Matrix Reflections

OUR DEEP NEED There is a deep need in all of us. A need to belong and to know who we are and where we came from. When this need is not met we may find ourselves trying to fulfill the longing with other things that are harmful to us­—things that bid for our attention and distract us from seeking the answer to our deepest longing. It is quite easy to lose ourselves, our dreams, and our deepest calling to the quest for power, fame, money, affirmation, recognition, or revenge. Yet for some of us a question continues to lurk in the back of our minds. It is The Question of why we are here and “what is the truth.” It is The Question, and it comes in many forms: “Why do I exist?” “What is the meaning of life?” “What is the purpose of my life?” Some people become accustomed to their everyday life without the answer to that question. Many are content with not answering The Question because they are consumed with the distraction. Others of us are driven by The Question; restless until we find the truth. Is it not comforting to know that The Question is looking for us and that it will find us if we want it to? “… Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” ­– Luke 11:9 (NIV) THE ILLUSION Morpheus: “Do you want to know what it is? The Matrix is everywhere – it is all around us. Even now in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work, when you go to church, when you pay your taxes … It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.” Neo: “What truth?” Matrix The answer to The Question leads us to confronting the illusions in our lives. According to Webster’s Dictionary an illusion is an unreal image seemingly presented to the senses; any misleading appearance; a false show. Morpheus tells Neo that the illusion “… is the world that has been pulled over our eyes to blind you [us] from the truth.” Illusions are easy to believe in and difficult to destroy. It means that everything we have believed until now is a lie. It may mean we are selfish, insecure, a liar, an adulterer, a thief, an addict, etc. When illusions are destroyed they leave us naked and vulnerable before the world. Especially if our whole way of life may have been run by them. That is why it is so tempting to clothes ourselves with them over and over again. Denis Diderot said, “We swallow greedily any lie that flatters us, but we sip only little b