Pastoral Ponderings- Wii Want to Play!
“Wii want to play too!” say the cats when I’m on the Wii fitness program. You might remember the Wii video game system—about the only video “game” I play these days isn’t really a game, but their fitness tracker. Not quite a game, but it is a fun way to make sure your wonderful culinary creations don’t make me get too big for my britches!
But those Wii images that are so fun even cats want to play, are they really there, or just illusions? In a sense they’re NOT there—no cute little Wii Mii (that’s what they call the characters we make to represent us) wearing the goatee, no colorful letters or bouncing images cats love to chase—they are only illusions caused by light, or more accurately, controlled electrical impulses that provide the illusion of something else.
Yet those less than real images elicit real behavior and physical reactions—from the playful cats chasing the light (or falling off the cabinet!) to a real understanding of changing body weight, to eliciting a significant loss of weight because of the illusion of rewards it brings (you get a stamp each day, and you can beat weight goals those illusory electrical impulses help you set!)
What’s really real, and what do we experience that is more akin to illusions that shape our lives? Maybe I should add this to the Big Questions series, cuz it feels pretty big. But since what is unreal can still shape behaviors and bodies—like the electrical impulses shaping the bouncing images that I see on my Wii– maybe a better question would be something like how can we make sure that whatever shapes us is at least shaping us in Godly directions?
I think I’ll cheat here with this one and give some clues from our upcoming message on who God is. The passages we will be using highlight two foundational realities—God is love—from I LETTER of John, chapter 4; and from the GOSPEL of John, chapter 14, that when we see Jesus, we see the Father. I think these are clues to point toward how we could be shaping what influences us, so when we make sure that whatever is shaping us is making us more loving, that’s a Good thing and a God thing. And when whatever we’re doing is giving us a better look at Jesus, that too is a Real and Good thing (even if it comes from silly cats!).
Stuff around us does in fact help shape us—whether it is real, or as illusory as images on a screen. The GOOD news is that we get to shape much of what shapes us, and we can control our reactions to even more of those externals we can’t control. Like I don’t have much control over the hundreds of dollars we just spent on fixing the car, but I CAN control my attitude in response to that bill, like I can be thankful it wasn’t a whole lot more, considering the mileage on that car!
So maybe like those cats, Wii could play a bit more with what goes on around us—as long as our playing helps us get closer to the love God calls us to!
Keep being a blessing- Pastor Jim