FAQ: Whose Geekdom is It, Anyway?
Among those TGC fans for whom a simple pun must answer to the scrutinies of rational thought, many have asked: “What is the geekdom? Whose geekdom is it?”
The answer is simply “all of it.” Yet it strikes me that this response will stir up in these same humor-challenged pedants further questions still and so I will endeavor a more thorough and meaningful response. It has been suggested — not wrongly — that the geekdom referred to in my brand name is merely a pun and nothing more. After all, the word “geekdom,” in deference to “fandom,” is rarely used, both terms being considered by some illiterate miscreants to be synonyms. The claim is half true; it is a pun, yes, but oh, so much more. Thy Geekdom Come was always meant to be a statement. It is not primarily about geek culture, nor about geeks, but about a kingdom and the Lord of that kingdom. The geekdom is that kingdom elsewhere known by other names: the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven, the reign of the Lamb, and Holy Mother Church.
Consider for a moment, how you and I are held in existence by God. We are, each one of us, on His mind. We could not exist were it not so. He knows us, each man and woman to the last, through and through. All the hairs on your head are counted, the cells in your organs, too, and each and every atom, each electron, each proton, each neutron. If that were not enough, each quark as well. For you, for me, for every human being on the face of the earth. All the subatomic particles, also, in every rock, every tree, every drop of water, every air molecule. This for every planet in the solar system, for every solar system in the galaxy, for every galaxy in the cluster. The quantum foam, also, if such a thing be real as the scientist speculate, its parts popping in and out of existence, is known entirely, comprehensively, and completely by God. Truthfully, God is intimately aware of every single thing, no matter how small or great, throughout the universe. These things He knows in their entirety as man cannot know them. The single true Observer, He sees each thing where it is and whence it comes and whence it goes, not as things in motion through time, but as things in every position of their timeline as if at once, for He sees not in time, but in eternal present. He “concentrates,” as it were, on every single piece of matter in the universe and even of the vacuum of space, He is aware of every Planck Unit, holding in existence all that was, that is, and that is to come.
Still, this is not enough, for God knows also all that could be, that might have been. (Thomists, stay in your seats, I am not advocating Molinism.) If the infinite multiverse were real as in science-fiction — and I would posit that it is not — even still there would not be multiple versions of the one God; our one God would be the Lord of all particles in all universes.
Souls, too, and unembodied spirits He also knows. Their thoughts, their motives, their every inclination. Better than we know ourselves, He knows us. Though He does not experience our individual personhoods, He knows our experiences as well — and better — as if He Himself were in our shoes and we were mere bystanders to our own actions. The secret counsels of men and angels are known entirely to Him.
What effort this would require! But not for Him. For God, He who is, to hold all these contingencies in the palm of His hand takes less than a drop of sweat, less than the slightest energy — it takes no effort at all, merely His willing it. Holding us in being takes not from Him the least bit of energy.
Yet freely He gives nonetheless.
It takes nothing from Him, yet He bestows His very self — eternity, infinity — on His creatures.
It takes not a drop of sweat, yet He sweat and bled for us.
When we had sinned and gone astray, when we had exerted all our efforts against Him, for love of us, He poured out His very self upon the cross. Having become man for love of man, He conquered death by suffering death, and proved to us His love. For our sake, He underwent the Passion.
I will not stoop to make the dubious, reductive, and irreverent claim that God is a geek, but certainly what geekdom is — a passionate, all-consuming interest in something — is the worldly shadow of some aspect of God’s love.
The geekdom encompasses the totality of the universe — the universe God stepped into because of His geeky love, the universe destined to receive the gospel.
It’s God’s geekdom. I’m just a jester’s apprentice.