{"id":5405,"date":"2026-05-01T07:47:37","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T11:47:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/?p=5405"},"modified":"2026-05-01T07:47:37","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T11:47:37","slug":"tell-it-slant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/01\/tell-it-slant\/","title":{"rendered":"Tell It Slant"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast<\/em>,\u00a0click here<\/a>
\u00a0
Rod Serling, Hollywood\u2019s \u201cangry young man\u201d during the 1950s, had a dream.
\u00a0
He would write and produce cutting-edge TV dramas that explored the social issues he cared about passionately.
\u00a0
Those included racism, war, censorship, fear, injustice, nuclear paranoia, and the emerging power of television to influence culture.
\u00a0
But all he heard from network executives and sponsors was the sound of slamming doors. Their job, after all, was to attract crowds of loyal viewers to whom they could peddle soup, cigarettes, soap, and new cars. Censors were thus hyper-sensitive to scripts or plotlines that exhibited even a whiff of socially controversial themes.
\u00a0
Seemingly blocked at every turn, and overwhelmed by frustration, Serling almost walked away from Hollywood.\u00a0
\u00a0
Then he tried a different approach.\u00a0He accepted an invitation from CBS to create his own show \u2013 a first-of-its-kind science fiction series.
\u00a0
The Twilight Zone <\/em>debuted in October 1959.\u00a0Almost seven decades later, it remains one of TV\u2019s truly transformative dramas.
\u00a0
If you\u2019re feeling a sudden desire to hear that signature music and experience the surrealist images that introduced each show, here they are<\/a>.\u00a0
\u00a0
The Twilight Zone <\/em>featured Serling, almost always holding a lighted cigarette, offering interpretive comments at the beginning and ending of each episode.
\u00a0
Viewers could expect an underlying sense of dread; warps in the space-time continuum; extraterrestrial visitors to Earth; surprise twist endings; and one of the earliest TV appearances by a young actor named William Shatner (talk about scary).\u00a0
\u00a0
And what were the themes explored during those half-hour mini dramas on Friday evenings?
\u00a0
They included racism, war, censorship, fear, injustice, and nuclear paranoia.
\u00a0
Serling, in other words, ended up making precisely the kinds of statements he had hoped to make all along.\u00a0The same executives and sponsors who had been his opponents \u2013 \u201cTV viewers don\u2019t want to hear what you have to say about equal rights for women!\u201d \u2013 did everything they could to keep The Twilight Zone <\/em>on the air.\u00a0\u201cPeople sure love how you depict space aliens!\u201d
\u00a0
Despite the initial anxieties of most studio chiefs, The Twilight Zone <\/em>used compelling stories about fantasy creatures, flying saucers, and Einsteinian physics to help people think more deeply about the meaning of their lives.
\u00a0
And Serling ended up reaching far more people with his cutting-edge messages than he ever dreamed.
\u00a0
As he observed years later, \u201cA Martian can say things a Republican or a Democrat could never say on TV.\u201d
\u00a0
In one of her poems, Emily Dickinson urges us to \u201ctell all the truth but tell it slant.\u201d It\u2019s best, that is, to convey important truths indirectly or gradually \u2013 perhaps bit by bit or from an unexpected angle \u2013 rather than clobbering people over the head with too many startling facts.
\u00a0
That\u2019s how Jesus chose to connect with his listeners.
\u00a0
Primarily, he told deceptively simple stories.

Matthew 13:34 makes this remarkable statement: \u201cHe did not say anything to them without using a parable.\u201d\u00a0We know that when speaking to specific groups (like his inner circle of disciples), Jesus did not always tell stories.\u00a0But parables were his chief means of declaring to a general audience, \u201cThis is what it means to have a Father in heaven.\u201d\u00a0
\u00a0
Why tell stories?
\u00a0
Parables are sneaky.\u00a0Some even seem childish. But they are full of surprises and unexpected twists.\u00a0Jesus is able to communicate hard-to-swallow spiritual truths in delightful, memorable ways.\u00a0

That would include ways that may make us yearn to know God better.\u00a0\u00a0
\u00a0
In that sense, his parables are subversive. Just when we think we\u2019ve figured out everything about Us vs. Them, and feel absolutely certain that Jesus loves Us and will be sending Them straight into a smoldering abyss in the next world, he comes up with a story that forces us to see things in a different light.\u00a0
\u00a0
Maybe we\u2019ve been a bit off the mark.\u00a0OK, maybe we\u2019ve been way<\/em> off the mark. That\u2019s the power of parables.\u00a0
\u00a0
The astounding thing about these stories is that they don\u2019t seem to age. Parables invite us to listen to God in new ways.\u00a0Perhaps you first heard about the Good Samaritan back in third grade Sunday School.\u00a0And after just one reading of the Gospels, you could rattle off the essential message of the parable of the Four Soils.\u00a0
\u00a0
But the meanings of these stories aren\u2019t static.\u00a0They become deeper, richer, and increasingly surprising as we grow older.\u00a0The more we experience life, the more we will find ourselves thinking, \u201cI never saw that before.\u201d\u00a0
\u00a0\u00a0
Author and pastor Brian McLaren observes, \u201cHuman kingdoms advance by force and violence with falling bombs and flying bullets, but God\u2019s kingdom advances by stories, fictions, tales that are easily ignored and easily misunderstood.\u00a0Perhaps that\u2019s the only way it can be.\u201d\u00a0
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
\u201cYou unlock this door with the key of imagination,\u201d said Rod Serling every week. \u201cBeyond it is another dimension.\u201d

That was the only way into the Twilight Zone.
\u00a0
The amazing thing is that Jesus makes it quite clear that\u2019s the only way into the kingdom of God, as well.
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here\u00a0Rod Serling, Hollywood\u2019s \u201cangry young man\u201d during the 1950s, had a dream.\u00a0He would write and produce cutting-edge TV dramas that explored the social issues he cared about passionately.\u00a0Those included racism, war, censorship, fear, injustice, nuclear paranoia, and the emerging power of television to influence culture.\u00a0But all he heard from network executives and… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5406,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[177,1108,1107],"class_list":["post-5405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-parables","tag-television","tag-twilight-zone"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5405"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5405\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5407,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5405\/revisions\/5407"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}