Layers of Existence

© Staci Stallings

Movies are fascinating. They have a way of conveying messages without us realizing we are getting the message. I first gained this understanding in college. I took a cinema class because I thought it would be fun and easy. But God had other plans.

There were 800 students in cinema class. Apparently a lot of people had the same idea I did. The only one in the room who didn't know this was supposed to be easy was the teacher. She had this strange idea that we were actually there to learn about movies. Go figure!

Where we started, I no longer remember, but through the course of the semester we learned every technique directors use to pull us into their work. We went through the meanings of various camera angles, how props are used, how sets are designed, how costumes are chosen, colors, music, layout, dialogue, blocking, movement, and on and on and on.

We were given the chance (read: assigned) to deconstruct various techniques in movies we watched. For example, say you chose to analyze the music, you then took notes on how music was used throughout the movie to evoke the emotion you had decided the director was trying to bring out. Then you wrote what you thought about that in a 500-word paper.

It was fun. Slowly but surely the lessons came together so that I could see how a movie director constructs a world in which what you see and hear transfers into making you feel a certain way and understand the characters on a deeper level than maybe even you realize. Does he want you to feel fear? Low, menacing music will pull fear right out of you. Does she want you to sense that a character is out of control? Cluttering the character's living space with a myriad of props will (even if you're not aware of it) add to that perception.

Many years after the cinema class, I began to use these lessons in constructing my books. I intuitively understood that you didn't have to tell the audience a character was a control freak if his suit was impeccable, his desk perfect, his apartment sparse but in fastidious order, his commands to others followed to the letter or else. All of these add up to a character bent on controlling his existence-even if I never said that outright.

I could do that without even really trying. It wasn't until a writing friend pinned me down to explain it to her that I came to the realization of the layers of existence.

Simply put: What happens in the physical realm gives us cues to what is happening on the emotional and mental levels, which then have an underlying lesson in the spiritual realm. Now, stay with me here. This isn't hard, and it will make a tremendous difference in how you live your life once you get it.

For a long time I saw this pattern in books, but it wasn't until recently that I discovered it transfers to life as well. When things happened in real life, I began to ask, "Why?" just as I did when writing my books. Not in a negative sense as in "Why does this always happen to me?" but in a curiosity sense, "Why? What does this mean? Where are we going with this?"

That opened up a whole new understanding of life for me. I began to see how what happens in the physical realm necessarily opens a window to understand the emotional, mental, and spiritual realms.

An example that happened recently was a friend of mine who was talking about a control freak in her life. She lamented that he always has to be right, he wants everything perfect or it's horrible, and he makes her the "small one" so he can be the savior. Listening I said, "You know why, right?" She paused. "No. Why?"

"Because he feels out of control and less than, so he's holding the things he can control in a tight fist. That helps him feel like he's in control so he doesn't have to feel out of control." After only a moment's thought, she said, "You know what? You're right. I never thought of it like that."

You see, what was happening in the physical realm-his controlling behavior-held cues to his emotional and spiritual state of being wanting at all costs to feel in control of everything.
It happens with lessons as well. As things in real life happen, I often step back and ask, "Okay, what's the lesson in this?" Invariably as the layers peel away, the lesson becomes clear. In fact, a friend of mine who has recently begun doing this commented the other night:

"I used to think things just happened, and that was that. Now, I stop and think, 'Okay. Wait. There's a lesson here. What is it?' It takes me awhile sometimes, but when I really stop long enough to look, the lessons become clear."
I'm glad I took that cinema class because it taught me more about life than I ever would've guessed.

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