Christianity, family

Would You Trade Five Years In Heaven?

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Ah, the beauty of God’s creation, tapped and packaged by man. We are not to love it more than God Himself.

It was not my day to teach our Life Group class yesterday. And, since Lynda is still recovering from her heart ablation on Friday, I decided to stay home and join the class via Zoom. Since my co-teacher is a veterinarian and sometimes gets called in even on his weekend off, I always prepare to teach. I did so on Saturday, and then some more yesterday morning. Good thing, as he almost didn’t make it due to veterinary duties. Our study is in 1st John, and our scripture for yesterday was 1 John 2:15-17

15Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. 16 For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. 17 The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.

Lots of years to spend with these four. But should I not want heaven more?

As I prepared to teach and worked through various lines of discussion, I found the concept of not loving the world difficult to work out. God created the world. God so loved the world. Should we not love it? Obviously there is some nuance here. Perhaps the word “love” needs some explanation. Or the word “world”. What exactly does that mean?

I thought of the difference between the world and life. I wouldn’t say that I love my life, but I do like it and enjoy it. God has given me certain skills which I am able to use to change the world, one book at a time, one letter at a time. I have children influence then watch as they moved into adult responsibilities and careers. And grandchildren to watch and influence a little as they grow up. I would hate to miss all that. And I have a wife to love and care for, and share the years with.

What a joy it was watching these two grow up, and perhaps influencing them a little.

But the thought came to me: Would I trade five years in heaven to have five more on earth to accomplish more and be part of the family? I’d like to have those five years to accomplish more; a lot more than that really. If God were to say to me, “I know you have things you want to do, things that you will enjoy and find fulfilling. But I’m ready for you to come home. It’s your choice.” What would I do?

The same thing happened to King Hezekiah in the Old Testament. God said his time had come. He told God he wasn’t ready. God answered that prayer and gave him 15 years more. During Hezekiah’s extra 15 years weren’t all that good, as he showed more interest in his own wealth and position than he did in the things of God.

And spending more time with my soulmate.

But I love the things in my life. I’d like to live it some more. And therein lies the problem and probably what John meant. While there’s a lot of bad stuff in the world, there’s a lot of good stuff too. A lot of enjoyment. A lot of satisfaction. Ah, but heaven! The beauty of God’s creation, the beauty of a life being well lived, cannot replace the beauty of heaven.

Maybe that’s the answer to John’s question. No, not a question but a command. Do not love the world or the things in the world. Do not let anything take precedence over God. Enjoy life while you can, but earnestly desire heaven when that time comes. Until then, I will embrace what the apostle Paul said:

For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far…. Convinced of this, I know that I will remain, and I will continue….

family, Health

Thoughts You Don’t Want To Think

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[Dateline: 8 July 2021, 8 a.m.]

This post will go live tomorrow, at 7:30 a.m. I write it now and schedule it because I will be quite busy at that time. Actually, I will be in a hospital waiting room at that time as Lynda will be undergoing a heart ablation. We have to be at the hospital, about a 45 minute drive, at 5:30 a.m. We haven’t had such an early wake-up and departure in a long time, our recent trip to Chicago excepted.

Lynda’s heart first went into a-fib in the fall of 2019. She began seeing a cardiologist at that time. They scheduled some kind of procedure (maybe a heart inversion), but when she got to the hospital her heart was in normal rhythm, so they canceled it. Since then they’ve been watching it, having Lynda take her blood pressure and being careful with her activity. Her heartbeat has sometimes dropped to 45. When she was in the hospital in April 2020 for her appendix, she went into a-fib and they had to treat it.

Fortunately, she has great awareness of when she goes into a-fib. It happened on the drive home from Chicago on Monday, but lasted only a short time. With a new medication, she hasn’t had those really slow heart rate.

The “ablation”—and I don’t know how I got that name—seems to me to be an odd procedure. The put electrodes through the groin up a vein and zap the vessels adjacent to the heart (arteries or veins, I’m not sure which) with electricity. The goal is to cause scar tissue to build up on the vessels, and supposedly the scar tissue will prevent the heart from going into a-fib. How that will prevent a-fib is a mystery to me. And who first thought of it to begin with?

It is also possible that they will decide instead (or maybe both) to install a pacemaker in her. That decision will be made during the procedure. They say this will be a 3 or 4 hour procedure.

I’ll be in the waiting area. Since Arkansas is now having a surge in covid cases, mainly the delta variation, I don’t know where exactly I will be. Plus this is a new hospital for us to go to. I don’t know if they will let me be in the room where they prep her, then with her in recovery after, or if I’ll be kept out away from her. While this is a procedure which might result in her going home the same day, it’s also possible she will be kept overnight or even two days. Given her general weakness right now, I suspect they will keep her at least one night.

They say this procedure, the ablation, works 95% of the time. I think that’s what they told us. Such odds don’t sound to good to me. Which got me to thinking thoughts I don’t really want to think. You know what I mean. What if it doesn’t solve the a-fib problem? What if her body isn’t strong enough to come through the procedure? What if——. Thoughts you don’t want to think. Fortunately, I have access to God through prayer, and an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ. While I’ll have reading material with me tomorrow, I suspect I’ll be praying more than reading.

If you read this shortly after it’s posted, please say a prayer for Lynda, as she will be in the midst of the procedure. If you read this later in the day on Friday, say a prayer, as she will be in recovery. If you read it anytime later, say a prayer for success of the procedure and her return to something closer to a normal life, being able to be active again.

America, Bible study, book reviews, Christianity

Book Review: The Harbinger

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While we were in Orlando in May-early June, we took a morning to go to a Books-a-Million store near where we needed to pick up some first aid supplies. Lynda cut her foot on a barnacle-encrusted rock at the beach and had stitches. I also needed to take care of something at the pharmacy. Our errand completed, we went around the corner to the book store.

This book has an important message for the USA, but they way that message is presented rates it 2-stars from me.

That’s a favorite activity of mine, to go to a book store (or a library works just as well) and browse, select, read while drinking coffee, and probably not buy. On this day I bought a writer’s magazine, and Lynda bought The Harbinger by Jonathan Cahn. Cahn is a Messianic Jew, and Lynda listens to his podcasts. I’ve listened some too, but haven’t heard them enough, or paid attention enough (I’m always multi-tasking) to get a good feel for what his message is. This book was our evening reading for much of June.

The subtitle of the book is “The Ancient Mystery That Hold The Secret of America’s Future”. The book essentially draws out parallels that Cahn sees between Isaiah 9:10-11 and the events of 9-11 and the years since then. It’s a warning—a harbinger—for America, to turn back to God.

In Isaiah, God’s protection was prophesied to be removed from Israel (the Northern Kingdom) and, because their response to God’s rebuke was incomplete, another judgment would fall on Israel. This happened to Israel, just as Isaiah prophesied.

The literary technique used by Cahn is a dialog, or actually two dialogs, between Nouriel and 1) an investigative reporter named Ana and 2) an unnamed prophet. It was this prophet who gave Nouriel a series of seals. Nouriel had to investigate what the seals meant. As he followed the clues, the prophet would suddenly appear and help him to understand what the seals meant, what Israel went through, and what the USA was going through.

I find it difficult to find any fault with what Cahn says in the book concerning the fate of the USA. He could well be right that we are on a declining leg of our up and down history, and there may not be a future up leg. Our zenith may indeed have happened and it’s all down from here. Cahn doesn’t lay out a litany of what’s wrong with America. Simply that we as a nation have turned away from God; that 9-11 was evidence that the hand of God’s protection has been removed from us; that we did not respond to that warning with repentance and turning but with defiance and bravado; that other judgments have come upon us and are still coming. I won’t say he’s incorrect about any of those. The book was copyrighted in 2011, and much has happened since then.

However, Cahn’s literary vehicle was not good. In fact, I’d call it bad. The dialogs between Nouriel and the prophet and Nouriel and the reporter were tedious and repetitive.  The seals were a contrivance to build the story on. A simple statement of the message Cahn wants to give (Wake up, America! Wasn’t 9-11 enough? Wasn’t the Panic of 2008 enough?) could have been given in 100 pages or less instead of the 253 pages in the paperback we read.

He could have avoided the silliness of the seals. He could have spared us the endless dialog, and scenes of lower Manhattan or of various places in Washington D.C., where Nouriel and the prophet met up. Rabbi Cahn, if you read this, those things detracted from your message, they didn’t add to it.

It seemed that every night as we read, and I waded through the dialog or descriptions of what was on a fictitious seal, I would say aloud, “Well, he just lost 5 stars,” or “No way I can give this 4 stars.” In fact, if I post a review on Amazon, I will likely give it 2 stars. It would be 1 star for organization and writing, but higher for message.

In my mind, this book is not a keeper. I don’t ever plan on reading it again. Lynda will likely want to keep it. So on the shelf it will go.

Bible study, book reviews, Christianity

Book Review: “Daniel”

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As we continue to try to whittle down our inventory of books by pulling some off the shelf or out of piles that look like they will be good to read but not necessary to keep, my wife pulled Daniel off the shelf. It’s a Bible commentary volume by J. Vernon McGee, based on his radio “Through The Bible” broadcasts.

Every now and then I would catch McGee’s program while driving in the Kansas City area back in the late 70s/early 80s. Years and years later, in the first decade of this century (I think), I would catch it again sometimes. I enjoyed the program. The latter round was just a re-broadcast of the earlier programs, with a new intro added.  I think Lynda picked up this book at a yard sale or thrift store. I know we didn’t buy it new.

It was an okay book. McGee’s broadcasts were for the layman and, since this volume is said to be more or less a transcript of his broadcasts (slightly modified as would be needed for a book), it’s easily read and provides some good information and explanations of the book of Daniel. I’ve read many other commentaries as I do my Bible studies and prepare to teach adult Sunday school, and find them almost written for scholars by scholars, not for laymen. This aspect of the book I liked.

I found the organization difficult. Where Daniel had his visions or where he interpreted the dreams of others, McGee put the  commentary of the interpretations with the dreams/visions, rather than hold them for the verses of the explanations. Then, when he got to the verses of the explanations, he had nothing to say but to repeat what he had already said. It seems to me that if the Bible is clear, the commentator shouldn’t have to say much. Of, if the Bible repeats itself (as it sometimes does), the commentator should say little. McGee did that to some extent, but perhaps not enough.

In his defense, it’s a tough thing to write a commentary in a repetitive situation. I don’t think I could do any better. McGee also did a good job sorting out the historical context. The Bible doesn’t give a list of the Babylonian kings, or those of the Medes and Persians. That has to be obtained from non-biblical sources. McGee gives that info—a good thing.

Right after reading McGee’s book, we got out the Matthew Henry concise commentary and Daniel read that, sort of as an exercise. When I’ve used Henry’s commentary before, I found it different than others, having more of a insights for living a Christian life feel to it than just a technical explanation of the Bible. I thought, therefore, we might gain some of those insights. Alas, it wasn’t as good for that purpose as I hoped it would be. It’s still a good commentary; just not something you can read as sort of a devotional.

I’m glad we read McGee’s book. I give it either 3 or 4 stars. But it is not a keeper. Today it will go on the sale/donate table. Nor will I go out of my way to acquire any others in the series. It’s good, but not good enough in our era of dis-accumulation.

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.”

miscellaneous, Writing

Busy Today, Late With Post

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Good morning, folks. Yes, I’m late with my post today, which will be somewhat of a nothing post. The last several days have been quite busy and didn’t plan a post in advance.

What has kept me busy? One thing is the church anniversary book. This has been a week of sending e-mails, making phone calls, gathering information from previously untapped sources, and adding text to the book. I have only one more interview to do, which I hope to do today. The text is now over 27,000 words, so definitely longer than I expected. I added some photos to the manuscript, but most of the photo work is still to come. Hopefully I’ll have some help with that.

Stock trading has taken up some of the day each day this week. Yesterday and today were especially busy with it. The days were profitable, so I don’t mind the work. It does cut into either writing time or reading/idle time, though.

Other than that, I stay busy with household chores as well as outdoors work. My day starts at ±06:30, when I am outside to do some yardwork. Right now I’m pulling weeds in our horribly overgrown and unplanted flower bed in the front yard. It’s a slow process, even with a shovel to loosen the clods. I would say I have another week of that work. Tomorrow I hope to finish trimming bushes in the front yard and removing the cuttings. That’s a very do-able goal. Hopefully I’ll find a little time for reading as well.

Today will be busy with a grocery run, work on the book, some Amazon listings maintenance, and maybe vacuuming. Or I may leave that for tomorrow.

Well, this has been a blah sort of blog post, but it’s what I have for today.

Church History Novels, creativity, critique group, Danny Tompkins Short Stories, miscellaneous, Sharon Williams short stories, Writing

Dendritic Passage

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Is this considered a craft? Oh, no, I did a craft! What’s to become of me? I feel the dendrites in my nervous system getting all worried.

Whether the pandemic is over or not, it’s good to be coming out of it. To go to the grocery store and not wear a mask. To go to church, not wear a mask, and get a cup of coffee (while staying 6 ft. distanced the whole time). To have long-interrupted groups meet for the first time in over a year. Yes, while we realize the spread of the virus isn’t over, and questions remain as to the effectiveness of the vaccine against all mutations of the virus, it’s still good to open up.

One group I belong to has been meeting. The Northwest Arkansas Letter Writers took a few months off, then decided to meet outdoors. I joined this group in March 2020 and attended one meeting before the pandemic hit. These are people who enjoy writing letters, on paper, that get sent through the mail. We have been meeting at a church not too far from me, under a drive-under at the back door, skipping the coldest and hottest months. That was good to keep seeing each other and talk about our letter writing activities.

Another group I’m a member of is the Scribblers & Scribes of Bella Vista. This is a writers critique group. We had our last meeting at a library in early March 2020. We typically had four or five people attend out of six active members. One of those has moved away; two others were new and we don’t know what their current interest is. Three of us were core members who rarely missed a meeting. While we were shut down, we sent pieces for critique by e-mail and received feedback the same way, but it wasn’t quite the same as reading pages in front of other writers and receiving comments then.

We began meeting again last Tuesday, all except me, as I had a one time church meeting to attend. I e-mailed in for critique the beginning of a short story. I’ll have to wait for the July meeting to see them all again. Anyone reading this who is interested in a writing critique group can find us through MeetUp.

The other group I’m a member of is the Village on the Lakes Writers and Poets. This group is a diverse bunch of writers, a fair number being poets. They met once a month at a writers retreat center in Bella Vista, sometimes as many as 20 people. The meetings were about inspiration for and education concerning writing, along with read-around of our work. Then the pandemic hit. The March 2020 meeting was cancelled. By April we were ready for Zoom meetings and did this every month during the pandemic.

In May, the State having lifted many restrictions, we met at a coffee shop, just five of us, and did some planning and dreaming. In June, we met at a pavilion of one of Bella Vista’s parks. One of our two group leaders led us in an exercise. Now, I hate writing exercises. I’m not sure why; I’d just rather write what I want to write and be done with it. But I took part. The leader had brought plucked off leaves, colored pens, pencils, and sketching paper. We were to trace a leaf (or leaves, whatever we wanted), then take fifteen minutes to write about it, after which we read our exercise to the group.

Not trace. I’m not exactly sure what this craft is called. Put the leaf on wax paper, then a sketch sheet above it, and rub the leaf through the paper so that the features come through. Leaf rubbing I suppose it’s called. My leaf didn’t want to cooperate. I chose yellow as my rubbing color. Probably not the best, as yellow doesn’t show well. The thick parts of the leaf didn’t show well, so I took a green pencil and traced them.

As to the writing, I stared at my leaf and couldn’t think of a thing. Then I took note of the dendritic pattern of the leaf and remembered an e-mail discussion with my now-deceased friend, Gary Boden, and a train of though came to mind. Here’s what I wrote and read to the group.

Dendritic Passage

As the trace of the leaf shows more prominently the division of segments—i.e. the spine and the hard, thick parts, so is my writing life and all that has brought me to this point. These start at the periphery and end at the bottom of the stem in what is called a dendritic pattern.

Dendritic? Yes, that’s the term. We used it in hydrology to describe the nature of a drainage basin, coming together from the far-flung edges and arriving at the main channel. But I think the word comes from the natural sciences, for I first heard it from Gary, a zoologist by education who ended up his career in computer systems. Branches coming together but with a fabric between them is what makes a dendritic pattern.

As I look at this leaf from an unknown plant and see its dendritic pattern, I see my writing. Each little spine is a genre that captures some of my time and results in a book or story. The latch-key teen experiences resulted in the Danny Tompkins stories. The many places visited early in adult life are being turned into the Sharon Williams stories and Operation Lotus Sunday. My love of God’s story and His word & church has moved to a branch that is the church history novels and

Hydrology, botany, and neurology (if that’s the right word) all make use of the term dendritic. Who knew?

At that point the leader said “Time.” When I read what I had to the group, someone talked about the dendritic pattern of the nervous system. I later looked up a dictionary definition, and both the pattern of a tree and the nervous system were used in the definition of dendritic. And the word “dendrite” for the first time came to my attention. Guess I should have figured that.

This is not a profound post. I have no conclusion to draw, no inspirational thing to write. Just an observations. Groups are coming back. I took part in a writing exercise. I did a craft-like thing and lived to write about it. All is not right with the world, but it was better that day when we met.

My camera is not with me right now. When it is, I’ll edit in a photo of my leaf rubbing, quite possibly the first and last I’ll ever do. Now, on to my day’s dendritic activities.

Oh, and why did I write “Passage” instead of “Pattern” in the title? I guess I don’t know.

America, Racism

Thoughts From a Road Trip Through the Deep South

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I must preface this by saying, while I’m technically mixed-race, I’m white. I look white and was raised white. I was late middle-aged when I learned my racial makeup. No one ever denied me a job due to the color of my skin, or threw racial slurs my way. I think that’s important to say, because my observations may not be the same as someone who is black. That may help you to decide on the importance of my observations.

In May we drove to Orlando to meet our daughter’s family for vacation. I posted about that already. With the I-40 bridge over the Mississippi closed, we took a more southerly route. We crossed at Helena Arkansas, drove state highways through northern Mississippi to Jackson, more state highways to Hattiesburg and the Gulf coast, then interstates across the panhandles and on down to Orlando. On the return trip in early June we came back by interstates to Mobile then took state highways to Hattiesburg, interstate to Jackson, then reverse course to Helena and on home.

Our entire route was through the former Confederacy, mostly through what has been called the “deep South”. As we drove we stopped—at gas stations, convenience stores, restaurants, hotels, markets. We drove through lots of rural areas, giving me a chance observe houses, people in yards, and communities.

As we traveled, I observed interactions between whites and blacks. Now, I have to digress to say that I hate looking at anyone for their skin color. I’m a believer that we should be color blind. No one is to be looked down upon because of their color, no one is to be elevated because of their color. I realize that’s not the current narrative being pushed on us, which is we need to look at race and make evaluations based on that. I’ve written before on the blog about racism, separating racism from racist acts. You can see them at this link.

If my belief in a color-blind society is what we should be working towards, where people of all skin colors and ethnic backgrounds live together in harmony, caring nothing about skin color, then I ought to see people of all skin colors interacting in harmony on this trip. Seeing that might indicate that society at large has moved a long way towards that state of things.

That’s exactly what I saw. Store clerks were white and black, working side by side. Customers were black and white, socially distancing together, making their purchases, chatting with each other, walking in and out the same doors, holding the doors for each other without regard to color of skin. I observed Hispanics and whites not caring that they were next to each other. Whites served Hispanics when they came to the register and Hispanics served white or blacks when they came to the register.

In hotels, at the breakfast room (yes, some were open again post-pandemic), the hotel guests were of all skin colors and ethnic groups. Nobody seemed to care that they were white and those at the table to their right were black and at the table to their left were Hispanic. It was wonderful to behold. I liked what I saw and traveled through.

All of which gives me hope that we, the USA, have come a long way towards color-blindness. To me that’s a good thing. That may also mean that racism is less of a problem than you would believe from reading the media. If you read my former posts on race relations, you will know I separate racists acts from racism. Racism being that which is in a person’s heart and racist acts being what they do or say as a result of their racism. Maybe, just maybe, racism is much less of a problem and racists are a dying breed.

Again, I say this as a white man. A black man making the same trip as me might observe things I didn’t, or might interpret differently the same exact thing I observed. I can only report what I observed and draw conclusions from what I saw. What I saw was good and encouraging. May the USA continue on this good path and continue to deal with and eliminate what flaws we still have based on skin color and ethnicity.

book reviews

Book Review: Evil Under The Sun

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This war-time book was cheaply made, but it has survived almost 76 years and is still in the family.

Our, my wife’s and my, evening reading aloud has included several Agatha Christie books. At first I planned on doing these in the chronological order they were written and arranged them so in the box. But Lynda pulled one out at random. We read that and the pattern was shot after only two prior reads. So when I went to get the next one, I chose Evil Under The Sun. We had just seen the 1982 movie of this with Peter Ustinov. When I say “just” I mean as in the last year.

The book was good, though perhaps not as good as the movie. The plot differences were significant. Since I knew who the murderer and accomplices were I kept looking for the clues Christie must have put in the book to lead us to them. Alas, the clues weren’t there. Poirot’s ending discussion of who the murderer was and how he determined it was not as good as in other Poirot mysteries. I guess that’s what happens when you see the movie first and read the book later.

While I had a few reservations about the book, it’s Agatha Christie, so it’s obviously worth reading. This won’t be my favorite of hers, but it’s worth reading.

Mom signed most of her books, but usually with her first and last name.

One other thing about this particular book. Our A.C. collection, all paperback, we thought were mostly ones our son bought and left here, no longer wanting them. Turns out that’s not the case.  Some of them were our son’s, but others appear to have other origins. Some have garage sale stickers on them. One has my grandfather Todd’s name written in it, so must have been his. This one is a cheap paperback printed in August 1945 (a wartime book, printed so as to consume fewer resources), and it turns out to have my mother’s name in it. Just “Dorothy” with no last name.  That’s unusual for her to write only her first name in the book, but given the date of publication and what was going on in her life, it makes sense.

This will go back in the box of A.C. books. Someday we’ll get through them and get them to our daughter, which is where they are intended for.

Bible study, Documenting America, Sharon Williams short stories

Which Of Five Projects?

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The Teachings is published. Now, what next?

It was about nine years ago—or maybe eight—when I finished writing and publishing a book, I forget which one now. I could probably look back at posts on this blog to see which one. But my point is that I didn’t have the next book or story planned. I didn’t know what I was going to do next.

I had several things in mind that I wanted to write, things that I had outlined at least in part. Which to do? I decided to write the first chapter of each and see which one seemed right. I did this for four full-length books. One just seemed to flow with no trouble at all. One was really labored. The other two were in between. So I wrote the one where the words flowed best and set the others aside until later.

A second Bible study? Might that be next?

That’s where I am now. I finished writing The Teachings in February and published it in May. Since then I’ve been working on the book of the history of our church in advance of our 100th anniversary. I’ve been kind of poking along on it, since the deadline is so far out. I might finish it this month—the words, that is. Illustrations will take a little longer. I do a little on it almost every day. But the end is in sight. Time to be thinking about the next project.

But what to do? As I said before, I don’t have any real sense of what it should be. Therefore, I now plan to do what I did before: write something of each of the projects and see which one seems to flow easiest; that will then be the one I write. What are those projects, and where do they stand at this time?

First is a Bible study. Our Life Group studied the Last Supper over Lent and Easter this year. As I prepared lessons, I wrote notes that would go into a Bible study. Since I teach only every other week, I didn’t tackle this from beginning to end, but as I studied for the weeks I taught and as I took time to do it. In preparation for this post, I looked at my files and find them confusing. I have three Bible study files. The one most recently saved is clearly not the most complete, based on word count. I’ll have to somehow merge the files. My best guess is that I have a little over 8,000 words written. The full study will almost certainly need 30,000 words.

Second is the next volume in my Documenting America series, tentatively titled Run-up To Revolution. As I’ve said before, I completed the basic reading for research, but have yet to do any actual writing. I started outlining the book, and accessing source documents for editing. There’s a lot of work there. But, I actually have two chapters that are borrowed from the first Documenting America book (with a few edits). I expect this book to run 45-50,000 words.

I’ve left Sharon alone for a while. Maybe it’s time to add #6 to the series. It will be set in Saudi Arabia.

Third is a short story in my Sharon Williams Fonseca, Unconventional CIA Agent series. The story line has been rolling around in my head for some time. Sunday and Monday I decided to begin writing it. It currently stands at about 1,100 words, with 6,000 words the probable length. This writing went very easy.

Fourth is the story I mentioned in my last post, The Forest Throne. A short-ish book for 10-14 year olds, this will be my first time writing for other than an adult audience. I’ve brainstormed some of this but am not 100 percent sure how it will come together nor how long it will be. According to plan, I began writing this on Tuesday. the words flowed easy. I worked at it only an hour or so, and was surprised to find I’d written almost 1,400 words.

So what is going to be next? Darned if I know. It will be either the short story or The Forest Throne. I’ll have to write a little more in each. You can be sure I’ll say something about it here.

Author | Engineer