Fellowship with a friend can at times change the course of one's life. And I believe that this may have happened with me this week. I have been out of town for Thanksgiving week in Colorado to visit family and friends and I just finished spending 2 1/2 days with a fellow Christian writer friend. From the moment I met him, I knew there was something about him that would alter my life and my perspective on things. And that does not come close to describing it. We met 1 1/2 years ago at the Colorado Christian Writer's Conference and again at the conference this year and God has kindled a friendship that is taking me deeper to a new level of faith and a walk with Christ.
One thing that my friend has been working on for the last few years is based on the answer to one question: "What if there was some sort of game that would help you take care of your problems before your problems dealt with you?" As he prayed about that, God answered the questions of "Oh, that is interesting. Can I play?" And this was the birth of the development of "Catharsis Hall". Catharsis Hall is based on a role playing theme similar to dungeons and dragons but very different. Every aspect of the game is an allegory to something that we deal with and face in our every day Christian walk. And those who have started to play it have found their lives completely transformed in a way never imaginable prior. My friend grew up in the church and he knows Christian doctrine and principles very well. But in the development of this game, he has learned more about Christianity in just one year's span than he has in his entire life prior. In what I have learned of the game, I can see how.
In the two times at the Colorado Christian Writer's Conference I have been there, I have heard a lot about this game. I can say I understood what this type of game could do for a person struggling with issues like sin, lust, hatred, addictions, depression, etc. And today (Thanksgiving Day), I got a chance to meet someone who has experienced this game firsthand and he had to deal with an issue of anger against someone who had BADLY wronged him. And through this game, he has dealt with that problem. I could see this having a role. I also saw the magnitude of this game. It is like building Middle Earth. It is HUGE. And my friend at the conference this year asked for help. I wanted to help, but I had no idea how. I had no idea how to remotely approach trying to help figure this thing out. Until this week.
My specialty is spiritual warfare and one major aspect about this game is going to battle against the issues in your life. Both my friend and I have discovered Sun-Tzu's "The Art of War". It is not just "we can use this in our spiritual lives". It is actually we must learn how it has been used on us. One thing Sun-Tzu teaches that is so important that he devotes 2 of his 13 chapters on it: the terrain. The physical layout and the political/military status of the terrain. And since my strength is the battle side of things, my friend and I started talking about how we can set up the terrain for this game. He had the armies, who is good, who is bad. But they had no battlefield to fight on. And that is where I come in. This is when I "got it". I started to understand how this game actually works and how I can play a role in developing it.
In our discussions, we confirmed that every sin, every problem we have in our lives has a root in one of the seven deadly sins: pride, lust, wrath, envy, slothfulness, gluttony, and greed. Every issue we face as some root in one or more of these seven issues. And I cannot think of a counter example. We also discussed that the land itself is not evil. It is the occupants that make it evil. A pirate ship is evil because of the pirates in it. But clean it up, change the colors, and crew it with merchants, and while being the same ship, it is not to be feared. The same is true for terrain. And what we came up with in the two nights we had together was a battlefield, a terrain for where we would fight and engage against the Seven Deadly Sins.
But since the terrain is actually neutral in itself, we needed terrain that when occupied with the good stuff, it would reflect it. We wanted land that would reveal good purposes but when corrupted by sin, it would transform into something ugly. So we have pride. Pride can come in the form of arrogance or shame. The opposite of that is Humility and Edifying. Lust is a corruption of Intimacy. Wrath is the opposite of Severe Mercy. Envy is the Corruption of External Provision. Slothfulness is a corruption of appropriate and intentional Rest. Gluttony is a corruption of Internal Satisfaction. And Greed is often a desire of Control. It is a corruption of proper Management and a Freedom to Live. I am going to start a series where I will delve into what the terrain of what the battlefield where we would face those Seven Deadly Sins would look like. Much of this is not fully developed but I pray these next seven posts will give a good picture of this could look like.
This has blown my mind and though I will be using this to help develop my friend's game, I intend to use this exercise to develop myself AND new stories for down the road books. God is going to use Catharsis Hal in a way none of us can imagine. To play this game should scare you because it will make you face yourself, but the reward is beyond worth it. There are only two types of people who will address this game. The first will hear about it and they will run because they fear the process the game will force you to take. The other type are those that will see the end result and they will DARE to enter it. This is not a game you play. It is a game that plays you because you are playing with God. And at this time, I am ready to dive in and explore this game for the first time. I ask those willing and those brave enough to enter this journey with me. It is a real call to arms and there is SO much that is in common with Catharsis Hall and my own books that it is rather startling. And I pray that those reading this blog will catch on to the vision here and if nothing else, help me develop these terrains. Once I have the terrain, I need to develop armies for both sides that would be a reflection of the type of terrain we are dealing with. Then it is on to how the battles will be fought. And if we can do the battle through the metaphor of the game, we will in effect be battling the problems the elements of the game represent and our life will be transformed.
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