Virtually Real

Mom, did you know that you can make a lot of spiritual connections in MINECRAFT?, announces our resident MINECRAFT addict sporting a perfectly choreographed straight face.

Now, that’s a new angle, I think to myself admiring his persistence.

For years now my children have been trying to convince me of the validity of their single-minded obsession with the popular video game.

EVERYBODY plays it. 

TIME magazine has a story on it.

Popular Science editor recommends it.

World News claims its therapeutic value.

I try to stay open-minded. Honestly I do. I even caved in and bought the MINECRAFT pocket edition app for the iPad. But I still find major loopholes in almost every argument they’ve used to build their case for more playing time. By bringing up ‘spirituality’ they’ve stooped to a new level of manipulation, I didn’t quite expect yet.

 

Oh, really? I pretend not to see through his contrived innocence. How’s that so?

Well, there are stars, and the Moon, and the Sun...

I glare at him, clearly not impressed.  I decide to bring it up a notch and shorten his misery.

Who’s God then?  I am convinced he overlooked the key element.

Notch, he answers calmly.

Notch?!!! Notch who?!!  It’s my turn to be stumped. I’ve heard of Enderman, and I’ve heard of Steve. I’ve heard of Ocelots and Zombies and Creepers, but I’ve never heard of Notch.

Mo-oom! He is annoyed, as if this is a matter of universal knowledge. He is the CREATOR  of the game. He invented MINECRAFT. He is the real world real person - Markus Alexej Persson but he goes by Notch.  And you know what’s the best part about him?

I have no clue.

The BEST  part is that sometimes he actually enters the world he created and plays right along the rest of us. 

And the Word became flesh and lived among us. John 1:14