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What is The Sanctuary Project actually?




As many of you may or may not know I have been running a very popular pop culture blog for the past ten years called The Monster Island News. That creation of mine has been a haven for old monster movies, television and comic featuring articles written by myself, fellow fans and real journalists who knew the genre inside and out. It was a strange, interesting and very fun ride. 

 Like all good things the time has come for MIN to end and a new course charted. The blog as a whole had run its natural course and to be honest, I found myself just going through the motions with it. If you are a regular reader you would have probably noticed that the bulk of my posts lately consisted of reposts of past articles. I had lost my passion … and it showed. 

 During last week’s church service, a divinely inspired message entered my foggy little mind. The Lord told me to start a new blog, one that would inspire people and reflect the true me. After a night of prayer, I decided to follow what the Lord had instructed me to do. I woke up the next morning and created The Sanctuary Project, a blog that I hope will educate, entertain and enlighten anyone who reads it. 

 To further explain my own personal experience, I think it’s important to look a little deeper at the name Sanctuary Project. The inspiration for it comes from two sources, the most obvious one being a reference to the 70s sci-fi film Logan’s Run (I’ll get into detail about that in a moment). The second meaning for it comes straight from the word’s definition:

 1. a place (such as a church or a temple) for worship 
2. a place of refuge and protection 

Thank you, Merriam-Webster.

 In the movie Logan’s Run the survivors of an apocalyptic holocaust (modern theory would point to climate change, but I believe it was a nuclear war) live in giant domed city controlled by computers. These last remaining examples of the human race live what many would consider “the good life”. They want for nothing. Everyone lives a life centered around pleasure and on the surface, everything seems perfect, but as the film’s tagline states: 

There’s Just One Catch. 

 As it turns out anyone living in this futuristic ‘pleasure dome’ is only allowed to live to the age of thirty (in the novel the film is based on its twenty-one). One could speculate that the reason behind this is some sort of population control measure put in place by the city’s designers.

To get the inhabitant’s to buy into surrendering themselves to execution on their thirtieth birthday a pseudo religion was established wherein anyone who participates in a public ceremony in which they get blasted out of the air (no really, the participants float around the room and get shot with a laser … it’s a sci-fi movie remember) will be automatically reincarnated into a new person. 

 As one would expect, this futuristic society is divided into two factions, the ones who buy into everything they have fed and the ones who figured out the truth, or some semblance of it. I actually think that modern society is actually like this as well. 

 The main character of the film is a sort of policeman, called a Sandman, named Logan 5. His job, as is the job of any Sandman, is to track down and execute anyone who decides to try and flee (run from) their ritualistic demise. 

 After he has eradicated one of these so called “Runners”, Logan has a life changing experience. During a briefing with the City’s Central Computer, Logan learns that everything he has believed his entire life is a lie. As it is explained to him, some thousand or more people have actually escaped the city and it is now his job to locate them and the place they are supposed to be hiding at, a location only known as Sanctuary, and destroy them. 

 Logan is very puzzled to learn that so many people were unaccounted for and asks the computer if it was somehow in error and the people in question had simply been “renewed” (reincarnated). 

 The computer would not answer the question.  

Logan peruses the matter by asking the question again.

 The computer, again, refuses to answer. 

 Logan, then understanding the implications of what he has learned, begins to plead with the machine. 

The computer replies, “The question has been answered.” 

 Logan replies “But everyone believes …”

The computer answers in a more menacing tone, “The Question Has Been Answered.” 

 For myself, when I recently renewed my faith in Christ and began to study the word of God, I discovered, like Logan 5, that the world was not like I believed. However, unlike Logan’s situation, I discovered a world of pleasure and joy where there was once very little. Logan discovered that all his happiness was a lie and that the world was a far darker place. For me, my dark word was turned into peace and happiness. 

 As the movie goes on Logan partners up with a young woman named Jessica 6, they actually escape the city, discover that everyone who was missing had become part of the food supply (yuck) and learn that Sanctuary is just a myth. They return to the city, try to tell everyone the truth, get arrested, tell the Computer their story (which it can’t accept and blows up), the city catches fire and everyone escapes outside to start a brave new world. 

 Roll credits. 

 That’s the gist of it anyway.

 I think you get the idea. Just as our fictional character’s life transitioned after learning the truth, so has mine. As so much as my old blog represents me in a different phase of life, it is my hope that this new one will represent who I am now. I plan for it to be much broader and feature a lot more of my various interests and beliefs. Most of all I want it to be genuine. I really feel that I got lost somewhere in the articles of “Monster Island”. I hope to be able to find more of me here. 

 As a side note I do want to point out that the best of what MIN was will be coming along for the ride. I feel that I created some really strong stuff during the past decade, so you will be seeing posts that are recycled from the previous material or a direct reposting of old stuff. 

 When we transition, we bring the best of who we were to build a better future. 

 Oh, and as far as Sanctuary is concerned, it’s not a myth, it’s called Heaven and for anyone who has a relationship with Jesus Christ and accepts Him as their savior it will be their dwelling place for eternity.

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