are afraid (of death, failure, loss, and other undesirable outcomes), so we try to seek control of our circumstances.  He talks about how every human is motivated by fear and control.

The truth is that the only solution to our fear and control issues is to live with God.  Living with God makes our fears pale in comparison, and solves our control issue by giving the control to God.

Goal-setting takes control for yourself.  You determine where you want to be.  And then you determine what the best steps are to get there.

The life I want to live is a life with God.  I don't really care about anything else.  I don't know what I want my life to look like when I'm 30 or 40 (I'm 27 now).  God does though.  If I live with Him, He'll set the goals.  And He will determine the steps needed to get there.  And I don't need to know what the goals or the steps are!

All I need to know is what the steps are to living with Him.  I can take small steps to live with Him today, but I can't plan ahead and see the whole journey and just take a certain number of steps and suddenly live a perfect life with God forever and ever.  That's not how it works.  If I tried that I would just be taking control again.

For example, in the last few days and in my past, I have found that blogging helps me to think about God and what He is doing in my life.  However, it would be absurd to assume that can constantly maintain communion with God by blogging.  But, I know that right now it's helping, so I should probably keep doing it for now.

So there it is.  I don't want to be a planner.  I don't want to be a goal-setter.  I want to be a man who walks with God.  That's all.

Lessons from getting my blood drawn

This morning I had some blood drawn.  I got a new doctor recently and it was cheaper to get a physical than to do a new patient appointment.  Of course, you're supposed to get a physical annually anyway.  So I went to my doctor and he ordered lab work, just to see what my cholesterol is.

I hate getting my blood drawn.  The first time I went to South Africa, I had heard it was a good idea to get a Hepatitis test and an HIV test when I got back.  So I did it.  They ended up poking one of my arms 5 or 6 times, finally getting a little bit of blood, and then it stopped.  So they had to do the other arm.  They didn't get enough blood there either.  By the end of things I was really light headed and had to sit in my car for 15 or 20 minutes just to gather up the strength to drive home.

I don't know if I'm a wuss and I can't emotionally handle all the poking and thought of my blood being drawn or if I have some physical thing where even just a few tubes of blood lost affects my energy level so drastically.

Oh yeah, the test came back and showed that I might have both HIV and Hepatitis C, so I had to re-do it.  I ended up testing negative for both, and the blood test wasn't as difficult the second time.

Anyway, today I went in and had an experience that again was awful.  The Phlebotomist had to poke my arm a couple times to get it, and as the blood was coming out, I could feel the energy draining from my face and stomach.  By the time it was finished, I could barely hear anything or see anything and was totally sure I was going to pass out.  Thankfully Julie was with me.

Again, I really don't know if this is an emotional/stress thing or a physical thing.  I'm not writing just to share about me freaking out, though.  I'm writing to share a realization I had.  When I have my blood drawn and lose all energy and much of my sensory capability, it feels kind of like being on drugs (comparing it to what I have heard illegal drugs are like, and to my own experiences after surgery or on antihistamines).

Whether the cause is being under the influence of a substance or loss of blood, the impaired person is the one who is not as "real" as the rest of the world.  However, it's the rest of the world that feels surreal to the impaired person.

I thought this was a great example of what C.S. Lewis talks about in The Great Divorce.  In Lewis' allegorical heaven, people view themselves as ghosts, while heaven is more real than they are.  We often think of heaven and spiritual things as nebulous mysteries, while we think of the Earth we walk on as "real."  Lewis' idea was that we are the less real, less solid things, and that the spiritual realm is the real thing.  The spiritual doesn't pass through us, we pass through it.

In my experience today, I was less "alive" (as my life-force was drained quite literally) than the world around me, but I still felt "real," and thought everything else was surreal.  The truth, quite differently, was that I was less myself, less "real" than normal, and everything else was just as real as normal.

The other lesson I thought of related to something my friend said a few years ago.  Every culture has a story about some being/creature that sucks blood or life from humans.  Whether it's a vampire or a chupacabra or some sort of demon.

This is the great fear of all humans--death--in terms of Genesis 2.  God breathed into humans in Genesis 2, and gave us what we usually call "souls."  In Hebrew, the word used there (nefesh) means "soul, life, living being, or throat."  The reason "throat" is related to "soul" and "life" is that they realized you could take a life easily by attacking the throat.  The biblical view of the soul is intertwined with being alive in a very physical sense.  I see a strong connection between our physical blood and the very idea of being alive (not just on a medical level, but on a philosophical and spiritual one).

So as I felt the energy draining from parts of my body that weren't being stuck with needles, I was reminded of the fact that our spiritual energy (that nebulous, but more real than we realize thing) is somehow intertwined with this red liquid that was being removed from my body.  When you realize that it forever changes the way you think about those vampire/chupacabra stories.  What if these aren't mere stories about fictional beings, but a picture of the very real desire the Enemy has to affect our spiritual well-being by dampening our life's energy through sapping our physical health?

Take care of yourself--body, mind, soul, and spirit.

Why I like the show "Once Upon A Time."

I haven't written a blog here for a loooong time.  I know that when I write I tend to think more clearly and be more focused on all areas in life.  So, I thought I'd write a little something today about a new TV show I'm really liking.

Julie and I have been watching the show Once Upon A Time every week because we were huge LOST fans and heard that 2 of the guys from the LOST writing team had created the show.  So far we have really enjoyed the show and along with Person of Interest, it is one of the best new shows this year.  Both of the shows have lots of connections to LOST, which got me watching both in the first place, but I really like the shows even without the connections and they are my two favorite shows, new or returning, right now.

Once Upon A Time is a really long title, so I'm going to refer to it as OUAT.   Here are a few reasons I've been liking OUAT.

1. LOST.  I've already mentioned this one a few times.  For some reason you have to all-caps the title when you're talking about LOST.  The first thing you notice about OUAT is that the font for the logo is the same font (and all caps) as LOST.  Also, as I mentioned, it has the same writers.  They have done a nice job of hiding references to LOST in OUAT.

For example, in the pilot of the new show, the clock in the town read "8:15," which is a reference to the flight number from LOST.  Emma (the hero) wakes up and the camera is up-close on her eye, just like it was in the pilot of LOST when Jack woke up.  Also, the mayor's address is "108," which was the most significant number in LOST (the number from the hatch, and the total of 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42 added together).  2 episodes ago, they had the candy bar from LOST making a cameo, and last night, they had the MacCutcheon Whiskey from LOST making a cameo.  I'm sure there are other easter eggs I am either forgetting or didn't notice.

More significantly, the storytelling is similar to LOST.  The show is based on flashbacks from one world to another one.  In LOST, the story flashed back from the fantastical life on the island to "real life" in the normal world.  In OUAT, the show flashes back from "real life" in the normal world to "fantastical life" in the fairy tale world.  This really is essentially the same show as LOST as far as storytelling devices go.

2. References to classic stories I love: Narnia, and Lord of the Rings.  LOST had references to Narnia.  So I wasn't surprised that the writers continued to make references to it from the beginning of OUAT.  First off, the first doorway between the two worlds is a wardrobe.  In the pilot episode, the main character, Emma, is placed in a wardrobe as a baby and magically whisked away to the real world.  A more subtle, but more important contribution of Narnia is the entire premise of the show.  J.R.R. Tolkien told C.S. Lewis that Narnia was ridiculous because it incorporated too many children's stories into one universe.  C.S. Lewis said that there already was a place where all those different characters co-existed: our minds.  OUAT follows Lewis in creating a universe where all the fairy tale characters co-exist, with multiple crossovers between their stories.

Speaking of Tolkien, there have been some references to Lord of the Rings already too.  In the first couple of episodes, Rumpelstiltskin was established as the show's version of Gollum.  Obviously, the character looks a lot like the Gollum from Peter Jackson's movies, and that is surely no accident.  More importantly, Rumpelstiltskin used the word "precious" in the second episode and said it in a way that sounded very Gollum-esque.  He also seems to neither be playing for the good side or the evil side, just like Gollum.  I have a theory about the end of the show that involves Rumpelstiltskin doing something self-serving that inadvertently helps good defeat evil, just like Gollum did with Frodo in LOTR.

3. References to the Bible.  This again is a similarity with LOST.  I have no idea about the religious backgrounds of writers Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz, but they clearly are familiar with the Bible/Torah.  The last two episode titles have been "That Still Small Voice" (a reference to God's voice and Elijah) and "The Shepherd."  "The Shepherd" dealt with the rise of a shepherd from small-town poverty and obscurity to becoming a prince who was threatened by the King.  The major turning point was when the shepherd boy killed a gigantic beast with an unlikely technique--a clear reference to the Old Testament story of King David going from shepherd to Goliath-slayer, to enemy of King Saul, to King.

4. Great, great, great writing
The storytelling and screenwriting is just as high-quality as LOST, as you would expect since it is the same writers.  They employ so many little devices that I first learned about from LOST, such as having a character serve as the proxy for the audience.  In LOST, whenever something unbelievable would happen, either Hurley or Sawyer would doubt it.  That way, the audience would identify with the doubting character and slowly be won over to the idea.  That's how they made time travel and smoke monsters believable.  In OUAT, almost all the characters think the entire premise of the show is nonsense, which means that as the characters come around to it slowly, the audience gradually comes around as well.  Great writing.

Another technique the writers have used was employed in last night's episode when they had Rumpelstiltskin's character say "Charming.  Isn't it?" to Prince Charming.  The character was using the word "Charming" as an adjective, not a name, but it could have been used as a name.  This was the most blatant example of this writing technique I have ever seen, but it shows that the writers know how to use it, proving that when they did it earlier in the episode, it wasn't an accident.

In the earlier instance, one of the characters said something like "Good Lord!" to Emma Swan before saying a sentence or two to her.  My High School English teacher pointed out that this is a sneaky technique used by screenwriters to identify the Messiah-character in the show/movie.  The example he showed us was from the Matrix, where Trinity says "Jesus Christ..." to Neo.  In context of the dialogue, it seems like a mere expletive, but in context of the story, it is a subtle way to identify the Messiah character.  I always look for this writing technique, because I think it makes for really great writing, even if it might be breaking one of the Ten Commandments!

5. Dealing with major theological/philosophical themes from a (mostly) Judeo-Christian viewpoint.  First off, the whole idea of the show is a bunch of people removed from a perfect world by "the Curse," who are in need of "a Savior."  The Savior is prophesied to come and break the curse, returning the people to the perfect world they came from, and defeating evil once and for all in the process.  That is pretty much the Bible in a nutshell.

Last night's episode dealt with the idea of free will.  They didn't really delve into it, but they kept pointing out that Prince Charming had to make his own "free choice."  I suspect that they are going to deal with free will and Fate in a very similar way to the movie The Adjustment Bureau.  I think that Rumpelstiltskin not only knows exactly what is going to happen, but that he takes actions to ensure those things happen.  He made sure that Emma (the Messiah character) would come to the town and break the Curse by having her biological son be adopted by the evil queen.  Just like the Adjustment Bureau, he made sure that the course of history stayed on track by manipulating the situation.  I am betting that in the end of the show, someone will choose to do something against fate (Rumpelstiltskin), which will lead to his demise.

I am really looking forward to this show continuing.  If you're not watching it, get caught up.  It's a great show, and I hope it stays on the air for a good 5-6 years like LOST did.  There you have it.  Watch Once Upon A Time.