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To the glorious children of the Most High God,
Stories are written all around us.
Some are written in the stars. Some are handed down to us by our mothers. Some are embedded in the way we work, think, strive, and try to maintain control. And some are the stories we quietly tell ourselves about who we are.
This month’s issue of Elisha’s Riddle explores a few of those stories—and asks what happens when we learn to see them differently.
In The Gospel in the Zodiac, I continue our journey through the signs in the heavens with a provocative question: What if the zodiac was never meant to tell us something about ourselves? What if, instead, it was always telling a story about Christ?
We also continue C. David Baker’s Walking Stick Journal with Shift Work, following the path away from control and an overreliance on the intellect toward trust—moving beyond merely understanding something with the mind and learning to know it in the heart.
Andrea Sinclair’s A Mother’s Imprint turns our attention toward another kind of inheritance: the ways our mothers shape us. It is a tender reflection on love, truth, boundaries, and the sometimes difficult work of allowing God to transform what has been handed down to us.
Finally, Waylon Woody’s Starved Sin-Dog explores one of the stories Christians can carry about themselves: that somewhere inside us is a fundamentally sinful self that just needs to be properly starved to death. Through a very personal story of attention, burnout, loneliness, and grace, the article asks what might happen if God wants to do more than help us manage ourselves—what if He wants to reintroduce us to who we actually are?
With that, I see a beautiful thread running through these pieces. We both inherit and construct stories. Perhaps that is one thread running through this whole issue. We look to the heavens, our families, our experiences, our successes and failures, even our theology, trying to understand where we fit.
But every once in a while, something shifts. We see an old thing from a new angle. Something moves from the head to the heart. A story we have believed about ourselves begins to lose its power.
And perhaps, hidden underneath it all, we discover a better Story that has been there all along.
Welcome to the September issue.
Nick Padovani
Publisher, Elisha’s Riddle
Contents:
The Song of the Universe: The Gospel in the Zodiac
The Walking Stick Journal: Shift Work
The Music of a Faithful Life: A Mother’s Imprint
Between You and Me: Starved Sin-Dog
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