SPIRITUAL REALITIES: LESSONS FROM THE MOVIES... (with Vitumbiko Madhlopa)

Spiritual Realities: Lessons from the Movies...

(with Vitumbiko Madhlopa)

I know this may sound a bit selfish, but I try to get the best seat at the cinema. It always has to be somewhere at the back where I can see what everybody is doing during the movie, just in case someone decides to throw popcorn at me. Not that it happens often but I guess sitting at the back gives me a chance to have a chat while the movie is on.

However, there are some life lessons I gleaned from my experiences. Come with me on one trip that comes to mind… So here we go….

The first part of going to the cinema is really unnerving: the long queues and constant glares from the guards who just stand there (probably with no clue as to what the movie is about…) But it all pays off when I get past the guards and finally take my seat. As I take long glances at my fellow viewers sitting in the cinema room waiting for the movie to start, my mind begins to wander off…. Sitting comfortably in front of me is a young couple, probably on their first date.  On my right hand my friends are busy munching at their popcorn and helping themselves to the 2-litre drink bottle that we bought before going into the cinema. On the left I notice a little girl surrounded by at least ten other kids celebrating her birthday. The room is full of people all in different age categories and with totally different interests, yet purportedly ready to watch the movie. I ask myself what does a 60 year old man want to gain from watching high School musical? Well……….I guess this question appeals to everybody in the room. What do I gain from spending 2 hours of my valuable time glued to a big TV screen?

Suddenly the credits begin to pop up on the screen. The loud screech coming out of the gigantic speakers manages to get my thoughts back to the movie. The movie has started but they are still some people talking while others have their eyes focused on the movie. One of the children has started crying drawing the attention of all the kids sitting in the room. All this and more takes place while the movie continues to play, until the 2-hour long movie finally comes to end, leaving us yearning for more.

The emotions after the movie ends are very crucial. Sometimes I leave the movie theatre feeling like one of the main actors, fantasizing being the heroine and the impossible… I am taken up!

This all reminds me of Church. (I love sitting at the back as well, where I can throw in some conversations as the preacher presents his sermon. I guess everybody does that sometimes.)

Here are a few pointers:

• First is the young couple on their first date makes me think of new converts or those visiting Church for the very first time. They aren’t sure of what to expect but in their hearts, they hope for a great outcome.
• Some in the congregation are just like some of the cinema audience including my friends who were ready to settle down with the popcorn and the drink . These believers have their bibles ready in their hands, richly prepared to take in whatever God has prepared for them that Sabbath.
• Yet on the negative, the group of kids celebrating a birthday reminds me of those who go to church to catch up on what others have been up to during the week. They show up at church for their presence to be appreciated or maybe to socialize a little. As they talk about the wonderful and not so wonderful things that they have experienced during the week, they draw the attention of the other people away from the sermon all together! Misplaced priorities!
• In contrast, the old man reminds me of members who have endured with life: they have grown up in the Church listening to seemingly the same message, but they still attend Church every Sabbath, never tired and ever ready to listen to what God has to say to them. It is new for them all the time!
• Tragically, some “believers” are just like the security guards (and the janitors/cleaners, the ticket sellers) who never mind much about the movie until an emergency or a special thing occurs (a fire, cleaning up, enforcing order [as though they themselves are perfect] etc.). This class of people only need God when emergencies and special occasions crop up (sickness, weddings, christenings, and funerals [most likely not their own]). Other than this, they are always outside the community of believers for the rest of the time, doing their own bidding!

The silver screen has been decoratively made attractive to take the viewers on a roller coaster ride of emotions. Just like sermons are prepared to urge us on in our spiritual journey where we face the highs and lows a roller coaster ride, it is all up to us as to which group of churchgoing folk we choose to identify with. The next time you are in a cinema or watching a movie at home, think back to every Sabbath you attended Church. Are you able to watch a movie and remember what it was all about because you were paying attention? Or do you, like me, hardly remember any of the characters because you spent time talking? When in Church, will you be able to gain a lot from the sermon because you were paying attention or will you leave church in the same spiritual state that you arrived in (if not worse)? Aren’t sermons supposed to draw our minds to higher things? To seek eternal interests and hope for the better life of heaven?

It really is our power to choose whether we will be serious with the moment at hand or not. Such choices have eternally significant consequences, too, because ultimately, the question to be inevitably answered by each of us is: Are we living right?

Interestingly, Ellen G White in her book the ‘Great Controversy’ expounds on the drama that our lives on earth play as the actors*, participating in the conflict between darkness and light. The whole issue is indisputably a fight between good and evil that has played out non-stop, and everyone is involved, like it or not (thus dubbed “The Great Controversy”, visit http://thegreathope.org for a free download of the abridged version). It’s more than going to the movies, because whatever we choose to do while here on earth, we are in the thick of things throughout our lifetime!

Deep within everyone is a realisation that the human race needs hope outside of itself. Hope for an escape from the fantasy of life, cheating ourselves with elusive reality that does not seem to solve the problems and chaos around us. We need not disregard the efforts of the Divine Director (God) to catch our attention. HE wants us to choose our roles carefully in this drama, because HE knows best. Actually, HE knows the plot and has given us the ending that HE is the Hero after all (in the Bible, see Daniel 7:22 and 27; Revelation 20:12)! 

* Compare with this quote: "This world is a theatre. The actors, the inhabitants of the world, are preparing to act their part in the last great drama.” Ellen G White, Letter 141, 1902.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

CARRYING DEATH AROUND… AND NOT KNOWING IT… ARE YOU ALSO DOING NOTHING ABOUT IT?

CARRYING DEATH AROUND… AND NOT KNOWING IT…  ARE YOU ALSO DOING NOTHING ABOUT IT?

On 6^th September 1971, the newspapers in the Netherlands screamed, "El Al [Airlines] plane nearly blown up. Dutch girl got bomb from a friend' 'Dutch unsuspecting accomplice' 'Bomber-girl seduced by love and hashish.’ 

The unsuspecting accomplice bomber-girl was  a 19-year-old Dutch woman called Catharina Windemeijer (pen-name or pseudonym for Jayanti van der Meer, who was born as Jetty van der Meer). Catharina left home to backpack around Europe, and went to Serbia’s capital, Belgrade. What drew her to Belgrade? She told her mom she would be visiting friends there… She was a hippie, the popular lifestyle of the time, attracted to living a life of sex, drugs, and seeking after freedom. (“Hippies often dressed unconventionally, lived communally, and used psychedelic drugs.” From Microsoft® Encarta® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.)

Whilst still in Belgrade, she met a Lebanese young man (who she calls George in an interview). George was asked for the popular Lebanese hashish, which he said he had, and that’s how he joined their group.

 

George then asked Catharina to take some things to his home in Bethlehem, in Israel, all because he wanted to go to the United States of America. He asked her to bring to his family a letter and presents! It doesn’t make much sense, does it? But how did she accept to go on such a bizarre errand? She openly says she was constantly stoned (under the influence of drugs), and she didn’t think any further that this was a strange proposition.

So George went ahead and bought the plane tickets! Then they went together to Rome from where she was to fly out to Tel Aviv, Israel. At the last moment, George asked her to also take with her to his home a big suitcase that he had been carrying around. She obliged, and packed her clothes there, then the presents they had bought together for his family.

They then said goodbye, although George talked rather less than normal over the coffee they had shortly before her departure. She assured him that all would be fine and that they would meet again in three days, as she was supposed to come back in three days. she'd be coming back in three days? Why couldn’t he go to his home and deliver the items himself, then?

On the plane to Tel Aviv, Catharina met a Jewish young man who was her seatmate on the plane. He found Catharina’s story strange – letter, presents, and all – and gave her his phone number to call him in case something went wrong.

In Bethlehem, she searched for the address George had given her, and it turned out that such an address never existed! She felt terrible with no money to get back! Now her mind started to work! She went to the Police, who, after a futile search for the address and asking around about George’s non-existent family, put her up in a hotel for the night. She was restless and terrified that night, hearing shooting and sounds of war all around! Then a thought struck her that the suitcase seemed to have a false bottom! Catharina thinks that it was her guardian angel who revealed that one!

She called the Jewish man she had met on the plane, and when they met, she told him of her suspicion, then they cut open the false bottom with a knife he had. Lo and behold, there was a high pressure bomb hidden there, all ready to explode! They informed the Police, who analysed that such bombs would detonate with a change of pressure, in this case, if there had been a lowering of the pressure in the luggage area of the plane! But the El Al Airlines plane she took had the same pressure in the passenger and luggage areas, so the bomb couldn’t have gone off!

When she finally got back home in the Netherlands, she realised that she didn’t know much about the world… that she was so ignorant… she had just been blandly living one day to the next! She realised that she needed to make extreme changes for a positive turnaround! So she took the bold step to change – no more drugs, pursue a career, be wiser about the world, and trust no one. She never saw nor heard of that George she met in Belgrade again! She is better at trusting people!

Friends, there is plenty to learn from this episode. The devil helps us carry our own doom: in what we see, do, hear, eat, drink, read… the list is endless!! Many never question why they keep on doing what they do, why they keep to the level of existent and beliefs that they stick to! No wonder many fall for Satan’s double raw deal: a suitcase with a false bottom of transient pleasures… and we carry it ourselves… at our own expense! And in the unfortunate event that the bomb explodes, it affects many of those around us because we don’t sin in a vacuum!

It ever seems strange that many flock after the devil’s ways: a being they have never known or seen, and yet they spite the much better alternatives found in a God-led life! If the argument is that, “I have never seen God either,” then the most reasonable option to follow in making a decision is to follow the unseen Leader with a better end! That just makes sense! And only God makes such sense!

If that is not convincing enough, history tells us of another Jewish Man, born in Bethlehem, who was ‘forced’ by love to disregard Eternity in order that HE shows us a better way to live – a way that HE had intended when HE created all that there is! Jesus did all HE could to highlight how myopic our vision was… how we could not see through the many false bottoms in the suitcases that we were carrying… HE unravelled the futility of a merry-go-round and meaningless life without HIS magic divine formula of obedience in love!

Those of us who have deliberately taken a dose of this divine prescription can confidently declare and testify that Jesus stills the cacophony and noise of men’s restless plodding through life, and that HE gives peace and purpose today and the hope for an even better life hereafter! You don’t get a double raw deal with HIM, it is a winner that you get today, which assures of the win awaiting in the future! There are no hidden costs and no luggage to carry around as a condition attached to the free ticket to eternal life that God gives!

The Bible has great life examples of those that made the right choice when they encountered Christ. We can learn from them a great deal:

MOSES: At the prime of life, Moses rebuffed the opulence of Egyptian royalty, and saw through the false bottom of the “pleasures of sin” that are “for a season” (Hebrews 11:25). The verse blatantly accepts that sin has “pleasures”, but, in the final analysis, they are sinful pleasures, and nothing good has ever arisen from sin! As mortal men, we are being reminded that we are limited in our vision if left to ourselves! Moses is immortalised as the epitome of meekness and spiritual leadership today, whilst, for the few Egyptian pharaohs we know of, it is their wealth and tombs that we know of, and nothing else of note! What a difference!

 

SOLOMON: The wise King Solomon says “There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” Proverbs 14:12, and Solomon repeats himself, “There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” Proverbs 16:25. If there are two ways to choose from – God and Satan – Solomon is telling us that choosing on our own, which has a high propensity to be wrong if done without God’s leading, leads to ways of death. Then the verse also clearly says that the way that has Satan at the head leads to “ways of death”! Note plurality here: one way leads to many ways of death! There are numerous ways that Satan leads lost lives to end in utter ruin and destruction – lustful indulgencies, addictions, and a deliberate disregard to the wooing of the Almighty to live right! There is always the better alternative to choose that is found in God’s way! This is coming from a king who had the wisdom to advise aright. The immense wealth and fame he had did not spoil his perceptions! We can learn from that. And remember that Solomon reminds us not once, but twice in one book!

If this DOUBLE REMINDER from King Solomon is not enough, there is TRIPLE REMINDER that strikes the point home even louder:

JOB says: “And unto man he said, Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.” Job 28:28.

DAVID then reiterates: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do his commandments...” Psalm 111:10

SOLOMON then comes in again to concur, probably taking the cue from his father, David: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.” Proverbs 9:10. Solomon goes further to disclose the foolishness and dire consequences of not heeding this divine call: Proverb 1:7 “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.” Proverbs 2:5 “Then shalt thou understand the fear of the LORD, and find the knowledge of God.” Proverbs 10:27              “The fear of the LORD prolongeth days: but the years of the wicked shall be shortened.”

PAUL: Paul tells us that the greatest loss to man is the missed entry to the eternal interests that Jesus offers! “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Romans 6:23. Satan’s many alternatives come with a useless baggage of avoidable disease, emotional disequilibrium, and lost resources – money, time… you can name it! and then all these lead to one thing – death! And it’s eternal death for those who shall have no hope in living eternally!

If Catharina saw that she was running a fruitless race in what I could loosely call her ‘basic’ lifestyle, why can’t we see the higher spiritual stakes that surround our lives? These are issues that need our utmost attention to make a positive turnaround too! Without such a bold step to change, like Catharina, one wrong decision will lead another: each probably greater than the last!

Let me invite you to come and unburden your heavy load at the Cross of Christ and let HIM lead the way? Matthew 11:28 “Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” You will never go astray again! John 14:6 “I am the way, the truth, and the life….”

Are you too busy for God that you don’t really care to make a decision in HIS favour? Think again about the dreary and bleak option you are choosing to following by not doing anything about God! You can find time for God! After all, HE created time in the first place and if you are willing, HE can help you make time for HIM! With HIM at the helm, you will be assured you are heading right into Eternity where you are meant to be according to Christ’s promise of restoration in John 14:2,3 “…I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.”

It’s all in your favour! Choose life! Choose Christ! God bless you!

Mthusani.

ELEGY FOR ELLICOTT (by Dr Dwight K. Nelson, August 22nd, 2012)

ELEGY FOR ELLICOTT

(by Dr Dwight K. Nelson, August 22nd, 2012)

They grew up together in this small Maryland town, those two 19-year-old college coeds. Summer was their favorite season. And what’s not to like about a sultry night high atop the railroad bridge in Ellicott City? Which is where Elizabeth and Rose were dangling their feet this Monday around midnight—their last night before heading back to college. The view beneath the stars above that sleepy neighborhood is why the bridge has been a favorite destination for generations.

The young women tweeted their friends. “Drinking on top of the Ellicott City sign.” “Looking down on old ec.” Photos attached to their tweets “showed their view from the bridge and their bare feet, one with painted blue toenails, dangling over the edge.” Another tweet, “Levitating.”

Minutes later a CSX freight trained loaded to the brim with coal thundered down the tracks toward the bridge. Witnesses later described the squealing of brakes and the roar of a crash, as the train derailed, dumping its payload of coal onto the dark city street beneath the bridge. The two girls’ bodies were later found beneath the coal.  “Friends tweet before dying in Maryland train derailment” read the headline (South Bend Tribune 8-22-12).

Is the story a metaphor of life anymore? Beyond the bitter pain and loss of two young friends and two devastated families, that terrible tragedy in Ellicott City remains a tale of how quickly, how in an instant life as we know it can change. Irreparably change. Forever.

The ancient writer Paul in Holy Scripture scribbled a prophecy once of how the world—the one you and I live in and call “home”—will end. Read his prediction—even just once—and you, too, will sense how eerily similar to Ellicott City is this prophecy.... (Could this be 1 Thessalonians 5:2?)

Because it is dark. The night is rising. And the end is thundering through the midnight toward us. But you don’t have to be found tweeting the night away oblivious to the impending.... [W]e can face the rising night together. With Him.