He Is; Therefore, I Write

Hello, I’m Kathy.  And I am a seeker, just like you.

Like you, I am on a quest for Truth.  Truth about heaven and hell, science and sexuality, faith and family.  I’m interested in politics and poetry, Socrates and Sacajawea.

When I was a child of ten I had a younger cousin, Bonnie, who was only three.  I remember how little Bonnie amused us sophisticated ten-year-olds with her constant questions.  It didn’t matter what you said; Bonnie’s predictable response was “Why?”

That’s how small children learn about the world. That’s how adults learn, too.  But so often, adults settle into a comfortable routine—days filled with work, and nights filled with television or bowling or the kids’ science project—and they quit asking the Big Questions that would lead them to discover the First Things, to find their way to He Who is the Ultimate Truth.

Some writers, when I first discussed the possibility of starting a blog, advised me to focus on a single issue.  Many very well-known bloggers do that successfully; they write about parenting, or politics, or prayer.  Me?  Well, I just don’t know that much about anything!  Instead I find myself, the quintessential liberal arts grad, wandering through the garden of earthly delights, sniffing flowers and listening to birdsong and admiring slender blades of grass.  All of these things, I know from experience, lead to questions—and all of my questions ultimately end in the Heart of God.

I guess I’m following in the footsteps of Dominican scholar Thomas Aquinas. In his seminal work, the Summa Theologiae, Aquinas said that “just as the sun is too bright for the eye of a bat…some people think created minds can never see God as he really is.” But Aquinas went on to argue that such limiting statements are false.  Aquinas believed that humans seek ultimate happiness—a happiness found only in God; and so we needed to be able to know God within the context of this life.  As evidence, Aquinas suggested that “our ability to understand… [is] a shared likeness of his [God’s] primordial intelligence, a sort of intelligence deriving from his primordial light.”

As an “expert” on any topic, I’m a dismal failure; but if what you really want is to talk about potpourri, I’m so there!  So today, I start chatting on Patheos.  It’s a great privilege to be among the writing and thinking Greats who make their home here.  I look forward to getting to know them, and getting to know you.  I’m anxious to wade into the waters of wonder, chit-chatting about pro-life politics and prayer and potato farming.

Let’s talk.