My name is David Valerio. I'm a geologist by training and I work in the oil & gas industry in western North Dakota, overseeing safety across sites in the Williston Basin.
Discern Earth is where I think in public. These essays are my attempt to make sense of what we claim to know, what we actually do, and the gap between the two. The questions that matter to me cut across domains—faith, work, technology, truth—because reality doesn't respect those boundaries, so our thinking shouldn't either.
I write as a Byzantine Catholic, which means that I take Sacred Tradition seriously: the Church Fathers, the sacraments, the long unbroken chain of Christians who have been working out what it means to be a bounded human person before the infinite God. It also means that I'm committed to the idea that truth is real, knowable, and worth pursuing with rigor even when the conclusions are uncomfortable.
If that resonates, subscribe. I aim for Thursday mornings, though some weeks the thinking takes longer. You'll get each piece by email, and you're welcome to write back.