Twin Peaks was a rather remarkable series of the 90s. Remember there was no Netflix, so a whole lot of people were watching episode by episode of this trippy and complex crime series. You really had to lean in; to listen hard to follow the plot and absorb the off-beat dialogue. The main character, FBI special agent Dale Cooper, often thinks in the abstract. He is reminiscent of a sophisticated Colombo for those of you who remember that bumbling detective of the Seventies.
Dale Cooper looks at a crime scene with a quality that thinks simultaneously in the past, present and future. Like God, Cooper comes up with strange conclusions. He asks unusual questions.
God knows me and takes me off balance.
I suppose when we say ‘yes’ to God (see how I continue to use that language - the language of evangelism) or, put another way, when we open our mind, heart and soul to explore a relationship with God, we permit the God police to enter into our scene. My life is a perpetual crime scene. You may as well cover me in the yellow and black police tape — with 911 on speed dial. The God detective comes and surveys the scene. He takes notes. ‘Oops, she did it again’.
I wait. Head bowed in shame. My Dale-Cooper-of-a-God sees my past,my present and my future. He lifts my head and looks me deep in the eyes and kisses the top of my crown and commands me to go and sin no more.
This scene is on repeat.
Remember ‘go and sin no more’ are the words Jesus uses to send the adulterous woman back into her community in the 8th Chapter of John. I find it amusing that he would says this with a straight face. Perhaps it is said with the same conviction of a mother saying to her quarelling children ‘ Now go away and play nicely together’. She knows there will be another scrap between them, another time she needs to enter and mediate.
Despite all my angst and uncertainty, it is this sense of God’s forgiveness and kindness that keep me rooted in this life battle. Allowing me to keep my head above water in real barbarian struggles; to keep on believing in God and heaven and all that.
Dale Cooper in one of the episodes takes the Sheriff to breakfast in a diner. I like to think these words are how God would counsel me when I am all knotted up and anxious about life:
Dale Cooper:
Harry, I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Every day, once a day, give yourself a present. Don't plan it, don't wait for it, just let it happen. It could be a new shirt at the men's store, a catnap in your office chair or two cups of good hot black coffee. Like this.
Sheriff Truman:
A present? Like Christmas?
Dale Cooper:
[Taking a sip] Ah, man that hits the spot. Nothing like a great cup of black coffee.
No doubt we have a complex relationship with God. He sees all. He deserves our best. He is both our judge and our defender. Allow him control of the mess and take up his offer of a place of rest amidst the battle.