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.
Saturday, November 30, 2013
Thursday, November 28, 2013
The Terrain of the Seven Deadly Sins
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.
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.
Sunday, November 17, 2013
The Action of Faith
Very interesting this morning as I listened to a sermon from Eric Ludy he preached last week and as I sat in the sermon at my church this morning. Both sermons were on the same subject: The Action of Faith. First we need to define what faith is. Faith is frequently described as the well known phrase "blind faith", that is belief without reason or without evidence. But this is not faith at all. If you look at every other faith besides atheism, you will find faith is defined by a very different standard. And that standard is pretty clear in Hebrews 11:1.
"Now Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen."
Faith is not just some blind belief. It is KNOWING that something you don't not have manifest right now will take place. It is interesting how the atheist think faith is blind without evidence and claim that science has or will have all the answers. Yet very few fields demonstrate the carrying out of faith better than science. Every time a science experiment is carried faith is exercised. How? Every time an experiment is carried out, the scientists does not know that the laws of science are actually going to hold up. They expect they will because they have seen it take place over and over and over again. But when it comes to the moment of the experiment, they cannot know that they will. It a future event and they cannot know it. Expecting it to happen is not the same as knowing it will.
But faith goes beyond just expecting something to happen. It means acting on it. If I want to sky dive, I have to know about the parachute. If I don't know about the parachute, I won't think about sky diving. But once I know about the parachute, I can study it. I can watch it in action. I can believe it will hold me if I were to jump out of the plane. But knowledge and belief that it will work doesn't save me when I jump from the plane. I have to actually take the parachute and put it on. I can't just have it in my possession, I have to wear it. And I have to get on the plane.
But faith is still more than that. Faith cannot just be possessed. It MUST have action. If I have a parachute on my back, it does me absolutely no good if I do not use it. If I have a parachute and I jump, the parachute is useless if I don't pull the string. The ultimate test of faith in the parachute is in the jump. When you jump you are 100% undeniably committed. And that is where faith is carried out. It is when you can do nothing but rely on that which you have faith. Faith is exercised every time you sit on a chair and you put your weight on it. There is no going back when your weight is placed on the chair. When you skydive, the moment of truth is in the jump from the plane. You better have the certainty of things hoped for when you jump. And when you pull the string of the chute, you take life-saving action that is rooted in your faith in the parachute.
And this is how the Christian walk is based. Because of sin, we are in a doomed plane. It is going to crash and we must jump before it does. But what are we placing our faith in? What action are we going to take to demonstrate it? Are we going to deny our sin and stay on the plane? Are we going to jump? And what is our parachute? Religion? That is like tying a weight to our neck and jumping. Jesus said he was the only way unto salvation. Jesus Christ is the only parachute that will hold. He is the only one whose strings cannot be broken. And we do not accept this blindly. We have tried to see if Jesus is good and if he is true to his word. And he has never failed to hold to his word. Jesus cannot lie. He will never back off his promises and when we put Jesus on and pull the string of the parachute he has provided, we will be saved.
"Now Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen."
Faith is not just some blind belief. It is KNOWING that something you don't not have manifest right now will take place. It is interesting how the atheist think faith is blind without evidence and claim that science has or will have all the answers. Yet very few fields demonstrate the carrying out of faith better than science. Every time a science experiment is carried faith is exercised. How? Every time an experiment is carried out, the scientists does not know that the laws of science are actually going to hold up. They expect they will because they have seen it take place over and over and over again. But when it comes to the moment of the experiment, they cannot know that they will. It a future event and they cannot know it. Expecting it to happen is not the same as knowing it will.
But faith goes beyond just expecting something to happen. It means acting on it. If I want to sky dive, I have to know about the parachute. If I don't know about the parachute, I won't think about sky diving. But once I know about the parachute, I can study it. I can watch it in action. I can believe it will hold me if I were to jump out of the plane. But knowledge and belief that it will work doesn't save me when I jump from the plane. I have to actually take the parachute and put it on. I can't just have it in my possession, I have to wear it. And I have to get on the plane.
But faith is still more than that. Faith cannot just be possessed. It MUST have action. If I have a parachute on my back, it does me absolutely no good if I do not use it. If I have a parachute and I jump, the parachute is useless if I don't pull the string. The ultimate test of faith in the parachute is in the jump. When you jump you are 100% undeniably committed. And that is where faith is carried out. It is when you can do nothing but rely on that which you have faith. Faith is exercised every time you sit on a chair and you put your weight on it. There is no going back when your weight is placed on the chair. When you skydive, the moment of truth is in the jump from the plane. You better have the certainty of things hoped for when you jump. And when you pull the string of the chute, you take life-saving action that is rooted in your faith in the parachute.
And this is how the Christian walk is based. Because of sin, we are in a doomed plane. It is going to crash and we must jump before it does. But what are we placing our faith in? What action are we going to take to demonstrate it? Are we going to deny our sin and stay on the plane? Are we going to jump? And what is our parachute? Religion? That is like tying a weight to our neck and jumping. Jesus said he was the only way unto salvation. Jesus Christ is the only parachute that will hold. He is the only one whose strings cannot be broken. And we do not accept this blindly. We have tried to see if Jesus is good and if he is true to his word. And he has never failed to hold to his word. Jesus cannot lie. He will never back off his promises and when we put Jesus on and pull the string of the parachute he has provided, we will be saved.
Thursday, November 7, 2013
Practice
In sports, there is one thing an athlete does not like but knows it is absolutely critical to performance during the game or event: Practice. The best athletes in the world practice and train for hours on end. The work-out is brutal, often more intense than the game itself. Why is this? The knowledgeable athletes understand that in practice, if they can endure the workouts that expend them beyond what a game-time situation will call for, then during that game, they will be able to pull out what they need when the game's end approaches. In football, much is said about the 2-minute drill. It is a drive where you may only have one or two timeouts and 80 or more yards to travel in just two minutes of time. The teams have already played 58 minutes of football which every down is stop-full sprint, stop-full sprint. A standard offense will snap the ball 60-80 times in a game. Every player on both sides of the ball need to be in tip-top shape so that when the 2-minute drill is needed, the offense can drive to score or the defense can make that iron-wall goal-line stand. And they way they do this is to practice for hours every week.
There is more to practice than just conditioning and endurance. The best basketball players will shoot thousands of free throws in preparation for a game. Some high school coaches don't allow a player to sign on until he makes 1,000 free throws. Why is this? The coach knows the player knows how to shoot. The coach wants the player's muscles to know precisely how to shoot, the angle for the shot, the strength needed to make that angle, etc. In drills, the coach knows it does not take long for the players to grasp and understand the play they are doing. But the coach has them do it over and over and over again, well past the point of "getting it". The coach wants the players to the point where all the players have to do is hear the name of the play and they know precisely what to do without thinking about it. They also practice is so they can execute it with little variations that come about due to the scenario or opposing teams set up. The coach wants his players to react to situation the right way without thinking about it.
The same principle applies to our spiritual lives. God is not going to be satisfied with us just "learning the lesson". Why do we keep facing situations that we KNOW we have dealt with before? Sometimes it is because we "have a lesson to learn", but not always. There are times where God puts something in our path because we need to learn something. But there are also times where God puts us in situations where we have already learned the lesson long ago. It is that God thinks we forgot, but it is that God wants our spirits to be put in a situation in game-time so we will react as he wants us to without us having to think about it.
The trials and temptations we face are often not because we have sinned. It is often because God is using those to PROVE our salvation and to prove our faith. Looking back to a very specific point in time when we said a prayer can be an indication of WHEN we got saved, but if we are depending on that moment to tell if we are saved, we are missing the point. A Christian life should bear the fruit of a Christian walk. If we have a significant difference between our Sunday morning in church and our Sunday afternoon-Saturday lifestyles, there is a very good reason to check out and see if you are saved. The trials and temptations we face, the spiritual practice and drills we face, they are there to show us that we are saved. I have been buffeted with intense spiritual warfare and I know I have more coming my way. But when those battles have come, I have stood strong, relied not on the prayer I said 22 1/2 years ago, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ to get through the battle. That one particular encounter was a test. That was a game-time situation. And if I did not have the practice I had in the years prior, I would not have been able to endure through the battle. As I look back, I can see how I could have handled the battle better. And that is what more practice is for. To learn from our mistakes in the game, to prepare new moves, techniques, and tactics, and to better carry out what we already know. Game time is coming. Will we be ready to face it? Will we be able to endure through to the end of the race? And will we be able to overcome all our enemy's tactics to slow us down, trip us up, or knock us down? If we don't practice, we won't make it. We will burn out before we really get started. We have the victory in Christ, but we must walk it out. And we can't walk it out if we don't practice for it.
There is more to practice than just conditioning and endurance. The best basketball players will shoot thousands of free throws in preparation for a game. Some high school coaches don't allow a player to sign on until he makes 1,000 free throws. Why is this? The coach knows the player knows how to shoot. The coach wants the player's muscles to know precisely how to shoot, the angle for the shot, the strength needed to make that angle, etc. In drills, the coach knows it does not take long for the players to grasp and understand the play they are doing. But the coach has them do it over and over and over again, well past the point of "getting it". The coach wants the players to the point where all the players have to do is hear the name of the play and they know precisely what to do without thinking about it. They also practice is so they can execute it with little variations that come about due to the scenario or opposing teams set up. The coach wants his players to react to situation the right way without thinking about it.
The same principle applies to our spiritual lives. God is not going to be satisfied with us just "learning the lesson". Why do we keep facing situations that we KNOW we have dealt with before? Sometimes it is because we "have a lesson to learn", but not always. There are times where God puts something in our path because we need to learn something. But there are also times where God puts us in situations where we have already learned the lesson long ago. It is that God thinks we forgot, but it is that God wants our spirits to be put in a situation in game-time so we will react as he wants us to without us having to think about it.
The trials and temptations we face are often not because we have sinned. It is often because God is using those to PROVE our salvation and to prove our faith. Looking back to a very specific point in time when we said a prayer can be an indication of WHEN we got saved, but if we are depending on that moment to tell if we are saved, we are missing the point. A Christian life should bear the fruit of a Christian walk. If we have a significant difference between our Sunday morning in church and our Sunday afternoon-Saturday lifestyles, there is a very good reason to check out and see if you are saved. The trials and temptations we face, the spiritual practice and drills we face, they are there to show us that we are saved. I have been buffeted with intense spiritual warfare and I know I have more coming my way. But when those battles have come, I have stood strong, relied not on the prayer I said 22 1/2 years ago, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ to get through the battle. That one particular encounter was a test. That was a game-time situation. And if I did not have the practice I had in the years prior, I would not have been able to endure through the battle. As I look back, I can see how I could have handled the battle better. And that is what more practice is for. To learn from our mistakes in the game, to prepare new moves, techniques, and tactics, and to better carry out what we already know. Game time is coming. Will we be ready to face it? Will we be able to endure through to the end of the race? And will we be able to overcome all our enemy's tactics to slow us down, trip us up, or knock us down? If we don't practice, we won't make it. We will burn out before we really get started. We have the victory in Christ, but we must walk it out. And we can't walk it out if we don't practice for it.
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