THE ALGORITHM OF SOULS
(A mythic testimony, a creative confession, a spiritual origin story.)
Before I ever stepped behind a pulpit…
Before I ever preached like a man trying to pull souls back from the edge of eternity…
I was building something.
I just didn’t know its true name.
Back then, it was called Liquid Imagination.
An online oasis for the strange, the brilliant, the broken, the hopeful —
word-warriors who gathered under digital stars to sharpen each other’s minds.
We had editors for fiction, poetry, flash, even a “business agent” who never saw a paycheck but carried the same wild spark the rest of us did.
Nobody became famous.
Nobody struck gold.
But we struck each other’s souls, and something electric happened every time we touched the page.
We were tapping into a vein the old masters knew well — a Jung-like collective consciousness where imaginations overlap and worlds blend.
Poe had it.
Dickinson lived in it.
Lovecraft breathed in it.
They didn’t set out to change the world, yet their ripples shaped the minds of future giants.
We were feeling that same tremor — that sense that creativity wasn’t solitary but shared.
A thought passed from one writer to another became a flame, then a torch, then a lantern hung in the darkness for whoever came next.
Our ritual wasn’t “Amen.”
It wasn’t “Hallelujah.”
It was a simple, ridiculous, sacred word: Yippee.
Every acceptance letter, every published poem, every tiny victory — that was our revival shout.
A community praising creation itself.
Years later, when the dust settled, I realized something that stopped me cold:
I was trying to build a church without calling it a church.
Trying to shepherd misfits with metaphors.
Trying to recreate fellowship with fiction instead of faith.
Trying to replace hallelujahs with yippees because I was starving for belonging and didn’t know how to name the hunger.
Then came the breaking.
When I thought death was stalking me…
When I sat alone with a fear I didn’t dare confess out loud…
When I looked at my children — fragile, hurting, standing on the same edge that had swallowed their mother…
I begged God, “Who will save them if I’m gone?”
Not their mother.
Not the streets.
Not the world.
So I reached for the only lifeline I truly trusted:
I took them to church.
And here’s where God laughed — that holy, ironic, Fatherly laugh from Heaven’s throne:
they chose the exact kind of church I used to run from.
And in that moment, I felt the divine humor:
My children were pulling me into the presence of the very God I thought I was leading them toward.
They were saving me.
As I tried to save them.
That’s when everything began to make sense — the magazine, the community, the digital tribe, the yearning to synchronize minds and hearts:
I was chasing a design I didn’t understand.
Not a program.
Not a platform.
Not analytics.
Not AI.
But a human algorithm —
a soul-to-soul circuitry,
a shared spiritual frequency,
a collective heartbeat where faith and creativity collide and make ordinary people extraordinary.
It wasn’t code.
It was communion.
It wasn’t data.
It was destiny.
It wasn’t numbers.
It was names —
names written on God’s heart.
And then… the revelation hit:
BUT HERE IS THE TRUTH AT THE END OF ALL MY BUILDING…
I am not building the church.
If I were, it would collapse under the weight of my flaws.
It would crumble like sandcastles slapped by the tide.
It would fall apart on Day One.
Because only Christ builds His church,
and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
Unless the Lord builds the house,
they labor in vain who build it.
All this time I thought I was the architect —
building an online magazine,
building a creative tribe,
building an army of prayer warriors,
building a church.
But I see it now:
I was insane to think I could do the work of Jesus Christ.
I cannot.
I never could.
So I won’t try anymore.
I will get out of the way.
I will decrease so He may increase.
I will surrender the blueprints I drew in my own weakness and place them in the hands of the Master Builder.
Jesus — the Carpenter of worlds.
Born into the home of a carpenter.
Raised among wood shavings and stone dust.
Formed in a family of builders because His mission was to build something eternal.
Of course He would choose that home.
Of course He would choose that trade.
Because He is not just the Savior —
He is the Builder.
The Carpenter of hearts.
The Mason of minds.
The Architect of faith.
The One who shapes living stones and sets them into place with divine precision.
And now I understand:
Everything I ever tried to build…
He is building through me.
Not because of my skill —
but in spite of it.
Not because I’m worthy —
but because He is.
He is shaping people.
He is forming faith.
He is constructing community.
He is building a kingdom out of souls, not bricks.
And the very thing I longed for all my life —
the unity, the connection, the shared fire, the collective rise of hearts and minds —
He is creating through me.
Because He is the Carpenter of worlds.
The Carpenter of souls.
The Creator of faith.
And I am simply His tool.