Category Archives: Bible study

Bible study, Fifty Thousand Screaming People, Screwtape's Good Advice, Writing

Almost Done With One More

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When July began, I had three book proposals due, based on meetings I had with editors and agents (well, one editor and one agent) at the Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference. The one I concentrated on first was the study guide of The Screwtape Letters. I finished and mailed that on July 2. I still haven’t heard back on that, but the Christian booksellers convention took a week out of that editor’s schedule.

The second one I decided to work on was for my baseball novel, In Front Of Fifty Thousand Screaming People. I began working on that parallel to the Screwtape one in June, but had not progressed much. For this proposal, I had some sample chapters writing to do. As I blogged before, I had trouble shifting gears from non-fiction back to fiction. Once I did, I was able to add to the chapters I already had completed, then finish the proposal itself. This all came together last night, when I typed the last edits on the sample chapters. I had typed the final edits on the proposal last Thursday. Now, when I say final edits, that is subject to one more read tonight, with any changes I might see as necessary. So, tomorrow, this will go in an e-mail to the agent who requested it.

Now it’s on to the third one, a Bible study titled The Dynamic Duo: Lessons From The Lives Of Elijah And Elisha. This one will take more work, at least in terms of sample chapters. As I stated before in this blog, I developed these lessons and taught them from March to early June this year. Each week I prepared a two-page student handout, which included comments on the text, sometimes and exercise, lots of maps for understanding, and lots of pictures taken from the web. For my sample chapters, I will have to do away with all the illustrations, and just go with words. So I really have to expand the writing from what I have now. My original goal was to have this one in by the end of July, but that clearly ain’t gonna happen. Maybe the end of August, but that might be optimistic.

Still, I have all the handouts with me today, to look at on the noon hour and decide how much of them I can use, how much I will have to add. It’s a start, and something I’m looking forward to. Though, I will have to change gears back to non-fiction.

Meanwhile, on the first proposal, waiting, waiting….

Bible study, books, memories, miscellaneous, Writing

Sidelines Syndrome

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I first encountered Sidelines Syndrome when I was in junior high, a skinny lad who loved both academics and sports but who excelled only at the former and struggled with the latter. I didn’t know what to call it then.

I experienced it mainly on Sundays, in the fall, and it continued strongly all the way through high school. We went to mass at 9:00 AM, and got home around 10:30 AM or a little later. Cereal and toast were consumed, Dad fell asleep either on the dining room floor or in his bedroom, and it was time to read, do homework, or watch whatever pre-game football shows they had on in the 1960s. Eventually the game itself would start. How great it was to watch the New York football Giants, with Y.A. Tittle and later Fran Tarkenton at quarterback, Homer Jones at flanker, and…others whose names I can’t remember. I think Frank Gifford may have already retired. But I prate.

However, by the end of the first quarter, I was tired of watching and wanted to be doing. So I turned off the television, went outside, and started playing basketball alone. Not sure what my younger brother was doing; perhaps he sometimes joined me in the wide part of the driveway, next to the detached, two-car garage, where Dad had put up the hoop and backboard. Within a half-hour, certainly before the end of the first half, my neighbor Bobby, same grade as me, would come out and we’d have a friendly competition. An hour later and we were throwing the football in the street. Other neighborhood kids would join us, and we started a pick-up game in the street. The “field” stretched three telephone poles, the middle pole being the first down. It was always Bobby and me against all the others, all much younger than us. Bobby was Fran Tarkenton and I was Homer Jones. The ten or fifteen kids we played against didn’t stand a chance. But again I prate.

Sidelines Syndrome, as I define it now, is the physical or psychological reaction of body, soul, and spirit to being on the sidelines rather than being in the game. As teenagers, SS caused us to have an overwhelming urge of needing to be in the game, not watching others play the game on television even if they were quantum leaps ahead of us in skill and ability. We had to be out playing, not watching. I’ve noticed that SS has the exact opposite effect on us as we age. Instead of wanting to be in the game, we are glad to be on the sidelines; it lulls us to complacency, tiredness, and an overwhelming desire to sleep through half the game. At least it does me.

Last night, I experienced my first case of teenager SS in years. After working late, I went to Barnes & Noble to read, relax, research, and drink that large house blend that I mentioned in yesterday’s post. I began reading Noah Lukeman’s The First Five Pages. I read about ten pages, then felt an overwhelming urge to be writing instead of reading about writing. I couldn’t concentrate. So I put that down and began reading in The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Writing Poetry. I managed to research one minor topic, then SS interrupted the neurotransmitters and I had to lay it aside. Next was a book about fifty skills a writer should have, or something like that. I couldn’t get past the table of contents. The same was true with “Poets and Writers” and “Writers Journal” magazines. Concentration was impossible. I had to be writing.

So I went home, fixed dinner, went to my reading chair, and began planning out what I think will be my next book, a Bible study, and doing some research on it. SS was satisfied, my brain fully engaged, and productive words and concepts flowed. As the evening progressed and way led on to way, I quit about 1:15 AM, a blog post made and three sell-sheets drafted for three future books. I was satisfied; my brain was satisfied, a teen-age type attack of SS fully suppressed, and a 5:55 AM alarm setting turned on. Hey, maybe I’m getting younger!

Don’t bother to look up Sidelines Syndrome in a medical book, or Google it, or check it in Wikipedia. It doesn’t exist as a clinically defined medical or psychological phenomenon. I assure you it exists, however, and needs to be dealt with in the right way. Maybe this post will spur those professions to get off their duffs and figure this out—quickly. I can’t take many more nights of less than five hours sleep.

Bible study, Fifty Thousand Screaming People, Life Group lessons, Writing

Something New

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Today I gave the beginning six chapters, thirty-four pages, of In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People to my key beta reader. He is not a writer, or a critique group partner, but rather a rabid baseball fan. He read the first two chapters a couple of years ago, and loved it. From time to time he’s pestered me about where the book stood, if I was writing any more. I had to keep telling him no, so far life and other writing projects were in the way. We’ll see what he says about it. I thought of another man I could give these chapters to and see what he thinks about it. I may e-mail them to him tomorrow.

Meanwhile, I worked late tonight (till 6:30 PM) due to having taken time off during the day to run an errand, then went to Barnes & Noble to browse the writing books and magazines. I sat for two blessed hours with three books, two magazines, and a large house blend, and had a wonderful time. I took a few notes from two books of references I will use in an on-line poetry workshop I’ll be facilitating in a month’s time.

But about a week ago, as if I didn’t have enough writing related stuff to do, I began a new project, a new Bible study. I just finished teaching “The Dynamic Duo: Lessons From the Lives of Elijah and Elisha”. This is one of the projects I pitched to an editor at the Blue Ridge conference, and for which he wants a proposal. I have a lot of work to do converting my weekly handouts into passable sample chapters and writing the proposal, but my mind cannot focus on that right now, not until I have the FTSP proposal out the door.

However, I needed a project–something mainly for the future–to fill in the odd half hour when I don’t feel there is enough time to work on one of my major, current projects. Since I co-teach an adult Sunday school class, and it will at some time be my turn to teach again, and since I enjoy developing and teaching my own material rather than something prepared, I’ve been exploring what I will teach next. And, since preparing these studies seems to be something I can do, and something that editors might be interested in, I am approaching this new study with the idea that I will write the whole book before I teach the study, rather than just have handouts and expand them into a book later.

So, I have begun planning a study with the tentative title “From Slavery to Nationhood: How God Used the Forty Years of Wandering”. It will come from Exodus, maybe Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, and perhaps a wrap-up lesson from Joshua. I’m planning a study that could be taught in from about eight to about sixteen weeks, depending on how a given class wanted to do it. So I’ve read selected chapters in Exodus and Leviticus, and most of the first twenty-one chapters in Numbers. Based on my reading, I already have sixteen potential lessons. I think, by the time I finish, I’ll have about twenty. Then I’ll have to cull out the weaker ones, and begin the actual lesson prep. That’s really the fun part. I get to combine detailed Bible study, research, and writing into one package.

I will probably teach this beginning in January, so I’ve got some time, but not much. Meanwhile, ideas for another umpteen Bible studies are beginning to compete with novels and non-fiction books and historical-political newspaper columns for space between my ears. At least I know ideas are not a problem.

Bible study, Writing

Message of the Un-Said: Inner Thoughts

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I alluded to this topic in my last post. In the story being considered, no where are we given any inner thoughts of the characters. Inner thoughts are common in modern literature, and are a frequent topic at critique groups: how many inner thoughts to give; how to format them; how long to make them; how many point of view characters to give the inner thoughts for. Get in the characters’ heads, we are told by writing instructors.

The writer of 2nd Kings didn’t do that. He merely gives us the characters’ action and words. They did this. They said that. They responded thusly. We don’t know the motivation of the Shunammite woman as she first asks Elisha for dinner, then asks her husband to build a room for him. We never see her say This is a man of God; we must be kind to him; what can I do? We never see her husband say Why is this woman always wanting to spend my money? Well, he is a man of God. As I mentioned last post, we don’t know if he thought She can’t possibly get back from Mount Carmel before dark. What’s going on between this “man of God” and my wife? Instead, the writing draws us in. It insists we dig deeper, try to figure out what the characters are thinking based on he condensed telling of their actions and words.

That wouldn’t work today with a modern readership. Can you see someone with a Tom Clancy novel saying, “Now what is Jack Ryan thinking at this moment?” No, now readers want the full story–shown, not told, with limited points of view. Paper and ink are no loner objects of concern; attention span is. Still, perhaps the writer of 2nd Kings has given me something to think about, something to try to work a little bit into my writing.

Bible study

Message of the Un-Said: Factors of Time and Distance

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Continuing the thoughts from my June 1 post, not knowing the time and distance (space) factors involved in a story can leave you confused. In the 2nd Kings 4:8-37 story about the Shunammite woman, her husband, and son, and how Elisha helped them, the text says little about the times, and nothing about the distances. Without looking at a map, we don’t realize that Shunem is a perfect spot to break up a trip from Samaria to Mount Carmel, or that it is slightly off the most direct route between the two. In the story of the son’s death, we learn he died about noon. Before that, he had gone out to the field to be with his father, become sick, been carried back to his mother, and sat on his mother’s lap for an unknown amount of time.

Here is where the time and distance becomes interesting, and critical to fully understanding the story. The woman “called her husband”, meaning, I guess, that she sent a servant to the field to ask him to come back to the house. Or maybe, since it was noon, he was already at the house eating lunch. She asks permission to go with a servant and a donkey, obtains it, makes the minimum preparations for the trip (we assume), and leaves with the intent to “go to the man of God quickly and return.” At that time it is after noon, perhaps about 1 PM.

But Mount Carmel is 15 to 20 miles away. The poor donkey, if spurred and whipped, can go about 5 miles per hour. The servant, if walking/running beside, could probably only go three or four miles per hour. If riding, the servant will slow the donkey even more. The the woman cannot possibly arrive at Mount Carmel until 4 or 5 PM, maybe 6 PM. If she turns around and comes right back, it will be 9 PM to midnight before she returns to Shunem. That’s no time for a young woman to be out, even if she has a single servant for “protection”.

This leads us to consider what the husband is thinking. We know he questioned the need for the trip, but he was thinking about the fact that it was not a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath. From those we can conclude that the woman must have been in the habit of visiting Elisha on some of those occasions. But he must be thinking, “What is this woman thinking? Will she travel these dangerous roads at night? Why will she go there and ‘quickly return’? What’s wrong?” Or, might he also think, “She’s sure going to see this man a lot. New Moons, Sabbaths, and now this unplanned trip with no hope of returning tonight. What’s going on between them?” This adds a richness to the story that cannot possibly be understood without considering what a map tells us.

Will modern readers stand for such ignoring of time and distance in stories today? We are not hampered so much by the expense of paper and ink and delivery systems. The need for conciseness of language has mostly passed; not that we should be wordy or include unnecessary description. Now our problem is time available for our readers to read, and for turning away from the television and Internet to read. We are told readers don’t want to read anything except conflict. They don’t want to take the time to read how characters get from point A to point B, unless there is conflict along the way that is integral to the story. As a person who wants to know about the details, this is going to make my writing more difficult.

Time and distance. Something to think about.

Bible study, Life Group lessons, poetry

The Message of the Un-Said

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In my study of 2nd Kings 4:8-37 this week, as I finished preparations to teach it in our adult Life Group today, I was struck by how well the story was crafted. The full story came out only when I examined what the author didn’t say–which I learned by examining what he said and filling in gaps, examining factors of time and space, and assessing motives of people based on what little the author told.

I’ve thought about this before as I have critiqued poems at the Absolute Write poetry forums. The poet has presented us with a few lines for some purpose. He/she made choices of what to include in–and exclude from–the poem. Looking at the inclusion is easy, for the few words are there for me to pick apart, to ponder as a series of lines and as a complete work. Exclusion is harder to evaluate. What has the poet chosen to leave out? The choices are as broad as the language itself, as deep as human experiences of body, soul and spirt, though clearly narrowed by the context of what is included. I only do this occasionally, for the exercise can be very time consuming and mentally draining. I actually wrote one poem using this method, consciously thinking inclusion-exclusion as I wrote each line.

Back to 2nd Kings 4, and the story of Elisha and the woman from Shunem. How much the author has said by what he has not said! I must digress briefly to consider the nature of writing in antiquity. Paper, in the form of scrolls made from papyrus strips laboriously cut, wetted, woven, dried, and trimmed, was expensive. Ink, made up of fire ashes, water, and other ingredients, was expensive. The writing process, without the benefit of computers, typewriters, erasers, even cut and paste, was difficult. Dissemination of the completed work, through manual copying and hand delivery, was both expensive and difficult. I think writers must have learned that every word counted; hence repetition, fleshing out of characters, and back story were all kept to a minimum. We actually have a story significantly condensed from what could have been written. Often I wish the Bible were ten times longer than it is, doubling he length of the stories it has and giving five times the number of stories. Ah, but better it is as it is, methinks.

Back to the story, this passage includes five characters: Elisha, his servant Gehazi, the man and wife from Shunem, and their son, born following Elisha’s prophecy. The actions of Elisha, Gehazi, and the Shunammite woman are somewhat well described, though even for them some inclusion-exclusion analysis aids in understanding the passage. The husband, however, must be the strong, silent type, for we hear little from him. We know that he was responsive to his wife’s requests for building a rooftop room for Elisha, and for the donkey and servant to go visit Elisha. Otherwise, we see him only in the matter of his young son becoming sick while they were out in the fields with the reapers: he sends him back to his mother.

Consider, however, what we can learn about the husband from these actions of the wife, or by the actions of others.

  • He did not invite the traveller Elisha to the hospitality of a meal; possibly he was out in the fields when Elisha came to town.
  • He didn’t think about building the room for Elisha, to better aid the man of God in his travels.
  • Elisha didn’t ask what could be done for him, but what could be done for his wife. It appears, by this, that he did not develop much of a relationship with Elisha.
  • After his son died, and his wife went to see Elisha (having hidden the boy’s death and her grief from her husband), he doesn’t seem to have enquired about the boy, hasn’t found his body in the prophet’s room, hasn’t arranged for his burial.

From this, we can draw interesting conclusions about the Shunammite husband. He is somewhat absorbed in his work, not even bothering to develop a relationship with the premier man of God in Israel who regularly sleeps under his roof; he seems to love his wife and is responsive to her requests, but their relationship is best described as strange.

I have more to write on this, but the post is too long now. I will try to get back to this tomorrow, or the next day.

Bible study, Life Group lessons

Body and Soul

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Life continues to conspire against me, against giving me time to write, and to do so many things I would like to do. Alas, how hard it is to embrace Emerson’s words, which I championed on this very blog, “…there is time enough for all that I must do….” But there is, there is; I need only to keep reminding myself of it, and chipping away at the massive monolith that is my to do list.

I want to go back to the quote from one of John Wesley’s letters, which I wrote about two posts ago. Here’s the quote, with particular part I want to focus on today highlighted.

“…I am afraid of nothing more than of growing old too soon, of having my body worn out before my soul is past childhood. Would it not be terrible to have the wheels of life stand still, when we had scarce started for the goal; before the work of the day was half done, to have the night come, wherein no one can work? I shiver at the thought of losing my strength before I have found [it]; to have my senses fail ere I have a stock of rational pleasures, my blood cold ere my heart is warmed with virtue!”

“Of having my body worn out before my soul is past childhood.” Those who have studied the life of John Wesley might almost laugh at this. Who, in church history, other than John Wesley developed his soul when young, yet had many years of strong body and active service ahead of him? Who shunned leisure, and ministered so fervently that he changed a nation? Yet, Wesley wrote these words in his young adulthood, when he was 28 years old, unmarried, fairly new in his university teaching career. His Georgia mission and his Aldersgate Street experience were years away. The Methodist movement was a single, struggling club, subject to more derision than to praise. From Wesley’s perspective when he wrote those words, he had a legitimate concern. We know, however, that he did what he needed to overcome that fear, and developed his soul into maturity and maintained it so for decades, long before his body wore out.

All of us should have a legitimate fear of this happening to us, of not developing our soul–our mind. I have heard it called “Biblical illiteracy”, and it is rampant among church-goers. How many have really dug into the scriptures and learned what they have to say? Too few, I’m afraid. The proliferation of modern entertainments crowd out soul-development time. How easy it is to go from radio on the drive home to network news during supper to a game show to a sitcom to a drama to the Internet to computer games, and find myself exhausted and to bed too late to have the rest I need to optimally function the next day.

I’m fortunate, though, that God seems to have given me an inquisitive mind and abilities to articulate and to work with both grand concepts and minutia. Digging into the scripture, into non-scriptural books related thereto, into books old and new, secular and sacred, is just about the greatest discretionary pleasure I can think of. Well, add to that writing about them. Has this writing bug infected me for the purpose of dovetailing a love for these writings of others with writing of my own? The Bible study I’m currently working on for our adult Life Group has been an incredible blessing and joy. I titled it “The Dynamic Duo: Lessons from the Lives of Elijah and Elisha.” I pulled ten events out of their lives (could have done closer to twenty, but I thought this about the right number for our class), and have been intensively studying the passages, then developing the lessons each week, both teacher’s notes and student handout. I taught lesson 5 last Sunday, and just finished lesson 7 prep last night. I should be able to complete the remaining three lessons in the next week, putting me ahead of schedule and giving my substitute all he needs to teach on May 11 and May 18, two weeks when I believe I’ll be away.

But, as I’ve been preparing this lesson series, thoughts for three or four more Bible study series have come to mind. I have captured those thoughts most briefly (a title on a page, waiting for a skeleton on which to put meat and sinews), and have them ready to work on next. Maybe, just maybe, this is the direction my writing should be going in. In the process of doing what will hopefully enlighten others, my soul is being developed.

My body, now–well, that’s another subject.

Bible study, Engineering, Life Group lessons

A Turbulent Week

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I can’t believe I let the entire week go by without posting! I had such good intentions, planning to write two more posts from the Wesley snippet I found, then going on to something else. I can only plead the strangeness of the week, and the turbulence thereof.

On Monday we had another corporate downsizing. Twenty-two people were laid off in our offices nationwide, I think eleven in our Bentonville home office and the rest scattered among all offices. In addition, pay cuts have been implemented, affecting me and many others. Management took the greatest pay cuts, and people who are wholly in production took none at all. This seems a fair way to do it. No one wants to have a pay cut, but that is better than looking for a job.

I spent much of the week on drainage issues on two or three projects, including some “heavy” calculations for one project. I say “heavy” because I haven’t had to do this for a few years, and we have new software that I have barely used. I found it easy to use for most things, but some complicated features of a storm water detention pond could not be easily handled. I entered data and ran the program, thought I had it right and printed, only to find when perusing the report that it wasn’t right, and I had to do it all over again. I don’t know how many trees I killed with printout I found were erroneous. Our recycling box was considerably fuller by the end of the week. But, I got that done, went on to other projects that I had to review (not do the calcs), and found a bit of closure at the end of the week. I still have one more set of calculations to run on Monday-Tuesday, and will have to begin a fairly major flood study about the same time, but my workload seems manageable.

Then, I wrote two lessons in the Sunday School series I’m currently teaching, “The Dynamic Duo: Lessons from the Lives of Elijah and Elisha”. That puts be one week ahead, and with another started and well along, almost two full weeks ahead. I need to be two ahead–or three if possible–because I will miss two weeks in May, if all goes well. That is really the only writing I’ve done this week, except for a series of e-mails to a project manager in our Dallas office, explaining to her how to run a public bid project. I don’t suppose those qualify for creative writing, though.

I will hopefully be back before the day is out, and make a follow-up post on Wesley’s letter, then will be more active this week.

Bible study, Health, Life Group lessons, Wesley

Growing old too soon

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Continuing with that quote from John Wesley’s letter to Ann Granville, here is a shorter version of it:

“…I am afraid of nothing more than of growing old too soon, of having my body worn out before my soul is past childhood. Would it not be terrible to have the wheels of life stand still, when we had scarce started for the goal; before the work of the day was half done, to have the night come, wherein no one can work? I shiver at the thought of losing my strength before I have found [it]; to have my senses fail ere I have a stock of rational pleasures, my blood cold ere my heart is warmed with virtue!”

Wesley interestingly expresses concern about growing old in body, but not being mature in his mental development, of “having my body worn out before my soul is past childhood.” This is something we all need to be concerned about. The body grows old as a natural process. Development of our soul (i.e. our intellect, our emotions, our spirit) is NOT a natural process. This is something we need to be deliberate about.

Of late I have been very concerned about my intellectual development. The result is that I have chosen reading material that I feel will improve my mind. I suppose one could say that all reading improves the mind, and I would agree with that in part. Obviously some things we could read will improve the mind more than others. I’ve also been concerned with advancing in my spiritual development. It seems that this goes in fits and starts. For a period I will be incredibly focused on the Bible, and study it with great intensity of mind and find myself growing. At other times, secular concerns crowd out Bible study, and stagnation develops. Maybe that is the way it will always be. Maybe intensive spiritual study for too long a period can be draining–exhausing–and I must back away until mind-improving activities of a lesser intensity have a chance to give my mind a rest.

At present, the Elijah and Elisha Bible study I’m doing is a great springboard for Bible study. First with a general reading and selection of items to present to the class, then in intense reading of the selected passages along with a couple of commentaries, and finally to preparing a handout for the class to have each week, I have found this study quite meaningful, and have felt my mind, soul, and spirit growing. We just finished the fourth lesson today. Six remain, with most of the intense study still ahead. I guess by the end of May I’ll be ready for a breather.

But this part of the journey is certainly a joy.

Bible study, Life Group lessons

I have only…

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My absence, either in total or in part, these last two weeks, stems from a combination of things that either must or do take precedence over this blog. The last week has been consumed by getting ready to teach a series in my adult Sunday School class (new style life groups). Titled “The Dynamic Duo: Lessons from the Lives of Elijah and Elisha“, this is a class I developed myself, not ex nihilo, but sans a study guide. So, from the pages of 1 Kings and 2 Kings, I pulled together ten lessons, more or less chronological through the lives of these prophets. I could have had about 14 lessons, but decided ten was a good number, and so skipped the better known events and the very minor events. The work to get ready to teach, after the basic lesson series was outlined, was to 1) intensely study the scripture, including cross references where I could find some; 2) prepare a specific outline for the class; 3) prepare a handout for the class; 4) prepare my own teaching notes; and 5) go through it all well enough that I would barely have to refer to my teaching notes. I finished this for the first week on Saturday morning, and so was able to avoid the last minute rush that often happens with these things.

But to my main point: This week’s lesson was about the widow at Zarephath, and how she responded to Elijah’s requests, first that she give him some water, then that she give him some bread. She responded well to the first, at once leaving what she was doing to get the water. The second, however, gave her trouble, as she could not see how she could deny herself and her son their last meal and feed this foreigner, this prophet of a foreign God. So she focussed on what she had [I…have…only…a little]. She seemed not to think that feeding this foreigner man of God meant, from her limited perspective, the difference of one day in her life span–one day. By focussing on the little she had, she was not able to grasp the blessings of service or the blessings of God.

Fortunately for the widow, she believed Elijah’s explanation, and did what he asked. And “the rest of the story” is well-known, for the little she had, though it remained little (for I doublt the jar and jug ever filled to overflowing), was sufficient to keep three people alive and allow God’s timing for Israel to play out.

As I said in a previous post, there’s a lesson in this for us.