The War, Part 2

I wrote one of my first posts about "The War," meaning spiritual warfare, and a book I'm reading (Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man's Soul by John Eldredge) brought a very new and important topic up to me. I has to do with the attacks in the war.

The truth is the war is going on right now, all around us. We often don't see it, it's covert, quiet, often delivering fatal thrusts which are taken in quietly and never seen by another soul. Everyone experiences them, it's when you're on top of the world, and then suddenly everything that put you there crumbles and you find yourself falling fast and hard. It's when you're happy as can be, and your parents die, your best friend hurts you, and your girlfriend walks out on you. We all experience something like that, Christian or non. Somehow we as Christians don't seem to adequately prepare those who are newly converted thoguh. Because the truth is, those things happen more to us.

Let me put it this way, before accepting Christ you were a civilian, a bystander. You are what the war was about, but you're not directly involved. Oh you'll take a shot or two so the enemy can keep you cowed, maybe even convince you to go to his side, but you're not his main threat, and so not his main target. Become a Christian however, and you've just enlisted into the Lord's Army and are pushed onto the front line. And on the front line, surprise surprise, people shoot at you. You've been shot at before, you live in a war zone, but you have never been the target most desired to seen killed, and you freak out. What happened to comfort? What happened to God's Peace?

The truth is you have both those, but they weren't what you imagined they were. God doesn't automatically move you to Eden and safety (if you recall, Eden wasn't safe either), what happened is you joined the side that's going to win. That in itself should be enough, but there's more. God said that you now don't have to suffer slowly alone with horrid wounds. He is there for you, and more. You also have a whole family, a 'Band of Brothers' (HBO don't sue me) to be there for you. Yes you're taking more shots, but you got the best Doctor on your side and he's got a lot of support staff. And while your wounds before simply became infected and nasty, God will now be able to heal it, but that's painful. God usually reopens the wound to let the nasty stuff flow out, and it hurts...bad.

Life is hard, God tells us this. What he does though is go through it with us, holding us up. Or rather, breaking us apart and rebuilding us so that he can use us to help win this war. It's hard, but the thing is, it's better to have it hard now and be the winner than have it easier and suffer eternal torture. Make sense? Good, because that's about as clear as I can make it from my muddled thoughts.

Sheer Genius

I read PvP, a hilarious online webcomic set in the office of a video game magazine (see sidebar link for the genius of this). It's a comic not necessarily about video games so much as about geek culture. It's totally hilarious, if you understand the geek references. It still pretty funny even if you don't. It's part dilbert, though the boss is a sympathetic character and it's set in a small business not corporate setting, part penny-arcade , though no where near as foul. In fact, if you are at all uncomfortable with foul language and references (like me) I don't recommend clicking on the Penny Arcade link at all.

But Scott Kurtz, author of PvP, has created his own masterpiece that, though it can be compared to others, really is it's own part. In a recent comic he references to video games and how far afield his story arcs are from it (and how such references to it are so generic that they don't matter). But what people seem to forget is it's NOT a video game strip, it's a geek strip.

Geek cultures are interesting phenomenon. If you're a member of one, you will inevitably be drawn into the others, at least in periphery. So yes, video games are part of the strip, but so are movies, sci-fi shows, Dungeuns and Dragons, comics, and basically everything else. There's also a healthy dose of drama via the Cole vs. Max Powers conflict and the Brent and Jade saga(s). And yet the drama fits...in a recent story arc about the potential of a child I was actually engrossed, which is not me at all when it comes to drama. Kurtz does a very good job.

This does bring me to some of my problems with it. As a professing Christian I have some problems with his characters attitudes towards intimacy. Two of the characters are intimate and unmarried, while not a free love attitude, it is still an immoral lifestyle in my belief. There's also a strip a while back where "Jesus" made an appearance and made a remark that was rather inappropriate and made me shake my head in disgust. So take those warnings to heart before you read it, it can be a little...off-color, but a majority is very good.

Edit: I removed the link to Penny Arcade as it's very inappropriate to what I want to convey in my blog. If any of you have a desire to read it, ask in a comment or e-mail. Sorry Gabe and Tycho.