A few weeks ago, I pulled up my recommendations for Youtube.  I like to hear about the details about different movies and the stories behind them and in the list of recommendations was a video about Stanley Kubrick’s making of the Shining and some theories about the symbolism that he put into the movie.

Now that is one weird movie and I have never quite understood it, but I know that Kubrick was always very intentional in his art. I watched 5-6 videos about how he was supposedly trying to send messages about how the Apollo 11 moonwalk in 1969 was a hoax and that he directed the scenes of Buzz Aldrin, etc…, on the moon in a studio and other videos about how Kubrick had a deep, deep love for and concern about the genocide of Native Americans, and another on how the entire movie was an allegory to the problem of child molestation.

However, the crazy videos by the conspiracy theorists left me with more questions than answers. One question I had about the theory that he was trying to tell people that he directed the videos of the Apollo 11 landing through the Shining was if he had been involved in that, why did he wait until the late 70s to make that point when Apollo 11 was in 1969 and he made Barry Lyndon and A Clockwork Orange in 1971 and 1975, respectively? Maybe it was, maybe it was not.

Anyway,  another video about the hidden messages in a different Stanley Kubrick movie popped up in my list. This movie was Eyes Wide Shut. Now, if you have seen this movie, you know it is not a movie for the church youth group. This movie is one that is implicitly and explicitly about love and marriage and secret societies and things that go on behind closed doors. In the videos I watched about the hidden messages in it, the term, Illuminati (Latin for “the enlightened ones”) was used a lot.

Now I do not know if there is really an organization that calls itself the Illuminati who have secret sex rituals and cool decoder rings but quite frankly, I don’t care! However, I am confident in the fact that as long as there have been people, there have been groups who have been willing and able to exclude others and do things behind doors that are illegal, immoral, and fattening that they do not want other people to know about.

In this film, Tom Cruise attends a secret meeting where members are rich and powerful and who give themselves to sexual abandonment and perversity for a couple hours. It is the group that everyone wants to be a part of but few people can. Just like Club 33 at Disneyworld, to even get on the waiting list, you have to be an exclusive person of money and fame and power. However, in Tom Cruise’s character’s case, he is informed about it from a piano-player friend and sneaks in. In the film,  they found out about him and kicked him out and then warn him not to tell others about what he saw.

Now, one maybe jealous of people with access to such things.

Some people, like Tom Cruise’s character, may dream of being one of the elite and therefore able to participate in those bacchanalias. However, having heard about what Heaven is like from accounts by people who have had a glimpse of Heaven and from the Lord’s own words, the physical limits that they deal with in such debauched parties makes me sad for them. Many of the members in the film were very old and their senses were dull from age (like Sidney Pollack’s character). The idea of trying to play pool with a wet noodle comes to mind. However, even those that were not old, I felt sorry for. The height of all the physical and spiritual ecstasy they will ever know is right there, given by men and women who were paid to be there, who did not care about their customers, and it will only last a short time.

Well, that is one of the great things about being a follower of the Lord.

As a person who is part of the Lord’s family, you have an exclusive invitation to the biggest and best and brightest party coming. And only He can get you in. Now I am not saying there will be sexual perversity (I don’t know whether or not there is sex in Heaven, as we know it) and other things that the movie showed at this party, but there will be better things. There will be intimacy that will go deeper than any one-night stand can give you and it will not last just a couple hours, but forever. At that party, the foods will taste better, the wine will be richer and everyone will be young and beautiful.

Those who trusted in themselves and traded Heaven for a quickie on Earth will only be able to watch from across a wide gulf.

We are and will be the Illuminati.  For what does it mean to be a part of the Illuminati but to be enlightened of the truth and to illuminate? We do and will radiate His glory, His love, His light, bright shining as the sun. That is true but it is not meant to be exclusive. We need to help as many people get to be a part of that party (this one here and the one coming) as we can.

Matthew 6:19-21: “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also

—————————————————————-W.