When I was a kid there was a Japanese
In the 1981 original, two kids named Sho and Azusa discovered a magic bible which transported them, and their toy robot Zenmaijikake, back to Old Testament times. (Yeah, they all had different names in the English redub: Chris, Joy, and Gizmo.) The kids would interact with the bible folks, who somehow spoke Japanese instead of ancient Hebrew, and were surprisingly white for ancient middle easterners.
The kids, and their robot in the red galero, have a not-at-all-awkward conversation with a buck-naked pre-genitalia Adam and Eve. Aníme Óyako Gekíjo episode 1, “Adamu to Eba Monogatari”
Well in the first series they did. In the second series—also called Superbook in the States—Pasókon Toráberu Tántei-dan/“Computer Travel Detective Team,” the kids totally ignored the bible characters ’cause they were trying to rescue a missing dog. Which is best, I suppose: Less chance they’d accidentally change history, and whoops!—now we’re all
Obviously we’ve not yet invented time travel, and it’s not possible to have any Superbook-style adventures. But a whole lot of us would love to check out the events of bible times, and maybe interact with it. It’s why there are bible-times theme parks
But when time travel or pilgrimage are out of the question right now, it is possible
Some Christians call this practice
The idea is to stop thinking of these events as just stories, but as real-life history. Stuff that truly happened. Stuff the prophets and apostles truly experienced. Stuff where God came near and interacted with humanity—same as he does now. Stop looking at them from the outside, and visualize yourself in the inside, in the bible, fully immersed in the story, just as you’re fully a part of God’s salvation history now.
Try this with the passages you’re reading now. Put yourself there, in your mind. See what new insights come out of it.
It’s not sorcery. Just common sense.
First time I talked about Ignatius-style meditation with a certain Christian,
“You think you haven’t,” she objected, “and maybe you aren’t trying to leave, but others might actually try to leave, and project themselves elsewhere, and that’s witchcraft.” She’d have none of it. She’s one of those people who paranoidly worry we might accidentally fall into sorcery or spiritism—which is why there’s no room in her life
Once the spirit leaves the body you’re dead,
If you’re the fearful sort, I’m not gonna force you to try something you’re leery about. (I’m not sure how I could force you, anyway.) You’re not ready for this. Get rid of your fears first. For everyone else, here’s how it works.
These mental images are entirely your creation. You’re the one imagining it. They’re based on your knowledge of the scriptures. You’re taking what you know, and using them to paint a picture. Fr’instance, remember the story of Jesus stopping the weather? No? I’ll tell it again.
Mark 4.35-41 NLT 35 As evening came, Jesus said to his disciples, “Let’s cross to the other side of the lake.”36 So they took Jesus in the boat and started out, leaving the crowds behind (although other boats followed).37 But soon a fierce storm came up. High waves were breaking into the boat, and it began to fill with water.38 Jesus was sleeping at the back of the boat with his head on a cushion. The disciples woke him up, shouting, “Teacher, don’t you care that we’re going to drown?”39 When Jesus woke up, he rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Silence! Be still!” Suddenly the wind stopped, and there was a great calm.40 Then he asked them, “Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?”41 The disciples were absolutely terrified. “Who is this man?” they asked each other. “Even the wind and waves obey him!”
Got that? So let’s start meditating. Picture yourself in Jesus’s boat with him.
- What’s the lake look like during a storm? How dark does it get? How big do the waves get? How far up does the boat go; how far does it drop?
- How big’s the boat? (Do you know how big these boats are?) How crowded? How nervous are these kids? How many of them are swimmers? How many of ’em, even if they are swimmers, think they can outswim this storm?
- How do you imagine Jesus looked as he got up and told the sea to stop bugging him? Annoyed? Angry? Groggy ’cause he’d just been sleeping? Frustrated at his students’ small faith?
Lemme pause there and ask this: Are annoyance, anger, and frustration part of Jesus’s character? Or ours?
Yep, that’d be ours. Jesus’s character reflects
- How do you imagine Jesus looked as he got up and told the sea to stop bugging him? Still groggy. But kind. Patient. Peaceful. Certainly more peaceful than his kids were.
You see how this works? We create the mental image, then concentrate on what we know about the scriptures—and use the scriptures to continually tweak our image. Adjust it, refine it, and fix it. Fill in the blanks with scripture and historically-accurate information. When you learn something new, go back and include the new stuff in your mental picture.
As opposed to filling in the blanks with ourselves.
The most obvious drawback to this method: Some of us don’t know any scripture.
Simple solution:
There’s also the fact people don’t know squat about biblical history. True of bible scholars as well. We might know our bibles backwards and forwards. But daily life in ancient Israel? How people wore their clothes, laced their sandals, shaded their eyes, picked their teeth? How they built their homes, started their fires, cooked their food, cut their meat? Well, that stuff isn’t in the bible. Nor necessarily in the ancient literature of the day.
For ancient daily life, we’ve gotta turn to archeologists. Read up on what they’ve discovered. Some of ’em have found answers to these questions. Some haven’t. There are all sorts of little cultural differences like this we’d never even think about, unless we’ve traveled to other countries and seen people do odd little things instead of the behaviors we take for granted. Like cook on a stove with their bare hands, not a spatula nor tongs. Like oil themselves instead of bathing. Like shake their head when they mean yes.
See, when we don’t know these details, we automatically fill in the blanks with our own culture. Just as Christian art and movies always have—which is why they’re notoriously inaccurate. It’s why in these movies Jesus
An ark is a treasure box, as we know from replicas of the Ark of the Covenant. But every replica of the ark Noah built, whether in movies or theme parks or murals in the children’s church area, transforms it into a boat, with an unbiblical bow and stern. Seriously:
Art, movies, and other popular-culture representations regularly worm their way into our mental images. And this is as true in our day as it was in Ignatius’s. When he pictured Mary before Jesus’s birth in the Spiritual Exercises, he naturally imagined her nine months pregnant, riding from Nazareth to Bethlehem on a donkey. Second contemplation After all, that’s the way 16th-century Christian art depicted her (and still does). Never mind the fact Joseph had more sense than to put a pregnant woman in a saddle of all things; he’d have used a cart. Nor the fact they likely went to Bethlehem way before she was due, probably for one of the thrice-a-year temple festivals.
So when we try to visualize bible times, it means we gotta do our homework. We can read books or watch videos about daily life in ancient Israel. We can go there and see these buildings, cities, and distances for ourselves. True, it’s many centuries later, but we can still learn plenty of details.
But don’t fool yourself: There are always gonna be gaps in our knowledge. Our imagination is never gonna get it 100 percent accurate. Good enough to get some insights, to realize some things we wouldn’t if all we did was read. Still, humans make mistakes. So let’s never assume our insights are infallible.
And no, it’s not revelation.
The other reason I point this out is because I’ve known Christians who meditated on a bible story, Ignatius-style… then start teaching things based on the things they imagined. Growing up, one of my Sunday school teachers used to tell us what Abraham and Samson and David looked like. These ideas were all based on her imagination, all based on how she meditated on these bible characters. She assumed she was right, ’cause she assumed the Holy Spirit was guiding her imagination.
She shouldn’t have made this assumption. None of us should.
See, some Christians claim this type of visualization is prophetic. That whenever we imagine ourselves elsewhere, the Holy Spirit takes control of the images we see, and reveals incredible mysteries and truths to us. And no he doesn’t. This is all us.
Yes, if you’re talking to the Spirit during your meditation time (as you should), he can always reveal stuff to us that we’d never ordinarily notice or know. But when he does, go confirm that stuff. Look it up! Go talk with other Christians! Don’t assume every idea in your imagination is the Spirit. It might be your own brain, deluding you into thinking it’s the Spirit. Always double-check!
Yet I’ve heard Christians actually claim this is how visions work: The instant you have a new idea, assume it’s a God-idea and start visualizing it. If “God” drops the words “sword of the Spirit”
But no you’re not. You’re daydreaming, and interpreting your daydreams as if they’re revelatory visions. They are not. These are your mental images. Not God’s.
When I asked you whether your “sword of the Spirit,” is inscribed, did your mental image before that even have an inscription? Probably not. But as soon as I asked, suddenly you noticed, “Oh it does!…” and if you know
We mustn’t presumptively, arrogantly ascribe any of this stuff to God. Nor blame him for it either, ’cause nothing’s gonna come of the stuff which doesn’t originate from God. “Sword of the Spirit” comes from bible, but everything beyond that? All you.
Is there a significant difference between carving an imaginary god out of wood, and mentally picturing a god with your mind? Nope. Both are imaginary. And the purpose of this exercise is not to invent imaginary gods, then prophesy in their name. It’s to process information in a different way—to paint a picture with scripture, and put things into it so we can understand it better. Not to imagine a bible scene, and pull things out based on missing data.
Yet I’ve seen plenty of examples of Christians—Catholic and Protestant alike—who improperly use Ignatius’s method to invent all kinds of ungodly “visions” which go entirely against God’s character.
In the case of real visions, they’re not gonna be under our control. (Nor, I find, do they take place at times convenient for us, like during meditation time.) They happen when God decides they happen. They’ll result in weeks of prayer, in which we’re trying to understand what God meant by ’em. Real visions look nothing like meditative visions. Don’t mix ’em up.
This said, don’t let the mistakes and abuses scare you away from trying this type of meditation. Just remember what this is and isn’t. It’s to understand the scriptures better.
