Tuesday, March 01, 2005
Spiderweb: Day 1 (my only day)
All the rage on the seminary campus this week is a game called spiderweb. Today I received a watergun and a card in my mail. On the card was the name of someone else playing that I was to then shoot with the watergun. The game proceeds as I shoot my target, I then assume their target, and so on, until the end of the week or until I am the last one standing.

The game commenced at 6 pm. I was shot dead at 6:28 on my way to class, victim of an overzealous, trigger-happy dormmate.

I blame this as a product of a personal character flaw. Perhaps it's more a character eccentricity. One thing I've learned about myself recently is just how trusting I am. I consistently give people the benefit of the doubt. I inherently look for the best in people. I want to trust that people are good.

And that's just not a productive skill when it comes to the game of Spiderweb. I didn't even get a chance to fill my watergun.

*******

Over the weekend several of us partook of the theater. A group at University of Kentucky had adapted The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis for the stage. I was impressed as that's not easy material to translate to a visual medium.

One scene we ended up chewing on during the ride back home involved a woman (happily content in the bliss of heaven) and what appeared to what was once her husband, a deformed, passive man manipulated by a puppet with severe co-dependency issues. At one point, the man/puppet lets out a pathetic squeal, "What do you mean you don't NEED me anymore?"

So our discussion gravitated towards our own need of people and what that might look like in eternity. The thought escaped someone's lips that perhaps in heaven we won't need people. That wasn't my impression at all. The thought left with me was that in eternity all our needs are filled by God Himself--all of those needs we mistakenly and tragically seek satisfaction for in those unfortunate souls in our immediate vicinity.

The thought left with me is not that in heaven I won't need people or community. It is that, simply, I will not need.

posted by Peter at 12:08 AM
| | permalink |