I’ve been doing some thinking lately about teleportation, and I have concluded that I am totally against it. Doubtless you have seen those futuristic films where characters gleefully transport across great distances through a single, instantaneous, leap. Doesn’t it seem wonderful? Wouldn’t it be nice to do away with all […]
Series Review: The Sunlit Lands by Matt Mikalatos
The Sunlit Lands is a crossworlds, or “portal fantasy” series finished in 2021. The characters travel between our own world and another, magical world. The author, Matt Mikalatos, is a professed Christian, and this series is marketed as teen and YA fiction. I have just had the pleasure of finishing […]
Count the Cost–and Then Go!
When I was seven years old, my dad got sick. He never got better. I remember one day, years later, I was sitting upstairs in our house when a memory struck me. Daddy, healthy and strong, playing with me. Startled, I realized that my siblings (all younger than me), could […]
Hymn #280: I Ask Leave to Go
Sung this Tuesday, at a funeral. 1- I ask leave to go, oh, brothers, sisters–there can be no return– oh, to leave intimates, to leave blood kindred, oh, my beloved, we who have joined in such dear fellowship. 2- I ask leave to go–oh, precious beloved, be eased of grief […]
Eager Eyes Tugging at My Heart
I move carefully down the stairs, trying to put my feet where the metal frame offers the most support under each cracked, tin-covered step. The three classrooms above are empty now. The recess bell has rung, and all the students at the little English school above the church are out […]
A Christian Philosophy of Writing Fiction: God’s Reality
In the last post, I discussed objectionable elements in fiction, and three reasons that writers tend to include them: for realism, for hedonistic purposes, and to further an agenda (for or against). Using principles from God’s Word, I evaluated whether or not these reasons are valid for the Christian writer. […]
A Christian Philosophy of Writing Fiction: What to Do with Sin
We all know good stories, the ones that endure, that break your heart and change your life—that get told and re-told across centuries, ones children beg for at bedtime. Stories are powerful. No one denies this. They strike deep, and they linger; they enchant, and they slap us with reality; […]
Forever a Foreigner?
It was the day of opening ceremonies for the new school year. Every student stood in the dusty school yard, dressed in white shirts and black or blue pants/skirts. The late morning sun beat down hot on the branches of the huge, spreading tamarind trees that overshadowed us. Several speakers […]