If you’ve ever seen The First 48 on A&E, you probably – as I do – have found yourself avoiding dramatic cop-shows such as Law and Order. Praised and time-honored as the Law and Order franchise might be, their storylines are pretty much crock. Their bad guys are over-the-top truly villainous people whose crimes are planned around L&O’s need for ratings and penchant for preachiness.
The First 48 however, is the real thing. Painfully, terribly so. It’s a reality show, of course! But what a reality! The premise for the series is this: the first forty-eight hours after a homicide are the most crucial. Evidence, witnesses, and the bad guy can simply disappear, fade, or be forever lost.
Each episode focuses on two homicide squads, in different cities. On any Thursday night the viewer might find herself involved in the investigation of a murder in Dallas, Kansas City, MO, Las Vegas, Memphis, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Antonio, or Miami.
Of course, we develop favorites. The Memphis and Miami squads are superb and stand-outs are Sergeant Caroline Mason, Sergeant Doreen Shelton, Sergeant Tony Mullins, Sergeant Mitch Oliver, Sergeant Eunice Cooper, Sergeant Ervins Ford, Detective Kevin Ruggiero, Detective Emiliano Tamayo.
We see these cops in their humanity. We see the adrenalin pumping in the adrenalin junkies who live to get the bad guy. We see the grief when they have to inform a family member that their loved-one has been murdered. We see their grief for both the victims and the victimizers.
That’s probably the strangest thing about The First 48. These cops know something that most TV cops don’t know: that murderers are not particularly evil. They aren’t even smart. The murderers are generally kids who haven’t got a lick of sense, who get involved in something that goes awry, who gave the devil a finger and the devil took the whole hand. The cops are educated, and mature. They understand common sense and they come in all sizes and shades. The murderers, on the other hand, unfortunately are of a darker hue: hispanic and black, they are often involved in gangs, fighting over the little 1% of the American dream the rich have allowed to trickle down.
When Sergeant Caroline Mason of the Memphis PD is on the case, she shows us that being a cop involves being part spiritual counselor, part trickster-manipulator, part maternal voice of the community, and part investigator. Yet, she’s got to be one of the most ultra-feminine cops you’d ever see. The woman has style, but she also has heart. A young criminal is like putty in her hands. At the end of the investigation, he is usually blubbering as much as we are.
He knows he’s wasted his life. He knows he’s not being the good Christian kid his mom wanted him to be. He knows that one moment of stupidity has cost him his future and possibly his life. If it’s a girl who was playing one guy against another, she knows how volatile hormones can be. And, most importantly, the murderer knows that another human died and didn’t deserve to.
Okay, I’m sounding a bit like a bleeding-heart liberal with a Law and Order fixation. But I can’t help it. The show makes even hard hearts weep. I kid you not. I find myself watching the programs and shouting at those young stupid murderers, “My people! My people! What are you doing to yourselves! And for what? The little cash a drug deal will bring?”
I know many parents don’t feel like sitting their kids down to watch documentaries or straight-up reality shows. But I’m the kind of parent who forced my son to watch Maxed Out, a film about the evils of credit cards; and SuperSize Me, a film about the horrors of fast-food addiction.
So, okay, I’m telling you to plunk your kid down in front of this show. Especially if the kid – like many teenagers in the hood – still doesn’t know how to think before he acts.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Writers of Color Blog Tour
Hi all:
My novel Wind Follower will be highlighted on my efriend's blog at myspace and Live Journal. Beginning September 15, 2007
My Space
http://www.myspace.com/moondancerdrake
my space blog:
http://blog.myspace.com/moondancerdrake
Live Journal
http://moondancerdrake.livejournal.com
This is a group dedicated to bloggers who are also writers, or to reviewers who review on Amazon. It's based on networking and the idea of virtual book tours
Every month, we will try to do reviews or post a comment on a book written by one of our members.
Reviews aren't necessary. Although if we do happen to do a review on the blog, I think we shouldn't forget to post it on Amazon or to the publisher of the book. If a person gets a pdf, they can post an excerpt of the book. Or not. If someone receives a review copy, it's only fair they post a review to their blog.
We want everything to be easygoing. We're all busy. This is not supposed to be a burden. Those who can't post a review will also be contributing if they post a jpeg of the book cover and a synopsis or small mention to their blog.
We should try to do the same book all in the same month. That's not too much to ask.
Members of this group may not be forced to tour books for one of three reasons:
1: if they object to the contents of a particular book.
2: if a blogger is sick or extremely busy
3: if a member of the group wants to tour the book of someone not in the group, that's fine. The other bloggers are free to go along but it is not mandatory if they do so. I just don't want us to get into the habit of doing tours for writers who tend be users and after one has spotlighted them they disappear.
Nor do I think we should let strangers email us with synopsis of their books begging us to spotlight them. We aren't there for them. And our goal is to help primarily bloggers in our group.
It would also be good if we posted each other's weblog links to our site if possible. If a blogger reviews a book, the other bloggers taking part in the virtual tour should post a link to that review.
She writes speculative fiction. We belong to a virtual book tour group called Writers of Color Book Tour. It's made up primarily of speculative fiction but there are a few romance writers in the mix. Pagan and Christian.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WritersOfColorBookTour/
It's a nice group...just starting out though.
--- -C
My novel Wind Follower will be highlighted on my efriend's blog at myspace and Live Journal. Beginning September 15, 2007
My Space
http://www.myspace.com/moondancerdrake
my space blog:
http://blog.myspace.com/moondancerdrake
Live Journal
http://moondancerdrake.livejournal.com
This is a group dedicated to bloggers who are also writers, or to reviewers who review on Amazon. It's based on networking and the idea of virtual book tours
Every month, we will try to do reviews or post a comment on a book written by one of our members.
Reviews aren't necessary. Although if we do happen to do a review on the blog, I think we shouldn't forget to post it on Amazon or to the publisher of the book. If a person gets a pdf, they can post an excerpt of the book. Or not. If someone receives a review copy, it's only fair they post a review to their blog.
We want everything to be easygoing. We're all busy. This is not supposed to be a burden. Those who can't post a review will also be contributing if they post a jpeg of the book cover and a synopsis or small mention to their blog.
We should try to do the same book all in the same month. That's not too much to ask.
Members of this group may not be forced to tour books for one of three reasons:
1: if they object to the contents of a particular book.
2: if a blogger is sick or extremely busy
3: if a member of the group wants to tour the book of someone not in the group, that's fine. The other bloggers are free to go along but it is not mandatory if they do so. I just don't want us to get into the habit of doing tours for writers who tend be users and after one has spotlighted them they disappear.
Nor do I think we should let strangers email us with synopsis of their books begging us to spotlight them. We aren't there for them. And our goal is to help primarily bloggers in our group.
It would also be good if we posted each other's weblog links to our site if possible. If a blogger reviews a book, the other bloggers taking part in the virtual tour should post a link to that review.
She writes speculative fiction. We belong to a virtual book tour group called Writers of Color Book Tour. It's made up primarily of speculative fiction but there are a few romance writers in the mix. Pagan and Christian.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WritersOfColorBookTour/
It's a nice group...just starting out though.
--- -C
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Top 110 banned books
Here's a list, according to Alnita's blog, of the top 110 banned books - clearly from various times and places.
Bold the ones you've read. Italicize the ones you've partially read. Underline the ones you specifically want to read.
#1 The Bible
#2 Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
#3 Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
#4 The Qur'an
#5 Arabian Nights
#6 Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
#7 Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
#8 Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
#9 Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
#10 Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
#11 The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli
#12 Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
#13 Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
#14 Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
#15 Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
#16 Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
#17 Dracula by Bram Stoker
#18 Autobiography by Benjamin Franklin
#19 Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
#20 Essays by Michel de Montaigne
#21 Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
#22 History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
#23 Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
#24 Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
#25 Ulysses by James Joyce
#26 Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
#27 Animal Farm by George Orwell
#28 Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
#29 Candide by Voltaire
#30 To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
#31 Analects by Confucius
#32 Dubliners by James Joyce
#33 Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
#34 Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
#35 Red and the Black by Stendhal
#36 Das Capital by Karl Marx
#37 Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire
#38 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
#39 Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence
#40 Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
#41 Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
#42 Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
#43 The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
#44 All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
#45 Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx
#46 Lord of the Flies by William Golding
#47 Diary by Samuel Pepys
#48 Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
#49 Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
#50 Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
#51 Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
#52 Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant
#53 One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
#54 Praise of Folly by Desiderius Erasmus
#55 Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
#56 Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X
#57 Color Purple by Alice Walker
#58 Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
#59 Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke
#60 Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
#61 Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
#62 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
#63 East of Eden by John Steinbeck
#64 Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
#65 I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
#66 Confessions by Jean Jacques Rousseau
#67 Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais
#68 Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes
#69 The Talmud
#70 Social Contract by Jean Jacques Rousseau
#71 Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
#72 Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence
#73 American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
#74 Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler
#75 Separate Peace by John Knowles
#76 Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
#77 Red Pony by John Steinbeck
#78 Popol Vuh (Mayan creation myths)
#79 Affluent Society by John Kenneth Galbraith
#80 Satyricon by Petronius
#81 James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
#82 Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
#83 Black Boy by Richard Wright
#84 Spirit of the Laws by Charles de Secondat Baron de Montesquieu
#85 Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
#86 Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
#87 Metaphysics by Aristotle
#88 Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
#89 Institutes of the Christian Religion by Jean Calvin
#90 Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse
#91 Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
#92 Sanctuary by William Faulkner
#93 As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
#94 Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin
#95 Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig
#96 Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
#97 General Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud
#98 Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
#99 Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Alexander Brown
#100 Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
#101 Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman by Ernest J. Gaines
#102 Émile Jean by Jacques Rousseau
#103 Nana by Émile Zola
#104 Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
#105 Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin
#106 Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
#107 Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
#108 Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck
#109 Ox-Bow Incident by Walter Van Tilburg Clark
#110 Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Bold the ones you've read. Italicize the ones you've partially read. Underline the ones you specifically want to read.
#1 The Bible
#2 Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
#3 Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
#4 The Qur'an
#5 Arabian Nights
#6 Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
#7 Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
#8 Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
#9 Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
#10 Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
#11 The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli
#12 Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
#13 Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
#14 Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
#15 Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
#16 Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
#17 Dracula by Bram Stoker
#18 Autobiography by Benjamin Franklin
#19 Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
#20 Essays by Michel de Montaigne
#21 Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
#22 History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
#23 Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
#24 Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
#25 Ulysses by James Joyce
#26 Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
#27 Animal Farm by George Orwell
#28 Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
#29 Candide by Voltaire
#30 To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
#31 Analects by Confucius
#32 Dubliners by James Joyce
#33 Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
#34 Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
#35 Red and the Black by Stendhal
#36 Das Capital by Karl Marx
#37 Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire
#38 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
#39 Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence
#40 Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
#41 Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
#42 Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
#43 The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
#44 All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
#45 Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx
#46 Lord of the Flies by William Golding
#47 Diary by Samuel Pepys
#48 Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
#49 Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
#50 Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
#51 Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
#52 Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant
#53 One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
#54 Praise of Folly by Desiderius Erasmus
#55 Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
#56 Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X
#57 Color Purple by Alice Walker
#58 Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
#59 Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke
#60 Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
#61 Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
#62 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
#63 East of Eden by John Steinbeck
#64 Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
#65 I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
#66 Confessions by Jean Jacques Rousseau
#67 Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais
#68 Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes
#69 The Talmud
#70 Social Contract by Jean Jacques Rousseau
#71 Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
#72 Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence
#73 American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
#74 Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler
#75 Separate Peace by John Knowles
#76 Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
#77 Red Pony by John Steinbeck
#78 Popol Vuh (Mayan creation myths)
#79 Affluent Society by John Kenneth Galbraith
#80 Satyricon by Petronius
#81 James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
#82 Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
#83 Black Boy by Richard Wright
#84 Spirit of the Laws by Charles de Secondat Baron de Montesquieu
#85 Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
#86 Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
#87 Metaphysics by Aristotle
#88 Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
#89 Institutes of the Christian Religion by Jean Calvin
#90 Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse
#91 Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
#92 Sanctuary by William Faulkner
#93 As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
#94 Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin
#95 Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig
#96 Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
#97 General Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud
#98 Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
#99 Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Alexander Brown
#100 Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
#101 Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman by Ernest J. Gaines
#102 Émile Jean by Jacques Rousseau
#103 Nana by Émile Zola
#104 Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
#105 Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin
#106 Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
#107 Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
#108 Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck
#109 Ox-Bow Incident by Walter Van Tilburg Clark
#110 Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
My committment to avoiding racist, sexist, and violent hip-hop
Well, this is gonna be hard...cause i really do like rap. And rock and roll. But I'm not liking what it's doing to black youth. So here goes:
I hereby solemnly declare that I will no longer watch or llisten to musicians, videos, movies, or comedians who use the word
"hoe", s***, w**** when discussint women.
I also solemnly declare that I will no longer listen or watch any performer who uses the N-word or who does rap songs encouraging shallow mercenary values and Black-on-Black violence.
I believe that artists and performers are free to speak their own minds. I'm not against free speech. But honestly, I wish there are folks who were a bit more responsible in their speech to kids because most kids are pretty undiscerning.
I am tired of seeing kids kill each other over sneakers, bling, etc.
I hereby solemnly declare that I will no longer watch or llisten to musicians, videos, movies, or comedians who use the word
"hoe", s***, w**** when discussint women.
I also solemnly declare that I will no longer listen or watch any performer who uses the N-word or who does rap songs encouraging shallow mercenary values and Black-on-Black violence.
I believe that artists and performers are free to speak their own minds. I'm not against free speech. But honestly, I wish there are folks who were a bit more responsible in their speech to kids because most kids are pretty undiscerning.
I am tired of seeing kids kill each other over sneakers, bling, etc.
Update on Daughters of Men.
Right now I'm thinking Daughters of Men will be a combination of
Lancelot/Guinevere/Arthur and Tristan/Isolde/Mark and Wings of A Dove moral treachery kind of thing where two noble men love one woman. Adultery, etc.
But it's also got that Queen Esther --representation of her people/savior of her people kind of thng.
Plus the Guinevere and Isolde trapped in love versus power kinda thing.)
There's also that Wings of the Dove moral treachery thing happening because Siddhart is betraying Woden and thinks Medusa is using her telepathy to protect him.
So then. One woman -- my queen Esther figure-- has all these men loving her. And one of them, the Medusa character, is unloved. So we have Medusa as Medea/Clytemnestra/Antigone (and all those angry Greek women) as savior of her own people and rejected lover. Female Anger.-- Working out this strong rejected grief-stricken-til-she-loses-her-mind kind of woman
Then there is the lone human guy in all this mess. And regular human male doesn't mean much in this particular world.
These are the two daughters of men in the story and I want them to go to town.
The other problem is that this novel is full of prophecy. I had this idea of how prophecies can be misunderstood and misinterpreted. But then, I wrote Wind Follower. I really explored that issue a lot in WF...and did a great job at if, if I do say so myself. So why repeat myself? I don't want people thinking I'm a one-note writer. So I want to get rid of the prophecy business.
But some of those prophecies matter -- because there is "looking for a savior" issue that's really big in the story.
Daughters of Men is over seven years and I started it when I was just learning how to write novels. It looks as if I have to re-read the thing and diagram the chapters.
Robert Fleming, author of Fever in the Blood gave me the following advice:
Go slow and be methodical.
Try to fit the chapters into the larger scheme so that they can have
greater momentum and clarity.
Build it like a piece of music.
Let God work his magic through me...as he did with Wind Follower.
Don't let fear rule me or my work.
Read the whole piece and remove and retool the weak segments.
Believe in the story or suffer the sophomore curse.
Make a list of the themes.
Accentuate those points but keep in mind that tension and suspense rules.
Find the underpinning of the book.
So here i am wading through a mess and committing myself to simply tossing out what doesn't work. The thing is over 600 pages...and very episodic. Plot points all over the place instead of tight scenes leading to other tight scenes. It seems the best thing to do is to begin again because these many scenes are useless.
Plus i have to figure out how the needy eroticism of the novel will work with my Christianity. The book seems to be want to be about male sexual need. Will see. A Christian erotic novel? The last Christian erotic novel I hear of was Marian in Ecstasy.
And the eroticism was aimed at Jesus.
Oh well, will see what happens with DOM. Must however get out of Wind Follower mode. That book is done and published. Move on, Carole
Lancelot/Guinevere/Arthur and Tristan/Isolde/Mark and Wings of A Dove moral treachery kind of thing where two noble men love one woman. Adultery, etc.
But it's also got that Queen Esther --representation of her people/savior of her people kind of thng.
Plus the Guinevere and Isolde trapped in love versus power kinda thing.)
There's also that Wings of the Dove moral treachery thing happening because Siddhart is betraying Woden and thinks Medusa is using her telepathy to protect him.
So then. One woman -- my queen Esther figure-- has all these men loving her. And one of them, the Medusa character, is unloved. So we have Medusa as Medea/Clytemnestra/Antigone (and all those angry Greek women) as savior of her own people and rejected lover. Female Anger.-- Working out this strong rejected grief-stricken-til-she-loses-her-mind kind of woman
Then there is the lone human guy in all this mess. And regular human male doesn't mean much in this particular world.
These are the two daughters of men in the story and I want them to go to town.
The other problem is that this novel is full of prophecy. I had this idea of how prophecies can be misunderstood and misinterpreted. But then, I wrote Wind Follower. I really explored that issue a lot in WF...and did a great job at if, if I do say so myself. So why repeat myself? I don't want people thinking I'm a one-note writer. So I want to get rid of the prophecy business.
But some of those prophecies matter -- because there is "looking for a savior" issue that's really big in the story.
Daughters of Men is over seven years and I started it when I was just learning how to write novels. It looks as if I have to re-read the thing and diagram the chapters.
Robert Fleming, author of Fever in the Blood gave me the following advice:
Go slow and be methodical.
Try to fit the chapters into the larger scheme so that they can have
greater momentum and clarity.
Build it like a piece of music.
Let God work his magic through me...as he did with Wind Follower.
Don't let fear rule me or my work.
Read the whole piece and remove and retool the weak segments.
Believe in the story or suffer the sophomore curse.
Make a list of the themes.
Accentuate those points but keep in mind that tension and suspense rules.
Find the underpinning of the book.
So here i am wading through a mess and committing myself to simply tossing out what doesn't work. The thing is over 600 pages...and very episodic. Plot points all over the place instead of tight scenes leading to other tight scenes. It seems the best thing to do is to begin again because these many scenes are useless.
Plus i have to figure out how the needy eroticism of the novel will work with my Christianity. The book seems to be want to be about male sexual need. Will see. A Christian erotic novel? The last Christian erotic novel I hear of was Marian in Ecstasy.
And the eroticism was aimed at Jesus.
Oh well, will see what happens with DOM. Must however get out of Wind Follower mode. That book is done and published. Move on, Carole
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
Wind Follower in my hands
Wind Follower is published.
Hand over eyes and screaming wild joyous songs!
Dancing a two-step and generally flaking out.
Didn't cry though.
Just wild, manic, joy.
So this is what it feels like to open one's door and find a box of
one's VERY OWN PUBLISHED book on the front porch.
Borders is not ordering enough to matter, so push everyone you know to go to B&N or wherever to buy the book. If we show Borders sales elsewhere, they will order.
Yep....consider this a push.
Hand over eyes and screaming wild joyous songs!
Dancing a two-step and generally flaking out.
Didn't cry though.
Just wild, manic, joy.
So this is what it feels like to open one's door and find a box of
one's VERY OWN PUBLISHED book on the front porch.
Borders is not ordering enough to matter, so push everyone you know to go to B&N or wherever to buy the book. If we show Borders sales elsewhere, they will order.
Yep....consider this a push.
Friday, August 31, 2007
Wind Follower has arrived at my door steps
Hi all:
I just got my novel Wind Follower from the publisher. I'm sooo happy. My very first book. I am sooo happy. Soo happy. I'm a published author of my very own book.
If you know anyone who is into folkloric fantasy, or Christian fantasy, or ethnic fantasy, tell him/her to go on over to Borders and B&N to order it.
Thanks so much.
-C
Then said I, "Here am I. Send me."
Carole McDonnell
www.carolemcdonnell.com
WIND FOLLOWER
www.juno-books.com/windfollower.html
I just got my novel Wind Follower from the publisher. I'm sooo happy. My very first book. I am sooo happy. Soo happy. I'm a published author of my very own book.
If you know anyone who is into folkloric fantasy, or Christian fantasy, or ethnic fantasy, tell him/her to go on over to Borders and B&N to order it.
Thanks so much.
-C
Then said I, "Here am I. Send me."
Carole McDonnell
www.carolemcdonnell.com
WIND FOLLOWER
www.juno-books.com/windfollower.html
Sunday, August 26, 2007
My inner gold-digger
Hi all:
I'm trying to get back into the Daughters Of Men work-in-progress again after a brief hiatus away from it.
I was so into thinking about the male motivation/issues in the story that I wasn't really exploring in a truly deep way the motivation of my female character.
I suspect now I have to get in touch with my inner gold-digger. It seems to me that women growing up in a bereft culture where there are men with power and men without....well, these women would see the overseers as sugar-daddies. This connects in some ways to my love of reality love-match TV shows like Flavor Flav.
Most of those girls were poor and in need and the show was their way of getting money...and fame...even in some small fading hip-hop hipster kind of way.
I have to decide if Ellie, main character in DOM, is needy enough to want one of these guys ...secretly. Or maybe she's a user. And even if she's not a user, she might very well be so oppressed by all the sorrows and responsibilities of life that she finds a part of herself that actually needs a relationship with a paranormal sugar daddy.
The problem is I have to decide if she is like me or not. Satha was pretty much who I would be if I were in that situation. Now I have to decide how noble a character Ellie will have to be. Or rather, how noble a character I would be if I were in Ellie's situation.
The true glory and the true blessing of Josh my main human male character is that he's human. The true horror and the true curse of Josh is that he's human.
An inhuman overseer has power, wealth (presumably), the power to heal, the power to understand everything going on inside a woman's mind. And all they want is love. A real guy can't stand up to that.
Women want real guys who happen to be super-human.
I want to find the real Ellie. Not an Ellie "feminists" or "Christians" or "blacks" or "good girls" or "bad girls" would like. I want to find the real Ellie who will make DOM work. And she probably is not a "pure" user. But an impure one. One with a mix of need and desires and insecurities.
-C
I'm trying to get back into the Daughters Of Men work-in-progress again after a brief hiatus away from it.
I was so into thinking about the male motivation/issues in the story that I wasn't really exploring in a truly deep way the motivation of my female character.
I suspect now I have to get in touch with my inner gold-digger. It seems to me that women growing up in a bereft culture where there are men with power and men without....well, these women would see the overseers as sugar-daddies. This connects in some ways to my love of reality love-match TV shows like Flavor Flav.
Most of those girls were poor and in need and the show was their way of getting money...and fame...even in some small fading hip-hop hipster kind of way.
I have to decide if Ellie, main character in DOM, is needy enough to want one of these guys ...secretly. Or maybe she's a user. And even if she's not a user, she might very well be so oppressed by all the sorrows and responsibilities of life that she finds a part of herself that actually needs a relationship with a paranormal sugar daddy.
The problem is I have to decide if she is like me or not. Satha was pretty much who I would be if I were in that situation. Now I have to decide how noble a character Ellie will have to be. Or rather, how noble a character I would be if I were in Ellie's situation.
The true glory and the true blessing of Josh my main human male character is that he's human. The true horror and the true curse of Josh is that he's human.
An inhuman overseer has power, wealth (presumably), the power to heal, the power to understand everything going on inside a woman's mind. And all they want is love. A real guy can't stand up to that.
Women want real guys who happen to be super-human.
I want to find the real Ellie. Not an Ellie "feminists" or "Christians" or "blacks" or "good girls" or "bad girls" would like. I want to find the real Ellie who will make DOM work. And she probably is not a "pure" user. But an impure one. One with a mix of need and desires and insecurities.
-C
Monday, August 06, 2007
Wind Follower first review
Well, the first review of wind follower is up.
It's up at The long and short of it.
Long and shortreviews a site which specializes in romance.
I'm happy.
It has begun.
And it is interesting that the first reviewer of the book is a Malaysian Christian. The book deals with multiculturality.
She said, "Wind Follower had me hooked from the first page and I found it hard to stop reading. It is very different from the stories I normally read, but nonetheless, interesting."
And she also said, "Wind Follower is a page-turner right from the beginning."
Ooh, I loved that.
Who knew I had it in me to write a page-turner?"
Nice.
It's up at The long and short of it.
Long and shortreviews a site which specializes in romance.
I'm happy.
It has begun.
And it is interesting that the first reviewer of the book is a Malaysian Christian. The book deals with multiculturality.
She said, "Wind Follower had me hooked from the first page and I found it hard to stop reading. It is very different from the stories I normally read, but nonetheless, interesting."
And she also said, "Wind Follower is a page-turner right from the beginning."
Ooh, I loved that.
Who knew I had it in me to write a page-turner?"
Nice.
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
experience, observation, imagination
Quote of the Day: A writer needs three things, experience, observation, and imagination, any two of which, at times any one of which, can supply the lack of the others.
--William Faulkner
This is sooo true. And I often see the lack one of these things...but often the other things that are in the author don't seem to supply the lack of the others. This is just my opinion. For instance, I didn't know much about observation. I was terrible about "showing" because I truly had to learn about the various kinds of body language. My characters tended to be talking heads. And they still kinda are...so i'm glad my crit friends remind me of these kind of things.
As for imagination, I've seen a lot of imitative writing. People think they're being imaginative...and they are being imaginative as far as they know...but honestly in a lot of allegories I've read, they're imagining a world that is already created. Or a concept that already exists...and they aren't using it or mining it...anymore. They think they're imaginative because they are stringing together a kind of plot....but it's really a plot based on something they didn't imagine. For instance, why are so many dragons in the stories of beginning writers named "Draco." It's a bit much.
The last thing is experience. This is kind of tough. We all have experience...It's not really about youth, i think...but about the ability to be in touch with your own experience of joy, pain, need, fear, whatever, and get it into the story. So many of the stories I've read feel so unlived in. Someone writes a story about an ugly brute who is being rejected by a beautiful woman. Yet when one reads the story it's as if they don't seem to understand rejection or what it means to be ugly....even if one knows they must have been rejected...or that they must have considered themselves ugly at one time or another.
I wonder why that happens. Lack of courage? Lack of the ability to see ourselves?
-C
--William Faulkner
This is sooo true. And I often see the lack one of these things...but often the other things that are in the author don't seem to supply the lack of the others. This is just my opinion. For instance, I didn't know much about observation. I was terrible about "showing" because I truly had to learn about the various kinds of body language. My characters tended to be talking heads. And they still kinda are...so i'm glad my crit friends remind me of these kind of things.
As for imagination, I've seen a lot of imitative writing. People think they're being imaginative...and they are being imaginative as far as they know...but honestly in a lot of allegories I've read, they're imagining a world that is already created. Or a concept that already exists...and they aren't using it or mining it...anymore. They think they're imaginative because they are stringing together a kind of plot....but it's really a plot based on something they didn't imagine. For instance, why are so many dragons in the stories of beginning writers named "Draco." It's a bit much.
The last thing is experience. This is kind of tough. We all have experience...It's not really about youth, i think...but about the ability to be in touch with your own experience of joy, pain, need, fear, whatever, and get it into the story. So many of the stories I've read feel so unlived in. Someone writes a story about an ugly brute who is being rejected by a beautiful woman. Yet when one reads the story it's as if they don't seem to understand rejection or what it means to be ugly....even if one knows they must have been rejected...or that they must have considered themselves ugly at one time or another.
I wonder why that happens. Lack of courage? Lack of the ability to see ourselves?
-C
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
passion, sex, love, shame
Okay,
this waiting around for Wind Follower to be published has been spent fitfully.
A couple of days ago, I did nothing but re-read the pdf version of it in my computer. Okay, I had to see for myself how marvellous it all was. Hey, sometimes we forget.
It is lovely, and wonderful...if I do say so myself. In it's folklore questing passionate spiritual way.
But then I happened upon a sex scene. There are six in the book -- of all kinds (pre-marital engaged couple, rape, concubine, plus a couple flirtations.
And what happens when I happen upon this sweet little sex scene which is kinda spicy and sensual (those are the words the romance genre uses) I found myself avoiding the scene. Yep, I SKIPPED over my own sex scene. What's that about?
Well, obviously it's either false shame or true shame. If it's false shame -- a shame that one shouldn't really feel but which one is gonna feel anyway because one has been brainwashed-- then I can only think that I've gotten so many tongue-lashings from my Christian friends who "NEVER" put semi-graphic sex scenes in their book...that they have made me very nervous about my book. And honestly, it's not so terribly, terribly graphic. Just kinda graphic. Or it's my own prudish upbringing.
If it's true shame, then it's God telling me I shouldn't have written the scene. At this point I don't think it's a true kinda shame. But who knows?
Wind Follower is an interracial love story. Okay, I don't really know if Loic the main character is Native American or Asian. I think he's South Asian. From the way I describe him.
There was a time I used to feel shame when I wrote interracial love stories. And I no longer feel it. So obviously that was brainwashing....
will see. -C
this waiting around for Wind Follower to be published has been spent fitfully.
A couple of days ago, I did nothing but re-read the pdf version of it in my computer. Okay, I had to see for myself how marvellous it all was. Hey, sometimes we forget.
It is lovely, and wonderful...if I do say so myself. In it's folklore questing passionate spiritual way.
But then I happened upon a sex scene. There are six in the book -- of all kinds (pre-marital engaged couple, rape, concubine, plus a couple flirtations.
And what happens when I happen upon this sweet little sex scene which is kinda spicy and sensual (those are the words the romance genre uses) I found myself avoiding the scene. Yep, I SKIPPED over my own sex scene. What's that about?
Well, obviously it's either false shame or true shame. If it's false shame -- a shame that one shouldn't really feel but which one is gonna feel anyway because one has been brainwashed-- then I can only think that I've gotten so many tongue-lashings from my Christian friends who "NEVER" put semi-graphic sex scenes in their book...that they have made me very nervous about my book. And honestly, it's not so terribly, terribly graphic. Just kinda graphic. Or it's my own prudish upbringing.
If it's true shame, then it's God telling me I shouldn't have written the scene. At this point I don't think it's a true kinda shame. But who knows?
Wind Follower is an interracial love story. Okay, I don't really know if Loic the main character is Native American or Asian. I think he's South Asian. From the way I describe him.
There was a time I used to feel shame when I wrote interracial love stories. And I no longer feel it. So obviously that was brainwashing....
will see. -C
Monday, July 23, 2007
KultureFirst survey on African American Literature.
KultureFirst posted a short survey on Af Am literature .
Here's the survey for anyone interested in participating: African American Literature Survey
Here's the survey for anyone interested in participating: African American Literature Survey
Creative Procrastination
Well, I'm working on my second book, Daughters of Men. I'm in the middle of trying to figure out the mechanics of a floating city. How, I ask myself, should it work?
Should it be on an asteroid? Should it be anchored on the earth by some kind of space elevator or extremely strong columns rising up to the sky? Should the asteroid be stable -- by which I mean, should a city on the asteroid be always above a particular city on the earth? Should they be like sister-cities, sharing the same name...except that one is on the earth and one above? Should the asteroid be man-made or natural? Should it be one single asteroid or a ring of asteroid around the earth? Or should it be one long (terra-formed) bit of land encircling and floating around the earth? Should the place have its own weather and how? How much machinery should this sky city have? Or should it all work by the powers of the minds of its inhabitants?
I've got to tell you that when I last worked on this book I made matters very difficult for myself. Lord knows why! I actually had a two-tier floating city. I have to re-read this thing to see why the heck I decided to do that. Now it just seems kinda silly.
Anyway, being all confused about this city and not wanting to change it too much until I figured out why I made it that way, I've been procrastinating. I made a
multicultural speculative fiction listmania list,
a christian speculative fiction list,
and a multicultural christian fiction list.
I'm kinda hoping tons of people will go clicking on these lists...to kinda let them float up to the top of the listmania list. (Hint, hint!)
That multicultural christian fiction list was hard and still isn't finished. I need to add some more minority Christian writers...and I don't want them to be only modern contemporary writers but ...well, a few of the old-timers. I really have to figure out if multicultural excludes or includes folks who are white. One would think that white people belong to cultures, although there is no such thing really as a "white culture" because "white" involves so many different countries. I have to think about that.
In the meantime, the first review of Wind Follower will be posted soon (I think it'll be posted soon) at a romance site called
The Long and short of it .
Wind Follower is an odd little book which crosses many genres. I figure a romance site will look at the romance aspect. A multiculti site will look at the multiculti aspect of it. A Christian site will look at the christian aspect of it.
It'll be interesting to see where it will be most honored.
-C
Should it be on an asteroid? Should it be anchored on the earth by some kind of space elevator or extremely strong columns rising up to the sky? Should the asteroid be stable -- by which I mean, should a city on the asteroid be always above a particular city on the earth? Should they be like sister-cities, sharing the same name...except that one is on the earth and one above? Should the asteroid be man-made or natural? Should it be one single asteroid or a ring of asteroid around the earth? Or should it be one long (terra-formed) bit of land encircling and floating around the earth? Should the place have its own weather and how? How much machinery should this sky city have? Or should it all work by the powers of the minds of its inhabitants?
I've got to tell you that when I last worked on this book I made matters very difficult for myself. Lord knows why! I actually had a two-tier floating city. I have to re-read this thing to see why the heck I decided to do that. Now it just seems kinda silly.
Anyway, being all confused about this city and not wanting to change it too much until I figured out why I made it that way, I've been procrastinating. I made a
multicultural speculative fiction listmania list,
a christian speculative fiction list,
and a multicultural christian fiction list.
I'm kinda hoping tons of people will go clicking on these lists...to kinda let them float up to the top of the listmania list. (Hint, hint!)
That multicultural christian fiction list was hard and still isn't finished. I need to add some more minority Christian writers...and I don't want them to be only modern contemporary writers but ...well, a few of the old-timers. I really have to figure out if multicultural excludes or includes folks who are white. One would think that white people belong to cultures, although there is no such thing really as a "white culture" because "white" involves so many different countries. I have to think about that.
In the meantime, the first review of Wind Follower will be posted soon (I think it'll be posted soon) at a romance site called
The Long and short of it .
Wind Follower is an odd little book which crosses many genres. I figure a romance site will look at the romance aspect. A multiculti site will look at the multiculti aspect of it. A Christian site will look at the christian aspect of it.
It'll be interesting to see where it will be most honored.
-C
Friday, July 13, 2007
Eroticism in Wind Follower and Daughters of Men
Well, I'm just waiting for the reviews to start coming in on Wind Follower. In the meantime, I'm trying to finish Daughters of Men.
For some reason, DOM is perched very precariously. A part of it wants to be an erotic novel. Now, what to do?
On the one hand, I want to write a Christian novel...and it definitely is. And I don't want to alienate Christians by having a scene in the book which will upset them. (Although Wind Follower has a couple of sex scenes.)
But I want to write what I want to write. Of course, the question to ask myself is: does this erotic part of my story comes from a part of me that needs sexual healing? (and therefore should be explored) Or does it come from a part of me that is just plain worldly and which has watched way too many movies on Lifetime televion?
But I also don't want to force myself to write in a particular way if that's not who I really am. (Not that we Christians should go around worshiping "who we really are.) I don't want to get all rigid and too brainwashed by the rigid guidelines of the Christian market.
I tend not to get too graphic in my love scenes. But the eroticism is definitely there. I know a few Christian folks might have a problem with the sex scenes in WF. A graphic rape scene where she loses a baby, sex with her slave- owner, and the Loic-Satha pre-marriage dalliance. But the book needed it. So in it went. I felt right having those scenes.
In DOM, there is a real element of sexual need. I might even go so far as to say that sexual need is a main character in the book. So even if there isn't any sex scene (can't imagine this, but even if) there is gonna be an erotic quality about the book.
I don't know if you've ever seen DIVA (French movie) or Rebel without a cause. In Diva the guy woos the woman by taking her for a walk in the Paris rain. Nothing happens and yet there's all this eroticism. Just by them walking. Then there's the ferris wheel ride in Rebel without a cause. Again, nothing happens. But it is absolutely incredibly erotic. That's what I feel is happening with DOM. There might be a sex scene or two -- if the plot calls for it-- but whether there are or not, there's gonna be a heck of erotic tension.
I don't really think that eros and religion are in conflict. God invented sex. And eroticism.
The proverbs say that a true witness delivers souls. Many Christian fiction books just simply aren't true. If we are to be witnesses to a truth, we have to start out with the truth-- about our own issues. Christian books are often more legalistic than gospel. The main characters are good people who often are in conflict with some bad aspect of themselves...but the bad aspects are often not bad enough to make the characters real people. They often are temptations rather than incredibly deep character traits. By making the "evil" a character faces something which is a mere temptation, the Christian writer can simply separate the main character from the "evil" and have a nice legalistic happy ending. Person is good now, so person can go to church and be a good part of society. It just doesn't speak to me of grace, of God loving us even when we are evil. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
In a lot of my stories, characters do bad right and left. But they are loved by God because they love Jesus. That is the gospel. When we get caught up in good and evil and believe that making a character good is telling the story of the gospel, we are making a bad mistake. We're teaching the importance of keeping the law. We're writing about and spreading teaching about the knowledge of good and evil. What does it matter if we know what good is, and what evil is? It's grace -- God's love for us in spite of our behavior, and while we are still sinning-- that is the gospel. And when we start saying that sex is bad or that writing about sex is a stumbling block then we are in a hazy world of saying that God has made something that is evil. We also are in the old Augustinian mind-set that says sex is evil.
In this story, I've made Ellie a Creed believer who is loyal to God above else. But she has done a crime. (I don't know what the crime is.) She's real. In that way she'll speak to real people, unlike the Christian characters in much modern Christian fiction who don't speak to the really really unsaved person. For instance, I think more incredibly bad people could probably be touched by Angels with Dirty Faces or Prayer for the Dying or Festen or The Bad Lieutenant than they would be by Christy or a Jeanette Oke book.
God called me to write to the really really really bad unsaved people, and as such I have to be a true witness. I have to witness to what I see in life, to the goodness I see in bad people, and to the lostness I see in saved people. For instance, in WF I had the two young characters make love on the day before they were married. Satha (although she is virginal) did it because she feared not giving in to him would be disastrous and might make him not go ahead with the planned marriage. And her folks needed the dowry money. He did it because he was a spoiled kid who always got his way and he was using her fear for her mother to get into bed (the grass) with her. That was truth, as far as I saw it. It would've been good for me to write a story where Satha held out for one more day, and where Loic didn't have that selfish ability to manipulate a woman, but although it would have been "good" it wouldn't have been true. In the long run, that little bit of dalliance caused some trouble for them but they are human...not Christian cardboard cookie-cutter tereotyped "good"
main characters.
For me to write something that doesn't feel right to me is to go against the idea that "a true witness delivers souls."
In DOM, Ellie is facing death. She is also badly-scarred. A human male loves her dearly. But so does a demon prince. She doesn't want to marry the prince but at the same time the prince has power to kill
her and to force her. And there is a lot in the mix about her conflict. Women like strength. Ugly scarred women like attention, especially if they haven't been getting any. Women like powerful men (at least in romances.) A powerful man with telepathic powers is going to use it to seduce a woman who thinks he's demonic. And the human male is going to have much sorrow and conflict about what to do with a woman he loves who has seemingly given up her faith to save her life.
It's been said that a novel is a conversation about the conflict between the soul and the spirit. In Wind Follower, the conversation was: "would you give up your religion for the religion of your oppressors?" That echoed conflict in my life. Sometimes one's religion puts one in the company of people one doesn't really like. And giving up one's religion means giving up certain things you are attached to. So there is always conflict in novels.
In Christian novels the conflicts are pretty narrowly-defined within home, faith, marriage. Very narrowly-defined. So I don't write for Christians because they don't want to read about Christian racist character working against his racism. They can't handle that kind conflicted characters or plots that don't have easy answers. They really can't. But God has called me to write Christian novels for a secular audience who can deal with such conflicting stuff.
I mean...what a different world it would be if Christian writers dealt with the racism of Sarah (Abraham's wife) or even with the fact that Abraham probably slept with Hagar quite a bit. Or even the fact that according to the ancient Jewish rabbis, Keturah Abraham's third wife was really in fact Hagar. I love that kind of stuff. The man wasn't perfect. He was a conflicted human. And Christian writing has no edge and has lost its ability to be very complicated. I have no doubt that if the books of the Bible was being gathered together today, Christian people would leave out a lot of David's misdemeanors, all of Song of Solomon, most of Judges.
The Christians who have read portions of Wind Follower didn't stumble. So far as I know. But the book isn't for them. And considering how rigid the christian guidelines are...the CBA's attitude is that most everything can make their readers stumble. I mean...they don't want to talk about race because they say Christian
readers need something safe to read. By avoiding certain supposed stumbling blocks, they have enabled close-minded folks to stay close-minded.
That's just my opinion. Christian writers write about sex in non-fiction books. Why not write about the weird inner conflicts of sex in fiction books? What's the difference?
Yes, the truth is about letting our light shine: healing the sick, raising the dead, binding up the broken-hearted. We shine the word in dark places. But then we have to show the dark places also so people can recognize the darkness of it. Sex is also a wonderful thing. Why not spotlight it in a story? Christians won't be reading it, probably. But I suspect the non-christian who reads it will see much of the spiritual glory of sexuality. Just me. -C
-C
For some reason, DOM is perched very precariously. A part of it wants to be an erotic novel. Now, what to do?
On the one hand, I want to write a Christian novel...and it definitely is. And I don't want to alienate Christians by having a scene in the book which will upset them. (Although Wind Follower has a couple of sex scenes.)
But I want to write what I want to write. Of course, the question to ask myself is: does this erotic part of my story comes from a part of me that needs sexual healing? (and therefore should be explored) Or does it come from a part of me that is just plain worldly and which has watched way too many movies on Lifetime televion?
But I also don't want to force myself to write in a particular way if that's not who I really am. (Not that we Christians should go around worshiping "who we really are.) I don't want to get all rigid and too brainwashed by the rigid guidelines of the Christian market.
I tend not to get too graphic in my love scenes. But the eroticism is definitely there. I know a few Christian folks might have a problem with the sex scenes in WF. A graphic rape scene where she loses a baby, sex with her slave- owner, and the Loic-Satha pre-marriage dalliance. But the book needed it. So in it went. I felt right having those scenes.
In DOM, there is a real element of sexual need. I might even go so far as to say that sexual need is a main character in the book. So even if there isn't any sex scene (can't imagine this, but even if) there is gonna be an erotic quality about the book.
I don't know if you've ever seen DIVA (French movie) or Rebel without a cause. In Diva the guy woos the woman by taking her for a walk in the Paris rain. Nothing happens and yet there's all this eroticism. Just by them walking. Then there's the ferris wheel ride in Rebel without a cause. Again, nothing happens. But it is absolutely incredibly erotic. That's what I feel is happening with DOM. There might be a sex scene or two -- if the plot calls for it-- but whether there are or not, there's gonna be a heck of erotic tension.
I don't really think that eros and religion are in conflict. God invented sex. And eroticism.
The proverbs say that a true witness delivers souls. Many Christian fiction books just simply aren't true. If we are to be witnesses to a truth, we have to start out with the truth-- about our own issues. Christian books are often more legalistic than gospel. The main characters are good people who often are in conflict with some bad aspect of themselves...but the bad aspects are often not bad enough to make the characters real people. They often are temptations rather than incredibly deep character traits. By making the "evil" a character faces something which is a mere temptation, the Christian writer can simply separate the main character from the "evil" and have a nice legalistic happy ending. Person is good now, so person can go to church and be a good part of society. It just doesn't speak to me of grace, of God loving us even when we are evil. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
In a lot of my stories, characters do bad right and left. But they are loved by God because they love Jesus. That is the gospel. When we get caught up in good and evil and believe that making a character good is telling the story of the gospel, we are making a bad mistake. We're teaching the importance of keeping the law. We're writing about and spreading teaching about the knowledge of good and evil. What does it matter if we know what good is, and what evil is? It's grace -- God's love for us in spite of our behavior, and while we are still sinning-- that is the gospel. And when we start saying that sex is bad or that writing about sex is a stumbling block then we are in a hazy world of saying that God has made something that is evil. We also are in the old Augustinian mind-set that says sex is evil.
In this story, I've made Ellie a Creed believer who is loyal to God above else. But she has done a crime. (I don't know what the crime is.) She's real. In that way she'll speak to real people, unlike the Christian characters in much modern Christian fiction who don't speak to the really really unsaved person. For instance, I think more incredibly bad people could probably be touched by Angels with Dirty Faces or Prayer for the Dying or Festen or The Bad Lieutenant than they would be by Christy or a Jeanette Oke book.
God called me to write to the really really really bad unsaved people, and as such I have to be a true witness. I have to witness to what I see in life, to the goodness I see in bad people, and to the lostness I see in saved people. For instance, in WF I had the two young characters make love on the day before they were married. Satha (although she is virginal) did it because she feared not giving in to him would be disastrous and might make him not go ahead with the planned marriage. And her folks needed the dowry money. He did it because he was a spoiled kid who always got his way and he was using her fear for her mother to get into bed (the grass) with her. That was truth, as far as I saw it. It would've been good for me to write a story where Satha held out for one more day, and where Loic didn't have that selfish ability to manipulate a woman, but although it would have been "good" it wouldn't have been true. In the long run, that little bit of dalliance caused some trouble for them but they are human...not Christian cardboard cookie-cutter tereotyped "good"
main characters.
For me to write something that doesn't feel right to me is to go against the idea that "a true witness delivers souls."
In DOM, Ellie is facing death. She is also badly-scarred. A human male loves her dearly. But so does a demon prince. She doesn't want to marry the prince but at the same time the prince has power to kill
her and to force her. And there is a lot in the mix about her conflict. Women like strength. Ugly scarred women like attention, especially if they haven't been getting any. Women like powerful men (at least in romances.) A powerful man with telepathic powers is going to use it to seduce a woman who thinks he's demonic. And the human male is going to have much sorrow and conflict about what to do with a woman he loves who has seemingly given up her faith to save her life.
It's been said that a novel is a conversation about the conflict between the soul and the spirit. In Wind Follower, the conversation was: "would you give up your religion for the religion of your oppressors?" That echoed conflict in my life. Sometimes one's religion puts one in the company of people one doesn't really like. And giving up one's religion means giving up certain things you are attached to. So there is always conflict in novels.
In Christian novels the conflicts are pretty narrowly-defined within home, faith, marriage. Very narrowly-defined. So I don't write for Christians because they don't want to read about Christian racist character working against his racism. They can't handle that kind conflicted characters or plots that don't have easy answers. They really can't. But God has called me to write Christian novels for a secular audience who can deal with such conflicting stuff.
I mean...what a different world it would be if Christian writers dealt with the racism of Sarah (Abraham's wife) or even with the fact that Abraham probably slept with Hagar quite a bit. Or even the fact that according to the ancient Jewish rabbis, Keturah Abraham's third wife was really in fact Hagar. I love that kind of stuff. The man wasn't perfect. He was a conflicted human. And Christian writing has no edge and has lost its ability to be very complicated. I have no doubt that if the books of the Bible was being gathered together today, Christian people would leave out a lot of David's misdemeanors, all of Song of Solomon, most of Judges.
The Christians who have read portions of Wind Follower didn't stumble. So far as I know. But the book isn't for them. And considering how rigid the christian guidelines are...the CBA's attitude is that most everything can make their readers stumble. I mean...they don't want to talk about race because they say Christian
readers need something safe to read. By avoiding certain supposed stumbling blocks, they have enabled close-minded folks to stay close-minded.
That's just my opinion. Christian writers write about sex in non-fiction books. Why not write about the weird inner conflicts of sex in fiction books? What's the difference?
Yes, the truth is about letting our light shine: healing the sick, raising the dead, binding up the broken-hearted. We shine the word in dark places. But then we have to show the dark places also so people can recognize the darkness of it. Sex is also a wonderful thing. Why not spotlight it in a story? Christians won't be reading it, probably. But I suspect the non-christian who reads it will see much of the spiritual glory of sexuality. Just me. -C
-C
Friday, July 06, 2007
Interracial love stories and normalcy
I once had a white friend in my writer’s critique group ask me, “Why do you always write about mixed couples? That’s a very bad habit of yours. Can’t you write about normal couples in regular same-race relationships?”
I suppose I could, but I don’t want to. I want to write love stories that heal my soul. I am married to a white man and I want to tell love stories about black women and white men. The typical black woman has seen enough from the media to know that many folks consider black women the bottom rung of beauty and attractiveness and the white woman as the pinnacle. This can be very wounding to the soul. I'm pretty sure this lack of appreciation of our beauty certainly contributes to our habit of medicating ourselves with food. Racism is a cruel thing.
The white writer either did not want to see the importance of my life experiences, felt uncomfortable with interracial relationships, or perhaps (I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt) didn’t realize that by asking me to write in a “normal” way that she was trying to nudge me and my writing toward a little space she considered proper and appropriate.
Actually, let me backtrack a bit. I'm gonna be honest. She was plain racist and uncomfortable with my stories and she was trying to shame me. She belonged to that group of liberals who think they're non-racist and enlightened and deep ("spiritual") but who was really overflowing with all sorts of issues. There, I said it.
She was speaking from her privileged status as a “normal” person, someone who—like the “majority” of people in the world—are in same-race relationships. I suppose I should have challenged her, but the emotional fact is that when among the normal, the non-normal person often forgets how different he or she is. Because of the illness our son endured and other issues, hubby and I have slowly slipped into non-normality. The slippery slide was imperceptible but that's how these things happen. (Heck, I got used to seeing a naked teenager walking through the house!) Anyway, an accusation or call to normality does the trick of getting the non-normal person in line.
The non-normal will always interpret lives (real and fictional) differently than the herd; and the herd, because of majority privilege and because they hang around normal people and generally see normal things, will always consider the non-normal a bit paranoid, touchy, or contrary. But there are enough folks out there who have had life push them toward the abnormal. They will understand writers and mommies like me. And that alone enables me to speak, breathe, write, and interpret freely.
Unfortunately, in that small world (the writing group) that writer friend had a large say. She was quite a mocker and I quickly retreated and therefore did not challenge her interpretation of my “habit.” I kept quiet and seethed at her call to normalcy, knowing that—whatever her wishes—I would write what I wanted to. Being quiet was easy because in a world larger than that writing group I had allies. And I was writing for them.
Wind Follower is an interracial novel, among other things. The characters in the story aren't particularly upset by it. I'm working on Daughters of Men now. In this story, race and interracial marriage also play a part. There are so many different kinds of humans in the novel and yet...in some ways race does matter. After that there's Inheritance, a May-July Relationship between a bi-racial white/Asian young man and an African-American older woman. I'll see how that comes out.
But whatever happens, I won't be ashamed of my stories.
I suppose I could, but I don’t want to. I want to write love stories that heal my soul. I am married to a white man and I want to tell love stories about black women and white men. The typical black woman has seen enough from the media to know that many folks consider black women the bottom rung of beauty and attractiveness and the white woman as the pinnacle. This can be very wounding to the soul. I'm pretty sure this lack of appreciation of our beauty certainly contributes to our habit of medicating ourselves with food. Racism is a cruel thing.
The white writer either did not want to see the importance of my life experiences, felt uncomfortable with interracial relationships, or perhaps (I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt) didn’t realize that by asking me to write in a “normal” way that she was trying to nudge me and my writing toward a little space she considered proper and appropriate.
Actually, let me backtrack a bit. I'm gonna be honest. She was plain racist and uncomfortable with my stories and she was trying to shame me. She belonged to that group of liberals who think they're non-racist and enlightened and deep ("spiritual") but who was really overflowing with all sorts of issues. There, I said it.
She was speaking from her privileged status as a “normal” person, someone who—like the “majority” of people in the world—are in same-race relationships. I suppose I should have challenged her, but the emotional fact is that when among the normal, the non-normal person often forgets how different he or she is. Because of the illness our son endured and other issues, hubby and I have slowly slipped into non-normality. The slippery slide was imperceptible but that's how these things happen. (Heck, I got used to seeing a naked teenager walking through the house!) Anyway, an accusation or call to normality does the trick of getting the non-normal person in line.
The non-normal will always interpret lives (real and fictional) differently than the herd; and the herd, because of majority privilege and because they hang around normal people and generally see normal things, will always consider the non-normal a bit paranoid, touchy, or contrary. But there are enough folks out there who have had life push them toward the abnormal. They will understand writers and mommies like me. And that alone enables me to speak, breathe, write, and interpret freely.
Unfortunately, in that small world (the writing group) that writer friend had a large say. She was quite a mocker and I quickly retreated and therefore did not challenge her interpretation of my “habit.” I kept quiet and seethed at her call to normalcy, knowing that—whatever her wishes—I would write what I wanted to. Being quiet was easy because in a world larger than that writing group I had allies. And I was writing for them.
Wind Follower is an interracial novel, among other things. The characters in the story aren't particularly upset by it. I'm working on Daughters of Men now. In this story, race and interracial marriage also play a part. There are so many different kinds of humans in the novel and yet...in some ways race does matter. After that there's Inheritance, a May-July Relationship between a bi-racial white/Asian young man and an African-American older woman. I'll see how that comes out.
But whatever happens, I won't be ashamed of my stories.
Monday, July 02, 2007
thoughts on windfollower
Hi all:
In one of our emails together, Paula (the editor at Juno) said something to the effect of, "Well, don't get too worried about it. After all, this is not great literature we're writing. It's entertainment."
The funny thing is, I DO think Wind Follower is great literature. It's not a literary book, of course. But my heart is in it. It's an epic. It's got heart and depth and soul. All my issues...from Monua's lament about poverty to Satha having a messy house because one is too depressed and overwhelmed with life to fix it to Loic's miniature weepy fetal position breakdown when all the religious people are telling him what he should do (telling him who he is in fact) instead of listening to him to religious issues. All my soul is in this book.
As I work on DOM -- and don't get me wrong about DOM, I like DOM-- I feel lots of fun. But I don't have the sense of the beautiful permanent literary worthiness of the book. Of course all books feel differently to their authors. DOM will probably be a good book --even if it's not written from my soul's pain-- but I am so hoping the reception the book gets will challenge Paula's words (I wish I had challenged them, since lately I've been going through the decisions in life to Speak my mind because silence means assent.)
I see a lot of the synops for Juno books and I want to read many of them, but not because I think they speak to my spiritual or emotional condition. They just look like good stories. But the stories they tell are stories that aren't epics, stories that don't deal with large racial, religions, and emotional existential questions.
Anyway, I had to get that off my chest. I suppose there are many writers out there who want to write a permanently-loved classic. And being a lit major that's all I think about: great works.
Ah well, we will see. I'm hoping it speaks to a lot of people. It goes to printer around 7/23, I think. Maybe later. Due for release in October.
-C
In one of our emails together, Paula (the editor at Juno) said something to the effect of, "Well, don't get too worried about it. After all, this is not great literature we're writing. It's entertainment."
The funny thing is, I DO think Wind Follower is great literature. It's not a literary book, of course. But my heart is in it. It's an epic. It's got heart and depth and soul. All my issues...from Monua's lament about poverty to Satha having a messy house because one is too depressed and overwhelmed with life to fix it to Loic's miniature weepy fetal position breakdown when all the religious people are telling him what he should do (telling him who he is in fact) instead of listening to him to religious issues. All my soul is in this book.
As I work on DOM -- and don't get me wrong about DOM, I like DOM-- I feel lots of fun. But I don't have the sense of the beautiful permanent literary worthiness of the book. Of course all books feel differently to their authors. DOM will probably be a good book --even if it's not written from my soul's pain-- but I am so hoping the reception the book gets will challenge Paula's words (I wish I had challenged them, since lately I've been going through the decisions in life to Speak my mind because silence means assent.)
I see a lot of the synops for Juno books and I want to read many of them, but not because I think they speak to my spiritual or emotional condition. They just look like good stories. But the stories they tell are stories that aren't epics, stories that don't deal with large racial, religions, and emotional existential questions.
Anyway, I had to get that off my chest. I suppose there are many writers out there who want to write a permanently-loved classic. And being a lit major that's all I think about: great works.
Ah well, we will see. I'm hoping it speaks to a lot of people. It goes to printer around 7/23, I think. Maybe later. Due for release in October.
-C
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Tribal photo site
Some of you know how much I love tribal customs. I'm always watching Travel Channel Discovery Channel, etc. I started liking tribalism and anthropology when I was a kid and my mother was in college studying the Yanomamo Tribe...the fierce people.
From then on I was hooked. Marriage customs, courtship customs, death rituals, rite-of-change rituals.
Of course it slipped into my book, Wind Follower which is about four tribes..and which uses Christianity at its most primitive and Scriptural. The Christian mythos is obvious and yet not pushy or preachy. The book will be out soon. Those who love anthropology and folklore and speculative fiction (or weird missionary stories about missionaries battling with shaman) will love it.
In the meantime, check out one of my favorite sites on the internet:
Tribal Photo
From then on I was hooked. Marriage customs, courtship customs, death rituals, rite-of-change rituals.
Of course it slipped into my book, Wind Follower which is about four tribes..and which uses Christianity at its most primitive and Scriptural. The Christian mythos is obvious and yet not pushy or preachy. The book will be out soon. Those who love anthropology and folklore and speculative fiction (or weird missionary stories about missionaries battling with shaman) will love it.
In the meantime, check out one of my favorite sites on the internet:
Tribal Photo
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Wind Follower update
Hi folks:
Got this from the Juno author update:
*Windfollower, Carole McDonnell - is back from the copy editor; cover is being done now. This one will have an Advance Readers Copy. We will be going ahead and publishing the book soon after (July/August), but the ARCs will be dated officially as October. (This is in order to get reviews. You need a three month lead time.)
Remember also that pre-orders are important so you can go to Amazon or to Borders and pre-order. Those pre-orders help. Paula wrote that she cancelled some books or sent them to POD (instead of offset) because they had few pre-orders. So -- if you're inclined to like multiculti paranormal romance (or if you know someone who likes it) definitely go ahead. Again, it's rooted in the christian mythos but it's not really like much of the Christian fiction one sees. Think folklore/C S Lewis kinda thing. But waaay different. I can't explain it. It's just an odd little book. If you know anyone who might like it, pass the link along. Muchas, muchas gracias.
To buy Wind Follower by Carole McDonnell click here or go to Amazon
Thanks so much. -C
Got this from the Juno author update:
*Windfollower, Carole McDonnell - is back from the copy editor; cover is being done now. This one will have an Advance Readers Copy. We will be going ahead and publishing the book soon after (July/August), but the ARCs will be dated officially as October. (This is in order to get reviews. You need a three month lead time.)
Remember also that pre-orders are important so you can go to Amazon or to Borders and pre-order. Those pre-orders help. Paula wrote that she cancelled some books or sent them to POD (instead of offset) because they had few pre-orders. So -- if you're inclined to like multiculti paranormal romance (or if you know someone who likes it) definitely go ahead. Again, it's rooted in the christian mythos but it's not really like much of the Christian fiction one sees. Think folklore/C S Lewis kinda thing. But waaay different. I can't explain it. It's just an odd little book. If you know anyone who might like it, pass the link along. Muchas, muchas gracias.
To buy Wind Follower by Carole McDonnell click here or go to Amazon
Thanks so much. -C
Monday, May 28, 2007
Etiquette, Assumptions, and Essentials
Hi all:
My present problem is this: I met someone on the internet who is part of an indie band. After going to his site, I liked his CD and asked if I could review it. He sent me the CD. I did an interview with him and got it posted on the internet. I figure he gave me the CD to listen to and to review it. So I accomplished my part of the bargain.
Then, because
1) we had developed a kind of friendly acquaintance and
2) because I had seen his work and
3) because he spoke of faith (Hinduism) and living by faith
I figured I'd send him to look at some of my writings around the web, including this site:
I also sent him to my angel story
angel story
And (SPOILER: TORTURE ALERT IN THIS FIRST CHAPTER) a link to the excerpted first chapter of my
soon-to-be-published novel Wind Follower
Interestingly, he did not answer my email. Not even a polite, "so that's what you write?" about my own creative efforts.
Okay, I feel that when someone doesn't say anything about one's work, it's because they are trying to be polite because they hate one's writings.
Now, I'll grant that we really had no bargain about him looking at MY work. I really am upset about this. I find myself saying "don't cross the line with anyone you're going to review." There is one zone...the public zone...and there is the social zone. He was someone I was doing a social thing for. He doesn't owe me to look at my writing. But I feel that etiquette demands that he at least should give a corresponding look at something I (another creative type) asked him to look at.
Interestingly, sometimes people of other faiths can talk about themselves living by faith but as soon as a Christian talks about living by faith or sends them to a site about their own faith experiences, the person assumes the Christian is trying to passive-aggressively save them.
I asked a cyber acquaintance and she said I was being hubristic to expect him to reply to me. Because I had sent him to my site and he hadn't asked to see any of my writing.
"expecting a response is hubristic" ??? That seems kind of harsh. I'd say I'm weak, or overly-friendly, or needy but not hubristic. An artist's desire to see another artists's response to her art is not hubristic. It's what we artist types live for. Plus it's the nature of human beings to start conversations with people expecting a response. And it's the nature of kind folks to give of themselves. Artists and needy types live to share. Yes, I wanted to share my writings...and what is bad about that?
In addition, the person who said I was hubristic also hinted that I might have been trying to "save" the guy and maybe he was offended because Christians are always trying to save people and non-Christians find that all so old hat after a while.
(Incidentally, non-Christians being easily offended by Christians is just as old as Christians trying to convert non-christians. )
Did I get offended when this person talked about his hindu spirituality? Did I even assume this person was trying to save me when he was talking about his worldview? No, I assumed the best of him. And even if he was trying to convert me, I took it well.
We humans live by assumptions. Much of life is lived by assumptions. The assumption of reciprocity for instance.
I think what I've learned in this situation is this:
A) some people like receiving but don't like responding in kind. They don't believe that one good turn (even a voluntary one) deserves another.
B) that I myself -- like many American women-- tend to assume that others will be kind or even polite.
C) that although I gave him the benefit of the doubt about possibly trying to convert me, that he didn't give me the benefit of the doubt.
D) that a simple act of friendship in sharing one's work with a fellow artist can be seen as insulting even though the fellow artist shared his work...and all art is about sharing. BECAUSE although you asked to see the artist's work, the artist didn't ask to see one's work. And BECAUSE you are a Christian and the other artist is not, although the other artist talked about his spirituality.
E) online relationships are interesting, especially online relationships between artists.
After my mother died i got some money from insurance. I gave 1500 to my cousin, 1000 to my friend and 1499 to my minister. I've since learned that they are not to be trusted. A hard lesson, but it made me realize that when millions start pouring in...I'll be careful about who i'm generous with.
This is a lesson i needed to learn. I just have to wipe away the shame and hurt i feel because i asked someone to look at my work. I mean...why should I be the one who feels shame for sharing my heart when the other person shared all his heart in his emails? The pain i feel in my heart is like the rejection one feels when one has had a story rejected. Very painful, very shameful. As if I am not only untalented, but psychologically sick and culturally "wrong" to ask someone to look at my writing.
We all want to be liked and I suspect there are boundary issues that wounded folks are likely to cross all the time. I think I'm learning how to be a little colder in life.
So, should I be so upset and get all cynical about human nature? Should I stop giving? Am I right to feel hurt? Although I gave without any desire to be reciprocated, it hadn't occurred to me that simply sharing my view of spiritual matters with someone (who had shared with me) and my own creativity (with someone who had shared with me) to be a kind of assumed reciprocation?
Do I have a right to be upset? Isn't it really my own assumption about etiquette that is getting my panties all in a bunch? This isn't heaven after all where we all live to give and live to share. It's just all very upsetting. Yes, yes, I know...we women are always mixing up things and taking things personally when to other folks it's "business." As they say, no matter when the houseseller or the realtor says, no matter what the cops say, don't assume it's personal -- even if they act like they're your pal-- it's all business.
My present problem is this: I met someone on the internet who is part of an indie band. After going to his site, I liked his CD and asked if I could review it. He sent me the CD. I did an interview with him and got it posted on the internet. I figure he gave me the CD to listen to and to review it. So I accomplished my part of the bargain.
Then, because
1) we had developed a kind of friendly acquaintance and
2) because I had seen his work and
3) because he spoke of faith (Hinduism) and living by faith
I figured I'd send him to look at some of my writings around the web, including this site:
I also sent him to my angel story
angel story
And (SPOILER: TORTURE ALERT IN THIS FIRST CHAPTER) a link to the excerpted first chapter of my
soon-to-be-published novel Wind Follower
Interestingly, he did not answer my email. Not even a polite, "so that's what you write?" about my own creative efforts.
Okay, I feel that when someone doesn't say anything about one's work, it's because they are trying to be polite because they hate one's writings.
Now, I'll grant that we really had no bargain about him looking at MY work. I really am upset about this. I find myself saying "don't cross the line with anyone you're going to review." There is one zone...the public zone...and there is the social zone. He was someone I was doing a social thing for. He doesn't owe me to look at my writing. But I feel that etiquette demands that he at least should give a corresponding look at something I (another creative type) asked him to look at.
Interestingly, sometimes people of other faiths can talk about themselves living by faith but as soon as a Christian talks about living by faith or sends them to a site about their own faith experiences, the person assumes the Christian is trying to passive-aggressively save them.
I asked a cyber acquaintance and she said I was being hubristic to expect him to reply to me. Because I had sent him to my site and he hadn't asked to see any of my writing.
"expecting a response is hubristic" ??? That seems kind of harsh. I'd say I'm weak, or overly-friendly, or needy but not hubristic. An artist's desire to see another artists's response to her art is not hubristic. It's what we artist types live for. Plus it's the nature of human beings to start conversations with people expecting a response. And it's the nature of kind folks to give of themselves. Artists and needy types live to share. Yes, I wanted to share my writings...and what is bad about that?
In addition, the person who said I was hubristic also hinted that I might have been trying to "save" the guy and maybe he was offended because Christians are always trying to save people and non-Christians find that all so old hat after a while.
(Incidentally, non-Christians being easily offended by Christians is just as old as Christians trying to convert non-christians. )
Did I get offended when this person talked about his hindu spirituality? Did I even assume this person was trying to save me when he was talking about his worldview? No, I assumed the best of him. And even if he was trying to convert me, I took it well.
We humans live by assumptions. Much of life is lived by assumptions. The assumption of reciprocity for instance.
I think what I've learned in this situation is this:
A) some people like receiving but don't like responding in kind. They don't believe that one good turn (even a voluntary one) deserves another.
B) that I myself -- like many American women-- tend to assume that others will be kind or even polite.
C) that although I gave him the benefit of the doubt about possibly trying to convert me, that he didn't give me the benefit of the doubt.
D) that a simple act of friendship in sharing one's work with a fellow artist can be seen as insulting even though the fellow artist shared his work...and all art is about sharing. BECAUSE although you asked to see the artist's work, the artist didn't ask to see one's work. And BECAUSE you are a Christian and the other artist is not, although the other artist talked about his spirituality.
E) online relationships are interesting, especially online relationships between artists.
After my mother died i got some money from insurance. I gave 1500 to my cousin, 1000 to my friend and 1499 to my minister. I've since learned that they are not to be trusted. A hard lesson, but it made me realize that when millions start pouring in...I'll be careful about who i'm generous with.
This is a lesson i needed to learn. I just have to wipe away the shame and hurt i feel because i asked someone to look at my work. I mean...why should I be the one who feels shame for sharing my heart when the other person shared all his heart in his emails? The pain i feel in my heart is like the rejection one feels when one has had a story rejected. Very painful, very shameful. As if I am not only untalented, but psychologically sick and culturally "wrong" to ask someone to look at my writing.
We all want to be liked and I suspect there are boundary issues that wounded folks are likely to cross all the time. I think I'm learning how to be a little colder in life.
So, should I be so upset and get all cynical about human nature? Should I stop giving? Am I right to feel hurt? Although I gave without any desire to be reciprocated, it hadn't occurred to me that simply sharing my view of spiritual matters with someone (who had shared with me) and my own creativity (with someone who had shared with me) to be a kind of assumed reciprocation?
Do I have a right to be upset? Isn't it really my own assumption about etiquette that is getting my panties all in a bunch? This isn't heaven after all where we all live to give and live to share. It's just all very upsetting. Yes, yes, I know...we women are always mixing up things and taking things personally when to other folks it's "business." As they say, no matter when the houseseller or the realtor says, no matter what the cops say, don't assume it's personal -- even if they act like they're your pal-- it's all business.
Friday, May 25, 2007
Angels
There are verses in the Bible about how the angels rejoiced at God's work of creation, and how the angels rejoice when a sinner repents and how the angels rejoiced to see Jesus's day and how the angels comforted Jesus in the garden. I thought of Isaiah chapter 6 where the angels forever praise God singing "Holy, holy, holy!" Someone once said that with each revolution around God the angels see something new and wonderful about God and that for all the ages they've been discovering God they are still startled with the wonder that is God.
I don't know what it was but last night I was overwhelmed with the feeling of the angels' love for humanity. It seemed so strange. There really was no theological benefit to think of their love.
I imagined them praising Him when he made the stars and all the sciences. But how delighted they were when God made man. How amazed they were when God showed them how our bodies worked, how our souls worked, how He had joined Himself to us in such a unique way. (Yes, i know...a few were jealous and rebelled but I'm talking about the angels who are sealed to goodness, those who can no longer sin or rebel against God.)
The angels saw how our bodies would work physically, sexually, intellectually, biologically, chemically. They saw how our souls would sing, design, command, and be like God.
When Jesus was in the garden of Gethsemane, I saw how the angels came and held him tight and wiped his tears.
Luke (hubby) and I just talked and talked all night about that. I keep remembering the angel I saw and how sweet and witty and personable he was. That sweet conspiratorial smile that made me realize that angels have personalities too and that this odd being was my friend..and that he loved me sooo sooo soo very much. It just made my heart leap.
The upshot of all that was that I got up and decided that whether or not Gabe's diagnosis is autistic, he would learn about God. So I began reading the Bible to him. The word of God is alive and can heal him if he understands. When I told him about the rocks and the sun and all the speechless things praising God he smiled with such joy and when I told him about the sick little girl who was on her bed and couldn't move but Jesus told her to get up and she got up he seemed to understand.
I know Jesus gave us a great salvation, and there is no way I'm going to give up.
Carole McDonnell
Wind Follower June 2007 Juno Books
I don't know what it was but last night I was overwhelmed with the feeling of the angels' love for humanity. It seemed so strange. There really was no theological benefit to think of their love.
I imagined them praising Him when he made the stars and all the sciences. But how delighted they were when God made man. How amazed they were when God showed them how our bodies worked, how our souls worked, how He had joined Himself to us in such a unique way. (Yes, i know...a few were jealous and rebelled but I'm talking about the angels who are sealed to goodness, those who can no longer sin or rebel against God.)
The angels saw how our bodies would work physically, sexually, intellectually, biologically, chemically. They saw how our souls would sing, design, command, and be like God.
When Jesus was in the garden of Gethsemane, I saw how the angels came and held him tight and wiped his tears.
Luke (hubby) and I just talked and talked all night about that. I keep remembering the angel I saw and how sweet and witty and personable he was. That sweet conspiratorial smile that made me realize that angels have personalities too and that this odd being was my friend..and that he loved me sooo sooo soo very much. It just made my heart leap.
The upshot of all that was that I got up and decided that whether or not Gabe's diagnosis is autistic, he would learn about God. So I began reading the Bible to him. The word of God is alive and can heal him if he understands. When I told him about the rocks and the sun and all the speechless things praising God he smiled with such joy and when I told him about the sick little girl who was on her bed and couldn't move but Jesus told her to get up and she got up he seemed to understand.
I know Jesus gave us a great salvation, and there is no way I'm going to give up.
Carole McDonnell
Wind Follower June 2007 Juno Books
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Jeanne Guyon
This morning while cleaning my bedroom I came upon a neat quote from Jeanne Guyon's book. It was mentioned in a book called Christian Maturity by Henry Riffle (I think that's the name. I didn't look at the author)
I opened the book to that page and it gave me such joy. She lived in France around 1600-1700 --something like that. I have her book --which was burned back in the day. Anyway, she was talking about commanding the word of healing. It made my heart sing. I like finding stuff like that in old books. Like Pastor Romaine from 1500. When you read stuff in books that are 400 or 500 years old and the christian writers from back in the day are writing the same things that folks like Andrew Wommack and Creflo Dollar and Reinhard Bonnke and Emily Dotson are saying...well it gives a bit of peace. It makes you trust that the present interpretation isn't an American spin/heresy but a truth that is being rediscovered.
Praise God. I feel he led me to it.
I opened the book to that page and it gave me such joy. She lived in France around 1600-1700 --something like that. I have her book --which was burned back in the day. Anyway, she was talking about commanding the word of healing. It made my heart sing. I like finding stuff like that in old books. Like Pastor Romaine from 1500. When you read stuff in books that are 400 or 500 years old and the christian writers from back in the day are writing the same things that folks like Andrew Wommack and Creflo Dollar and Reinhard Bonnke and Emily Dotson are saying...well it gives a bit of peace. It makes you trust that the present interpretation isn't an American spin/heresy but a truth that is being rediscovered.
Praise God. I feel he led me to it.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Christian worldwide gatherings
GLOBAL DAY OF PRAYER GATHERING IN VANCOUVER/PORTLAND
Third annual Global Day of Prayer.
It began on May 17 and culminates on Sunday, May 27. Christians from 220 nations across the world will be in prayer for missions to the nations. For more details check the website www.globaldayofprayer.com. Find out if there is a gathering in your city or area.
7th WORLD CHRISTIAN GATHERING OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLE
The 7th World Christian Gathering of Indigenous People (WCGIP) convenes in Israel in September 9-18, 2008. Delegates from hundreds of tribes from all over the world are expected and many of these tribes and languages will be represented in Jerusalem for the first time in history. E-mail: gavriel@shlichut.com www.wcgip.org
Third annual Global Day of Prayer.
It began on May 17 and culminates on Sunday, May 27. Christians from 220 nations across the world will be in prayer for missions to the nations. For more details check the website www.globaldayofprayer.com. Find out if there is a gathering in your city or area.
7th WORLD CHRISTIAN GATHERING OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLE
The 7th World Christian Gathering of Indigenous People (WCGIP) convenes in Israel in September 9-18, 2008. Delegates from hundreds of tribes from all over the world are expected and many of these tribes and languages will be represented in Jerusalem for the first time in history. E-mail: gavriel@shlichut.com www.wcgip.org
some christian volunteer writing projects
Am passing this along for a friend. I'll be doing the story of the gospel site. These Christian Projects are (Unpaid) Volunteer Work. There are other needs too up at the site. http://www.modernscribe.com/projects.html Those needs look pretty specialized but there is payment for them. -C
The following domain names are designated for non-profit use (no ads or outbound links). When you help develop one of these sites, you help others. How often do you have an opportunity to give a speech in front of 1,000 people who want advice? Develop one of these, and your words should reach thousands of people!
Contact Bill to get started at: http://www.modernscribe.com/contact.html
Moshiach.co.il - Jews who do not believe that Yeshua (Jesus) is the Messiah are still waiting for the Messiah to come. Moshiach is one of the common spellings of the word Messiah in Hebrew. The .co.il extension is the Israeli equivalent of .com. This name receives a little bit of type-in traffic and it is currently forwarded to a Messianic site. I would like someone to write at least one page of content in Hebrew about Yeshua, the Messiah, for non-Messianic Jews.
Yeshua.org.il - Messianic Jews who believe that Jesus is the Messiah refer to him by the Hebrew name of Yeshua. The .org.il extension is the Israeli equivalent of .org. This name receives a little bit of type-in traffic and it is currently forwarded to a Messianic site. I would like someone to write at least one page of content in Hebrew about Yeshua for Messianic Jews.
Giexu.vn - Giexu is the word for Jesus in Vietnamese and .vn is Vietnam's country specific domain name extension. I would like someone to write at least one page of content in Vietnamese about Jesus.
Yesu.org.cn - Yesu is the pinyin word for Jesus in Chinese. The .org.cn extension is the Chinese equivalent of .org. I would like someone to write at least one page of content in simplified Mandarin about Jesus.
Yesu.tv - Yesu is the pinyin word for Jesus in Chinese. I would like someone to find a short video clip about Jesus in Mandarin and then obtain permission from the owners for their clip to be made available for download on yesu.tv. I envision a one page site which has a Flash video player in the center of the page. When a visitor clicks the play button, the video begins to play.
StoryOfTheGospel.com - I would like someone to write at least one page of content about the story of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This should be written in simple enough English for a child to understand.
WhyDoBadThingsHappen.com - On a daily basis, people search online for the phrase, "why do bad things happen". I would like someone to write at least one page of content about the biblical perspective on why bad things happen. This site should keep a positive tone and serve to comfort its readers.
NagHammadi.com - The Nag Hammadi Library was discovered in 1945 and it contained some Gnostic books which have been translated into English. I would like someone to write a few pages of information about the Nag Hammadi find as well as about the Gnostic Gospels. This site should offer a conservative overview which does not cause Christians to lose their faith or stumble into practicing gnosticism.
http://www.modernscribe.com/projects.html
The following domain names are designated for non-profit use (no ads or outbound links). When you help develop one of these sites, you help others. How often do you have an opportunity to give a speech in front of 1,000 people who want advice? Develop one of these, and your words should reach thousands of people!
Contact Bill to get started at: http://www.modernscribe.com/contact.html
Moshiach.co.il - Jews who do not believe that Yeshua (Jesus) is the Messiah are still waiting for the Messiah to come. Moshiach is one of the common spellings of the word Messiah in Hebrew. The .co.il extension is the Israeli equivalent of .com. This name receives a little bit of type-in traffic and it is currently forwarded to a Messianic site. I would like someone to write at least one page of content in Hebrew about Yeshua, the Messiah, for non-Messianic Jews.
Yeshua.org.il - Messianic Jews who believe that Jesus is the Messiah refer to him by the Hebrew name of Yeshua. The .org.il extension is the Israeli equivalent of .org. This name receives a little bit of type-in traffic and it is currently forwarded to a Messianic site. I would like someone to write at least one page of content in Hebrew about Yeshua for Messianic Jews.
Giexu.vn - Giexu is the word for Jesus in Vietnamese and .vn is Vietnam's country specific domain name extension. I would like someone to write at least one page of content in Vietnamese about Jesus.
Yesu.org.cn - Yesu is the pinyin word for Jesus in Chinese. The .org.cn extension is the Chinese equivalent of .org. I would like someone to write at least one page of content in simplified Mandarin about Jesus.
Yesu.tv - Yesu is the pinyin word for Jesus in Chinese. I would like someone to find a short video clip about Jesus in Mandarin and then obtain permission from the owners for their clip to be made available for download on yesu.tv. I envision a one page site which has a Flash video player in the center of the page. When a visitor clicks the play button, the video begins to play.
StoryOfTheGospel.com - I would like someone to write at least one page of content about the story of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This should be written in simple enough English for a child to understand.
WhyDoBadThingsHappen.com - On a daily basis, people search online for the phrase, "why do bad things happen". I would like someone to write at least one page of content about the biblical perspective on why bad things happen. This site should keep a positive tone and serve to comfort its readers.
NagHammadi.com - The Nag Hammadi Library was discovered in 1945 and it contained some Gnostic books which have been translated into English. I would like someone to write a few pages of information about the Nag Hammadi find as well as about the Gnostic Gospels. This site should offer a conservative overview which does not cause Christians to lose their faith or stumble into practicing gnosticism.
http://www.modernscribe.com/projects.html
Sunday, May 13, 2007
walking by faith
More and more it dawns on me how careless we Christians are with our words. We are always taking the Lord's name in vain, we are always spewing forth bitter and sweet water from the same fountain.
I used to wonder if God answered prayers but when I really consider what people do when they pray I realize that so few of us actually are praying the way Jesus told us, and few of us are actually doing what the Bible told us to do.
A friend of mine who always went to psychics was told by a psychic that some horrendous thing would happen. Of course she believed it, although she was a Christian. Her faith in her psychic was greater than her faith in the Bible's promises. Of course some bad thing happened. She had faith for it to happen.
Another friend, a sweet Catholic lady, was diagnosed with cancer. She had faith, her friends had faith. But how did she pray? Always by saying the Chaplet of Divine Mercy and the Hail Mary and prayers to the various saints. Never once did she pray as Jesus told her to pray, "Speak to the mountain and tell it to pick itself up and throw itself into the sea." In the meantime, instead of taking heed to what she heard -- which Jesus told us to do-- she went online and studied every aspect of her disease. She trusted what man said about disease more than what Jesus said about health. Of course, we all trust what man says more than what Jesus says...but we are not supposed to. We must trust God and not lean unto our own understanding.
Then there were folks in my evangelical church who prayed all the while for God's mercy. Oh God, please heal your servant, etc. The entire prayer time asking for God's mercy instead of simply believing that God has already given mercy. Instead of saying to the sickness in the sick person, "I rebuke you in the name of Jesus. By Jesus's stripes this person was healed! Therefore you have no right to bother
her. Leave her alone and take your symptoms and your roots and your seeds and leave this woman's body."
But in the meantime, although they kept praying to God to heal her, during coffee hour what do they say? "It's all in God's hand whether he decides to heal or not. I'll prepare myself just in case I hurt." Then when these folks die everyone said, "Look, they had faith and nothing happened." I just want to scream at the way people blame God for stuff when we humans are not doing what God told us to do.
Pray, water the word with thanksgiving, rebuke the sickness, see the invisible, walk by faith in God's love, power, and care.
I was just talking to some neighbors who just came from church. I so wish negative conversation wasn't a part of our "normal" conversation. I'm always hearing about how bad it is for black people, and when I look at what is happening in their lives I want to challenge them and say, "the Bible says 'you will have what you say!' Do you see that perhaps your habit of saying about your son 'if it weren't for bad luck, he'd have no luck at all' is not helping matters?"
God wants us to fly. The world weighs us down.
The Bible declares, "Let God be true and every man a liar." If we want miracles, that's what we have to do.
I know how tough it is to say things or do things that one's church doesn't do. But if you read the Bible and see what God demands of you, then you won't care what the people around you do?
Speaking is so important. Jesus said, we should have what we say. Not that we don't get what we pray for silently, but if speaking is a weapon, why not use it? We are told to speak to the mountain not to think to the mountain. We can talk to God about the mountain, but we must talk to the mountain about the promises of God and about the blood of Jesus.
So many places in the Bible talk about talking.
He who orders his conversation aright
I will say of the Lord He is my refuge and my fortress
Let the redeemed of the Lord say so
Let the weak say I am strong.
Death and life are in the power of the tongue.
In Revelations, the sword comes from Jesus' mouth.
The sword of the spirit is the word of God.
Jesus has chosen preaching which seems foolish to humans but which is powerful. Jesus wants us to preach to humans and to mountains and to demons. Tell every creature about the great gospel.
We must not be dominated by what we see, hear, taste and feel. We must know that God does things and we don't necessarily see it.
Just another point. Many of us are carnal Christians. And we have to learn that when we use spiritual weapons we aren't battling the air, we are actually doing battle. Most Christian people walk by sight and if they don't see what they're doing (or the effects of what they're doing), they think nothing is happening. Most of Christianity is carnal and hasn't learned truly that we walk by faith. When you speak Scriptures, you are slashing the demonic world -- sickness, debt, demonic, whatever-- with the sword of the spirit. Something is happening in the spiritual realm. When we praise God, something is happening. When we speak in tongues something is happening. We must trust that God wouldn't speak so much about speaking the word and meditating (in hebrew the word for meditating also means mumbling and speaking aloud to one's self) on the word .
There is a spiritual world around us and God's people should know that. Our faith creates a bridge which brings the spiritual blessings of Christ's cross into the physical realm. Speaking Scriptures show that we acknowledge that there is stuff going on around us and we are warring spiritually. We must acknowledge the spiritual realm. God is spirit and he works in the spirit and we must worship him in spirit which most of the time means we are to do things we may not understand yet believe that something is really happening. -C
I used to wonder if God answered prayers but when I really consider what people do when they pray I realize that so few of us actually are praying the way Jesus told us, and few of us are actually doing what the Bible told us to do.
A friend of mine who always went to psychics was told by a psychic that some horrendous thing would happen. Of course she believed it, although she was a Christian. Her faith in her psychic was greater than her faith in the Bible's promises. Of course some bad thing happened. She had faith for it to happen.
Another friend, a sweet Catholic lady, was diagnosed with cancer. She had faith, her friends had faith. But how did she pray? Always by saying the Chaplet of Divine Mercy and the Hail Mary and prayers to the various saints. Never once did she pray as Jesus told her to pray, "Speak to the mountain and tell it to pick itself up and throw itself into the sea." In the meantime, instead of taking heed to what she heard -- which Jesus told us to do-- she went online and studied every aspect of her disease. She trusted what man said about disease more than what Jesus said about health. Of course, we all trust what man says more than what Jesus says...but we are not supposed to. We must trust God and not lean unto our own understanding.
Then there were folks in my evangelical church who prayed all the while for God's mercy. Oh God, please heal your servant, etc. The entire prayer time asking for God's mercy instead of simply believing that God has already given mercy. Instead of saying to the sickness in the sick person, "I rebuke you in the name of Jesus. By Jesus's stripes this person was healed! Therefore you have no right to bother
her. Leave her alone and take your symptoms and your roots and your seeds and leave this woman's body."
But in the meantime, although they kept praying to God to heal her, during coffee hour what do they say? "It's all in God's hand whether he decides to heal or not. I'll prepare myself just in case I hurt." Then when these folks die everyone said, "Look, they had faith and nothing happened." I just want to scream at the way people blame God for stuff when we humans are not doing what God told us to do.
Pray, water the word with thanksgiving, rebuke the sickness, see the invisible, walk by faith in God's love, power, and care.
I was just talking to some neighbors who just came from church. I so wish negative conversation wasn't a part of our "normal" conversation. I'm always hearing about how bad it is for black people, and when I look at what is happening in their lives I want to challenge them and say, "the Bible says 'you will have what you say!' Do you see that perhaps your habit of saying about your son 'if it weren't for bad luck, he'd have no luck at all' is not helping matters?"
God wants us to fly. The world weighs us down.
The Bible declares, "Let God be true and every man a liar." If we want miracles, that's what we have to do.
I know how tough it is to say things or do things that one's church doesn't do. But if you read the Bible and see what God demands of you, then you won't care what the people around you do?
Speaking is so important. Jesus said, we should have what we say. Not that we don't get what we pray for silently, but if speaking is a weapon, why not use it? We are told to speak to the mountain not to think to the mountain. We can talk to God about the mountain, but we must talk to the mountain about the promises of God and about the blood of Jesus.
So many places in the Bible talk about talking.
He who orders his conversation aright
I will say of the Lord He is my refuge and my fortress
Let the redeemed of the Lord say so
Let the weak say I am strong.
Death and life are in the power of the tongue.
In Revelations, the sword comes from Jesus' mouth.
The sword of the spirit is the word of God.
Jesus has chosen preaching which seems foolish to humans but which is powerful. Jesus wants us to preach to humans and to mountains and to demons. Tell every creature about the great gospel.
We must not be dominated by what we see, hear, taste and feel. We must know that God does things and we don't necessarily see it.
Just another point. Many of us are carnal Christians. And we have to learn that when we use spiritual weapons we aren't battling the air, we are actually doing battle. Most Christian people walk by sight and if they don't see what they're doing (or the effects of what they're doing), they think nothing is happening. Most of Christianity is carnal and hasn't learned truly that we walk by faith. When you speak Scriptures, you are slashing the demonic world -- sickness, debt, demonic, whatever-- with the sword of the spirit. Something is happening in the spiritual realm. When we praise God, something is happening. When we speak in tongues something is happening. We must trust that God wouldn't speak so much about speaking the word and meditating (in hebrew the word for meditating also means mumbling and speaking aloud to one's self) on the word .
There is a spiritual world around us and God's people should know that. Our faith creates a bridge which brings the spiritual blessings of Christ's cross into the physical realm. Speaking Scriptures show that we acknowledge that there is stuff going on around us and we are warring spiritually. We must acknowledge the spiritual realm. God is spirit and he works in the spirit and we must worship him in spirit which most of the time means we are to do things we may not understand yet believe that something is really happening. -C
Thursday, May 03, 2007
Rational versus irrational
Okay, once again Law and Order has shown religious people as being irrational. I swear you can always tell who the baddie is in these episodes. If it's a religious person who reads his Bible he's got to be the villain. And Law and Order is not the only television show that's guilty of this.
Why do they think Bible readers are irrational?
The Bible is the best book in the world. And folks who judge Bible readers really should consider many things if they want to say the Bible stifles critical thinking.
Movies always behave as if Bible believers are an uneducated bunch. True, many Bible lovers are uneducated. But others are quite educated.
Look at me. I totally believe the Bible is the word of God. Totally. My house has about 2000 Bible study books. Hey, I'm a lit major. I love studying. I learned how to do reading comprehension. I learned how to deal with writers like the Bible prophets who spoke symbolically and who digressed then returned to a point. I learned to link things together. I'm educated. Somewhat.
But many Christians -- black and white-- were taught by sweet little old ladies who had a dream of stopping crime or of preventing girls from becoming pregnant. They did well -- wonderful and noble deeds. In fact, their place in our community as teachers was often all the respect they had. And wanting to read the Bible was one of the reasons they learned to read. Although I don't know why so many of them think they actually fully comprehend Elizabethan English. Many a weird cult has begun because someone didn't understand Shakespearean English.
So yeah, some folks just don't understand reading comprehension, some don't research, some don't aim to improve their knowledge. Human pride, what can I say? Just because they are Christians doesn't mean they are immune to vanity or idiocy. They don't want to realize that they might need to know more. Does that mean uneducated people can't think? Or that the Bible has stopped their brains? Or that everyone who reads the Bible is an idiot? No.
The Bible for one has taught me a kind of divine cynicism. It shows us how humans fool each other and themselves. It teaches us to distrust humans and culture. Always a good thing. And it teaches us to study. The Bible isn't anti-reason. It simply demands that we distrust our fellow man and trust God's view of things.
What's wrong with a little authority about spiritual things? Doing without Sriptural authority is like remaking the wheel. If everyone started on their own wisdom path from scratch without looking to the works of their spiritual ancestors, we would all be starting out as cavemen. Why not say: "It is written that such and such a course is not good to take." Why not believe what other people have said? If the Bible tells us for instance that women should really be married before sleeping with men, why not believe it? God knows men are selfish, will abandon women, women will be raising children in povery. Why not trust it?
Anyone learning to read the Bible learns how to compare word to word, thought to thought, verse to verse. Even uneducated poor black grandmas and little kids learn to do this. We see a verse about sexual purity here. Then we see a verse which says a divorced man is like someone wearing the coat of a bloodshed victim (Malachi). Then we read a place where God says we must be satisfied with the breasts of the wife of our youth. Or that young men should avoide strange women. Or that when a woman is raped it is akin to murder. And all these little old ladies --including myself-- study those verses and come up with a general meaning.
Rational vs rational
Something else has to be clarified here:
The word "Rational" (as used by most people) has two distinct meanings.
A) It could refer to a thought pattern that does not operate in a logical manner.
B) It could refer to a conclusion arrived at that does not fit in with the listener's worldview.
The first meaning -- having to do with manner and pattern of a person's way of thinking-- can be useful for judging the Bible reader. But it doesn't really judge the Bible. There are many logical thinkers who read and believe the Bible. And there are many illogical thinkers who read and believer the Bible. Also, there are many logical thinkers who do not believe the Bible and many illogical thinkers who believe the Bible.
In the second case where "rational" refers to the conclusion -- whether logically or illogically arrived at-- then personal prejudices and worldview issues often come into play.
Stephen Hawking for instance may not believe in the Bible but he is a theist. Carl Sagan -- just as logical and perhaps not as smart-- is not a theist and simply did not believe in any kind of God. In a situation where someone is judging someone's rationality all sorts of questions can come up. Is the person thinking irrationally because he is insane? Because he has a different path to follow? Because he is "misinterpreting" some of the evidence/clues he sees?
Many Americans think Christians are irrational because they think the Christian is thinking in an unworldly way. But in Africa where the average person (Christian or otherwise) believes in the spirit world much more than the average American (Christian or otherwise) there wouldn't be a question about irrational thinking just because someone believes something that doesn't jibe with the scientific model of worldview -- closed universe and all that.
I've done many a thing that seems irrational and yet God and the Universe have continually shown me that I'm quite right. Indeed, I suspect that many a little Christian old lady (educated or not) has had the same experience and that's why they trust and love Jesus so much.
Three examples:
I once went into a GNC at the mall. A man walked past me. I heard "in my spirit" a voice that said: "This is so-and-so. He's the general manager of such-and-such a radio station." The name of there person and his title and his workplace. I walked over to the man and quite irrationally said, "Hi, are you so and so?" He said, "I am." I did not behave irrationally, mind you. I didn't go over and tell him that the holy spirit had told me who he was. So I had some sense. But still, it is kind of irrational to believe some weird bit of information one hears in one's spirit.
Another time, I was working on my novel Wind Follower (to be published in June). I decided on a whim to make the main character an epileptic and needed a name to call the illness. I decided on "the falling sickness." Wrote a scene. Got up from my computer. On a lark I turned on the TV and flipped through the channel. I saw some guys in togas. Shakespeare's Julius Ceasar. As I listened I heard one character say, "well you know Ceasar has the falling sickness."
Another time, I finished writing a scene where a character tells another character he should change his name from Stevie to Steve because Stevie sounds so childish. I went upstairs and although I NEVER turn the radio on at night, turned it on for some strange reasons. A guy was calling in to the DJ. He said, "My girlfriend thinks I should quit calling myself Stevie because it's too childish." Kid you not.
I once had a dream in which two teenaged boys from up the road were beating my young 3 year old with iron pipes. Terrified I woke up. Around mid-day those two boys from up the road visited. They held up a little piece of yarn. "We want to play with Logan. We're playing cowboys and Indians." They let the yarn flow along my hand. "See it doesn't hurt. We won't hurt him." Needless to say although my son wanted to go out and play with them cause he was a lonely kid, I didn't. God had warned me.
I remember one day about nine months after my older son was born. I was sitting in my room watching my son playing with blocks. I heard --in the way one hears these things-- in my spirit the clear words "rest." It was so clear that I looked around. I walked over to my son and he had taken the letters R E S T and placed them in perfect order forming the word rest. He was only nine months. I should have learned to rest. I didn't and not resting after childbirth proved to be very harmful to my health for about 20 years.
I remember once I got some money and I was wondering who to give my tithe to. I said a prayer, "Lord, who should I give this tithe to?"
Immediately the name of a friend across the country was impressed upon me. It was so strange to hear that name in my heart that I suddenly stood still. I thought, "that was weird!" Generally, guidance didn't come so quickly and the name had come so suddenly and so clearly after the prayer...I found myself thinking that the idea had come from my own mind. And yet, it was so weird to suddenly get this girl's name in my head. I decided to tithe the money to her.
Then, I said...I could send her a check...but I had bounced checks recently and I was bounce-wary. All I needed was to pay $50 to my bank for bouncing a check written as a gift to a friend, and then my friend's bank would also charge her for the bounce. So a gift check for $50 would cost $150 by the time everything was said and done. (Okay, I get nervous and like I said I was very nervous about bouncing a check.)
Then I thought I would send the money as cash. But then I got nervous about that. Cash might get lost in the mail. Then I thought about a money order. But I didn't want to go to the bank or the post office to write a money order. Hey, it's cold in winter in NY and I didn't want to deal with it.
I decided on pay-pal. But I had to wait until the check I had received cleared and went into my paypal account.
Anyway, one night about four days after this quandary and decision, I went online to check if my money was in paypal. It wasn't. Later that night, instead of going to bed, I went downstairs again and for some weird reason (thank you, God) turned on the computer and went online to paypal. The money was there!
I transferred the money from my paypal account to my friend's paypal account.
The next morning my friend emailed me. It seems that the night before -- the night i felt the need to as transfer the money to my friend's account -- my friend was driving home from the hospital with her sick husband. She was miles away from home. Maybe 40 miles. And had run out of gas. She had no money left in her checking account and on a whim (thank you, God) decided to check her paypal account. Voila, the money I had sent her was in it. She hadn't even expected it. But that money got her gas and got her home from the hospital.
I love when God does stuff like that. It makes me feel that yes I do hear from God. It makes my friend know that God is aware of her. It makes us both know that God is aware of the future and provides for the future in the present. Isn't our God good? IT just makes me so happy when stuff like this happens. And they happen all the time. Doesn't it just make you roll your eyes when some atheist says that only idiots think that God exists? Hey, if this kind of lovely stuff is what happens to idiots, may I be an idiot forever!
Thank you Jesus.
I cannot tell you the amount of times my life and my family's life have been saved or my children's life by trusting the irrational.
We Christians call that kind of thing "God winks." It the situation is death-defying, we call them "testimonies of God's protection." These events are odd and a Christian's trust in them is utterly irrational. But it gives us a feeling of being loved. And while everyone has some odd thing happen to them once in a while, these things tend to happen incredibly frequently to Bible-believers..
Why do they think Bible readers are irrational?
The Bible is the best book in the world. And folks who judge Bible readers really should consider many things if they want to say the Bible stifles critical thinking.
Movies always behave as if Bible believers are an uneducated bunch. True, many Bible lovers are uneducated. But others are quite educated.
Look at me. I totally believe the Bible is the word of God. Totally. My house has about 2000 Bible study books. Hey, I'm a lit major. I love studying. I learned how to do reading comprehension. I learned how to deal with writers like the Bible prophets who spoke symbolically and who digressed then returned to a point. I learned to link things together. I'm educated. Somewhat.
But many Christians -- black and white-- were taught by sweet little old ladies who had a dream of stopping crime or of preventing girls from becoming pregnant. They did well -- wonderful and noble deeds. In fact, their place in our community as teachers was often all the respect they had. And wanting to read the Bible was one of the reasons they learned to read. Although I don't know why so many of them think they actually fully comprehend Elizabethan English. Many a weird cult has begun because someone didn't understand Shakespearean English.
So yeah, some folks just don't understand reading comprehension, some don't research, some don't aim to improve their knowledge. Human pride, what can I say? Just because they are Christians doesn't mean they are immune to vanity or idiocy. They don't want to realize that they might need to know more. Does that mean uneducated people can't think? Or that the Bible has stopped their brains? Or that everyone who reads the Bible is an idiot? No.
The Bible for one has taught me a kind of divine cynicism. It shows us how humans fool each other and themselves. It teaches us to distrust humans and culture. Always a good thing. And it teaches us to study. The Bible isn't anti-reason. It simply demands that we distrust our fellow man and trust God's view of things.
What's wrong with a little authority about spiritual things? Doing without Sriptural authority is like remaking the wheel. If everyone started on their own wisdom path from scratch without looking to the works of their spiritual ancestors, we would all be starting out as cavemen. Why not say: "It is written that such and such a course is not good to take." Why not believe what other people have said? If the Bible tells us for instance that women should really be married before sleeping with men, why not believe it? God knows men are selfish, will abandon women, women will be raising children in povery. Why not trust it?
Anyone learning to read the Bible learns how to compare word to word, thought to thought, verse to verse. Even uneducated poor black grandmas and little kids learn to do this. We see a verse about sexual purity here. Then we see a verse which says a divorced man is like someone wearing the coat of a bloodshed victim (Malachi). Then we read a place where God says we must be satisfied with the breasts of the wife of our youth. Or that young men should avoide strange women. Or that when a woman is raped it is akin to murder. And all these little old ladies --including myself-- study those verses and come up with a general meaning.
Rational vs rational
Something else has to be clarified here:
The word "Rational" (as used by most people) has two distinct meanings.
A) It could refer to a thought pattern that does not operate in a logical manner.
B) It could refer to a conclusion arrived at that does not fit in with the listener's worldview.
The first meaning -- having to do with manner and pattern of a person's way of thinking-- can be useful for judging the Bible reader. But it doesn't really judge the Bible. There are many logical thinkers who read and believe the Bible. And there are many illogical thinkers who read and believer the Bible. Also, there are many logical thinkers who do not believe the Bible and many illogical thinkers who believe the Bible.
In the second case where "rational" refers to the conclusion -- whether logically or illogically arrived at-- then personal prejudices and worldview issues often come into play.
Stephen Hawking for instance may not believe in the Bible but he is a theist. Carl Sagan -- just as logical and perhaps not as smart-- is not a theist and simply did not believe in any kind of God. In a situation where someone is judging someone's rationality all sorts of questions can come up. Is the person thinking irrationally because he is insane? Because he has a different path to follow? Because he is "misinterpreting" some of the evidence/clues he sees?
Many Americans think Christians are irrational because they think the Christian is thinking in an unworldly way. But in Africa where the average person (Christian or otherwise) believes in the spirit world much more than the average American (Christian or otherwise) there wouldn't be a question about irrational thinking just because someone believes something that doesn't jibe with the scientific model of worldview -- closed universe and all that.
I've done many a thing that seems irrational and yet God and the Universe have continually shown me that I'm quite right. Indeed, I suspect that many a little Christian old lady (educated or not) has had the same experience and that's why they trust and love Jesus so much.
Three examples:
I once went into a GNC at the mall. A man walked past me. I heard "in my spirit" a voice that said: "This is so-and-so. He's the general manager of such-and-such a radio station." The name of there person and his title and his workplace. I walked over to the man and quite irrationally said, "Hi, are you so and so?" He said, "I am." I did not behave irrationally, mind you. I didn't go over and tell him that the holy spirit had told me who he was. So I had some sense. But still, it is kind of irrational to believe some weird bit of information one hears in one's spirit.
Another time, I was working on my novel Wind Follower (to be published in June). I decided on a whim to make the main character an epileptic and needed a name to call the illness. I decided on "the falling sickness." Wrote a scene. Got up from my computer. On a lark I turned on the TV and flipped through the channel. I saw some guys in togas. Shakespeare's Julius Ceasar. As I listened I heard one character say, "well you know Ceasar has the falling sickness."
Another time, I finished writing a scene where a character tells another character he should change his name from Stevie to Steve because Stevie sounds so childish. I went upstairs and although I NEVER turn the radio on at night, turned it on for some strange reasons. A guy was calling in to the DJ. He said, "My girlfriend thinks I should quit calling myself Stevie because it's too childish." Kid you not.
I once had a dream in which two teenaged boys from up the road were beating my young 3 year old with iron pipes. Terrified I woke up. Around mid-day those two boys from up the road visited. They held up a little piece of yarn. "We want to play with Logan. We're playing cowboys and Indians." They let the yarn flow along my hand. "See it doesn't hurt. We won't hurt him." Needless to say although my son wanted to go out and play with them cause he was a lonely kid, I didn't. God had warned me.
I remember one day about nine months after my older son was born. I was sitting in my room watching my son playing with blocks. I heard --in the way one hears these things-- in my spirit the clear words "rest." It was so clear that I looked around. I walked over to my son and he had taken the letters R E S T and placed them in perfect order forming the word rest. He was only nine months. I should have learned to rest. I didn't and not resting after childbirth proved to be very harmful to my health for about 20 years.
I remember once I got some money and I was wondering who to give my tithe to. I said a prayer, "Lord, who should I give this tithe to?"
Immediately the name of a friend across the country was impressed upon me. It was so strange to hear that name in my heart that I suddenly stood still. I thought, "that was weird!" Generally, guidance didn't come so quickly and the name had come so suddenly and so clearly after the prayer...I found myself thinking that the idea had come from my own mind. And yet, it was so weird to suddenly get this girl's name in my head. I decided to tithe the money to her.
Then, I said...I could send her a check...but I had bounced checks recently and I was bounce-wary. All I needed was to pay $50 to my bank for bouncing a check written as a gift to a friend, and then my friend's bank would also charge her for the bounce. So a gift check for $50 would cost $150 by the time everything was said and done. (Okay, I get nervous and like I said I was very nervous about bouncing a check.)
Then I thought I would send the money as cash. But then I got nervous about that. Cash might get lost in the mail. Then I thought about a money order. But I didn't want to go to the bank or the post office to write a money order. Hey, it's cold in winter in NY and I didn't want to deal with it.
I decided on pay-pal. But I had to wait until the check I had received cleared and went into my paypal account.
Anyway, one night about four days after this quandary and decision, I went online to check if my money was in paypal. It wasn't. Later that night, instead of going to bed, I went downstairs again and for some weird reason (thank you, God) turned on the computer and went online to paypal. The money was there!
I transferred the money from my paypal account to my friend's paypal account.
The next morning my friend emailed me. It seems that the night before -- the night i felt the need to as transfer the money to my friend's account -- my friend was driving home from the hospital with her sick husband. She was miles away from home. Maybe 40 miles. And had run out of gas. She had no money left in her checking account and on a whim (thank you, God) decided to check her paypal account. Voila, the money I had sent her was in it. She hadn't even expected it. But that money got her gas and got her home from the hospital.
I love when God does stuff like that. It makes me feel that yes I do hear from God. It makes my friend know that God is aware of her. It makes us both know that God is aware of the future and provides for the future in the present. Isn't our God good? IT just makes me so happy when stuff like this happens. And they happen all the time. Doesn't it just make you roll your eyes when some atheist says that only idiots think that God exists? Hey, if this kind of lovely stuff is what happens to idiots, may I be an idiot forever!
Thank you Jesus.
I cannot tell you the amount of times my life and my family's life have been saved or my children's life by trusting the irrational.
We Christians call that kind of thing "God winks." It the situation is death-defying, we call them "testimonies of God's protection." These events are odd and a Christian's trust in them is utterly irrational. But it gives us a feeling of being loved. And while everyone has some odd thing happen to them once in a while, these things tend to happen incredibly frequently to Bible-believers..
Monday, April 23, 2007
Politics of Autism
The Politics of Autism by Margaret Romao Toigo
Very timely analysis for Autism Awareness Month - please read and vote.
Thanks!
http://blogcritics.org/archives/2007/04/23/100422.php
http://digg.com/political_opinion/The_Politics_of_Autism
http://politics.netscape.com/story/2007/04/23/the-politics-of-autism/
http://reddit.com/info/1k853/comments
Very timely analysis for Autism Awareness Month - please read and vote.
Thanks!
http://blogcritics.org/archives/2007/04/23/100422.php
http://digg.com/political_opinion/The_Politics_of_Autism
http://politics.netscape.com/story/2007/04/23/the-politics-of-autism/
http://reddit.com/info/1k853/comments
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Media Racism and black beauty
There are two times in the Bible where God and Jesus became incredibly incredibly angry.
The first is when Miriam, Moses sister was prejudiced against Moses' Ethiopian wife. God was so upset with this bit of prejudice that he figuratively spat in her face. And he made a point of saying he was figuratively spitting in his daughter's face.
The second time was when Jesus threw out the money lenders. He made a cord and shouted at the moneylenders, "God's house should be called a place of prayer for ALL nations, but you have made it a den of theives!" He did this because he saw how the moneylenders were treating the foreign converts and proslytes. God truly does not like racism.
When I was about seventeen, I had a wonderful dream in which an angel was telling me how wonderful my hair was and showing me some wonderful hair styles. I will always remember the lovingkindness of that angel.
Lately, many media celebrities have gotten in trouble because of anti-Semitic or racist rants, jokes, or slurs. Many whites think the days of racism are over and so they think they can joke and make racial jokes. They consider these jokes harmless, but many blacks still remember grandmothers blinded by lynchers and uncles and grandfather’s hanged by racist bigots. It’s still not over for us.
The sad fact is America is still racist and that includes many liberals in the media including disc jockeys, editors, actors, and tv hosts. They just don’t seem to “get” us and this often has to do with the darkness of our skin and the quality of our hair.
Racism often appears as a subtle cruelty toward black women's beauty. This cruelty often seems to focus on dark skin and kinky, nappy hair. Other times the racists imply there is something vaguely immoral about us. They seem to imply that we are out-of-control gluttons who aren’t moral enough to know when to stop eating. In addition to assuming we are morally dirty, they also imply we are physically dirty in some way.
Dark-skinned prejudices
Okay, okay, hip hop lyrics and certain black comedians have contributed to a media atmosphere where people feel free to joke about certain black traits. But we have to focus on the brainwashing about beauty out there. Because of the power of the American media, and because of historical and imperialistic causes, everyone in the world thinks true beauty must come close to some Nordic Ideal. I recently heard that Cosmetic Surgery is on the rise. Up 70%. Among Asians (changing their eyelids) and Hispanics (changing their noses.) Folks, ethnic heritages are not beauty flaws.
Hip-hop videos have contributed to making certain black women sexy (and making others unsexy.) Movies too. We know a white character in a movie is hip and “edgy” if he’s got a gorgeous black girlfriend on his arm. Now it’s neat to have a nice bit of junk in the trunk, but when I was younger, the white kids mocked my ample buttocks calling it my “mumba butt.” In the old days, black lips were considered too big. Now many white actresses are getting lip injections. However, dark-skinned women still haven’t arrived at full beauty equality yet. Even on black-owned television stations and black-produced movies, light-skinnedness reigns. For instance, many black rap artists and actors are often teamed with light-skinned black women or Hispanic love interests.
Black Hair issues
Ah nappiness! White folks still have problems with black folks’ hair. Recently a famous white DJ called some black women athletes “nappy-headed hos.” For those who don’t know, “Nappy” means kinky and tightly-curled hair. Whether this man is prejudice is not for me to decide. Much humor nowadays is cruel and he might simply have been trying to be cool. Saying nasty cruel racist “funny” things about other people is very popular nowadays, and Americans still seem to think afros and natural black hair that has not been straightened is somehow incredibly humorous. Ah, the funny clown in the afro!!! Indeed, I remember one talk show where the elderly white host kept asking to “touch the hair” of her black female guests.
Cleanliness.
Racism towards black women also shows up in the way we are often deemed physically dirty, as if black women do not wash) and morally corrupt (as if we do not know how to be moral like fine-upstanding skinny white women.) I even stopped watching a weekend television show because many of their jokes about black shows seemed downright racist. For instance, although there are a lot of reality shows with skanky white folks having skanky sex , whenever this particular program talked about skanky black folks having sex, they got downright clinical and seemed on the verge of calling the Center for Disease control. They never did this with the white shows, yet on one of their shows, they did a skit about industrial cleaners coming to clean up the black show’s set and to remove disease.
Morality
I recently saw a news show on television in which the reporter stated that obesity was rampant in America, especially among black women. He pretty much hinted that black women were gluttonous and would die sooner than “their white counterparts.” White counterparts? I won’t argue that many black women are overweight. But that doesn’t mean we are morally-corrupt people who have no sense of self-control. Personally, much of my overeating occurs when I feel overwhelmed with powerlessness, isolation, self-loathing, and a feeling that I am being silenced because I live in a world where the powers that be are racist. But there are also genetic issues. The American diet evolved from a European diet and I suspect black genetics are not compatible with much of the diet. In addition, because of evolutionary climactic reasons the African body may have been trained to hold onto fat as a way to protect our ancestors in time of starvation.
Benefit of the Doubt
Black folks are used to giving white racists the benefit of the doubt. We humor people a lot. We are an understanding lot. I remember a time when I visited a white doctor and he called me morbidly obese (I was two hundred pounds and had just had my son.) I was very hurt and I went to my three-hundred pound white friend who had recommended him. Amazingly, he had never called her morbidly-obese.
In another instance, an editor from Kansas deigned to lecture me on how to write a proper essay. She knew I was black. I had to decide if she was as rude and as patronizing to all her writers or only to the black ones.
Recently I read a blog written by a black person in which the statement was made that certain black contestants on American Idol are just plain ugly.
Frankly, that blogger should examine his definition of ugly. I know this generation has been trained to mix lustfulness with admiration but shouldn’t this black blogger be more knowledgeable about how standards of beauty have been created and recreated by society? In some countries, a rounder woman would be deemed quite pretty, thank you! In some countries, a round face does not necessarily connote an ugly face
We black folks are always making excuses for white people. We always tend to divide our racists into ignorant ones and malicious. But what are we to do with the hurt feelings caused by people in power, people we would expect to be somewhat more enlightened? I mean: shouldn’t black men be less prejudiced in the way they depict black women? Shouldn’t liberals be less prejudiced than conservatives? Shouldn’t those in the media such as editors and DJ’s be more aware of the hurtfulness of their comments?
Of course, if I get so upset at the racism I see and experience, if I drown my self-loathing in chocolate ice cream in order to comfort myself because some racist white editor or racist white doctor or racist black producer has upset me, I only contribute to the stereotype by fattening myself up for the kill. Life is complicated. But we have to be strong, and we have to speak up. Hopefully, even the small things we do will change society.
Let us remember:
God has created from one blood all people.
God is not a respecter of persons.
-c
The first is when Miriam, Moses sister was prejudiced against Moses' Ethiopian wife. God was so upset with this bit of prejudice that he figuratively spat in her face. And he made a point of saying he was figuratively spitting in his daughter's face.
The second time was when Jesus threw out the money lenders. He made a cord and shouted at the moneylenders, "God's house should be called a place of prayer for ALL nations, but you have made it a den of theives!" He did this because he saw how the moneylenders were treating the foreign converts and proslytes. God truly does not like racism.
When I was about seventeen, I had a wonderful dream in which an angel was telling me how wonderful my hair was and showing me some wonderful hair styles. I will always remember the lovingkindness of that angel.
Lately, many media celebrities have gotten in trouble because of anti-Semitic or racist rants, jokes, or slurs. Many whites think the days of racism are over and so they think they can joke and make racial jokes. They consider these jokes harmless, but many blacks still remember grandmothers blinded by lynchers and uncles and grandfather’s hanged by racist bigots. It’s still not over for us.
The sad fact is America is still racist and that includes many liberals in the media including disc jockeys, editors, actors, and tv hosts. They just don’t seem to “get” us and this often has to do with the darkness of our skin and the quality of our hair.
Racism often appears as a subtle cruelty toward black women's beauty. This cruelty often seems to focus on dark skin and kinky, nappy hair. Other times the racists imply there is something vaguely immoral about us. They seem to imply that we are out-of-control gluttons who aren’t moral enough to know when to stop eating. In addition to assuming we are morally dirty, they also imply we are physically dirty in some way.
Dark-skinned prejudices
Okay, okay, hip hop lyrics and certain black comedians have contributed to a media atmosphere where people feel free to joke about certain black traits. But we have to focus on the brainwashing about beauty out there. Because of the power of the American media, and because of historical and imperialistic causes, everyone in the world thinks true beauty must come close to some Nordic Ideal. I recently heard that Cosmetic Surgery is on the rise. Up 70%. Among Asians (changing their eyelids) and Hispanics (changing their noses.) Folks, ethnic heritages are not beauty flaws.
Hip-hop videos have contributed to making certain black women sexy (and making others unsexy.) Movies too. We know a white character in a movie is hip and “edgy” if he’s got a gorgeous black girlfriend on his arm. Now it’s neat to have a nice bit of junk in the trunk, but when I was younger, the white kids mocked my ample buttocks calling it my “mumba butt.” In the old days, black lips were considered too big. Now many white actresses are getting lip injections. However, dark-skinned women still haven’t arrived at full beauty equality yet. Even on black-owned television stations and black-produced movies, light-skinnedness reigns. For instance, many black rap artists and actors are often teamed with light-skinned black women or Hispanic love interests.
Black Hair issues
Ah nappiness! White folks still have problems with black folks’ hair. Recently a famous white DJ called some black women athletes “nappy-headed hos.” For those who don’t know, “Nappy” means kinky and tightly-curled hair. Whether this man is prejudice is not for me to decide. Much humor nowadays is cruel and he might simply have been trying to be cool. Saying nasty cruel racist “funny” things about other people is very popular nowadays, and Americans still seem to think afros and natural black hair that has not been straightened is somehow incredibly humorous. Ah, the funny clown in the afro!!! Indeed, I remember one talk show where the elderly white host kept asking to “touch the hair” of her black female guests.
Cleanliness.
Racism towards black women also shows up in the way we are often deemed physically dirty, as if black women do not wash) and morally corrupt (as if we do not know how to be moral like fine-upstanding skinny white women.) I even stopped watching a weekend television show because many of their jokes about black shows seemed downright racist. For instance, although there are a lot of reality shows with skanky white folks having skanky sex , whenever this particular program talked about skanky black folks having sex, they got downright clinical and seemed on the verge of calling the Center for Disease control. They never did this with the white shows, yet on one of their shows, they did a skit about industrial cleaners coming to clean up the black show’s set and to remove disease.
Morality
I recently saw a news show on television in which the reporter stated that obesity was rampant in America, especially among black women. He pretty much hinted that black women were gluttonous and would die sooner than “their white counterparts.” White counterparts? I won’t argue that many black women are overweight. But that doesn’t mean we are morally-corrupt people who have no sense of self-control. Personally, much of my overeating occurs when I feel overwhelmed with powerlessness, isolation, self-loathing, and a feeling that I am being silenced because I live in a world where the powers that be are racist. But there are also genetic issues. The American diet evolved from a European diet and I suspect black genetics are not compatible with much of the diet. In addition, because of evolutionary climactic reasons the African body may have been trained to hold onto fat as a way to protect our ancestors in time of starvation.
Benefit of the Doubt
Black folks are used to giving white racists the benefit of the doubt. We humor people a lot. We are an understanding lot. I remember a time when I visited a white doctor and he called me morbidly obese (I was two hundred pounds and had just had my son.) I was very hurt and I went to my three-hundred pound white friend who had recommended him. Amazingly, he had never called her morbidly-obese.
In another instance, an editor from Kansas deigned to lecture me on how to write a proper essay. She knew I was black. I had to decide if she was as rude and as patronizing to all her writers or only to the black ones.
Recently I read a blog written by a black person in which the statement was made that certain black contestants on American Idol are just plain ugly.
Frankly, that blogger should examine his definition of ugly. I know this generation has been trained to mix lustfulness with admiration but shouldn’t this black blogger be more knowledgeable about how standards of beauty have been created and recreated by society? In some countries, a rounder woman would be deemed quite pretty, thank you! In some countries, a round face does not necessarily connote an ugly face
We black folks are always making excuses for white people. We always tend to divide our racists into ignorant ones and malicious. But what are we to do with the hurt feelings caused by people in power, people we would expect to be somewhat more enlightened? I mean: shouldn’t black men be less prejudiced in the way they depict black women? Shouldn’t liberals be less prejudiced than conservatives? Shouldn’t those in the media such as editors and DJ’s be more aware of the hurtfulness of their comments?
Of course, if I get so upset at the racism I see and experience, if I drown my self-loathing in chocolate ice cream in order to comfort myself because some racist white editor or racist white doctor or racist black producer has upset me, I only contribute to the stereotype by fattening myself up for the kill. Life is complicated. But we have to be strong, and we have to speak up. Hopefully, even the small things we do will change society.
Let us remember:
God has created from one blood all people.
God is not a respecter of persons.
-c
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
hunger gathering holy spirit conference
Join Exodus Media Group, Inc. and ABJ Consulting, LLC (BridgeBuilders) for
THE HUNGER GATHERING
The role of women as intercessors has been diminished by some of the apathy in the church. The part that this next generation will play in ushering in the true presence of God has been hidden from them.
We have gotten so distracted with ambition, societal and personal problems, and daily life issues till we have slowly and steadily veered away from true intimacy with God.
UNTIL NOW!
Join Women of God from across the nation who are hungering for something else, something more filling---THE HOLY SPIRIT. As we gather for a day devoted solely to praise, prayer, and worship, let us taste and see that the Lord is good. Let's go behind veil and seek the face of God in all ays.
The season for your deliverance is here but are you hungry enough to get up and gather your Manna? Are you hungry enough to receive a "I'm never going back" breakthrough?
MAY 19, 2007
11:30AM - 3:00PM
9821 Greenbelt Rd. Suite #207
Lanham, MD 20706 (Washington, D.C. area)
Hosted by Angela Johnson-Ayers and Tracey Michae'l Lewis
Facilitated by Our Father in Heaven
The Hunger Gathering (TM) will be coming to a city near you!
Registration is only $10.00 (to simply cover the expenses of the event) You can register at www.exodusmediagroup.com
For more information please contact Exodus Media Group, Inc. at (800) 683-9184 or via email at info@exodusmediagroup.com
THE HUNGER GATHERING
The role of women as intercessors has been diminished by some of the apathy in the church. The part that this next generation will play in ushering in the true presence of God has been hidden from them.
We have gotten so distracted with ambition, societal and personal problems, and daily life issues till we have slowly and steadily veered away from true intimacy with God.
UNTIL NOW!
Join Women of God from across the nation who are hungering for something else, something more filling---THE HOLY SPIRIT. As we gather for a day devoted solely to praise, prayer, and worship, let us taste and see that the Lord is good. Let's go behind veil and seek the face of God in all ays.
The season for your deliverance is here but are you hungry enough to get up and gather your Manna? Are you hungry enough to receive a "I'm never going back" breakthrough?
MAY 19, 2007
11:30AM - 3:00PM
9821 Greenbelt Rd. Suite #207
Lanham, MD 20706 (Washington, D.C. area)
Hosted by Angela Johnson-Ayers and Tracey Michae'l Lewis
Facilitated by Our Father in Heaven
The Hunger Gathering (TM) will be coming to a city near you!
Registration is only $10.00 (to simply cover the expenses of the event) You can register at www.exodusmediagroup.com
For more information please contact Exodus Media Group, Inc. at (800) 683-9184 or via email at info@exodusmediagroup.com
Friday, April 06, 2007
Could you not wait with me one hour?
Last night I woke up at around one in the morning..
I realized it was Good Friday. I realized that at that very moment – not just 2000 years ago, but in a timeless permanent eternity-- Jesus was being led from place to place in the three separate trials.
I felt so very sorry for him and all I could see was how lonely he felt. I said, “Jesus, I’ll wait with you one hour.”
If you’ve ever had a friend or family member in the hospital and had to wait, that’s what it felt like. I felt myself to be in a house knowing that my Lord had been taken away and was being interrogated and beaten and spat on, and mocked….how could I sleep? It would have meant leaving him to suffer alone and although I knew he would suffer in a way no man had ever suffered before – and I couldn’t really be with him in that kind of passionate suffering—yet I just didn’t want Him to think I was forsaking Him. I wanted Him to know I was thinking of Him, and waiting for Him.
Even so…it was tough because I’m such a day-dreamer. I kept trying to keep my mind on him but my mind would float over to my novel, to some television show, to my own problems.
Then in my imagination I saw Him entering Pilate’s palace. He was so bloodied and beaten up and humiliated and naked. And his head was pierced with all the marks from the crown of thorns. He smelled horrible and Pilate was so perfumed. He was sweaty and bloody and Pilate was so clean. He could hardly stand up and Pilate was Lord of all he surveyed. Then Pilate says, “Don’t you realize I could free you?” Then Pilate said, “Who do you think you are?” Then after Jesus answered him, Pilate said, “Are you a God then?”
And Jesus speaking with this terrible lower-class Galilean accent…and with mumbled words because he had been beaten across the mouth and his teeth had fallen out. And He said, “That’s your word for it. I am. And you will see me come with power!”
I was sooo proud of him. I can’t tell you how proud. Tears just rolled down my eyes as I lay on the bed. I love a strong soul, and yet…to be so beaten up, to be standing in front of so much earthly power and yet to be able to say in the face of all that mocking, “I am God.”
St Paul said, “Jesus Christ witnessed a good confession before Pilate.” Yes Jesus did.
The Bible tells us that “because of the joy that lay before him – the salvation of so many souls and the bringing of many sons to God—Jesus rejoiced at going to the cross.” The Bible tells us, “Let God be true, and every man a liar.”
I hope we all can have the power to stand in front of whatever earthly or demonic powers that seem to be more powerful than we are and to say the foolish, foolish, mocked, and denied truth that God has called us to declare.
I agree with Paul: “I am determined to know Jesus and the power of his resurrection power, the same power that raised Christ from the dead lives in us and perfects our human bodies even while we live.”
I realized it was Good Friday. I realized that at that very moment – not just 2000 years ago, but in a timeless permanent eternity-- Jesus was being led from place to place in the three separate trials.
I felt so very sorry for him and all I could see was how lonely he felt. I said, “Jesus, I’ll wait with you one hour.”
If you’ve ever had a friend or family member in the hospital and had to wait, that’s what it felt like. I felt myself to be in a house knowing that my Lord had been taken away and was being interrogated and beaten and spat on, and mocked….how could I sleep? It would have meant leaving him to suffer alone and although I knew he would suffer in a way no man had ever suffered before – and I couldn’t really be with him in that kind of passionate suffering—yet I just didn’t want Him to think I was forsaking Him. I wanted Him to know I was thinking of Him, and waiting for Him.
Even so…it was tough because I’m such a day-dreamer. I kept trying to keep my mind on him but my mind would float over to my novel, to some television show, to my own problems.
Then in my imagination I saw Him entering Pilate’s palace. He was so bloodied and beaten up and humiliated and naked. And his head was pierced with all the marks from the crown of thorns. He smelled horrible and Pilate was so perfumed. He was sweaty and bloody and Pilate was so clean. He could hardly stand up and Pilate was Lord of all he surveyed. Then Pilate says, “Don’t you realize I could free you?” Then Pilate said, “Who do you think you are?” Then after Jesus answered him, Pilate said, “Are you a God then?”
And Jesus speaking with this terrible lower-class Galilean accent…and with mumbled words because he had been beaten across the mouth and his teeth had fallen out. And He said, “That’s your word for it. I am. And you will see me come with power!”
I was sooo proud of him. I can’t tell you how proud. Tears just rolled down my eyes as I lay on the bed. I love a strong soul, and yet…to be so beaten up, to be standing in front of so much earthly power and yet to be able to say in the face of all that mocking, “I am God.”
St Paul said, “Jesus Christ witnessed a good confession before Pilate.” Yes Jesus did.
The Bible tells us that “because of the joy that lay before him – the salvation of so many souls and the bringing of many sons to God—Jesus rejoiced at going to the cross.” The Bible tells us, “Let God be true, and every man a liar.”
I hope we all can have the power to stand in front of whatever earthly or demonic powers that seem to be more powerful than we are and to say the foolish, foolish, mocked, and denied truth that God has called us to declare.
I agree with Paul: “I am determined to know Jesus and the power of his resurrection power, the same power that raised Christ from the dead lives in us and perfects our human bodies even while we live.”
Monday, April 02, 2007
Transcript of The View's Show on Autism
Click here to download the transcript. http://abc.go.com/daytime/theview/images/TheViewAutismTranscript.pdf
(Right-click on the link, choose "Save Target As" or "Save Link As" and Save to your Desktop to open the pdf file)
Autism Organizations and Foundations
Autism Speaks is dedicated to increasing awareness of the growing autism epidemic and to raising money to fund scientists who are searching for a cure. It was founded in February 2005 by Suzanne and Bob Wright. Bob Wright is Vice Chairman and Executive Officer, General Electric, and Chairman and CEO, NBC Universal. Autism Speaks and Cure Autism Now (CAN) recently announced plans to combine operations, bringing together the two leading organizations dedicated to accelerating and funding biomedical research into the causes, prevention, treatments and cure for autism spectrum disorders; to increasing awareness of the nation's fastest growing developmental disorder; and to advocating for the needs of affected families. To learn more about Autism Speaks, please visit www.autismspeaks.org
The Autism Society of America was founded in 1965 by Bernard Rimland, Ph.D. His book, Infantile Autism: The Syndrome and Its Implications for a Neural Theory of Behavior, was written in late 1964 and was one of the first of its kind. In 1968, Ruth Sullivan, Ph.D. became the organization's first elected president. Over the last 40 years, the Society has grown from a handful of parents, into the leading source of information, research, and reference on autism. ASA is the oldest and largest grassroots organization within the autism community. Today, more than 120,000 members and supporters are connected through a working network of nearly 200 chapters nationwide. ASA membership continues to grow as more and more parents and professionals unite to form a collective voice representing the autism community.
ASA is dedicated to increasing public awareness about autism and the day-to-day issues faced by individuals with autism, their families and the professionals with whom they interact. The Society and its chapters share a common mission of providing information and education, and supporting research and advocating for programs and services for the autism community. For more information please visit: www.autism-society.org
Erin Is Hope Foundation, Inc. provides multi-disciplinary, INTENSIVE, SPECIALIZED medical therapies and educational services for children diagnosed with severe communicative disabilities including autism, apraxia and MORE. Our mission is not just to provide maximum outcomes for each child through multi-sensory, systematic and incremental teaching, but to provide these exceptional private special services at prices affordable to the average family budget. Amazingly, families travel across America to our clinic not because of price, but because of "Erin's" legendary success in teaching functional verbal grammatic speech and language to nonverbal children. Learn more at our website: www.erinishope.com
"Autism Every Day" is powerful new documentary produced by the organization Autism Speaks that recently premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Directed by filmmaker Lauren Thierry, the film is a a truthful, unvarnished portrayal of the 24-hour-a-day challenges faced by families as they confront the heartbreak of autism with uncompromising hope and unconditional love."
Click to watch video clips.
AUTISM GUESTS
Dr. ANSHU BATRA
Ourspecialkidz.com
KAREN SIFF EXHORN
Author, "The Autism Sourcebook"
TEMPLE GRANDIN, Ph.D.
College Professor who has authored six books and has Autism:
- Unwritten Rules of Social Relationships
- Thinking In Pictures: And Other Reports From My Life With Autism
- Emergence: Labeled Autistic
- Developing Talents: Careers for Individuals with Asperger Syndrome and High-Functioning Autism
- Animals In Translation: Using The Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior
- Unwritten Rules of Social Relationships: Decoding Social Mysteries Through the Unique Perspectives of Autism
ELLEN SABIN
Author "The Autism Acceptance Book"
Work Education and Resource Centers for people with Autism
www.edenservices.org
Online communtity for people who suffer from Asberger's and Autism
www.wrongplanet.net
(Right-click on the link, choose "Save Target As" or "Save Link As" and Save to your Desktop to open the pdf file)
Autism Organizations and Foundations
Autism Speaks is dedicated to increasing awareness of the growing autism epidemic and to raising money to fund scientists who are searching for a cure. It was founded in February 2005 by Suzanne and Bob Wright. Bob Wright is Vice Chairman and Executive Officer, General Electric, and Chairman and CEO, NBC Universal. Autism Speaks and Cure Autism Now (CAN) recently announced plans to combine operations, bringing together the two leading organizations dedicated to accelerating and funding biomedical research into the causes, prevention, treatments and cure for autism spectrum disorders; to increasing awareness of the nation's fastest growing developmental disorder; and to advocating for the needs of affected families. To learn more about Autism Speaks, please visit www.autismspeaks.org
The Autism Society of America was founded in 1965 by Bernard Rimland, Ph.D. His book, Infantile Autism: The Syndrome and Its Implications for a Neural Theory of Behavior, was written in late 1964 and was one of the first of its kind. In 1968, Ruth Sullivan, Ph.D. became the organization's first elected president. Over the last 40 years, the Society has grown from a handful of parents, into the leading source of information, research, and reference on autism. ASA is the oldest and largest grassroots organization within the autism community. Today, more than 120,000 members and supporters are connected through a working network of nearly 200 chapters nationwide. ASA membership continues to grow as more and more parents and professionals unite to form a collective voice representing the autism community.
ASA is dedicated to increasing public awareness about autism and the day-to-day issues faced by individuals with autism, their families and the professionals with whom they interact. The Society and its chapters share a common mission of providing information and education, and supporting research and advocating for programs and services for the autism community. For more information please visit: www.autism-society.org
Erin Is Hope Foundation, Inc. provides multi-disciplinary, INTENSIVE, SPECIALIZED medical therapies and educational services for children diagnosed with severe communicative disabilities including autism, apraxia and MORE. Our mission is not just to provide maximum outcomes for each child through multi-sensory, systematic and incremental teaching, but to provide these exceptional private special services at prices affordable to the average family budget. Amazingly, families travel across America to our clinic not because of price, but because of "Erin's" legendary success in teaching functional verbal grammatic speech and language to nonverbal children. Learn more at our website: www.erinishope.com
"Autism Every Day" is powerful new documentary produced by the organization Autism Speaks that recently premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Directed by filmmaker Lauren Thierry, the film is a a truthful, unvarnished portrayal of the 24-hour-a-day challenges faced by families as they confront the heartbreak of autism with uncompromising hope and unconditional love."
Click to watch video clips.
AUTISM GUESTS
Dr. ANSHU BATRA
Ourspecialkidz.com
KAREN SIFF EXHORN
Author, "The Autism Sourcebook"
TEMPLE GRANDIN, Ph.D.
College Professor who has authored six books and has Autism:
- Unwritten Rules of Social Relationships
- Thinking In Pictures: And Other Reports From My Life With Autism
- Emergence: Labeled Autistic
- Developing Talents: Careers for Individuals with Asperger Syndrome and High-Functioning Autism
- Animals In Translation: Using The Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior
- Unwritten Rules of Social Relationships: Decoding Social Mysteries Through the Unique Perspectives of Autism
ELLEN SABIN
Author "The Autism Acceptance Book"
Work Education and Resource Centers for people with Autism
www.edenservices.org
Online communtity for people who suffer from Asberger's and Autism
www.wrongplanet.net
Commanding versus praying
Hi there:
I really feel I have to share this. It really is dawning on me more and more how different Christendom is from what Jesus said. After all, Jesus said "Hypocrites love to pray to be seen" and so many times in churches I get the feeling the prayer is not praying to God but just showing how rhetorical he is. Jesus also said "People think they are heard by God because of their long prayers" And he also said "People shouldn't get into using vain repetitions" and yet sometimes we think saying a long prayer is better than a shorter heart-felt one. And, while it's good to pray certain wonderful prayers, we mustn't get caught up with praying the same thing over and over like a chant. Where's the relationship with God (or anyone, for that matter) if you keep saying the same thing over and over to him?
Anyways, Jesus said we must say boldly to the mountain, "Be lifted up by the roots and be cast into the sea" and it shall be done. Now, most of the time people "ask" God because Jesus also told us to ask and it shall be given. But we rarely command, which Jesus also said, "Speak to the mountain." Jesus said "pray for the sick" but he also said, "Lay on the sick and heal the sick by commanding the body to be healed." But we don't go around laying hands on the sick and simply commanding their body to be healed. JEsus said, "when you pray believe that you have received"..and yet we often pray as if God hasn't given it to us at all. Just because we don't see it doesn't mean we haven't gotten anything.
Well last night I was in horrendous pain. I got mad at the devil. Again. I screamed, "Jesus is Lord!" and you better accept it. I told the autism off! And I gave fibromyalgia a good talking to. Before I had been praying for that. Praying is interesting because even in praying there's a stressing part of me which says, "Is this rational, talking to a God? What if he isn't there?" I get that way sometimes.
But last night, going further and doing what Jesus said and ordering the illness to leave. Well, dare I say? After giving it this talking to...the pain subsided amazingly. !!!???!!! I was like: uh? Umhhhh, well this is proof that this is real.
Hubby and I were talking about what was tried and tested. Biblical Precepts we knew to be true so far because of external results we've seen. Sure, we should know these precepts are true simply because we believe in God but hey, we're not perfect yet.
We know that God protects us because he miraculously protected Logan. He also miraculously protected me, and GAbe.
We know he provides miraculously.
We know he guides.
We know that speaking negative things bring those negatives to us.
Now we know that shouting down a sickness and telling it off really works.
I want to trust all this by simply trusting God's word, and I feel I'm getting closer to this obedient trust in everything God says, even though my human understanding thinks it's all a bit flaky and irrational.
Anyway, I don't see --with my physical eyes-- the healing for Gabe and me yet. But I am thanking God because I know that JEsus healed me 2000 years ago on the cross. "By Jesus stripes we WERE healed." And I know that Paul said "everything we pray for is already answered as yes and amen through Jesus Christ." This life of faith is certainly interesting. It's not something I would have jumped into if life hadn't been so "interesting" but since I'm in this, I'll do what the Bible says.
-C
I really feel I have to share this. It really is dawning on me more and more how different Christendom is from what Jesus said. After all, Jesus said "Hypocrites love to pray to be seen" and so many times in churches I get the feeling the prayer is not praying to God but just showing how rhetorical he is. Jesus also said "People think they are heard by God because of their long prayers" And he also said "People shouldn't get into using vain repetitions" and yet sometimes we think saying a long prayer is better than a shorter heart-felt one. And, while it's good to pray certain wonderful prayers, we mustn't get caught up with praying the same thing over and over like a chant. Where's the relationship with God (or anyone, for that matter) if you keep saying the same thing over and over to him?
Anyways, Jesus said we must say boldly to the mountain, "Be lifted up by the roots and be cast into the sea" and it shall be done. Now, most of the time people "ask" God because Jesus also told us to ask and it shall be given. But we rarely command, which Jesus also said, "Speak to the mountain." Jesus said "pray for the sick" but he also said, "Lay on the sick and heal the sick by commanding the body to be healed." But we don't go around laying hands on the sick and simply commanding their body to be healed. JEsus said, "when you pray believe that you have received"..and yet we often pray as if God hasn't given it to us at all. Just because we don't see it doesn't mean we haven't gotten anything.
Well last night I was in horrendous pain. I got mad at the devil. Again. I screamed, "Jesus is Lord!" and you better accept it. I told the autism off! And I gave fibromyalgia a good talking to. Before I had been praying for that. Praying is interesting because even in praying there's a stressing part of me which says, "Is this rational, talking to a God? What if he isn't there?" I get that way sometimes.
But last night, going further and doing what Jesus said and ordering the illness to leave. Well, dare I say? After giving it this talking to...the pain subsided amazingly. !!!???!!! I was like: uh? Umhhhh, well this is proof that this is real.
Hubby and I were talking about what was tried and tested. Biblical Precepts we knew to be true so far because of external results we've seen. Sure, we should know these precepts are true simply because we believe in God but hey, we're not perfect yet.
We know that God protects us because he miraculously protected Logan. He also miraculously protected me, and GAbe.
We know he provides miraculously.
We know he guides.
We know that speaking negative things bring those negatives to us.
Now we know that shouting down a sickness and telling it off really works.
I want to trust all this by simply trusting God's word, and I feel I'm getting closer to this obedient trust in everything God says, even though my human understanding thinks it's all a bit flaky and irrational.
Anyway, I don't see --with my physical eyes-- the healing for Gabe and me yet. But I am thanking God because I know that JEsus healed me 2000 years ago on the cross. "By Jesus stripes we WERE healed." And I know that Paul said "everything we pray for is already answered as yes and amen through Jesus Christ." This life of faith is certainly interesting. It's not something I would have jumped into if life hadn't been so "interesting" but since I'm in this, I'll do what the Bible says.
-C
FaithWriters First Writer's Conference
August 10th through 12th, 2007
A Mid Summer's Daydream Come True
More than a year of speculation can now be put to rest. With more than 20,000 FaithWriters.com© members it has become clear that the time is right to announce plans for the first in what promises to be an annual conference event.
Much discussion has taken place on the FaithWriters.com© forum boards about a writer's conference over the course of more than a year. The original idea has gained enough momentum that an oft spoken dream is now a reality.
Those who choose to attend will be challenged, encouraged and informed through several planned events.
Imagine the thrill of meeting your FaithWriting friends face-to-face while enhancing your writing skills in the faith friendly surroundings of this first-of-its-kind event.
The Conference is at the Holiday Inn
17123 N Laurel Park Dr
Livonia, Michigan 48152
734-464-1300
This is the Detroit Metro Area
CONFERENCE COST:
GENERAL (March 1 - June 30): $75.00
LATE: (July 1 - August 10): $80.00
http://www.faithwriters.com/conference.php
FEATURED SPEAKER:
SALLY STUART
Sally E. Stuart is the author of thirty-one books and has sold over one thousand articles and columns. Her marketing columns for The Christian Communicator, Oregon Christian WRITERS, and The Advanced Christian Writer, make her a sought-after speaker and a leading authority on Christian markets and the business of writing.
A Mid Summer's Daydream Come True
More than a year of speculation can now be put to rest. With more than 20,000 FaithWriters.com© members it has become clear that the time is right to announce plans for the first in what promises to be an annual conference event.
Much discussion has taken place on the FaithWriters.com© forum boards about a writer's conference over the course of more than a year. The original idea has gained enough momentum that an oft spoken dream is now a reality.
Those who choose to attend will be challenged, encouraged and informed through several planned events.
Imagine the thrill of meeting your FaithWriting friends face-to-face while enhancing your writing skills in the faith friendly surroundings of this first-of-its-kind event.
The Conference is at the Holiday Inn
17123 N Laurel Park Dr
Livonia, Michigan 48152
734-464-1300
This is the Detroit Metro Area
CONFERENCE COST:
GENERAL (March 1 - June 30): $75.00
LATE: (July 1 - August 10): $80.00
http://www.faithwriters.com/conference.php
FEATURED SPEAKER:
SALLY STUART
Sally E. Stuart is the author of thirty-one books and has sold over one thousand articles and columns. Her marketing columns for The Christian Communicator, Oregon Christian WRITERS, and The Advanced Christian Writer, make her a sought-after speaker and a leading authority on Christian markets and the business of writing.
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