The Gym at the Shrine: A Pokémon Go Moment That Made Me Wonder

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I was out playing Pokémon Go with my son when something small but strange happened.

He asked me where the gym was. Without thinking, I pointed at a shrine—a real shrine, right there in front of us—and said, "It's right there."

And then I paused.

Because the gym wasn't visible. Not in the real world. There was no gym at that shrine. Not to anyone walking by. Not to anyone who wasn't playing. But to us? To us, it was right there. At those exact coordinates. In that exact spot.

I was pointing at something that existed in one layer of reality and didn't exist in another—and my brain had fused them together like it was the most natural thing in the world.

The Thought That Followed

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I don't know the exact word for what I felt in that moment. Realization? Epiphany? Disorientation? Whatever it was, it got me thinking.

If there was a gym at that shrine that only some people could see... what else might be right there that I can't see?

Not that I know of anything. Not that I'm claiming there is. Just... the question lingered.

What if the world is layered? What if there are things overlapping the exact space I'm standing in, invisible to me, but completely real in another layer?

A Parallel I'd Heard Before

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I'm not a theologian. I'm just a dad playing Pokémon Go with his kid. But the thought that came to me was this:

What if the kingdom of heaven is like that?

Not far away. Not somewhere you go when you die. But right here. Right above us. Right beside us. Overlapping everything we see—we just don't have the "app" to render it.

I want to be clear: I'm not saying I saw it. I'm not saying the shrine is heaven. I'm not saying Pokémon Go is heaven. I'm saying the moment made me wonder about things I'd heard my whole life:

• "The kingdom of God is within you."
• "We see through a glass, darkly."
• The story of Elisha's servant, whose eyes were opened to see an army of angels that had been surrounding them the whole time.

In every one of those, the point seems to be the same: it was always there. You just couldn't see it.

Why It Stuck With Me

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I think the reason this moment stayed with me is that Pokémon Go trained my brain to do something it doesn't normally do. It taught me to hold two maps of the same space at the same time.

Once you do that—even for a second—you can't unsee it.

You start asking: If this layer is invisible to non-players, what other layers am I not seeing? What's passing through me right now that I have no sense organ for? What's standing in this room that I'll never know is here?

The Point

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I'm not saying Pokémon Go is a spiritual tool. I'm not saying I figured anything out. I'm not saying I saw anything.

I'm saying I had a moment with my son where two realities stacked on top of each other, and for a split second, I noticed the stack.

And it made me wonder if the world is bigger than what my eyes render.

Maybe that's all it was. Maybe it was just a game.

Or maybe it was just a question worth sitting with.