In the Beginning Was the Word: Naming, Story, and the Razor’s Edge of Creation
Last week, I shared my “Feast of Booze” story, finally unveiling that beneath the laughter and rebelliousness of our autumn festivals was a spiritual longing as old as time—a longing for “The World Tomorrow.” Rooted in the prophecies of Isaiah, we gathered every year to contemplate a world where the wolf dwells with the lamb, the lion eats straw like the ox, and all former enmity finds resolution.
Thursday Series: The Feast of Booze, The Gospel of Solidarity
Today, I see that vision as religious unity, something more urgent than ever: the Lion of Judah, the Lamb of Christianity, the “Wolf” of Islam—predator and prey reconciled at last. But how are we meant to get there? How does humanity journey from Eden’s innocence to Isaiah’s peace—when so much, in between, has gone so wrong?
The Nintendo Book of Genesis… and the Gift of Words
Right as I finished my first draft of this article, a cartoon arrived in my inbox—God sitting on a cloud, gaming controller in hand, with Peter announcing, “The goal of the game is to NOT let any of them eat the apple so they don’t become the dominant species and have all hell break loose.” Label: “The Nintendo Book of Genesis.”
Sometimes timing is more than timing. That cartoon was both a wink and a warning. It made my point in a single frame: Words, and what they enable, made us uniquely human—and let both heaven and hell break loose.
Ever since, we have been walking the razor’s edge between becoming the garden’s stewards, “dressing and keeping” it, and descending into the most invasive species the world has ever seen. We’re tasked with reconciling that tension. But how?
Max Stossel and the Birth of Story
My guest this week, Max Stossel—a spoken word artist and celebrated storyteller—offered a window into that mystery. In his viral retelling of “the two babies in the womb,” he makes the eternal immediate:
“Do you believe in life after delivery?”
“Nonsense,” says the first. “There’s nothing after this. If there were, someone would have come back to tell us.”
“But sometimes, if you’re really quiet, you can sense her presence all around. Maybe there’s a Mother after all…”
As Max told me, he loves that so many viewers protested, “Babies can’t talk in the womb!”—missing the point, which is precisely that they enter the world wordless, and yet, here we are… telling stories, asking what’s next. For Max, as for me, the power is not in literal speech, but in the dawning awareness of story—how language makes us more than creatures reacting to instinct. It’s not just “what’s next?”—it’s “who are you?” “What does it all mean?”
Genesis, Concepts, and the Double-Edged Word
It’s here that Joe Atman’s work comes to the fore. In his analysis of the Genesis story and the Garden of Eden, he draws out the crucial truth: The real pivot wasn’t simply the act of naming, but the birth of concepts—the ability, through naming and words, to spin mental versions of reality inside our own heads.
Those concepts, pieced together from words, allow us to construct models, imagine possibilities, and navigate danger. In this, humanity is elevated—granted a creative, organizing power unlike anything else in the natural world. As Max reminded us, “We enter the world with no words, but here we are, telling stories, casting spells, asking what’s next.” To form concepts is to envision a world that could be.
But as Atman insists, this blessing is inseparable from an enormous risk. With every concept, our mental image moves a step further away from reality itself. The more vivid and convincing the images in our minds, the more easily we forget that they are not the thing itself—just our version of it. The line between stewardship and hubris, between co-creation and distortion, grows dangerously thin.
And this is where the serpent enters, as the primal misleader: the one who exploits our trust in our own concepts. “Did God really say…?” The serpent’s genius is not brute force, but manipulating ideas, twisting words just so, prompting us to trust our own models of reality more than reality itself. When we become captive to the concepts in our heads—when our “knowledge” fails to connect to truth outside of us—we become vulnerable not only to self-deception, but to collective delusion. Heaven and hell, indeed, can both break loose from what we decide to believe.
The Serpent, the Dragon, and the Stories We Feed
And into the space language creates, the serpent slithers. What is the serpent, if not the first storyteller? “Did God really say…?” Our ability to name, to conceptualize, to spin words into meaning, is also our vulnerability. Just as the babies in Max’s tale argue about the existence of “Mother,” so too does humanity get lost debating the very truths that would liberate or save us.
When too many of us feed the serpent—when our words divide, stoke suspicion, justify self over neighbor—we empower it, until the tempter of Eden becomes the dragon of Revelation. A being that is not just a “thing,” but a culmination of every misguided, amplified, self-serving story humanity has ever told. That, I believe, is what we are up against now: not a monster lurking in the cosmos, but the very real fallout of words weaponized, stories twisted, and unity lost.
It’s why I write these words, week after week—to add my small weight to the chaining, not the loosing, of that dragon.
Walking the Razor’s Edge: Stewards or Rulers?
That’s the razor we walk: Do we use language to name and befriend, or label and dominate? Do our stories build bridges, or walls? Max reminded me that, like seeds, stories can only be planted—never controlled:
“We want to be the flower, but we don’t think about the seed. We don’t think about how much we need to battle through… to blossom into everything we’re meant to be. And it’s impossible for a seed to see the beauty of its destiny…”
We must cultivate, water, and wait on what’s truly worth telling, trusting that the blossoming—unity, healing, wisdom—is slow, but possible.
The Word Made Flesh and Our Labor of Love
And so, in a world always flirting with the dragon—divisive words, echo chambers, funhouse mirrors—our calling echoes another: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… and the Word became flesh and dwelled among us.”
Jesus, called the “Word,” took the cross—a surrender of status, self, even story, so others might live. His was the ultimate act of naming: “You are loved. You are mine.” We are invited not merely to proclaim, but to embody, that spirit. To lay down our self-ascribed stories—“I am the wolf,” “I am the lamb”—and step into a reconciled future.
Where Are We Now?
We live, as Max says, with “so much beauty, so much magic, so much opportunity under our noses all the time, even in the darkest of times. And it’s so hard to live into. But the jump from not ready to ready is just a thought away.”
Today, standing on the edge of the next unveiling, we are both the babies in the womb and the children in the garden. We are learning—slowly, painfully, together—how to use language to heal, to bless, to guide ourselves and each other back to a world we haven’t seen, but somehow remember.
Our words still matter. Our choices (“My word!”) can feed the serpent, or lead us, as Isaiah saw, to a day when a “little child shall lead them… and the infant puts his hand on the asp’s nest”—and fears no evil.
May we be that child, that storyteller, that peacemaker. May our words be worthy of the world we’re called to help create.
If this message resonates, subscribe, comment, and share. Let your words—let our words—move us one step closer to the garden restored, the dragon chained, the “World Tomorrow” finally at hand.
With hope and deep gratitude for your stories, too,
Wade
Remember: You are created in the image of God. And God loves his creation. May your words point us home.
