Playing In The ‘Taters

I often make references to scenes from various movies In my writings, as an attempt to more fully illustrate the message I am trying to get across to my readers, I feel this process helps the reader to more fully understand the concept that I am trying to get across as the scenes of the movies are usually easy to remember and visualize thereby serving as “visual aids.”
 
Nearly thirty years ago a science fiction movie was released that became a blockbuster and a cultural phenomenon.  “Close Encounters of The Third Kind” was a fictional account of what might happen if mankind was ever contacted by beings from beyond the stars, and how such a contact might effect the lives of the everyday people that happened to be a part of this “first contact.”
 
An electric company lineman, Roy Neary, played by the actor Richard Dreyfuss, was on his rounds trying to locate the source of a power outage, when he was the victim of a close encounter of the first kind, a sighting of an extraterrestrial aircraft.  As Roy sat in his truck looking over maps of the electrical grid a UFO appeared overhead for just a few moments scarring Roy half to death, but what Roy was to find out later, during this brief encounter the aliens left a vision, a mental picture if you will, of the landmark where the aliens would later appear to make an encounter of the third kind, face to face contact between human and alien.  Later in the movie we discover that this landmark is Devil’s Tower in Montana, but poor Roy becomes obsessed with this vision and tries to make sense of what he sees in his mind but cannot quite understand.
 
Roy becomes so obsessed that he cannot concentrate enough to perform his duties at work and subsqueiently loses his job, then his marriage starts to fall apart, but finally during dinner one day he starts to play with the mashed potatoes on his plate, subconsciously sculpting the potatoes into a three dimensional shape.  It is then that he realizes that the concept in his mind does have shape and form, and excited by the epiphany that the unknown thought in his mind does have a real form he begins to experiment further sculpting more replicas of the geographical landmark.  Until finally he sees a news report on his television with scenes of the mountain in the background behind the reporter.  Then Roy is both relieved to find out that he is not crazy, as the vision in his mind is actually a place, and Roy is excited as he knows that he has to travel to the mountain to find out why he has been given this vision.
 
 Perhaps many of us are like Roy, we have been given a vision, a mental concept that we cannot fully grasp ourselves, articulate to others, or even begin to understand and as a result of our inner frustration of not being able to manifest the concept, we become like poor Roy, we become obsessed with trying to make sense of it all.  And like poor Roy we try to express this concept in various ways, just as Roy did by sculpting or to put it more plainly, “playing in his taters.”
 
Around my home, we started using the phrase “playing in the taters” to describe the emotional battle that occurs when we become obsessed with an idea and try to understand or manifest that idea in some form or fashion, just as Roy did in his mashed potatoes.  This process of attempting to create some tangible symbol, a real three dimensional object that represents what we have seen with our mind’s eye has been a process used by man since the beginning of time.
 
It could be said that when an artist sees a scene, in real life or in his mind and he or she is compelled to record that scene on canvas, this obsession to recreate that scene on a two dimensional media is representative of what I refer to as playing in the taters.  In the same respect we can look at the various prophets who have been touched by the Holy Sprit and given a vision, have been obsessed or compelled to recreate that vision in words, thereby sharing that idea with mankind.  However how does one recreate or explain that which one does not fully comprehend?
 
In Close Encounters, Roy had a close encounter with an alien intelligence and the resulting imagery in his mind was so strong that he became obsessed with trying to recreate that image in real life so as to more fully understand what he has seen in his subconscious.  Throughout history prophets have been given visions by God and they have attempted to manifest these visions with both the spoken as well as the written word, based upon their limited knowledge and using the only frames of reference, (i.e. ideas, concepts, and symbols common to their experience of life) to describe what they had seen.  The descriptions given by Ezekiel are but one example.
 
Eze 1:4  And I looked, and, behold, a whirlwind came out of the north, a great cloud, and a fire infolding itself, and a brightness was about it, and out of the midst thereof as the colour of amber, out of the midst of the fire.
Eze 1:5  Also out of the midst thereof came the likeness of four living creatures. And this was their appearance; they had the likeness of a man.
Eze 1:6  And every one had four faces, and every one had four wings.
Eze 1:7  And their feet were straight feet; and the sole of their feet was like the sole of a calf’s foot: and they sparkled like the colour of burnished brass.
Eze 1:8  And they had the hands of a man under their wings on their four sides; and they four had their faces and their wings.
Eze 1:9  Their wings were joined one to another; they turned not when they went; they went every one straight forward.
Eze 1:10  As for the likeness of their faces, they four had the face of a man, and the face of a lion, on the right side: and they four had the face of an ox on the left side; they four also had the face of an eagle.
Eze 1:11  Thus were their faces: and their wings were stretched upward; two wings of every one were joined one to another, and two covered their bodies.
Eze 1:12  And they went every one straight forward: whither the spirit was to go, they went; and they turned not when they went.
Eze 1:13  As for the likeness of the living creatures, their appearance was like burning coals of fire, and like the appearance of lamps: it went up and down among the living creatures; and the fire was bright, and out of the fire went forth lightning.
Eze 1:14  And the living creatures ran and returned as the appearance of a flash of lightning.

Ezekiel compares the objects he witnessed to items commonly known to man as a means of describing what he cannot understand with his limited knowledge.
 
To further explain this phenomena of humans trying to manifest what they have seen, let us refer to the analogy described in the poem by John Saxe of the Blind Men of Indostan.
 
It was six men of Indostan,
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind.

The First approach’d the Elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
“God bless me! but the Elephant
Is very like a wall!”

The Second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried, -”Ho! what have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me ’tis mighty clear,
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very like a spear!”

The Third approach’d the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake:
“I see,” -quoth he- “the Elephant
Is very like a snake!”

The Fourth reached out an eager hand,
And felt about the knee:
“What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain,” -quoth he,-
“‘Tis clear enough the Elephant
Is very like a tree!”

The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear,
Said- “E’en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can,
This marvel of an Elephant
Is very like a fan!”

The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Then, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
“I see,” -quoth he,- “the Elephant
Is very like a rope!”

And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!

MORAL,
So, oft in theologic wars
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean;
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!
Now let us take this analogy one step further, assuming that these blind men separated and  each blind man that had encountered the elephant traveled individually to a distant part of the land where the indigenous population had absolutely no idea of what an Elephant looked like. Then what if the blind man related his experience and description of how he perceived the elephant to these people that had no previously held concept or perception of what an elephant was in reality.  Let us ask ourselves how would these people visualize an elephant based upon the description given by the blind man.
Would the group that heard the tales of the blind man that had encountered the elephants trunk visualize an elephant as a great snake?  Would the group that heard from the man that encountered the animals leg see an elephant as a tree? 
 
When you really stop and think about these possibilities you can see that the original person encountering the elephant described it as he could relate to it, just as the man knew what a tree was, he could describe his encounter in that manner.  Likewise those hearing of an elephant second hand from the blind men were limited to depending on what that man had saw and his limited ability to communicate his experience by describing it in terms he could relate to.
 
Now let us go back to Ezekiel as believers of the bible we take it as an act of faith that what he saw was an angel or angels of God, even though post modern authors have speculated that what he witnessed was perhaps an extra terrestrial craft or UFO.  But for the purposes of this discussion, what he saw is immaterial, we are looking at how he related the event   and how that occurrence was recorded for posterity by his description in words based upon his knowledge and frames of reference.  With that thought in mind, and our acceptance of the concept that God works in mysterious ways, is it not possible that when the Holy Spirit moves within us and gives us visions, we perceive those visions based upon our frames of reference?
 
When we have dreams and we try to describe them do we not use words and terms that we and those that whom we are trying to relate the event, can understand and relate too?  But what happens when we see something in our mind or in our dreams that we cannot understand based upon the sum total of our human experiences?  How do we manifest, explain, recreate or describe that vision or concept?  That is when we start “playing in the taters.”
 
Our lack of being able to understand what God has given us causes us to become obsessed with the understanding and manifestation of what we have seen.  We then begin to struggle trying to visualize that concept, some through art, some through the written or spoken word.  But the quite possibly the best way to gain a full understanding is to pray and meditate, thanking God for giving you the answers you seek and usually he will reward your gratitude with the lifting of the proverbial veil and the revealing of the true nature of the concept to you.
 
Of course through this process of prayer and meditation we must be careful to seek out the first thought that comes into our mind from God, as we often allow our minds to wonder inadvertently modifying that divine thought to fit our own desires and agendas.  But this concept of seeking out the true thought without interjecting our own thoughts is deserving of an entirely different discussion outside of this particular one.
 
So in my opinion, God touches many of us, we have experienced a “close encounter” so to speak with the Holy Spirit, and when we become compelled to manifest that calling, we have began the process of understanding through trying to manifest or “playing in the taters.”
 
Sometimes we think we feel we are being asked to start a new project within the church.  Which is good for the most part as quite often we do accomplish something and reach somebody that might have not been reached otherwise.  In this respect we can feel relieved, we have accomplished something, even though we might later realize that what we did was in fact not exactly what God had tried to communicate to us.  At that point we might consider going back to prayer and meditation and thanking God for what he has revealed and through that process try to seek out an understanding of what he really had in mind.
 
I realize that some people are going to disagree with my hypothesis regarding this, as they feel that God would never ask you to do something without being clear and concise in his requests.  To them I would point out that some of us might not be blessed with such a profound connection with God as they apparently feel they have.  Perhaps, it is God’s plan for some of us to “play in our taters” as a part of the learning process, a process of inner struggle to further hone our ability to recognize the true “voice of the divine,” through humility, gratitude, and earnest prayer or meditation.
 
Synchronicity, or multiple events or coincidences that seem to occur in a meaningful manner but are yet inexplicable to the persons experiencing them might cause us to “play in our taters.”  When events occur that seem to be too frequent and cannot be logically explained we sometimes feel that a greater power had a hand in the planning and execution of the event.  We then try to make sense of the event by seeking a manner in which to manifest the obsession instilled in us through the event.
 
So the next time that the spirit, that small inner voice, speaks to you and leaves some sort of idea or concept in your mind that you cannot make heads or tail of, just remember this story as well as the movie Close Encounters and ol’ Roy playing in his taters.