I am Dr. Manhattan

I saw "Watchmen" a couple weeks ago and thought it was OK. The film was entertaining, I liked a couple of the themes and one of the characters was fascinating to me, but as a whole it was too long and quite mediocre.

The character that intrigued me the most was Dr. Manhattan. Yes, the blue guy with the Adonic body, measured speech and the sometimes-visible blue member. For me, Dr. Manhattan posed the most interesting hero in the film because he presented such a unique quandary.

Though he was the only one of the Watchmen to possess true superpowers and absolute clarity of thought and purpose, these very assets compelled him to feel distant from the planet, from the people he was equipped to save. In other words, his superpowers, the attributes that enabled him to potentially be the world's savior, were the very things that forged a horrible apathy in him, thus rendering him virtually worthless to the ones that needed his saving.

This was an incredibly engaging concept for me, and was even more so because it reminded me of some Christians - namely, me.

I will resist the temptation to step up on a soapbox and speak in generalities, so I'll just keep this shameful spotlight on me.

I'll use an experience I had tonight as a frame for my point. (This is long, and it is partly a confession, so if you don't have time or don't have the willingness to forgive and pray for me, I suggest you move on.)

I was sitting on the 4 train, heading downtown in New York tonight when I heard the sound of jingling change in a container. I was listening to music, but the jingling was loud enough to catch my attention. Tonight was one of those terrible times when I was not "feeling" generous and when my skeptical side took too much control of me. In order to avoid eye contact with the beggar I assumed was walking down the middle of the car, I just stared down at the feet of the person across from me.

After a few seconds, I saw a white bucket emerge into my view. It was filled with coins and bills, and it was on the ground, held by a gloved hand. This was different.

I kept my eyes fixed on the shoes across from me.

Suddenly, the bucket, which was being shaken from side to side, lurched into the center of my sight, and I finally saw him: a man with both his legs amputated, using his hands to drag himself from car to car, shaking his bucket to get the attention of passengers.

Staring downwards was a bad choice.

Many people responded to this man's request for help - more than usual for "normal" beggars with two legs. I saw four, maybe five people in my view alone that tossed bills into his bucket - no coins. The men to my right and left both gave him bills. I gave him nothing.

I sat there, frozen - not by fear, not by mistrust, but by my own poverty.

Many thoughts and emotions raced through me. I won't prolong this post with all the details, but they centered around the fact that this man was a mirror of my own blackened, frozen heart.

Each thought flickered in my mind's eye - maybe the loss of his legs was due to his own irresponsibility...maybe his motivations are no different than those of the mendicant who begs for drug or alcohol money...maybe he's abusing his physical condition for his own selfish gain...

Those odious thoughts, and so many more, hacked away at me with terrible strength, and by the time I had "come to" he had already passed me by. I sat there, still staring at those shoes, and wanted to rend myself to pieces.

That man's miserable condition had dug up the true quality of my heart and proven that I am even more impoverished, more pitiable than he.

I am Dr. Manhattan.

It is my understanding that the gospel is "the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes" (Romans 1:16, ESV). This means, of course, that it is the superpower of superpowers, the awesome nuke of shalom that so many seem to need and seek. And I have tasted this grace - though I sometimes forget, yes, I have tasted it and know its power, goodness and authenticity.

Yet, many times when it comes to these actual circumstances of need - whether it be a homeless man in front of my very eyes, or sorrowful news on a screen - I am often frozen, to the point of impotence, by my thoughts, by my salvation.

Though I am still a child, I am well-versed in "good" words and deliberations that justify inaction - AND I HATE THIS.

Nowhere in that book of life am I told to first thoroughly think circumstances through, see all the angles, then if it seems proper, act.

Then where did this inclination come from?

I can only presume that somehow, someway, the enemy has managed to enter the control room of my mind and afflict it with perversions so deep, so numbing, so anesthetizing that I become nothing but a heartless possessor of a remedy - the worst kind.

And now as I finish this belabored post, my throat is tense, my vision blurred and my body quaking with rage and self-hatred.

I am sick of being paralyzed by the very thing that must drive me to prompt and sharp action. I am sick of allowing myself to be driven away, in thought, heart and spirit, from the very ones that I should be drawing even nearer to because I am caught up in my own security.

So, I ask you, dear reader, and God himself to forgive me tonight. I also ask that he would shatter me, so that I would be an infant in evil, but in my thinking, mature (1 Corinthians 14:20).

I am sick of being Dr. Manhattan.