CLOAKING DEVICE

PRACTICE: What things (positive or negative) are you attached to that keep you hidden?

I live with a Star Trek fan. He is not a fanatic, attending trekkie convention etc., but he has watched all seventy-nine episodes of the original series (circa 1966) multiple times and the same is true for most of the spinoffs. He was hooked on the show when I met and later married him. Because watching the show is a decompression exercise for him and I want to be in his space, I watch occasionally too.

The writers of the original series introduced a fictional cloaking technology when the Romulan species became a part of the cast of characters. The device allowed the Romulans’ ships to become invisible when activated giving them the element of surprise against their enemies. The limitation to the device: to fire its weapons, the spaceship had to “decloak” – a monumental problem because the Romulans loved to fight. The theory behind the mechanics of a cloaking device is that it causes light to be deflected around an object, making it invisible. Objects are visible when light is reflected and absorbed by the object. This technology may be fictional, but humans have perfected a form of it.

We are experts at building and maintaining our personal cloaking devices. Being hidden in certain situations is not necessarily a terrible thing. However, like the Romulan’s use of it, it can also be detrimental to us and our relationships with others. The most harmful use of cloaking are the lies that we tell ourselves about ourselves. These untruths, whatever they are, prevent the light of truth about OURSELVES, from being reflected and absorbed. The cloak of lies instead deflect and disperse the truth leaving the true self invisible. Just like the Romulan’s one can’t stay cloaked forever. At some point, life demands engagement with others and decloaking occurs.

Suddenly the lies that we have told ourselves, the façade of high esteem, the bad attitudes, the harmful thoughts hidden in the head and the heart, the addictions, the insecurities, are all front and center for the world to see.

We either choose to engage in hand-to-hand combat with what was hidden and emerge whole and victorious, or we will quickly reactivate the cloaking device, go invisible again and continue to suffer silently.

Enough said!

Luke 8:17

PONDER THIS THOUGHT---Denial is a cloaking device