Welcome back, my faithful readers and newcomers, to another edition of Gaming With God. This is part two of a series of posts on the game Tales of Xillia 2 which I started and am about 10 hours in already. It’s a fantastic game, even though it has some flaws here and there. If you’re looking into playing it, I suggest getting Tales of Xillia first before diving into part 2 as it’s a direct sequel.
The world of Xillia is split into two. One is called Rieze Maxia (pronounced Ri-zay Max-e-a), which is the home of the spirits, and the other is Elympios, which looks like a technologically advanced city. Since they are split, one needs the other to survive, thus causing all the problems that occurred in part 1. The people of Elympios have hated the Rieze Maxians since they are the ones who have the energy to survive, while those of Elympios are slowly losing their own. Even though there is progress between both worlds for peace and trade, racism and spite are still alive and well.
As you walk around Trigleph, where the main character Ludger is from, NPC’s (non-playable characters) are quick to mention how backward Rieze Maxia is, how they are better because of their technology, and how they don’t understand their use of spirit artes. For the people of Elympios, they have only known the use of modern luxuries and have not been aware that there is a spiritual world unlike their own. In the case of Rieze Maxia, the technology of Elympios has never been seen nor do they have anything even close to it available. Just imagine someone from the 1700s coming to the year 2016 and taking a look around, that’s basically what’s going on here.
These issues that keep coming up wherever you travel in Xillia reminded me of how we treat the spiritual world in our “modern” lives. What really makes us so modern though? The fact that we have the internet, smartphones, and digital music? To me, the world is still the same. It just has some great ways to make it more fun or easier to learn and navigate. The spiritual side of our lives, though, gets discarded because we believe it’s imaginary or “crazy talk” today. Regardless of the religion that you are talking about, I see people my age or younger consider worshiping God as something nice to do, but not to be taken seriously.
When you look at the world of Rieze Maxia, they live from the spirits there, looking to them for guidance, energy, weapons or defense from monsters, and just general daily necessities. Putting the two together, living in a technologically advanced world (Elympios, aka First World nations today) while spending time with our Creator every day (Rieze Maxia) is something I myself strive to do. When I first began exploring Christianity after being a Catholic all my childhood, I slowly realized how this spiritual reality can manifest in my life everywhere I went. Whether it’s in my marriage as a husband, my duties at my job, being a leader in my home or to others, as a writer, or anything else, I want to be efficient using what I have available whilst prioritizing my time with God.
My challenge to you today is, how are you bringing the spiritual into the natural? What are you doing to seek after an eternity, when this life is over? Our phones or social media accounts won’t get us closer to the Divine (unless you’re reading the Bible app!). The supernatural is real, and the only way to experience it is to give it the time it merits.