What We Talk About When We Talk About God by Rob Bell

one.
    But when we talk about God, we’re talking about the very straightforward affirmation that everything has a singular, common source and is infinitely, endlessly, deeply connected.
    We are involved, all of us.
    And it all matters,
    and it’s all connected.
    All of which leads me to a third particular response to ruach, one that takes me to Long Beach, California, to a TED conference. Each February over a thousand people gather at this conference to listen to some of the brightest, most creative, most innovative people in the world give talks on technology, environment, design, science, and a number of other topics. It’s an extraordinary thing to sit for a week and hear scientists and inventors and writers sharing what they’ve discovered and created and pioneered and achieved in their efforts to make the world a better place.
    There’s also an agreement, I’m assuming unspoken, that God and religion aren’t to be acknowledged beyond passing, often apologetic references to spirituality and transcendence. These are, after all, the smartest folks around. What would Jesus have to do with anything they’re doing? (That is an example of sarcasm.)
    I tell you all this because at TED 2012 a brilliant, passionate lawyer named Bryan Stevenson gave a talk about injustice and racism. He spoke about his work around the country within the prison and court systems and his desire to see all people treated fairly. He told stories about young men he’s currently defending in court, arguing compellingly for a more just society, and then he closed with a quote from Martin Luther King Jr. (who was quoting the abolitionist Theodore Parker) about how the moral arc of the universe is long and it bends toward justice.
    The second Stevenson was done, the audience gave him a rousing, extended standing ovation. Then later, they pitched in collectively to give his organization over a million dollars.
    I point this out because when the audience was asked from the stage two days earlier how many of them considered themselves religious, it appeared that only about 2 or 3 percent of the people raised their hands.
    And yet a man confronted them with the moral arc of the universe and they intuitively, unanimously, instantly affirmed the truth of his claim.
    Is history headed somewhere?
    Seriously?
    Because when Bryan Stevenson talks about the moral arc of the universe, he’s talking about history, history that is headed somewhere, somewhere good.
    History that has a point to it.
    I believe that those smart, educated, accomplished, self-described-as-not-very-religious people stood and applauded because deep within every single one of us is the conviction that there is a point to this. That life has purpose. That when we die, the lights are not turned off and the show is not over.
    The Greeks had a word for this sense of forward movement, purpose, and direction—they called it telos . The telos of something is its point, its purpose, where it’s headed, what it’s doing, and where it’s going.
    This is why we love stories: they’re loaded with telos. They are not static but dynamic realities, heavy with potential and possibility. In a story, something happens, and then something else happens after that, leading somewhere. That’s how stories work.
    When we talk about God, we’re talking about that sense you have—however stifled, faint, or repressed it is—that hope is real, that things are headed somewhere, and that that somewhere is good.
    That’s the power of a TV show like The Office. Boring meetings and photocopiers that hum in the background and annoying people in the next cubicle—at the deepest level these sorts of settings are a vise on our heart, squeezing us tighter and tighter with the insistence that tomorrow is going to be just like today. It’s the terror of the modern world, the crushing fear behind every day: that it’s going to be like