Category Archives: Life Group lessons

C.S. Lewis, critique group, Fifty Thousand Screaming People, Life Group lessons, reading, Screwtape's Good Advice, Writing

The July Report

Leave a comment

This was my first month for posting goals, so this report will be specific as to how I did on those goals. I’m posting this on the 30th because the 31st, right now, looks to be a day I won’t have time to post on.

Here are the goals I set on July 1st, and what I did toward them.

  • Type final edits on The Screwtape Letters study guide proposal; mail to the editor by July 3. I’m happy to say I accomplished this, mailing the proposal on July 2. Still waiting for an answer.
  • Complete proposal on In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People; edit; mail to agent by July 10. This will include work on the first 30 pages of the book, which are to be included. I finished this, but not until last night, July 29, a few minutes before midnight Central Time. While I wish I had finished it sooner, I think the extra time I took made both the proposal and the sample chapters better. Now the waiting begins.
  • Begin work on proposal on the Elijah and Elisha small group study guide. By the end of the month I would like to see the proposal essentially complete, and the weekly study sheets I prepared for Life Group expanded into chapters. If I can have it ready to mail to the editor by then, fine, but I’ll be satisfied mailing it in August. Alas, I did NOT finish this, and barely began it. I started looking at it only yesterday, and accomplished very little. This one will take some work, as I have to convert two page student handouts into sample chapters.
  • Attend critique group twice. At the first one present the synopsis for In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People; at the second present the concept for the Documenting America newspaper column, including marketing letter and one or two sample columns. I attended both critique group sessions, but at the second one, rather than taking “Documenting America” I opted for two more chapters of FTSP. Given that no one had seen these, I thought it best someone critique them before I turned them in with the proposal.
  • Finish organizing the scattered piles of paper about the house. Actually, I’d be satisfied to simply bring improved organization to this, even if I don’t finish it. At least I want to have all papers of all works in progress filed together, and drafts of all poems put in their assigned places. I did mostly accomplish this. Many, many things are in a proper place, logically filed and easily retrievable. I have some more to go, especially the poetry, but I feel much better about this. I can let the rest slide a month while I work on other things.
  • Organize the business end of writing, including establishing a mileage log so I can get rid of the scraps. As with the last item, this is mostly accomplished. I probably have 20 percent yet to be finished.
  • Continue to post to this blog, at least 10 posts this month, and preferably 15 to 18. Yes! I have been faithful to this blog, reaching my goal for posts–and none of them fluff posts, either.
  • Begin outlining the next life group lesson I’ll teach, and prepare it in a way it can become a small group study guide. I did this, and have the lesson series mostly planned (but not studied or written). However, based on what the class chose to do as the next lesson to be taught by the other teacher, I will have to choose another topic. I chose it, and began planning it. I’m not as far along as I’d like, but I have a good start.

Miscellaneous items accomplished include: reading for research and pleasure (but, as I learn more and more, a writer never reads only for pleasure); reading about ten blogs of writers, agents, or editors; a few poem critiques on Absolute Write; reading about promotion for writers.

So, all in all a productive, satisfying month for writing.

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

Something New

Leave a comment

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, Life Group lessons, poetry

The Message of the Un-Said

Leave a comment

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

Leave a comment

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

1 Comment

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

1 Comment

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.

Engineering, Life Group lessons, miscellaneous

It’s been a worse week

Leave a comment

Yes, after writing last week that the week had not gone well, this week was worse, mainly from the standpoint of not having the time to do much that I really wanted to. Work has been intense. Life Group preparations have been demanding. The world, the flesh, and the devil have all pounded on me. As with Wesley, “leisure and I have [indeed] taken leave of each other”, except this week not due to a conscientious intent to accomplish, but due to commitments of life. I was working on a post to this blog, something from the letters of Thomas Carlyle, when life swallowed up the small amount of time the research required. Maybe this weekend.

Yet, in all of this, God remains on the throne, not high and lifted up, but in a still small voice close at hand. Praise His name!

May next week bring improved state of mind to mirror my state of soul and spirit.

Health, Life Group lessons, Writing

It’s been a bad week

2 Comments

I know a blog of a professional person is supposed to be about a brand of some kind, not a diary of all that life throws at you. The fact is, though, I’ve been down in the dumps this week–big time, so I’m going to give you a diary entry. The problem is not that anything is actually going bad. A problem or two has arisen at work, but solutions have also developed and other things have worked well. Nothing has broken at the house, the bills are paid, and my weight is even dropping a little (agonizingly slowly, though without exercise) as I ate well and avoided snacks. I didn’t get a ticket; the truck and van didn’t break down; and I bought gas this time the day before an 8 cents price hike. I have come within one calculation of completing my Federal income taxes, subject to mathematical quality control of course, and I’m a week ahead on preparing my Sunday School lesson–oops, they call them Life Groups now. Even the rain on three days, which usually perks me up, didn’t. So, you ask what’s wrong? What would put me in the dumps?

It’s writing, specifically the lack of time to get to it, and another dose of reality at the almost impossible odds of becoming published. I did plenty of writing this week, mostly business letters via e-mail, and a few via snail mail or its semi-electronic cousin, the fax. I also wrote that one Life Group lesson and started on the second, it being well along. I had to study a lot for those, but it was good study and my mind was engaged. But none of that (except possibly the Life Group lesson) takes me an inch closer to being published. Every day filled with life–life to the full, as Jesus wants it to be–is a day further away from the dream. I’m at that point in life where each day is a precious commodity as it relates to fulfilling a dream. Youth is gone, and I have only so many days left.

Writing as a dream looks to be something that will cause an emotional roller coaster in life. I’ve experienced that before, first in my days as an expatriate and later in my days as a foster parent. The swing of emotions are energy sapping, leaving the brain little ability to create, even little ability for normal function. It requires considerable toughening to keep going. This week, I didn’t have it. What will next week hold? If I finish my Federal taxes this weekend, get another Life Group lesson prepared to put me one week ahead, and maybe have time for a blog post for three days in a row, maybe I’ll approach next week as a dynamo of brain-power. At least I can hope.

In addition to which, for those loyal readers who remember my posts a while back about capturing ideas for future writing, I did manage to capture two this week: one could be an article or a book; the other could be a Life Group series, which could later be a book.

Bible study, Life Group lessons

I have only…

Leave a comment

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.