extreme make-over

Like watching a train wreck, those make-over "reality" shows like the Dog Whisperer.

i don't know if Cesar Milan uses the term anthropomorphism, but he sure warns against calling your dog your baby and then wondering why Baby chews up the sofa and dislocates your shoulder when on the leash. The Dog Whisperer has ways of correcting these behaviours, and the ways have not so much to do with the dog and a great deal to do with correcting the people. Which prompted me to think about rampant anthropotheism. You know who you are, you folks who believe God is in favour of war in the Middle East (yahoo, Armeggedon's coming!), ditto climate change (ditto the yahoo), that 9/11 was God's punishment for granting human rights to gays and allowing women to procure abortions, or even that God is more desperately worried about the state of individual souls than AIDS orphans, say...or war in the Middle East, Iraq and the viciousness of the Taliban.

So, here's a pitch for a new "reality" show: let's have the God Whisperer, one who will fire us up to act on the things God lies awake worrying about. The God Whisperer, like Cesar, could do a great job of pointing out to Richard Dawkins & Co that the answer to bad religion isn't no religion; the answer to bad religion is good religion. Sort of like the answer to bad nutrition isn't to stop eating. The God Whisperer can point out that God isn't the problem here...as a colleague of mine has been heard to pray, "O God, protect me from your followers."

The God Whisperer could remind us about the things that weigh heavy on the heart of God.

Those things like climate change (ought to be a real worry to Canadians, given we have one of the world's longest coastlines), Darfur, torture (go Colvin!), our failure to end child poverty, homelessness, refugees, consumption (not the medical kind, the illness that Rev. Billy & the Church of Stop Shopping is trying to heal).

Perhaps, in this Advent time when we are a tad more attuned to listening for angel voices, those God whisperers might speak to us of the wounds of the world, and our high calling to mend the world.

If we heed the God whisperers, and set about our tasks, maybe then the dove of peace can remove her flack jacket and fly freely to where she is most needed.