Ever since I was a young boy, I have enjoyed science fiction. I was fascinated with Star Trek at a young age and, much to my mother’s aggravation, I must have watched every episode of “Star Trek” (the original series) at least 100 times each.
Then there was “Star Wars” and the movies that followed, each of which held a strong fascination for me. I was intrigued by the visions of the future each of these shows and movies presents (to be honest, the events in “Star Wars” actually occurred “a long time ago”), but the point is still made. I found the vision of other worlds and other beings interesting.
Thank goodness “Star Trek: The Next Generation” began during my seminary career, or I don’t think I would have made it. It was great to have some new and exciting episode of “Star Trek” waiting for me each week.
Not that these great stories were all that caught my attention, I remember sitting in rapt excitement while watching “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”, and the thrill I felt at the possibility of going to another world and exploring the wonder of this new life. As Richard Dreyfuss climbed that long sloping hatch into the spaceship, my mind pondered what he might find inside.
I wondered how I would have reacted if those little alien hands had grasped mine and invited me on board as they had done to him. I could echo Francois Truffaut’s character when he looked at Dreyfuss and said, “I envy you, Monsieur Neary.”
Hoping to share my experience, I took my mother to see “E.T.”; that, however, is an experience best left for another column.
But several months ago I was flipping through the channels and I ran across “Close Encounters” and I watched that stunning ending once again, but this time, something began to bother me. I had first started thinking about it when I was watching “Independence Day” for about the seven hundredth time, but the sight of the aliens descending from the mother ship on “Close Encounters” brought it vividly to mind.
I began to wonder about the lack of variation. I began to notice that, in most alien movies and shows, the aliens all look alike. Even when they are on a TV show with limited budget, and it’s just actors in minimal make-up, they all dress the same. The other night, as a friend and I watched “Signs”, I began to notice it again; every alien was just like every other alien.
Now, I am not a biologist in any sense, but I have had enough schooling to know that, as species climb the evolutionary ladder, they tend to produce variations on the theme. One amoeba is pretty much like the next, but cats and dogs and cows and people, especially people, come in a multitude of variations and styles.
I imagine it has more to do with the budget constraints of movies, but there is something sad about the thought that these aliens, that are suppose to be so highly evolved, end up looking exactly alike, or worse, dressing exactly alike. This strange commonality is presented as some wonderful achievement.
But I think it is just sad, and not just because the clothing we all are supposed to wear together is usually weird and overly shiny, it just does not seem to be an achievement at all.
I was pondering this little thought the other day as I was hearing confessions for our religious education classes. We had a number of priests visiting, so I was sitting in the nave of the church as the little tykes came over to me; one by one, so different, so unique, so interesting.
There were variations on hair color, eye color, clothing, height weight; even the seemingly common placement of eyes, nose, mouth and ears come together to produce someone who looks utterly different. It was, and is, absolutely amazing to behold.
Sometimes in our quest for unity we can confuse it with uniformity. We can believe that the more things are identical, the more unity we have. But then we miss the wonder and the gift that variation, uniqueness and diversity can bring; it is the different flowers and plants that make a garden beautiful.
As we begin together the wonderful gift of spring, there will be all around us, in the renewing earth, the signs of new growth, of new life; it for each of us to see these signs as expressions of God’s on-going creation.
Each new birth, each unique person we meet is a reminder, God still works in this world, it is still being reborn and that we are all beautiful, each in our own wonderful way.
Let this uniqueness help you to smile warmly on the human garden.