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Are you this honest and telling in your personal relationships?

My dad left when I was a kid. I was just an infant so I never knew him. I'm 31 now and two months ago, when my mother read this book, was the first time that she and I had ever had a conversation about my father.

We're just a family that doesn't open up. It's funny because I'll open up in a book to the world and not to people in my own family because there's just this sense that's there's just things you don't talk about—especially weaknesses.

How did your childhood affect your views of God?

My church pastor growing up would refer to God as Father. I didn't know what that meant. A father to me meant nothing. It even fried me for a while because I imagined God wanting to move into the house and share a bed with my mom. I didn't like that idea.

Later the idea of God developed from being a Father to being like a slot machine. Praying was like pulling a lever and hoping that your cherries line up. I had really skewed ideas about God growing up, all the way into my late 20s.

One theme of the book and your own faith journey is learning to love a God that doesn't make sense. How did you get over that?

I was watching Oregon Public Broadcasting one night and there was a documentary about how penguins reproduce. They swim north until they hit ice. Then about 500 of them at a time climb up on the ice and slide along their bellies as far north as they can get. After several days they stop and gather around in circles.

They have this disco/find-the-mate thing and have penguin sex. The women lay an egg and the men take the eggs and they sit on them. The women leave for a solid month. The men stay there, hundreds of them, and sit on these eggs without food or water. The women come back on the day the eggs are hatched.

Then the women stay and take care of the baby penguins until they're strong enough to make the journey back to the ocean. Meanwhile, the men leave and go fishing to replenish themselves. I sat there thinking, "This is the most insane thing I have ever seen."

It's almost like magic that these penguins have this radar in their brains that tells them where to go and not just how to reproduce, but exactly when the eggs are going to hatch. The women come back on the day. I hear people all the time say, "You know, it's absurd the things you believe. Christianity is absurd."

Sure it's absurd, but there are 500 other very real things that are just as absurd. That kind of thinking really helped me in terms of embracing my faith.

Copyright © 2003 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Visit DickStaub.com for audio and video of his radio program (4-7 p.m. PST), media reviews, and news on "where belief meets real life."

Also appearing on our site today:

Soul Language on Paper | Blue Like Jazz resonates with readers who grapple with the paradoxes of faith.

Recent Dick Staub Interviews include:

A Gerontologist Gets Older | David Petty, author of Aging Gracefully, has long taught about the process of aging. Now, he is personally learning that one of the most important aspects is the spiritual side. (July 29, 2003)

Carmen Renee Berry's Unabashedly Consumerist Handbook to Ecclesiology | The author of The Unauthorized Guide to Choosing a Church helps seekers find their best congregational fit. (July 22, 2003)

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August (Web-only) 2003, Vol. 47