Book Him Danno

I generally don't tell people we watch Hawaii Five 0. When I have, in the past, invariably I would get, "Oh, I love that new show!" Then I would have to explain that we don't watch the NEW show. We watch the REAL show. And a polite argument would ensue and feelings would get hurt and names would be called, and it just opened more cans of worms than I was prepared to deal with. How many cans of worms is my breaking point, I have no idea, but apparently it was one too many.

The reason I like the old television series better is because I am (or have been, most of my life) a black-and-white person. Ever been there? Ever prefer things to be cut, and then dried? I've been torn over the years between the belief that it is our duty to demonstrate black-and-whiteness to the souls we encounter, and the belief that black-and-white exists only in the minds of children and a few monastic orders.

As I have aged, though, I have "grayed" up a bit. The little black and white feet of my childhood have grown into great big adult size 10 Feet of Clay. Truth is, out here in the trenches, baby, it can get pretty muddy. The more we interact with our fellow human beings, the more we realize that we are all part of a very gray world, and that black-and-white is not for us to color. Only God gets those crayons.

But, I still really like black and white. Don't we all like that, just a little bit? Don't we really want the simplicity of either or? Just so very black. And yet, so white. Simple. Clean. Neat and tidy.

And that is why I prefer Hawaii Five 0, the REAL one. The REAL Steve McGarrett's directives were never questioned. There was an order to things. He was in authority. When he said "jump," Chin Ho didn't say, "How high?" He said NOTHING. He just left with his notebook and went to work. The REAL Hawaii Five 0 was very black and white. Even though it was in color.

This is not to say that Steve was a benevolent dictator. He was not that at all. He was in charge, but he regularly held group meetings with chalk boards, mug shots and maps, to brainstorm with his team in order to solve the crime and catch the criminal. Steve snapped his fingers while he was pondering a case, and each officer who worked under him snapped into action like a fine-tuned machine or a poem or a you-fill-in-the-blank thing of beauty. Steve was fiercely protective of his staff, but he expected total dedication. He got it too, both because he was respectable, and because he demonstrated respect for the highly trained men and women who worked for him.

But until last night, I never fully appreciated the depth--in terms I can relate to--of that show's black-and-whiteness. The episode we watched was a later one, probably close to the end of the 12-year run in 1980. With this 30-year perspective, what I heard actually brought a tear to this old English major's eye.

In the show Steve was piecing together the facts of a theft, trying to determine who might have pulled it off. Danny mentioned a criminal who was out of prison whom Steve had arrested: Hunter R. Hickey, the last of the great paperhangers. As soon as Steve realized that this was the man behind the crime, he said, "That's he."

That's he? I was flabbergasted. Did Steve really just correctly agree a subject with a predicate noun? It has just been so long since I've heard it done right, it almost sounded wrong. And I thought to myself: if the NEW Steve McGarrett had said that, he'd be laughed out of his high-tech office, told to come back when he could talk good.

And so continues the lingering dichotomy in my black-and-white-gone-gray world. I like rules. In my head there are things that are just right. And then there are things that are wrong. Is that so bad? Can't there just be a few hard and fast rules that endure, if only for us anal-retentive types?

So here's what I've decided about that.

Maybe I get to say, down here, that children and adults should use our beautiful English language correctly, and maybe that makes me sound like a dried-up old school teacher. (And it doesn't mean that rules don't change.) And maybe I get to say, down here, that structure and authority are critical to many aspects of getting jobs done, and maybe that makes me sound like a throwback to the phone booth and manual typewriter days. (And that doesn't mean that loosy-goosy outfits can't and don't work just as efficiently. Somehow.) And maybe I get to say, down here, that God is a black-and-white God, and maybe that makes me sound holier than thou. (And that doesn't mean that He is, or that I am.) But the difference here is that I am required to bear in mind that I am not HE, (yep. It's correct) and never will be, and that my job is to introduce Him around to my gray-world friends, remembering all the while that I myself am just as gray as they get. I don't get to say, down here, that I have all the answers. Because only God knows the plans He has for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Down here, I am certainly free to wag my finger about some things (and maybe I should), understanding that it may get wagged right back at me. But in the real-world episode of life, I am not God's Beat Cop. My job is to listen, and learn, and look to my own house, and love others, and leave the rest to the Lord. The real one, not the Jack one. In this case, and this case only, even Jack would bow to the higher authority.