Tag: a personal note

Christmas Eve Greetings

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Here it is, Christmas Eve, and when I get up from this computer, I must begin the long labor of setting up our Christmas tree. Hours later, when I’ve finally finished, and sit back to drink my iced tea and listen to a little more Christmas music, my wife will take the duck out of the oven and we’ll have Christmas dinner.

Hey, as long as you’re here, have a seat and talk to me while I grapple with these ornaments and warn off the cats.

We have shut the door against the world today: no one allowed in but family, friends, and angels. And memories. People and places we have loved. The people have moved on to glory; the world has swallowed up the places. But there is a place the world can’t swallow up, and that is where the people are now.

May the Holy Spirit be with you all this Christmas Eve.

Lee and Pat

 

Some Last-Minute Gifts You Shouldn’t Buy

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I know there are times when you simply can’t help trying to do all your Christmas shopping just as the clock is running out. Nevertheless, it’s always well to look before you leap. Buy in haste, repent at leisure.

So here is a quick guide to some gifts you should avoid giving unless you want to make someone mad at you. Without further ado, stay away from these:

Self-Esteem Poker. For fragile personalities who can’t be dealt a bad hand without being traumatized, who can’t lose, who can’t bear to see someone else win, this outrageously overpriced little item ($45.20) is nothing but an ordinary deck of cards with a single rule sheet explaining that from now on, regardless of what is being played, all the cards are wild cards. So everyone gets a royal flush every hand, no one ever loses, no one ever wins. From Social Justice Games.

Hillary Clinton’s Greatest Speeches, on DVD, 12 discs, 18 hours, for $249.99. Need we say more?

The Affordable Care Act Kit, Part 2: Abdominal and Oral Surgery. $666.00. Finally, if you like your doctor, you really can keep him or her: because under the Ultimate Obamacare, your doctor, dentist, surgeon… is you. Yes, this is a do-it-yourself kit for removing a dicey appendix or an impacted wisdom tooth, etc. As the president himself says, “This does away with the need for malpractice insurance, cutting healthcare costs across the  boards.” Comes with instruction manual, scalpel, dental chisel, and a $5 coupon for a bottle of Old Crow Whiskey.

Poisonous Snakes as Household Pets, by the late Jimmy Bob Blobb, Heartache Press, $1.98. Ever wonder what it’d be like to have a black mamba under your bed, or a closet full of rattlesnakes? Keep wondering. J.B. Blobb’s insistence that poisonous snakes make swell pets led to an early and easily avoidable death.

Now, don’t get the idea that these gifts are inappropriate for Christmas, but OK to give as birthday, anniversary, or graduation presents. These are good gifts not to get for any occasion.

Please, Can I Wake Up Now?

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There’s stuff going on that I just don’t want to write about anymore; and I’ll bet you’re tired of reading about it, too.

So I don’t want to write about our US attorney general decreeing that cross-dressing is a human right protected by the Constitution, and when your local transvestite says jump, you’d better jump.

I don’t want to write about Republican leaders pretending that this year’s election didn’t count, or how we’d better get ready for either Hillary Alinsky or Cherokee Liz Warren to be our next president because it’s America’s fate to have a woman president and any woman will do, especially if she’s to the left of Castro.

Nor do I want to write about going to the eye doctor the other day and having him say to me, after the eye exam, “The government tells me I have to say this to you: you have to stop smoking.”

The thing is, I can’t do anything about any of it. The whole damned shooting match–“damned” as in condemned to Hell–is melting down and nobody in our ruling class wants to stop it. They all seem quite eager to capitalize on it.

Pray, pray, and pray some more. I don’t know what to do, but God does. And He will do it.

A Gratifying Experience

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This is even better than getting to say, “I told you so.”

The other night I discovered a Christian website, “The Lens of Optimism,” which featured a nice, thoughtful essay on spiritual virtues modeled by–you could knock me over with a feather–a character in my books: “Obst the Missionary–Bell Mountain Series” ( http://travisrodg.com/obst-bell-mountain/ ).

Obst starts out as a hermit in Bell Mountain, then becomes a trail guide, a missionary, and a teacher–among other things.

Now, I don’t hang out my shingle as a religious adviser or spiritual counselor. I really am old enough to know my limitations. So imagine what a wonderful surprise it was to me, to see someone extracting wisdom from something that I wrote! It means I’m on the right track, I’ve been following the signs God’s given me, and writing the stories as He gives them to me. For which I give God the glory.

If you’re well-read, you may have noticed that many writers have written stories that are a lot smarter than they are. In fact, it happens all the time. It’s called art, and it’s a gift of God. That some artists are too dense to understand what they’ve been given is their problem, not ours: God will make use of them whether they like it or not.

 

Next Month, My Next Book–‘The Glass Bridge’

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Today we’ve put the finishing touches on the editing. Now all we need is to plug in the new map, add a few more details to the cover, print ‘er up–and The Glass Bridge will be good to go.

I wish I could go with it.

Whether it’s “Climate Change” alias Global Warming, or “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot,” public affairs today are governed by fictional “narratives”–in plain English, lies. It doesn’t seem to matter that millions of people know they’re lies. We just keep on hearing them.

The Glass Bridge is about going on against all the odds because you believe God’s word. It is a fantasy: a work of fiction intended to evoke a sense of wonder: to tell the truth by means of a parable, while at the same time providing a brief escape from a world in which powerful, influential persons see nothing wrong in telling lies to get what they want from the wider public.

Please do not confuse the work of fantasy writers with the mischief of politicians and noozies. Our work is clearly labeled fiction. Our fiction, if we do our work well, means to lead the reader toward the truth. The politicians and the noozies, following the lead of an academic fad, deny there’s any such thing as truth: but just in case there is, they do their damnedest to steer people away from it.

I don’t know about you, but I’d like more fantasy and less “narrative journalism.”

Wooden Heads and Iron Butts

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Yesterday we drove a long way down the Garden State Parkway to spend Thanksgiving with my sister and brother. The destination was fine, but the journey was pure horror.

Although its purpose is anything but obvious, there is perpetual construction on the Parkway, making for miles and miles of extra-narrow lanes. Along these stretches the posted speed limit is 45 mph, which means most people go 65 mph and not a few tear along at 80. This is extremely dangerous. At those speeds, with no room to maneuver, the slightest little error could kill you and a lot of other people in a minute. Good Lord! If anybody ever had to hit the brakes for any reason, it’d be another death-fest for the 6:00 news.

But these immortals are not content with speeding. The higher the speed, the more they want to tailgate. And nothing beats weaving in and out of traffic on these constricted lanes squeezed in between temporary cement dividers.

The construction will never be finished. It’s been going on for years, with no effect but to erase landmarks and make you wonder where the  blazes you are. But nothing seems to bother the kamikaze pilots of the Parkway. You should see it when it snows–cars scattered all over the place like tinker toys.

My hands are still shaking.

‘Christian Fiction’–a Stepchild?

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“It’s too bad,” says my wife, “that whenever you see the label ‘Christian’ attached to anything, it means an imitation of something in the popular culture with some Christian stuff just tacked on to it.” Hence “Christian rock”, “Christian rap,” etc. But what about “Christian fiction”?

Is this just regular fiction that’s not quite as good as the secular stuff, but which has a special market because it’s labeled “Christian”? There are special best-seller lists for “Christian fiction”– but when do the top books on those lists wind up on the real best-seller lists?

Just skimming over some of those “Christian” lists, I see what appear to be a lot of goopy love stories, tons of ’em, with sprinklings of fantasy, adventure, science fiction, and whatnot. It made me wonder, “Is this the best we can do?”

Don’t get me wrong. C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien wrote the best fantasy anybody ever wrote, and their work was “Christian” down to the ground–because they were Christians! And if you like mysteries, there’s Father Brown by G.K. Chesterton, Brother Cadfael by Ellis  Peters, and Father Dowling by Robert McInerney. The lead characters in these books could not be themselves without being thoroughly, deeply Christian. These also happen to be crackerjack, award-winning mysteries.

We are probably better off without the label “Christian” on our books, and maybe even better off without “Christian fiction” best-seller lists. The label sort of says, “A substitute for the real thing, so you, the Christian reader, can read this stuff without feeling like a sinner.” All of the writers mentioned in the previous paragraph did just fine without the label or the lists.

Do we not believe that Christianity, that God’s word, is the truth? And should not the truth inform everything we write, even our most imaginative fiction?

If “Christian fiction” is perceived as inferior to the regular stuff, shouldn’t Christian writers be working overtime to do away with that perception? And how do you do away with it? By writing fiction that can compete successfully with the secular stuff, overtake it, and pass it.

In case you hadn’t noticed, our popular culture is desperately in need of Christian influence.

I’m on the Radio Tomorrow

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I’ll be the guest of Mike and Tim tomorrow on RIGHT Spokane Perspective, 9 a.m. Pacific Time, 12 noon Eastern, discussing my books and the need to sock it to the Dems in the coming election.

To listen on your computer, go to http://www.acn.cc at the appropriate time and click on the Liberty Bell to get a media player.

My voice isn’t much for aesthetic quality, but I hope you’ll be interested in what I have to say.

Libs Wouldn’t Like You to Buy My Books

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You folks should see the comments I refuse to display. They’re all from libs and progs, they’re all chock-full of cusswords, most of them express the wish that some tragedy should overtake me, and besides which, half the time, they’re so inarticulate, it’s all I can do to figure out what they mean.

I guarantee they would be unhappy if they thought a lot of people were reading Bell Mountain and its sequels. They’d be even more unhappy if they were to read these books themselves and see what’s in them. And they would gnash their teeth over what is not in them! I leave the rest of this thought to your imagination.

Look, I have to do this from time to time because this is the only advertising I’ve got. Besides, Christmas is coming and my books would make good presents for children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews–and adults, too. And right now amazon.com is selling the paperbacks at big discounts.

If you like high adventure, sharply-drawn characters, way-out-there settings, and plenty of action, all wrapped up in a Biblical worldview, these are the books you ought to be buying–and not just for yourself.

I know, I know–here’s this guy talking about his own books, isn’t it disgraceful? Betcha didn’t mind when Frank Purdue did it, or that old guy who owned Wendy’s. It is sort of embarrassing to do it, though.

All right, then–as long as you’re here, click “Books” and visit the amazon.com page of each of the six books, and check out the Customer Reviews. They’re almost all five-star reviews.

This concludes the commercial. Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.

One of My Nightmares

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I have this dream from time to time, and I had it last night.

In all versions of it, I’m still in high school even though I’m now 65 years old. My classmates are no spring chickens, either. You see, we haven’t finished yet! They keep on adding to the time you must spend in school. Last night, as in most versions of the dream, we were halfway through June without the school year ending. Every day you think is going to be the last, or next to last–nope! It just goes on and on.

I’m coming to believe this is a prophetic dream.

What would our evil, crazy rulers and their expert advisers like better than to keep us all in school for as long as we live? Much easier to control us! They can even control what we eat and when we eat it. And all the while, in classroom after classroom, they can talk at us without our being allowed to get up and leave, or talk back. And they can control what information we get and what information we don’t get.

What seems a nightmare to a normal person is a progressive’s (translation: communist fat-head) golden dream.

Oh! But how can a society generate enough wealth to live on, if everybody’s still in school instead of working?

But under the very best of circumstances, not requiring the population to be confined in school, societies run by progressives really stink at creating wealth, and excel in wasting it.