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February 2, 2010 | Ignatius J. Reilly knew what the United States needed. Shuffling through the streets of New Orleans in the novel “The Confederacy of Dunces,” Reilly remarks, “The United States needs some theology and geometry, some taste and decency. I suspect that we are teetering on the edge of the abyss.”

In his flippant remark, Reilly expresses a longing for God-talk and a guide to life. Some theology and geometry would bring decency and order. Some theology and geometry would prevent falls on the edge of that abyss. (“Abysmal” is too strong a word to describe the current ethos, but “dismal” comes close.)

I’m not totally sure what Reilly meant by theology and geometry, but I do know this: The church needs it. We need theology because our words about God -- our theos-logos, our God-talk -- matter. We need geometry -- the study of spaces -- because our understanding of the angles and spaces of our hearts and world matter. Geometry provides a guide to the ways we live and move and have our being in the world: a life-map of sorts. These lessons in theology and geometry don’t just happen in seminary or in math classes. These are courses in lifelong learning that intersect every word we utter and every space we inhabit.

Last year, I learned this lesson from Rich, one of my congregants. The geometry lesson was simple: Rich sat in the sixth row from the back at a 30-degree angle from the pulpit. This pew was the center of his life. All other destinations projected from that point.

The theology was much more complex: Rich was in the habit of talking to God on his morning run while training for a marathon. In the midst of that training, Rich was diagnosed with a brain tumor. But his God-talk continued, often in writing: it included prayers of thanksgiving and hopes for the future. On bad days, it became lament.

After Rich died at 49 of complications from cancer, I had the privilege of reading some of his talk to God written in the margins of his Bible. Never before have I seen such an intricate web of words: the prayers of his heart, the struggles of his mind and the hopes for his soul, all penciled into the margins of Scripture during the hardest course of his life. There in the margins he talked with God about his daily life. I could look at those notes and see a visual record of his days.