Hidden Life

My brother's addicted to a game at the moment - it makes it hard to ever write something on my blog because he's always in a raid with 40 other people who'll be "let down" if he were to let me use my computer. I can't rightly complain about this because I used to use the same logic to prevent my dad from kicking me off the computer when my parents stayed with me for a few months last year. However it has put me in mind of a conversation I had with George yesterday concerning the corporate side of computer gaming. I was trying to justify the creation of computer games, argueing that some companies actually made the games for the pleasure of the games and not the money. Among the companies I attempted to defend was Blizzard the creators of the game my brother is currently addicted to and the game that almost resulted in me failing my third year of uni.

I got home and one of my favourite webcomics had this strip - the game here is referring to the Blizzard game too which my brother is addicted. It is not exagerrating in the slightest - I have gone through 28 hours of solid gaming with only a biscuit and a cup of tea to sustain me, and no toilet breaks. In the past this wasn't an issue, the basic premise was, I buy a game; I complete the game within a 48 hour period having bought with the game two pints of caffeine of any variant and a large pack of dorritos. Once this 48 hour period has ended the game is only 75% likely to be replayed in the next four months. Subsequent replays of a game rarely take more than a few hours as well. With Blizzard's World of Warcraft however, as with other Massive Multiplayer Online games the addiction is subject to a minimum of 4-5 months solid addiction, with the possibility of losing up to three-four years of one's life in any given game. Somehow I'm finding it difficult to maintain the justification that there isn't something inherently evil about computer gaming.

This is a concept contrary to everything people have taught me regarding things not being inherently evil only used for evil - we know this simply isn't true when we look at atomic weapons and hard drugs but why does it cease to be the case when we apply it to daytime television and computer gaming. There is no doubt in my mind that I have an addictive personality - I find the same solice in comics I do in computer games yet I do not percieve these as a similar avarice. Perhaps it is because I would estimate that I have spent between 15-25% of my life so far playing computer games, a decent percentage of that World of Warcraft.

Today my brother realised his computer was not in fact broken (having assumed it was broken for the past three months). He found this out by turning it on funnily enough something we hadn't tried for those same three months. While this meant I could have done some web research, read other people's blogs and generally check my mail and stuff my instinct was instead to resubscribe to World of Warcraft (£8.99 per month) and login. For the first time in my life I didn't enjoy computer games, I was and am depressed that I even spent the hour I did on them. It made me want to flee. I'm really hoping I won't look back... and for that matter remember to cancel my subscription.

Spurning the Safe God

I mentioned Mark Buchanan's book Your God is Too Safe in my last post. When this was first recommended to me I was adamantly against it. My mother had recommended it and in my proud opinion my mother could only ever recommend an Oprah Winfrey sponsored product (sorry mum.) She’s proven me wrong and inadvertently humbled me. The title should have been my clue that this might happen. The God of the day time chat shows, when he does exist is definitely ‘too safe.’ The topic of the book is self-revelatory in the title – Buchanan endeavours to warn us against becoming ‘stuck’ with a ‘safe God.’

The concept of an God who isn’t safe can be seen be found in C.S. Lewis’ books The Chronicles of Narnia with which Buchanan is intimately versed. Buchanan describes the vast majority of Christians as stuck in ‘Borderland’ between the realm of the world and the vibrant but dangerous realm Christ inhabits with us.

I can confidently say it is by far the best Christian publication I've read, Buchanan is well versed in theology but never actually uses jargon he doesn't flesh out and explain. I went through a rough time with my faith over the past year and a bit and God has used this book to bring about a great deal of healing and leave me hungering after more of His wisdom and love.

On Joy

I’ve been considering the Chritian Union ball on Friday night; the banter, the dancing the general glimpses of joy contrasted with comments made to me from members of the Edinburgh University CU that a ball was not within the mission statement of the Christian Union.

I had an great night wearing my pyjama’s/dress/Cameroonian chieftain’s outfit and enjoyed the pleasure of a 5 am finish and 9 am start for breakfast with some of the more hardcore ball-goers, combined with chilling in the park and again a good meal. In all it was almost 24hrs straight of social revelry (the good kind.) And I was struck by the assumption that this kind of celebration – provided God is acknowledged and worshiped in it, which He was - could ever be contrary to any Christian Organisation’s (Church or not) mission statement.

I just finished reading Mark Buchanan’s excellent book Your God is Too Safe and in the concluding chapters he talks of the importance of celebration: not the 'we should always be celebrating God and worshiping Him at every moment of every day' type of celebration but the full fledged cracking out the music and dancing, and experiencing God’s joy. He points out that there are 60 references to celebrations of God’s people in the Bible, only two of which are negative. He also points out that “Exodus, Deuteronomy and Numbers reads like a string of invitations to a non-stop whirlwind of festivals.”

Joy is a required discipline of the Christian Life, C.S. Lewis’ literary devil Screwtape describes it as an acceleration of the rhythm of the celestial experience, quite opaque to us. Opaque not because they don’t understand it as Lewis puts forward but because they have turned their back on the experience they once had of it in God’s presence. We are constantly in danger of turning our backs of the glimpses of joy God blesses us with because we think them indulgent or misleading.

But these gatherings of God’s Children, regardless of the previous mission statements and goals are glimpses of the joy of heaven, and it was for the joy that was set before Him that Christ endured the Cross*, and likewise it is those glimpses of joy that spur us heavenward towards the upward goal in Christ Jesus – they should never be underestimated.

* Hebrews 12:2