All on the same page

Singly and together we crowd

into the designated space, careful

to avoid the edges and the inevitable

cuts, but we are so many and the space

so small we soon find ourselves

crowding and elbowing each other,

finding breathing increasingly difficult

as more and more of us push inside,

until some of us are hanging

by the edges, irrespective of the inevitable

blood staining the white, and the words

upon the white, until the space itself

begins to shudder and buckle causing

the wisest among us to leap for safety.

Over at dVerse Poets today, the prompt is idioms, and I can think of no idiom I’m least fond of than this one. To see more poems, please visit dVerse Poets.

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

Bad Reviews

One thing I’ve learned about Christian fiction – never write a bad review.

I learned that lesson the hard way. When I first started this blog, I was naïve. I read a lot of Christian fiction, but I hadn’t paid much attention to the norms of the industry, like “thou shalt not write a bad review of Christian book or novel, even if it’s bad.”

A few months into blogging, I wrote an unfavorable review of a novel that was clearly in the Christian fiction genre. The writing was good; it truly was. But the novel had structural problems – serious structural problems that were actually there by design. My major issue was that it should have been disclosed on the cover, and not left for the reader to discover in the last 10 pages that this wasn’t a self-contained novel but more of a serialization.

I posted my review, and the apocalypse arrived in short order. If you think Christians aren’t capable of intimidation campaigns, then you don’t know the friends of Christian writers. It was ugly. Emails – blog comments – things said online generally – it was ugly. It was capped by an exchange of emails with the book’s editor, in which things were said about me, my review, and the Christian book publishing industry that blew my socks off. The nicest thing said in the email exchange was “you don’t understand what the author is trying to do.”

Unfortunately, I did understand.

But I pulled the review. Yes, I caved. I have never mentioned the writer again, nor have I read any of the subsequent books written. And I’ve actually reviewed only one other book by that publisher in the five years since, and it was non-fiction.

When I begin reading in the Christian fiction genre today, I can usually tell whether it’s going to be good or bad within the first 20 pages. If it’s bad, I stop reading. I don’t review bad books. I have returned books to publishers saying I believe the book is bad and that I have a policy of not reviewing bad novels. If I’ve bought the book in question myself (which is usually the case), I place in the “giveaway pile” for a local charity.

I’m not the only one out there doing this. It’s kind of a conspiracy of silence – and it’s likely keeping Christian fiction from developing into something better. But it seems to be an unwritten, unspoken commandment – don’t write bad reviews of a Christian novel.

I’m reading a book by a favorite author right now. I’ve been tempted to stop at several points. It’s well written, and an interesting story, but it’s been over-researched, with all the research pushed into the story. Too much detail is taking the mystery and mystique out; I’m not sure if I’m reading a story or a magazine article.

And there are too many negative things afflicting the hero. I’m three-fourths of the way through the book, and I know there are two, possibly three, more negative things coming, including a lot of violence. I know it will ultimately end okay, but at times it just seems too much. One big impending promise of violence is enough; two seem too much to me.

Will I do a review of the book? No.

Will I continue to read the author? Yes. The author is a fine writer and an engaging storyteller.

I’m likely more sensitive to this because I have two of my own novels published. The most critical review of Dancing Priest said something like this: “It’s written in a plain, almost news story style, and I prefer lots of atmosphere.” If that’s as bad as it gets, that’s not bad. And the comment about the style is true.

But it is a question, this relationship (or lack of one) between reviewers and Christian fiction. Are we only supposed to write good reviews? Do we ignore the badly written, or badly constructed, or books with serious flaws? Is this what publishers of Christian fiction expect? Or is the expectation that we overlook the flaws and give everything a good review (which maybe a nice way of saying “if you don’t like it, you’re supposed to say you do,” or “lie about it”)?

I have an answer; I’m not sure I want to implement it.

So in the meantime, I don’t review bad novels. 

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

El Mirage

We streamed into the desert

following a pillar of cloud,

sand cloud, by day, and

a pillar of fire, back fire,

by night, hoping to catch

a glimpse of youth forgotten

when all the world seemed

about fast women and

faster cars. We convinced

ourselves it was no mirage

reflecting an empty landscape

back upon us, empty except

for a pillar of cloud by day.

Over at Tweetspeak Poetry, Seth Haines has a poetry prompt this week – about mirages and mirrors.

Photograph by Michael Miloserdoff via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission. The photograph was taken in El Mirage, California – a dry lake bed. If you click on the photo, you will the name of the sponsor of this particular car.

The Years of Silence

We’ve come to a pause in our reading of The Grace of God by Andy Stanley, a pause that covers about 400 years.

It’s a period covering roughly 400 B.C. to the birth of Christ. Many Protestants call it the “400 years of silence” – the period when no writing was produced that would be added to the canon. Catholics take a different view, and include what are often referred to as the “Apocryphal” texts – Esdras, Maccabbees, and a few others. All three Christian traditions (Protestant, Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox) generally agree on the New Testament canon.

But it wasn’t exactly a quiet period in the history of Middle East. Momentous things were happening that would have a significant impact upon the first century A.D.

The Persian Empire declined, and was conquered by Alexander the Great. Alexander’s empire was divided into three parts upon his death, but Greek culture and influence became pervasive.

Antiochus Epiphanes got a little too enamored of himself, and defiled the temple in Jerusalem, for he re received a rebellion and loss of territory.

For a time Palestine and Israel operated quasi-independently, until Rome occupied the territory when the ruling factions couldn’t stop their bickering.

For 400 years, there was no prophet, or canonical writing, and no direct communication by God to his people, at least in the way they had experienced it before. It was a kind of silence, but a silence which masked how the stage was being set.

Like an unannounced intermission,” Andy Stanley writes, “the curtain of world events closed on the story of God’s grace, and the stage went dark.”

By the time of the birth of Jesus, there was a common government for the Mediterranean world (Roman), a common culture (Greek), an empire-wide road system that allowed ease of travel – and, among the Jews, a growing expectation for the arrival of a Messiah, one who would lead them to victory over the Roman oppressors and restore Israel to its promised earthly power.

But that’s not what happened.

While this story is a large one, it struck me as I read it that there’s a personal application. We can go for long periods of hope and expectation, and nothing happens. We can pray and pray for something to happen, and nothing happens. We can convince ourselves that our suffering can’t last forever, that something must change, and yet nothing seems to happen.

Only silence.

And yet, something is happening. Something is always happening. We may not see it or sense it. But that doesn’t mean it’s not happening.

A stage is being set. It’s always being set.

Led by Jason Stayszen and Sarah Salter, we’ve been reading Andy Stanley’s The Grace of God. To see more posts on this chapter, “Selah,” please visit Jason at Connecting to Impact.

Illustration: A map of Alexander the Great’s empire at its height.

Telling the Truth Upward

A senior executive has made a request, something impossible to achieve. The request is born of a lack of understanding and rising frustration, and it’s passed down until it lands in my email.

I understand the frustration, and I share it. So I respond, politely and with understanding, directly to the executive. I explain why it’s impossible.

One of the people copied on the email stops by with a bit of advice. “You need to be careful saying what you did,” he says. “You could hurt your career.”

This reminds me of the old line about Socrates. He told the truth, so they poisoned him.

But the statement surprises me. Doing anything else other than what I did never entered my mind. What I believed important was to provide the executive with an explanation.

Later, I consider the statement. Why did my fellow employee think that telling an executive the truth would hurt my career?

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

Illustration by Fritz Ahlefeldt via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission. 

Poetry at Work: The Poetry of Electronic Work

Twenty years ago this summer, I was having a series of meetings with the then-company’s IT people. We wanted to do an email newsletter for employees; IT did not want us to do that. “It will crash the system,” we were told. “This will harm all of our computer systems,” they said. I even heard vague hints that our overtaxing the email system could lead to financial chaos and cultural collapse in the West.

We took the risk and started our newsletter. Nothing bad happened. In fact, the email system handled the news letter just fine, thank you. Nothing even minor happened.

The first lesson we learned was to look at dire claims of disaster with a skeptical eye. The second lesson was that an email newsletter was work. Despite the appearance of ease that bytes and pixels seem to promise, nothing was easy about an email newsletter. And we learned that, if employees liked the newsletter (and they did), our work for employees soon found itself far outside the company. Imagine – they forwarded the newsletter to friends, sales prospects, academics, and just about anyone else they thought might find it interesting.

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

Photograph by Charles Rondeau via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

Familiarity Breeds…Contentment?

It’s an old saw – familiarity breeds contempt. But in organizational settings, it’s also dead wrong.

Familiarity actually breeds contentment – and that can be dangerous.

We call it “corporate culture” or “organizational culture.” Put another way: “It’s how we do things here.” It’s what we believe in, and the values we hold.

Chip Heath and Dan Heath, in Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work, suggest that contentment often comes from repeated exposure to an idea, a program, a process. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, “but what’s more troubling is that mere exposure also extends to our perception of truth.”

In other words, the more we hear or read or see something, the more we believe it’s true. Even if it’s a flat-out lie.

How many times have you received a group email claiming something (usually outrageous or bizarre) is true and you’re urged to pass it on? The internet lends itself to this type of communication. If something seems unbelievably outrageous, it’s probably untrue.

I received one that claimed a certain consumer product (I won’t mention names here to protect the innocent product) was the cause of all cancers, autism, Parkinson’s Disease, epilepsy and virtually every other illness and disease known to humanity, supposedly on the basis of “new scientific studies.”(I am not making this up.) Looking at the email chain, it has already been passed on numerous times.

If you receive something like this, check Snopes. The odds are good that Snopes will have an answer as to the validity of an internet claim.

Why are we so prone to believe this stuff?

We trust the people sending the email or making the claim.

We see a lot of people making the claim on twitter and Facebook.

There’s an article about it on Wikipedia.

An online publication that you read regularly has an article about it.

We have a lot of reasons for doing this. The key point related to all of these is that we tend to believe something is true if it fits our pre-existing worldview.

If we mistrust big corporations, or big government, or big religion (or any religion), we are more prone to believe crazy things about them. We don’t stop and ask if something might be wrong with our worldview. We’re a consumer culture and we consume news and information just like any other consumer commodity.

For organizations, the Heaths say, this status quo or “it’s the culture here” mentality can be devastating. It’s often most easily seen when an outside executive is brought in to change things in a staff or business unit with a strong culture. Watch how fast the white blood cells go to work to “kill the infection.”

We all can do better than that. Not every status quo is bad or wrong. Not every change or innovation is good. But we need to develop a highly tuned sense of discernment to know the difference.

And stop forwarding those crazy email chain letters.

Over at The HighCalling, we’ve been discussing Decisive. To see more posts on this section about short-term emotion, please visit TheHigh Calling.

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