Dragons and Owls

I am a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls. (Job 30:29)

It can be spectacular fun to be a nerd. It can also be intensely lonely.

You can understand how nerds exploring the Bible get drawn to the book of Job. 

It’s dense, mysterious, like picking up a thread on bronze age reddit: Job posts his pain, his passion, his confusion, his tough questions. Then the thread lights up with smug replies from people who don’t let their ignorance hold them back from providing ‘answers.’ 🙄 As the book progresses, their comments grow more confident and elaborate, as Job gets more frustrated:

How hast thou helped him that is without power? How savest thou the arm that hath no strength? How hast thou counselled him that hath no wisdom? And how hast thou plentifully declared the thing as it is? To whom hast thou uttered words? And whose spirit came from thee? (Job 26:2-4) 

Job’s religious friends may mean well, but as far as Job is concerned, they aren’t helping. He’s looking to them for help, support, guidance, or insight. Sifting through their eloquent comments, he finds nothing to sustain him, or offer him hope. 

It’s like they don’t know or care who he is. They have become spiritual strangers. 

By choice or necessity, Job has a new team and they’re not Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar and Elihu. For family Job has dragons, and for companionship he has owls. He recognizes in himself something in common with them. Creatures rarely or barely glimpsed. The creepy, kooky, mysterious and spooky–even the altogether ooky. He gets them, and maybe, they get him. 

It might be overreaching to imagine Job feeling any immediate comfort from the dragons and owls. He might be saying, ‘with friends like these…’ But the fact remains, Job is not alone. If he’s out of the Players’ Handbook, at least he’s in the Monster Manual.

The pain of tough questions, isolation, and even alienation can bring a new quality of companionship, when we find it. It’s why we need to make Nerdchurch happen.

Dragonkin and owlfolk, we see you. We celebrate you. 🐲🦉🥳

Welcome to Nerdchurch.

🤓⛪👯