Pentecost

The corners of the ceiling

begin to vibrate, a low hum

building to noise, a buzzing

of a hundred hives in unison,

a wind of noise and sound,

the rushing and roar

of a severe violence

bursting upon them;

they cover their ears

as the fire burning

not consuming, dancing

upon their heads, touching

without burning,

a fiery furnace that doesn’t

consume or even singe,

but producing the fire

of the voices of nations.

Photograph by Julie Gentry via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

Saturday Good Reads

Maureen Doallas gets inspired by a rain of spiders. David Muray sets records for answering email. Tim Good finds beauty in dandelions (dandelions!). Troy Cady finds innovative ways to teach children. And Ed Stetzer, author, speaker and contributing editor at Christianity Today, says it’s time for the church to recognize that American society is becoming increasing less friendly to Christianity.

And happy birthday to Janet, my beautiful wife of almost 42 years.

Culture and Society

Evangelicals, Culture, and Post-Christian America – Ed Stetzer at Christianity Today.

Calling Out Evil: One Man’s Stand – David Rupert at Red-Letter Believers.

Engaging the Bible & Evangelical Distinctives – Rod Dreher at The American Conservative.

Photography

Dandelions – Tim Good at Photography by Tiwago.

Writing

Novelists Need to Show AND Tell – Mike Duran at Novel Rocket.

Why do I answer my email so ridiculously fast? – David Murray at Writing Boots.

The Former Life I Once Loved – Mick Silva.

The Slow Growth of Ideas – Chris Yokel at The Rabbit Room.

Eureka – Tess Gerritsen for Strand Magazine.

Poetry

Windmills – Richard Maxson at the Imagined Jay.

Blooming Arachnids – Maureen Doallas at Writing Without Paper.

Poem for Pentecost – Mary Harwell Sayler.

Pessimists’ Lullaby – Jim Schmotzer at Faithful Skeptic.

Faith

For when you’re weary – Billy Coffey at What I Learned Today.

Disciple-making by worshipful play – Troy Cade at T(r)oy Marbles.

Being a Man of Shovel and Sword – Mike Yarbrough at Manturity.

Conflicts: Our Laboratories of Love – Bill Grandi at Cycleguy’s Spin.

Photograph: One of my favorite pictures of our trip last year to London – the office building known as “The Shard” and its nearby neighbor, Southwark Cathedral.

Waiting

After Acts 1

The creation waits, standing

on tiptoe, for the sons to be

revealed, to be

redeemed, first the sons

then the creation to be

redeemed from the then

to the will be

to the crown,

waiting

sometimes it is not go ye

sometimes it is stay ye

and wait

wait for the words spoken

by tongues of fire

wait, and you will know

why you wait;

it is not what you expect.

Admonished by men in white

they turn from the cloud,

from the hill, returning

to the town,

to the room, to wait

for what is not known,

for what is hoped.

Photograph: scene from the interior of the sculpture “Threshold” at Laity Lodge, Leakey, Texas.

Short Takes: EBooks, Fujimura & Maggie the Fox

Short Takes is a new feature here focused on works that can be read in under an hour, give or take 30 minutes or so. Today’s post covers three recent works – a how-to, a preview, and a children’s book. All are ebooks.

Advanced Kindle Book Marketing

If you’ve ever wondered how much book publishing has changed over the last decade, here’s a good place to start. Advanced Kindle Book Marketing: How to Sell More Ebooks Online with New Amazon Promotions and Bestseller Tips by Lucinda Sue Crosby and Laura Dobbins. This is not so much about how to publish an ebook generally or how to publish a Kindle book, but rather how to develop marketing strategies and plans specifically selling books via Kindle (whether they’re original Kindle books or Kindle versions of hardcover or paperback books).

Crosby and Dobbins go extensively through the basics: from keywords and book categories to promos, book reviews and using social media. One chapter includes good information on the strategic use of “free days,” those times when you (or your publisher) can, or should, offer your book for free. It’s not as obvious or as simple as you think it might be.

Remember that the book is strictly about ebook marketing on Kindle and Amazon, and it’s exhaustive in that regard. You’ll need to seek other resources if you’re looking for a book on how to publish an ebook.

Related note: After 27 years, Big Sleep Books, an independent bookstore in St. Louis devoted to mysteries and suspense, is closing June 30. The owners attribute the closing to Amazon and Kindle – which only underscore the importance of ebook marketing for authors.

On Becoming Generative

Speaking of interesting developments in ebook marketing, artist and writer Makoto Fujimura has published On Becoming Generative: An Introduction to Culture Care. What’s interesting is that it’s a special preview to his soon-to-be-published book Culture Care. It’s a short work, some 25 pages, but it’s packed with the thinking of an artist who’s been considering ad writing about the idea of “making culture” for a number of years.

The preview includes a short personal storu about bringing beauty into our lives; a longer essay on “An Artist’s Journey Toward Generativity;” and then a discussion of what “culture care” actually is. Fujimura defines the purpose of culture care providing “care for our culture’s ‘soul,’ to bring our cultural home our bouquet of flowers, so that reminders of beauty—both ephemeral and enduring—are present in even the harshest environments where survival is at stake.”

The preview promises that the complete book will be thought-provoking, insightful, and an artifact of “culture making” itself.

Maggie Arrives

Those of us who live in urban and suburban areas are becoming more familiar with wildlife not normally associated with the neighborhood. Animals (especially deer) are finding ways to adapt to the encroachment of development. In my own area of suburban St. Louis, I have seen coyotes, opossums, raccoons and foxes (rabbits don’t count as wildlife).

The Adventures of an Urban Fox: Maggie Arrives by Yara Evans is a delightful children’s book, the story of an urban (or suburban) fox who begins showing up around the yard, driving two cats to complete distraction. Illustrated by artist Luciana Betti, it’s based on a true story (including the cats). It’s a story with a point or moral to tell – about what happens when ostensible enemies reach out to one another in a time of need.

On Yara Evans’ author’s page on Amazon you can see photos of the inspiration for Maggie and a video. Evans lives in London, and looks after two cats when she’s not keeping an eye out for Maggie.

Top photograph by Karen Arnold via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

Sitting, with pen

After Acts 1:1-8

The doctor sits, pen in hand,

hesitating before the emptiness

stretched in front of him. One

part completed, one part left.

He feels a small chill, as he

often does these days, this time

grown shorter. He pulls his cloak

closer, as the scroll beckons.

He begins this task set

before him, this work to be read

by only one, one friend and

he wonders if it will be shared

as the nib of the pen finally

touches the untouched scroll.

Part of this he knows himself,

part he does not, so he talks

he reads, he listens, he writes

letters to those who saw

although he ranks grow thin.

While he writes, Pompeii

is buried, Jerusalem falls,

emperors come and go, wisps

on an unforgiving wind

only the words last

only the words survive.

Illustration by George Hodan via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

Poetry at Work: The Poetry of Retirement

In my book Poetry at Work, I conclude with a chapter on the poetry of retirement. At the time I wrote it, I didn’t have a set date for retiring, although the idea was taking on more importance. Early last summer, I informed my managers that I would be retiring in the spring. My official last day in the office was May 1.

Three weeks later, I’ve found myself with something of a surprise. I thought I would miss the daily routine, the crisis du jour, the adrenalin rush of being always on call, the constant checking of the cell phone buzzing with emails, texts and phone calls.

The surprise is that I haven’t missed it at all. It’s as if I walked out thinking I was part of an epic poem and instead found myself with a haiku, a short glance backwards and then it was done.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Photograph by Paul Brennan via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

Where’s Daniel?

One of the best known stories of the book of Daniel (and indeed the entire Bible) doesn’t include the character of Daniel. In his account of the story in Against the Flow: The Inspiration of Daniel in an Age of Relativism, John Lennox doesn’t speculate where Daniel might have been, but he offers enough insights to at least suggest an answer.

Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, had a 90-foot-tall golden statue of himself built, and he expects the leaders of Babylon to set and tone and worship the statue.

By this time, Daniel and his three friends – Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego – have moved into significant government positions in Nebuchadnezzar’s government. Like the other leaders, they’re expected to bow the knee to the statue.

For whatever reason, Daniel does not say where he was. There’s not a single reference to him in the story, except that he had asked Nebuchadnezzar to appoint his three friends as administrators over the province of Babylon, which the king had done, overwhelmed by Daniel’s interpretation of his dream.

The story focuses on the three friends. They refuse to worship the statue. Given a second chance, they refuse again. They tell the king that their fate – incineration in the fiery furnace – is in the hands of God. They acknowledge that God may choose to save them or He may not, but regardless of what God chooses, they would not serve Babylon’s gods or worship Nebuchadnezzar’s statue.

Enraged, the king orders the furnace heated seven times hotter than the usual experience. It’s so hot that the men preparing to fling Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego into the flames are themselves incinerated.

Nebuchadnezzar comes to watch. And he and the others see four men walking inside the furnace – the three friends and one who strikes the onlookers as almost supernatural, “like the son of the gods.” Some theologians see the fourth figure as an angel; others see him as the pre-incarnate Christ. Whoever it was, it was clearly someone whose purpose was to be with the three men and, perhaps, to send a message to Nebuchadnezzar.

The result: the three friends come out of the fire, completely unaffected physically by the experience. Nebuchadnezzar praises their God, and he praises their courage and faith. And then he decrees that no one can say anything against their God.

So where was Daniel?

The text doesn’t say. I offer an answer: Daniel was right there all along. The story reads like an eyewitness account. I suggest that Nebuchadnezzar refrained from throwing him into the furnace, even though he, too, would refuse to worship the statue. But Daniel’s position as such that even the king would have hesitated to order his death; after all, this was the man who had not only interpreted the king’s dream but told the king what he dream was in the first place. Sending Daniel’s three friends into the furnace could also have been the king’s threat to Daniel – bow the knee, or you could suffer the same fate.

The account of the fiery furnace suggests a larger question as well, and not the obvious “What would you have done in their place?” No, the question is, what do we do if our own government requires – if not overt worship – obedience to the point that it clearly is idolatry?

I don’t think this is a question of “if” but of “when.”

For the past several weeks, I've been discussing Against the Flow. This post is based on chapter 11, "when the state Becomes God." 

Painting of the fiery furnace in Daniel 3 by Philip Prescott Parham.

The prophets

After Romans 8:18-25

I listened to the prophets

before they were killed,

their words groaning,

plaintive cries of what

I knew was love, ultimately,

the groaning at the coldness.

the ignorance, the ignoring

of the obvious and so

they were called to speak,

to cry out the words given,

knowing they would be hated

but they spoke the words,

the groans, because they knew

no other course except

to obey.

Photograph by Lynn Greyling via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

“Have You Ever Lied for Your Company?”

I’ve spent 40 years in organizational communications, mostly in the corporate world. I’ve been on the firing line more times than I want to remember – product crises, environmental crises, public controversies involving the company, and more. I worked for slightly less than year for an urban school district forced into massive change during a full-blown financial crisis and became the most familiar face on local television during that time.

Once, perhaps more than once, I was asked a question by an acquaintance that caught me up short, because I had never been asked it before.

“Have you ever lied for your company?”

I thought a moment, looked at the person asking the question, and answered.

“No. Not once.”

He was surprised. That’s what public relations people are supposed to do, right – lie on a regular basis? Or “mis-speak,” to use the more common word today.

I understand the question. I have seen PR people lie. I’ve also seen just about every other kind of professional and worker lie as well.

But with PR, it’s expected. PR carries a bias for the organization, or bias for the client.

And I will say this: the questioner actually asked the wrong question. The question he should have asked was: “Have you ever been asked, or told, to lie for your company?”

He would have gotten a very different answer. Actually, he would have received four different answers.

First, being directly and knowingly asked to tell a lie is exceedingly rare. It might have been more common in the days before tape recorders, listening devices, and email, but no one says “I need you to lie to the newspaper about this one.” It can happen, but it’s not at all common.

But things quickly get more interesting, more “gray.”

It is possible to speak the truth and lie at the same time – but omitting a key fact or number or situation or perspective. Most of what passes for “spin” – positive or negative – falls into this category, emphasizing one perspective while hoping no one asks about the other. This isn’t limited to business and the private sector, by the way; many others commonly do this. The list  includes politicians, social and environmental activists, lobbyists, attorneys arguing court cases, and teachers trying to explain why they don’t teach penmanship any more but that sensitivity training module for 8-year-olds was wonderful. Newspaper editorial writers are often especially prone to this.

Spin is not something done only by PR people.

The third form of lying is how you say something. You use enough high-sounding words to make a statement seem substantive but really say very little. You emphasize a particular word or phrase, directing attention away, such as “We would never consider doing something that dastardly” (meaning, “No, but we might have done something slightly less dastardly”). What may the most common form of lying in America today – the non-apology: “If I offended anyone with my statement, I’m sorry.” That little word “if” changes the entire meaning.

And finally there’s the old standby, “No comment.” In some cases, organizations truly can’t comment for valid legal reasons – like when an executive gets fired after losing an internal political battle, or a merger or acquisition is pending and what you say will be scrutinized to death by the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Publicly traded companies have to be particularly careful.

But much of the time, “no comment” means you don’t want to talk about it because it’s embarrassing and the accusation is actually correct, or a response might get you sued, or answering the question will only drag you into a deeper quagmire.

So, have I successfully avoided lying in all of these contexts? The answer is yes.

In most cases, candid discussion will set things right. People often don’t realize that omitting something or a particular phrasing can be misleading or untruthful, and they will work to make it right.

But it’s made for some difficult work situations. If you regularly raise objections to a planned statement or course of action for valid reasons, you will not be seen as a team player. There can be and often is a cost to your career, your salary, your bonus and your position.

But if you take your faith seriously, and if your faith accompanies you into the office, cubicle or shop floor, that’s what you do.

This week, The High Calling has been having a community linkup on the theme of “Clear Conscience.” To see what others are saying, please visit The High Calling and check the links.

Saturday Good Reads

It was a dark week. Writer Ann Voskamp issued (wept may be a better word) a plea for the young girls who have come under ISIS’s control in Iraq, and the Christian community responded. Meanwhile, Washington military and Administration officials kept saying the American strategy for ISIS was still working in the Middle East, while ISIS captured the Iraqi city of Ramadi and the ancient city of Palmyra in Syria and Iraq looks like it’s on the verge of a civil war between Sunnis and Shiites.

Still, there are good things happening in our world. Writers like John Bloom at Desiring God are helping us to understand that our ministry is our vocation. David Rupert recognizes the fundamental importance of the trials we experience. Maureen Doallas writes a beautiful poem, and Seth Haines writes a poem to his sons.

ISIS and Iraq

Into Iraq #2: What the News Isn’t Telling You & Why We Can’t Afford to Pretend It’s Not Happening – Ann Voskamp. And the update.

The Boy Who Woke Up (or, How Ann Voskamp Ruined My Evening) – Shawn Smucker.

#TellHisStory: A Story That We Don’t Want to Read — But We Have To – Jennifer Dukes-Lee.

Why Boko Haram and ISIS Target Women – Christianity Today.

We Must Not Do Nothing – Jon Bloom at Desiring God.

Faith

In the Marrow of Depression and Anxiety – Tania Runyan at Image Journal.

Is God A Rewarder of Dogged Determination and Holy Chutzpah? – Margaret Feinberg

Christian, Your Job is a Ministry Job – Jon Bloom at Desiring God.

Some Thoughts on Vocation – Lanier Ivester at The Rabbit Room.

Bent and Tender – Winn Collier.

The Evangelical Advantage – Rod Dreher at American Conservative.

Religious Freedom is Our Most Dangerous Idol – Matt Appling at The Church of No People.

Don’t Waste Your Trial: 6 Truths That Can Change Your Life – David Rupert at Outside the City Gate.

Laughing at the Fire – Sandra Heska King.

Poetry

The World’s Problem – Maureen Doallas at Writing Without Paper.

To My Sons #2 – Seth Haines.

Passing Through – Brendan MacOdrum at Oran’s Well.

Sometimes Loving God is Hard – John Blase at The Beautiful Due.

Writing

Write to Stay Connected – Mick Silva.

While My Pen Gently Weeps – Vic Sizemore at Image Journal.

Work

Self-pity: on a leader, we can smell it from a mile away – David Murray at Writing Boots.

Photography and Art

Spring Showers – Timothy Good at Photography by Tiwago.

Artist Watch: Kay Juricek – Maureen Doallas at Escape into Life.

People

The Science Behind Why Introverts Struggle to Speak – Jenn Granneman at Introvert, Dear.

Everything Hinges on Your Ability to Do This One Thing – Margaret Feinberg.

Why Men are Retweeted More than Women – Jessica Bennett at The Atlantic.

Photograph of the Roman ruins at Palmyra by Arian Wegers via Wikipedia Commons; sourced via Flickr. 

Jill Case Brown’s “Safe”

Bank (short for Bancroft) Jonsson is your rather typical high school sophomore. He’s tall – six foot four – and but not coordinated (or interested) enough to play basketball. He’s interested in girls but tends to get clumsy around them. He’s just gotten his driver’s license. And his best friend has just moved from their small Oklahoma town to Minnesota, and Bank is feeling the separation.

Oh, and his mother, Meredith, has distributed (or dissociative) identify disorder, meaning her body is occupied by numerous personalities. If you’ve seen the 1957 movie The Three Faces of Eve with Joanne Woodward or the 1976 movie Sybil with Sally Fields,  you’ll know what DID is. It’s a difficult disorder, not the least of which for the fact a cure is not known. Patients can be cured, but there’s no set path for that to happen.

Bank, a normal teenager living not quite the normal teenager’s life.  He’s become rather expert at identifying which personality has emerged at any given time. He also recognizes that new student at his high school has DID.

Jill Case Brown’s young adult novel Safe is the story of Bank, his family, and his friends. Brown tells a fine story, a story that respects both its teenage characters and the teenagers who will read it. I stayed wrapped up with the book almost start to finish; it was that difficult to put down.

What happens is that none of Bank’s friends really understand what DID is, and that leads to a succession of events that are life-threatening. Bank becomes the target of misunderstanding and meanness by one of his former friends. And his schoolmates turn against him.

Brown catches the scene and substance of life in a high school just right, with all of the emotional highs and lows (often at the same time), hopes, dreams and fears common to any high school experience.

For Bank, though, the experience is anything but common. Brown gets the reader inside his head, and inside his heart.

Safe is simply a wonderful story.

Illustration: "Dissociative identity disorder" by 04Mukti. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

Mike Duran’s “Christian Horror”

Christian publishing is uncomfortable with certain fiction genres, what’s generally called “speculative” but includes science fiction, paranormal, and horror. And yet some of the most successful speculative writers, like Stephen King, acknowledge the presence of Biblical imagery throughout many of their works.

For a number of years, Mike Duran, author of a number of Christian horror story collections and novels, has written about Christian publisher’s reluctance to embrace anything in speculative fiction. Publishers know their audiences, however, and is to the audiences that Duran now turns his attention. Christian Horror: On the Compatibility of a Biblical Worldview and the Horror Genre makes a solid case why Christian readers’ attitudes toward the horror genre is misguided and possibly dangerous.

Duran has written an apologetic for the horror genre in Christian fiction, and it’s an impressive piece of work. And he lays claim for horror some of the most famous works in Western literature.

“Many have suggested,” he writes, “that the epic poem Beowulf is one of the earliest horror stories ever written. Possibly the oldest surviving long form in Old English, Beowulf is often cited as one of the most important works of Old English literature. Though the story is in essence a pagan myth, most believe it was originally written down by a Christian monk who incorporated Christian elements into the text.”

He doesn’t stop with Beowulf. He also makes a convincing case for Christian elements being incorporated into Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,  H.G. Wells’ The Invisible Man and especially Bram Stoker’s Dracula, a work in which there is nothing subtle about Christian influence. And then there is the Bible itself, filled with any number of horrific stories.

Mike Duran

Duran examines religious themes in horror and horror themes in religion; how the evangelical culture has in general responded to the horror genre; what he terms “toward an apologetic” for Christian horror; and the main objections Christians voice against horror and similar genres.

I don’t ready much in the horror genre, but I’ve read books by Duran, Mike Dellosso, and T.L. Hines, among others, and I have found the quality of the writing and stories to be at least equivalent to if not considerably better than much of what’s published in mainstream Christian fiction.

And Duran is right: it doesn’t always have to be an Amish romance.

Related:

My reviews of Duran’s Subterranea and The Resurrection.

Photograph by George Hodan via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.