3:00 AM Marginalia: Snakes in the Camp
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Eternal First Words
Genesis, consciousness, and the shape of beginnings
3:00 AM Marginalia: Snakes in the Camp
3:00 AM Marginalia: The Ones That Stayed I always thought the miracle was that the snakes left. That’s how it was told. Pray, believe, and the danger disappears. Faith as removal. God as distance from harm. But that’s not what happened. The people asked for the snakes to be taken away. Moses prayed. The snakes stayed. Three a.m., sitting with it. The detail won’t move. The camp is still full of what can kill them. Children still sleeping in tents where something could crawl in the dark. No clearing. No safety. Just a pole in the middle of it all. God did not remove the thing that was killing them. He told them where to look. I’ve read John 3:16 my whole life like a way out. A promise that something would be taken away. That belief meant escape. But it doesn’t say that. It points backward. To this. To the camp where the snakes stayed. To a people learning how to live with death still moving around them. Both things are true. God gives life. ...
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In the Beginning, There Was a Crumb: The Impossible Math of a Seed
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