Dallas Willard said, “Reality is what you run into when you're wrong.” One of the key components of both Willard’s philosophy and theology is metaphysical realism. In short, and for our purposes, his realism means that things, people, objects, persons, etc…are real and can be experienced as real. This realism extends to the Kingdom of God. Willard believed the Kingdom of God is real and we can experience it today in the here and now. As he famously said, “when you pray, Jesus was right up next to you.”
Coming out of sabbatical, one of my new practices is what I call “the reality hours.” Why? Because I, and you, are so easily prone to illusion and delusion. Increasingly, we live in a world of illusion. These illusions so up in everything from unhealthy, to failure to deal with trauma, to entering poor relationships, poor spending and eating habits, on one end, and in even more extreme acts like invading Ukraine under the pretense of stoping pedophilia or storming the capital on January 6.