Author: Roo

Most of the time spent wrestling with technologies that don’t quite work yet is just not worth it for end users, however much fun it is for nerds. [Douglas Adams (2005) via azquotes.com] 

When I tell people I’m with Nerdchurch, maybe a seventh of the time someone asks what a nerd is. 

How would you explain it? 

Douglas Adams left us with a trove of insights, including the observation quoted above. If you enjoy wrestling, tinkering, hacking, kludging, improvising, noodling, working-around, cajoling or jailbreaking a technology to do something that most people would never have the patience to try to make it do… you just might be a nerd. 

If this is you, you already know. You may not have patience for every task in life, but if a technology and a certain result interest you, you will leave convenience and any definition of reasonable effort by the wayside in order to make it do what you want, or strike out swinging.

In 9th grade, I spent hours writing BASICA code to get the IBM PCs at the school computer lab to play Christmas carols. This entailed calculating and entering frequency and duration values for every note, which was tedious in the extreme. I didn’t mind. Of course BASICA ‘music’ using the PC-XT’s audio capabilities was monophonic. But it was possible to code separately for melody and harmony parts to run on multiple computers–which involved recruiting other humans to launch in sync, approximately. “O Come, All Ye Faithful” filled the room on those tinny built-in speakers. It was so cool. I still can’t get the smile off my face remembering it. 

Yes, I may have been a nerd. Even though I never solved a Rubik’s cube without taking it apart. Mock who will. 

Then said he unto them, Therefore every scribe which is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old. (Matthew 13:52)

I admit, you have to stretch the concept and maybe squint to see nerds in the New Testament. But I see nerds in this verse. Almost every mention of scribes in the four gospels depicts them as critics or opponents of Jesus and his disciples. But in this microparable from Jesus, he says that when a scribe is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven, something so cool happens. The kingdom-instructed scribe becomes like a householder bringing out treasures, new and old. New things that have not become mass-marketable. Old things that are widely seen as obsolete, but embody ingenuity and often a quality that the newer models lack. (Vinyl has been outselling CDs for a couple of years now.) If you’re a nerd, some of your greatest treasures might not make sense to the Muggles. You value them anyway. 

There’s more to Nerdchurch than nerds wanting to bless other nerds. That’s enough of a reason, but there’s more to it. There’s a special potential that Jesus sees in people whose brains work a little differently, whose interests become rabbit holes or wormholes into new and old discoveries that can be made to work with tenacity and engagement and love. To them, it’s worth it. It’s fun.

Welcome to Nerdchurch.

🤓⛪👯

I am a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls. (Job 30:29)

It can be spectacular fun to be a nerd. It can also be intensely lonely.

You can understand how nerds exploring the Bible get drawn to the book of Job. 

It’s dense, mysterious, like picking up a thread on bronze age reddit: Job posts his pain, his passion, his confusion, his tough questions. Then the thread lights up with smug replies from people who don’t let their ignorance hold them back from providing ‘answers.’ 🙄 As the book progresses, their comments grow more confident and elaborate, as Job gets more frustrated:

How hast thou helped him that is without power? How savest thou the arm that hath no strength? How hast thou counselled him that hath no wisdom? And how hast thou plentifully declared the thing as it is? To whom hast thou uttered words? And whose spirit came from thee? (Job 26:2-4) 

Job’s religious friends may mean well, but as far as Job is concerned, they aren’t helping. He’s looking to them for help, support, guidance, or insight. Sifting through their eloquent comments, he finds nothing to sustain him, or offer him hope. 

It’s like they don’t know or care who he is. They have become spiritual strangers. 

By choice or necessity, Job has a new team and they’re not Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar and Elihu. For family Job has dragons, and for companionship he has owls. He recognizes in himself something in common with them. Creatures rarely or barely glimpsed. The creepy, kooky, mysterious and spooky–even the altogether ooky. He gets them, and maybe, they get him. 

It might be overreaching to imagine Job feeling any immediate comfort from the dragons and owls. He might be saying, ‘with friends like these…’ But the fact remains, Job is not alone. If he’s out of the Players’ Handbook, at least he’s in the Monster Manual.

The pain of tough questions, isolation, and even alienation can bring a new quality of companionship, when we find it. It’s why we need to make Nerdchurch happen.

Dragonkin and owlfolk, we see you. We celebrate you. 🐲🦉🥳

Welcome to Nerdchurch.

🤓⛪👯

The beast of the field shall honor me, the dragons and the owls: because I give waters in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my people, my chosen. (Isaiah 43:20) 

Dragons and owls also appear together in the scroll of Isaiah the prophet, where the LORD provides waters in the wilderness for his people. Thousands of returning exiles would need a miracle to make their way home again. The dragons and the owls will bear witness as God cares for his people even in a desolate place.

Job went into dragon and owl territory as a solitary wanderer, and you may resonate with his intense loneliness. Or you might also be aware of others who have been exiled along with you. I know I’m not the only one who was pulled (or pushed) away from the holy places. There have to be thousands of us. Maybe millions. Meeting our needs and satisfying our thirst would be a huge project, even if we weren’t in a desert. 

By providing for what his exiled people need, God will prove to them, to the dragons and owls, and to whomever else is watching that exile is not rejection. It’s natural for exiles to feel like no one cares much about them. But the truth is, God does care. 

I will say to the north, Give up; and to the south, Keep not back: bring my sons from far, and my daughters from the ends of the earth; even every one that is called by my name: for I have created him for my glory, I have formed him; yea, I have made him. (Isaiah 43:6-7)

Not only their circumstances, but also their religious programming–if they remembered it–would suggest to the exiles that God most likely did not want them back. Yet Isaiah hears God calling each one home with urgency, calling them his kids. Every_one. Read the spacing for emphasis. “Everyone” can sound breezy and generic, but God really loves every one. Every one is a person God made for his glory. We can imagine a God who loves everyone! 🙂™ not necessarily bothered if some nonconformists get lost along the way. But the Holy One calls for every one and prepares a way for every one. 

Wherefore receive ye one another, as Christ also received us to the glory of God. (Romans 15:7)

Many communities with a Christian brand, for a long time, have done business as if the more people they exclude or leave behind, the more they reflect the glory of God. But what if God created, formed, and made every person for his glory? What if he calls and cares for every one? Then there are a lot of exiles in the wilderness who could use a drink of water, and a way home. The dragons and owls are watching. 🐲🦉👀

Receive one another, as Christ also received us to the glory of God. 

Welcome to Nerdchurch. 

🤓⛪👯