Looking back, I’m not entirely sure why I never gave extraterrestrial life a second thought. Perhaps I didn’t think it was probable because SETI never detected any radio signals from outer space. Or maybe it was because I grew up after the Mariner, Voyager and other probes had made it clear that, besides earth, the planets of our solar system are incredibly hostile to life as we know it.

But the most likely reason I didn’t put much stock in the possibility of extraterrestrial life was my theology. I read the Bible cover-to-cover and believed wholeheartedly that the Creator of the universe had given up His one and only Son to become human and to die and resurrect on planet Earth for our species and our species alone.

Since the Bible teaches a permanent incarnation (Jesus is still human and will be for the rest of eternity), I couldn’t see room for a redemption story occurring on another planet.

However, as I recently began learning about the 700+ confirmed extrasolar planets (planets orbiting stars other than our sun), I began to wonder: If God went to the trouble to create all these, why wouldn’t He create life on some of them? Perhaps not intelligent life — perhaps not even life as we know it — but life just the same, resplendent with His signature creativity and diversity, designed to bring Him glory?

In the coming weeks, I plan to write a series of blog posts on the subject, looking in more detail at the universe around us (not only the Milky Way, but also our neighboring galaxies), the purpose of creation, the extent of the curse, the angelic order (compared and contrasted with human redemption), Biblical descriptions of angels and demons, the location of heaven, hell, Hades and the Abyss, the tower of Babel and the reason God put a stop to it, the extent of the coming destruction of the heavens and the earth — pretty much anything that may have a bearing on the question: Could There Be Life on Extrasolar Planets?

By M. Kornmesser. This artists’s cartoon view gives an impression of how common planets are around the stars in the Milky Way. The planets, their orbits and their host stars are all vastly magnified compared to their real separations. A six-year search that surveyed millions of stars using the microlensing technique concluded that planets around stars are the rule rather than the exception. The average number of planets per star is greater than one.

The new personal blog is called A Thousand Photons (you can find out more about the name in the introductory blog post).

It has been fun to do personal blogging again (4 posts so far!) and I really encourage you to go check it out and — if you like it — to subscribe (there’s an email subscription link on the home page sidebar or you can subscribe with your favorite blog reader).

‎Limitless You put limits on me… By Your grace, help us see, this is Your design

– “Limitations” by Trip Lee (one of my favorite songs)

All my life I’ve struggled against my limitations, trying to accomplish more than I was able. This song has helped me to really internalize that these hated limitations — perhaps what I’ve fought more than anything else — have been placed on me by my Lord. It forces me to choose between the ambitions so close to my heart and Him. Will I continue vainly struggling to accomplish everything my heart runs after? Or will I raise my hands in surrender and humbly accept the limitations He has placed on me?

To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

– 2 Cor. 12, NIV

“If I raise my hands will you grab me by the wrists
And will you try to pull me from the fray?
And even if my fingers join together into fists
Will you hold me firmly anyway?
‘Cause I would try to escape you but for every day I’m sure
That You’re on the huge side of big and the holy side of pure

“Ok, hear what I say
As I raise my hands and surrender today
Ok, here I will stay
Hands in the air, singing have Thine own way”

– “Hands in the Air” by The Waiting (another of my favorites)

Everything is under Him: planets, countries, cities, ‘hoods. Don’t get it twisted: God did it, done it, got it? Good.

The Boston metro area is home to 6 million people; the city: home to 600,000 — and all in less than 90 square miles (Seattle has the same number of people, but they’re spread over 142 miles).

The city is a mixed bag, but one thing is for certain: this mass of humanity is not united in worship to the One who sustains them. Even believers don’t give Him the respect and honor He’s entitled to. And yet:

Somebody keeps them breathing, keeps their blood flowing and keeps their hearts beating. God keeps them eating and it ain’t no secret — don’t get it twisted — God gave them what they needed.

Consider in how many ways they are dependent on Him and yet most are totally unaware. Some puff their chests in pride as though they sustained themselves; others raise the voices He has lent in defiance. Yet He continues to exercise such mercy toward them — every breath, every heartbeat. Where would we be without such a patient, merciful God?

They [the cobra/viper] will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.

But it wasn’t until recently that it was linked to God’s directive for fathers (Ephesians 6) by a visiting friend from Germany:

Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.

He was saying (if I remember correctly) that in the original language this has a flavor of helping them to see the glory of the Lord in everything around them. Whether that’s true or not, I don’t know, but it helped me make a link between my directive as a father and the coming pervasive knowledge of the Lord in Isaiah 11. Actually, I prefer the wording in Habakkuk 2:

For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.

This clarification (“knowledge of the glory of the LORD”) reminds me that the goal is not a dry intellectual or academic knowledge, but a knowledge of His glory — the kind that inspires worship. Like when I help my kids see God’s glory in how a collapsing star goes supernova and forms a neutron star or, if it’s very heavy, forms a supermassive black hole — the kind found in the center of most galaxies. Or to see God’s glory in the gospel: the unthinkable condescension of the creator towards our rebel human race in killing His beloved Son for our crimes.

May our homes (and the Lord knows how far I have to go in this) be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as a faint preview of what we will soon witness: the submersion of the entire earth — every city, every inhabitant — in the full knowledge of His glory.

In a way, it seems like things have been going painfully slow, yet there have been some very crucial changes.

Today, two years later, I am doing roughly the same thing. I recently stepped down from leading the youth group at Grace Church Bellingham and switched to working four ten-hour-days so that I can devote Fridays to the novel.

Two years ago, I put a lot of hours into the novel… on and off. Throughout the first year, I did work on it on Fridays, but I also worked on leading a local writers’ group, pouring into a youth group, and creating signs and a website for Grace Church. A year ago, I made an agreement with my employer to work full-time at computer programming for 3 years, saving money so I could take 1 year off to focus on the novel.

This summer, Jessica & I realized that a third of those 3 years were over and I hadn’t made the progress I had hoped for on the novel. So I decided to make some significant changes, cutting back in church leadership and disciplining myself to write in the mornings. But writing a little bit each morning is hard and not as productive as consolidated chunks of time, so I changed my work schedule this week to four-tens so that I could once again focus on fiction on Fridays.

It is difficult when people ask me how the novel is progressing. In a nutshell, the answer is the same as two years ago: “things have been going painfully slow, yet there have been some very crucial changes.” I did create an initial 40-60 scene outline, but I ended up making “crucial changes” that left much of it obsolete.

However, there is (I think) hope. I committed to Jessica to have a “final” 40-60 scene outline finished by the end of the year, at which point I will transition and begin working on full treatments and the actual writing. By “final”, I mean no more “crucial changes” that require the whole thing to be scrapped. I fully expect additional changes as I get into the guts of the full treatments and the writing itself.

I don’t expect to have the entire novel complete in the next two years, but I do hope to have it complete enough to send to literary agents and, through an agent, to publishers. Once I have landed a contract, Lord willing, I will be able to step down from computer programming and focus exclusively on finishing the novel.

I’ve recently discovered Little Boots, one of the few (or only?!) synthpop artists with clean lyrics – plus she’s a little more “synth” and less “pop” .  She’s from the UK, so it’s very difficult to get her full album (yet), but you can get her earlier EP and watch the videos Earthquake and Remedy online.

For the past few months, I had considered creating a soundtrack for the book I’m writing, so when I heard she was doing a remix competition with a deadline in 1 month, I figured it was the perfect opportunity to take a month off of writing and try my hand at making music.

Now, a month later, the remix is complete. Huge thanks to my wife, Jessica, for being gracious while I threw countless morning, evening and weekend hours into this project – the first half of the month just learning the software (indescribably frustrating) – and the second half trying to teach myself the requisite music theory (I will read some music composition/theory before attempting this again) and actually write the music.

So without further ado, here is my remix: Earthquake – Unashamed Studios Mix (and of course I wouldn’t mind if you voted for it or commented on it )

For the translation itself, I was miraculously able to get free assistance from an expert in Greek (thanks, Dax!), who graciously went through my translation and the original Greek text with a fine-toothed comb and proposed several key changes, which brought the translation up to his considerably high standards. And so, without further ado, I am extremely pleased and proud to bring you the latest revision of the Millennial Translation of Acts 1a, edited by Dax Swanson.

Stay tuned for detailed translation notes, coming soon!

Let me know what you think!

Here’s a screenshot:

In a way, it seems like things have been going painfully slow, yet there have been some very crucial changes. For one, I decided to shift the focus of the story from Bjorn to his 16-year-old daughter. Also, I have a really cool plot twist about mid-way through the book. I can’t go into a ton of detail, but I can give you the (current) one-sentence summary:

A 16-year-old girl discovers an oppressed workforce and works with her divorced father and a team from an advanced civilization to free them.

Of course, the different characters on the team are all stinking awesome. I love them already. But I read the first third of the Twilight script yesterday (incredibly well written) and was awed by how high the bar is and how far I have to go. Thankfully, I’ll (Lord willing) have lots of help brainstorming high-caliber ideas and cutting anything that’s cliché, but before I draw other people into the project I’ve got to have a basic architecture that can support such artistic heights.

One more positive note: I’ve gotten some good inspiration lately for how to work the spiritual/theological side of things, which is the part I’m most worried about. I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen a Christian movie or book where the message isn’t either weak or cliché and I know it will be very difficult to keep from falling into either pitfall. Christian music has the same two problems, but one label — Reach Records — has done an outstanding job keeping clear from both, so they’re my best inspiration at the moment.