Category Archives: Christianity

Christianity, memories, miscellaneous

R.I.P. Steve Skaggs

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Some weeks are more difficult than others, and for different reasons. The older I get the more those difficulties seem to be matters of life and death. That’s been especially true this week. This weekend, a police officer was killed in nearby Pea Ridge. He had stopped someone and they took off and ran over him, killing him. Then there was the collapse of the apartment building in Miami. They are still trying to figure out how many died in that.

A good friend, gone unexpectedly and too soon.

Another death, however, closer to home, happened Wednesday, the news coming by e-mail Thursday morning. A friend from church, Steve Skaggs, died unexpectedly. He was only 57. He leaves his wife, Sharon, and two sons. Here’s a link to his obituary.

I had been at our church a couple of years when I met Steve in the 1990s, most likely in the summer of 1991. It was a Wednesday night service, and I saw him sitting near the rear of the church. I’m not big on introducing myself to strangers. I have to flip a switch inside of me to be able to do so. That night I flipped the switch and introduced myself to him. He and I had a brief conversation as I welcomed him as a visitor to the church. Some years later he mentioned that the brief conversation made an impression on him.

What I didn’t know at the time was that Steve grew up in the church. His parents, Bob and Thelma Skaggs, had taken their family to help the new Pea Ridge Church of the Nazarene get started. They had worshiped and worked there for a number of years and were about to return to their home church. Whether Steve told me that that evening or not I don’t remember. It may have been later that he told me that.

Steve soon married Sharon, a young woman in the church who was part of the music ministry. It was maybe a year or so after they were married that we had them over for dinner one Sunday. He said it was the first invite such as that that he and Sharon had after their marriage. I remember that day as a good time of getting to know them better.

Steve and I had many interactions over the years. For a while we served together on the church board until I rotated off, deciding not to return. Steve continued in that service. He was church treasurer in the 1990s, bringing order to what was, at that time, something that was a bit unorderly. Eventually he was chosen for the position of secretary of the Church Board. This was a position of significant trust and responsibility. Steve served in this position for many years, still holding it when he died.

I was the coach of our teen Bible quizzing team beginning in 1991. Our second (or maybe third or fourth) year we had an explosion of teens joining, and it was more than one person could handle. Either I asked Steve to help or he volunteered. For two years we coached the Bible quiz team together. We made trips to Oklahoma City, Dallas, maybe Olathe Kansas. We planned together and worked together.

Years later, we were together on the Church Building Committee for the Family Life Center. Those were busy times, as there was much to do. That was in 1998-2001, and it was a lot of work. Then, a few years later, we worked together as leaders of Financial Peace at our church. I think we worked through two rounds of the classes, or maybe it was three. I think I was in the lead and he assisted me. But that was close to fifteen years ago, and right now I don’t remember who led and who assisted. Maybe we switched off.

After that, the interactions between us were fewer. We saw each other at church and chatted from time to time. Both of us led busy lives, leaving little time for building or maintaining friendships. Most recently we have both been on the 100th anniversary committee of the church. Since our committee meetings were strictly via Zoom, these points of contact seemed, in a way, not real.

Steve was what I would call a quiet worker. He didn’t seek the limelight, or to publicize what he did. Those times when he spoke to the congregation, such as when he represented the Church Board during pastor appreciation month, I could tell he didn’t do it to seek attention, but because it was part of the responsibilities he had. But he did it well. No discomfort at speaking in public, just quiet competence.

Steve’s death was sudden. Normal activity on Sunday; gone into the arms of the Lord on Wednesday. Today we will gather to celebrate his life, as well as to mourn his death. There was a hole in the church yesterday, but Steve is now singing with the angels, and has heard his Lord and Savior say, “Well done, good and faithful servant. Come share in your master’s happiness.”

book reviews, Christianity

Book Review: Love Slave

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I believe I mentioned on a previous post that I have a few book reviews to catch up on, smaller books that Lynda and I read aloud in the evenings, books that look interesting but that, once read, are not keepers. This book falls in that category.

The concept behind the title is good: by voluntarily uniting with Jesus was joyously become a slave for him. However, in the current times, perhaps this isn’t the best title.

Love Slaves by Samuel Logan Brengle was first published in 1923. Our copy is a mass market paperback from 1982. Brengle was with the Salvation Army, a man of considerable rank in that organization that took its titles from the military. The back cover copy describes that book this way.

Here is an encouraging message—calculated to incite us to seek the highest. Side by side there goes the force and light of love…words to clear the thought as well as to strengthen the Will and guide the Heart.

Alas, the book fell a little short of this intended goal. At least for me it did. The description indicates this is a discipling book, aimed at making Christians more aligned with the message and work of Jesus Christ. It does attend to that goal, but for me there were two main problems with it.

  1. The language was archaic. Thought written in the early 1920s, the English use—especially sentence structure—was from a period a century earlier. Now, I’ve read a lot of works from the early 19th Century, so I’m no stranger to difficult English and have learned to pull the message from it with no problem. This book was more difficult to do that. I bogged down often with the long sentences and the strange way of saying things.
  2. Since this is a Salvation Army book, which we probably picked up at a yard sale or thrift store, it includes terminology and practices unique to them. Thus, the book didn’t really seek to make the reader a better Christian but to make the reader a better Salvationist, as they call themselves.

I don’t want to mislead anyone. It’s not a bad book, just not as good as I was hoping for. If you want to read a discipling book and improve your Christian walk and service, I think you have a choice of a thousand books more modern than this that will help you more.

Thus, my original expectation was met. Not a bad book, but definitely not a keeper. Off to the garage it goes for sale or donation.

book reviews, Christianity

Book Review: David Livingstone

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The name of David Livingstone has been famous for years. I was a boy when I learned it, understanding him to have been an explorer. Stanley’s famous line, “Doctor Livingstone, I presume”, while perhaps not historical, was familiar.

An introductory biography is just the thing for learning a little about a life your only marginally familiar with. This book filled that need.

So, when my wife recently gathered up some small books for our evening reading, I was glad to see that she pulled one about Livingstone from our shelves. David Livingstone: First To Cross Africa With The Gospel, by Mrs. J.H. Worcester, was first published in 1888, fifteen years after his death. We read a 1987 mass market paperback reprint of it by Moody Press.

Having said that Livingstone was practically a household name at one time, I have to admit to being ignorant of details of his life. This book provided them. Born in 1813 in Scotland, he had first thought to go to China as a missionary, but that nation closed due to war, so he went to Africa instead in 1841. There he married Mary, the daughter of fellow missionary Robert Moffat, who had inspired Livingstone to go to Africa. They would have six children together.

Livingstone’s work in Africa began as a Christian missionary for the London Missionary Society. Over time, the mission work was mostly turned over to others and Livingstone became an explorer of the interior of Africa. His reason for doing this was, at least in part, because of the horrors of the slave trade. Even though most European countries and the USA had outlawed it by the time Livingstone arrived in Africa, it was still going on in large numbers. He thought if he could help Africans have different economic opportunities they might cease cooperating with the slave traders. But the alternate economy required ports and roads to the interior. Livingstone looked for these.

This was an excellent little book (125 pg) that I highly recommend. I normally like to read more in-depth biographies, but this was a good entry point into the life of Livingstone. I told Lynda we needed to find a larger and more detailed biography. Then, while looking on the bookshelves in our basement family room, I found one. An inch and a half thick, it should be just the thing.

The small book, thought good, is not a keeper. Off to the garage it goes to sell or give away. While a modern reprints of the 1888 book are not hard to find, you ought to be able to find images of the original at several places on-line.

 

Bible study, book reviews, Christianity

Book Review: Sacred Invitation

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Not a bad book, but I can’t give it any more than 3 stars.

I didn’t plan on buying our denomination’s Lenten devotional book this year. We’ve bought them the last couple of years and, while helpful, we are trying not to add to our possessions and I thought maybe we could do without. But I relented and bought it.

Sacred Invitation Lenten Devotions Inspired by The Book of Common Prayer promised something different than past years. The Book of Common Prayer is an old thing, and old things aren’t always that bad. I was looking forward to it.

Each day included scripture reading: morning pslam[s], evening psalm[s], Old Testament Scripture, gospel reading, epistle reading. Then a devotional tied to those scriptures (most typically to the gospel reading for the day), a series of probing questions, and a prayer. My wife and I read these aloud, me doing the reading, her listening. Mostly in the evenings, and not timely. We lost a number of days when our grandchildren were here. I think we finished it two or three weeks after Easter. We read all the scriptures for the day and the book contents for the day at a single sitting.

The book was better than past year Lenten devotionals our pub house put out, but somehow, for me, this still didn’t get the job done. I give it just three stars.  The scriptures chosen were mostly not from Holy Week, or the buildup to it. They were more anticipation scripture passages, or maybe preparation. That’s fine, I guess, as Lent is a season of preparation in anticipation of Easter.

The devotionals, I thought, were much better written than past years. Except both of the two authors seemed to go out of their way to avoid using the male pronoun for God.  If I can find an example, I’ll edit it in at this point.

What puzzled me is how this book ties in to the Book of Common Prayer. The prayers weren’t from it, the devotionals weren’t from it, the probing questions weren’t from it. I assumed the scriptures had to be.  But I think they are not. The Psalms chosen, for example, included many repetitions. As I read them I often said, “This is just about like one I read before.” When we finished the book I checked and, sure enough, many of the Pslams were repeated, one five times. I don’t expect that the Book of Common Prayer would repeat like that.

So, where does this book stand? I’m glad we read it, but it is not a keeper. It will go out to the sell/giveaway place in the garage. After four disappointing years in a row with these books, I think I will skip next year’s.

Christianity, miscellaneous

Harmony In Music And Life

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Harmony is an amazing part of music. Wish it were in life as well.

Last Sunday, our church held what we call a celebration Sunday. That’s when we celebrate milestones in the church: baby dedications, baptisms, new church members, and the like. We tend to do this once a quarter. On this particular celebration Sunday, our Hispanic congregation worshiped with us. The worship team included people from both congregations. We sang familiar choruses and alternated between English and Spanish words. On one song we sang bilingually on the chorus. I attended the first service; most of our Hispanic congregation would attend the second service.

I’ve been in church services before with bilingual singing. In Schaffhausen Switzerland we attended church at our European Bible college, and all the singing was in German and English. In Hong Kong, up on the 21st floor of a high rise, at our Nazarene church, all the singing was simultaneously in Cantonese, English, and Tagalog. Both those times it wasn’t too hard to sing in your language so long as you really concentrated.

I must admit to having trouble singing in Spanish. Actually, I haven’t been singing much since returning to in-person church last September. Having the mask on restricts breathing for me, my face under the mask gets very hot, and so I don’t sing much at all. Also, they have been doing songs and choruses that I don’t know. I can usually pick up a tune easily, but some of these new ones I found very difficult to pick up. So I stand in reverence, may sing a little on a song I know, but otherwise remain quiet. On this day, with familiar songs, I tried to sing a little on the Spanish portions, but I just couldn’t get the words to fit the music, so I remained silent.

Then, I think it was on the second song, at some point the instruments went mostly silent and the singers sang. It was during one of the Spanish verses. The harmony coming from the worship team was beautiful. Since I knew the song, I knew what was being sung even though I couldn’t sing in Spanish.

Oh, but the harmony! How beautiful it was. I listened closely. The effect was the same as harmony in English. I remember years ago, during a choir practice near the Christmas season, we sang “Away In A Manger” for practice and the choir director had us all sing, without any score before us, and told us to sing in harmony. I hadn’t memorized the tenor part to the song, so I did the best I could to be a third above the lead, perhaps doing a little differently at some places as I thought would sound good. We did one verse like this, and the effect was wonderful. The choir director praised us. I think we did it again, but it wasn’t as beautiful the second time. The spontaneous harmony, without a printed score, with singers who knew how to sing and blend, was the best.

This got me to thinking about harmony versus melody, lead versus support, my own language versus another. The effect of harmony on me was the same in both English and Spanish. In fact, I might almost say it was greater in Spanish because, instead of concentrating on the words I was concentrating on listening to the tones—or maybe I should say tone, because a beautiful harmony calls attention to the whole rather than the parts.

It kind of happened unexpectedly. I didn’t think to myself, “Oh, I can’t sing here so let me just see how well they do with harmony.” No, I was silent, and it happened. The lead singer was singing the familiar song in Spanish, but I wasn’t hearing the lead except as its share of the harmony sound. I couldn’t listen to what words were being sung since I didn’t understand them. No, I just soaked up the harmony.

Maybe it can be that way in life, in families, in politics, among nations. Yes, someone’s got to be singing lead, but when the harmony is working right, who’s singing and what they are singing and what language they are singing in is almost inconsequential. The harmony is beautiful.

Now, I know nations don’t tend to harmonize. There seems to be no harmony in politics. In fact, life and families often don’t harmonize. How beautiful it would be if they did, however. Everyone is concerned with singing the melody, the lead, not wanting to play a supporting role, as those singing harmony parts do. So every politician is singing lead, there are no supporting voices, and the result is cacophony.  Sadly, this can also happen within the family.

I’ll continue to dream that widespread harmony in all areas of life would be a reality. That the discordance that comes from too many singing lead would yield the wonderful harmony of working together. One of my dreams.

Here’s a link to one of the songs from the service.

Christianity, The Teachings, Writing

What to Write Next?

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Dateline 15 April 2021

Now that I have four consecutive books in my Church History novels series, the cover designer I’m working with has come up with a theme for the series. I like what she’s done.

The Teachings is done! The e-book is published; the print book is formatted; I await only the cover (which is being produced) in order to upload the print book. Once I have both up, I will make a formal announcement here, on Facebook, and to my small e-mail list.

So, the question to ask is “What do I write next?”

The answer is sort of easy. I have the church 100th Anniversary book to write. I’ve been working on it, with good progress. I’m at 12,306 words. I had thought it would be around a 14,000 word book, but I’m no where near the end. Now it looks like 20,000 to 25,000 words. I’m at the point with this book where I am starting to interview people about family members in the church long ago. My goal is to put a couple of paragraphs about perhaps two-dozen families.  I’ve only done two of those families so far, so I’ve got a lot of work yet to do. In fact, today I hope to contact two of those families and perhaps do the interviews. Yes, this book will be my primary focus for a while.

Research for the church anniversary book is almost like doing genealogy. I’ve been amazed at the footprints I’ve found for the founding families of the church.

But what next? What of my own writing? As I wrote before, I have several paths I could go down.

  • The next volume in the Documenting America series. This will be Run-up to Revolution, and will cover the 15 years or so before the Revolutionary War. I’m reading for research now but finding it hard going.
  • The next short story in the Sharon Williams Fonseca series. This will be about Carter Burns investigating Sharon’s role—if any—in the Qatif uprisings in Saudi Arabia in 1979. Not a well known incident, but I heard about it when I was in Saudi in 1981-83.
  • A totally new work, a new series, a new genre (oh, no, not Genre Focus Disorder coming up again). Tentatively titled the Forest Throne series, it is a sort of time travel book for young boys. My oldest grandson and I have been talking about this ever since, maybe four years ago, we found a land feature in the hollow behind our house that looks like a seat indented into the hillside. It’s probable the root hole from a tree that fell over, but the tree is long gone and only the root hole remains. This is what my grandson wants me to work on next.
  • While I’ve been proofreading The Teachings and getting it ready for publication, I’ve also been working on a Bible study. It’s a little different from the one I did before, almost more of a commentary/devotional type book. I don’t know what I’m going to do with it. I’ll keep poking away at it as the Spirit moves me, but, in truth, I don’t know if it’s a viable project or not.
  • And, I could actually go on to the next book in my Church History Novels series. I have the basic outline of the plot, the characters, and what I want to accomplish with it. This is not likely to be next, as I think I need a break from this series.

So, that’s five possibilities, or six including the anniversary book.  That’s not by any means exhaustive of what has been on my writing mind of late.  Somehow I have to narrow that down and begin writing something. I’ll let you all know what that is once I decide.

Bible study, books, Christianity

A Determinist Sociological Development

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In our evening reading aloud, Lynda and I are reading in two books right now. One is our denomination’s Lenten Devotional book Sacred Invitation: Lenten Devotions Inspired by The Book of Common Prayer. It’s been good, though for thirty years I never once heard celebration of Lent promoted in our church and don’t understand why it is being so now. But perhaps that’s a subject for a different post, or an essay. The book is an easy read. Daily morning and evening scripture readings (which I assume come from the Lectionary) along with a couple of pages of text and a page of questions to spark spiritual growth. The text is small, 11 point font or less—I think 10 point font.

The other is A History of the Jews by Paul Johnson. This was a book of our son’s when he was in college, for it has his name and a date from his college years written on the inside. It includes marginalia that does not appear to be his handwriting, so perhaps he got it used. In that case we are at least the third owners of it. It’s 595 pages of text, plus a lot of pages of endnotes. It is also in 10 point font, so it’s a lot of reading. We’re only on page 37 after three or four days.

Whether we finish it or not is a big question right now. I’m re-reading some of the early pages which Lynda read aloud and I was a little distracted in my listening. On page 6 I ran across this statement:

Under the influence of Hegel and his scholarly followers, Jewish and Christian revelation, as presented in the Bible, was reinterpreted as a determinist sociological development from primitive trial superstition to sophisticated urban ecclesiology.

That’s a mouthful, for sure. I know who Hegel is but know nothing about what he thought or taught, nor about the “school” that follows, or followed, him. That phrase though, “determinist sociological development”, threw me. What the heck does that mean? I looked up “determinist” and had a sort of idea of what it means: the opposite of free will. I kind of know what ecclesiology is but looked it up to be sure: the study of church doctrine is the way I would say it in layman’s terms (the definition wasn’t real clear to me). So this is saying that Hegel and the folks who follow his teachings consider the history told in the Bible moves from lack of free will to something scholarly, something sophisticated, something urban.

I’m sure I’ve got that wrong, but that’s the best I can do. Now, a couple of things come to me from that. I find those kind of hard to understand statements a couple of times on each page. I spent ten minutes or so trying to riddle this one out. If I do that on every page, we’ll never finish the book. On the other hand, do I really need to understand that to understand the history of the Jews? Do I need to know that some dude (I guess he’s a man) and his minions have a complicated idea of what Bible history is teaching, that the author is getting ready to say is not correct? Probably not.

Elsewhere in the book, we’ve been running into lots of words that need looking up to understand, two examples being adumbration and aggadic. Thirty seconds on the cell phone provides those definitions but perhaps not that much greater understanding. Which makes me think this book is not for us.

Meanwhile, in other writing work, I’m engaged to write a book on the history of our church for our 100th anniversary. That happens in July, but because of pandemic fears and some major construction adjacent to the church, the actual celebration has been pushed back to a date not yet established. For that book, I’ve been researching our charter members. I’m probably doing too much research into our charter members. But given how research way leads on to way, I’ve pulled up some interesting church history documents. I have allowed myself to go down these rabbit holes. One document I was in today, a PhD dissertation, included this statement.

The manner in which nineteenth-century advocates of holiness reconstructed the Wesleyan/holiness cultural-linguistic system emphasized an imagistic religiosity which heightened individual awareness of spiritual autonomy.

Cultural-linguistic system…imagistic religiosity? This did me in. I have no idea what the PhD is talking about. This tells me nothing about the history of the church or the particular religious movement, nor does it help me live a better life. Nor will it help any Christian minister to be a better pastor of their flock. So what is its purpose? I’d answer that question, but I don’t have a spare week of continuous study that I would have to spend to do so.

All of which tells me I should do what I just read in a different book. I should stick to my lasts and leave the scholarly documents to the scholars. Back to my the Bible itself, a devotional book, books of letters, and Agatha Christie books.

C.S. Lewis, Christianity, family, Genealogy, The Teachings, travel, Writing

Hunkering Down

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[Note to self: Don’t hit the browser back button when typing a post if you haven’t hit “save draft”. Maybe the second time will be a charm.]

This is looking up the street from our house on Thursday 2/11. It is sanded (actually gritted). I believe I could get up it if I tried.

I’m looking out The Dungeon windows to a light snowfall. It’s just condensation due to the cold, 14°F. We were supposed to be in Texas this weekend, watching the grandkids while their parents were at a church event. Wednesday last was our departure day. But we woke up to a winter glaze on the roads, a freakish ice storm overnight. It had been predicted then removed from the forecast. After a quick survey of the situation, I postponed the trip a day.

If not, perhaps I could get down the hill then loop around the circle and go up the next street which, last time I checked, was free of ice.

I spent time chopping and clearing ice, spreading rock salt and sand. I was able to get the already-loaded van up to the end of the driveway. Once the City truck came by spreading grit on the road, I probably could have made it up the hill. But reports on conditions elsewhere indicated the trip would be difficult. Thursday morning was not much different. Radar showed light, frozen precipitation along our route. I delayed the trip from morning to afternoon. By noon it was clear things were no better. Reports of accidents along our route said it all. I cancelled the trip.

So were are unexpectedly home. The forecast now calls for 6-10″ of snow Sunday-Monday, with temperatures like we have now or lower. After a trip to Wal-Mart today (hopefully) for fresh items, we will hunker down. I made a large pot of soup yesterday. We have enough frozen, canned, and boxed food to get by a long time should the W-M run not be possible. I plan to write in the church anniversary book. I plan to begin the editing process in The Teachings. I will read C.S. Lewis and other things. On Sunday I will teach Life Group from home. And I will walk outside a little but get my main exercise on the elliptical. I might even get a little genealogy research done.

I realize that the last paragraph is all about me. “I plan…I will…” Obviously I will do that only by the grace of God and the strength and abilities He has given me and continues to give me.

Oh, in the last half-hour we learned that the church event have been postponed due to…weather.

book reviews, Christianity

Book Review: The Jesus I Never Knew

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We thought this would be a discard, an author we didn’t know but happened to have his book. But it is a keeper. Someday I hope to re-read this.

For our evening reading aloud, Lynda and I are looking at books on our shelves that look like good reads but which probably aren’t “keepers”, which, after reading, can be sold, donated, or discarded. Lynda found one such on our shelves, The Jesus I Never Knew y Philip Yancy. I said sure, let’s read it.

We did this over about two weeks. Our hardback copy has 275 pages not including notes. Yancy is not a writer I was familiar with, but the book sounded good and so we dove in.

Wow, what a good book! Yancy covered aspects of Jesus’ life, teaching, and ministry that I had never thought of. Makes sense, given the title. With chapters such as “The Jesus I Thought I Knew”, “Beatitudes: Lucky Are the Unlucky”, “Kingdom: Wheat Among the Weeds”, Yancy looks as the raw words of the gospel and, without an historical or political filter, tells us about the biblical Jesus.

I’m not going to quote from the book or give specific reasons why I liked it so. Instead, I urge everyone to read it [Amazon]. Published in 1995, it is still fresh and relevant in the third decade of the 21st Century.

One interesting anecdote about our reading it right now: I had never heard of Yancy. A new literary agent posted what she was looking for and said she was looking for the next Philip Yancy. Clearly, he has a degree of notoriety that escaped me for years. Not any more.

We intended to read a book that we would discard, but we are agreed that we should keep it and read it again sometime. Consequently, back on the shelf it goes. I give this an enthusiastic 5 stars.

America, Christianity, Church History Novels, Documenting America, Genealogy, self-publishing, Sharon Williams short stories, The Teachings, Writing

2020 Writing Recap

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The 5th story in my Sharon Williams Fonseca – Unconventional CIA Agent series. Published in January 2020, I’ve sold one copy.

Ah, 2021 is starting out good, with January 1 falling on Friday, my regular blog post day. I always start a new year here by summarizing the year just ended and making some goals for the year just starting. I’ll do that today with a recap of 2020. On Monday I’ll put some writing goals for 2021, assuming, that is, that I formulate some goals between now and then into a publishable state.

Retired from my day job (for the 2nd year), cooped up due to the corona virus pandemic, you’d think I got a lot of writing done, right? You’d be wrong. I’ve said all this before on the blog, but let me go through it again.

In January I published “Tango Delta Foxtrot”, the next short story in the Sharon Williams Fonseca series. That was written in 2019 and passed through my critique group. It all came to January and I published it then. So far I’ve had one sale. Yippee.

Also in January, I continued work in the next novel in my church history novels series. Begun in late 2019 and tentatively titled The Teachings, it falls chronologically between Doctor Luke’s Assistant and Preserve The Revelation. The action takes place during the first Jewish war of 66 to 70 A.D. I got a few chapters in, running them by the critique group, when I bogged down on making my story fit into the historical events. I spent a lot of time reading in source materials, adding a little text, setting it aside, and going back to the sources again. By mid-March I had about 21,000, or between 20 and 25 percent of the intended length. Feeling frustrated with it, I decided to stop my major work on it.

Stephen Cross was quite a character. Frequently in court, involved with a pirate, taking part in two military excursions, he left a lot of footprints that I’ve been able to follow.

Instead, I pulled out some genealogy work I had begun some time ago. This was the lives of Stephen Cross and Elizabeth Cheney. Elizabeth is a gr-gr-whatever-aunt of Lynda’s. I began studying them two or three years prior and realized I had enough material on them to make a short book. I organized the material back then and wrote the beginnings of a book. I picked up that work again and saw that yes, I could make a book out of their lives, but I really needed to do more research. I worked on that the second half of March, making good progress.

Then Lynda went into the hospital on April 3. I couldn’t go in to see her, of course, so to keep myself busy, instead of going back to The Teachings, I focused on Stephen and Elizabeth. By the time Lynda got out on April 21 I had most of the research done and was back writing the book. My labor on it continued after Lynda came home. It all came together around the end of May, I edited and formatted in June, and published it in July. Stephen Cross and Elizabeth Cheney of Newbury has—wait for it—one sale so far. That’s fine. This isn’t intended to be a best seller. Hopefully some day a few Cross and Cheney researchers will find it.

From there I moved to decluttering/dis-accumulation work at our house. I dug into boxes of papers left behind by my mother-in-law. That caused me to also look at our own boxes of papers and begin culling. In the process I found our Kuwait years letters. I collated them, indexed them, and then decided to transcribe them. This took up some of July, all of August, and some of September. Someday I will add photos and make it a book for the family. For now, it will sit in the cloud.

During this time, I occasionally picked up The Teachings and did a little work on it, either research or writing. I added 500 words here and there. But I still couldn’t focus on it.

I updated my first Documenting America book for conditions in 2020: correcting typos, correcting formatting, adding new text for 2020.

In September, I think, I decided to re-publish my first history book, Documenting America: Lessons From the United States’ Historical Documents. I published it first in 2011 and decided it could use some updating for conditions in America in 2020. I think it was September to early October that I: re-read it; corrected a few typos; and added text to each chapter for what’s going on now. I also had to improve the formatting because, in 2011, I didn’t know much about print book formatting and made some errors. I completed this work in mid-October and re-published it.

Meanwhile, I had been dissatisfied with some formatting and illustration quality in the Cross-Cheney book. I tackled that in October as well, substituting some figures, improving the pixel quality of others, and re-published it. I still wish they were better than they are but at least they are better than they were.

Writing related, but not new writing, was taking part in two week-long on-line seminars about using Amazon advertising to boost book sales, once in July and once in October. I saw an increase in sales as a result, though the ads really are not paying out. I’m still within the budget I set, so I’ll keep the ads running. I’ll take the challenge again this month, then see where I go with it.

Finally, in the second half of December, I was ready to return to serious work on The Teachings. Over the last few days of the month I added over 5,000 words, bringing my total to just short of 33,500. I have much of the rest of the book planned, and should be able to make good progress, so long as other things don’t get in the way.

Here’s where my Church History Novels series stands. Working on that “gray” one.

Things such as a new short story, or deciding to transcribe more letters, or let decluttering overtake me again.

Was it a productive year, writing-wise? Perhaps. I wish I had more to show for it. May 2021 be better.