Tag Archives: God

March 14, 2016

The Irrational God

Happy Pi Day everyone! This is about the nerdiest possible holiday outside of May the 4th. (Of course, it only works in countries that write today’s date as 3/14 and not 14/3). To celebrate, we bought an apple pie and also because who needs an excuse to get pie?

I posted this poem back in 2012 but I thought I’d post it again, since it seems appropriate to the day. Have a great day and do something irrational (defined here as something that keeps changing and never ever gets finished.)

I wonder why the real world has such odd numbers;

They never seem to fit.

How many students would thank God if π=3?

Never minding the odd circles we would have.

A single digit,

How boring for an infinite God

Who delights in the endless diversity of the irrational;

Never repeating but infinite in variety.

As self-contained as the circle

The irrational Greek letter describes.

Reflected in the curve of a galaxy or the path of an electron:

A seemingly simple curve containing an infinity of detail.

So what do we do with

An irrational God,

Instantly truncated in a world where significant digits

Seem to carry such grave significance?

Some people want a 3.14 God,

Easy to understand, easy to deal with, easy to calculate.

Some strive for 15926 or with a lifetime of prayer and holiness can see 53589.

But even they are sometimes tempted to round up and call it a day.

For all our striving, the whole of human history could never approach

A single significant digit of God’s irrationality.

3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971693993751

05820974944592307816406286208998628

034825342117067…

Heaven is in the details.

4 Comments | tags: God, irrational, math, pi, Pi Day, poetry, spiritual | posted in Uncategorized

April 29, 2015

Anchorite – Friday Fictioneers

By David Stewart

Anchorite

I climbed that pillar

to meet God, hungering

and thirsting after

righteousness until

nothing but

ragged flesh covered

my naked soul.

“What a self-righteous prig. Holier than thou? Holier than Moses, that one. He finally got fed up with us sinners and climbed up to get away. We’d yell, ‘Met God yet?’”

I met God and

He betrayed me.

I wanted to

stay but He

wouldn’t let me.

“Go back,” He said.

“I was there when he climbed down. I was going to jeer but then I saw the tears. ‘Forgive me,’ he said. I didn’t know what to say.”

40 Comments | tags: anchorite, conversion, fiction, flash fiction, forgiveness, Friday Fictioneers, God, pillar | posted in Friday Fictioneers

April 10, 2015

A Giant Hiding in a Kindergarten

By David Stewart

I went to Toronto a few weeks ago for a TESOL convention. The convention center was right next to the CN Tower, which for those who don’t know, is the tallest free-standing structure in the western hemisphere. It stands out, is what I’m trying to say. Plus, Toronto doesn’t have a lot of super-huge skyscrapers. See if you can spot the CN Tower in this picture:

Hint: it's the one over half a kilometer tall

Hint: it’s the one that’s over half a kilometer tall

If you couldn’t find it, you must be listening to the audio version of this blog (available now!)

I find it a wonderful irony that large objects are unmistakeable from far away but can be easily hidden close up. Here’s a picture I took from near my hotel:

Fifty feet in either direction and the tallest building in the western hemisphere is hidden by someone’s house (well, a lot of someones’ houses) but the point is, it isn’t the tower that changes at all, or even the surrounding landscape: it’s the viewing position. For someone like me who thinks in metaphors, this is a very satisfying truth.

I am an English teacher, but I have actually preached in church four times. I was a deacon in my church in Korea and when the pastor is gone, someone has to do it. My style is much more logical progression of ideas and much less fire and brimstone. I must have a sulfur deficiency.

The very first time I preached, it was on this idea of perspective. The question I posed was: “What can come between you and God?” The answer: absolutely anything, because it all depends on our viewing position, not on Him. After all, the sun is the largest object in the solar system but I can block it out with my thumb if I hold it right in front of my eye.

I’d expound more on this, but this is ostensibly a fiction blog and you probably came here for stories, not theology (I could be wrong, of course). That is why I’m starting a new blog for all the rational, brimstone-less essays on religion, faith and philosophy that are rattling around in my head.

Don’t worry, the Green-Walled Tower isn’t going anywhere. This is a year of big things for this little blog and 2015 is draped in ivy, as far as I’m concerned. Still, I do have a lot of good ideas that don’t fit well into this blog format, so that’s why the Tower is getting a baby brother.

I’m still not sure what to call it: the Green-Walled Church? The Green-Walled Monastery? We’ll see. Stayed tuned.

It this place is anything like the Tower, it must be one quirky church.

16 Comments | tags: blogging, CN Tower, faith, God, Green-Walled Church, green-walled tower, outside the tower, perspective, religion | posted in Uncategorized

March 11, 2015

Frostymandias – Friday Fictioneers

By David Stewart

Hi everyone,

the story is below the photo but to those who write Friday Fictioneers stories, do you hate having to log into the Inlinkz site every week to get the code for the “blue frog” button? There is an easier way.

The code is always the same. The only difference is the six-digit number in it. If you save the code in a word document, you can reuse it every week, only changing those six digits. You find them by clicking on the blue frog on Rochelle’s post. The Inlinkz URL looks this:

http://new.inlinkz.com/luwpview.php?id=497352

Those last six digits are the unique numbers for this week’s group.

Here is the code (at least if you have blog through WordPress; the others are slightly different). Replace those six digits with the new ones and it’s good for the new week.

<!– start InLinkz script –>

Maybe you already do that, but it’s just a quick way to save a step when you’re trying to get your story up and start being read.

Frostymandias

I cut through Pine Park and came across a slushy stump, the remnant of our winter tyrant, Frostymandias.

After months of winter, people cried out for relief and with the perversity of frost-bitten minds, we made the thing we loathed: a god of ice so that we could beg him in person to leave.

Offerings of icicles were stuck anonymously in the snow, but Frostymandias only glared down, laughing at our puny supplication. He was cold, biting, eternal.

But then spring came.

* * *

A bird landed on the stump and dropped some grass: a toupee for a bald and melting god.

The inspiration for this story.

53 Comments | tags: fiction, flash fiction, Friday Fictioneers, Frosty, God, idol, Ozymandias, quirky, spring, winter | posted in Friday Fictioneers

March 31, 2014

My Father is Dying in the Desert

By David Stewart

My Father is Dying in the Desert

The Stone Emperor was dying. It was just the two of us now, wandering across the burning expanse of desert, towards the far-off dream of the ocean. I staggered along in his shadow as he towered over me. The sand trembled as he walked—one step for every fifty of my own.

“I must stop.” He sank down slowly onto the sand. More rocky scales fell from his skin; more of his molten blood oozed out.

“We are almost to the ocean, Father!” I shouted up to him. Ever since he had adopted me when I was little, I had ridden on his high, craggy shoulder, but not now. Now he literally glowed as his life’s magma seeped out through a thousand cracks. Humans could not know the diseases that afflicted a rock giant.

“This is the end,” he rumbled. “You have been a good son, more faithful than any of my own strata. Stay with me, until the end.”

The sun went down slowly and although the air was cold, the escaping life of my father kept me warm.

“God in heaven,” I prayed. “Keep him alive until we reach the ocean.”

During the night, I awoke to rain falling, hissing and spitting as it cooled and healed the Stone Emperor’s skin, sealing in his heat. God had not brought us to the ocean; he had brought the ocean to us in the desert.

9 Comments | tags: Alastair's Photo Fiction, desert, disease, fantasy, father, fiction, flash fiction, giant, God, healing | posted in Dusk

May 13, 2013

Perfect Timing

By David Stewart

This week instead of a Visual Fiction piece, I have done a 150-word flash fiction story for Alastair’s Photo Fiction challenge.

Perfect Timing

Why have you forsaken us? I thought.

Across the valley, the ghoul army was massing, a roiling corruption spreading along the once-pristine slopes of the hills.

I summoned Huzon, the prophet. “What is the word from the Most High?”

“It has not changed,” he replied. “Stay firm, and have faith. This is not your fight.”

The swarm crossed the small stream and began scaling our side of the valley. Arrows whined around us. I began to pace but Huzon merely held up his hand.

The first ghoul had almost reached the base of our walls when the clouds split and a shaft of light shot from the heavens. The sunlight spread, enveloping the forces below us. There were screams as many fell and died and the rest fled back to their underground lairs.

“The word of the Most High,” Huzon said. “My timing is perfect; I will never forsake you.”