I am a programmer and an artist, a skeptic and a Christian. I'm attracted both to the logical and the mystical, the scientific and the spiritual, the analytical and the creative. Hence the title of this blog. If you haven't figured it out already, it is a silly, mathematicized rendition of one of the most important phrases in the Bible: λόγος τοῦ θεοῦ. This is Greek, the language the New Testament was written in. It is usually translated "Word of God" or "God's Word," but it has many meanings. It can mean "God's Message," "God's Conversation," "God's Question," or even "God's Story."

This latter sense reminds me of an idea of J. R. R. Tolkien's. He said that we are all living inside the "True Myth," a myth that is like any other--full of adventure, epic in scope, drenched in symbolism and meaning--except that this myth is Real. For the True Myth, God himself is the bard who forms the story and each of us are the heroes and villains who act both as participants and audience.

As I look back over my life, the ups and the downs and everything in between, I see how God is telling a story through me. So far the story has been beautiful and wonderful, though not without tragedy and pain. It makes me wonder where the story is going and how it will end.

In his Gospel, the apostle John said that "the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us." What a strange idea! How could a Word become flesh? And yet John was not just blowing smoke: he knew this Word personally. As he wrote his Gospel, John could remember the Word resting his head against his chest. He could remember seeing the blood of the Word trickling along rough wood. He heard the voice of the Word asking him to take care of the woman who had, in another bloody and ignominious event, given birth to the Word. John knew better than any of us how real, how frail and human, the Word was. Yet he still recognized that this man, Jesus of Nazareth, this friend of his, was far more than human. Jesus was the Hero of the Story: the Hero of heroes, the centerpiece of history. More than that, he was the Teller of the Story, the creator and sustainer of the universe. And in some profound sense, John said, Jesus also was the Story itself. In his Gospel, John recalls for us something Jesus had said: "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life."

Jesus was, and remains today, God's Message to mankind, in which he revealed his unbelievable love for each and every human being on the face of the planet, and through which he made it possible for any of us to be friends with God again, despite our total rebellion and sick depravity. This Message is not an FYI--an advisory statement, a bit of information to file along with the others. It demands a reply; and more than a reply, a conversation.

It is in our reply that our personal stories and God's commingle, where we become a hero or villain in the True Myth. On this site I will try to articulate my conversation with God and offer my story as it unfolds.

Labels: faith