Faith, Fiction, Friends

I Do: Struggle

2012-02-01T13:56:00.000-06:00

Both of my parents had been previously married—my mother once and my father twice. The odds were not good for a successful marriage, but they hung in there.

What it took me years to understand was how their previous marriages influenced everything, including the two children they had together. Divorce can create wariness about marriage that borders on pessimism, and often the expectation that this one, too, may be temporary.

To continue reading, please see my new post at The High Calling.

Contradictions and Realities

2012-02-01T05:00:00.000-06:00

A few weeks into her new missionary life in Uganda, Katie Davis has discovered contradictions, she has learned that she can experience great joy and profound sadness, often at the same time. She can be nearly giddy with excitement with the local children and cry herself to sleep at night. She discovers Uganda to be a beautiful country and the classroom where she teaches often fills with the smells of the latrine pit. Her heart is overflowing with service but she’s forced to resort to sign language and pointing because she doesn’t know the local language.

Contradictions. Or are they?

The only mission service I’ve personally known is a week in Central Europe, a whirlwind of a week in four countries in seven days. We traveled more than we actually worked. Budapest. Prague. Dresden. Erfurt. Brno. Back to Budapest. We threw coats and blankets over our video equipment when we crossed the border into Slovakia, to avoid the possibility of confiscation.

We were traveling in working in nations a mere decade after the communist overthrow. And already the imitation of the West had become almost a caricature. As we drove along the highway on our way out of Hungary, women standing alongside the road would lift their blouses and expose their breasts. When I turned openmouthed to our driver and host, he said one word.

“Prostitutes.”

In Prague on Wenceslas Square, where Czech freedom was born, the women became more aggressive, openly accosting any single man or group of men. Their pimps handed out business cards. In the final Czech border town in the Sudeten Mountains, the final mile before reaching Germany, small convenience store buildings doubled as gas stations and food shops, with prostitutes seated behind large picture windows facing the road.

All of that disappeared once we were in Germany. But even here, in what had been East Germany, two generations had been born and grown up essentially without God. The churches that had been established were small, perhaps as many as 100 attending on Sundays. Most were subsidized in one form or another by more established churches in western Germany or the United States.

The people we met and talked with in eastern Europe, mostly missionaries from the United states and Canada, could simultaneously talk about how much they loved the people and how petty theft was rampant; how friendly and generous the people were and how neighbors might steal things from you; how open they could be to the gospel but you often wouldn’t know if it was the gospel or their belief that all Americans were rich that was the attracting factor.

Contradictions. Always contradictions.

Jesus dealt with contradictions as well. People marveled at his understanding and knowledge, yet wanted to stone him. They would fight through crowds for a healing touch, yet abandoned him. They hung on every word he said, but they couldn’t stay awake to pray with him.

And yet, he loved us anyway.

As the missionaries in Central Europe loved the people they worked with anyway.

As Katie Davis loves her people and children in Uganda anyway.

It’s the contradiction of faith. And the love that comes from it.

We’re reading Kisses from Katie by Katie Davis and Beth Clark. Our discussion is being led by Sarah Salter at Living Between the Lines and Jason Stasyszen at Connecting to Impact. This week, the links are at Jason's site.

Is Work a Four-Letter Word?

2012-01-31T09:34:00.000-06:00

A dysfunctional workplace drama can only end badly, and that’s exactly what happened.
Somehow, the people working for my boss had become a threat. Our work would have made any boss proud – innovative, game-changing, with glowing results. The problem was that it challenged the status quo within the larger organization.

To continue reading, please see my post today at The High Calling.

Photograph: Office word cloud by Vera Kratochvil via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

Sunday morning worship

2012-01-31T05:00:00.000-06:00

Sun penetrates a pane of glass

A stray ray of sun slips through

a pane of glass, spilling colors

on a blank wall. The spill reaches

white stone columns painting

decorations of green, yellow, red.

The colors dance among themselves

The ray recedes, fades; the wall

once again embraces blankness,

the colors trickling away,

absorbed on the dark floor.

A pane of glass refracts the sun

This poem is submitted for Open Link Night at dVerse Poets. The links will be live at 2 p.m. Central time today. To see more poems, please visit dVerse Poets.

Photograph: Stained glass sunlight on tiled floor, near to St. Clement, Cornwall, by Camilla Comeau for Geograph UK, via Wikipedia. Used with permission under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license.

Ah, Consultants

2012-01-30T05:00:00.000-06:00

In the three chapters of The Social Animal by David Brooks we’re discussing this week at The High Calling, the fictional character Erica we’ve been following graduates from college and decides to join a consulting firm. After a few years, and learning the highs and lows of consulting, she strikes out on her own and becomes an independent consultant.

Ah, consultants.

In the course of my career, I have worked with many “outside consultants.” I’ve worked with virtually every big-name consulting there is. I have worked with numerous consultants no one has ever heard of. I have been an outside consultant myself.

I’ve worked with good consultants and consultants who had far too many degrees to be of any use to anyone. I have ridden the waves of virtually every business fad known in the past 30 years. I have heard consultants offering expert opinions that were as vacuous as the nodding heads of the clients hearing the opinions. I’ve experienced consultants instructing a roomful of 300 highly paid executives how to build Legos together while sitting on the floor. And I’ve experienced consultants miraculously breaking through a corporate culture that needed to be broken.

As a consultant myself, I once spoke to a group of company executives who were keen to change their corporate web site, and had been arguing for months how to have the best web site in the industry. I wowed them – I am not making this up – by showing them print-outs of what their competitors were doing. No one had thought to look.

In general, outside consultants were viewed by organizational insiders as the enemy, an enemy whose primary purpose was to destroy jobs. Consultants didn’t help their cause when they arrived with attitudes. Senior management rarely saw the attitudes, because few senior managers worked with consultants. Communications people, like myself, worked with them all the time. Consultants knew, often better than executives, that communications was critical to any effort to change an organization.

One of the best experiences I had with an outside consultant was when St. Louis Public Schools hired a management firm to run the district and do what elected Board members were unable to do politically themselves – close schools, eliminate jobs, outsource everything not related to education. It was a district that at its height had more than 100,000 students. But that was four decades earlier; the number of students was below 40,000 and continuing to decline. The problem was a school district that had an administration and infrastructure for 100,000 students, not 40,000.

A political war ensued. The consultant was given a year when it needed at least three, but it still made significant gains. But schools were closed, jobs cuts, benefits policies changed, contracts outsourced. Even more was needed. The communications function was the crossroads, and was often at the epicenter or every major (and daily) trauma. A few years later, the state of Missouri took over the district, and still runs the district today.

As described by Brooks, Erica’s experiences as a consultant and what she learns ring true. She goes out on her own, expecting to bring something of value to clients. But she finds that clients aren’t interested, and that, to survive and be successful, she will have to add some “wow factors” to what she knows and can do. She turns to behavioral economics, and it is there she will meet Harold, the other major fictional character in The Social Animal, whom we left in high school a few chapters back.

To read more posts on these chapters in The Social Animal, please visit The High Calling, where Laura Boggess is leading the discussion.

Scenes from a parade

2012-01-29T05:00:00.000-06:00

Icon without candles

Smalltown parade, this is,

withits homemade floats

andballoons and flags and

firetrucks and marching bands

andsmiling politicians except

thisone is led by a silent woman,

red-eyedand tear-stained,

graspinga $6.99 K-mart

pictureframe to her chest,

anicon created by a land mine.

Parade soldiers

Theyturn the downturn corner,

notsure what to expect and

thensurprised smiling

atcheering thousands riding

asea of waving flags.

Choppers

Theyweren’t welcomed home

asheroes, were they, some spat

uponbut most ignored, avoided.

Todaythey ride their choppers

intheir current uniforms,

blackjackets, blue jeans,

blackboots, sunglasses,

bandanasinstead of helmets, and

wecheer, remembering now

whatwe forgot then.

The left leg

Hewalks an ungainly stride,

lopsidedslightly but barely

noticeable,a left leg of silver

metalreplacing the one

buriedin desert sand.

Buthe walks.

OnSaturday, my oldest son and I attended the parade in downtown St. Louis to welcomehome the troops returning from Iraq. Veterans and families of veterans marched northfrom Busch Stadium on Broadway, turned west at the Old Courthouse (scene of theDred Scott case) in the shadow of the Gateway Arch, and along Market Street toUnion Station. A month ago, two local men dreamed up the idea of welcoming areatroops home, and the idea of the parade was born. It lasted more than an hour.

Related: Iraqi War Parade: St. Louis Hosts First End-of-War Celebration by Huffington Post.

Saturday Good Reads

2012-01-28T05:00:00.000-06:00

Ayoung violinist surprises Dave Brubeck at a concert in Moscow. Perry Blockdoesn’t want anyone in the grocery store to know he’s buying cream of wheat. Ayoung family takes in two children their mother can’t care for. Erin Kilmerdiscovers the terrors of public toilets. John Blasé writes about red and black.An interesting shot of the “gerkhin” in London (aka City Hall). Lots of goodstuff online this past week.

Bythe way, a few people have noticed this list is getting longer. There’s areason: I’ve been tweeting for The High Calling, and I’m finding more goodstuff.

Prose

“This is what Ido”by Travis Thrasher at The Journey is Everything.

“My Advice to 20-Somethings” by MichaelPerkins at The Handwritten.

“Cream of WheatWeather, Whether or Not” by Perry Block at Nouveau Old, Formerly Cute.

“Impractical Magic” by SteveParolini at Novel Doctor.

“Putting Togetherthe Pieces”by Charity Singleton at Wide Open Spaces.

“In which I begyou to pray for us”by Emily Wierenga at Imperfect Prose.

“The problem withordinary gods”by Kathy Richards at Katdish.

“Being the me Iwant to be” and “Marching bands and the other music in life” by Louise Gallagher at Recover Your Joy.

“How to live wellwhen life is wild”by Cassandra Frear at Moonboat Café.

“Acts 2 is not arecipe for church”by Ryan Tate at The Compelling Parade.

“Billy Coffeyversus the vending machine” and “What a man lookslike”by Billy Coffey at What I Learned Today.

“A SLO Day:Spiritual Direction”and “A GrandfatherPastor? I Think So”by Diana Trautwein at Just Wondering.

“The Terrors ofPublic Toilets”by Erin Kilmer at Together for Good.

“Taekwondo onSundays”By David Rupert at Red-Letter Believers.

Poetry

“Ahead of theStorm”by Mick Parsons at Fictions from the Dead Machine.

“Wind Drift,” “Snow Print” and “Hall Light” by JerryBarrett at Parenthetically Speaking in 3D.

“Caveat” and “Red and black” by John Blase at The Beautiful Due.

“The Kids MustKnow Something”by Robert Lee Brewer at My Name is Not Bob.

“If (by theKipling dog)”by Chris Smith at Welsh Poet.

“Sydney Lea” by D.S. Martinat Kingdom Poets.

“…resolves” by MonicaSharman at Know-Love-Obey God.

“Grace MovesSlowly Around the Room” by Bradley Moore at And the Other Thing Is.

“Increase/Decrease” by LindaChontos at Linda’s Patchwork Quilt.

“Because It Is MyHeart”by Maureen Doallas at Writing Without Paper.

“The lastdispensation”by Steven Marty Grant at Urbanality

Paintings and Photographs

“An Open and ShutCase”by J of India at Neither Use Nor Ornament.

“London City Hall” by DavidHenderson at 19Sixty3.

“Horizon” and “RowenaWeather-Watcher”by Timothy Good at Photography by Tiwago.

“The Driver’sPerspective”and “PinterestPins” by Nancy Rosback at A Little Somethin’.

“Blog post 24 –six photos”by Lambert.

“Getting There” and “Blue Thursday” by SteveGravano at Take a Look Around.

“It Isn’t Pretty” by Susan Etoleat Just…A Moment. (And read the text, too.)

Short Stories

“My Grandfather’sShip”by Joshua Spotts at Spott’s Short Stories

Videos

”Shakespeare:Original Pronunciation” by The Open University.

“Dave Brubeckwith young Russian violinist,” a surprise improve at the Moscow Conservatory

Photograph: Breadline, sculpture at theFDR Memorial, Washington, D.C., by Peter Griffin via PublicDomain Pictures. Used with permission.

Chris Fabry's "Not in the Heart"

2012-01-27T05:48:00.000-06:00

I’ma fan of Chris Fabry’s novels. I loved Dogwood(2009), and thoroughly enjoyed JuneBug (2010) and AlmostHeaven (2011). All three are set in Fabry’s home state of West Virginia(although June Bug is more based thanset there), and all three reflect a common theme – that of redemption. Fabry issuch a good writer that you can almost inhale the mountain air as you read.

Hisfourth novel, Notin the Heart, is a departure, at least in setting. The place isFlorida, and mostly Tallahassee. Truman Wiley, a celebrated but currently unemployedbroadcast journalist, is facing a major family crisis. His 18-year-old sonAidan is in the hospital, facing certain death without a heart transplant. Adonor exists, but he’s on Florida’s death row, awaiting execution for themurder of a woman. The inmate, Terrelle Conley, has become a Christian inprison, and he wants to donate his heart.

EllenWiley, Truman’s wife, persuades him to write Terrelle’s story; the Conleyfamily is providing $15,000 to support the effort. Truman is persuaded, and ashe develops the story comes to understand that Conley may be innocent. If heis, then there’s no donor for Aidan.

TrumanWiley is an unusual hero, at least for a Fabry novel. For the first third ofthe novel, he’s thoroughly despicable. Unable to face his son’s medicalproblems, he’s abandoned the family. He’s addicted to gambling. He cares morefor his cat than for his children. He’s estranged from his daughter. He’s onthe run from bill collectors and a mob figure to whom he owes a lot of money,but true to his addiction, he promptly blows the $15,000 at a local casino. Infact, for most of the novel, the only attractive thing about him is his abilityto work and to write.

Fabryhas drawn the character of Truman Wiley so dark that at times the only thingthat kept me reading the book was sympathy for the character of Aidan. That and the factthat Fabry is a fine writer. He’s described what gambling addiction can do, andit’s very difficult to feel any sympathy for the character. I had to keepasking myself the question, does this kind of addiction mean you avoid a teen-agedson on his death bed, a son who’s repeatedly asking for you? I don’t know the answer,but at times the character of the hero seemed too much. Perhaps my problem isthat I haven’t personally known people with that kind of addiction, or with anykind of problem severe enough to keep them from a dying child.

WhatI did like is how Fabry overlays a tragic family story on the politics of prisonerexecutions. The governor needs a confession of guilt before he will moveforward on the appeal for the heart donation. That the governor has announcedhis candidacy for the presidency becomes a politically complicating factor, andFabry does a good job in showing how politics and personal ambition can affectthe lives of so many people, including innocent people.

Not in the Heart is, like Fabry’sother novels, a story ultimately about redemption. It has the author’ssignature “how on earth are you going to resolve that problem in the story?” conundrum,and it rings true. But it is a very hard story to read.

(Note:I was provided an e-galley of this book by the publisher’s agent for reviewpurposes.)

Kathy Richards Reviews "Dancing Priest"

2012-01-25T15:17:00.002-06:00

Kathy Richard, aka Katdish, aka she of the Katdishionary (not to mention all those Sky Mall posts) has posted a review of Dancing Priest at her blog. She says:

"It is a novel in the traditional sense, but it is so much more. It is a testimony of God’s grace and mercy weaved into the lives of its characters. It is a powerful reminder to live intentional lives for Jesus. That while there is loss, heartache and pain for every one of us, there is also great joy."

To read the review, please visit Katdish. And she's doing a giveaway!

Berry on Williams on Place

2012-01-25T10:00:00.000-06:00

If there is a contemporary writer who has done much the same for the concept of “place” as William Faulkner, it is poet, novelist and essayist Wendell Berry, who has based the fictitious Port William on his particular region of Kentucky. Berry has gone far beyond Faulkner, however, is developing a body of literary, philosophical and economic work that is rooted in his concept of place.

Berry’s latest work is a collections of essays and reflections on another poet of place – The Poetry of William Carlos Williams of Rutherford. Including “of Rutherford” in the title implies more than is seen at first glance – Berry sees Wiliams as the poet of Rutherford, his hometown in New Jersey where he lived and practiced as a doctor, but he also places that “Rutherford-ness” in a much larger context.

To continue reading, please see my post today at The Master's Artist.

Troubled by a Missionary

2012-01-25T06:00:00.001-06:00

Itaught an adult Sunday School class once on material provided by the Salt andLight Fellowship, then a ministry of the FrancisSchaeffer Institute at CovenantTheological Seminary. The lessons focused on helping people understand thatwherever they were was their ministry, and that God saw their work – at home,in offices, behind the wheel of a delivery truck, in a grocery store, wherever –as just as important as any other kind of work. This is also the idea behind The High Calling, where I’m acontributing editor.

Oneday, I told the class that all work was important to God, and repeatedsomething Jerram Barrs, director of the Francis Schaeffer Institute, had said:that your work and how you do it is just as important to God as the work doneby missionaries and pastors.

Heckbroke loose.

Itwas a rather radical thing to say 20 years ago. People were offended; peoplethought I was somehow downgrading the value of missions and pastoral work. Theydidn’t realize the attitude of some work being “more important” or “holier”than other work was a product of modernism, a cultural influence that hadsegmented work into degrees of importance. It wasn’t Biblical. You’re amissionary whether you work in an office cubicle or a remote Third World village.

Ithought about this class as I read chapter one of Kissesfrom Katie by Katie Davis and Beth Clark. Led by Sarah Salter and JasonStasyszen, we started an online discussion of the book last week. The story isabout a young woman who forsakes college and her “American way of life” andbecomes a missionary in Uganda.

Thewriting is youthful and energetic, and that’s due to the fact that Katie Davisis in her early 20s. It’s an exciting story, an interesting story, but parts ofit are making me uneasy.

There’san assumption at play here – the same assumption I encountered 20 years ago inthat class – that full-time missions work is “higher” than other work. I see itin comments about how the hometown in Tennessee is a “self-serving” culture,with its suburban homes and manicured lawns, or the implication that thepoverty of Uganda is closer to Jesus than the “beyond comfortable” lifestyles inthe United States.

Intendedor not, this suggests an attitude of superiority, a kind of reverse snobbery.Even in its most sympathetic light, it is still judgmental. I’m expecting thisto change. After all, Uganda is the country known for violence, brutality, “childsoldiers,” kidnappings, tribal murder, AIDS, mothers and children abandoned byfathers, children abandoned by parents. It’s not all “happy people and smilingchildren.” Katie Davis knows that, and is living that, and I’m hoping that she’ssetting up a story of contrasts.

Toserve there as she is doing is a testimony to God’s love, but it doesn’t makeone culture or people superior to another. Both cultures need missionaries.

Andthen there’s the (so far) unnamed boyfriend, the one left behind at home, theone she loved and thought she was going to marry. I’m wondering what happenedto him, and if his heart was broken. The choices we make are not all about usand Jesus. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t make them, but they can affect othersas much as ourselves, and they shouldn’t be dismissed as part of that materialisticculture left back home.

I’mhoping to find more of this understanding as we continue to read and discuss.

Tosee more posts on chapter one of Kissesfrom Katie, please visit Sarah Salter at Living Between the Lines,who’s hosting the links today.

Bill Grandi Reviews "Dancing Priest"

2012-01-24T13:29:00.000-06:00

Pastor Bill Grandi has posted his review of Dancing Priest at his blog, Cycleguy's Spin. Bill is a pastor -- and a cycling pastor, so the bicycle parts of the novel faced a kind of acid test. Here's a little of what he said:

" It is no secret that I cycle (road bike). But it is sort of hard to cycle, when ice and snow cover the roads (as they have been). Temps the past couple of weeks have been more like the winter weather we expect in Indiana. Not much snow but cold, blowing wind, and Friday night we had some ice thrown into the mix. Winter time becomes my hibernation time. I either work a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle or read fiction books. My latest was Dancing Priest by fellow blogger, Glynn Young. Glynn blogs at Faith, Fiction, Friends. This is his first book, and I certainly hope it won’t be his last."

To read the rest of his review, please visit Cycleguy's Spin.

I hear the sounds of marching

2012-01-24T05:00:00.000-06:00

The sounds of boot steps, marching,

pounding in my ears, hundreds,

perhaps thousands, locked

in unison, thudding on stones,

staining in the blood on streets,

life force pouring down lit avenues

and darkened alleyways, marching

to a song of violence, a drumbeat,

the tattoo of the mind, un-thinking

in unison, the lords and hordes

of violence rush forward, feeding

upon themselves, drinking themselves

intoxicated, consuming impieties

and impulses, boot-steps formless

and deep, the wave crashing

upon the golden shore, the wave

edged in silver needles.

So I heard a sermon Sunday on Proverbs 1:8-18, and my notes included words like violence, siren song, marching. Coincidentally, the One Word Blog Carnival today has a prompt of “marching,” Peter Pollock is hosting the carnival, and you can read more posts at his site.

This poem is also submitted to Open Link Night at dVerse Poets. The links will be live at 2 p.m. Central time today.

Photograph: Marching by Sharon Apted via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

Norms and Culture are Personal

2012-01-23T05:00:00.000-06:00

Donaldwas a Baby Boomer, born and raised in a suburb of New Orleans. And while nosuburb of New Orleans could ever be truly Americanized, this one was as closeit got. He grew up with children whose last names reflected the region’sFrench, Spanish and Italian heritage (and accents), and children whose fatherscame from all over the country to work at the huge NASA assembly facility. Hisfriends had names like Hebert (pronounced A-bear), Melancon and Sardelli, andalso names like Clark, Pollock, Phelps and Miller.

Hisown family reflected the same dichotomy. His mother was born and raised in NewOrleans, from a large family with French, Cajun-French and German ancestorswith both Catholic and Lutheran overtones. His father had been raised inShreveport, in a family that was hard-shell Southern Baptist and still fightingthe Civil War.

Bothof Donald’s parents had been married before, his father twice before. He had ahalf-brother who was part of his family and a half-sister who both was andwasn’t. He was the first child of this new marriage, and he eventually had ayounger brother. What both of his parents prized and extolled for all of theirchildren was the virtue of hard work. All four of the children would exhibitand practice the same belief, although each would learn that hard work was noguarantee of personal success, and that other factors could play a large roleas well.

Hisfather was something of a family black sheep, and often the despair of hisgrandmother. His father struggled with authority issues his entire life – theBaptist church, his parents, his employers, the Navy, the government, local NewOrleans police officers looking for protection money. That struggle translatedinto a suspicion of all authority by the children, including Donald.

Hespent more time with his mother’s family than his father’s, but his father’sfamily had the relative Donald loved the most – his grandmother. Every summer,from the time he was 7 to the time he was 13, Donald spent a week with hisgrandmother in Shreveport. He adored her, and she adored him. He was manythings his own father was not – studious, respectful, never getting intotrouble, among others. His grandmother often wondered how Donald could havebeen produced by her son, and decided that while he looked like a carbon copyof his father, he must have been more influenced by his mother. Donald lovedShreveport; it evoked a sense of the almost magical because of his grandmother.

Andthat was true. Donald’s father worked hard and worked long hours, six days aweek, trying to make a go of his small business. When a small child, sometimesweeks would pass before Donald would see his father, getting up after hisfather had left for work and going to bed before his father got home. And whathe learned from his mother included a strong sense of romanticism; hesubstituted as his mother’s movie partner because his father just didn’t carefor them.

WhenDonald began dating in high school, the girls were varied in background. Somewere natives of New Orleans; others had moved with their families to the cityand were from all over the United States. Most came from a similar middle classbackground; a few came from wealthy families who lived on prestigious streets.But there was no longstanding high school sweetheart.

Forcollege, he attended the state university, whose student body drew a majorityfrom Louisiana but had a significant number of foreign and out-of-statestudents. His dating patterns, however, varied little from high school, and hefound himself dating girls mostly from the New Orleans area, until his senioryear, when he met and started dating a girl from the magical city ofShreveport. And this would be the girl he married.

Overat The High Calling, we’re reading TheSocial Animal by New York Timescolumnist David Brooks. Today we’re covering three chapters – on norms,self-control and culture. These three chapters are about Erica, who comes froma lower economic class family in New York that is Chinese-American on one sideand Mexican-American on the other,

TheSocial Animal is a non-fiction book largely told by telling the stories offictional characters. My post today is an example of how Brooks has written thebook, illustrating his fictional stories with numerous psychological,sociological and other scientific studies. The “Donald” is this post is based onmy own experience.

Toread more posts on these chapters, please visit The High Calling.

I am a path

2012-01-22T05:00:00.000-06:00

I am a path, hard packed

and well trodden; seed

falls for the birds to eat.

I am a rocky place, jagged

and thin; shallow; seed

falls, sprouts, dies.

I am a thorn, sharp

and puncturing; seed

falls and I strangle it.

I am good soil, deep

and rich and full; seed

falls and bears abundance.

I am all of these.

Painting: The Sower by Vincent Van Gogh (1888), Kroller-Muller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands.

Saturday Good Reads

2012-01-21T05:00:00.000-06:00

Apoem found in the Berlin Metro. Talking with a little boy about God, andwriting a letter to a little girl turning 10. Watching a painting be created.And a favorite Dylan Thomas poem read aloud. It was a good week.

Prose

“Taking Out theTrash and Other Kitchen Traumas” and “Scott ‘Boots’Harper”by Harriett Gillham at The Other Side of the Mountain.

“Chuck Leonard R.I.P.” by Ira Waglerat Ira’s Writings.

“Writing theCome-Again”by L.L. Barkat at Seedlings in Stone.

“A Letter for theChurch Today”by Chaplain Mike at Internet Monk.

“If you are kindonly to your friends”and “Cade and Idiscuss the merits of an invisible God who often doesn’t seem to be listening” by ShawnSmucker.

“4 Ways to KeepWriting Under Pressure” by Cassandra Frear at Moonboat Café.

“Inspiration” by ChrisGalford at The Waking Den.

“The Other Side” by CharitySingleton at Wide Open Spaces.

“The Time Machine(Midnight Ramblings)”by Travis Thrasher at The Journey is Everything.

“The white flagof surrender”by Kathy Richards at Katdish.

“A letter to mydaughter”by Billy Coffey at What I Learned Today.

“Scrapes & Bruises” by MichaelPerkins at The Handwritten.

“Surprised byLight”by Sandra Heska King.

“Tearing apart” by JasonVana.

Poetry

“Echoing Light” by U.S. PoetLaureate W.S. Merwin via Maggie’s Farm.

“Now This is HowWe Roll”by Robert Lee Brewer at My Name Is Not Bob.

“Distillation” by AndrewPeterson at The Rabbit Room.

“For the Doors” by MeganWillome.

“T.S. Eliot” by D.S. Martinat Kingdom Poets.

“Enough” by Karen Eckat Karenee Art.

“The Host ofWater”and “ExperiencingChange”by Maureen Doallas at Writing Without Paper.

“January Bleau” by KathleenOverby at Almost Paradisical.

“At Knife’s Edge” by ChrisGalford at The Waking Den.

“PsalmicPoetry – a Retelling” by Timothy Good at The Naked Alien Ministry.

“Inputs, Outputs& Permission slips for the living” by Brian Miller at WayStationOne.

“Poetryfound in strange places” by Steven Marty Grant at Urbanality.

Paintings and Photographs

“Susan’sButterfly Eye”and “Lost Along theWay”by Timothy Good at Photography by Tiwago.

“Six Photos –Untitled”by Lambert at Le Blog.

“Badlands Winter,” mixedwatermedia on Yupo by Randall David Tipton at a Painter’s Process.

“Looking East” and “Beach Dune” by SteveGravano at Take a Look Around.

“Pruning” and “Feel” by NancyRosback at A Little Somethin’.

“Attitude.” “Bag of Dreams” and “Reflection”by Susan Etole at Just…A Moment.

“Support Systems” by J of Indiaat Neither Use Nor Ornament.

“Building Layers” by JackBaumgartner at The School of the Transfer of Energy.

“God has GOT tohave a sense of humor”by Diana Trautwein at Just Wondering.

Videos and Podcasts

“Do Not Go Gentlein That Good Night by Dylan Thomas,” read by Tom O’Bedlam at Spoken Verse.

Photograph: WinterStream by Jiri Hodan via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

Andy Straka’s “The Blue Hallelujah”

2012-01-20T05:00:00.000-06:00

I read the opening pages of Andy Straka’s The Blue Hallelujah, and almost stopped reading. An elderly man is sitting in woods, watching children playing at a camp. And he is focused on one child in particular, a little girl. The sense of foreboding was so great that I knew he had evil intentions.

But I read on, and discovered this compelling novel was full of surprises. The Blue Hallelujah is not so much a police procedural mystery as it is a retired police procedural – the hero is Jerry Strickland, a retired officer in the Richmond, Va., police department.

The first surprise is that the little girl is Strickland’s granddaughter. The second is that the kidnaper is not what he seems, and has a very different kind of motive. The third is that this is a story with deep roots in the past. Strickland is a widower; his wife Rebecca died of cancer – in prison, and in prison for murder.

I kept trying to anticipate where Straka was going to take this story, and finally gave up. I simply went along for the sheer enjoyment of an exciting story about a crime that becomes intensely personal for man investigating it, so much so that he will risk everything.

Straka does this story well. He draws the characters in detail, and his distraught daughter and her estranged husband, and Strickland’s teenaged grandson, are all real and familiar people. None of them is overplayed – the author does each just right. He does the entire story just right, and there were plenty of opportunities to go astray. But he holds the story tightly to its main line of narrative action.

Straka, the author of several previous mystery novels, is one fine action/thriller./mystery writer. And The Blue Hallelujah is one fine mystery.

Related: Andy Straka’s web site.

Me and Julie Andrews

2012-01-19T05:00:00.000-06:00

Joy must be in the air. On Monday, the theme for the Warrior Poets Circle was “unspeakable joy.” Today, Bonnie Gray at Faith Barista is hosting a blog carnival on joy.

I’m not going to sing “My Favorite things” from The Sound of Music like Julie Andrews did. But I do have a list of some of the things that bring me joy – which I rather loosely define as “a surge of emotion that makes it impossible for me to keep a smile off of my face.” And here it is, in no particular order.

My grandson’s squeal of delight.

Dancing with my grandson (notice a theme here).

Waiting at the airport for my wife to deplane after she’s been away for a time. (As soon as I see her, I get this goofy smile on my face.)

My wife turns her head in just such a way, and I see the girl I married 38+ years ago. (Hmmm, notice another theme here.)

A really good book.

An email or note from someone telling me that this novel of mine made them realize something or do something or cry.

An organ postlude played by the music director at our church.

A sunset in Arizona (yes, I know a lot of it comes from smog, but you still can’t beat them for spectacular-ness).

Biking 93 miles in a day (joy matched only by exhaustion; my personal record).

Being cane-free for the last two weeks (the back is backing down).

A good story, told well.

A good poem.

Writing a good poem.

Reading poetry aloud in the English Woodland Garden at the Missouri Botanical Garden.

Reading a new book by a favorite author.

Reading an old book by a favorite author.

Dancing at a wedding.

Hearing a really good tenor sing “O Holy Night.”

The day I met the editorial staff of The High Calling in the San Antonio Airport.

The Art Institute in Chicago.

The day my wife and I sat at a window table in a coffee shop across the street from the Art Institute.

Hiking the Shaw Nature Reserve near St. Louis.

To see more posts on joy, please visit Faith Barista.

Top photograph: Arizona sunset; bottom photograph: Pinetum Lake at Shaw Nature Reserve.

Send My Kid to Haiti? What?

2012-01-18T05:48:00.000-06:00

On my desk is a painted stone of a tropical scene of a lone figure standing by a palm tree looking out at the ocean. The stone has a history. And serves as a reminder.

In early 1995, our church youth group pastor held a meeting for the parents of the senior high kids, to discuss the upcoming summer mission trip. Our 15-year-old son was excited; he’d never been on a mission trip and he was ready to go. At the meeting, we had an opening prayer, and a talk about missions and mission trips, and then we got to the discussion about the place they would be going for two weeks in July.

Haiti.

A few months before, Haiti had held an election, which was protested as fraudulent. The government had been overthrown and the country plunged into chaos. President Clinton had ordered U.S. troops to patrol the country and restore order, but it was still a mess.

Haiti.

Our kids would be on the island of La Gonave, just off the coast, working with a missionary couple on water and building projects.

We gulped. We worried. We fretted. We questioned. We talked to the youth pastor, who said one thing we couldn’t refute: “They’re in God’s hands wherever they are, and in His hands they’re just as safe in Haiti as they would be in St. Louis.”

Well, yes, but still. Haiti?

We agreed to let our son go.

When he had his passport photo taken at a local travel agency, the rather bubbly travel agent asked him where he was going.

“Haiti,” he said proudly.

Her face de-bubbled. “Oh,” she said. After a long pause, she looked at me and said, “We don’t get many people going to Haiti.”

“It’s for a mission trip for our church youth,” I said.

She nodded. “Oh.” She looked at me like I had lost my mind. From her perspective, I suppose I had.

He went. He came back sunburned and with stories about falling off the back of a truck and hearing the voodoo drums up in the hills at night. He talked about the U.S. troops assigned to La Gonave who adopted our kids and treated them to a Fourth of July celebration. He talked about the fresh water project, and the building project, but most of all he talked about the children he met and worked with and played with. He told us their names. And their stories.

It was one of the best experiences he had ever had. It still is. We made the right decision to let him go. Haiti had become something more than newspaper headlines. It had become people, individual people. And children.

I was reminded of my son’s trip when I started reading Kisses from Katie by Katie Davis and Beth Clark. Sarah Salter and Jason Stasyszen are leading us in a discussion of the book, the story of a young girl who gives up her comfortable home, plans for college and her boyfriend for missions work in Uganda. This week, covering the forward and introduction, Jason is hosting the discussion, and you can read more posts linked there.

In the book, Katie Davis describes what motivated her – the understanding that every life matters, and every life can make a difference.

And she’s right. I learned that from my son when he came back from Haiti. He brought me a painted stone, by an artist on La Gonave. It’s a reminder of what’s really important.

Thorns

2012-01-17T12:00:00.000-06:00

I count the thorns

that puncture and

tear; overwhelming

in number and

thickness, a density

of ripped sharpness

and points, they

strangle and kill,

eventually. Extracting

them from my hand

is painful.

This poem is submitted for Open Link Night at dVerse Poets. To see other poem submitted, please visit the site. The links will be live at 2 p.m. Central time today.

Photograph: Thistle in bloom by Petr Kratochvil via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

The Business Case for Reading Fiction

2012-01-17T05:00:00.000-06:00

I’vewritten speeches for (at last count) 12 CEOs. I’ve asked most of them thisquestion at our first meeting: what do you read outside of the office that hasnothing to do with business?

Iask the question because it gives me insights and ideas for quotations andstories. Most of the CEOs have given me blank looks. The only thing they have time to read is usuallywork-related. Some read hobby magazines. One admitted to being an avid fan of mysteries.Only one of the 12 read general fiction, and it likely had something to do withstarting his college career as an English major before he switched to atechnical (and better paying) field. His favorite author was John Updike.

I’vebeen reading fiction – stories and novels – since I was six years old. Mymother read stories to me when I was too young to read, stories like Grimm’s Fairy Tales in all their splendidhorror and goriness. I read Trixie Belden and the Hardy Boys, Tom Swift andchildren’s mysteries for 25 cents from Scholastic Book Club.

Overtime my reading graduated, and while I would read history and biography andother non-fiction genres, my heart belonged to fiction. I had the blessing ofEnglish teachers in middle school and high school who were passionate aboutbooks and reading. My most memorable books from those years were Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea (8^thgrade), Great Expectations (9^thgrade) and David Copperfield (10^thgrade) by Charles Dickens, Twain’s HuckleberryFinn (11^th grade) and DonQuixote by Cervantes (12^th grade).

Incollege I took two semesters of English literature (with the English majors;everyone else had to take two general literature courses). That’s when Iseriously met Chaucer, Shakespeare, the Romantic poets, Thomas Hardy and T.S.Eliot. A course in Russian history introduced me to Dostoevsky, Tolstoy,Turgenev and Gogol. I found Aleksandr Solzhenitysn on my own; my Russianhistory professor was notoriously pro-Soviet Union and didn’t mention him inclass.

I’vecontinued reading fiction, old and new, serious and popular. I love fiction.(And I love poetry, but that’s another story). I’ve even writtena novel myself.

Atwork, I know very few people who read fiction. If they read, it’s non-fiction –business books, and perhaps a bit of history and biography. No one readspoetry. That I read (and write) both makes me a bit odd. Well, more than a bit.

NowI find out there’s a business case for reading fiction.

AnneKreamer, a columnist for Harvard Business Review and author of It’s Always Personal,published an article last week with the intriguing title “The BusinessCase for Reading Novels.” It’s about an article she read in ScientificAmerican, entitled “Fiction Hones Social Skills.” You can see the promo here(you have to buy the issue to read the whole thing).

Kreamerwrites that various studies have shown that people who read fiction discernpeople’s emotional states better, better interpret and respond to those who aredifferent, and understand others’ points of view better. They empathize better.They may even be a physiological reason for all of this. “Over the past decade,” she writes, “academic researchers such as (psychologistKeith) Oatley and Raymond Mar from York University have gathered dataindicating that fiction-reading activates neuronal pathways in the brain thatmeasurably help the reader better understand real human emotion — improving hisor her overall social skillfulness.” One study even showed fiction readingstimulated the part of the brain involved in setting goals.

Shefinishes the article with some practical suggestions – reading novels that areabout business and organizational behavior, like JR by William Gaddis, BleakHouse by Charles Dickens, and Joseph Heller’s Something Happened. A lot of poets like to point out that WallaceStevens spent his entire working career in the insurance business, even turningdown a professorship at Harvard because the insurance job paid better. (Iwouldn’t recommend Stevens to business associates, however; I love his poetrybut it is high modernism. A poet like David Whyte is more approachable and he’salso written a lot about business and organizations.)

Ihave to be honest – I’ve never read fiction to advance my career. I’ve read it andstill read it for the pleasure and enjoyment it offers. But that there may besome unexpected advantages is intriguing.

Illustration: A scene from Bleak House by Charles Dickens; drawn by Hablot Knight Brown ("Phiz") for the original publication of the novel.

As he made me

2012-01-16T08:11:00.002-06:00

Ashe made me, knitted,

constructed,assembled

allthe disparate parts

withwondrous skill;

ashe made me

insecret, in those

earthendepths, those

deepand hidden places;

ashe touched my face

withlight and felt

thecontours of my cheeks

andchin, and sculpted

myhands and feet;

ashe saw me and what

hehad made me to be,

asong was sung,

asong of unspeakable joy.

Lightbreaks through

stainedglass, shining

onmy face.

Thispoem is submitted for the WarriorPoets Circle hosted by Jason Stasyszen at Connecting to Impact. To see morepoems submitted on the theme of “unspeakable joy,” please visit Jason’ssite.

Photograph:Underwater Light by Petr Kratochvil via PublicDomain Pictures. Used with permission.

Miss Roark and Louisa May Alcott

2012-01-16T05:00:00.000-06:00

Myninth grade English teacher was named Miss Roark (we still said “Miss” in thosedays). She was from Alabama, and her distinctly Southern accent stood out in aschool in suburban New Orleans, where most people sounded like they were fromBrooklyn.

Theclass that year focused mostly on British and American literature. We read Shakespeare’sJulius Caesar – the curriculum tsarsthought it might appeal to a class of all 14-year-old boys. We read Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.We read Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge ofCourage (boys like war, right?). Our major project was to take one Britishand one American author, do a deep dive into their worlds and lives, and writetwo papers (and oral presentations) on how their lives shaped and influencedtheir writing.

Wechose our authors from a list Miss Roark put on the blackboard. We chose in alphabeticalorder, which meant I would get whatever no one else wanted. The two names leftwere Shakespeareand Louisa May Alcott,Miss Alcott prompting a great deal of laughter from my classmates because shewas the only female author on the list. (Some poor soul thought he was choosinga male when he chose George Eliot, the pen name for Mary Ann Evans.)

MissRoark bristled at the laughter, and upbraided the class for their ridicule ofan author she called, in her delightful Southern accent, “one of America’s mostbeloved authors.”

Wehad to read a number of their works. For Shakespeare, I read Julius Caesar (with the rest of theclass), Hamlet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. For Alcott, Iread Little Women, Little Men and Jo’s Boys.

MissRoark said she was available to help anyone on their projects if they neededit. I was the only one who took advantage of her offer. We’d meet at lunch orafter school. And she guided me, mentored me, and suggested several themes Icould pursue. I loved that project, as much for the interest she took in me asfor what I was reading and learning. Perhaps even more.

Ithought of Miss Roark as I read the chapters on mapmaking, attachment andlearning in TheSocial Animal by David Brooks. We started the group discussion on thisbook last week at The High Calling,and Laura Boggess continues to lead us this week. These three chapters startthe story of Harold (son of Rob and Julia, whom we met last week) from the timeof early childhood to high school. He finds his Miss Roark when he’s a senior –and she’s an English teacher, too.

ReadingHarold’s story, and how he struggled, thought, read and wrote, and how he raninto roadblocks and was guided around them, I realized how it was virtually identical to my ownproject in ninth grade. The high school cliques he navigates are the same,although, unlike Harold, I was never part of the athletes’ clique. He learns alot about himself, and he learns how to study deeply, do research deeply andthink deeply.

AuthorDavid Brooks uses Harold’s story to illustrate the science and physiology thatstudies say go on in the brain with this kind of learning. It’s interesting, butit was less important to me than to recognize the overall process I experienced45 years ago.

Inever saw Miss Roark after that year. I changed schools for tenth grade. Shecalled me at Christmas that year to thank me for the Christmas card I sent her;like Harold with his teacher, I was likely a little in love with Miss Roark. Isent her a card the following year, too, but it was returned; she had movedwith no forwarding address.

Butshe had an enormous impact on my reading, my education, my future career and mylife. I hope she knows that.

Toread more posts on these three chapters of TheSocial Animal, please visit The High Calling.

No path

2012-01-15T05:00:00.000-06:00

Nopath; the barren places

pointupward to a jagged sky

oftarnished blue. I look

fora cloth to polish the clouds,

unkemptand unruly,

butfind only pebbled dust

towash their edges. Seeds

scatteramong the stones,

unborn.

Photograph: Red Rock Canyon by ShariWeinsheimer via PublicDomain Pictures. Used with permission.

Saturday Good Reads

2012-01-14T05:00:00.000-06:00

Aboy finds God in an empty church. Jogging helps a woman find love. A man looksup and sees vapor trails in the sky. A poem about a missing person report. Thescenes from California’s Highway 1. A story about this little light. Books thatcome alive after the bookstore closes. And so much more.

Prose

“How I FoundStrength for the New Year” by Cassandra Frear at Moonboat Café.

“Pardon me whileI rant incessantly: The hard sell” and “What fresh hellis this?”by Kathy Richards at Katdish.

“Trusting God’sCharacter”by Jason Vana.

“It is Love thatMakes an Artist”by Kelly Sauer.

“A Boy Finds Godin an Empty Church”by Shawn Smucker.

“A World WorthSaving”by Billy Coffey at What I Learned Today and “Needs, Wants,and Pretty Pens”for Rachelle Gardner.

“Still Drying” by Ed Pilolla.

“The voice – Ilove you”by Doug Spurling at Spurling Silver.

“I Am Dancing” by LouiseGallagher at Recover Your Joy.

“Do I Know You?” by Fatha Frankat Public Christianity.

“The hardest thing I’ve ever done” by Duane Scottat Scribing the Journey.

“Running withEndurance (How Jogging Helped Me Love)” by Monica Sharman at Know-Love-ObeyGod.

“When We Lose Connection” by SandraHeska King.

“I don’t know what tomorrow is” by MichaelPerkins at The Handwritten.

“How FoldingLaundry Can Baptize Life” by Laura Boggess at The Wellspring.

“5 Ways toMaximize Your Day Off”by Scott Couchenour at Serving Strong.

“Tim Tebow’s RoleModel”by Michael Flaherty and Nathan Whitaker for The Wall Street Journal.

Poetry

“Mwah” by Ed Pilolla.

“Silent sighs” by PatriciaStreng at Lovepats.

“Knocking atKnees”and “Shaken: He neverwalked away”by Robbie Pruitt.

“TomasTranstromer”by D.S. Martin at Kingdom Poets.

“Lying in Wait” by Maureen Doallasat Writing Without Paper.

“Waiting” by Karen Eckat Karenee Art.

“White Horse.Black Stallion”by Louise Gallagher at Recover Your Joy.

“7:25” by PeteMarshall.

“Give it up” by B.K.McKenzie at Signed…BKM.

“Come back, 2 bed” by BrianMiller at Way Station One.

“I’ve been herebefore”by Jim Schmotzer at Faithful Skeptic.

“EpigeousEphphany”by Timothy Good at Poetry by Tiwago.

“Missing PersonReport”by Maureen Doallas at Writing Without Paper.

“Extra OrdinaryPoetry Rant”by Laura Boggess at The Wellspring.

“Point and Shoot” by Tony Maude at Rumours of Rhyme.

Paintings and Photographs

“Vapor Trails” by SteveGravano at Take a Look Around.

“Hopeful Watching” and “A Bird” by Susan Etoleat Just…A Moment.

“The Christmasthat Won’t Go Away”by Sheila Seiler LaGrand at Godspotting with Sheila.

“ALife of Caring” by J of India at Neither Use Nor Ornament.

“The Winding Roadof Highway 1”by Diana Trautwein at Just Wondering.

“A Mid-Winter’sNight Dream”by Timothy Good at Photography by Tiwago.

“Flight overCalifornia,”oil on canvas paper by Randall David Tipton.

Short Stories

“This LittleLight”by Jake Lee at Very Much Later.

Videos and Podcasts

“The UnquietGrave”by Anonymous and “Whitman and theMoth”by Clive James, read by Tom O’Bedlam at Spoken Verse.

“Finger-painting” by Chileanartist Fabian Gaete Maureira (Hat Tip: Andrew Piper)

“The Joy of Books” by Crazed AdMan.

Photograph: Single Tree in Snow by PetrKratochvil via PublicDomain Pictures. Used with permission.

30 Days of Faith

2012-01-12T11:00:00.000-06:00

Writer Mike Dellosso has been publishing "30 Days of Faith" at his blog this month, posting a contribution on a story of faith each day from readers. Today (Day 11 in the series) he has a contribution from me.

I've told this story before, but there's a new wrinkle (which I don't mention in the post). In December, I was having breakfast with a good friend who is a missionary in Costa Rica. He and his family were on a home visit and we had some time to catch up. He was telling me about their mission work, and I was telling him about my new book, Dancing Priest. We then talked about the possibilities for short-term mission work, and I mentioned the trip I took to Central Europe in 2002.

And then it hit me. During that trip, our team met with a young German minister in Erfurt who was ministering to scores of people following a shooting at a local high school; 13 people, including the gunman, had been killed. I've described what happened before, but during my breakfast conversation with my friend, I realized that the minister had inspired the character of Michael Kent in my novel.

I could almost hear the click-click-click as all the brain synapses connected.

Tania Runyan's "A Thousand Vessels"

2012-01-12T09:00:00.000-06:00

In A Thousand Vessels: Poems, poet Tanya Runyon writes poetry about Biblical women and then pairs the poems with more contemporary subjects and stories.

Poems about Dinah (the sister of the 12 sons of Jacob) and her rape are paired with a poem about child sex offenders. Poems about the woman at the well in the gospel of St. John are paired with a poem about the sins committed by a child against another child. Poems about Esther are grouped with a poem about walking on a beach.

The result is a wonderful volume, full of truth, hope and faith.

To read my full review, please visit TweetSpeak Poetry.

You See Old and You See…

2012-01-12T05:00:00.000-06:00

It’s a Saturday morning. I go to the bank to hear face-to-face why fees are changing on various accounts and the options I have (thank you, outgoing congressmen Christopher Dodd and Barney Frank, for reforming the regulations so I can pay more financial fees).

The process is simple – sign in, wait for a bank representative, and then talk. This morning, the wait is short, only a couple of minutes, but while I’m waiting I see an elderly man come in assisting his even more elderly father, who needs to talk to a representative like I do. The son is clearly older than I am; I guess the father’s age at early 90s. He’s ambulatory, but with a metal walker and moving very, very slowly.

My name is called, I sit in an open desk area with the bank’s representative, who might be as old as 30 but I doubt it. Mid-20s is more like it. He’s very polite. We both then see the older man being called and him and his son moving slowly to another representative’s desk.

My representative watches this for a few seconds, and then a smile that’s almost a smirk appears on his face. Inwardly, I bristle. I know what you’re thinking, I say to myself. You’re thrilled that somebody else got the old man.

And then everything changes.

As if guessing my thoughts, the young man looks at me and says, “I work part-time at the retirement home across the street. That older man there, he lives there. I talk with him all the time. You look at him and think he’s a doddering old geezer. In fact, he’s one of the smartest people I’ve ever met. Sharp. Mind like a steel trap. Up-to-date on the news, and he can debate anybody. He’s a great guy.”

“There’s a lesson here,” I say. “Appearances are deceiving. And we see age and we think old and not too bright.”

“I don’t know anyone smarter than he is,” the young man replies. “My colleague is in for a big surprise.”

There’s more than one lesson here. One is certainly how we as a culture can see someone old and think “useless,” “not-too-bright,” and “occupies space.” We get impatient with them. Because they might move slowly we believe they think slowly, if at all.

A second lesson was for me. I made an assumption about the young man’s smile, and it was flat-out wrong. He was smirking, all right, but it was at the thought of his colleague being in for a rude awakening. He suspected his colleague was going to treat the man like “an elderly person,” and would learn that he might be an elderly person but he could run circles around any representative the bank might throw at him.

A third thing I learned was also about the young man helping me. As it turned out, he didn’t work part-time at the retirement home. He was a volunteer. He was being modest to say he worked there part-time. And I bet he’s a welcome volunteer, particularly by that elderly man with the walker.

Appearances can deceive – at both ends of the age spectrum.

I grew a little that Saturday.

"This London" by Patrick Hicks

2012-01-11T05:05:00.000-06:00

Poet Patrick Hicks, who teaches creative writing at Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois, knows about the importance of place. He has an entire book of poems about place, and the place is London. This London is a collection of 47 poems, almost all about London (the handful that aren’t directly about the city are inspired by London). Hicks loves the city, but it’s not a heedless, careless kind of love. It’s a love that sees all of what the city is, what it has been, and where it might be going.

To read the rest of my review, please visit The Master’s Artist.

Dave Malone's "Under the Sycamore"

2012-01-10T13:08:00.000-06:00

I thought love poetry was pretty much a thing of the past – you see occasional love poems today but love poetry as a genre seems to have been wrapped in acid-free paper and placed (lovingly) in a box in the attic. If I wanted to read it, I’d have to go dust off Elizabeth Barrett Browning or some of Shakespeare’s Sonnets.

And then I read Dave Malone’s Under the Sycamore.

To see my review, please visit TweetSpeak Poetry.

Three pearls

2012-01-10T05:00:00.000-06:00

The colors of the pearl

sing of sunrises and

skies, conceived

in the imagination

of an oyster who

has seen neither.

The pearl and

its colors are all

the oyster has,

II.

A pearl starts life

an insignificant,

worthless piece

of grit, fractioned

and juiced to be

something it isn’t

and never intended

to be.

III.

It was a treasure,

a pearl. It was

hidden, it was

left in plain sight.

It was sold and

bought,

it was desired and

sought.

It was a treasure,

a pearl.

These poems are submitted to Open Link Night at dVerse Poets. To see more poems, please visit dVerse Poets. The links will be live at 2 p.m. Central time today.

I Love You with All My Physiology

2012-01-09T05:00:00.000-06:00

We’re starting a new book discussion at The High Calling today, and the book is The Social Animal: the Hidden Sources of Love, Character and Achievement by David Brooks. Brooks, a columnist for The New York Times who writes on politics and public policy, describes himself as a political moderate. It tells you something about my hometown newspaper, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, that it carries his columns as one of their hat tips to conservative opinion. His own description is closer to the mark.

Yet The Social Animal has nothing to do with politics or the 2012 election cycle or any of the usual things he writes about. It’s more like a college sociology text, except Brooks knows, what most of us knew in college – sociology texts were the perfect cures for insomnia. So what’s he done is to tell the story of Rob and Julia, the parents of Harold, and most of the book will eventually be about Harold and Erica.

He tells the stories of these couples using a wide array of studies, theories and speculation, explaining, for example, what happens on a physiological level when Rob and Julia first meet. It’s interesting, fascinating and thought-provoking.

Brooks is saying that the unconscious mind is vastly more important than the conscious mind in making decision, that we actually process information emotionally rather than rationally (which may explain a lot about the political process). “Over the past century,” he says, “people have tended to conceive decision making as a point in time. You mass the facts and circumstances and evidences and then make a call. In fact, it is more accurate to say that we are pilgrims in a social landscape. We wander across an environment of people and circumstances. As we wander, the mind makes a near-infinite number of value judgments, which accumulate to form goals, ambitions, dreams, desires, and ways of doing things.”

This seems rather intuitive – and it would certainly explain a lot about decisions in politics, business, the workplace, education and every other human endeavor that look like they make no sense. It’s because they indeed make no sense – the decision made in reaching those decisions was emotion-based. (Brooks points out that this might explain why after half a century of trying to improve public education in the United states and the spending of trillions of dollars, nothing much has changed.)

I like how he uses characters to tell his story, but the danger here is that it’s all rather reductionist – everything in a personal relationship can be explained by hormones, culture, upbringing, and evolution. We’re reduced to bundles of physiological, chemical and biological processes and actions. There’s not much talk about heart and no talk at all about soul.

We’ve only covered the introduction and the first three chapters, so we’ll see where Brooks is taking this. In the meantime, if you’d like to see other posts on the book, please visit The High Calling.

The water trickles

2012-01-08T05:00:00.000-06:00

The water trickles

from its stone source,

more an accidental spill

at first but the farther

it flows from its source,

it deepens and broadens,

covering feet then ankle

then leg then waist then

suddenly I am swimming

in water deep and fast,

borne on a roaring current

of sweetness and purity,

the water is clean and

fresh and new and carries

me eastward to the ocean

where we become one.

Photograph: Blurred Water by Petr Kratochvil via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

Saturday Good Reads

2012-01-07T05:00:00.000-06:00

A man takes a photo a day of himself for 13 years – and a story unfolds that gets you right in the gut. A grandfather gets a surprise visit. Beautiful photographs. Wonderful poems. And Charles Dickens turns 200. Lots of great stuff on the web last week.

Prose

“Five Things to Stop Doing in 2012” by Bradley Moore at Shrinking the Camel.

“The rear-view mirror” and “What I Learned After Cleaning the Garage” by David Rupert at Red-Letter Believers.

“New Years with the Devil” by Billy Coffey at What I Learned Today.

“There and Back Again with Charity Singleton” by Megan Willome.

“Emotion du jour: Despair” by Daniel Donovich at the Itinerant D.

“Errol Morris on the Questions of Photography” by Maureen Doallas at Writing Without Paper.

“4 Must-Have Attitudes for 2012” by Scott Couchenour at Serving Strong.

Poetry

“Joseph Brodsky” by D.S. Martin at Kingdom Poets.

“Tools of the Trade” and “Capital Punishment” by Tony Maude at Rumours of Rhyme.

“Clarity” and “I come here” by B.K. McKenzie at Signed…BKM

“Higgs Hides Still” by Maureen Doallas at Writing Without Paper.

Paintings and Photographs

“I Choose Wildness” by Claire Burge.

“Whose Silence” and “Preparation” by Susan Etole at Just…A Moment.

“New Year Fog,” oil on canvas paper by Randall David Tipton at Painter’s Process.

“Gem” and “Winter Studies” by Tim Good at Photography by Tiwago.

Online Exhibitions

“Dickens at 200” by the Morgan Library. (Hat Tip: Marueen Doallas at Writing Without Paper.)

Videos

“Heartwarming Tearjerker of the Day” by The Daily What. (Hat Tip: Abraham Piper.)

“Jeff Harris Self Portraits” by Huffington Post. (Hat Tip: Louise Gallagher at Recover Your Joy.)

Photograph: Wooden Nativity Scene by Marina Shemesh via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

What I'm Learning from Reviews

2012-01-06T12:29:00.000-06:00

Charity Singleton has posted a review of Dancing Priest at her blog, Wide Open Spaces. Here's a portion of what she has to say:

"I had been hearing about Glynn's book since it was first accepted for publication; Glynn and I work together as editors for The High Calling. So, on Friday, when I took all of the gifts cards and cash I had received for Christmas and bought a Kindle Fire, I knew the first book I would download would be Dancing Priest.

"My only disappointment was that I didn't buy it sooner..."

It's a wonderful review, and like all the other reviews and the emails and face-to-face comments I've been receiving, it’s teaching me things about my book and the story it tells, things I didn’t realize or see or even understand until other people started reading it.

Dancing Priest is a big story, big in terms of scope, characters and geography. I truly didn’t think about that when I was writing it. But looking back, and considering most contemporary (Christian and general) fiction, it is unusual. Most fiction today tends to be tightly focused on a handful of characters. My book focuses on two, but there are many more who come to play more than minor roles.

Another difference with a lot of contemporary fiction is that it’s more narrative than psychological. It’s a story that moves forward. It doesn’t spend a lot of time worrying about what’s inside of the character’s heads, or staying in one place for very long.

It’s a story that crosses genres, which is a problem for most publishers. It’s not a romance novel, in the conventional definition of a romance novel, but it is a love story. But it’s not only a love story. It’s a love story lived within the context of contemporary life.

It is not autobiographical. Well, that’s mostly true. I’ve been asked if I identify with the main character, Michael Kent, or if I consider him an alter-ego. And the answer is no, I don’t, with one exception: how he attracts and deals with naysayers and competitors. Much of that comes from my own experience. But that’s about the only direct connection.

The character I identify the most with is (should a male author say this?) Sarah Hughes, the heroine. Her journey toward faith is taken largely from my own, including many of the specific details.

The book appeals to Christians and non-Christians alike. I didn’t write it with a specific audience or an imaginary reader in mind. I just wrote the story.

But I’ve had some hard-bitten, cynical people tell me what it’s meant to them. I’m still struck with wonder at this. One said she liked it “in spite of all the God stuff.” Another said she finally understood what people meant when they talked about faith – that it had destroyed her stereotypes. A third said he didn’t think he would enjoy as much as he did, and wondered if there would be a sequel. These were all non-Christians (as a Christian like me would define that term).

In a way, I’m glad the manuscript for the sequel is done except for the serious editing – I’m not going to try to write something to new expectations, including my own. The sequel moves in a different direction than the first, but the story is still big (actually bigger) and the major characters are still the same, with the addition of a few more.

The reviews – the comments – the reactions – I never expected to be as blessed as I have been by all of them.

The Rambles of a Wandering Priest

2012-01-06T07:08:00.000-06:00

My online (and High Calling) friend Karen Eck at Karenee Art sent me an email some days ago, suggesting I might want to take a look at a recent book by a friend of hers, Allen Martin Bair, called The Rambles of a Wandering Priest. It is a collection of 69 “rambles,” or meditations, on a variety of subjects and themes.

The rambles are not what I expected them to be. They are more than meditations; they are honest, candid reflections by a man who is much like the rest of us – someone who struggles, doubts, wonders and wanders, and then is dumbfounded by God’s grace and faithfulness.

Bair, an ordained Old Order Catholic priest (they can marry), also offers something else: the perspective of someone with Asperger’s Syndrome, a mild form of autism, which was diagnosed as a lot of other things until he was in his 30s. And from the beginning, he talks about it, and likens it to a kind of spiritual autism the human race has because of sin.

The 69 rambles are organized under seven themes: spiritual autism; faith, prosperity and possessions; practical discipleship (the theme with the most rambles); God; grace, salvation, and other theological subjects; the Church, and how we treat each other; and then a final reflections and observations. He calls upon a wide array of sources, familiar and non-familiar, including Stars Wars and Star Trek (I loved the ramble about “Yoda pancakes”), vegetable gardening, writings of the early church fathers, and computer desktop icons.

Bair rambles through the spiritual landscape, but it is a familiar everyday landscape. What he does, however, is to bring an original eye to what he finds in that landscape, and you begin to see, and find, God where you do not expect to find him. It’s an engaging, honest, thoughtful work, and I’m glad to have gone rambling with it.

And the word is...

2012-01-05T07:41:00.001-06:00

I’ve been seeing numerous posts about “one word” – one word to describe your hopes and plans for 2012, or what’s on your heart for 2012. It sounds sort of New Year’s resolution-ish to me, and I don’t do resolutions (since I know how well I keep them).

But there’s a word that comes to mind.

The year 2011, as most years do, brought a lot of change – a major remodeling of our home; watching my grandson start walking and learning of a second grandson on the way; our youngest moving to Florida; my back problems which sidelined biking, travel and a lot of other things; and publication of my book – to mention only a few.

It was a lot of activity, but in my mind it was a lot of slowing down, and mostly because of my back. There were a lot of things I couldn’t do that were part of normal daily life (like putting up the Christmas lights, or gardening). I had to depend upon others to do things that I usually did without thinking. I had to plan things like the best time to leave for a work meeting in the building next door to mine.

My sleep patterns changed. Instead of going to bed at 11:30 or midnight, I was going to be bed at 10, or 10:30 at the latest. Things slowed down. And when things slow down, you have more time to think, consider and reflect. And more time to plan.

I’m already seeing how this year will shape up, and shape me. I know some things that are coming – some changes in what I do online (more on that in a few days), what’s going to happen with my writing, and family changes. As frustrating as last year was, I see it for what it was – a year to slow down and renew.

I see what’s coming for 2012, with my writing, my faith, my family and my work.

And the word is grow.

Over at Faith Barista, Bonnie Gray is asking what one word has God laid on your heart for 2012. To see other posts, please visit Faith Barista.

Dancing Priest - Chapter 1

2012-01-04T05:00:00.000-06:00

My publisher suggested I post chapter one of Dancing Priest here on the blog to introduce the book to people who may not have seen it. So here it is.

Part 1: Edinburgh

Chapter 1

“You know what’llhappen? We’ll get an American.”

“Tommy.”

“That’sprecisely what’ll happen. An American doing a study abroad so he can go backand tell his friends how odd the Scots are. Or worse, he’ll call us British.”

“Tommy,their dormitory burned down. Almost four hundred students have no place tolive. Perhaps one hundred are American.”

“Theuniversity can sort it out. They don’t need us. And we need quiet. I’ve gotmajor projects due this term. And you’ve got a thesis, if I recall.”

Michaelgrinned. “You know you’re going to give in.”

The firehad occurred right as the new term was starting, and the chancellor had made aplea for help with temporary housing. Friends since childhood, Michael andTommy shared a room in a senior dorm. Tommy McFarland, five foot ten withcurly, red hair, had a swimmer’s build, while Michael Kent, five foot eleven,had black hair and the build of a cyclist—slender but with distinctivelymuscled calves. To each other, they were “Tomahawk” and “English.”

The roomwas large, in one of the university’s recently renovated dormitories. Designedas a three-person flat with its own bath, the rooms were whitewashed plasterand stone with paneled wainscoting and door frames. They could easilyaccommodate a third roommate.

Thechancellor’s plea had been posted on walls and notice boards, slipped underdoors, and e-mailed to student accounts.

“Or we’llget one of those people who like to cook their meals in their room, and dogsand cats start disappearing, and everything smells like some foreign spice.”

Michaellaughed. “You’re a case. I’m telling the housemaster that we’ll take one on.”

“You don’tsee if I’m right. You’ll regret this, English. Trust me.”

The nextmorning, Michael caught up with Tommy at ExpressoYourself, the Scot-ownedcoffee shop Tommy insisted was better than Starbucks. Michael preferredStarbucks because, he pointed out with ample justification, the coffee tastedbetter.

“We have aroommate,” Michael said.

“American,right?”

“Yes, he’sAmerican. Starting his third year. And he’s in a study-abroad program. Thehousemaster told me a few minutes ago.”

“I knewit,” Tommy groaned, putting his head in his hands. “We’ll get nothing butcomplaints about the weather and that there are only four choices fortelevision.” His head shot up. “Come on. He’s likely to have already moved histhings into my area.” He hurried to the door.

“He’s notlikely to have many things to move in, Tomahawk,” Michael called in his wake.“They burned up, remember?”

After thefire, what David Hughes possessed was exactly one backpack, a laptop, and booksfor three of his five classes. Sandy haired, standing about five foot nine, helooked like an American, or at least how Europeans expected Americans to look.Both Michael and Tommy could see the apprehension in his eyes.

“It’s greatof you guys to take me in. I know this is a big hassle.”

“We’re gladwe had the room, David,” Michael said.

“You don’tcook, do you?” said Tommy.

“No,” Davidsaid. “Is that important?”

“Only to aNeanderthal like the Tomahawk here,” Michael said. “Don’t worry about it. Andwe call him Tomahawk because it describes his personality perfectly.”

Tommyglared at Michael. “And we call him English because that’s where he came from,and you never trust anyone from down there.”

“First,some introductions,” Michael said. “I’m Michael Kent. Fifth and final yeartheology. University Cycling Team.”

“He’somitted a point or two,” said Tommy, “like all of his fatal character flaws, ofwhich there are a considerable number—it’s genetic with the English. And thathe’s training right now in the hopes he gets a shot at the British OlympicCycling Team for the Games next summer, which is doubtful given how parochialand narrow minded the English are.”

“And that,”Michael said, pointing to Tommy, “is one Thomas McFarland, professional cretin.Fifth and final year architecture. Swim team. Engaged to one Ellen Grant,senior in education, with official plans to marry after graduation in May.She’s incredibly decent and remarkably good-looking, and we’ve no idea what shepossibly sees in the Tomahawk here.”

“She knowsScot quality,” Tommy snorted, “and she knows you never trust the English.”

“You guysseem to have known each other a long time,” David said.

“We grew uptogether,” Michael said.

“I came tohis rescue when he was being bullied in grammar school,” Tommy added.

“Somerescue,” Michael said. “We both ended up with black eyes. But we’ve been bestfriends ever since, much to my occasional amusement and perpetualembarrassment. Tommy’s right, I must have a fatal character flaw to have put upwith him for so long. So, David, how did you end up at Edinburgh?”

“DavidHughes,” he said. “Native of Denver, Colorado. Now living in California.University of California at Los Angeles. Brother to a twin sister with an olderbrother who’s just finished his medical residency in Denver. Major is Britishhistory, specifically eighteenth century Scotland. My sister, Sarah, is here,too, although I’m not quite sure why. She’s an art major. She wants to be anartist, maybe do something with art direction in movies. She also attends UCLA.I’d been planning this since last year, and she threw her application in at thelast minute. We both got accepted.”

“First,California,” said Tommy, “there is no British history. There is, however, ahistory of English tyranny, which to Scotland’s great shame continues up to thepresent moment.”

“Tomahawkhere is a Scot nationalist, which I’m sure is a huge surprise,” Michael said.“And he swims better than most fish. So, David, what are you doing forclothes?”

“Wearingwhat I have on,” he answered. “Everything burned in the fire. When the firealarms sounded, I threw on some clothes, grabbed my backpack, and ran. I’ve gotclasses this afternoon and a dinner with my sister and a faculty membertonight. Do you know where I can find a clothing store?”

“Here,”Tommy said, walking to his closet. “You’re about my size. You can wear one ofmy shirts.”

“We’ll helpyou find a shop tomorrow,” Michael said. “And help yourself to my ties.Although you might prefer to look at Tomahawk’s tie collection. He’s known forbeing something of a fashion dandy.”

“Which,”said Tommy, “is infinitely preferable to the spandex and polyester thatcomprise some ninety-four percent of English’s wardrobe and which he tends towear twenty-four hours a day, including as pajamas? He claims it’s because ofthe cycling team, but I suspect there’s something perverted going on.”

Used poets

2012-01-03T05:00:00.000-06:00

I make my way up rickety stairs

to the small room marked poetry,

a gabled space I cannot stand

up straight in but have to lean

and bend or crouch on my knees

to read the titled spines. The space

like the old house it hides within

smells musty, each book absorbing

and emitting the smell of its brothers

so that each bears a tattooed aroma

of where it has been. I see Frost

and Whitman, Dickenson and Homer,

Collins and Kooser and Eliot and

Wordsworth and then the one

I wasn’t looking for but found

anyway: Housman. Paperback

originally 50 cents published

in 1968 with a psychedelic cover

perhaps to appeal to psychedelic

students wearing paisley shirts

but it is still A Shropshire Lad

in all its elegiac, ballading,

songful, mournful glory.

This poem is submitted for Open Link Night at dVerse Poets. To see other poems, please visit their site. The links will be live at 2 pm Central time today,

Related: Words Cut like Jewels at The Master’s Artist.

"Dancing Priest" Updates

2012-01-02T13:25:00.002-06:00

Iknow an author who’s feeling especially blessed. A few updates for my novel Dancing Priest:

Amazonnow has the paperback pricedcompetitively with Barnes and Noble.

Thenovel is now listed at Books-A-Million.The listing is basic but is being updated.

Newsof publication circulated today on the Loop Digest of the American Christian Fiction Writers.

Eightreviews (six five-star and two four-star) have been posted on Amazon’s U.S.site and one five-star review on Amazon’s site in the UnitedKingdom.

Ifyou haven’t seen it, Laura Boggess wrote abeautiful reflection on the novel last week.

PastorMichael Perkins included it on his list of “14 news books for your new Kindle”and called it “hands down the best fiction book I’ve read in years.” He posteda review on Amazon as well.

KarinFendick at His Firefly recommended three books for Christmas, and one of thosewas Dancing Priest. The others wereBilly Coffey’s Paper Angels and L.L.Barkat’s Rumors of Water, so my bookis in “tall cotton” as we native Southerners like to say.

WriterMegan Willome also posted abeautiful review at her blog.

MaureenDoallas wrote a two-part interview of me about the book, with one part postedat TweetSpeakPoetry and the other at TheHigh Calling.

I’vebeen receiving reader reactions via email. One compared it to the writing ofMadeleine L’Engle, which properly blew my socks off. One enjoyed it so much shebought it for her mother-in-law’s new Kindle Fire. Another called it a “crackingread.” Another reader called it a joy to read.

Severalsaid they couldn’t put it down. One of those was my 24-year-old son, who readit virtually straight through (this is my child who lives by texting and doesn’teven read email). Another 20-something, also a young man, sent a note that saidthe same thing. (That’s two 20-something males who have read what isessentially a love story and enjoyed it.)

Sofar, the book’s appeal seems to cross generations and include both genders. Inaddition to the 20-somethings, I’ve heard from people in their 30s, 40s, 50s,60s, 80s and even one lady who’s 92 and posted a review on Amazon.

I’msmiling. And feeling very blessed.

Thanksgiving

2012-01-01T06:31:00.002-06:00

It’s a new year, and instead of starting with resolutions (which I’m always bad about keeping anyway), I’d like to begin with thanksgiving for all of the things I experienced, all of the things I learned, and all of the blessings I received in 2011.

I learned about disability. A bulging disc pressed a nerve and turned my life upside down. I learned dependence upon others. I learned to slow down because I had to slow down. An activity that had been a big part of my life for more than six years – biking – suddenly wasn’t. I learned a little about patience.

I learned about writing. I wrote more than I ever have before. If what I write on this blog is representative of my writing overall, and it is, then I wrote more poetry than I ever have before.

I read more than I have in recent years (possibly because I wasn’t biking). My reading was almost exactly, if unintentionally, in “thirds” – one third fiction, one third poetry and one third non-fiction. That’s a shift from previous years – more poetry. And of the non-fiction I read, a significant chunk was about writing fiction and poetry.

I learned that I like ebook readers (Kindle) and tablets (iPad).

I learned that I still cry at movies. And it’s still embarrassing. (I even cried at “The Muppet Movie.”)

I learned about publishing a book. I’m still rather amazed that it happened. It’s a lot of work. Writers generally don’t like to hear that they have to promote their work, and learn marketing and publicity. Writers want to write. But these days, writers have to promote and publicize, too.

I learned publishing also means trust. I trusted my editor, my publisher, my cover photographer and my cover designer. Trusting them was the smartest thing I did in publishing Dancing Priest.

And publishing means learning how readers respond. You hope people will like what you write, or be inspired or provoked or encouraged or challenged or something. But I’m still surprised. I’ve read blog posts and reviews and emails about my book, and I don’t feel gratified; I feel humbled. I’ve been brought to tears a few times.

I learned how much I don’t know. The older I get, the more I realize how much I don’t know. I was a lot smarter in my 20s and 30s, or at least I knew a lot more then than I do now.

I learned about family. My oldest discovered he was to become a father again, which meant I discovered I was going to be a grandfather again. My youngest moved from Kansas City to Florida, and I learned, or relearned, that distance involves the pain of separation. I learned that my wife is a rather extraordinary project manager, with the remodeling of our kitchen, laundry and bathrooms and new flooring everywhere. I learned that my grandson loves to dance, and that he creates music in my heart.

I learned that my grandson and I are a lot alike – especially in how we’re learning about the world, learning with a child’s heart. I hope that’s something he and I never lose.

I learned I have much to be thankful for.

Photograph: Candles in Church by Vera Kratochvil via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

Saturday Good Reads

2011-12-31T05:00:00.000-06:00

It’s been a good year for good stuff online, and it ends well. Shawn Smucker has a good story that’s a reminder for fathers. Kathy Richards has something to say about all those Christmas gifts. Dave Wheeler writes a psalm. Tim Good has some spectacular photographs “form his desk.” T.S. Eliot reads about the magi. And much, much more.

Happy New Year!

Prose

“I Dare Me” by Michael Perkins at the Handwritten.

“Christmas Is Gone and I’m Glad” by Sandra Heska King.

“Freelancing: Fiction and Reality” by Joshua Spotts at A Writer’s Mind.

“A Reminder to Fathers for 2012” by Shawn Smucker.

“Christmas Break” by Laura Boggess at The Wellspring.

“Oh, you shouldn’t have” by Kathy Richards at Katdish.

“Beyond Peaceful Facades” by Jason Stasyzsen at Connecting to Impact.

Poetry

“Steve Turner” by D.S. Martin at Kingdom Poets.

“That My Hands Might Open” by Maureen Doallas at Writing Without Paper.

“Nothing But Words” by Leslie Moon at Moondustwriter.

“Psalm” by Dave Wheeler at Dave Writes Right.

“Prairie Ramble” by Tim Good at Poetry by Tiwago.

“Maddening” by Bradley Moore at And the Other Things Is.

“And So I Sing” by Patricia Spreng at Lovepats.

Paintings and Photographs

“The Oak in Winter” by Randall David Tipton at Painter’s Process.

“Watching” by Susan Etole at Just…A Moment.

“In the Winter, You Wait for Spring” by Kelly Sauer.

“Photography ay Lockport Prairie Reserve” and “Photography from My Desk” by Tim Good at Photography by Tiwago.

“Yummy” by Claire Burge.

Short Stories

“Technology Disruptions” by Claire Burge.

Videos and Podcasts

“Interview with Maurice Sendak” by the Tate Galleries.

“The Journey of the Magi” read by T.S. Eliot.

“Miniatur Wunderland” – the largest model railway in the world.

“My Song is Love Unknown” by St. Martin’s Choir.

Painting: Duccio di Buoninsegna. Maestà (front, predella): The Presentation in the Temple. 1308-11. Tempera on wood panel. Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Siena, Italy.

Pleasantly Disturbed Friday

2011-12-30T08:08:00.000-06:00

It’s been a while since a “Pleasantly Disturbed Friday” made an appearance. And even though they’ve been somewhat filed in the archives by their originator (one Duane Scott at Scribing the Journey), I thought it might be time for a reappearance. (There’s no official definition, but a Pleasantly Disturbed Friday is a blog post of random thoughts, events and observations, usually because you don’t have a specific theme or idea for that day’s blog post.) (This contribution fits that definition perfectly.)

Last week, we visited the St. Louis Art Museum to see the Monet Water Lilies Exhibit. Because it was the final shopping week before Christmas, the crowds at the museum were non-existent. There was no waiting in line, no fighting to see a painting or poster illustration, no massive throngs to maneuver through. Yesterday, we returned to the art museum, to see an exhibit of American paintings 1900-1945 and a few other small exhibits.

The museum sits within Forest Park, as does the Missouri History Museum, the St. Louis Zoo and the St. Louis Science Center. The weather was partly cloudy and high 50s. The park was packed. So was the museum. So was the Monet exhibit. I congratulated my wife on selecting last week as the time to see the Monet paintings.

One of the paintings we saw was the one at the top of this post – “View of St. Louis” by Joe Jones. The museum had an entire exhibit of his paintings a year ago.

As we were leaving, we walked through the temporary 16^th-17^th century paintings area (just about everything at the museum is in temporary quarters these days because of a major expansion program going on). And I saw this painting, one of my favorites in the museum – El Greco’s “St. Paul.” It was painted between 1598 and 1600, and it simply does not look like it’s 400 years old. It looks almost like a contemporary painting to me. Perhaps it’s because the colors, or the expression on Paul’s face, but I always find it amazing.

I’ve been reading a lot in the last two weeks (I’ve been on vacation time). I read A.E. Housman’s A Shropshire Lad and wrote a post about it for The Master’s Artist. I read Alan Shapiro’s Night of the Republic: Poems and my review will be posted in January at TweetSpeak Poetry. I also read Dave Malone’s Under the Sycamore: Poems and Tania Runyan’s A Thousand Vessels: Poems and will be posting reviews of both, also at TweetSpeak.

Other reading has included Work Matters by Tom Nelson and Amongst My Enemies by William Brown.

I also finished a novel that I didn’t think I would finish. It had been recommended by a friend, who knows the author. It’s a kind of Generation Y novel, or at least the characters are Gen Y. I struggled with reading it and almost stopped at several points. One character kept me engaged – which, I suppose, demonstrates the power of characterization. But the novel needed an editor; it needed better plot development, for one thing. I suspect the original ending was cut off for length purposes – you never find out what happens to the villain.

We saw the George Clooney movie, “The Descendants,” on Wednesday and “The Muppet Movie” last night. I really like “The Descendants,” but all of the characters, including the children, were required to drop the f-bomb at least five times each (scriptwriters should be able to do better than that). “The Muppet Movie” was nostalgic fun. We were young marrieds when “The Muppet Show” started its television run, and we loved both Muppet movies in the 1980s. This one had basically the same script as the others, and even a reprise of the song “The Rainbow Connection,” but it was still fun.

We still hope to see "The War Horse" and the new Sherlock Holmes movie. Have you seen any good movies during the holidays?

The artist ignores Monet

2011-12-29T05:29:00.000-06:00

I am here to see the de-deconstruction

of Monet’s water lilies, what

the curator calls Agapanthus,

the African lily grown 45 miles west

of Paris, but instead I watch

a bearded young artist, seated

in front of the magnificent if ignored

collected canvas, as his attention

is focused left to the exit door

and the young museum attendant

who is self-consciously and

embarrassedly aware that he is

being drawn in charcoal, shades

of black and white on gray paper.

I want to see the Monet but instead

I watch the intent artist drawing

the self-conscious attendant and

I glance deliberately to see

the likeness is rather remarkable,

right there in front of Monet’s

inspiring if ignored water lilies.

I would take a photograph

but cameras are not allowed.

On Tuesday, I posted “Navigating Monet’s Water Lilies,” about the three paintings that comprise The Agapanthus triptych currently on display at the St. Louis Art Museum. As I entered the large room containing the triptych, there was actually an artist seated in front of the Monet but focused on the drawing described here. Fortunately, I spent some time looking at Monet’s water lilies before I circled back to see what the artist was drawing.

Painting: Self-Portrait of the Artist with Beret by Claude Monet.

An Interview with Sarah Hughes

2011-12-28T06:06:00.000-06:00

Last week, we talked with Michael Kent, the lead character and hero in the novel Dancing Priest. This week, we talk with Sarah Hughes, the lead female character.

Faith, Fiction, Friends: We asked Michael this question, and feel somewhat obligated to ask you the same. What is it like to be a character in a novel?

Sarah Hughes: Like your father is inside your head at all times. It’s strange at first but you get used to it.

FFF: Can you tell us a little about your background, and where you grew up?

SH: I was born and raised in Denver, Colorado. Likely the biggest impact on my life has been being a twin. My brother David was born two minutes before I was, and he never tires of reminding me he’s my older brother. We have an older brother, Scott, and there was quite a gap between us – 12 years. My father was an investment banker and then founded a venture capital firm with his best friend from college, Tyler Zimmer.

My childhood was fairly normal, I think, for a family that was financially blessed. My parents sent us to private schools. David and I spent a good chunk of our summers with my paternal grandparents in Santa Barbara, although we didn’t see my mother’s parents that much. She was originally from Chicago; she met my dad when they all attended the University of Colorado. David and I were seniors in high school when our parents separated. Actually, that’s not quite accurate. My mother left my father, walked out on the whole family, in fact, and later married Ty Zimmer, Dad’s business partner.

FFF: I detect some hurt there.

SH: Yes, you probably do. (Silence)

FFF: Okay, then, how did you end up at the University of Edinburgh?

SH: David and I went as exchange students. We were both attending UCLA, David for its British history program and me for its fine arts program. David had already planned to attend the University of Edinburgh for his junior year; he was specializing in the history of Scotland. At the last minute, and it was really the last minute, I decided to tag along.

FFF: Wouldn’t staying at UCLA made more sense for your fine arts degree?

SH: At Edinburgh I could take a lot of elective courses I needed and I decided it would be a good experience. I also wasn’t ready to be separated from my twin, to be honest. That was the main reason, I suppose. David and I had grown up together and been through a lot together, especially with my mother leaving the family. My dad was able to pull some strings to get my application reviewed; one of the professors there was a consultant for my dad’s business.

FFF: What was your first reaction to seeing Michael?

SH: We had just finished the first meeting of our medieval art class. Medieval art was about the last thing I was interested in, but the lecturer had a reputation for being an outstanding speaker and teacher. And he was, a wild Irishman who passionately loved his subject. I was leaving the building when this young man called out to me. He was in a cycling outfit – polyester jersey with “EUCC” across the front and spandex shorts, and dragging his bike along with him. He rather clumsily asked me out for coffee and I thought I was being hit on for the fourth time that day. I’m afraid I was rather rude. But he was nice looking, I will say that.

FFF: What’s your most vivid memory of Edinburgh?

SH: I know I should say something about the city or Scotland, but my most vivid memory is Michael. Everything about Edinburgh I now associate with Michael. Once we got past our problematic first meeting, it seems we did everything together. He even sat in on my art class just to watch me draw and paint and I attended his cycling practices. If I had to pick a most vivid memory of the city, it would have to be a kind of non-memory – when Michael and I danced the tango at MedFest. I was oblivious to everything during the dance except him. It was if we had known each other forever, and we had met only two days earlier.

FFF: Are you looking forward to being in the sequel to Dancing Priest?

SH: I have a yes-and-no answer. I’ve read the manuscript, and the best part for me is my life with Michael. But things are going to happen that I find frightening. We’re both going to face severe tests, and our lives will never be the same afterward. It wasn’t what I expected at all.