I have been blogless of late. Tied down with getting the second book of the Miracle In Page series to market. A Miracle In Page: Rain of Light is now available on Amazon. Print versions of both books are coming …soon but not soon enough. But as I labored to complete the delivery of this book, I struggled to remember why I had written both books in the first place. I have included a link to an earlier blog entry from November 2014 that explains in some detail why I wrote A Miracle In Page. http://jackbethel.com/reason-for-a-miracle-in-page/ As I reread the entry, I’m not sure I recognize the person who wrote it. Am I really this naïve? Is my faith this unshakable? I don’t know. But it is interesting to live in a time where people are willing to accept stories, novels, TV shows and movies set in other worlds or other times or our time with heroes or heroines who possess superpowers. Whether it is the ability to fly, be invisible, super strength, a brilliant mind, magick, altering physical forms or any of a multitude of other powers, we gobble this up. Why? What are we in search of? What is the emptiness in our souls that we are trying to fill with these stories? I imagine many scholars, writers, observers of the human condition and spiritual leaders would tell us these stories can entertain us. Give us hope that a better world is possible or inevitable. So why is my story different? You might say, ‘But Jack, we all know these other stories are fiction. You’re trying to pass off your story as realistic’. This is a very legitimate point. In A Miracle In Page, we see the breakthrough of the Kingdom of Heaven into the broken world of man. Many of the miracles performed in my books find their parallel in the Book of Acts of the Apostles found in the Bible. If we accept that the Book of Acts is real, then the miracles found in my books are possible. I acknowledge this requires faith. Is faith needed to understand superheroes or benevolent witches or all-powerful characters? In all probability, it requires that exact opposite of faith. It requires a superhuman assumption that these characters are always acting in our best interest. That they are driven by some janitor-in-the-drum strength ethos to always do the right thing. But if super men and women, wizards, mutant beings, radioactively transformed people and brilliant scientists are human beings, then they are governed, notwithstanding their powers, by human emotions.

They are not all-seeing, all-knowing or …all good. Now I absolutely love Superman, Batman, Captain America and Ironman. The morality plays that transpire within these narratives is irresistible. But after they’ve finished beating up bad guys, saving the world from disaster or returned order to society they go home. They go home to deal with their own issues. Things like relationships, paying the rent, who to vote for in the next election (good luck with that), what to do this weekend. Ultimately they go home and struggle with the same choices we all deal with—what’s right, what’s wrong and the ultimate issue—their own mortality. What is the hole in your soul that these stories fill? I search for meaning and identification. I find these in Jesus Christ, who doesn’t need to save me from bad guys or evil empires or megalomaniacal morons. He needs to save me from me. My fears, isolation, defective thinking, emotions, petty jealousies and fallen nature. So as I re-read my blog from November of 2014, I was naïve and my faith is shaken every day, I’m not superhuman. But I’m glad God is and that He is there to drive back the baddies on days when I need it. God is not a superhero but with a mere thought, He is capable of everything we see characters perform in superhero, fantasy, other-worldly stories. And He is All Good. And He would do anything (short of taking away our free will to choose Him) to reach across the chasm that separates us to let us know that He loves us. No superhero is going to do that.