Category Archives: Writing

Bible study, Christianity, Genealogy, technology woes, Writing

Light and Momentary Troubles, Part 2

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Dateline: 24 March 2022

Not too long ago, I posted about the second of three Bible verses that I try to start each day with. This one, 2 Corinthians 4:17, talks about our troubles on this earth being light and momentary, and will result in an eternal glory that far surpasses the troubles. My focus of that post was that I wasn’t experiencing the glory because I wasn’t using the troubles as a spur to personal growth.

This photo doesn’t really show how my workspace was torn apart from moving stuff to get to devices and cables. Will wait a little to everything back in place. Maybe I’ll even organize it a little.

Wednesday was one of those days, when troubles seemed somewhat more than light. The power company was working in our neighborhood and had alerted us that they would be turning off our power for a couple of hours in the morning, and that they would come by and tell us before they did. The day started out normally. I was at my computer by 7:30 a.m., doing writing and stock trading tasks. It was about 10:00 a.m. before the power company came by and gave us a 10-minute warning.  I closed out of all programs, keeping only a couple of Word documents open, closed the lid on my laptop, and left The Dungeon.

Sure enough, the power soon went off. I took the occasion to make my weekly grocery run to Wal-Mart. Normally a Tuesday task, a long meeting then had caused me to delay a day. I went and did my shopping, for a change finding everything on my list. At the self-checkout, all worked well.

The man at the self-checkout station next to me had some unusual items in his cart: a dozen cans of salt and that many gallon bottles of vinegar. That seemed strange, and I did something I never do: I started a conversation with him, asking him about the oddity of his purchases. Understand: I never do that. If at all possible I go through the store and consider it a good time if I don’t have to talk with anyone.

Although, earlier in this trip, I did talk briefly with a woman shopper in the pharmacy section. A rock and roll song was coming over the loudspeakers and I was humming it. This woman and her adult daughter came in my direction and the woman was singing it. She caught my eye and stopped, embarrassed. Then I started signing it and so she started again. Three seconds later we had passed each other, on with our shopping.

Back to the man and his cart of salt and vinegar. I assumed he was buying for a restaurant, but he said no, it was for his concoction of killing weeds in his rock yard. He told me his formula. Since I have the same problem and have considered hiring a lawn service to spray deadly chemicals on it, I was interested. I learned something from this conversation, this impromptu, hard for me to start but easy to continue conversation.

Back to light and momentary troubles. When I got home, the power was still off. The power company had said two hours, and we weren’t there yet. So I went to the sunroom and read. The temperature was 40° out and the sunroom was getting cold with the space heater not working. I was about done with my daily reading quota in this particular book when the power came on, just shy of three hours since it had gone off. The power company had said it might take as long as that if they ran into any problems.

All was good. The trouble of no power was indeed light and momentary, and I thought I had redeemed the time well. A brief lunch, and downstairs to The Dungeon to resume my activities, only to learn…no internet. No problem. I rebooted the modem; still no internet. I rebooted the router; still no internet. I waited then repeated those two steps. Still no internet. I finally found a number for our internet provider. They did a remote reset of the modem; still no internet. I got on a text chat with a rep of their company. He did various things. I tried to explain the situation. Two hours of texting; still no internet.

I took note of the steady light showing on the modem and the all-lights-flashing status of the router, assumed a router failure, and texted a friend who is an IT guy in his job and arranged for an evening call. I wondered if the router experienced a power failure when it came back on. I also considered that the internet provider had sent an e-mail a week before, saying they had increased speeds and I would have to reboot the modem to take advantage of that. I hadn’t done it yet, but the power shutdown was actually a forced reboot. I now have 866 mbps speed—but no internet. Could it be that this old router was incompatible with the higher speed?

This trouble was turning out to be worse than light and not all that momentary. I found other things to do, mainly going through an old genealogy research notebook and getting rid of a bunch of stuff I no longer need. I read the instructions for the air fryer we’ve had for three years but never used and planned to cook some veggies in it. Supper came and went, and I had the call with my friend. We talked through the internet problem. He agreed with me that it sounded as if the router had gone bad. Based on our set-up, he talked me through a work-around, and poof! we had internet.

From there the conversation rolled into other areas to fill the hour. Technology, internet, CATV vs streaming, cost increases, even a little into politics. We ended when he was expecting another call to come in. It was a good hour.

So how would I describe these technology troubles. Light? Momentary? In hindsight I would guess so, though it didn’t seem like it at the time. But since the time was redeemed, and redeemed well, I would have to say they were indeed light and momentary, and that God used them toward the goal of eternal glory.

Bible study, Christianity, The Forest Throne, Writing

Into a Writing Rhythm

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Dateline: 17 March 2022

Moving this 7 foot high woodpile about 60 feet downhill might interrupt my writing rhythm.

I haven’t looked back to see what my writing goals for March are, but I know I’ve been busy writing. I’m into a rhythm of sorts. I need to be since I’m working on two projects at once, while still waiting on two others to truly finish and drop off the radar.

The two waiting to be finished are the church Centennial book and my MG/YA novel There’s No Such Thing As Time Travel. The former is done  and sent to the printer. At least the insides are. The cover has lagged due to the designer’s busyness. She sent it to me on Tuesday. I immediately shot it to our pastor and committee chair for approval. Both wanted tweaks or changes, one involving a new photo. That photo arrived in my inbox today. I sent it on, and the cover designer says I should have the revised cover tomorrow. Once I send it on to the printer, that project will be truly done.

The other project is also done—sort of. I’m waiting on five beta readers to give me feedback, four of them in the target age group. I’ve given nudges but hear nothing from them. The cover is under preparation by a different designer. I think, once that is done, I will publish it with or without the feedback from the five. If they give me good suggestions for substantive changes, I can always make the changes and republish the book. Meanwhile, I’m giving my critique group a chapter every two weeks and getting good feedback. Alas, as adult writers, they aren’t in the target demographic. Both of these projects are taking very little of my time.

My Bible commentaries are out, resting one on another on the kitchen table, and likely to stay there for a couple of months. I see blank paper to write on, but what did I do with my notes?

Now, as for current projects, they are two Bible studies that form a pair. First, some background. Last year, Feb-Apr, I taught a Bible study on the Last Supper, 13 weeks I think it was. It was Part 3 of a larger study, A Walk Through Holy Week. We are studying it in our Life Group, one part a year, based on the harmony of the gospels I wrote. I realized that the entire study would make a good series of books. I didn’t do anything with Parts 1 and 2, but Part 3 seemed especially suitable for a Bible study book.

Alas, when that study was over, I was fully involved in the Centennial book, and when I had it mostly finished by June (with a research supplement not done till Aug), I moved straight into the time travel book because the iron was hot and I wanted to get it done. Meanwhile, I preserved my teaching notes, some of which were handwritten and some typed. Whenever my schedule freed up, I would be ready to write it.

That happened around mid-January this year. I gathered my notes, merged and organized them, then created the book file. I labored at it for a month. Yes, labored, for I found it very difficult to write. My plan was to have one chapter for each week’s lesson. Chapters would be organized into seven sections, making for a reading a day should the reader want to proceed that way. I was able to make some headway on it, starting the seven readings for Chapter 1 and completing some of them. I got some “days” done, others not. By around March 3rd, I had perhaps 12,000 words of a book that I think will be 50-60,000. Not great progress, but some.

Then a dilemma hit me. On Sunday, March 6, we were to start Part 4 of the Holy Week study. I immediately thought I couldn’t work on both studies. Teaching the new one would consume so much time, and cover different material, that writing Part 3 while teaching Part 4 would be difficult. But the thought came that maybe I should just write the new one and lay Part 3 aside. That way, I could write the chapters (again, planning for seven readings in each chapter) as I was teaching it. The material would be fresh, and hopefully the writing would go fast as well.

I taught the first lesson of Part 4 on March 6. The day before, Saturday, I did an intensive study for it. Coming home from church on Sunday, I went to my computer and began writing the new study. As I hoped, it was easier. I was able to incorporate class discussion and thoughts not in my notes that came to me as I was teaching while all was fresh on my mind. Sunday, I wrote one complete reading and part of another. I also organized the chapters and readings. Monday, I did two more readings, Tuesday two more, and Wednesday, two more, completing the chapter. Yay!

That left me Thursday and Friday to return to the Part 3 book and see what I could accomplish. What I found was I really needed to re-study the material just as if I was going to teach it anew. I did that on Thursday, and on Friday I wrote two days of readings. My writing time on Saturday had to go to study for the next lesson in Part 4.

So it seemed to me that this was a viable rhythm. Saturday: study to teach a lesson in Part 4. Sunday, teach the lesson and work on writing the chapter in Part 4. Monday-Tuesday write the Part 4 chapter, hoping to finish by Tuesday evening. If I couldn’t, continue with Part 4 writing on Wednesday. When that was done, shift to Part 3, hoping to study a chapter and write it on Wednesday-Thursday-Friday.

It worked out like that this week. I completed the second chapter of Part 4 on Wednesday, early enough to give me some time to shift to writing Part 3. As of the time of this writing, I should finish tomorrow (today when you read this) the most difficult chapter to write in Part 3. Then, it’s on to Chapter 3 of Part 4 and another chapter in Part 3. I hope this is making sense.

Part 4 finishes on Easter Sunday. The week after Easter I have a medical procedure scheduled that will prevent me from writing a whole lot. I hope to finish Part 4 by the end of April—the first draft, that is. I’ll be very surprised if I am even half-way through with Part 3 by then, but maybe I will be.

As of yet, I have no publishing schedule for either of these. I don’t know if I’ll publish Part 4 when done, and Part 3 a couple of months later, or if I’ll withhold Part 4 until Part 3 is done and publish them together, or maybe a month apart. Once I know, I’ll let you all know here.

Christianity, creativity, miscellaneous, Writing

Snow Day

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Looking north, not on our street but the one our circle ties in to. Plowed, but having had almost no traffic on it. The road veers to the left in the distance while our road goes right, both steeply downhill.

Yesterday was a snow day. This large winter storm, called “Landon” by the Weather Channel, was strung-out across more than half the USA. The forecasters missed the start of the storm, but otherwise got it mostly right.  They even predicted that we would get a last band of snow last night, and it happened. It looks like another inch or two on top of the 6 we already had.

So, when you are retired and have hit your 70th birthday, what do you do on a snow day? For me, I can’t resist going out in it. Never mind that the temperature was 18 and a north wind was blowing the fine snow at a 45-degree angle. I bundled up and hiked up the road. Not far, just up to the stop sign and back.

As I left the house, I measured 5″ in two places on our property, and a 13″ drift near the garage. Our street wasn’t plowed. Tire tracks came to our mailbox and stopped. The mailman had obviously driven that far and, not having any mail down the road (one of two houses there is current vacant), just backed up the hill. He/she did a good job of staying within the downhill tracks as they backed uphill.

At the house up the road, my neighbor was out. Having just shoveled his driveway, he was standing there, in just a light jacket. We talked for a while, me at the top of the driveway and him just inside the open garage door. Then I continued my walk. I was surprised to find the next road plowed. It isn’t a main road, though it does connect to main roads at both ends. About an inch of snow had fallen since it was plowed, and only one set of tire tracks showed on the freshly fallen.

At the next road, it was the same. Plowed, more snow falling, and only a few tire tracks. No one was out, either on foot or in vehicles. My walk had been pleasant thus far. But when I turned to head home, the wind was in my face, driving the fine snow. It was biting, not all that pleasant. But, I had only gone .17 miles, so it was a short walk past five houses and lot and lots of woods on both sides. I reached home having not fallen and invigorated.

I then returned to my work for the day, a fresh mug of coffee in hand. I think that was my fourth. My work was reviewing edits to the church Centennial book suggested by the two proofreaders and uploaded to the document in Google Drive. They did more than just proofread it, however. They had a lot of suggestions for changes. We have a Zoom conference scheduled for this afternoon to discuss it, and I figured I should go through the comments before hand. So, in The Dungeon, Google Drive on one screen and the Word doc on the other, I went to work. By the time 3 p.m. came around, my brain was fried, despite having taken those breaks for the walk and for lunch.

On a snow day such as this, I would have then gone to the sunroom with my coffee and read and taken a nap. But yesterday, instead, I did that in my reading chair in the living room. I tackled my e-mail inbox, going through e-mails over 10 years old and deciding what to do with them. I made good progress and can see light at the end of that tunnel. Then I’ll get to tackle the sent box. Through the evening I went through another twenty pages of comments in the Centennial book.

Now it’s almost 8:30 a.m. on Friday. The sun is shining through The Dungeon windows. I have ten to fifteen pages of comments to go through. I have other writing to do, then the conference at 1:00 p.m. After that, hopefully, I’ll find myself in the sunroom, alternately reading and napping. It should be a pleasurable after-the-snow day.

book reviews, fiction, Writing

Book Review: “Turning Life Into Fiction”

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This isn’t one of the premier books that every writer needs to read and have on their shelf, but it is a worthwhile read.

I have a fair number of books for writers in my library. I should read more of them, but, given the large number of books I’m working through, I tend to pick others over those. Recently, I browsed one of my bookshelves, the one tucked away in the storeroom, and pulled two out. I took them and no others on our recent trip to Texas, forcing me to read them.

On Wednesday I finished the first of them, Turning Life Into Fiction, by Robin Hemley. Since that’s what I do to a fairly great extent in my fiction, I thought this would be good to read. It was. I read the paperback edition, copyrighted 1994. My copy is a new book but I don’t remember buying it. Possibly I won it at a writers conference.  That might sound old, but really it isn’t. The advice that Hemley gives works across the 90s and the 20s.

Take your life, or any part of real life, and figure out how to turn it into fiction. You aren’t writing history, and there’s no need to make your fiction exactly faithful to history. Begin with the truth. Add characters, delete characters, change the gender of characters. Start with the real setting; make some changes, but probably not as many as with the characters. But, if you change anything about a real place be prepared for someone very familiar with that place to call you out on it. That’s okay. For every 1 reader who knows the place you will have 1000 readers who don’t. So make a few changes. Maybe more than a few.

Hemley starts with journaling, and the importance of it, then moving on to memoir. He talks about the news and how to take virtually any news story and be able to develop a fictional story about it. He cautions the writer, however, that not every historical detail needs to be part of your memoir or story. The writer needs to take great care to see that the story has the right details, the details needed to pull in the reader and keep them reading.

The last chapter has to do with legal and ethical concerns. You don’t want to use real people in your books without permission. If you do, change enough so that the character bears only a little to the original. While successful lawsuits against fiction writers based on characters that resemble real people are rare, they do happen.

I’m glad I read this book. It helped me to see how I’m doing a lot of things right as I turn real life experiences into fiction. I’m not going to keep this book, as I never see myself re-reading it. But it’s a good book, a worthwhile read for any writer.

The Forest Throne, Writing

More on “The Forest Throne”

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When building a fort in the woods, it’s good to have a helper.

Well, I’ve been sitting at my computer for an hour editing The Forest Throne. I totally forgot that the first writing I was supposed to do this morning was my Monday blog post. Hence, here it is 7:50 a.m. I’m 20 minutes late and just getting started.

Every fort has to have a beginning, and many hands to make the work light.

I had planned my post today to be about The Forest Throne, which I’ll abbreviate TFT hereinafter. I told something of the genesis of this book in a prior post, promising then to tell something of the story in a future post. The future has arrived.

Soon, it begins to look like a fort.

The story revolves around Ethan. He’s 11 years old to start the book, visiting his grandparents for Thanksgiving with his parents and three siblings. Ethan has some issues (what 11-year-old doesn’t?), and he’s constantly being corrected as he torments his little brother and sister. He and Grandpa go for a hike in the woods behind the house, into the hollow, something they do on every visit.

You never know what you will find when you hike down an Ozark hollow.

This is the Ozarks, not the highest mountains part, but the foothills. Lots of valleys covered with oak trees eking out a life on rocky hillsides. Way down the hill, just before you get to the bottom of the hollow, they find an odd formation in the hillside. It looks a little like a chair. It seems to be manmade, and has a hole drilled into one of the “arms”. Ethan sits in it, calls it his forest throne, and immediately wishes it was a time machine. His grandfather reminds him “There’s no such thing as time travel.”

Later they go across the street from the house and work on a fort. You’re in the middle of the woods. It’s someone else’s land, but they aren’t around, so what do you do? You build a fort. It takes a few years of repeated visits to get it done. While playing at the fort, Ethan’s little sister finds a blue peg, which he immediately takes from her. He realized it is the same size as the hole drilled in the forest throne and determines to go back there to see if the peg fits. Maybe it’s the key to activating the time portal.

Well, he does go back there; the peg does fit; and nothing happens except the peg gets stuck. Nothing he tries gets it out. Soon the visit is over and he and his family goes home to Texas.

They come back the next year during the summer—just the three oldest kids, not the parents or the baby brother. Ethan is 12 now, and he gets to stay longer after the other siblings go home. He goes down to the throne, which is a little hard to find, but he finds it. The peg is still in place. After much trying, he learns that with a little bit of twisting the peg will come out. He pulls out the peg. In just a few seconds he encounters….

Well, this is about as far as I can go without giving away the whole plot. Let’s just say that Ethan’s hopes that the throne is a time portal turn out to be all too true. He activates it, not once but twice, and a terrible thing has happened as a result.

TFT is done. I finished it last Wednesday. I finished reading it to the wife last night. I’m most of the way through with my first round of edits and will likely complete them today. My critique group has through Chapter 4. Later this week I’ll get it to my beta readers, all five of them. They are ages 13 through 8. We’ll see if it passes muster. Hopefully it will be ready to publish not later than April.

Doctor Luke's Assistant, Documenting America, self-publishing, Writing

2021 Book Sales

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My highest selling book in 2021.

It’s been a long time since I posted my book sales. 2021 was my best year for sales. I guess you would call it a record year, though, with the numbers still as low as they are, record somehow seems inappropriate.

I sold 223 books, almost all sales coming from on-line sources. That beat my previous best year which was 156 way back in 2012. Also, in 2021, I passed the 1,000 lifetime sales mark, ending up with 1034.

Why the increase? Amazon ads. I began running some ads on Amazon in July 2020, added to them in 2021, and sales finally happened. Unfortunately, to this point I’ve spent more in ads than I’ve received in royalties from all sources. It’s not a big number, and the deficit is shrinking. At the end of the year, I was down only $4.52, though at worst I was behind $73.80. If the trend continues into 2022, I’ll be money ahead in a month or two. Just on ad spend, not overall. The cost to maintain this website puts me way in the red each year.

Had 19 sales of this, pulled along by the ads for the first book in the series.

I had sales of 22 different books, out of 35 books listed for sale at year end. Highest of those was the first Documenting America book, which I advertised. Second was Doctor Luke’s Assistant, which I also advertised. The other two books in the Documenting America series also had double-digit sales, as did Acts Of Faith, which I advertised.

Several of these “sales” were actually through Kindle Unlimited, the first that I had from that Amazon sales channel. I think royalties work out to less, but I’ve had a hard time rigorously tracking them.

So, here comes 2022. My ads are still running. They don’t seem to be working quite as well as early in the year. I will probably add another book to those I advertise, though I’m not in any hurry to do that.

Here’s hoping 2022 will be another best year for book sales.

 

 

family, fiction, Writing

The Time Crunch Has Started

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Every year, in November, tens of thousands of writers, at the start of November, sign pledges, set goals, and sit their rear ends in seats in front of computers and begin a novel. Yes, it’s National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo for short. Internet groups have formed for it. Some in-person meet-ups are probably happening. The goal is 50,000 words for the month. That’s not quite a novel for most genres, but it’s more than just a good start. It’s well on it’s way to writing a novel.

But I am not participating. I never participate in NaNoWriMo. The main reason is the busyness of November. Our main annual family celebration is at Thanksgiving. Preparations for this normally consume much time and energy, leaving little for writing and certainly not enough to complete a novel or even 50,000 words of one. I am working on a novel, and today hope to carve out enough time to add 1,000 words to it. But I can’t commit to NaNoWriMo goals.

This year the time crunch is made worse because of decluttering. Two bedrooms have been in use as decluttering staging areas. They are cluttered. The dining room and our large dining table has also been a site of staging. Boxes and piles, boxes and piles, seemingly everywhere. They grow a little and shrink a little, depending on whether we are finishing with something or starting something new.

Saturday we made some good progress, so naturally the dining room looks much worse than it did on Friday. I said progress because we finally, after nine months, dug into boxes of linens left behind in our house when my mother-in-law died three years ago. We sorted. Somethings we discarded (which means put them aside to go to Goodwill, which takes odd cloths and makes things out of them). Today, Monday, with a little extra effort, might have all this sorted out and put either in the garage for storage/donation or in smaller boxes for storage. I hope.

Writing will continue, even as I work on both physical and digital decluttering. But I have no real goals for output until after Thanksgiving. Then, maybe by the end of December, the first draft of that novel will be done. Meanwhile, I will say with Emerson, there is time enough…for all that I must do.

goals, Writing

October Progress, November Goals

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Start of a new month. Time to report on what progress I made in October, and to establish some goals for November. First, the progress.

  1. Blog twice a week on Mondays and Fridays. I have a couple of conflicts coming up, so maybe those pre-written and to-be-scheduled posts will come in handy. I almost achieved this. I looked back over the month and realized I missed one day. I’m not sure how that happened. I thought I had one scheduled for that day. I suppose I hit a wrong key and the post disappeared.
  2. Work on my work-in-progress, The Forest Throne. I did get back to this. I worked on it a couple of times at a writer on-line event (more on that another time), then worked on it three or four days in a row. I’m liking where it is and how far I’m into it.
  3. Link the four novels in my Church History novels series. Why do I keep putting this off? This month I didn’t put this off. Got it done.
  4. Begin formatting the church Centennial book. I received one of three outside contributions and pasted it in. I have a promise of receiving the other two very soon. I’m happy to report I accomplished this. I now of two of the three outside contributions; I have the book formatted for book size; I’ve been adding photographs. I suspect I have another five hours of work for the book to be ready for someone to make a cover and begin the printing process. Well, first finding a printer.
  5. Attend writers groups this month. I’m not sure how many it will be. I may have conflicts with the meeting dates of two of my regular groups. Maybe I’ll be able to get in on the new group a couple of times. I did this. I missed two meetings while traveling, but attended three meetings of a new group, an on-line group. A productive month in this category.
  6. Publish “Foxtrot Alpha Tango”, once I get critiques back from the Scribblers & Scribes. I have one back already. Publishing will mean cover creation, but I’m already pulling ideas together. Did not get this done. Just too busy on other things.
  7. Take a look at, but don’t necessarily write more on, the Bible study I was working on during the spring and early summer. No, didn’t get this done.

Ok, what do I want to accomplish in November? This is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). But November, with our family Thanksgiving celebration, is always too busy for me to participate. Plus, we still have decluttering/disaccumulation activities. Still, I want to establish some goals. Here they are.

  1. Blog twice a week, on Monday and Friday.
  2. Attend my writers groups this month. That will be about six meetings if I make all of them.
  3. Continue formatting work on the church Centennial book. With luck, and a few good hours, it will be finished when Dec 1 rolls around.
  4. More work on The Forest Throne. I’ll even set a word goal on this: 10,000 words more than I have now.
  5. Begin the process of revamping my website. I don’t really have that much to do on it, mainly have a new landing page and move my bio to it’s own page. I ought to be able to achieve that.

I think that’s all I’ll establish as official goals. An unofficial goal is to continue to go through my writing papers and see what I need to keep, what I can get rid of.

I’ll check back in either late November or early December with a progress report and new goals.

C.S. Lewis, miscellaneous, reading, Writing

Another Blustery, Rainy, Busy Day

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Rain came in Wednesday late. At least I think it did. I was asleep and didn’t hear it. When I woke up Thursday morning, I heard the plink-plink on the skylights. While waiting for the coffee to brew, I went into the darkness of the sunroom and listened. The wind was easy, the rain light, and the sounds wonderful.

As for my “work” day, after the coffee was done, I went to The Dungeon. Light was just barely visible between the blinds slats, darker than normal due to the rain. I had my devotions and read morning newsletters, then planned my trading day. Thursday is a busy day for my trading system. I did some analysis and laid out some trades. I then made them slowly as the day unfolded.

For writing, I pulled off The Forest Throne to get back on the church Centennial book. As I’ve said before, the writing work is done. I had also begun formatting it for print a week ago. My main task was to add photos. Some of those were on a shared Google drive. Some were in church archives I had at the house, and some were loose or in envelopes. I worked with them all morning. By the time lunch came around I had approximately ten pages of photos added. It’s not done, but it’s now close. Another morning of work and I’ll have added all that are available to me. Today I plan on doing that work.

After lunch, I fell asleep reading C.S. Lewis’s essay “De Futilitate”. So I got up and went out to the sunroom and went back to reading it. I was able to finish the essay, but didn’t really understand it. I think it’s a three or four reading just to get a basic understanding but that wouldn’t be enough to be able to discuss it intelligently.

Pizza and salad for supper, then an evening of…what? I could write, edit, read, chill out watching TV, wash the dishes, declutter. Hmmm. I’m actually writing this Thursday evening, around 7 p.m. Well, I worked on decluttering and disaccumulation last night; I’m not sure I’m up for it tonight. The dishes really need washing, so I’m sure I’ll do that. I may then mess around with e-mail archiving. That’s easy to do in distracted conditions.

The rain is about over, but the winds have risen. I hear the roaring through the closed window. This is blowing-down-trees strength wind. I enjoy listening to it, but won’t appreciate the clean-up afterwards.

This is the last post for October. I’ll be back on Monday with a writing progress report.

Christianity, Engineering, stock market, Writing

Thoughts on Occupations and Leisure

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In my last post, I made some comments on C.S. Lewis’s essay “Christianity and Culture”. I decided to re-read it, finishing it on Saturday. I’m now in the process of reading the train of criticism it provoked and Lewis’s response to the criticism. Last night I went looking for the criticism, and found it on-line. Alas, it was all behind a paywall. In the next few days I may spend a little more time to see if it exists somewhere else on the internet that doesn’t require a financial outlay.

But Lewis got me to thinking, and I journaled about it Saturday night and may journal about it again. Lewis wondered, several years after his conversion, if the cultured, educated life he was living and earning his living from was compatible with Christianity. He said that he had come to the conclusion that the end/goal of the Christian’s life must be to glorify God and see His kingdom increased. Did the cultured life, a.ka. the literary life wherein literature is pursued as an end in itself, contribute to these two aims of the Christian life?

Lewis concluded the cultured life was not incompatible with Christianity. To do so he searched the scriptures, the early Christian writers, and many later Christian writers from Catholic and Protestant sources.

All of which led me to wonder whether my vocation and leisure was compatible with the aims of Christianity. Of course, I left my vocation behind for retirement. For 44 years I spent my time engineering public infrastructure and private developments. I did this in five states and three countries. I earned a good living at it. I think I helped the world, and in some cases changed the world, by practicing that profession. While doing so, I believe I did it as a faithful and devout Christian. When asked to pay a bribe while in Saudi Arabia—a request made by a fellow American expat—I refused. When some Bible extract booklets were shipped to be by mistake, I distributed them in-country, including to a Lebanese Muslim expat.

I could go on blowing my own horn, but that’s not a good thing to do. I only do so to show why I come to the conclusion that the decades I spent in my chosen profession were compatible with Christian discipleship, a conclusion arrived at with considerably less searching than Lewis did.

What about now? I actually have two new professions. One, of course, is writing. My books and stories are a mix of overtly Christian and secular underpinned by a Christian worldview. I don’t have a lot of sales and no notoriety, but it’s difficult to see how that would be incompatible with Christian discipleship.

My other “occupation” in “retirement” is stock trading, or securities trading as defined by the IRS: buying and selling stocks and options for the ake of generating income and building wealth. On the surface that looks a little more iffy. Again, taking a somewhat superficial look at it, securities trading is not inherently evil. It could be looked at the same as buying and selling paintings, or buying and selling baseball cards, hoping to have a gain. With securities, it’s all done in an account, you don’t have an inventory of goods to deal with.

It would seem to be acceptable so long as you do it right. No insider trading (as if I had access to such). No risky speculation. Tithe the gain and give offerings on top of that. Pay taxes on the gain according to the law. It would seem to me that with those stipulations this second retirement vocation is not incompatible to Christian discipleship.

One other thing to consider is if following these retirement occupations is causing me to shirk other responsibilities. My answer to that is no. As I look at the things I do around the house, in the family, in church and community, I think I’m doing okay with what I do.

This little bit of thought has taxed my brain. I’ve given all this a cursory, perhaps shallow, analysis and concluded I’m not wrong in my retirement pursuits. I hope I’m right.