The Seeker

In the intensive care unit, Scientist’s son teetered on the edge of death. In that valley, something shifted. He woke up a seeker. When he could speak again, every breath carried a question.

When Nathan visited the hospital, he couldn't keep up. He shared what he had discovered on his own journey, but often didn't have answers.

Cropped Truth

The bed-bound Seeker found it hard to see the connection between his scientist-mom and Artist’s recent dark spells of inner crisis and their insufficient, trimmed-down views of truth. Nathan took a few days to sort through his thoughts before he attempted to answer Seeker. He told a story the way Wildlife Ranger would. The story involved all four of his former mentors.

Fisherman

Nathan said to Seeker, "Picture Fisherman's way of understanding truth as a multicolored ball in his weathered hands. Three main colors swirl across it, but they don't have hard edges. They bleed into each other to create new shades where they meet."

Nathan's hands traced circles in the air. "Each color is a different kind of truth." He gave examples from Fisherman's life:

• Technical truth: Fisherman's boat is 30 feet long. He can prove it with his tape measure.
• Subjective truth: When dolphins race alongside his bow, Fisherman's heart pounds with excitement: joy no instrument can measure.
• Moral truth: Those banned nets that strangle and drown turtles and dolphins: it's just horribly wrong that some people still use them.

“Wait a moment,” Seeker said as he took a get-well card from his bedside table to scribble notes on its back. Nathan waited, then continued, "With Fisherman, the three kinds of truth are all intertwined, inseparable."

"What would the three colors be?" Seeker mused, a mischievous smile playing on his lips. He glanced down at his hospital gown, then answered his own question: "I nominate this exquisite 'bedpan blue' for scientific and technical truth. Perfectly sterile."

They both laughed, the first real laugh in that room for weeks.

Scientist

Nathan shifted in his chair, searching for the right words. How could he explain what had happened to Seeker's mother, this brilliant scientist whose faith had unraveled?

"When your mom comes by again," Nathan said carefully, "ask her if she sees herself in this story." Seeker's smile faltered. They both knew it was his brush with death that had pushed her to the brink. He locked eyes with Nathan, desperate to understand.

"Scientists, like your mom, live for one color on that truth ball. Which one do you think?" Seeker's answer came quick but gentle: "The blue. Her perfect, sterile technical blue."

Nathan nodded, his voice growing more intense. "So picture this: a scientist takes Fisherman's truth ball from his hands, and a large pair of scissors. She starts cutting." Nathan made scissor motions with his fingers. "Every color that isn't blue falls to the floor. The colors of love and joy and wonder? Trash. The colors of good and evil, right and wrong, sin and holiness? Trash. She keeps only what she can measure, only what fits in her equations."

Nathan could see how understanding dawned in Seeker's eyes, then pressed on. "She kept cutting away everything that couldn't be weighed, measured, or proven. She gathered the plain blue segments, patched them together, and trimmed the edges to force that living sphere into a flat mono-color, perfect square.

His hands demonstrated the flattening motion. "What happens when you do that to truth?"

"Truth became two-dimensional," Seeker whispered.

"Exactly." Nathan's voice grew sad. "Flat. Manageable. Perfect for spreadsheets and formulas. She traded depth for precision, gave up the mystery for the measurable. And it worked, didn't it? That laser focus gave her breakthrough after breakthrough. Until..."

Nathan didn't say it. Both thought it. Until her son lay dying, and all her formulas couldn't do a thing.

Seeker nodded slowly, processing the weight of it all. "And Artist?" he asked suddenly. "What did he do with the scissors?"

Artist

Artist watched this whole thing happen. He saw the scientist butchering that beautiful ball with her oversized scissors. He saw her tossing aside the most beautiful color, his favorite, trampling all over it.

Nathan looked straight at Seeker. "Do you know which color was his favorite?"

"I'd guess the color of feeling, of personal experience, of what makes you sing or weep."

Nathan nodded quietly. "So Artist? He went into a rage. Grabbed the scientist's perfect blue square, slashed it to pieces, and hurled them straight into the trash."

Nathan paused, letting that sink in. "Then he turned to the snippets on the floor to cut his favorite vibrant color free from the rest, and pieced them back together. But here's the thing:" Nathan's hands moved expressively. "He didn't make another square. He refused to give his truth any firm borders at all. Just flowing color: My truth. Your truth. Everyone's own truth."

"No firm boundaries," Seeker murmured.

"None. To him, one person's experience of beauty or pain was worth more than all the measurements in the world. Your feelings about dolphins matter more than their actual length and weight. The scientist's formulas? Worthless compared to how a sunset or music can make you feel."

Seeker winced. "That's just as broken, isn't it?"

"And Ranger?" he asked quietly. "What did he do with this mess?"

Ranger

Ranger was appalled to see truth shredded to pieces. He knew all facets were important and belonged together, but realized, 'All the king's horses and all the king's men cannot put the color ball together again.' So he built something new. A cube. Technical truth on two opposite sides, subjective on two others, and moral truth on the remaining two.

Seeker's fingers traced a wobbly cube in the air as he asked, “So, Ranger’s truth wasn’t flattened out, two-dimensional anymore, but it’s also not the original ball?"

"You've got it. " Nathan nodded. "The cube made it easy for Ranger to talk to scientists. He rotated the Truth Cube until tech-blue faced them. If he talked to artists, he flipped the cube until their vibrant color faced them. When he was talking to fishermen types, Ranger angled his cube to show all three colors at once. He sometimes tilted the cube when speaking to scientists and artists too, to help them see that truth is more complex than they may have realized."

Nathan left Seeker to reflect on this story, as he wouldn't be able to see him again until the next weekend.

No Amputations

Eight days later, Nathan brought Seeker a Rubik's cube with only three colors. Seeker compared one blue side to his hospital gown and managed a weak smile. "Thank you," he said.

Turning the cube slowly in his hands, Seeker hesitantly asked, "If I don't want to end up with the faith crisis my mom had, would it be better to stop studying science?"

"What? No!" Nathan said. "Science is wonderful, and more science is better than less. Same with art. The problem isn't science or art. It's what people do to themselves."

He paused. "Remember the soldier in the bed next to yours in intensive care, who lost his legs? I pop in to see him every time I visit you. Last week he said with a cheeky smile that, without his legs, at least he might be able to beat his old pull-up record." Nathan let the irony hang in the air for a moment. "But if his friends also amputated their legs just for better pull-ups, that would be insane, right?"

Seeker nodded, finding it tragic, yet funny.

"Don't let your studies or social circles amputate essential parts of who you are. Or of your ability to understand life. Don't accept tunnel vision." Nathan pointed out the window toward the university. "Go study science. Become the best scientist in the world if you want. But hold on tight to all facets of truth.

Light Bringer

Their eyes turned to the door as Scientist entered, catching Nathan's final words.

As Nathan turned to leave, Scientist spoke from her son's bedside: "You are a gift to us, Nathan Lucas. Giving so much of yourself." She murmured, to herself, "True to his name: a bringer of light in our dark time."

Nathan froze at the doorway. His grandfather's voice pierced through decades: "Lucas means light-bringer. And Nathan... to give yourself, to be a gift to those around you. Live up to it, boy."

He'd forgotten.

Am I? he wondered. Am I becoming...? Isn't this what all of us are called to be?

He glanced back at Seeker's room one more time.

New Light

For the next week, everyone who came to visit Seeker was treated to the story of a colorful ball and scissors.

Seeker started to find. He scribbled down his discoveries as he immersed himself in Scripture. Tears of gratitude stained some pages. The bed-bound Seeker was making spiritual strides. It was almost as if a light had started glistening from his room. Other patients and nursing staff began gravitating to him when they were feeling down or overwhelmed because Seeker listened with sincere interest. They somehow felt safe to open up to him, even though he was so young. Truth and love ignited a comforting gleam that emanated to people around him. Even a soldier who lost his legs was drawn by the glow he noticed in his much younger new mentor.

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