There, one step from eternity, I was held back by the beauty of the natural world around me. If there could be such beauty even in winter, surely there had to be some answer to my questions besides meaninglessness. I walked back to the bus stop and returned to the university determined to keep looking.

Imagine that you want to ask a Christian to recommend a church in your area.  It isn’t that you believe in Jesus or that the Bible is true or that miracles are possible, but you are feeling the need to explore a positive environment and find a community to belong to. Church represents one of the potential communities you have in mind. Perhaps you have a child and you want good experiences with moral spaces for her.

As you ask your questions, would you like for the Christian to “contemplate” your questions or to “enjoy” them?

Ok. That sounds weird. I should explain further what I mean.

Every movement, tells a story about the world. Sometimes, a simple sketch of the contours of these stories can provide a mental GPS for navigating their terrain.

What Every Story Has

• a quest

• a threat and/or villain who desires to thwart that quest

• a hero who can rescue us from the threat

• a creed: the beliefs the hero says we must hold to for rescue

• a remedy what the hero says we must do to be free from this threat

• a hope: picture of a good future that will bring our true happiness

Margie and I discovered early in our marriage that we couldn’t go too long without taking time to evaluate how things were going. For some reason life kept spiraling out of control. Anyway, our calendar would be too full, we’d be stressed and irritated at each other, and so we’d plan a day to talk and pray and evaluate. It was always hard to find the time but essential before the stress and busyness and frustration got too far out of hand.

When Denis travels, things often go awry at home, and that is when we miss him most. I surely wished he’d been home when I struck Sember. It was an honest accident, but what followed was not my best example of how to parent. I wished he was around, so he could say, “Awww, it could have happened to anyone, even me.”

Jesus often told stories to shine light on what is real. He could have made use of ‘normal’ language (x, y, z is the case), or spelled it out ‘scientifically’ (here are the reasons x, y, z are the case). After all, his closest friends often shouted their point of view, used physical force, or ran from trying. But, Jesus answers what fragments us, by us asking us to imagine what life would be like in a world where x, y, z are arranged in a way where… and so begins the journey.