Every so often, rarely, over the course of an attentive life, we might receive a spiritual epiphany—a glimpse of the true nature of the reality behind the reality. A glimpse behind the curtain, so to speak. I had one of those this past week in regards to…
Minecraft and the Universe.
It’s all so clear now. So simple. I’m shocked I hadn’t seen it all along. For those of you unfamiliar with Minecraft, what have you been doing these past fifteen years! Ehem, I apologize for the outburst. But in video game years, Minecraft is basically 125 years old. It’s a simple game with low resolution graphics based on gathering resources and building stuff. The low resolution graphics (during an era of increasingly realistic graphics) enables the game to generate an endless map. Essentially, the world never ends. It’s infinite. That’s the first important aspect to keep in mind.
The second is that Minecraft has different play modes. The main two play modes are “Survival” and “Creative.” Survival mode is pretty much what it sounds like. Your little avatar has to scrape and scrap for every resource he/she gathers. And all the while, little nasties are lurking around every corner, behind every tree, in the depths of every cave, intent on ending your life and/or destroying everything you’ve worked so hard to build/craft. There are even little, silent-footed green guys known as “creepers” who have gunpowder for a heart. Their single purpose in life is to silently creep up behind you and explode. These guys are completely politically incorrect suicide bombers. Only the strongest strata in the game can survive their blast (or a solid set of iron or diamond armor). In addition to creepers, a Minecraft survivalist must keep a watchful eye out for skeletons, spiders, witches, endermen, shulkers, spider jockeys, phantoms, slimes, and the worst of all…silverfish. (I hate those pesky little suckers!)
On the flip side, “Creative” mode is unburdened by hostile mobs. Nothing is trying to kill you or destroy your work. Your life is eternal. And equally important, resources are unlimited. All the precious items that take an entire Minecraft lifetime to acquire in survival mode can simply be crafted with the snap of your virtual fingers in creative mode.
Best of all, you can fly in creative mode! So all the sketchy scaffolding of survival mode, all the tedious and arduous trekking is replaced by leaping up into the infinite sky and whisking past the scenery like superman! I can hardly express how much easier it is to build a mansion brick by brick when you can levitate.
Anywho, this past week the epiphany struck me like a phantom out of a black sky…like a skeleton’s arrow from the depths of a yawning cavern. Our lives here on terra firma are like playing Minecraft in survival mode. To be more exact, our earthly lives are like playing survival Minecraft on the highest difficulty setting of “Hardcore.” We barely have a breath for creativity. Our waking hours are spent scrambling for resources just to survive the night and work like crazy the next day. And we only have one life. We only get one chance. Screw up it, and taste the cold, cold frost of the grave.
But heaven? Our life in the hereafter is like playing Minecraft on creative mode.
If you were raised anything like me, you were taught that heaven is a glittery place among the clouds where all the good people (the people like you) play harps and sing hymns for eternity. There will be streets of gold and burnished stuff. I now think most of this imagery is hooey. I think a better description of heaven would be something like, “participating in the ongoing, eternal creative endeavors of God.”
In other words, heaven is playing Minecraft in creative mode. All the stuff we grind for right now…minus the little nasties trying to end us and explode everything…with unlimited resources…and we can fly! Booyah. Now that’s a game I’m willing to get in line for.
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