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Strive to Rest: The Shadow World
The interpretation of the Sabbath in the various (monotheistic ) religions, although assigned to different days is basically the same confusion. I want to take a minute to discuss this problem that clouds the overall understanding of all human beings in general.
Let’s use the metaphor of how a movie is made, but building or design or construction of anything works on the same principle. When you go to the movies what do you see? You see a film or the projection of images on the big screen. And for most, hardly a thought is given to how these images that comprise the movie made it up there to the big screen.
For the most part we get caught up in the story, and just want to be entertained. But all movies begin first with a script. The script begins in the mind of the writer. It begins as an idea and then slowly images arise in the imagination. Then a structure is imposed over ideas, other new scenes emerge in the imagination, and the scenes are then organized into three sections. Most scripts have a set-up, then a complication, and finally a resolution; not always but this is generally the form of most movies. Scripts are the beginning point for what you see on the big screen.
This is basically and simplistically the beginning point for the creative process for movie making. Now using this film making process as a metaphor let me take you to Plato. Plato had it right when he said the real world is a world of idea and the physical world that we open our eyes to everyday is the “shadow world.” So in movie making assigning the creative process and likening it unto the unseen world, the world of imagination ideas and creativity, we have a good model from which we can begin to understand the physical world that is likened unto the image you see on the big screen. The Bible calls it the valley of the shadow of death. We are born into a physical world of low accelerations. We find explanation of this predicament we find ourselves in also mentioned in the book of Romans that says,
…the whole creation was subject to vanity, not willingly, but by
reason of Him who subjected the same in hope. Rom. 8: 20
So, our mental focus and hence for the most part, our entire consciousness is conditioned by the outer world, which is like looking at the big screen. We are distracted by the outer world, rather then understanding and learning to grasp the world of ideas, as Plato calls it our the unseen world, or back to the metaphor; the script. As I said before most people are locked up in their focus on the image on the big screen not the unseen: the script. Human beings are almost totally focused on the world of the shadow, or the shadow world.
Even those that handle interpretation of the bible are suffering from this same focus, on the outer world or shadow world, and do not understand the realm of “the Spirit”. Hence translations of the Bible are affected by this dilemma that is a consistent pervasive intrusion into our conscious mind.
The Kingdom of Heaven is within
Ken Klein
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