It’s what I do.

When our kids were little Suzanne read to them a lot, but I generally just told them stories, recited poems and sang songs that my mother had told, recited and sung to me. There was one about a pig who wouldn’t jump over a stile, – I’ll share that one with you some time. – another about a green-eyed dragon, and another about Nine Little Goblins. They also had green eyes, but theirs were glass. You might be relieved to know that my mom altered the ending of that one a bit to degrimmify it, as did I. (No fun going to bed with frightened children in the house.)

You may have heard these stories because they’re old, and because they’re excellent, which is how they got old. But there was another you haven’t heard. It was about a young man who went off to university to seek his fortune. He spent a rather lonely first year, and was beginning to wish he’d done something else, when suddenly he met a beauuuuuuuuuuuuuutiful girl and everything changed. Her name happened to be Suzanne and his Dan, and eventually they had four children who happened to have the same names, and come in the same order, as our own four children. It was, frankly, a boring story; no dragons or goblins, nor any of the pillaging and mayhem that makes the really good ones really good ones. But it was a favourite because it was their story.

It is sometimes said of a great story that it’s “captivating”. That is, it somehow reaches out and kidnaps us, draws us in, and makes us take part. We identify with a character or situation, and it becomes our story. This is the secret of a novel like The Catcher in the Rye, or the Harry Potter series. Holden Caulfield is every kid who has ever tried to navigate the jungle of adolescence, and learn to use a moral compass. And Harry is the same. Not about witchcraft (getting what you want by magic) but which craft (making decisions about what you will do with your life and what you will be).

As a young man I stumbled into a story that captivated me and has never let me go. Roughly speaking it’s the story of the Bible, though I must admit not all of it has equal power over me. – If you were to examine my Bible you would find that some parts are much more dog-eared than others. – Over the years the characters have become friends, and many of them family; the people, my people; the history, my history.

Much of the story is glorious, but a lot of it’s confusing, upsetting and humiliating. Some of the characters are beautiful and inspiring, but even the best of them can be complete ass-holes on occasion. In other words, they’re like my friends and family, and just like me. And the God of this Bible... well, he’s the most inspiring, mysterious and maddening character of all. But I’m captivated, and there seems to be little I can do about it.

I sometimes pretend for a while that this story has nothing to do with me, and start making my own story without regard to anything in this one. But, so far at least, I’ve always had to give up and admit that I’m stuck. I’m a Jeremiah, trying to prophesy for God, or sulking and refusing to. I’m a David, triumphing over an armoured giant on a battlefield, or falling flat on my face over a naked woman on a roof. I’m a Paul, pouring out my life in the service of the gospel, or impatiently telling a colleague to take a hike. Sometimes I’m a Mary, faithfully embracing even the most absurd calling God could have for me. At other times a Judas or a Pilate, turning my back and looking for some dark place to hide.

So I’m going to spend some time over the next few weeks thinking out loud about this crazy book. It’s what I do.