Playing the Game of "Valley"

Do you remember the movie The Truman Show? If not, you might check out this website: www.cinematherapy.com/birgitarticles/the-truman-show.html  

Briefly, a baby boy is adopted by a television company and featured as an unwitting reality show star growing up on an island. He fears the water and so is confined to his island. His whole environment is fake but he doesn’t know it until in the end he conquers his fear of water, gets into a boat and discovers the perimeters of his world. Then he breaks out. It’s a thought-provoking story.

As my readers know, I am prone to questioning “realities” and the very hand I’ve been dealt to play in this game of life on Earth. Like Truman, I suspect there’s a conspiracy to keep me prisoner in the play. You see, (another perk of growing older,) I have not busied myself to the point of not taking time to contemplate the meaning of life. It’s a fascinating subject once you get started, though I’m afraid I might lose whatever audience I have in exploring it. Everyone is too busy playing the game their own way.

I think the familiar Psalm of David, no. 23, suggests that game we all are playing as unwittingly as Truman. “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death...” Take each word by itself: walk, through, valley, shadow, death, and you get an idea of some basic truths of the human condition. For the fun of it, I’m calling the game Valley.”

Suppose we’re all dwellers in Heaven and there’s this game where we imagine an outer universe, one that is both exciting and scary. A universe where reality is not bound exclusively to goodness but fraught with opposites, namely good and evil. In the allegory of Adam and Eve in the second chapter of Genesis, it is typified by the “Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.” It is forbidden because it presents a dualistic view of creation opposite to the one God looked upon in the first chapter of Genesis and called “very good.” It suggests that the declaration of good necessarily implies its opposite, evil. Then it declares evil as real as good and often more powerful.

The “serpent,” a sneaky suggestion that there’s good in evil, causes Eve to eat of that tree and then entice Adam to do the same. Once they accept the premise of two sides to creation they are cast out of the Garden of Eden and unable to access and eat of the Tree of Life. They are cursed in countless ways and locked into the final curse of death. 

Now the game I suggest is one we’re already unwittingly playing. The object is to walk through this Valley where death hangs over everyone as a massive “shadow.” The word “through” implies that there is a way out, but what is it, where is it? Well, you see, that’s the object of the game, to find our way out of the Valley. We’re walking, that is, our steps are taking us through, but we have many choices of paths, some even backward ones. It’s up to us how long we shall tolerate the ups and downs of this game and find our way out.

The Psalmist said that we can get out more easily and fearlessly by the assurance that God is with us, showing us the way. His rules are not so much to be considered restrictive as they are freeing. Sort of like mathematics or any pure science. They guide us in the right direction but it's our choice to obey them or not.

In the movie Truman discovers his world of goodness has been contrived and fake. He breaks through into the “real” world of good and evil. Sort of like Adam and Eve, huh? And so, somehow we all have broken into this outer world, this outer darkness, this Valley of the shadow of death. Apparently, we need to find our reality of good ourselves, not by any outer stage setting, control and manipulation of others.

Quite the reverse of the Truman story, our game teaches us to break out of a world of contradictions into a wider world of the exclusive reality of good wherein is no suggestion of evil. Here we’re coming into the light, growing up as children of Light, and learning that good is all there is, continually unfolding endless aspects of itself. Boring? If it is to some, that’s their choice. They might fall for the game of Valley.

I’m here, so I must have chosen to play this game, but I don’t think I’d knowingly play it again. Once I get out I'm going to stay above the shadow by dispelling the very evidence of shadows. Heaven is all good and Good is more interesting, more exciting, and more than enough for me! 

(Shhh! Evil can go to hell!)