I am, of course, Doug Bastian. You will soon discover that I unabashedly attempt to decipher encrypted cultural messages for those who are interested. These scribbles come from my desk in Colorado, which may be in my home, or in the mountains, on the prairie, or wherever I and my notebook or 11″ laptop may be found.

My decryptions are definitely too long for X, and usually too long for Instagram or Facebook. But, they fit just fine right here for folks like you who can boast of still having some attention span.

I see—therefore I write. I see a culture exalting nearly unattainable dreams, making promises it cannot keep, putting forth values that reduce who you are if you buy in, e.g. you are somebody if you have a great body, appearances count more than honesty, and authenticity is suspect. Playing is preferred to pondering.

Talks about bottom line refer to cash, not character. Spending money replaces spending time. Virtual consumes interpersonal. Just glance around in your favorite coffee shop or eatery.

Technology, not God-ology holds your future. Justice has a price tag so high that those who need it most cannot afford it. Affluence or fame is what buys influence.

None of these realities is good for you.

I care—therefore I write. I care that the unique and valuable individuals around me, people with eternal souls, are being numbed into spiritual insensitivity. Disillusionment breeds a fatalism that can scarcely be surmounted. Significance seems mainly determined, or sabotaged, by our family of origin. We then can only build onto either the family mansion, or plain house, or what’s left of a ruin. Your destiny for achievement was determined entirely by your ancestors before you were even conceived.

As to spirituality, the culture makes it confusing (or ridiculous looking) at best, pointless at worst. As to truth, your truth is a good as my truth, which means that no truth is good for every person and my truth too often turns out to be a disaster to me. If God himself is not dead, applicable understandings of his existence in any meaningful form is pretty nearly dead.

None of these realities is good for you.

I believe—therefore I write. I don’t just believe, I believe in what God has been pleased to reveal of himself to us.

God pulls at hearts. The tug can be shaken off if you are determined to break away. God whispers to hearts. The whisper can easily be drowned out. The pull is distracting. The whisper is irritating. We know that both come from and nudge us toward a dimension, a realm, about which we understand little.

I suggest that the God who is living right next door is simply misunderstood. We fear that God will not be good for us, or to us. Which is probably true for the little “g” god you have been imagining.

The true God, the only one, the one that oversaw your conception and design, would be good for you, and to you.

Therefore, I write. I hope that you have the interest and the courage to let me provoke your thinking on spiritual realities that are close at hand. I will continually try to shed some light on the Bible along the way. In the process it just could happen that the pull of God will feel welcome and re-assuring, and that the whisper of God will feel warmly intimate and inviting.

And that would be good for you.