My conversion experience gave me a lot to think about and a lot to question over the years. The concept of a divine Creator who said in Genesis 1:26a, “Let us make humans in our image, according to our likeness…” made me wonder how that worked. Obviously I can’t speak Creation into existence. Obviously I’m not immortal, and infinite, and all-powerful. So how do I reflect God? How do I visualize reflecting God in an accurate way?
Consider the mirror. When I look at a mirror, everything I see looks real. It looks alive, it has depth, it reflects me in every way save one. It’s two dimensional. Everything I see is limited to the plane of the substrate behind the glass. I see God, then, as fourth dimensional compared to us. With one less dimension I can still be a limited yet clear and accurate reflection of God.
So when God creates a universe (or perhaps a multiverse) with only words, I can replicate that. I can create worlds with words, with lines on a page, though with one less dimension than I possess. I can do all the things God would to create Red Cat, or any other character, except make them living, breathing souls. And when I do, when I express myself creatively to create something out of nothing, I believe I’m truly reflecting God.
That didn’t always reflect the church around me. It sometimes felt like only certain types of creativity and reflection were allowed. Creating fiction had its limits, because it had to be grounded in a perception of truth and reality as presented in the Bible. I often wonder if the people in those churches trying to discourage me from creating science fiction, or superheroes, or aliens, or what have you, believed that when Jesus told a parable, the story actually happened. Maybe Atlantis was actually on a mountain until someone with mustard seed faith threw the whole thing into the ocean.
The point is, everything story I tell is in some way a reflection of me, of how I think, feel, and believe. I believe that makes it the most honest thing I do, and in a way, the most spiritual as well. Ecclesia!