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I
have a social phobia, and writing books lets me talk to people without
having to face them.
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I used to draw pictures when I was a kid. I drew obsessively, whenever and
wherever I could (mostly pictures of Vikings). Then in high school I started
fooling around with writing stories. Within a short time I’d stopped
drawing altogether. Writing scratches whatever my itch is better than
drawing does.
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I
remember a particular day when I was a kid. I was sitting in the school
library, laboring at one of those time-space-continuum-stretching basic
skills tests. I looked over at the books on the shelves and it occurred to
me that actual human beings had written those things. I knew it was true,
but found it almost impossible to believe (I’ve sometimes had the same
problem believing in Heaven). To me a book seemed too wonderful an object to
have been created by mere mortals. Surely books must fall from heaven fully
formed, like soft drink coupons from a blimp. An overweening thought wormed
into my head – “Maybe I could write one too.” “No, no,” I answered
myself. “You’re not smart enough. Authors are all-knowing, god-like
creatures. You’d never make the cut.” But the idea had insinuated
itself, like mildew in a house, and like mildew it wouldn’t go away…
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I believe that I share a planet with several billion people living in a
state of cognitive dissonance. They believe two contradictory things at the
same time. They believe that every human being is important and unique and
worthy of rights and respect. They also believe that human beings are only a
mutated form of ape, the product of mindless forces operating in a universe
without purpose (and that there are too many of us anyway). They believe
both those things simultaneously, and won’t face the fact that if one is
true the other can’t be.
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I believe that human beings have reason and spirit. Most people keep these
two commodities in watertight compartments, having been taught that one has
nothing to do with the other. When we use our reason, we think spirit has no
place in the operation. When we search for spiritual truth, we turn off our
reason. This is a tragedy.
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I believe in the words of John 1:14: “The Word became flesh ….” Those
four words are the most revolutionary ever written in human history.
“Word” in Greek is logos. It means “the expression of an
idea”. To put it another way, God expressed Himself (spiritual truth) and
He did it with a human body, with matter. Spirit and flesh – reason and
feeling -- were reconciled.
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You know why modern science developed in Christian Europe and nowhere else
in the world, in all history? It was because Christians believed this idea
– that spirit and matter were not contradictory. Because of this the
Europeans decided that matter was worthy of study, and that reason (the
logos, the idea) could apply to matter. They did an experiment to see if
this was true, and it worked. The experiment is still going on, and it’s
still working, even though the experimenters have largely forgotten the
purpose of the project.
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I believe in heroism. I’m not a hero, but I’m trying to be. I believe
that when we give up on heroism we give up on ourselves and on the future.
It’s often said that the West is post-Christian, and it is. But it’s
also post-heroic, and the two facts are not unrelated. I believe that the
Word who became flesh expressed His nature by giving His life for others. I
believe that He calls us to share in His heroism, and that He has made a way
for us to do so.
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“What about love?” I hear someone saying. “I thought He was about
love, not heroism.” I believe that at the last extremity love and heroism
are the same thing.
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To
learn more about the Word who became flesh, check these web sites: