In his blog post today, Pastor Freed used this quote, which was from the opening of a popular TV show of the late fifties and early sixties – “You’re traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound, but of the mind…your next stop, the Twilight Zone.” (Rod Serling)
I remember watching the Twilight Zone. Each week it would be something new, different, and often bizarre. Serling took us out of the dimension of the physical that we all lived in and into the dimension of the mind where anything was possible. This was TV before all of today’s special effects were invented, so it looks quite tame by modern standards.
The idea that there exists dimensions beyond those in the physical world that we live in has been intriguing mankind, or at least fiction writers, for ages. We live and think about things in the physical world of three dimensions, plus time, that we are used to, with one large exception – God. The God that exists in our minds cannot be defined or even conceived of within the limitations of those dimensions. We are talking about a God that always was and always will be, so time is of little value as a frame of reference. We have a God who has no physical presence yet is nowhere and everywhere all at once.
The only people who have “seen” God in the flesh were those who saw Jesus while he was God on earth thousands of years ago. Recently archeologists have recreated what Jesus might have physically looked like, based upon what they know about the appearance of average man within the area that Jesus lived. Quite different than the images later conjured up by European artists that have become “standards” in most Bibles and churches.
So, today God exists in that Twilight Zone of our minds where all things ae possible, yet impossible to explain. Our minds are wonderful things. They allow us to interpret what the physical parts of us experience as sights and sound, smells and tastes, touch and more. But our minds also let us experience things that are not in the physical dimension, like emotions, love and sorrow, anxiety and elation and many other “feelings”. It is in that dimension of the mind where we get in touch with and experience God. Our minds invented the concept of prayer as a way of talking to a God who does not exist within the dimension of our physical world. Prayer allows us to give voice to our needs and desires; to talk to God about what is troubling us and the things with which we need His help within this physical world.
Serling used many different openings for the show during its run. One was this one – There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call the Twilight Zone. Maybe Serling was describing the dimension that one enters when praying.
When we pray, God does not answer with a big booming voice or from a burning bush (He did that a few times in stories in the Bible). Sometimes we don’t hear anything back from our prayers, but the “answer” washes over us as a peace that we don’t understand (that’s referenced in the Bible, too) and we know that things will be OK. In those times we have entered the Twilight Zone of being in the presence of God, another dimension of the mind.
So, as you pray today, let your mind wander into a dimension not of sight and sound, but of acceptance and belief. Once you are there, God’s peace, which is beyond understanding, will wash over you. Welcome to God’s Twilight Zone.
God’s Peace be with you.
NormsMilfordBlog 
…like the old saying, “Some things are best left to the imagination.