Tag Douglas Adams

Beware the Bugblatter Beast of Traal

Todd R 1 Comment

Regular readers will know that I am a fan of Douglas Adams’ science fiction comedy novel The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.  Adams makes a comic art form of extreme absurdity, and one such creation is the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal.  In the book, intergalactic hitchhikers are urged to always travel with a towel, and among the reasons is that a towel is handy to wrap around your head to “avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-boggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you)”[1]  By simply covering your eyes, you can escape being devoured by this Beast, one of the least intelligent creatures in existence.

I thought of this Beast when reading Psalm 50:17, which says: “For you hate discipline, and you cast my words behind you.”  Why cast words behind us?  So we can’t see them, and if we can’t see them, we think we can safely ignore them.  Perhaps God will leave us alone, as if He does not exist.  But the verse is a warning not to be like the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal.  God can’t be swept under a rug and ignored.

There is an episode in the book of Ezekiel that would be comical if it weren’t so tragically similar to this Beast.  Ezekiel’s many images, object lessons, and visions are designed to stir God’s people from complacency and turn back to Him.  To fully convince Ezekiel that the nation was casting God’s word behind them, Ezekiel was taken in a vision inside the temple in Jerusalem, and this is what he saw:

“So I went in and saw. And there, engraved on the wall all around, was every form of creeping things and loathsome beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel.  And before them stood seventy men of the elders of the house of Israel, with Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan standing among them. Each had his censer in his hand, and the smoke of the cloud of incense went up.  Then he said to me, “Son of man, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the dark, each in his room of pictures? For they say, ‘The LORD does not see us, the LORD has forsaken the land.’” – Ezekiel 8:10-12

Ezekiel was a prophet to Jews already exiled to Babylon, but Jerusalem itself had not yet fallen, and many Jews thought it was impossible.  But inside the temple, the very place symbolizing God’s presence and glorious light, the elders of Israel were worshipping Egyptian-style animal deities and using incense to ward off evil spirits.  They sinned, while saying God couldn’t see them because they don’t see evidence of Him in their circumstances: “the LORD has forsaken the land.”  How like the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal!

Later, in Ezekiel 9:9, the prophet records:“Then [God] said to me, “The guilt of the house of Israel and Judah is exceedingly great. The land is full of blood, and the city full of injustice. For they say, ‘The LORD has forsaken the land, and the LORD does not see.’”

Can this dry land live again? Photo by Tobias Jelskov on Unsplash

Sometimes by casting His words behind us, we may think we are forsaken.  We interpret His word in light of our circumstances, instead of interpreting our circumstances in light of His word.  It is when the church acts like God doesn’t see that we should be fearful.  When the church claims Jesus as Savior but not as Lord.  When the church trusts in worldly power, not God’s power.  When the church struggles to see how their very Maker and King is, as they say, “relevant.” 

In Ezekiel chapter 10, the glory of Lord departs the Jerusalem temple entirely, and all of Judah was exiled, but Ezekiel’s message wasn’t finished.  He also proclaims hope, most dramatically in chapter 37, the “Valley of Dry Bones” vision.  Ezekiel sees dry bones scattered everywhere across a valley, symbolizing how spiritually dead God’s own people appear.  The vision is a test for Ezekiel: would he look at the valley and assume, based on the immediate circumstances, that “The LORD has forsaken the land, and the LORD does not see”?  In verse 3, he writes: “And he said to me, ‘Son of man, can these bones live?’”  Ezekiel doesn’t jump to conclusions but trusts that God knows best: “And I answered, ‘O Lord GOD, you know.’”  Symbolizing new life in Christ, even from death, God re-assembles the dry bones, adds sinew and flesh and skin, then breathes life into them, “and they lived and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army.”[2]

In the Valley of Dry Bones, Ezekiel learned that God does see our dire situation, and He has a plan, even if we choose to look the other way.  This plan is infinitely and eternally more “relevant” than any present (and temporary) circumstances.

In the New Testament the plan continues with an Ebenezer[3] moment, as the apostle Paul wrote: “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved – and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:4-6)

[1] Adams, Douglas. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.  (1980).
[2] Ezekiel 37:10b
[3] Ebenezer, the ‘But God…’ Squirrel, is the blog’s mascot and a reminder that, no matter the situation, God can overcome it, and the words “But God…” in the Bible are often moments where that happens.

42 is Not The Answer

Todd R 8 Comments

[This is a repost of my first post from May 2021, for the blog’s 3rd anniversary tomorrow. Enjoy!]

“You shall have no other gods before me” – Exodus 20:3

“The carpenter…plants a cedar and the rain nourishes it…He takes a part of it and warms himself; he kindles a fire and bakes bread. Also he makes a god and worships it; he makes it an idol and falls down before it.  Half of it he burns in the fire…And the rest of it he makes into a god, his idol, and falls down to it and worships it. He prays to it and says, ‘Deliver me, for you are my god!’”  – Isaiah 44:13-17 (abbreviated)

Meet Deep Thought

Even if you’ve never read Douglas Adams’ classic science fiction comedy novel The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, chances are you’ve heard that the number 42 is The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything.

In the story, a supercomputer called Deep Thought is built, specifically designed to do one thing: calculate the answer to Life, The Universe, and Everything.  Deep Thought’s creators planned to re-build all of society around this answer.  The benefit to society would be worth the 7 ½ million years it took to calculate it.  “Never again will we wake up in the morning and think: Who am I?  What is my purpose in life?”  Deep Thought completes its work.  The world awaits.

Deep Thought says the answer to Life, The Universe, and Everything is 42.

Deep Thought also reveals that his creators didn’t know what the question was and although the answer was right, 42 was not useful if they didn’t know the question.  Of course, Deep Thought also says he’s not powerful enough to produce the question.

So, instead of giving up after 7 ½ million years of effort, Deep Thought is tasked with helping to create another, stronger supercomputer to come up with the question.  But, after 8 million years of calculation, the new computer is destroyed 5 minutes before it was finished.

So, instead of giving up after 15 ½ million years of effort, those in charge of the project know they need to provide some sort of question to their superiors to salvage the situation.  They consider possible questions.  “What do you get when you multiply six by seven?” was considered, but not very useful or philosophical enough.  They consider a few more and settle on “How many roads must a man walk down?”, a Bob Dylan lyric, and report that to their bosses as the computer’s question.  (Which, I suppose is giving up after 15 ½ million years of effort.)  They sought a guiding principle to organize a utopia around and ended up with a song lyric.  The universe continued with no sense of meaning.  But the questions remain, like a “splinter in our mind” as Morpheus says in the Matrix, another story where Artificial Intelligence fails to fulfill our desire for meaning and purpose.

In the real world, many are working – across the political and ideological spectrum – to satisfy the market for answers.

Jordan Peterson, perhaps one of the most misunderstood thinkers of our current time, has published some brilliant best-selling books trying to answer these questions, or at least to provide a path forward in the absence of those answers: “In the West, we have been withdrawing from our tradition-, religion- and even nation-centered cultures, partly to decrease the danger of group conflict.  But we are increasingly falling prey to the desperation of meaninglessness, and that is no improvement at all.”  His books sell because people are searching, and he has a ton of good advice.

But Jordan Peterson is stuck in a paradox: he knows something like Deep Thought is needed to prevent humanity from destroying itself under the weight of meaninglessness, but also that what Deep Thought represents is a grave threat to humanity.  “This is what totalitarian means: Everything that needs to be discovered has been discovered.  Everything will unfold precisely as planned.  All problems will vanish, forever, once the perfect system is accepted”.  Thus, he is tenaciously anti-utopian in his thinking.  In fact, the walls of his house are covered in totalitarian propaganda as a constant reminder of the horrors of the 20th century.

See, what’s missing in the Hitchhiker’s story is any explanation of why all the people of the universe could reasonably be expected to do what Deep Thought says.  What do we do with those who don’t agree with Deep Thought’s advice?  What do they do in the Kingdom of Deep Thought to the Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego[1] who conscientiously object?  What do they do with the blind, the deaf and the lame, if Deep Thought says you need to see, hear, and walk?  After all, 15 ½ million years of effort can’t go to waste because a few inconvenient people got in the way.  You might say it was a blessing that Deep Thought failed.

While these concepts and questions aren’t new – Adam and Eve themselves got the answer wrong[2] – what’s new is that in our current American culture, more are boldly saying: “We tried Christianity and that didn’t work, so now we’re trying something else” and they fully expect the support of everyone and everything.  Resistance is futile, as they say in Star Trek.  While all past attempts at worldly utopia have utterly failed, momentum seems to be rising to make us all guinea pigs in the next attempt at building an idol, which is what Deep Thought, and its ideological brethren clearly are.  If Bob Dylan met Deep Thought at the crossroads, he might say we’ve been down this road before 42 times.  While we might take heart that G.K. Chesterton said: “When I fancied that I stood alone I was really in the ridiculous position of being backed up by all of Christendom”, we ask what can we do?

Which brings us back to Jordan Peterson.  He is highly aware of Christianity as a force that has shaped culture and civilization over centuries.  He finds value in the Bible as a collection of useful and profound stories, pulling from that a lot of helpful insight.  However, he falls short of saying Christianity is true.  He is always careful not to get “metaphysical”.  If Jesus is actually real, isn’t that utopian and rigidly ideological?

I pray Jordan makes the leap of faith because what if Jesus really is the Answer?  We’ve all seen the “Jesus is the Answer” bumper stickers.  What if it’s that simple?  Ok, maybe, but what’s the question?  What about “Who am I?  What is my purpose in life?”  If we claim this Jesus is the Answer, who is this person and what does He have to do with me and my problems?

Now we get to the section of the post where I literally had a placeholder in the draft saying: “Insert Christology Here”. If I say too little, it won’t make sense, but if I say too much not only do my odds of blasphemy increase, but my first “blog post” will take years, and multiple volumes, to write.  But I’ve painted myself into this corner…

So, here goes (after a multitude of re-writes) …

Meet Jesus

Jesus is God the Son.  He is the Messiah, the Christ, foretold in the Old Testament as the perfect prophet, priest, and king.  Where the leaders of the Old Testament failed, He would succeed.  Jesus eternally holds these offices of prophet, priest, and king, who also announces Himself as the Way, the Truth, and the Life – the representation of God the Father and the way to Him.  These attributes show Him as superior to all the Deep Thoughts of the world:

Truth: As omniscient God, he is our prophet, communicating to us His revelation.  He has no gaps in his knowledge or biases and therefore His utopia – His New Jerusalem – is not an inadequate abstraction or wishful thinking.  He alone is perfectly trustworthy.

Way: As our perfect priest, He is our unblemished sacrifice, putting to death our spiritual rebellion on the cross.  This priest does not sacrifice others in pursuit of earthly goals but sacrifices Himself to free us to pursue heavenly goals in service of others.  The perfect world is not only available to some lucky few in the future, but to everyone in all times who follow Him by sacrificing themselves for the truth.

Life: He offers us eternal life in His Kingdom.  His resurrection shows He has conquered death itself, and His people will be resurrected with Him, with new bodies, His law written on our hearts, enabling us to implement the answer.  Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego[3] – and everyone else – will have clear consciences.  The blind will see, the deaf will hear, the lame will walk[4], and everyone will be fully able to realize their purpose.

Thinking of Jesus as creator may also be a clue to our purpose.  As shown in the introductory quote, it makes no sense than man could create something that transcends man, something that could know better than man himself what man should do.  But the prophet cries out to those who would build Deep Thought and seek their own way in Isaiah 29:15-16:

“Ah, you who hide deep from the LORD your counsel,
                   whose deeds are in the dark,
                   and who say, “Who sees us? Who knows us?”
You turn things upside down!
        Shall the potter be regarded as the clay,
        that the thing made should say of its maker,
                “He did not make me”;
        or the thing formed say of him who formed it,
                “He has no understanding”?”

Jesus as creator is, however, adequate to the task of being our Answer.  He is the “Word” of John 1:1 – the “logos” – or logic behind all of creation.  He knows us better than we know ourselves.  He could snap His fingers and start over, but He chooses not to.  He chooses to make us co-creators, to work through, and overcome, all our weaknesses.

Tying these ideas together with Matthew 6:10: “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”, I propose 2 principles in passing now, which will be ongoing themes of this blog:

  • Our Life’s purpose is to witness to the future kingdom, to bring glory to our King, to bring Truth about the next world into this world lovingly and creatively, to point others to Jesus, who is the Way to that world
  • We model the hierarchy of the next world, where the Creator is over all of creation, and man, unique among the creation as God’s image, implements a perfect world

So, in summary: where does purpose come from?  From One greater than us, who loves us.

Why do we create to find purpose? Because He created us like Himself and shares His work with us.

What does this look like?  Here is an interesting example:

Meet Tyler

Tyler Joseph is the singer, multi-instrumentalist, and songwriter for the genre-bending music group twenty øne piløts.  Tyler, raised in a Christian home but struggling with depression and anxiety, started writing songs in his basement and before long was performing shows with friends in the Columbus, Ohio area.  Early songs[5] included a lot of Christian symbols and references, hinting at Jesus as an answer for people with similar struggles and the band cultivated a following at Christian music festivals.  Now their fans are known as the “Skeleton Clique”, one of the most rabid fan bases in music.  If you spend any time on their social media or at their shows, you will find people who say Tyler saved their life, and others sharing their struggles.  “Stay alive, fren” is the response, often with “the clique loves you” tagged on too.

One early song is “Isle of Flightless Birds,” which I believe is about the pointlessness of life without God.  Tyler says without God we’re like birds who can’t fly, so we “find our worth in giving birth and stuff” as the “demons and angels” manipulate us.  Our lives are “frustrating and so degrading” and “we repeat the same routines” ignoring what “our soul is really thinking”

Tyler suggests a solution is to “wake up every morning and decide what we believe”, and ends the song with this: “It’s time you pick your battle, and I promise you, this is mine”

He doesn’t spell it out, but it seems Tyler’s battle is an answer (lower case) that points to the Answer (upper case)?  What if his triumph over depression was discovering that music was his way of creating something in this world that both improves this world and points to the next?  What if his battle is to minister to an immediate need – compassion and understanding in the face of despair – while dropping breadcrumbs pointing the Way to eternal life?  If he can help people survive a bit longer, perhaps they find God – “And He is waiting, oh, so patiently”

Tyler transparently chooses to deliver a veiled message, using layered metaphors containing both spiritual and secular meanings.  He struggles with how explicit to be about his faith in the song “Clear” – “I wish that I had two faces to prove which theory works: Yelling on the street corner, or cleverly masking your words”.  In another song, “Ode to Sleep”, Tyler sings “I’m afraid to tell you who I adore; won’t tell you who I’m singing towards” amid a verse including a reference to Peter’s triple-denial of Christ[6].  Why go to the trouble of intentionally identifying what you’re denying?  It’s puzzling, but that might be his way of drawing more people in with curiosity.  He even wrote an entire song, “Heathens”, that seems to be about asking his Christian fans to accept his other fans who benefit from the secular message of the music.

Tyler’s battle is not my battle, and it’s probably not your battle.  We all have different experiences, talents, and desires.  Therefore, his answer is different than our answer.  But all our battles are fought under our King, with the tools He provides.  “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” – Ephesians 2:10

We’re not all going to be successful rock stars, but we can all do something.  We’re not all going to be artistic, but each of us has value, an answer that wouldn’t exist without us.  “Use what talents you possess: the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best,” said Henry Van Dyke, a presbyterian minister and writer.

“Are you searching for purpose?”, asks Tyler in the song “Kitchen Sink”, where he suggests that everyone has their own demons and that finding purpose through creating something could be a first step toward victory over those demons.  “Write something, yeah it might be worthless; Then paint something then, it might be wordless; Pointless curses, nonsense verses; You’ll see purpose start to surface”.  I hope this blog won’t be worthless, but it’s a step and I hope you’ll take one too.

God’s ceiling for each of us is in the heavens, much higher than the ceiling we manifest for ourselves[7] when we choose not to act.  My prayer is that someday we will no longer be flightless birds, but “mount up with wings like eagles”[8] and never come down.

[1] Daniel 3:20
[2] Genesis 3:6
[3] Daniel 3:28
[4] Matthew 11:5
[5] The name of this blog is taken from a line of an early twenty øne piløts song.  More on that in a later post (maybe)
[6] Matthew 26:75
[7] Easter egg alert!

[8] Isaiah 40:31

Beware the Bugblatter Beast of Traal

Todd R 2 Comments

Regular readers will know that I am a fan of Douglas Adams’ science fiction comedy novel The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.  Adams makes a comic art form of extreme absurdity, and one such creation is the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal.  In the book, intergalactic hitchhikers are urged to always travel with a towel, and among the reasons is that a towel is handy to wrap around your head to “avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-boggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you)”[1]  By simply covering your eyes, you can escape being devoured by this Beast, one of the least intelligent creatures in existence.

I thought of the Beast when reading Psalm 50:17, which says: “For you hate discipline, and you cast my words behind you.”  Why cast words behind us?  So we can’t see them, and if we can’t see them, we think we can safely ignore them.  Perhaps God will leave us alone, as if He does not exist.  But the verse is a warning not to be like the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal.  God can’t be swept under a rug and ignored.

There is an episode in the book of Ezekiel that would be comical if it weren’t so tragically similar to this Beast.  Ezekiel’s many images, object lessons, and visions are designed to stir God’s people from complacency and turn back to Him.  To fully convince Ezekiel that the nation was casting God’s word behind them, Ezekiel was taken in a vision inside the temple in Jerusalem, and this is what he saw:

“So I went in and saw. And there, engraved on the wall all around, was every form of creeping things and loathsome beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel.  And before them stood seventy men of the elders of the house of Israel, with Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan standing among them. Each had his censer in his hand, and the smoke of the cloud of incense went up.  Then he said to me, “Son of man, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the dark, each in his room of pictures? For they say, ‘The LORD does not see us, the LORD has forsaken the land.’” – Ezekiel 8:10-12

Ezekiel was a prophet to Jews already exiled to Babylon, but Jerusalem itself had not yet fallen, and many Jews thought it was impossible.  But inside the temple, the very place symbolizing God’s presence and glorious light, the elders of Israel were worshipping Egyptian-style animal deities and using incense to ward off evil spirits.  They sinned, while saying God couldn’t see them because they don’t see evidence of Him in their circumstances: “the LORD has forsaken the land.”  How like the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal!

Later, in Ezekiel 9:9, the prophet records:“Then [God] said to me, “The guilt of the house of Israel and Judah is exceedingly great. The land is full of blood, and the city full of injustice. For they say, ‘The LORD has forsaken the land, and the LORD does not see.’”

Can this dry land live again? Photo by Tobias Jelskov on Unsplash

Sometimes by casting His words behind us, we may think we are forsaken.  We interpret His word in light of our circumstances, instead of interpreting our circumstances in light of His word.  It is when the church acts like God doesn’t see that we should be fearful.  When the church claims Jesus as Savior but not as Lord.  When the church trusts in worldly power, not God’s power.  When the church struggles to see how their very Maker and King is, as they say, “relevant.” 

In Ezekiel chapter 10, the glory of Lord departs the Jerusalem temple entirely, and all of Judah was exiled, but Ezekiel’s message wasn’t finished.  He also proclaims hope, most dramatically in chapter 37, the “Valley of Dry Bones” vision.  Ezekiel sees dry bones scattered everywhere across a valley, symbolizing how spiritually dead God’s own people appear.  The vision is a test for Ezekiel: would he look at the valley and assume, based on the immediate circumstances, that “The LORD has forsaken the land, and the LORD does not see”?  In verse 3, he writes: “And he said to me, ‘Son of man, can these bones live?’”  Ezekiel doesn’t jump to conclusions but trusts that God knows best: “And I answered, ‘O Lord GOD, you know.’”  Symbolizing new life in Christ, even from death, God re-assembles the dry bones, adds sinew and flesh and skin, then breathes life into them, “and they lived and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army.”[2]

In the Valley of Dry Bones, Ezekiel learned that God does see our dire situation, and He has a plan, even if we choose to look the other way.  This plan is infinitely and eternally more “relevant” than any present (and temporary) circumstances.

In the New Testament the plan continues with an Ebenezer[3] moment, as the apostle Paul wrote: “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved – and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:4-6)

[1] Adams, Douglas. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.  (1980).
[2] Ezekiel 37:10b
[3] Ebenezer, the ‘But God…’ Squirrel, is the blog’s mascot and a reminder that, no matter the situation, God can overcome it, and the words “But God…” in the Bible are often moments where that happens.

Driving Toward Morning’s 2022 in Books

Todd R 3 Comments

Dear fellow travelers,

As 2022 ends, many are posting reflections on the year, including book lists.  Figured I’d jump in, even though I am a slow reader, prone to distraction, and have a job that requires multiple hours per day of reading.  So, when I see others listing 70+ books read in 2022, I tell myself that 22 books is enough, since the year was 2022.

Photo by Joyce McCown on Unsplash

So, what 22 books did I read this year?

A range of history books:
Clouds of Witnesses by Mark Noll and Carolyn Nystrom
The Residence by Kate Andersen Brower
The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
Elizabeth: The Struggle for the Throne by David Starkey
The Offshore Islanders: A History of the English People by Paul Johnson

The first two of these made appearances in the blog, referenced in the Bibliography.  Clouds of Witnesses, which could be included in other categories, is an excellent collection of stories about Christians in Asia and Africa, giving a great perspective away from my local, American one.  More history posts will be coming from that book.  The Residence is a collection of stories from workers in the White House, from cooks and valets, and many other roles.  It ranged multiple decades of presidents and their families, with interesting takes on these very real people.

The Devil in the White City is my favorite book by one of my favorite authors, and likely will be covered as the blog’s first book review soon.  Erik Larson writes history that reads like a novel and picks amazing stories as topics.

With a family trip to England and Wales on the 2022 calendar, both history and fiction books on this list revolved around the U.K.

A range of fiction books:
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John LeCarré
The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle
The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain
Life, the Universe, and Everything by Douglas Adams
So Long and Thanks for All the Fish by Douglas Adams

It’s only now that I realize all of these books involve England.  “Tinker” is one of my dad’s favorite books and I’d put off reading it for a long time but am glad I finally got to it.  It’s a fascinating and complicated story about a mole in the British spy network, and I picked up great quotes like “All power corrupts, but some must govern,” and “Learn the facts…then try on the stories like clothes.”  “Hound” is one I read as a teenager and picked back up for something quick and light to read, and the other 3 were new to me.  This blog began with a Douglas Adams reference, and there will likely be more to come!

Only one non-fiction book:
King’s X: The Oral History by Greg Prato

This ended up featured in two blog posts and tells the story of one of my favorite bands that never quite “made it big,” but gets a ton of respect from other musicians.  Part of the problem was that they couldn’t be pigeon-holed as either a “Christian” band, or not.

Plus some Christian commentary and devotionals:
In addition to regular Bible and study Bible reading, in 2022 I read:

4 books by Warren Wiersbe: Be Alive (John 1-12), Be Transformed (John 13-21), Be Wise (1 Corinthians), and Be Encouraged (2 Corinthians).
4 books by C.S. Lewis: That Hideous Strength, The Weight of Glory, The Abolition of Man, and The Great Divorce.
Encouragement: The Key to Caring by Larry Crabb and Dan Allender
Everyday Prayer with the Reformers by Donald McKim
Tapestry: The Book of Revelation by Glenn Parkinson

A fan of C.S. Lewis from childhood, in 2022 I aimed to read several of his books I hadn’t before, which include the last 3 above.  I love finding familiar Lewis quotes in their original context, which brings out even more meaning.  A few of these ended up in the blog.  In 2023, maybe I’ll get to Surprised by Joy, The Four Loves and all of God in the Dock.

I picked up Wiersbe’s entire “Be” series in 2021 as part of a digital subscription and am working through it over time.  A long time.  I like his overall approach and the books are a great source of thoughtful stories and quotes.

Encouragement and Everyday Prayer both ended up in the blog.  The first I had read many years ago and rediscovered ideas in it that I had forgotten the source of.  Everyday Prayer was a gift and is a short devotional covering segments of prayers from the Protestant Reformation, with related stories and Bible verses.

Lastly, I just finished Tapestry earlier today.  Glenn Parkinson is the retired former pastor of my church, and the book provides a very helpful overview of the book of Revelation, making a great case that John “did not intend to give us a puzzle no one can solve,” but intended to reveal (as in a revelation) a tapestry of images designed to encourage Christian faithfulness and perseverance in the time between Jesus’ first and second comings.

Will I read 23 books in 2023?  Who knows…in the meantime, have you read any of these 22? What books did you enjoy in 2022?

A Detour into the Total Perspective Vortex

Todd R Leave a comment

In the previous post in this series on our Master’s voice, I wrote that: “We can’t see the reasons God wants us to trust Him because there is far more at work than we could ever imagine.”  Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction, but sometimes great illustrations come from strange fictional places, like Jim Carrey movies and Douglas Adams books for example.

In The Restaurant at the End of the Universe,[1] the sequel to the sci-fi comedy classic The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, author Douglas Adams imagines a technology that harnesses full awareness of the universe as a profoundly cruel torture device.  When Trin Tragula invented the “Total Perspective Vortex” to annoy his wife who kept accusing him of blowing things out of proportion, he found that when he tested it on her, “the shock completely annihilated her brain.”  A victim is placed in the TPV and presented with a realistic model of the entire universe, with a tiny dot on top of a tiny dot that says, “you are here.”  He concluded that “a sense of proportion” in such a massive universe would only make someone feel completely insignificant, hopeless, and insane beyond all hope of recovery.  It’s a sci-fi comedy, but still, be careful what you wish for.

Another example from a different angle is the Jim Carrey movie, Bruce Almighty.  This hilarious (but irreverent) comedy is based on Carrey’s character Bruce Nolan raging against God about his frustrating life.  God, played by Morgan Freeman, appears and challenges Bruce to do any better, giving him “the job” for a temporary period to teach him a lesson.  The 3-ish-minute video embedded here is my favorite part of the movie, where Bruce tries to figure out how to deal with his new awareness of all the prayers of the world.

If God thought it was possible, or a good idea, for us to know it all, we would.  After all, even Nipper the dog from the “His Master’s Voice” painting would be distracted and unable to get anything done if he saw this picture, even though it contains only good news:

Our Master speaks to us as our creator, knowing both our limitations, but also what we are capable of as His marvelous creatures if we trust Him!

This post is fourth in a series that started with this post on His Master’s Voice. More to come…

[1] Adams, Douglas. The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.  (1980).  P. 79