Mysticism in the Media: Journey

SPOILER WARNING: If you haven't played Journey, don't read this post until you have.

I played Journey (a video game published by thatgamecompany) last weekend, and I can honestly say that it is the most spiritual game I have ever come across.

Journey consists of two travelers (you and someone online) trying to cross a desert in order to reach a holy mountain. On this "journey", completely lacking dialogue, you encounter many things which would not make sense if I tried to describe them to you. But these things are its very strength, for omnipresent in the game is a sense of the unspeakable. The marvelous beauty that permeates the game doesn't quite make sense intellectually, but it hints at some higher meaning that can't be expressed in words. On this note, many points throughout the game give one a feeling of transcendence, by which I mean they offer a taste of something greater than or above our everyday experience. It is the only game I have ever played that instilled in me a sense of reverence, along with those of wonder and awe.

I am so enthralled with this game that I want to share it with you in its entirety. I want to show you the parts that were beautiful and transcendent to me. For that reason, here is an hour-long YouTube play-through. If you feel intimidated, don't worry; I will list the times for each part I find significant, so you can skip to them.

The first moment I really knew that this game was special happened at 2:10. As the Journeyer climbs atop a sand dune, we see an enormous mountain in the distance, topped with a bright light. It immediately conjured up cultural memories of divine mountaintops like Mount Sinai, and stirred the emotions connected with them. But more importantly, it gave me an overwhelming impression of "bigness", giving me an equally staggering realization of my own nothingness when compared with the divine.

The next significant moment actually happens in several places. The first instance occurs at 6:45 The journeyer sits meditatively in front of a stone altar, surrounded by the light the pillars around him provide. Immediately we cut to some kind of vision. He sees the outline of some kind of being, shrouded by light. It then proceeds to stylistically show him the way forward. In the next instance, at 15:30, we see it clearly for the first time: a being much like the Journeyer himself, only bigger and clothed in white. It then almost affectionately leans over him and again shows him the path ahead. This being clearly represents the divine, but it does not merely copy his shininess or his love. It also exhibits the mystery of divine, the incomprehensibility of the God so lacking in most depictions of him.

After an interim encounter at 25:50, another instance begins at 32:20. The Journeyer attempts to cross a chasm, but falls into a pit. He attempts another vision, but alas, this godly being looks away, as if disappointed. This immediately made me think of the times when I had failed in my pursuit of the virtuous and thus let down God. Needless to say, it struck a chord in me. And yet, the being still shows him the way forward: there is still hope, even if laden with suffering.

After two more visions, the next scene begins at 1:08:20. The desert has turned to ice, and the Journeyer trudges on through the snow, growing weaker by the second. He keeps going until the very last moment, even going as far as to crawl. But ultimately he cannot go on anymore, and he falls down and expires. At 1:09:30, the screen fades to white. Suddenly, you see the Journeyer again, only standing behind him are not one, but six of the divine beings. They surround him with light, and all of a sudden his scarf (what enables him to fly, and what had been cut short in a brutal blizzard) is magnificently restored. This is nothing less than resurrection, in all its connotations. Not only is the body restored to its magnificent fullness, but the Journeyer now has the grace of whatever beings brought him back to life. This scene is an artistic representation of the infinite grace of God - no matter to what depths you have sunk, he will always help you ascend.

Now, what happens from 1:11:05 on I shall not put into words, because I believe that would negate its beauty. It suffices to say that it is one of the most amazing and spiritually significant things I have ever seen portrayed in media, and that it exhibits the ideal of transcendence and even reverence in a way I wouldn't have thought possible.

Journey is amazing. I have never experienced any video game (or perhaps any other form of media) quite like it, as it is nothing less than a mystical experience packaged in game form. Finally, if you haven't played the game, (and therefore, if you're reading this, didn't heed my warning) please go do it as soon as you can. It's an experience you will never forget.

Why God?

I feel that at this point in my blog's lifetime, I should write an apology. By that I don't mean that I am going to say that I am sorry for the things I have written. Instead, what I mean by an apology is a defense of my beliefs and opinions, much like Plato's famous dialogue. The first belief I will defend (and the subject of this post) will be the existence of God, something that I hope will enlighten believers and unbelievers alike.

But first, a disclaimer: by God I do not (yet) mean the God of Mormon doctrine, body and all. A defense of that concept will hopefully come later. Instead, I mean God in the most general sense: a conscious entity from which all things derive their being (in one way or another).

To begin, let me ask you a question: does anything ever last? The inevitable answer that I have come to again and again is "no". Everything, whether it is a nation, a work of art, or even a human life will be ultimately extinguished, meaning that there is absolutely nothing you can do to ensure the immortality of you or anyone you love. You will die and be forgotten, and there is nothing you can do about it.

But there's more. Have you ever thought about how enormous the universe is? One article says that it is 28 billion light-years across (for perspective, a light-year is about 5 trillion miles). And in all that space, how much of it will you see in your lifetime? The cold, hard truth is that you as an individual will only experience a tiny fraction of one percent of this enormous place we live in. What's more, even the world close by is as inaccessible, as you will never live in the body of another, think another's thoughts, or see through another's another's eyes. This makes me exclaim: what a huge waste of space! You will only ever be you, and that you will only ever see one grain of sand on that beach we call the universe.

This infinite world tells me that I will never partake of it, as I am only a finite speck. When confronted with this limitedness, you'd think the only reasonable response would be hopelessness. But I have another way. To the whole universe, I scream "NO". I simply refuse to believe that it could be so poorly designed, and I insist that it must be run some other way. In order for the universe to be worth living in at all, there must be something that connects us to the infinite. This thing is God, and without it suicide is the only rational option.

The majestic truth at the heart of the idea of God is that I come from him, as everything that I am, along with everything else in the universe, derives its being from my magnificent creator. This means that my essence, who I ultimately am, is shared with all other things. I am a branch on the tree of which God is the trunk, a river which flows into a divine ocean. God is the promise that I am connected with the entirety of being, that I can take part in the infinite. Ultimately, in a universe without God, I am nothing; in one with God, I am everything.

I believe in God because the only universe worth living in includes him. Some may say this is wishful thinking, and they may be right. However, I don't think that this is a problem. Call me ignorant if you want, but I would rather be happy and deluded than hopeless and right.

The Heterogeneous Church

John Winthrop (1587-1649) was an English-American lawyer famous for being one of the founders of Massachusetts. Here's a painting of him:

However, he is arguably most well known for a sermon he gave en route to America, entitled A Model of Christian Charity. In it, he famously uses the term "a city on a hill", taken from Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, to describe how the settling Puritans should be an exemplar to the rest of the world. But to me, the most important part of the sermon is how he treats the problem of inequality. He says that inequality in wealth as a part of society is not necessarily a bad thing, for the following paraphrased reasons:

1. So that God could have more opportunities to manifest his glory (in the rich man, the poor man, etc.).
2. So that there can be more opportunities for people to show the goodness of God (like how the rich man doesn't abuse the poor, or how the poor man doesn't rebel).
3. So that people need each other (if there were no poor, there wouldn't be anyone to do the dirty work; if there were no rich, there wouldn't be any employers)

Although I'm quite liberal, and therefore am hesitant to say that there shouldn't be economic equality, these are nonetheless amazing ideas. Rather than apply them to the rich and poor, here I will show several examples of how they apply to the inequalities and heterogeneity in the Church.

First, one of the main complaints about the Church from non-members is that women do not have the priesthood. It is the doctrinal issue which every non-misogynistic member must necessarily struggle with at some point in their lives, as it seems to be extremely unfair. I do not deign to understand the mysteries of God and the church's doctrines, but perhaps we can better understand this policy if we appeal to Winthrop's three reasons. Perhaps part of the reason women do not  have the priesthood is so that there can be multiple ways for people to follow God. Being a priesthood-holding father involves a different set of responsibilities than a non-priesthood-holding mother. This doesn't mean that one path is any better than the other. On the contrary, each is distinctly vital to the success of the family and the Church. But the really important bit is that this set of multiple paths to God is infinitely more fulfilling than if there were only one. Imagine if everyone had exactly the same set of responsibilities as everyone else: there would only be one way to do good, meaning that the piano of God's goodness would only be playing the same note over and over again. For the goodness of God is varied and diverse, and can be expressed in as many ways as can be imagined.

You can apply the same principles to the hierarchy of the Church. The prevailing spiritual ideal since the Enlightenment is that people should seek for spiritual truth on their own, without being bogged down by any organized religion. While the Church's doctrines agree with this sentiment to an extent, (we emphasize personal revelation a lot) it is unavoidably true that it is an institution, and not merely a group of people searching after spiritual truth. In this religion, a person simply can't worship merely as the Spirit prompts them. Members are supposed to go to meetings, fulfill callings and learn from lessons. It would seem, at least on the surface, much better if we could follow the promptings of our own hearts, and worship how we please. After all, isn't that a much more democratic and egalitarian way of doing things? John Winthrop would disagree. For if someone worships in the ways that the Church approves of, they fulfill another democratic ideal: interdependence. When a member goes to Sacrament Meeting, he or she can't be spiritually filled unless certain people (the deacons, the priests, the speakers, etc.) do their jobs. In so many words, it causes worshipers to need each other. These institutions of worship make sure that we aren't all cut off from each other, as they tie us together in an intricate net of responsibility and love.

In summary, we are infinitely better off being diverse and heterogeneous than we would be if we were uniform and homogeneous. It lets us enjoy the benefits of variety and the virtue of interdependence. It ultimately makes us a better people.

The Resurrection According to Rob Bell

In the past, I never really got Easter. It celebrates Christ's resurrection, but a big part of me has always asked "what does that have to do with me"? The atonement is understandably very important, but Easter celebrates something that happened three days later, that has nothing to do with Christ's all-encompassing sacrifice. Compared with this atonement and my own resurrection, the actual bodily arising of Christ seemed like just a mere historical event to me, without any impact on my life. Then, I saw this video:

It is by Rob Bell, who is, as far as Protestants go, my favorite preacher. He is renowned for putting a shiny new coat of paint on Christianity, to make it more accessible to a modern audience. But he is also very good at seeing to the heart of the Christian story and understanding the common themes that tie all the doctrines together, kind of like a less-eloquent C. S. Lewis.

This video is an example of that tendency. He takes the resurrection story, something that people usually see on the surface level, and analyzes its personal and metaphysical connotations. Essentially, he says that the resurrection of Christ means that nothing good will ever be lost or forgotten. While we may be tempted to think that all good things will ultimately come to an end, he says that "every fair act of business or trade" and "every kind word" matters. Resurrection means that though despair, worry, evil or death may seem to win the battle, it is only a temporary victory, and that hope, goodness and life will win the war. It means that the world is and ultimately will be a good place, where everything virtuous, lovely, of good report or praiseworthy lives and goes on.

What I took away from this is that when we celebrate Easter, we aren't necessarily celebrating Christ's resurrection alone. We are celebrating the inevitable resurrection of the entire world, including me, you and everything good that you've come to know.

I leave this message with you, hoping that we all will see that goodness and life will win the war, and that evil and death will lose. Happy Easter!

Clarification

I would like to make a clarification concerning this blog and all past and future blog posts. While at times it may seem that my posts claim to state an absolute truth, that is the wrong impression. In reality, all of my posts are merely my opinion. In fact, they could be completely false.

So, if I say in a future blog post "this is so", realize that I do not actually mean what I write. I am always open to the possibility that I could be wrong. Keep that in mind.

One Eye: Meister Eckhart and D&C 76

Eckhart von Hochheim, also known as Meister Eckhart, was a German mystic and theologian who lived in the 13th and 14th centuries.

Highly controversial in his own time, his ideas are a beautiful interpretation of the time's Christian faith. One of the my favorites of these ideas is as follows:

“The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me; my eye and God's eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, one love.” 

This wonderful quotation expresses an idea I hold very close to my heart, that God experiences what we do. He thinks our thoughts, hears the things we hear and sees the things we see. Interestingly enough, the D&C expresses almost exactly the same idea in Section 76 (verse 94):

"Those who dwell in his presence are the church of the Firstborn; and they see as they are seen, and know as they are known, having received of his fulness and of his grace." 

This expresses that those who dwell in God's presence shall "see as they are seen" and "know as they are known". These expressions, although they may seem cryptic, are actually quite clear. For what does it mean to "see as you are seen"? I would imagine that it signifies my potential ability able to see through God's (or anyone else's) eyes and look at myself. Because I potentially perceive the world through the eye with which God is already looking, we would have "one seeing".

The above scriptures also has another implication. Namely, if we "see as we are seen", the vision "in-to-out" and "out-to-in" are the same. This means that inside and outside are really just two ends of the same thing. This scripture magnificently unifies subject with object, signifying that they are one. This personally brings me immense comfort, as I oftentimes feel cut off from the rest of being.

Thank you for reading. Please comment!

Mere Christianity, Zen, and Being Saved After All that We Can Do

Lately, I've been really impressed by C. S. Lewis.

Though I read the Chronicles of Narnia a long time ago, I have refrained from reading his more adult-oriented books for a long time. This is partially out of laziness and partially because I was suffering under the delusion that an orthodox theologian and author could not be profound. I could not have been more wrong. I read the Screwtape Letters first, and was shocked. What I thought would be satirical moralizing was actually full of penetrating spiritual insights. I soon become hooked on Lewis. Ravenous for more, I began Mere Christianity. I was initially disappointed, as its beginning was surprisingly un-profound. However, I soon discovered that it was due to Lewis' covering of the basics. As soon as he swam into "deeper waters", the amazing spiritual insights came back. Just before I began writing this, I came across one that was so amazing that felt compelled to share it and the connections I made with it. That's what this blog post is about.

The stupendous spiritual insight about which this post concerns can be found in the two chapters where Lewis discusses the phenomenon of faith. In the first chapter he gives a fairly practical definition, namely that faith is "the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods".  A little un-profound, eh? No matter. He spends the next one-and-a-half chapters defining faith in a second, greater way. He begins by making the following observation:

"The main thing we learn from a serious attempt to practise [sic] the Christian virtues is that we fail."

In other words, the inevitable result of an attempt to follow the Christian virtues to the letter is failure. We will fall short, one way or another. However, this does not mean that we should give up at the get-go. On the contrary, the realization of our inadequacy and the tireless effort that results in it are integral to our spiritual development. Lewis explains how in the next passage:

"All this trying leads up to the vital moment at which you turn to God and say, 'You must do this. I can't.'"

We give up. The ultimate result of  your continued trying and the subsequent realization of your shortcomings is that you stop trying to be virtuous (in a sense) and instead "leave it to God". This does not mean that you cease to be a virtuous person. Instead, if you have really handed yourself over to God, it means that you are trying to be virtuous in a new, less worried way. In Lewis' words, "not doing these things in order to be saved, but because He has begun to save you already". Furthermore, this giving up means that you put all your trust in God, trusting that Christ will share his perfect obedience with you and make you a man more like himself.

Essentially, Lewis observes that if you give yourself up to God after trying as hard as you can and inevitably failing, God will act through you to make you a virtuous person. This struck me as incredibly familiar, in two ways. One of them will probably be familiar to any practicing Mormon, but I'll treat that second. First, this reminded me of the teacher-student interactions in Zen Buddhism (as I understand it from the various Alan Watts lectures I have listened to). In Zen, the goal is to eliminate the illusion of the ego. However, Zen acknowledges (perhaps implicitly) that nearly everyone will cling to their ego-hood no matter how much you try to persuade them that it doesn't exist. It is like a a person who is convinced beyond all doubt that the world is flat. How do you convince them otherwise? You can't persuade them, so the only way to show them the error of their belief is to actually walk them around the circumference of the world. Similarly, a Zen master tries to show the student the ego is illusory by demonstrating it to him. He does this by presenting him with double-binds (as Watts terms them), such as a challenge "to be spontaneous". Obviously, the attempt to be spontaneous is directly opposed to actual spontaneity. The idea is that after you have engaged in this futile struggle for too long, you will realize that the whole game is based on the idea of the ego. It is the ego that is trying to be spontaneous, and it is impossible to try to be spontaneous because the ego doesn't exist! So as soon as the Zen student sincerely gives up on the double bind, he realizes the illusion of his ego. I trust you see the similarity. Just as the Zen student's giving up on the impossible double-bind leads to the realization of his ego's illusion, the Christian's giving up on the impossible quest to follow Christian virtues leads to his salvation.

If one recognizes some truth from Zen, (which I do) we can make some important connections. First, we realize that Christian virtues can be seen as a double-bind. It is impossible to follow them exactly, so perhaps they have some purpose behind them other than simply the quest to obey. That brings us to the second connection. Perhaps there is something in common between realizing the ego is an illusion and letting Christ take over. Here is my postulate: Christ atoned for the entire world. One could say that he experienced everything that can be experienced. It all has its commonality in Christ, as he brings everything together in his infinite atonement. Thus, we cannot say that anything exists separately from anything else. However, if one tries to perform Christian morals, inevitably your first attitude is opposed to that truth: we all see ourselves as alone. So when we give ourselves up to Christ, we acknowledge the connection that binds us to God, and realize that we cannot do anything without God doing it as well. But here's the key: we must labor under the delusion that we try to perform virtuous acts on our own because there is no escaping it by evasion. We must labor through it until the very impossibility of the quest reveals the escape to us. Furthermore, perhaps that is what the commandments are for: they are a gauntlet through which we lose our isolationist delusions.

The second connection that Mere Christianity spiritual insight (and the Zen connotations it has in my mind) has is a oft-repeated Mormon aphorism that "we are saved after all that we can do". I used to not like this phrase, as to me it reeked of moralism and earn-your-way-to-heaven theology. I now understand that does not merely consist of God deciding what is "all that we can do" and then rewarding us accordingly. Instead, it means that, in this life or the next, our tireless effort directly causes the realization that leads to our salvation. Indeed, I believe that C. S. Lewis's spiritual insight is precisely what this aphorism is talking about: when we have tried as hard as we can, the inevitable realization that we cannot possibly achieve salvation alone causes us to give ourselves up to God.