Prologue: The Last Journey

It's dawn at JFK and I'm about to die.

Not today. Not on this flight. But soon. Three months, the doctor said, looking at the scans. Six if I do the chemo. But there's a clinic in Basel that's experimenting with something new. A one-in-a-hundred chance.

I bought the ticket with trembling hands.

Dr. Jonathan Miller. Fifty-two years old. Author of "Absolute Truth," "The God of Reason," "Dismantling Doubt." For thirty years, I've taught at Dallas Theological Seminary. For thirty years, I've had all the answers.

But this morning, sitting in this waiting area that reeks of stale coffee and desperation, with my passport and medical records in a folder that weighs like a death sentence, I can only think of him.

Of Matthew.

My son, who at eighteen looked me in the eyes and said: "Dad, your God is too small to contain my questions." And then he left.

Seven years ago.

The last time we spoke - three Christmases ago, a five-minute phone call - he told me: "You never sought God, Dad. You only tried to win against God. And when you couldn't, you invented the victories."

Then he hung up.

Now I'm about to board this plane that will take me halfway around the world to seek a cure that probably doesn't exist for a disease that will eat me alive. And the only thing I can think about is that I spent my life explaining God to everyone except my son.

And maybe I never understood anything.

Flight JB423 is delayed two hours. Technical problems, they say. I buy a notebook at the duty-free and return to sit in this terminal full of people going somewhere while I'm heading toward the end.

On this plane, maybe I'll understand something.

Or maybe not.

Maybe I'll die without ever understanding anything.

"Passengers on Flight JB423, now boarding at Gate A12."

It's time.

Ps. All stories in this devotional are fictional composites created for illustrative purposes.