What rumblings wrestle within me?
Ah yes, that game MYST IV Revelations
Such a striking contrast
Between the simple and good
And the deep and deceptive.

Long ago I played the game
And my heart was hamstrung by the kidnapping of dear Yeesha
But my affection for the Atrus character
Doubled over me with an effort to get the girl back.

These games are precious treasures of character.
They shiver the mind’s analyses down to the spinal column of our own choices
Shaking the branches to the trunk
To see what hart it holds within.

But when the spirits got involved
When invitations into darkness of unguarded dream awoke
When the so-called guide to truth in the spirit world spoke
I felt deeply quinged by the unstructured whim of another.

And I heard The Holy Spirit bid me to destroy what I could not truly love.
For I had chosen to love Him fully and not disown Him.
I cracked the DVD in half,
Mid-story
Mid-heart-throb
Mid-sob of relinquishing a soul’s investment.
And my sister who gave it me as a gift was deeply offended.

The years passed, and the story remained undeveloped in my spirit.
I had to know what happened to Yeesha,
How would the seed bear fruit that was good?
Could I trust the word of amulets worn around the neck of the unseen?

And so today, at last, I took up the card that said, “It’s only a game.”
And stared through the safely distant lenses of a player who walked through the game for me.
With eyes unveiled at last, and puzzles solved clear and fast
I came to the moment of decision.
My own weak heart could not have released me to do what was right.
Indeed even now, I stare at the screen typing this poem
Where once little Yeesha was imprisoned in a chair
Her memories being parasite-d away.

Hope, what a game you gave me.
It ended well, and a bit unsatisfactorily.
I wanted to rescue Yeesha myself,
But I could not see the danger
Unless the one other than He who truly is:
The shadow cast by a human imagination turning his back on God
Had come and shown me the answer.
Boo hiss you Serpent seductive.

And now my spirit crawls on all fours
A dry and thirsty land is the world when your own mouth consumes dust.
The conscience once guarded, and the heart never satisfied.
What a price to pay for the instigation out of innocence!
That one or the other must remain un-met, un-kept, or un-sung.

But nay, mine eyes were too weak to see His light, back then.
I was young, and filled with all the vigor of beautiful sights
Of which this game was full and rich.
And My heart, being trusting so fully as it was
Trusted in the inherent goodness of what was before me.
But now I know better.

The music of adulthood, has been tuned to a deeper fundamental
Than games that are of the devil, or cares that were superficial.
But now, I see the love of humanity,
And how we are meant to reflect our father and creator well.

How frightful the effect still was on my conscience.
Spiritual vomit seemed the only recourse.
And the past cannot be made different in the present.
But the past that belongs to God can be reshaped so as to better situate the present.

And the profoundness of the lessons of hope
And of the power of life to convert the soul
While the conversion of our souls for power will end in death.
But still, some depths are not to be plummeted
Unless they are in the bosom of the father.

I am resting now. Such a journey was not a waste.
But I bid all who wander there, tread with care.
If the spirit and the bride say come
Then come, and do not go the wedding of a corpse.