Monthly Archives: February 2009

A prayer for our leaders

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From this story.

Father of Lights, the time is dark and our eyes are dim. Our kings, ordained for the protection of the weak, expose them to death, yet cry ‘hope.’ Our people have lost their way and are deceived.

~

Light in the Darkness, we call upon you that we may be undeceived and follow you once more. We humbly and earnestly implore you, not only that the evils in the land be turned back, but that we have the courage to stand against them.

~

Holy Spirit, hear our intercession for the repentance and conversion of those highly placed who do wrong. Renew a right spirit within them. We beg the same mercy for ourselves, who have stood by and called evil good. Assist our prayers, and enable us in all times and places to give you thanks.

~

In the Name of the Trinity, Amen.

The implication is that it is an older prayer, but no source is referenced.  Either way, I greatly appreciate here both the acknowledgment of evil and the source of hope through times of evil.

I hope no one will think that I am calling our leaders themselves evil.  I’m not yet ready to go that far.  But I cannot call the upholding and easing of abortion by any other name.  

Kyrie eleison. Lord, have mercy

Deathbed Conversion

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I think that accepting Christ “at the last minute” isn’t a whole lot different than going to see someone because they are close to dying.

Sure it can be a little embarrassing when you think the effort someone had to go to get your attention (Really dear, you could just have invited me.  We’d have worked something out…), but I can either ignore the issue–

Perhaps out of a mis-guided effort to show that my previous M.O. was so justifiable that there’s no reason to change, even now.

Or I can rearrange my current behavior to better use the little time that remains.

As humbling as it is, this is all that remains, and I would rather do the little I can do now than to know latter I did less than I could have.

~ ~ ~

I wrote that down before dashing off to Anchorage three weeks ago.  This morning I got the call that said my Uncle’s body had given up on this world.  I am so thankful my children and I had that last opertunity to visit with him and cement pleasent memories of him in their young minds.

Progress Report

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Added ~ 2500 words in the last week.  It took that much to update the last of my (p)reworked scenes.

One of the noveling books I’ve read (probably more than one) emphasized that each character should be multi-purpose.  The doorman should never be just open the door.  He should also be the one who holds some essential clue.

~

I recently made a connection that catapulted a minor character of this novel into a major character in the next, swishing motivations and appearances all over the map.  So I went back (hand-slap if you have too) and brought the cleaned up portions up to date.

I must say, it was amazing how much faster the clean chapters were to update than they were to clean up in the first place.  Wow.

Anyway, the first 17 scenes are now current with my “3.4” version of the plot.  One particular advantage of flying through these scenes was feeling the overall tone of the piece and knowing (*quite* clearly) which chapters were out of sync.

Two out of 17 doesn’t seem so threatening; and noticing those two indicates that I actually have some measure of cohesion in the rest of it.  Very encouraging.

Hero as Mother?

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What a fascinating thought!  LitLove at Tales from the Reading Room analyzed Twilight with this view I’d never seen before; basically that the ideal romantic partner is as all-powerful, all-providing, all-protective, and all-loving as a good mother is to her young child.

So naturally I had to return to my story and see if that is in my “ideal” world as well, because, however well it worked for Twilight and vampire romance it’s not something I want to promote.

Even so, my main trouble with the idea of calling these romantic notions “maternal” is finding (or defining) the line between the healthy mutual dependence and the unhealthy.  I completely reject the idea of hubris and total autonomy (it’s actually one of my novel’s themes).

~ ~ ~

A quick mental review of my story does show a bit more give-and-take than I would imagine for the maternal model:  Yes, the husband rescues the wife, but she’s already saved his life too, so I see it as a reciprocal relationship.

At one point early in the relationship he actually scolds her for depending too wholly on his (underprepared) judgment.

“Tykone didn’t want us to go,” said Kennett.“He thought the king and queen would come up with some solution for a useless crown prince.”

“He didn’t call you useless, and you said you wanted to go.”Linnea was shivering and angry, wishing the sun would hurry up and rise so she wouldn’t be so cold.They had moved away from the warmth of their fire and shelter so they wouldn’t waken Hale, but the ground of the barren clearing was completely frozen where they stood and Linnea could feel the cold seeping up through the soles of her simple boots.

“You said you would go where I go.That’s all you said.You’ve been human longer than me.You knew you’d be cold out here without the proper gear.Why didn’t you say so?”

Linnea closed her eyes, pinching out tears of cold.“It’s that— I thought you knew what you were doing?”

She looked over her shoulder and saw Kennett staring at her, open mouthed.“You can’t be serious,” he said, finally.She looked away.

Now it was Kennett’s turn to sound angry.“As soon as Tykone was gone I told you I have no idea what I’m doing.You’re the one with all the experience being human!”

In contrast it’s the fellow she’s forced to depend on while in hiding who takes the (more controlling) role that might be labeled maternal.

~ ~ ~

Speaking of relationships in general, my limited education/experience leads me to mistrust such one-sided power/surrender in a relationship.   Not because I believe men and women are the same (I believe there are distinct roles), but because I see that one-sided relationship as half a step from a controlling, then abusive, relationship.

And either could look the same from the outside.

But for all that I still see couples for whom the “total dependance” model seems to be working for.  Whether or not that stems from elements missing from her childhood could be irrelevant.  After all, “compatible neuroses” seems to be an utterly sufficient alternative to two “healthy” people when looking at the levels of peace and happiness in a marriage.

The Difference Between Blogging and Writing a Book

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Blogging is like being the hostess or guest of honor at a party (or maybe just my kind of a party…): everyone is already connected to you somehow; you have some measure of established status, credibility and sometimes feedback.

Whatever you say (write) has the general context and cushion of relationship to get you to the next post/conversation, so flubs are less-threatening.

Writing a book, on the other hand, is like giving a speech.  In the same way that collecting three points (along with their supporting material) takes for most minds more thought than daily conversations, you think longer about the words for a book.

These words have more weight to you as a writer because they must be solid enough to stand on their own.  This work will be read by disinterested (in you the writer) people as well as those who love you and those who’d delight in ripping a gaping hole in your idea-baby.