Drowning in God

One of the most striking photos I've seen in the news in the past week and a half or so is the one to the right. The attribution has long since disappeared, but I know I've seen it on the BBC, CNN, a few local news sites and now it's making its rounds on personal blogs.

The first couple of times I saw the image, it gave me the same physical, almost electrical, sensation that I've had when reading some scripture, most particularly the Psalms. I can't ever read the first portion of Psalm 139 without getting a serious case of the willies.

¹O Lord, you have searched me and known me.

²You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away.

³You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways.

⁴Even before a word is on my tongue, O Lord, you know it completely.

⁵You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.

⁶Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it.

⁷Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence?

⁸If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.

Seriously creepy. Finally I've found the image that works with the Psalm. It used to be I only had the soundtrack of the Police "I'll be watching you" playing in my head.

Now having the photo and music playing in my head, it's a truly multimedia experience. In my J-term class, we're supposed to be looking at the text for the coming Sunday and reflecting on it. For those of you who don't keep up to speed on such things, this Sunday's gospel reading is the Luke passage in which Jesus is baptized. The upshot of the reading, or at least the part that sticks in people's minds is this:

Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying,

the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove.

And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’

So, Jesus and a bunch of folks take the big dunk, the symbolic death and rebirth in the water. He gets out and while he's still wet behind the ears in both the literal and figurative senses, this voice pours forth from the open heavens... Okay, at this point in the story, I guess I don't care what the voice actually says, 'cause the message is "I've been watching you." I'm not sure how much clothing one wore back in the day when baptized, but how naked and exposed it would feel to hear this voice making commentary on your actions. That's the relationship with God that makes me feel unsettled - think telescreen in 1984.

I know it's a comfort to many to know God's watching, his eye being on the sparrow and all that, but I know I can't be the only one who thinks that kind of power isn't at least a little bit scary, not to mention perhaps a nice bit of hyperbole. These are the moments in my seminary studies where I feel like I'm dangerously close to touching that third rail - it propels me forward, it raises doubts that the contact is that dangerous, and yet it scares the hell out of me.