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June 16, 2008
By: Patrick
Category: ,
I have a pet peeve. Well, likely a good many but one which comes to mind right now because it’s related to my various fields of interest.
I’ve attended a fair number of churches in my time, either for a visit or, significantly more rarely, a longer stay. I’ve now made churches my profession of sorts, though not being paid by a church does mitigate that reality I suppose. I’ve also helped out in other creative projects and participated in arenas in which the mediocre thrived (my high school) and the amazing become more so (my college). I’ve seen a curious thing over the years which surprises me. The great things that happen are often because the people involved are doing something for themselves, that is they are making something, or building something, or leading something which they enjoy for its own sake. They would go to it even if they didn’t lead.
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June 09, 2008
By: Cathi-Lyn Dyck, Managing Editor
Category: , , , , ,
I dunno. Every so often, a day–or series of days–comes along that just drags at a person. It’s been that way lately. My summer schedule is full to bursting. I’ve had to opt out of some paying work, and I feel like the family-and-community to-do lineup is a thousand miles long.
I suspect I’m turning into my mother. As I write this, my first inclination is to make a list. Take it all down to size, prioritize, tackle. I’m not the list person. She is. Problem is, listing it sometimes just clarifies the problems, not the solutions.
A long list of disappointments lately–a list that’s very clear in my mind–doesn’t help. I got a solid dose of the flaws in some of my family relationships. There’s the ongoing internal conflict in our church. We also just received a “no” from a potential pastor who had seemed to be all “yes” up till now. It was a financially costly “no” to the church, and we’re going to have to answer some angry questions. At times like this, the responsibilities of our young family, jobs, and even little things like home maintenance just get to be a weight, rather than the privilege they should be to the two of us.
So, what do you do with a “downer” day? Make a list? Stay in bed? Go into denial and eat chocolate? Tackle the future with both hands and feet?
I’m sure there’s an interesting range out there. Gimme your thoughts.
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June 02, 2008
By: Cathi-Lyn Dyck, Managing Editor
Category: , , , , ,
Last fall, I did an interview with an up-and-coming suspense author named Mike Dellosso. At the time, he was waiting with bated (yes, that’s how it’s spelled) - bated breath to hear whether his novel, The Hunted, was going to be released by Realms. Shortly after that, I was able to congratulate him on a contract successfully negotiated.
In that correspondence, Mike really humanized the later parts of the writing process for me - I mean, I know the part about putting words together nicely. But then there’s the selling part and the public self-presentation part and all that stuff. It finally clicked into my reality that all writers, editors and company managers are just people. I like people. I prefer people who say hi to me first, which Mike did on ShoutLife. But I especially like people who write things that drag me right into the story, which is what Mike’s first chapter did. That was why I interviewed him. He wrote something cool.
When I started hanging around here again this spring, Gina Conroy submitted a post about the Writer…Interrupted community. And she mentioned that Mike Dellosso had been diagnosed with cancer.
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May 28, 2008
By: Patrick
Category: , ,
One of the things I am turning over in my head is the motivation behind sin. Talk to some people and they will bring out a well-worn harangue about calling sin a sin, and making sure folks know exactly what sins are being committed. These sorts of people are concerned that God will present them with a list of other people’s sins that weren’t properly admonished, thus losing pool privileges for a 32nd part of eternity. Or maybe such people like to be right, and want others to know that they are right, a fact that becomes even more potent when those others are wrong. It’s nice to be right when someone else is wrong, so nice that a person might feel compelled to seek out those situations if none are immediately presented. Or, more kindly, folks like to point out sins because they genuinely care for others.
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May 26, 2008
By: Cathi-Lyn Dyck, Managing Editor
Category: , , , , , , , ,
Marty wrote something profound last weekend. (Yeah, dude, you now have me on record saying that. :~)
He wrote, “If a person is forfeiting their humanity to appease someone else, then there is no way a person can actually enjoy that. It has to break down the body and mind at some point.”
Forfeiting your humanity to appease someone. Those are exactly the right words to describe it. And I believe that in those situations, we are ultimately forfeiting our humanity to the devil. Much as that sounds like wacko-talk, I came to believe in the reality of evil forces years before I believed in a God.
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