One of the first books that I ever truly fell in love with was The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and beyond the answer to life, the universe and everything that has passed into pop culture since (42!) one of the images that most stuck with me from this (inappropriately titled trilogy) series of books was that of the missile who quite improbably transformed into a whale miles above the surface of an alien planet. There is an inner monologue that follows as this whale starts to discover the simple facts about who he is, and the most basic information about the world around him. He discovers his tail. He discovers the air that is rushing past him, He also discovers the large mass that is coming closer and closer all the time. He decided to call it the ground. Just as he had discovered the most rudimentary aspects of the world around him and who he was, it was all over as he met his new friend the ground...
In a way, that is what I am planning on having this blog be all about. I am the whale in this piece, but I have yet to meet the ground, so I am in the process of discovering who I am and what the world around me is all about. It may seem odd to name what I suspect will be a largely Christian blog for, and open a blog with, the thoughts of a self described "radical atheist", but the journey of this whale in a way is the journey of us all. I am not going to have life completely figured out when I finally crash into the surface of this alien planet, but I hope to have the wonder and enthusiasm for the world that I find myself in as long as I am rushing through the air.
This life may end in pain, but if there can be a world where a missile can spontaneously become a whale... or a bowl of petunias, would it be such a miracle if I turned out to be more than just a bunch of splattered whale meat on the surface of Magrathea?
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