Four Things You Can't Recover

Four things you can't recover:

The stone...after the throw.
The word...after it's said.
The occasion...after it's missed.
The time...after it's gone.

Upside Down Dogs

These dogs remind me of my own dog, a greyhound who used to sleep upside down (with paw in the air and tongue hanging out until it dried) all the time! She'd give soft little yips as she slept, and her paws would twitch; chasing a fantasy rabbit, no doubt. She died ten years ago, before I had a digital camera, but maybe I'll scan an image in.

She cut her armpit on barbed wire and developed that nasty *flesh-eating* necrotizing fascitis caused by strep bacteria. This was really scary. From home we treated her with IV gentamycin, and remarkably she recovered to live four more years. When she was 11 she developed a fast-growing thyroid tumor that choked her. Our family gave up our summer vacation so that she could have surgery, but sadly it didn't work.

Anyway, smile when you look at these pictures :-) Dogs are so wonderful.



And my favorite:

Unchristian Thoughts, Part Deux

Wow! Yesterday I was just trying to write a small interesting point, and (something that sadly happens to me), did not express the point as well as I could have or should have :-( Well, my apologies, and never being afraid to rush in where angels fear to tread, here goes again...

I wrote yesterday:

You can see that the largest emphasis was placed on living a *good* life, living by the ten commandments, not doing wrong things. In fact, Kinnaman's book discusses that many of these *born again* Christians seem to have a works component of their faith: that they must consistently do certain things in order to be considered forgiven. Some think that there may be other ways to heaven besides believing in Christ.

Let me make it clear that every person is entitled to believe whatever he chooses: I am NOT preaching here. However, if these beliefs are held, they are not consistent with Biblical Christianity.

Philangelus, a dear friend and someone never willing to let me go on in error (I am so grateful to her) was troubled by this statement, and responded:

I disagree with your interpretation of the facts. These people found these things as priorities not because "living a good life" and "learning about Christ" were "works that will get them into Heaven" but rather because they were, as the survey says, "important priorities for a Christian to pursue in terms of his or her faith."

The Bible itself says that faith naturally manifests itself in good works (the book of James) and that our good deeds are the only things that follow us into the next life (Revelation) and Jesus said, "If you love me, do what I tell you."

In other words, these things BECOME priorities because of what we hold dear. They are the proof of our love of God rather than the substance of our love of God or the reason for God to love us. Are they important? Absolutely, the same way you don't love your husband only because he brings you roses on Valentine's Day but you accept those roses as a sign that he deeply loves you and wants to make you happy.

Good point! She is correct that attempting to live a good life is certainly a component of the Christian life. James, after all, states that "Faith without works is dead." (James 2:20) A Christian who does not demonstrate changes in how he or she lives can reasonably expect others to become skeptical of the conversion.

I totally agree with this. Philangelus and Rosslyn, and anyone else, I hope I got the point and answered it correctly? If not I'm hopeless, and I'll stick to posting cute emails that people send me instead of trying to expound on things beyond my ken.

Now, back to the point I was so awkwardly trying to make yesterday:

I believe many people call themselves a Christian because they did an altar call when they were 12, or did *The Jesus Thing* for awhile in youth group, or go to church. However, they may not hold some of the foundational beliefs that are clearly articulated in Scripture.

One of the most frightening passages for me is Matthew 7:21-23, when Jesus is speaking:

"Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.'"

As a Christian who accepts Christ as Lord, I take from this passage that one must be very careful of what he believes. I believe that the Scriptures, the Old and New Testaments, are reliable and sufficient to convey the orthodox or *correct/complete* understanding of the Christian faith. A person is entitled to believe anything he wants; however, if you are going to call yourself a Christian, you should play by the rules and hold to the Christian doctrine. I came to my faith through studying the historic circumstances surrounding the death of Jesus --> the evidence established to my satisfaction that Jesus did indeed rise from the dead, therefore he was who he said he was, therefore the Scriptures are reliable for information pertaining to God. (Anyone with questions about these statements, feel free to write if you wish to engage in a friendly and polite debate).

Kinnaman's book in his survey statistics seemed to support some trouble spots that I occasionally run across in my own conversations with Christians, say at church:

1. A Works Doctrine: I hold to the idea that there is nothing that we can do to earn our salvation; it is all through the Lord. Ephesians 2:8-9: "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast." There are many other verses to support this idea also. If someone tries to emphasize living by rules, not sinning etc., they MAY (repeat MAY) have the wrong emphasis -- the ability to live well comes from within, not from following external rules. This is what I was referring to yesterday. I throw this thought out more for someone to ask himself if this applies (because it does to all of us, to some degree) and take corrective measures to emphasize God's glory and gift, not our ability to be *worthy* by doing something to earn salvation.

There are many thoughts about the role of the person versus the role of God. An interesting article that discusses the role of purgatory for salvation is here. As a Protestant I do not believe in the concept of Purgatory (2 Cor 5:6-8), but respect those who do and do not consider this a Deal-Breaker within the Christian faith; rather this is something that can be debated in-house.

I'm not going to argue Calvinism versus Arminianism either. The roles of the Holy Spirit versus the Human spirit in salvation are deep mysteries that I don't want to attempt to debate. I simply want to make the point that we must rely on the Holy Spirit, not our own power, in order to live righteously.

2. Multiple Salvations: that there are other ways to salvation besides Christ. Again, any person is entitled to believe what he or she wants, but traditional Christianity says that no one comes to the Father except through Christ. (John 14:6) This in my opinion is a nonnegotibable point of understanding of Christianity, since it is repeated often in the Scriptures and never ever contradicted.

I've had several discussions with self-identified Christians who seem to think that being a *good* person is good enough to be reconciled with God. Many people who are not Christian also believe that *things will even out* and on balance they'll be OK. As much as I wish this were true, I don't believe that the Scriptures support this conclusion.

*

OK, I hope these points better express what I was trying to say yesterday! These are my understandings of Scripture.

What do you think? What are the deal-breakers for Christianity? Is Christianity the *only* way to be reconciled with God in the first place, or do all belief systems have truth? If you believe in Christianity but I am a Buddhist, and we both live good lives, can't we both be right?

Anne pointed out yesterday that Christianity is a relationship with the Lord, not a religion per se -- so what is the difference? Can you HAVE a relationship with Someone who you can't see, or hear, or touch?

Wat about Luther's insistence on Sola Scriptura? Any thoughts?

Have an awesome day!

Unchristian Thoughts

I'm reading a book by David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons from the Barna Group entitled *Unchristian: What a New Generation Thinks about Christianity* This is a facinating look at what the general, younger, non-Christian population thinks about Christians and Christianity. If you are a Christian, it's far from flattering! I'd like to do a book review soon (once I finish the book; there's a lot of information here), but today I want to talk about one point that Kinnaman makes.

The question is, what does a Christian actually believe?

OK, let me take an (open-ended) question that was asked of Christians* in a Barna survey: Name the most important priorities for a Christian to pursue in terms of his or her faith?

*these Christians were defined as *born again* based on answers to questions in the survey. About 2 out of five adults were thus classified, that believe the following: 1) he or she has made a personal commitment to Jesus that is still important; and 2) the person believes he or she will go to heaven because he has confessed sin and accepted Christ as Savior.

Have your answer?

The Barna survey divided the answers into several categories. They were:

Lifestyle: doing the right thing, being good, not sinning (37%)

Discipleship: learning about Christ or the Bible (31%)

Evangelism: explaining or sharing the faith, leading people to Christ (25%)

Worship: worshipping G-d, singing (25%)

Relationships: loving others, making and keeping friends (23%)

Service: helping others, helping the poor, serving people (18%)

Stewardship: giving money, time, or resources to others, blessing others (4%)

Family Faith: disciplining your children, shaping family faith (1%)

Other (2%)

Not Sure: (10%)

*

You can see that the largest emphasis was placed on living a *good* life, living by the ten commandments, not doing wrong things. In fact, Kinnaman's book discusses that many of these *born again* Christians seem to have a works component of their faith: that they must consistently do certain things in order to be considered forgiven. Some think that there may be other ways to heaven besides believing in Christ.

Let me make it clear that every person is entitled to believe whatever he chooses: I am NOT preaching here. However, if these beliefs are held, they are not consistent with Biblical Christianity. I see another blog entry or two discussing the question: what DOES a Christian believe? Will start in on this this week :-)

Any thoughts?

Brownies

Hi Everyone. I'm still tired from all the activity even though it's been almost a week since my daughter and I returned. Have to get back to blogging, but am going to punt today.

Here is my easy brownie recipe that everyone seems to go gaga for. The secret is using Dutch-processed cocoa. Hershey's makes a Special Dark blend of cocoa with a gold label that is a mix of regular and alkali-processed cocoas; this is what I often use since the honest-to-goodness Dutch-processed stuff is a pain to find. Trust me, everything chocolate is so much better made with the alkali-processed (also known as Dutch-processed). If you want to convert to save yourself all that saturated chocolate fat, one ounce (one square) of unsweetened baking chocolate is worth 3 tablespoons cocoa plus a tablespoon of oil. Also, since I avoid adding saturated fat whenever I can, I also substitute safflower or canola oil for the butter/margarine in these brownies; no one has yet noticed a difference.

Here 'tis:

Brownies

1 cup butter or margarine
2 cups sugar
2 tsp vanilla
4 eggs
3/4 cup (12 tablespoons) cocoa
1 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
chocolate chips

Melt butter or margarine. Mix in sugar and vanilla, then eggs one at a time. (Note: make sure butter has cooled a bit after melting or it will cook eggs :-) Sift and add cocoa, flour, baking powder, and salt and mix until smooth. Add chocolate chips.

Pour batter into greased 13 x 9 x 2 pan (or line pan with foil --> but when removing baked brownies be careful foil doesn't shred; if it does make sure there are no little foil pieces stuck to the bottoms of the brownies!) Bake at 350F for 30 to 35 minutes. For best results to avoid crumbling brownies let these babies cool for an hour or so before cutting and removing from pan.

The Mouse and the Lion

A Mouse ran by chance into the mouth of a Lion who lay asleep.

The Lion got up, and was just going to eat him, when the poor Mouse asked to be let go, saying, " If I am let go, I shall not forget you."

So, with a smile, the Lion let him go.

Soon the Lion was saved by the Mouse, who did not forget him; for when some men had caught him, and had tied him with ropes to a tree, the Mouse heard him roar, and came and gnawed the ropes, and let the Lion go, saying, "You smiled at me once, as if I could not do you any good turn; but now, you see, it is you who cannot forget me."

Gone for a Bit...

Happy Mother’s Day, all you mothers out there. I hope your day was lovely and joyful.

My daughter and I will be away this week, so that she can present at a conference. We’re very proud of her :-) I will be back to blogging again next week, Monday May 18th.

I hope you all have a wonderful week!

The Old Woman and Her Pig

This is one of my favorite stories now that I remember from childhood. Doesn't it seem like life is like this? You want to do a simple thing, but to do it you've got to first do this, to do that, to do this...

Anyway, here it is! Enjoy.

*

THE OLD WOMAN AND HER PIG.

Once upon a time, an old woman was sweeping her little house, when, to her great joy, she found a silver sixpence.

"What," said she, "shall I do with this little sixpence? I think I will go to market and buy a pig." So the next day, she went to market, and bought a nice little white pig. She tied a string to one of the pig's legs, and began to drive him home.

On the way, the old woman and her pig came to a stile, and she said,

"Please, pig, get over the stile."

But the pig would not.

Just then a little dog came trotting up, and the old woman said to him,

"Dog, dog, bite pig ;
Pig won't get over the stile,
And I sha'n't get home to-night."

But the dog would not.

So the old woman held up her stick, and said,

"Stick, stick, beat dog;
Dog won't bite pig;
Pig won't get over the stile,
And I sha'n't get home to-night."

But the stick would not.

So the old woman gathered some bits of wood together to make a fire, and set them on fire, and then threw her stick into the fire, and said,

"Fire, fire, burn stick;
Stick won't beat dog;
Dog won't bite pig;
Pig won't get over the stile,
And I sha'n't get home to-night."

But the fire would not.

So the old woman fetched a pail of water that was standing near, and said,

"Water, water, quench fire;
Fire won't burn stick;
Stick won't beat dog;
Dog won't bite pig;
Pig won't get over the stile,
And I sha'n't get home to-night."

But the water would not.

Then the old woman saw an ox coming; so she said,

"Ox, ox, drink water;
Water won't quench fire;
Fire won't burn stick;
Stick won't beat dog;
Dog won't bite pig;
Pig won't go;
I see by the moonlight,
It's long past midnight;
Time pig and I were home an hour and
a half ago."

But the ox would not.

So the old woman turned round, and saw a butcher, and she said,

"Butcher, butcher, kill ox;
Ox won't drink water;
Water won't quench fire;
Fire won't burn stick;
Stick won't beat dog;
Dog won't bite pig;
Pig won't go.
I see by the moonlight,
It's long past midnight;
Time pig and I were home an hour and
a half ago."

But the butcher would not.

So the old woman took a rope out of her pocket, and said,

"Rope, rope, hang butcher;
Butcher won't kill ox;
Ox won't drink water;
Water won't quench fire;
Fire won't burn stick;
Stick won't beat dog;
Dog won't bite pig;
Pig won't go.
I see by the moonlight,
It's long past midnight ;
Time pig and I were home an hour and
a half ago."

But the rope would not.

Just then a large brown mouse ran across the meadow, and she said,

"Mouse, mouse, gnaw rope;
Rope won't hang butcher;
Butcher won't kill ox;
Ox won't drink water;
Water won't quench fire;
Fire won't burn stick;
Stick won't beat dog;
Dog won't bite pig;
Pig won't go.
I see by the moonlight,
It's long past midnight;
Time pig and I were home an hour and
a half ago."

"Yes," said the mouse, "I will if you will give me some cheese."

So the old woman put her hand in her pocket, and found a nice piece of cheese; and when the mouse had eaten it,

The mouse began to gnaw the rope,
The rope began to hang the butcher,
The butcher began to kill the ox,
The ox began to drink the water,
The water began to quench the fire,
The fire began to burn the stick,
The stick began to beat the dog,
The dog began to bite the pig,
And the pig began to go.

But what time the old woman and her pig got
home, you, nor I, nor nobody knows.

Some Thoughts on Writing the Individual Scene

There are both plot-driven and character-driven stories, but in my humble opinion they both need tension in order to move forward. Tension must be in every chapter, every paragraph, every sentence. Tension is the uncertainty of at least one issue in the story. For example, here is a conversation between character A and character B:

A: Do you like eggs for breakfast?
B: (answer #1) Yes.
B: (answer #2) My mom used to make eggs, soft boiled, you know, and she'd break them over toast so that the egg yolk would soak in.
B: (answer #3) Why is it any of your business?

Answer #1 stops the conversation, and the story. There are times when this answer might be appropriate -- say, to establish an abrupt interchange -- but in general, #2 or #3 might be a better choice. #2 opens up a chance to deepen character background in a natural way, and #3 suggests a brewing fight. My general rule for questions in writing, whether spoken or implied, is *never* to put down a direct answer.

When I write, I like to plan out the broad outlines of a chapter before I start in. I often end up changing it, mind you, but I at least start with a direction.

According to Jack Bickham there are two units of story construction: a SCENE and a SEQUEL. Very roughly speaking, the scene follows the advancing plot, and the sequel describes the POV character's reaction to it. Bickham describes that all stories are beads of Scene-Sequel-Scene-Sequel, although many times the sequel can be pulled to speed up the action.

While I don't agree with everything he describes, his thoughts were quite helpful, and allowed me to develop a technique for planning each chapter. Here's my technique, for what it's worth:

At the top of the page, I'll copy in my little outline:

POV:
GOAL:
CONFLICT:
DISASTER:

POV stands for the point of view character, in whose head I am writing from. Hmm, maybe I should write a blog on character viewpoint. Basically, since I prefer the 3rd person limited, everything is told from that character's perspective: what HE can see, what HE knows.

GOAL: what is the short-term goal that my POV character is trying to achieve within the next few pages? When writing the draft, I try to have the character actually state his goal clearly close to the beginning.

CONFLICT: what obstacles will stand in the way of this goal? Obstacles can be both EXTERNAL (other people, physical obstacles) and INTERNAL (fears, worries, lack of knowledge). I like to come up with at least 5 conflicts. Even though I can't always come up with 5, and even if I do come up with them I don't always incorporate them into the draft, they are still helpful to prevent writers block -- if I'm stuck I can always throw another problem at my poor POV character.

DISASTER: the scene should not end happily. Even if the POV character is successful with his goal at the beginning of the chapter, he should be in a worse situation at the end of the chapter. More questions are raised! The reader thinks, I'll read just one more chapter...

*

I also use sequels, the emotional reaction of the POV character, although less frequently. When I'm ready to write a sequel, I post this outline at the top:

EMOTION:
THOUGHT:
DECISION:
ACTION:

EMOTION: refers to the POV character's emotional state immediately following the previous scene. Is he frightened, worried, angry, desperate?

THOUGHT: once he's had some emotion, he's able to logically evaluate the circumstances.

DECISION: the character is in a bad situation, and must decide what he is going to do.

ACTION: He begins to do what he decided.

*

There is no easy way to write, but doing this little bit of preplanning at least for me is quite helpful to prevent writers block. Often my scene shapes up differently than what I'd thought, but that's OK too -- I go with the flow.

So, how do you go about facing the computer screen every day?

Socialism

Will sent this to me. It is so good I had to put it up!

*

An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before but had once failed an entire class. That class had insisted that socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.

The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on socialism. All grades will be averaged and everyone will receive the same grade so no one will fail and no one will receive an A.

After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy.

As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little. The second test average was a D! No one was happy.

When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F. The scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.

All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.

Couldn't be any simpler than that.

Why Should the Reader Care About Your Story?

On Thursday I talked about the importance of the Story Question: the question that the reader or viewer wants answered, and so eagerly devours your story. The Story Question is something that can be unequivocally answered yes or no by the end of the story: WILL Taylor be able to convince Kristen to marry him? WILL Donna be able to realize her dream of being a rock star? Will the X-Thumpers be able to save their home world Terranthia from the invading evil aliens? Your protagonist will actively pursue this story goal, encounter many obstacles, bravely fight, learn something about him- or herself, and ultimately triumph (or not, although failure stories don't tend to be popular unless there is a compensatory win -- think Rocky).

Once you have a good story question you're almost there: you only need to make the reader CARE about whether the story question is answered. To do this, you simply have to make the reader care about the protagonist, and therefore since the protagonist cares about the story question the reader or viewer will also.

OK, so how do you make someone care about your protagonist? The quick answer is not necessarily to make him likeable, but instead to make him someone with whom the reader or viewer can identify with to understand why he does what he does in the story. There are several techniques you as the writer can use:

1. Create Sympathy -- if your protagonist suffers from something, whether an injustice, a physical defect, or a terrible loss of some sort, this will go a long way to create reader identification because the reader will feel sorry for him and therefore of course want him to win.

2. Jeopardy -- any time a character is in real danger, whether physical or emotional threat, the audience is riveted.

3. Likeable -- we all tend to want to be around pleasant rather than unpleasant people, and this is no different in stories. The person may behave well, or be funny, or be good at his job, or whatever -- he has likeable traits that the viewer can appreciate.

Another thing to remember is that a story question (which at the beginning can be a bridging question rather than the main one), and the protagonist, need to be established in your story as early as possible. Your audience needs to know who to root for, and what they're rooting for -- otherwise your story is irrelevant drivel that your audience will only have so much patience to plow through before throwing your book down in disgust. (Unless, of course, your reader is being forced to read this for a literature course in High School, but if this is the case you as the writer are probably dead now anyway :-)

Fun Pix

These are some photos that made me smile -- I hope you enjoy them also! Have a good day, my dear friends...