Since humanity first gazed at the stars, we’ve sought more than the faint light breaking the darkness—we’ve searched, relentlessly, for meaning. Who are we? Why are we here? Is there a pattern, a story, a loving Author at work in the great unfolding of our lives?
These are ancient questions, yet urgently modern ones. They’ve been at the core of my own searching, and they lie at the heart of my trilogy: The People of the Sign, The Hardness of the Heart, and The Rod of Iron. Today, I want to invite you on this journey—a journey that mirrors nothing less than the opening chapters of Genesis, where the story of everything begins.
The Cosmic View: From “Let There Be Light” to “Let Us Make Man”
Genesis 1 thunders out across the void: God, the solitary sovereign, commands light into being, and with sovereign purpose sets the stage for everything—our world and our place in it—by simply speaking. As Professor Gary Rendsburg so elegantly demonstrates, the Hebrew author declines to name the sun or moon after ancient gods or mythical beings. Instead, we get the “greater light” and the “lesser light”—a deliberate act of de-mythologizing, a stripping away of humanity’s false lenses, so we might behold creation as it truly is: the work of One.
But in Genesis 2 the great scope narrows. The narrative pivots from cosmic grandeur to intimate encounter. Here, God stoops down to craft Adam from the dust—His hands in the soil of the world He just spoke into being—and breathes life into him. Dust is made soul; the infinite Artist becomes personal, and the universal drama of existence is reframed as an invitation to intimacy. Eve is not conjured but sculpted—from Adam’s rib—underscoring that, at the center of the universe, relationship and self-discovery are woven together.
The Arc of My Trilogy: A Mirror for the Seeker
Like the two chapters of Genesis, my trilogy holds these twin lenses—cosmos and dust, grand design and aching hunger for meaning. Each book charts a leg of the journey, with its own crucible and illumination:
Book 1: The People of the Sign
The People of the Sign is both a spiritual memoir and a search for identity writ across continents, faiths, and the vagaries of history. It begins in childhood, in the turbulence of a divided home and the early imprint of belief—the light and shadow cast by my fervent evangelical father. In those formative years, I learned that to be a “people of the sign” was more than simply belonging to a faith; it meant seeing the world as full of hidden, perhaps urgent, meaning. Prophecy, ritual, and scripture weren’t abstractions: they were living, breathing frameworks shaping every decision.
As I entered the Worldwide Church of God, I found myself swept along by millenarian currents, wrestling with doctrines that promised certain answers amid a changing, uncertain world. These chapters chronicle journeys to Egypt, Europe, and the Middle East, intertwined with the far more perilous journey inward—through youthful zeal, idealism, and the intoxicating clarity that comes with thinking, perhaps, you possess the “truth.” It is a tale soaked in both hope and the dangers of dogma, asking: What does it mean to belong? How much of our search is a hunger to be chosen—to be inscribed in a story grander than ourselves?
But beneath the outward forms was always a deeper call: to find where faith meets experience, where belief confronts reality. The People of the Sign lays bare the exhilaration and heartbreak that come when community and conviction are tested, and when the signs themselves begin to blur.
Book 2: The Hardness of the Heart
If the first volume is the story of conquest—of seeking certainty in a cosmic drama—The Hardness of the Heart is the story of undoing and of learning to kneel in the dust. Picking up at a crossroads where so many certainties have cracked, this book traces my journey through the wilderness of personal and spiritual crisis. Here, the motif of Genesis 2 comes alive: God at work in the particular, in the grit and sorrow of real life.
As a minister and a husband, I confronted the hard truths of leadership and love. The collapse of my marriage is chronicled with painful honesty—not merely as a narrative event, but as a deep interior reckoning. What good is an infallible doctrine if it leaves the heart unmoved, or worse, hardened? It was through soul-searching, failure, and the humbling experience of loss that I began to glimpse something new: that true spirituality isn’t a fortress built on certainty, but a courageous vulnerability before God and neighbor.
This volume is not just an inward monologue—it is full of “dangerous crossings.” Boardrooms and back alleys, cross-cultural encounters, and the relentless complexity of modern life all become battlegrounds where easy answers fall away. Throughout, I wrestle not only with my wounds but with scriptural paradox, global faiths, and the living presence of grace amidst confusion. I dialogue with the likes of Leonard Cohen and the ancient prophets, searching for a “pure religion” that is lived, not theorized.
The Hardness of the Heart invites the reader to see that real growth is rarely linear or pleasant. Just as Genesis moves from cosmic fiat to hands-on intimacy, so must we be broken open before we can be made whole—from head to heart, from ideology to empathy.
Book 3: The Rod of Iron
While the first two books are dominated by striving—by the quest to know and to master—The Rod of Iron is about the turn towards surrender, and the paradoxical power found in yielding to the Divine Will. The narrative threads, scattered and tangled through years of questioning, are woven into a new tapestry here—a synthesis as much as a conclusion.
This volume returns to the Genesis motif with a cosmic sweep but infuses it with the mature, weathered humility that can only come after loss and transformation. Drawing on creation physics, quantum theory, ancient texts, and the music that has always accompanied my wanderings, I seek not only meaning but invitation—the clarity that comes when you choose not to be the protagonist, but the vessel.
In “The Rod of Iron,” questions of authority, purpose, and justice are revisited, not as abstract debates but as living questions: How do we accept our finiteness without giving in to despair? What does it look like to participate in the “heavenly calendar,” aligning our lives to seasons and signs not of our own making? Here, the central insight is that submitting to the Divine is not erasure, but fulfillment—that the ego must decrease so that something vaster, brighter, and more loving might increase.
Throughout, the personal and the universal are never far apart. This is the story of a battered but hopeful faith; a heart, once hardened, softened through time and trial. It is a book that sees the whole panorama—from the “Let there be light” that ignites the universe, to the quiet moments of surrender that change a life.
An Invitation: Start Your Journey Here
If you, too, sense the call—to find your place in the cosmos, to move from the abstract grandeur of “Let there be light” to the sacred soil of your own life—I invite you to walk with me.
For a limited time, I’m offering my complete legacy trilogy set—The People of the Sign, The Hardness of the Heart, and The Rod of Iron—all original editions, autographed, for just $29.95 (US addresses only, due to shipping costs). These are the stories and struggles, chronicled honestly, that shaped me—and perhaps, might serve as companions and signposts on your own pilgrimage.
And if you sign up for an annual paid subscription to my Substack, you can receive the signed trilogy set for just $9.99 (to cover shipping and handling—again, US-only).
If you’ve been looking for a moment to begin—or to begin again—consider this your invitation.
