What is Ruik?

The word Ruik is my personal adaptation of the Hebrew word רוּחַ (ruach, phonetically spelled roo'-akh).

Ruach is defined as breath, wind, spirit. 

It finds its origin in

wind; 

by resemblance breath, 

i.e. a sensible (or even violent) exhalation; 

figuratively, life, anger, insubstantiality; 

by extension, a region of the sky; 

by resemblance spirit, but only of a rational being (including its expression and functions).

You can read more about it by looking up Strong's h7307

I honestly don't know exactly how I landed on Ruik, but its inspiration is directly and almost exclusively tied to Ruach. 

For me, it means I get to participate in God's breathing within the world. 

It is also a guiding light of sorts, a constant reminder that what I write must be god-breathed. 

So the majority of what I write relates to a life of faith in as many facets as I can get my mind around through my own personal experience.

Here, you won’t find polished dogma, structured theology or tidy confessions. You will find a look behind the curtain at the inner mess of my life with God.

Ambivalence has become a friend of mine these days. Life so often is not one thing or the other. Life in all its moments is so often an intersection of happiness and sadness, fear and confidence, love and hate, gratitude and envy etc. at the same time.

I write as a means to gain clarity in my life. Not to simplify and distill my experiences into manageable box-shaped items, but to deepen the ambivalence. It is in the ambivalence where God does his best work on me. It is when nothing is certain that God steps forward and says “I AM certain”; it is when nothing is clear that God whispers “Maybe I’m more wonderful than you thought.”

I want to share my writing with you, not because I think it’s great, but because there’s a chance I can help you find new ways forward, backward, or into greater wonder.

Once again, I’m honoured that you are here with me. I look forward to doing this together.