An Onion?

Perhaps the letter sequencing of the Bible is some artifact God placed in Genesis for us to figure out at some later date, when we have some new technology that's able to decipher it. I don't really know. I'd be curious to know what that lettering is all about ... but should my faith journey be derailed by this mystery? I'm not being dismissive of what you write, or of your deeper scientific curiosity ... what I'm getting at is that some people -- myself included -- have a tendency to lower our gaze a bit too far, focusing on some distracting detail of the Bible and losing sight of the bigger picture. Alistair Begg, one of my favorite radio ministers, says that hardly a week goes by when one of his congregation finds themselves bogged down in some peripheral difficulty of Scripture. This is where he admonishes them with, "Don't worry about the things you don't understand, worry about the things you do understand."

I know you'll probably have heartburn over that, but his point is really that we sometimes lose sight of the far more important things -- treat others as you would like to be treated? -- in favor of things perhaps more interesting ... or distracting.

That's my problem ... I relish the distractions ... it allows me to avoid dealing with the far more basic issues of my faith. :-)

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All that said, I think you'll find that if you take the equi-distant spacing of the letters in Genesis, cross-map them to Pi, run them through a filter algorithm based on McCartney's bass line from "With a Little Help From My Friends," you'll find the following is clearly spelled out:

Dear apes: this message is coming from the intelligent life force that planted the monolith. First, check out the smooth polish we were able to achieve. Is that not cool, or what? Second, our purpose for putting this is place was two-fold: 1) to give you a spark of congnitive intelligence to advance your species, and 2) to give Arthur C. Clarke fodder for a story that would become a great movie in your year 1968. We really wish you'd limit the use of that bone to killing food and not each other ... but we suspect you won't. So, we'll see you in about a million years. Oh, by the way, when you get to the moon and you excavate the matching monolith near the crater Tyco ... don't forget to cover your ears.

Hugs and kisses. Much love.

Super-intelligent alien life force.

P.S. -- please leave a note to tell Kubrick that his "floating baby scene" will just confuse people. Well, all people except those who are stoned on weed from the "racing through the time portal" sequence.

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Is there a limit to what we can ever understand? In other words, are there things that will always be a mystery? Is mystery simply part of our universe? Or is it just a question of time before we know the very mind of God?

Of course, I'd argue that we'll never know the very mind of God. But I cling tightly to the notion that God is simply beyond us or ability to understand. I both fear that and draw comfort from it.

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I agree with you about Paul McCartney being an underrated bass player. I've always admired his work. I'm no musician, as you know, but it strikes me that his bass work enhances the melody. A lot of bass work I hear seems to do little more than form a kind of basic time keeping -- thump, thump, thump. Does that make any sense ... from a music point of view?

A bass guitar is really just a guitar, right ... just at a much lower register? There's no reason that a bass guitar could be a lead guitar, right?

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Years ago -- 1981 to be precise -- I saw the Who in concert. I had binoculars. I spent much of the concert watching Entwistle. It was amazing. I swear both hands were striking strings at the same time.