In my last blog post, I talked about the Seven Deadly Sins and how a friend of mine and I (among a few others) are developing a game that helps us deal with our problems before our problems deal with us. As I mentioned here "Catharsis Hall" is a game (because it is interactive) that addresses our problems and gives us a tool to face them through the art of metaphor. How do you combat against things like pride, anger, jealousy lust, laziness, etc, when you can't see it, or engage it. One way to do that is to use a metaphor to personify that issue, use techniques to defeat that metaphor, and you will find in the process you will find you deal with your real problem as a result. So what I have worked on is to lay out the battlefield, the setting, of where these battles can take place. And my friend and I discussed a variety of terrains that would reflect not only the issue of what we want to face, but also what that terrain would look like when occupied by the right issue.
So in this post, I am going to be talking about the Deadly Sin of Pride. Now, all I have now is the terrain. Where the battles against Pride take place. Remember that everything in this description is metaphorical. It is meant to be a description, an allegory, of the real issues. The land itself represents our body. And how the land shows itself depends on who occupies the land. In this case, we are dealing with either Pride or Humility. Now Pride comes in two extremes. Boastful arrogance, like you are the king of the mountain. Or shame where instead of thinking you are on the highest mountain, you think you are in the lowest valley. Both Pride and Shame are self-focused. Humility however is different than Shame. Humility is knowing who and where you actually are, knowing what your skills and limitations are, and giving honor where it is due. Humility edifies and is not about giving glory to self. Humility recognizes the gifts God has given you, but also recognizes where those gifts came from. And humility seeks to use those gifts for building up and edifying others.
So we need some sort of terrain that would display both these features if the land was rules by someone who ruled with Pride/Shame or Humility. And right now, we have a mountainous terrain with loads of resources. One of the things about this dichotomy is Pride has many ways in but very few ways out. Humility has few ways in, but many ways out. So how the terrain will operate is determined by who rules it. And a mountainous terrain can do this. An arrogant person will seek to own the mountaintop but due to the poor leadership and poor management of resources, the arrogant person will have a difficultly getting down, let alone wanting to. A shameful person will stumble into a deep ravine or a canyon and though they may want to get out, they often can't. But often times, someone who is entrapped by Shame won't want to leave. These ravines and canyons, though they provide few ways out, often have decent resources so one can actually survive in them.
Pride be it in the form of arrogance or shame will build a city and seek to hoard any resource it can to feed itself. It will seek to block others from getting those resources as well. This is related to gluttony but that aspect will be for when I discuss gluttony. Pride will build a city and consume the resources where it stands. A forest can burn down and regrow, but it cannot regrow if a city is there. A humble person will build with minimal effect on the resources around them. A humble person will build so that the resources around him/her can be set up and used for the benefit of others. A proud person will set up all resources to serve self. A shameful person will just suck up the resources.
One other thing that will be in the center of this terrain. It could be at mountain top or it could be in the center of the town. There will be an alter in the territory. This alter will offer and receive crowns or medals. The things we do, the tasks we accomplish. The desires we seek to be and think we are. This alter will give us those crowns. But the alter will also receive these crowns. A proud or shameful person will seek either a crown of glory or a crown of shame. A humble person will lay the crown down and offer it to where it rightfully belongs.
There is so much more I can dig into for the territory of Pride vs Humility but this is just a 'on-the-surface' sketch. This territory will blend with the territories of the other six and that is for another post. But remember that everything in this terrain is a metaphor for something real in our lives. I have yet to identify what all of it is and what it represents but this is a solid starting point. With these posts I am just laying down the foundation and over time, I plan to dig a lot deeper into this stuff. I still need to determine who would inhabit this terrain on both the pride and humility occupation and how battles would be fought. But that must wait for another time. My next post will hit the question of Lust vs Intimacy. Much to do on that one and the others.
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