Thursday, December 15, 2016

Stories and Storytellers


In all stories, we are told by our high school and college writing professors, there must be a core element of truth. You can only expect the reader to suspend reality for so long before they lose interest if the story becomes unreliable. This means that although you can have unlikely devices and twisted plot lines and magic and zombies, the characters who use such devices, traverse the plot lines and defeat magic-zombies must always act in a way that is realistic. In other words, in a way that we as people who have been studying the way other people react all of our lives will find believable. So a man who has never in his life forgiven anyone for a slight cannot suddenly forgive some young woman just because it helps a romance along. There must be a catalyst, a force of change, something that is believable because it holds to reality.

To switch tracks a bit, let’s assume you are a person living during the height of the Roman Empire. In this time period, it was not unreasonable to assume that a god or goddess might step down to earth and dally with humans. This is primarily because said gods and goddesses had extremely human traits, quarrels and jealousies. They were, in fact, little more than immortal humans. And they were born of stories created by human minds, following the very important laws of storytelling to make them believable and relatable.

However, if you are talking about God, and not gods—if you were Jewish (which you most likely were if you were a monotheist in those days) the assumption that God would come down and live among men was another proposition entirely. We are talking about God here—the one who laid the stars in place and spread out the oceans, who stores thunder and lightning and fights in pillars of fire. He held all of the supposed power of the Olympians combined and even more.

King Solomon the wisest man who ever lived did not believe that it was possible. He said, “But will God indeed live on earth with man? Even heaven, the highest heaven cannot contain you, much less this temple I have built.” (2 Chron. 6:18)

So when we tell the story of God coming down to earth we must see that it is not a story that a human mind, who understood the vast power of God, could imagine telling. It doesn’t hold to reality. It is not expected. It isn’t simply a plot twist, it is a twist of the very fabric of the world—this thought that God could consent to be a companion of men, to put on flesh and blood and time itself—the God who created TIME, submitting himself in so many ways to his own creation. It is fantastic and unearthly.

This is not a story that anyone who believed in the one, true God would dare to create on his own. It’s too impossible.

Truth became infinitely stranger than fiction on the day Jesus was born.

And yet, it isn’t strange at all if you consider that God loves humans. Because love is a catalyst, a game-changer. Love explains deeds that would otherwise appear irrational (and perhaps sometimes they still are). God proved his love by sending his son, and up until that point it was not something that man could comprehend—God’s love. Now it is. He put it into context for us. He told a story that we with our limited human understanding could never create on our own, but one that we could believe.


“…One will come from you to be rule over Israel for Me,
His origin is from antiquity, from eternity.” (Micah 5:2)




Wednesday, December 7, 2016

The Arrival

It is such an old, old story, one that has been played and replayed every year until I begin to fear it might lose interest. But the old stories are always the best ones, so I beg of you to listen only a little longer, even if you've heard it before.

In a far away land, there lived a carpenter and a virgin. There were a few kings and several shepherds. There was a host of angels and a star and most certainly there were startled sheep. There was gold and myrrh and frankincense. There was straw.

And there was a baby, who was God, swaddled against his mother's chest and breathing the air of this world. God. With an infant's tiny hands and precious little mouth.

It is a story of surprising contradiction and juxtaposition.

Those who were waiting for a soldier king as great as Alexander never looked his way. 

Those who relied on their own perfection of the law scorned his mercy, but could find in him no flaw.

And those who were destitute and despised: the ill and crippled, the possessed and broken, the women and children and pagans, they saw him and believed in a hope that no one and nothing else had ever or could ever have offered them in all the vast expanse of history.

This is the story of a love so great that it reached across infinity to hold your hand and whisper, "You are precious. You are honored. I love you."

It is the story of a light that came down into the dark and sparked a hope that brought everlasting peace and shattered all fear.

This is the story of the Advent of the savior of the world.
May you savor it as you celebrate this holiday season.




Life was in him, and that life was the light of men.
John 1:4 






Sunday, October 2, 2016

Battle Plan

This life is meant to be an adventure, a dangerous quest to traverse the lands of darkness and rescue the lost citizens who live beneath the tyranny of a fierce and hungry dragon. This is not fantasy. It's reality. We have a responsibility, as those who can see, as those who are armored and equipped, not only to save ourselves, but to save as many of those around us as we possibly can.

But somewhere along the way, the logistics of this battle have become muddle with politics. We have started caring so much about us and them that we haven't been able to realize that they are us. We are no different. Hard as it is to see, there is only one enemy, and he isn't the man with the gun, or the man demanding that no one have guns.

The importance of our quest has been downplayed, its necessity doubted, and its soldiers mocked. At some point in time, the illusions of shadows have convinced many that life out there isn't nearly so dangerous as we thought, and it's no business of ours in any case what someone else does with their life as long as we are living our own correctly. This ignores the fact that we can't be living our own lives correctly, unless we care deeply about saving other people.

If someone has been snatched up by the dragon, and you manage to grab their hand, it matters a great deal to you whether they will try to pull themselves free or simply let go. And this is exactly the sort of thing we are dealing with in this quest.

It isn't about opinions. It's about lives.

It is time, far past time, to sharpen our swords, wipe away the rust, and call the dragon out to do battle. We cannot be beaten. There is absolutely no chance that we can lose, and in such a case, attack is the only battle plan. So let us attack. Let us attack the strongholds of darkness that have captured those who are dear to us, let us knock down the towers and walls that keep people enslaved to the dark. With our hands and with our words let us build up foundations of light and love in the power of faith to illuminate this land.

We don't have much time. Someday, perhaps someday soon, our quest will end, and we will leave it to the next generation. They must be equipped well. They must have experience in seeing us fight, or they won't have any idea what to do with the sword when it is handed to them.

This quest is not about us. It isn't even about conquering the dragon...he's already been dealt a fatal blow from which he will never recover. It is about people, the people in the dark. So let us fight for them as we would fight for our best friend and never stop caring.




For the night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.
Romans 13:12


For you are all children of the light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness.
1 Thessalonians 5:5



Friday, August 19, 2016

Girl Talk



Women, from childhood, desire to be loved. We want to be treasured and defended. We want to be fought for. We want to be pursued. 


This is important because the longing to be loved drives so many of the choices we as women make, and if we are not absolutely grounded in this area, it can entirely wreck our lives.


The world has so many ways to deceive us on this. It tells women that we don't need to be loved. That we can be strong and independent and self-sufficient and that is after all so much safer than putting our heart out there to get trampled. But this idea can't hold on all the time, because, let's face it, we as women are never in the same mood for very long no matter how very hard we try.


The world is prepared for this. So when we realize the loneliness in independence, it says that the only way to be entirely safe is to maintain complete control. Every ad and glamour magazine entices to use our beauty and sex appeal to control the men around us. As if lust were a fitting substitute for love.


And then, just for fun, when both of the first options have failed to deliver that life-long security that we were hoping for, the world adds the last dash to this deadly recipe by assuring us that we aren't worth being loved anyway. The only way to get someone to love us is to earn it. We get hurt, used and trample, and swing back around to option number one, swearing that we don't need anyone anyway.


No where in this sick cycle is there a hint of hope or true love. But the more desperate we get, the faster we run through each option. There are so many pitfalls along the way it's amazing any of us ever get out alive.


The Truth is this: No one can be strong and self-sufficient forever; manipulation leads to pain; and we are, every one of us, worth being loved. We are valuable. We are treasures.


You can never make anyone love you. It doesn't matter how clever or pretty you are, but you don't have to.


Whether you are fourteen or eighty-four, here is the most important piece of life-saving information that I can ever give:



You are loved.

You don't have to earn it from anyone. You don't have to protect yourself from it. You don't have to dress or act a certain way. You are loved, for who you are, unconditionally and forever.

Fairytales are full of men, usually princes---apparently, there used to be an abundance of them---accomplishing impossible tasks for the hand of a princess. Because, as we all are well aware, action proves love far more than any words could ever do. You, my dear, are that princess.

Let me tell you your story.

Once upon a time, there was a great king who ruled over all the land. Although the king was good and kind and absolutely just, the land was cursed with rebels who did as they pleased and treated the citizens of the kingdom with disdain. The prince of the kingdom, who was as good and kind as his father, fell in love with a girl in the kingdom. The rebels, hearing this news, were greatly disturbed and determined to destroy the girl in order to hurt the prince and overthrow the kingdom. As in all good fairytales, the prince did the impossible. He broke through the houses of the rebels and defeated death itself to keep it from stealing his love away. Then he returned triumphant to his father's house with his bride at his side.

If this sounds like your kind of fairytale, if you're tired of trying to earn someone's love or attention, if you're heartbroken and exhausted, there is hope.

Because Jesus Christ defeated death for you, and he wants to bring you home to his father. If you are looking to fall in love, fall in love with him. You will never regret it.



Because you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you
Isaiah 43:4







Sunday, July 24, 2016

NEWS! NEWS!

Here it is at last! The long awaited synopsis of my first ever to be published, full-length novel. RAD Writing is the publisher, and you can check out some of my work in their magazine MavGuard.

I'm just starting the process for the novel, currently nicknamed Merrith Gyse, so it has a long way to go before it will become a full-fledged member to the literary community. However, here is a little taste for those who are interested:


Following the Dark Mountains War centuries earlier, the use of magic was banned in Izzat and De'eregal. Anyone suspected of using that power is subject to immediate execution.


Merrith Gyse, unassuming apprentice to a blacksmith in eastern Izzat, is not the first person anyone thinks of when rumors start flying of wraiths attacking at the borders of De’eregal. Even Merrith's younger brothers, Rydrek and Loke, do not see it fit to ask him for help, until they discover that Merrith has more power than either of them had ever guessed. 


Merrith has more than just one secret, and he has his own very good reasons for not being interested in power, his own or anyone else’s. What he is interested in is the safety of his younger brothers. And while he may be the only person in the kingdoms with the kind of magical power that it would take to defeat Talim Nark, he is not willing to risk what his use of magic would do to Rydrek and Loke.


Stay tuned for more updates!


Thursday, April 7, 2016

DreamBroker



A gilt and rather dusty wooden sign stuck out over the sidewalk in front of the door of 23B Liver Street. The door, much like the sign, needed a good washing and a new coat of paint—the original coat of which had been deep blue and sported a flaking pattern of silver stars. The sign, in ornate copperplate, read: Dream Distillery.

The door stood a single step above the sidewalk, and a young man sat on the step with his back against the door and his shoulders hunched deep inside his coat, which was good quality wool. The suit he wore beneath was just as well-made, neatly tailored and paired with a set of shiny hand-sewn shoes. The man started as the door to 23A opened with the tinkling of a bell and a woman stepped onto the street. She paid him no attention as she passed, preoccupied with the package in her hands, and he sank back down again.

He drew a finger through the fine sand that covered the step where he sat. It glittered slightly on his fingertip as he lifted it for inspection.

At the corner of the street, a streetlamp flickered to life with the coming dusk. Cars passed the entrance to the street but rarely turned down Liver Street itself. Another streetlamp came to life and another, until they lit the whole street of stone building fronts and inset doorways. Still, he waited until at last he heard the turn and click of the lock opening behind him.

He scrambled to his feet without bothering to brush the sand from his pants.

“Ah, Mister Darien,” said a voice with a slight Scandinavian accent. “I hope you have not been waiting long. Do come in.”

Mister Darien stepped hurriedly inside and shoved the door closed behind him. “It didn’t work,” he said in a clipped, angry voice as he drew a small vial of dark liquid from the inner pocket of his jacket. “Haven’t you got anything stronger?”

“Stronger,” said the shopkeeper as he moved down the hall and through the second door into a small room lit by a single lamp with a dark green shade. “I do not think you would like anything stronger. Terrifying things—-”

Darien slammed the little vial down on the desk in the circle of light made by the lamp. “Listen. This doesn’t work. I’ll pay whatever you want. Just give me the strongest you’ve got.” In the shadows of the room, his face was lit ghoulishly by the light reflected from the surface of the desk.

“Very well,” muttered the other man, moving through the gloom along the shelves. “The strongest I’ve got. Just as you say.”

A clink of glass and a liquid sloshing followed. Then the shopkeeper returned to the desk with a vial even smaller than the first filled with liquid as thick as molasses and blacker even than coal.

Darien swept it up and tucked it into his coat before dropping a tight roll of bills onto the desk.

“Use it carefully—” the man began in warning.

Darien muttered an impolite remark and left through the door of faded stars. He slammed into a younger man who stood to one side of the step, so hard that he sent the other man sprawling off the curb and into the street. He muttered another curse as he hurried toward the end of the street. In his hurry, he neglected to close the door all the way, and it with its silver stars swung gently open again into the hall.

At the same time, a distant roll of thunder preceded a sudden spot of rain. The man picked himself up from the pavement and studied the abraded palms of his hands as he moved into the shelter of the building. Overhead the gilt and dust sign creaked in a chill gust of wind that swirled down the seat, gathering the detritus of the day. A paper kite in the shape of a carp with scales of blue and gold and green was caught in the gust and went swimming neatly down the street until its trailing string tangled about a decorative arm of the lamppost. The kite swung about, tail and fins fluttering, its sides moving in lifelike rhythm.

He smiled at the sight until another burst of heavy raindrops bore the paper fish to the ground and turned it into a shapeless, pulpy mass. A warm breath of air ran across the back of his neck from the doorway.

“Do you mean to stand in the door all night? If you do, you might have the decency at least to come in and close the door.”

The young man started at the voice and turned quickly. “I’m sorry,” he said and stepped out into the rain and wind, which had become in a moment, a raging downpour.

“Are you waiting for someone?” the voice asked, appearing embodied in a small, wrinkled man. “Come inside before you’re soaked through.”

The young man moved gratefully into the small hallway with water already dripping from his sleeves. “I don’t mean to bother you,” he said. He looked back at the storm. The shopkeeper pushed the door closed. At once, the crash of rain was lost.

“I am never bothered,” the man replied. “Won’t you come in?” He opened the first door in the hall into a pleasant library-like room with comfortable chairs set near a crackling fire and thick carpets of stunning patterns overlapping on the stone floor. Lanterns of colored glass hung from the ceiling on loops of silver chain. The room smelled of warm cookies and coffee.

“Won’t you sit?” the shopkeeper asked, waving the young man toward the chairs.

The young man moved across the room. He felt as though he should be thoroughly disoriented and stifled by the colors and patterns between the carpets and the lanterns, not to mention the staggering intricacy of the wallpaper. Instead, he felt a sense of comfort so deep that he was nearly asleep as soon as he sat down. He thought, just for a second, that something glittered in front of him like a dust motes in sunlight or a glitter of sand. Then his eyes were closed.

He slept there until morning, dreaming delicious dreams of a fantastic wood where he could turn into a bird at will and soar through the branches up to the clouds or, if he dove into the water, he became a sleek, glittering carp with scales of green and gold and blue, and he slid along the bottom of the lake past a tiny kingdom of crawfish at war with a nearby country of water slugs. Then he went up, up and up again and burst from the surface of the water as a great cat. The water became moss beneath his paws. He strode through a jungle of dense shadows braided with vines and full of the chirping of insects and the calls of birds. As he surveyed the jungle, he heard a voice that did not belong there. It was a sweet, silver chime of a voice that sand a melody sweeter than honey, and it filled him with the most wonderful sense of longing.

He found the singer, a maiden with long coils of silver-green hair falling all about her as she sat on a large red toadstool with her feet tucked up neatly beneath her. He had become a man again by then, but found himself still as brave as the tiger when her eyes met his. Her eyes were drops of lavender. She leaned forward with a laugh and kissed him so her eyelashes brushed his cheek. Then she morphed into a butterfly with wings of silver green and two spots of deep lavender. She swooped once around his head before she fluttered away.

He woke from his dreams easily, still so filled with a sense of wonder and awe that he could see, without trying, the shopkeeper’s shape was little more than a facade. Behind it there was a power older than stories and legends, and if it had not been so sweet and peaceful, he might very well have been terrified.

“Did you sleep well?” asked the shopkeeper, and he was once again just a little wrinkled man in a small, strange shop.

“Yes, thank you,” the young man said as he roused himself. “I—I would very much like to come back again.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that. I know where to find you.”

“You do?” He blinked as he got to his feet and noticed quite suddenly, the ceiling, which was covered in splendid murals that seemed almost to speak of his dream.

“Yes, quite, but you’d best be along now. The storm has ended.”

The young man walked to the door to the hall and heard footsteps just outside as he opened the door. A wrinkled little shopkeeper stood before him, as near a copy as the one behind him as was possible.

“Oh,” said the one behind. “My brother. No need for you to meet him just yet. He’s always about on his business. He has more work, nearly, than I do.”

As easily as the transition in a dream, the young man found himself on the step outside of 23B Liver Street. The door, with its silver stars, shone in the rain-washed morning light. He thought back on his dream, of the feel of the wind beneath his wings, and the water against his scales and the moss beneath his paws, and remembered the soft kiss of the butterfly. And he smiled.

Behind him, the sign with its gilt letters hung still on its post, so the sunlight caught the words and set them ablaze.


***

Note: This story is loosely based on the legend of Ole Lukøje, or the Sandman. Also, this is a semi-companion story to one from last year. Read it here! 23A Liver Street


Exciting news! I've had a short story and a sketch published in the third edition of MavGuard Magazine, which you can buy here: http://www.rad-writing.com/store/