American filmmaker Woody Allen once lamented, “I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying.” Endings are not easy for most of us. Endings come with a sense of apprehension, as well as feelings of loss, anger, fear, depression, and confusion. It’s hard to admit we[…]
Read MoreGetting published is hard work. Painfully hard work. In his The Art of War for Writers, James Scott Bell provides a field manual for all writing wretches. Any hope of success will require reconnaissance, tactics, and strategy. I am now on my third book, Contagions of Craziness. As with the first two, the process of[…]
Read MoreUp here on the Pend Oreille River, I am slowing down to catch up with God. It happens every time I drive the eight hours to escape. One rediscovers Godspeed, what a recent video refers to as “the pace of being.” In it, Matt Canlis, a parish priest, narrates his own journey of slowing in[…]
Read MoreI thought a provocative title might help. Stein, in his book on writing, notes that titles and first sentences and first paragraphs of any writing are critical to arousing the restless reader. And when you think about it, arousal is important. “Arousal is nature’s stimulus for the propagation of the human race.” Unaroused, humanity will[…]
Read MoreIt’s gray outside. It’s been a l-o-n-g gray February, one of the colder ones in years. There has been the occasional tease. The sun comes out, and like bugs exposed by an overturned rock, Oregonians start darting about. But the next cold front quickly shoves everything back into its assigned place. It reminds me of[…]
Read MoreThanks Bill for the kind words. Always encouraging--
Nearly every morning, I am in the lap pool, doing my thirty minutes of swimming. It’s become my morning ritual—up at 4:45, in the pool by 5:30. I look at the clock and begin. There is some rigor to it all, but during the course of swimming, I engage in something far more strenuous—prayer. Prayer[…]
Read MoreEvery year I watch the Super Bowl, I keep my eyes out for the latest Doritos ad. The executives at Frito-Lay make sure their commercials compete with the best. This year’s ad, “Now It’s Hot,” involved Chance the Rapper and the Backstreet Boys, and it received good reviews. It’s not because I love Doritos (I[…]
Read MoreExcellent reminder... thank you for the good read. Blessings...!
Wait. Before you go too far with this, you might want to assess how you want to read this. Superficially? Deeply? I know. It all depends on what you are reading. Reading well takes time and attention, but we have been conditioned by the information overload to bounce from tweet to tweet, picture to picture,[…]
Read MoreHow true it is, especially in the third third, my friend
It is January 24, and my morning reading in Proverbs 24 led me to verse 14. It repeats what God says in the previous chapter, and it took me back twenty-six years. I can still remember the day, the time, and the place. It was the twenty-third. I was on my morning walk, praying for[…]
Read MoreThank you.
It’s hard to miss the fact we are living in days more markedly anti-Christian. One only needs to read yesterday’s Washington Post article, “Karen Pence’s Worldview Horrifies Me,” by Alyssa Rosenberg. Rosenberg, an opinion writer for the Post, is horrorstruck at the possibility someone could actually submit to a statement of values that people like[…]
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