Emotionally Honest Characters and Christian Dismissiveness

My characters are always emotionally-aware and often emotionally-honest with each other. Somewhere along the line I learned to really love scenes where some needy character tells his/her soul. Picture poor lame Phillip in Of Human Bondage telling one of Muriel's lover "not to take her fromme"or the unloved Cathy Sloper in Henry James' Washington Square "asking her father to say something nice about her." Such scenes wrench the heart because the heart of the character and thus the goal of the story depends on whether or not the character's bravery in telling his heart's need is going to be dismissed or not. And let's face it. Often it's dismissed.

Anyways, I have this thing about emotionally honest characters who know themselves and who live honest lives, characters who sometimes say the neediest things.

But I'm thinking about whence came my interest in dismissiveness? I'm thinking it's because of my various encounters with dismissive atheists, dismissive christians, dismissive people in general. Especially when folks are dismissive after they have been told something incredibly important.

There's a movement in Christianity that is all about dismissiveness. Joyce Meyer's "Get over it" preaching for instance, which she uses to tell people to tell themselves to stop being entrenched in their own grief but which many Christians (being human with generally unredeemed emotional thought life and habits) often use against others who are in pain because they are unwilling to bear each other's burden.. But even before Joyce Meyer the tendency existed, especially in the reactions of male ministers toward certain folks in the Bible.

Bible personnages can be divided into Sacred cows and Scapegoats. And in Bible studies, we are taught who to hate from our youth up.

When I look at Potiphar's wife, I see an unsexually-fulfilled woman who is married to a eunuch. Sure, the women in Pharoah's harem are safe from the king's chamberlain...but heck...so is his wife. No, I'm not excusing her false rape charges being brought against a guy she tried to seduce...but I am seeing the complications here. Complications which... most Christians will dismiss because she's a scapegoat we've been taught to demonize her as an evil woman.

When I hear a minister use the Prince Amnon rape of Tamar story to say that all lust leads to hate after the sexual act is fulfilled, then I instinctively think of Prince Shechem.He wasn't the son of David, he wasn't a descendant of Jacob. YET he loved the woman he seduced and wanted to marry her after the seduction. If I bring that up to the minister to challenge his "lust leads to hate" sermon, he gets dismissive.

Okay, so those are sexual issues. But even when the issue has nothing to do with sex, the "trained" Christian talent for dismissing the pain of others comes up. We are taught to dismiss Mrs. Job's pain. Sure, she lost all her children, sure no one has come to comfort her, sure she is the weaker vessel and her husband should be comforting her...but heck... we have to think about Job because Job is God's prophet and she's "upsetting and tempting him."

And the dismissing of the pain and goodness of "foreign" scapegoats just gets to me. Oh yes... David murdered Uriah...but well... David was a man after God's own heart so...well, God forgave him. Oh, yes, sure Delilah was being threatened but she was a temptress (Folks, she was being threatened!) and she was a foreigner. (Puhleze, we don't know if Delilah was a foreigner or not. The Bible doesn't say.) Oh, sure David killed all of Michal's adopted son just to be nasty but well, Michal laughed while he danced before the Lord (Folks, that was more of an angry quarrel between a man and his estranged wife than something that had to do with God.)

So, I can see why modern Christian men and women have gotten this habit of dismissing "the emotional facts" for the sake of some higher purpose. They will therefore attempt to bombard the emotionally honest person with "the facts." Weirdly, this leads to a world where Christians become repressed and rarely tell their hearts because they know some Biblical truth will be used against them. Plus we end up with Christians actually thinking it's rude to be honest or that it's pathetic to tell one's heart.  Christian propriety is often another way to be cruel and dismissive.

As I am working on the Constant Tower now, I see how fixated my mind was on this kind of cruelty. I always knew I hated it but more and more as I edit I see my anger at the cruel dismissiveness shown by the larger clan toward the wounded within it...for the same of some higher ideal. I so want this book out and in the world soon.

Dark Parable: What is truth?

I dreamed my friend Rain and I passed by an old house and I said I wanted to buy and rebuild it. She said, "It was my grandmother's house. I love it as well." hen I dreamed about my celibate gay friend Jim. In the dream, he had written a novel about a pedophile under a pseudonym. I wondered if it was about him. Whether he was the victim or the perpetrator. I had a friend who I invited into Jim's house and after we ate there I was wondering how to explain to Jim in an email that we had been in his house without his permission. We walked toward my friend Rain's house. She and Jim both used to live near each other. But there were construction workers in the road and in the intersection. Finally I got there. I asked Rain for some pecans from her tree. She said, "I prefer giving and offering without people asking." (In real life she is not like this at all.) I told her Jim's tamarind tree was full. She asked, interested, "Are they ripe?" I said, "Yes, very ripe."

What a world we live in where we must decide if we can be open to our friends or not! In both dreams, the issue is about honesty and self-revelation. My friend Jim is very important and has an important job so perhaps he can't tell his truth directly. He must reveal his truth carefully. He has to tell it slant, as Emily Dickinson says. But self-revelation to friend versus self-revelation to the world at large is something different. Yet, this is a road to be dug up and explored... I know why I dreamed this part of the dream. Sometimes some people are unapproachable and require dishonesty of us in order for us to befriend them. Sometimes, we ourselves are afraid of being truthful.

One should be able to say to  friend, "I have need of this" or "I want this." One should not manipulate in order to get one's friend to offer. IT doesn't seem like friendship to me. One should not have such weird rules when it comes to friends.

Eating in a friend's house might imply telling about a friend's life without getting permission to say so. Not sure why I dreamed this part. Generally I'm not a gossip so I don't know what's what with this part. Although I do wonder about my friend Jim and the sexual issues he had to endure. How does he speak his truth?

When I finally figured out this dream, this is the verse that came to me.
Behold, You desire truth in the innermost being, And in the hidden part You will make me know wisdom. Psalm 51:6


If we cannot be honest with our friends, can we be honest with God or with ourselves?

Dislike your own clan? Let the black gang handle it.

I forgot when it was exactly but the day came when I realized I really did not like the clans to which I belonged. Perhaps I knew them too well. Perhaps I had grown up in a contentious time where stories were weighted in such a way that it bothered my sense of fairness...at least the stories I was forced to see because they supposedly told of my clans sorrows so truly.

But I was always the one who would look at a tough feminine woman in a story and groan that the plot was set up to make us like her.  Truly, fifty years from now when folks look at some of the sitcoms I grew up with ...the silliness and the overwhelming agendas of the plots (Are all sitcom dads stupid? Are all female cops tough and are all weak women to be mocked?)

But it wasn't only the female clan that annoyed me. The Christian clan as depicted in Christian movies bugged the crap over me.  Because I had met those pious insensitive dismissive holy camel-swallowing-gnat-straining legalistic Christian types before. But I also hated the way atheists and secularists and "former Christians" depicted Christians.

Especially the former Christians. To me it was a problem with art. Their art was always unbalanced, like they were trying to show one side so powerfully that they could not for the life of them see another side. I have this thing about balance. And it's really difficult being balanced when one belongs to one of the suffering groups: black, Christian, or feminine. Because one knows that everything we the sufferers write in our novels about the larger world is probably true, and yet at the same time we know that although the world has caused us to suffer, we have also done our share of victimizing others (those like and unalike ourselves.)

So how is an artist to deal with this?

I venture to say that the BG should handle it. The BG (Black Gang of the subconscious) are invariably more artistic than we ourselves are. I cannot tell you how many stories I have destroyed because some bitterness against some black/white, male/female, Christian/atheist person has seeped into my story. I totally think anyone who sets down to write about her clan without thinking the matter through will end up with a wobbly book that only shows her neuroses without any elegance or writerly craft.

The Constant Tower is my novel that the BG wrote. All my issues are in it. Yet, because the BG wrote it, it is not bogged down in specifics. My Life as an Onion is the novel where I am aware of my own issues and of each opportunity to slip in some comment against Christians etc.. Hence, it's the novel I have to really be careful of. I really really really should not have written a contemporary novel. My issues seem to come out better  and more elegantly in fantasy. But now what to do? I like Onion. So.... I'll have to finish it. It'll probably be a bitter novel, like one of the novels written by former Christians, Black and white.   Aaargh! May God have mercy on my soul. 

POEM: I fear my mother will

I fear my mother will,

upon her death, become omnipresent;

all-knowing, all-powerful.

I shall be in my lover's house

safeguarded - I think-

from the eyes of my husband.

I shall be about to come

when just at the wrong time

in that pervasive darkness,

my mother's invisible right hand

will make itself known.

And a voice - hers: I will recognize it-

will demand

that I rise up and go home.

She will pull the blanket protectively, prudishly,

over my naked breasts

And I,

embarrassed, and mother-beaten,

will retrieve my clothes from the floor

and go home.

Bible Historical Books: Writing History as a Calling from God

If you love history as much as I do, you will have noticed that many primary historical sources are written to praise historical figures or to curry favor or to show the historian's skillz. Not so, the Bible histories. I'm not sure but I think they are the first historical documents written that shows one's nation's history -- warts and all. Probably because they were written by prophets or scribes who were priests.

Looking through the books of Samuels I+II, Kings, I+II, and Chronicles  I+II, one sees king after king -- even the good ones-- who do good, evil and a mixture of both. We see cause and effect...and can even figure our why certain historical and personal events happen in their lives...we can even understand why some of the good kings died so badly...and can even pin-point the moment they sealed their fate by doing some subtly ungodly act. Yep, even the subtle little not-so-bad things have some major consequence.

It definitely shows God is very involved in the lives of kings...and no doubt in the lives of commoners. It shows the power of curses uttered over one's self and by one's ancestors.

These prophetic historicans didn't even have to have insight (I think) about why certain events happened. God simply told them.

Sometimes we Christians go about saying they don't know why something bad happened in their lives, or we say something bad happened out of the blue, or we say God isn't working in our lives. But the histories show God is always working in our lives. Sure, the book is about kings but i suspect the same forces are  working in ours. We are led to either think that stuff happens for no reason at all or that there are spiritual causes working...stuff we might have done in this life, stuff our ancestors have done, etc.

A) I'm not saying God does everything. B) I'm not saying we are the cause of everything that has happened in our lives. C) I'm not saying that we personally deserve everything that happens but I am saying that everything really bad or good that happens seems to have a reason. Either because the king was not close to God or listening to God and some demonic force was fighting against the king and the king was unprepared (or made the wrong response.) Or the king made an ungodly decision (or two or three) and planted a seed which caused him to reap something really bad in the end. Or the king's ancestor did something and the curse fell upon the king.

Whatever the reason, I've got to give kudos to the Prophets and Priests who wrote the chronicles. They listened to God's spirit and were honest in their depictions of the kings. Even David, who was so loved, is shown in his horrible humanness. Pretty good history-writing for back in the day, I think.

When the kings listened to God

Just Six Numbers: The Deep Forces that Shape the Universe 

Martin Rees 

Hardcover: 300 pages

Publisher: Basic Books (December 1999)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0465036724

ISBN-13: 978-0465036721

Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 5.7 x 0.8 inches

How did a single “genesis event” create billions of galaxies, black holes, stars and planets? How did atoms assemble—here on earth, and perhaps on other worlds—into living beings intricate enough to ponder their origins? What fundamental laws govern our universe?This book describes new discoveries and offers remarkable insights into these fundamental questions. There are deep connections between stars and atoms, between the cosmos and the microworld. Just six numbers, imprinted in the “big bang,” determine the essential features of our entire physical world. Moreover, cosmic evolution is astonishingly sensitive to the values of these numbers. If any one of them were “untuned,” there could be no stars and no life. This realization offers a radically new perspective on our universe, our place in it, and the nature of physical laws.

Writing About Humans

I'm feeling feel really blessed to have written some of my stories, and in this case, "Changeling."

And i feel really blessed about the story "Cry for hire" in Warren Lapine's anthology, Fantastic Stories of the Imagination.

I think a lot of people who are white who expect black folks to write about certain things will look at Changeling and see, "wow, there is art here!" 

I'm a lit major so i read great works and I aim to write great works

but there are folks black and white who have beliefs about what writers should write about

social issues or race or feminism, or politics, or religion or whatever. In stories like those, stories written with a purpose to preach about an idea or change the mind of the reader or support some particular tenet, one ends up with cliches and tropes and really nothing is new in those stories because we have seen these issues (and often those stories) before.

I'm not saying writing religious stories are bad or that writing about race is bad or writing about the oppression of women is bad. I'm saying writing cliched characters is bad. And writing about politics creates old stories that make readers eyes glaze over because those writings (in the hands of most writers) tend to be stereotypical and to create characters who lack humanity and uniqueness.

My characters in A Cry for hire and Changeling are all very human

But Cry for Hire is about poverty, race, isolation. Changeling is a folktale full of human characters in a tragic regal history but it is also very political.

And yet, when I wrote them, I had no political agenda or racial agenda. I simply wrote for the love of story and the love of depicting the human condition. Somehow the political, my own neuroses, and my concerns seeped through. I think that's the issue with many stories. Most people are too controlled when they write and writers with  political/racial.social/racial agendas are even more controlled than others. They have to learn to trust the discomfort of having human characters who may not fall in line with the required stereotype. 

 

Lord, I'm Coming Home (Apache Lyrics)

Dark Parables: Caring for the wounded

I dreamed I had some kittens, not newborn but not really old either. They were in our kitchen/bathroom. The room had a large bathtub and a fridge. We kept them there to protect them from our doggie, Hemo. The kittens were inside this room, inside the tub, inside cages (although there was one cage that was shared by two kittens), and they had warm little jackets on inside the cages. There were about five of them. My husband was the one who consistently fed them and I pretty much forgot about their existence. Then I was accidentally reminded by my husband that I had to feed them. I had forgotten to feed them one day and they had managed but I realized I hadn't been feeding them. I opened the door and made sure the dog couldn't go inside. Then I let the kittens roam free and took off their littlekitty kackets so they could feel each other's fur and bodies. As I looked around, I saw a kitten who went back and put on his jacket. I thought how strnge it was that he had gotten used to it.

I dreamed I saw a movie shedule for Friday movie nights and Wednesday movie nights. I was sad because I could no longer go out at night to watch movies because of the fibro but the movies in the series were sooo good, I was tempted to start going to the movies anyway. Twice a week couldn't ruin my life so much. Then I was in one of the movies I had wanted to see. A girl (who was me) was talking to another girl (who was apparently a bit of a snob) about a boy she missed. The girl said, "I miss my old friend. He had a sadness in his eyes but I really liked him. And I don't like this new neighbor." The snobbish looking girl said, "You miss him because although he had sadness in his eyes, he had a light in his heart that you could see. This new neighbor has darkness in his heart because he has had a great sorrow. But you should try to find the light in his soul again and re-light it." Then the scene shifted to a different place far away where the boy whom had been the girl's neighbor had moved to. Now, he was the one who had no light in his spirit because he was sad because he had moved away from the girl.

I think both dreams are about working hard to heal the wounded, especially the young wounded people in the world. I used to put myself out to help the wounded and hurt but I kind of stopped after a while. I think the dream is telling me to learn how to do this again.Interesting that it was the snobbish girl who brought it to my attention. Generally, my pride and hackles rise and my fangs go out when a proud person tries to tell me anything. But in this case I listened. Oh well, good advice from icky people is good adivice no matter how much you might dislike them.

I think this connects to some of the folks I meet on the internet.


I do seem to end up with a lot of male young friends from all over the world and so many of them are sexually wounded. But I am so fearful of being hurt, or distrustful that they might be using me for money that I can be very distant...even when I'm friendly. I think God wants me to lighten up and develop compassion. 
Yep, this is a "compassion required" dream. 

Returning to Daily Communion

Okay, I had totally forgotten our habit of taking daily communion to get myself and my son healed. Yes, yes, yes... one forgets to do stuff.Perhaps because I went all gluten or was engrossed in other matters. Anyway, we have returned.

So yeah, everyday...three times a day.... communion for the family and affirming the work Jesus did by shedding His blood for us.

Hubby and I basically have saltines and water or tea or juice.

We declare:

"Jesus we are doing this because we believe you when you said your body is food indeed and your blood is drink indeed. We understand that feeding on you is a spiritual thing and spiritual things are happening as we feed on you. Therefore feed our spirits, souls, minds, bodies, spirits with what we need.

Jesus, you fell on the way to the cross. You hit your nose as you fled, therefore your nose bled for Gabe and his congestion. You fell and broke your teeth as you fell, therefore your teeth and gums were wounded so that ours might be healed. It is written, you were wounded for our transgression, the chastisement for our peace was upon you, and by your wounds we were healed. Therefore, we believe and affirm this exchange. By those wounds to your nose, Gabe's nose was healed. By those wounds, Gabe's palate is healed and restored.

Jesus, you were crowned with thorns that pierced your head and the blood vessels and nerve endings in your brain. Therefore, by the blood you bled from your head, all brain injuries were healed. We believe and affirm as we take this communion cracker and meditate on your work, that you were pierced -- as this cracker and matzoh was pierced-- for our iniquities and wounded so that Gabe's brain and  my brain and all the illnesses in Gabe's head can be healed.

Jesus, you thirsted on the cross. Therefore we declare that you were thirsty for our sakes and the dehydration in our bodies was healed by your thirst. The pain in your throat was for our sakes, therefore our throats are healed because you bore all throat illnesses.

You were whipped 33 times. We affirm as we look on the stripes on this matzoh that the stripes you received were for our sakes and for the healing of our entire body, soul, and spirit. As we break this matzoh,  and cracker, we remember that Jesus took the bread in the Passover and broke it and we thank you and affirm that his healing is now ours. We look forward to our healing and to the mighty work that your body and blood are doing in it.

Then we take the water, juice, tea and say, "The life of the body is in the blood. Therefore, Lord, we take your life...since you took our sins. By the blood of the eternal covenant, we are in covenant with you and equipped against sin, sickness, and deception in this world. Dear Lord, your body and blood are preserving our body and blood from sickness and sin in this world and in the world to come. Thank you for delivering us from what we don't know and from what we have gotten used to. Amen. It is done."

We'd been doing communion for a while before it fell by the wayside...but thinking back... I was totally battling unforgiveness then. And a bit of anger in my heart against hubby. So now, we'll be able to do this the right way. YAY!!!!!

Okay, healing...come quickly.

The Discipline of Hope: the true head-covering

More and more I'm realizing why Hoping is a virtue. By "virtue" I mean a spiritual skill one has acquired. Not a gift of the spirit, but a "fruit" of the spirit which one has tended and pruned and trimmed.

In one place in the Bible, we are told to use hope as a helmet. In another place we are told to put on the helmet of salvation. So -- combining the "helmet" precept verses... precept upon precept-- we have "putting on the helmet of hope of salvation."

Hope means a confident expectation of good. To believe we have a wished-for end, to believe the promise of all things ending well. Thus, when we put on the helmet of the hope of salvation, we have the hope to be saved. This is a brave hope.

But it is something one has to continually put on. (Although I suspect one can keep it on one's spiritual head all the time) Or at least, one has to be very aware of this head-covering.

It's a discipline, then, to remember. The Psalmist says when something bad happens, he will not be greatly shaken. Oh, sure he's shaken when something horrible happens. But then bingo, he remembers the Lord is his rock and he "decides" to choose to rejoice. He decides to choose to believe that God is working. This decision is where the discipline of hope comes in.

I've been thinking of this because I'm inclined to mulling over possible negative outcomes. And it really is not difficult to train one's self to simply trust that God is indeed doing something. And really, as Jesus said, "worrying is not gonna do anything creative."

In fact, more often than not...the psalmists and Bible writers (through the Holy spirit) tell us worrying leads us to do the wrong or desperate thing. We fret about evildoers and become like them. Psalm 137. Psalm 73. Psalm 79. And poor sweet confused Saul got into trouble and lost his kingdom because he worried. We have power to turn our eyes to the left or to the right. Therefore we have power to turn our minds to hope and our spiritual hearts to looking at the invisible but sure-to-come Salvation from our Lord.

Nearer My God To Thee (Apache Lyrics)

Surprise Spiritual Pop Quiz

Okay, I understand that life is full of surprises but I so so so hate it when I'm blind-sided. Okay, if I had been prayed up and had listened to some good sermon on rejoicing no matter what or read some great book on dying to self, I would'e been prepared. Or if I had been singing psalms all day...maybe I wouldn't have been knocked for a loop and failed this sudden test so miserably. But alas I was caught off-guard and well, I'll just say the devil knows what buttons to push when he deals with Carole through some arrogant smug person.

Aiiish! I feel so angry with myself for allowing that person to get to me. Yes, i know..I'm sounding like those folks who say, "Why did you get me so angry that you forced me to be nasty to you?"

Life is so full of things that catch us off guard. Or catch us when we are weak.

Fact is: I really hate people being superior to me. Of course, if I didn't have an ego...if I were spiritually emptied of self yadda-yadda-yadda... I wouldn't have gotten so hurt at some patronizing white woman treating me like dirt. I would've let it roll off like water off a duck's - or a spiritually empty monk's-- back. But noooooooooo! I let this bitch have it. And she behaved all perfect and proper and patronizing! I could soooo scream!

This morning, if you had asked me if I were ready to die...if I was sure I would go off in the rapture... I would've said, "Why, yes. Died to self. Being really patient. Loving my neighbor. Not an ounce of unforgiveness in my heart or mind."  Well....uh.... that was this morning

AAAGH!

So why am I feeling crappy?

Because that white lady "won" over me with her cool, cruel, superiority.
Because I said stuff in anger that I shouldn't have said...and WORSE...they had no power over little miss racist superior white lady.
Because I'm feeling I failed a spiritual surprise quiz...and did not give God the opportunity to be proud of me. And because, even now, I still want to wring that woman's neck.

Yes, the sin and anger is all within me. A person cannot bring out one's bad side if one has no bad side to bring out.... but aaargh! I hate losing. To the lady. To the devil. To my worst self.

Being unfaithful to the heavenly vision

So there is Peter on top of the roof when he gets this vision which God translates to mean, "Gentiles are okay now. God has cleansed them. Therefore you can now bring the gospel to them and not worry about connecting and communing with them." (Book of Acts, chapters ten and eleven.)

He repeats this testimony about three times. (And we also hear Paul's testimony about his own vision three times.)

Not to mention Peter's vision on the mountain when he saw Elias and Moses.

But back to the vision on the roof.

One would think that seeing this vision and seeing the impact on the disciples and the Gentiles, Peter would've stuck to being Peter. But he goes back to being his old Simon self and when certain disciples came from James, Peter --- uh, Simon-- goes back to avoiding the Gentiles. Paul had to call him out on this. (Galatians 2:12)

How can one have seen such a great vision and yet forget it? How can one not be obedient to such a heavenly vision?

Even stranger, Jesus had told Peter he would be sifted. Jesus had told Simon not to be such a "simon" (reed, blown about my the wind) but to be a "Peter" (a rock.) And Jesus had even spoken the word of blessing by calling Simon by the new name of Peter. Obviously, we have to work with God. God can't make us into something if we don't work with it.

I wonder about heavenly visions as well. Getting a vision often incurs all kinds of temptations. Joseph and the patriarchs hear from God that they are to be great in some way and what do they do? It makes Abraham and Isaac assume God doesn't speak to the Gentiles (Pharoah and Abimelech). It makes Jacob covet his brother's birthright because obviously his mom told him it would be his anyway. It makes Joseph walk around snitching on his brothers.

How can we then be faithful to the vision without being jerks? And how can we not be faithful to the heavenly vision when God has clearly ordered it?Which reminds me... so many Christians were mad at me because they said Loic (in Wind Follower) shouldn't have gone against the vision God had given him. They don't know human nature, do they?

Dark Parable: Painting with sunlight and housewifery advice

i dreamed someone taught me how to make art with sunbeams. The artist would point at a sunbeam and with one's finger on the sunbeam, one moved it around in circles around and around. The sunbeam was like a string of light where one could take anywhere. But the one who taught me sunbeam art did this circular thing and when she had finished it was a big circle with varying shades of light, all made from one sunbeam string. So i started to draw with a sunbeam but i didn't stay in the circle mode. I did a little circle here then i'd move the string a bit and do a triangle or whatever. In the end i had created a big gigantic picture but it had different sections in it. Triangles, squares. onions, circles everywhere. Oooh, didn't mean to write onion but that's probably meaningful

It wasn't as orderly as the other sunbeam art fabric pattern made by the one who taught me but it had a beauty of its own. It just was a gathering of different things on the canvas all drawn from from my sunbeam string. Then i went to visit a friend and she wanted to put her husband on a diet. She told me i should drink water more, that i must be careful and always drink my water. Then a lady came down with a purple-mauve headcovering and she told me that i shouldn't wear white because white was too hard to clean, that black was as hard to clean as white almost, and that i should wear brown. She was wearing white, i think.

Then the lady i talked to said she was wondering about her husband's diet and i told her she sould eat a big salad every night and even in the day for lunch, that he wouldn't miss the meat at all if the salad was really wonderful. I'm thinking the advice i gave to her is one i should follow. So that was it. Interesting that i would have to get advice on housewifery from a woman in a headcovering. I so hope God isn't hinting that i do the head-covering thing.

It seems to me that these dreams are about color, guidelines, taste, conformity. The lady with the head-covering gave me advice that is pretty obvious. Of course white is hard to clean. But why have a problem with black? (The white dog hair?) And really, being black, I can't wear brown. It makes me look drab. I like bright colors. And in Onion, the book is what it is. My writing style is what it is. I'm still using the sunlight and sunbeam. People can still see the beauty in the canvas even if the painting is a bit different.

Sent at 8:44 AM on Tuesday
 Jessica:  I can't imagine that He is telling you to wear head-covering
the fact that she was the one giving it to you and the nonsense she was spouting at certain points causes me to agree that your advice is waht you should be taking
first, she was wrong: white is easy to clean with bleach but it takes work; black is solid and can absorb and hide even blood while still looking good
 me:  i kept thinking
 Jessica:  brown is an iffy color on a lot of folks
 me:  i already kjnow about white and black clothes
she was wearing white
and brown looks bad on me
 Jessica:  ooooh how interesting indeed
 me:  black skin and brown
it just looks blah
i'm so glad i hve you to talk to about this
 Jessica:
 me:  there's a spirit of holiness in the land i guess
 Jessica:  she sounds like a busy body in a head covering

 me:  Ooh, suddenly realized something. Both dreams are about guidelines and color and taste and order or conformity!
 Sent at 9:15 AM on Tuesday
 Jessica:  oh my! you are right!
 Sent at 9:16 AM on Tuesday
 me:  but is it reassuring me about my stories? Or warning me against Christian conformity? Or both?
 Sent at 9:19 AM on Tuesday
 Jessica:  hmmm, I don't think you're at risk for Christian conformity
 me:  like you
 Jessica:  sunbeams are made of light and the refraction is always different as the light strikes
 me:  but i think we're at risk at questioning ourselves unduly sometimes when we don't conform
 Jessica:  so in that, you are learning how to master something which can never truly be tamed
conformity would be a crayon
not a sunbeam
 me:  so true
 Jessica:  a sunbeam is what it is and yet with the slightest change of perception, it is another beautiful color
unchanging but ever changing
 Sent at 9:35 AM on Tuesday
 Jessica:  true also that we question ourselves excessively but that's what friends are for; to help you realize what is true and what is fear
 Sent at 9:39 AM on Tuesday
 me:
you're so good for me
 Sent at 9:42 AM on Tuesday

The Walls of Jericho and "sound" warfare

So, today I'm thinking about the power of sound. I wish I was a scientist. But I'm wondering. What is the effect of sound in the Jericho battle?

The way the story shows it:

Multitudes of people are commanded to walk silently around the city. They are to do this seven days. SILENTLY. They are not to say a word. On the seventh day they are to do it seven times. Then suddenly they are to blow the shofars/trumpet.

What is the effect of the daily slow ponderous (is that the right word) echoing footsteps? I really think some kind of effect was taking place under that ground....getting the ground around Jericho prepared to fall at a sudden change of sound.

I don't have much to go on but I feel that something is going on there. Not that it isn't a miracle, but that it's a miracle of science in some way. I'm wondering if someone has written on this. A scientist of sound or a geologist who studies avanlanches or some such thing.

I know humans are daily grinded down by little stressors and then something big comes into their lives (like a big shofar blowing ) and suddenly the humans crash and are overwhelmed. 

Writing stuff: Surprises, Suspense, Thwartings, Anticipations

So, the editor at Wildside is looking at Constant Tower this weekend. Knowing this, I've been spending my days and nights wondering how "exciting" or page-turning the story is. That got me thinking about surprises, suspense, thwartings, and anticipation in my novel ...and of course what might seem like dull stretches.


Some definitions needed:

Knowledge in a story can be broken down into:
A) Backstory and/or future events only the writer knows
B) Backstory or future events the reader knows about but which the main character is unaware of
C) Backstory or future events the main character knows about but which the reader is unaware of

Anticipations include:
A) Backstory or future events the readers are aware of  but which the main characters are unaware of. Thus the readers are anticipating the main character discovering the backstory and greatly desiring the characters success in the future event.
B) Backstory or future goals which both the readers and the main characters are aware of. The reader is then waiting to see how things will pan out. (Usually the reader is on the MC's side.)
C) The main character's declared main goal..usually the main goal of the entire novel.
D) The main character's declared intermediate goals or adjusted goals. (Those incremental plans that cropped up along the way because the main character had to adjust his plans.)
E) Kneejerk, cliched reactions the reader has been taught to expect
F) Stuff the reader's mouth is watering for. These are generally unspecified goals involving the main character which the reader wishes will happen (The reader might be wanting the main character to fall in love with another particular character whom the main character has not met or is not interested in "in that way." Or the reader might want a specific bad guy to get his comeuppance. Or the reader might want the father to acknowledge his son, or for a lost son to find a lost mother.) The writer should be aware of these prelibrations because if the writer doesn't "feel" what her reader wants, she could make a grave error.

Suspense occurs when the reader is waiting for the anticipated event or planned goal. These goals can seem momentarily thwarted when:
A) The reader knows the main character's personality enough to suspect the main character isn't going to get his goal anyway.
B) The main character didn't know something the reader knows.
C) Both the main character and the reader don't know something the writer knows (which may or may not be a good thing.)
D) the kneejerk reaction the reader has been taught to anticipate does not happen because the writer consciously chose to do something else.

Thwartings can be good suspense or good frustration or bad frustration. The effect of a thwarting depends on whether the reader:
A) can see the necessity of the thwarting
B) Likes/Dislikes the main character
C) Trusts/Distrusts the writer
D) will put his/her rigidity or kneejerk expections aside. (This involves the reader learning to distrust himself and be a bit more open-minded.)

And there are surprises.
A surprise occurs when the writer has laid the groundwork in a subtle foreshadowing but the reader missed the hint. The reader will rebound from the surprise and rethinks the situation (and look back over a few pages) then will see that she missed a clue and should have anticipated such an outcome

A surprise can also occur when the writer knew something and did not tell the reader. (This is not a surprising outcome but a plot surprise. There is no way the reader could have anticipated this.  This kind of surprise is dangerous to play with.)

Dull stretches occur when the reader:

A) Isn't anticipating anything.
B) Doesn't know what they should be anticipating
C) Doesn't understand why some present event is important
D) Doesn't care about the anticipated event
E) Has lost all love/care/trust for the character
F) Is brainwashed to like certain tropes/cliches/patterns and is not open to challenging changes
G) Is wondering if the writer should be trusted

I think I did well in Constant Tower. The suspense, surprise, thwartings, anticipations....all... work in all these page-turning requirements.

Decisions, decisions: To Mammo or not to Mammo

Okay, so last year was the great year of breast drama. It started with a breast examination. As usual, for twenty-five years, my left breast had been leaking milk. A lump I had had for 20 years -- in my nipple and called a papilloma-- a lump which previous mammos had never picked up and which was not discovered in my last mammo but only got discovered after I returned home and my nipple bled terribly....caused me to get 5 diagnostic bouts of radiation (MRI, mammo, some other weird machine, X-ray for the lumpectomy operation.)

It was all very traumatic and --I REPEAT-- the mammo did not find the lump! It only caused my breasts to bleed because the papilloma was being squeezed.

And so, here we are... National Breast History Month! And the Dept of Health wants me to have a mammo again.

Now, let me say that breast cancer prevention is not breast cancer scanning.
In the meantime I've been working hard on breast cancer prevention.

I no longer eat any cold cuts.
I have worked out my bitterness and forgiveness and unloving-heart issues.
I rarely eat anything processed.
I take tons of Vitamin D and hang out in the sun.
I exercize more.
I no longer eat sugary stuff (okay, I do once in a while..but I'm working on it.)
I'm drinking more water (with a little sea salt and a little baking soda in it.)
I'm trying to lose weight.

And I went to the manual breast examination...and they found no lumps.

So why do I have to go to the radiation place to get the mammo? Can't I wait until I get some money and get a thermograph? Is it really a matter of life and death for me to do the mammo now?

Note, I have gotten very convinced that mammos are responsible for some fast-growing inflammatory cancers. So why can't I simply say no to the DOH on this? Why can't I simply base a decision on the peace it brings me? Why can't I trust my own heart and suspicions? Seriously, more and more as the world continues its media-brainwashed ways, there will be times when something in our hearts and minds will balk at what the herd is doing... even if they say it's a life and death matter. And this is the very first time I feel as if ...well... "What if I'm a fool for going against the herd?"

Can i be conceited enough to trust myself against what all others say? One must be conceited enough to survive.

Seriously, what if God gives me a dream to go north when some government advisory is saying "go north?" Will I be able to stand alone and trust myself?

Let God be true, but every man a liar (Rom 3:4)

Well, that was a surprise: did i write a non-interracial story at last?

Okay, so there I was in bed, pondering a possible new story. No plot yet but ya know...pondering. The two main characters are a Korean-American soldier returning home from Iraq or wherever to his wife who is African-American. Yeah, i know... another interracial story.

Okay, some backstory on why all my characters are interracial with usual a black woman and an Asian or white guy. There are two basic reasons.

The first: I have never had a black boyfriend so I pretty much didn't want to mess it up.
The second: I wanted to write my own kind of love stories. Not enough interracial love stories.
The third: I'm going through a terrible case of "yellow fever" and I might as well create a written fantasy
The fourth: I was told in a dream by an Asian-American actor to write stories for Asian actors
The fifth, my mother-in-law issues. I have yet to write a story that adequate deals with all that.
And the sixth, the most important: A White woman, a feminist and a minister's wife once told me in church that she didn't like her race tainted and she hated my stories or any story where a black person and a white person are lovers. Yes, you heard that right. When I asked her about  Asians and Latinos (light-skinned latinos) and Native Americans tainting her race, she went on to say that she had heard that objection before and she didn't mind those ethnic groups because they weren't tainting her race. She was very proud and defiant. Yep, very old school about her racism and very stalwart about it. Anyway, from that day, I tried to stop writing interracial relationships with black women and white men. Thus I have mostly written interracial relationships between black women and Asian or Native American men. To this day, when and if I write a story with a white man in an interracial relationship, I always have a racist religious white woman nearby.

Anyway, there I was pondering The Constant Tower and it suddenly dawned on me that the relationship between Psal and Maharai is my very first relationship I have ever written about a black boy and a black girl. Who knew? I didn't really realize it. And weirdly enough I didn't think of Psal as black, because he is the bi-racial prince in a white clan with a white king as his father.

But still, it made my day to realize this. I suppose I kinda was aware that this was a non-interracial romance because I knew Psal was partly black. But still... wow! One grows without knowing it.

Still don't know if I'll be able to do this in a contemporary novel/romance though.

Love Written in Stone: Finding God's Grace in the Boundaries He Sets

By: Philip Carlson

Product Information

Format: Paperback Number of Pages: 208 Vendor: Bethany House Publication Date: 2011

Dimensions: 8.50 X 5.50 (inches) ISBN: 0764208470 ISBN-13: 9780764208478 Availability: In Stock

Publisher's Description

Many Christians don't know what to think of the Bible's commands, as they often seem legalistic and burdensome. But medical doctor Philip Carlson reveals that God instructs us because he loves us as a father loves his children. Recent research in the health sciences demonstrates that following God's guidelines produces wellness and wholeness in our lives. Readers will be encouraged to learn that the sciences are catching up to what God has been saying all along about family relationships, nutrition, sexuality, rest, and more.

Author Bio

Philip Carlson, MD, (ThM, Fuller; MD, University of Southern California) is senior pastor of Bethany Church of Sierra Madre and practices family medicine in Pasadena. He also teaches at the college level and is a conference speaker. His first book, You Were Made for Love, received a starred review from Publishers Weekly. He lives in Sierra Madre, California, with his wife, Carole, and their four children.