The Saga of Bethlehem



(Peter Brueghel the Elder, d. 1569)



[Last year, as a creative and devotional exercise, I composed the following nativity story in the Norse saga style. It has its faults, but I think it’s good enough to re-post.

This version includes some imaginary information not found in Luke’s or other gospel accounts. This is because sagas are very different literature from the gospels, and the telling detail is a necessary part of the technique, even if you have to make it up. ljw]

There was a man called Joseph, son of Jacob, son of Matthan, one of the clan of old King David from Bethlehem. Joseph was an honest man, and very clever at building things. But he didn’t get on with his kinfolk, especially his brothers. One day he said, “I’m going to move up to Nazareth in Galilee. They talk strangely up there, but at least they talk sense, and there’s work to be had.” And his brothers said, “Don’t let us stand in your way.”

Now Joseph was promised in marriage to a girl named Mary, daughter of Heli, daughter of Matthat, also of the David clan, though they had kin among the priests. Mary was a beautiful girl, and very devout. Some people said she was too devout for her own good. One day when she was praying in the house all alone, a mighty messenger of God appeared to her, clad in mail that shone like the sun, and he said, “Hail, highly favored one! You are about to conceive a Son, whom you will name Jesus. He will be a hero, and will be known as Gudsson, and the Highest of All will set Him in the high seat of David, and He will reign over the Jacoblings forever.”

“How can this be?” asked Mary. “I am a virgin.”

The messenger said, “The Spirit of the Secret One will come upon you, and the power of the Highest One will overshadow you, so that the Child to be born will be known as Gudsson.”

“I am the thrall of the Highest One,” said Mary. “Let Him do as He likes.” Continue reading The Saga of Bethlehem

“Man’s Maker was made man”

Man’s Maker was made man

that the Bread might be hungry,

the Fountain thirst,

the Light sleep,

the Way be tired from the journey;

that Strength might be made weak,

that Life might die.

~ St. Augustine (via Relief Journal, Painting by Guido Reni) Continue reading “Man’s Maker was made man”

Merry Christmas

Candle in Abstract

Tina Clarke’s Christmas Candle in colored ink

Sailing Under the Christmas Sail

Christmas Sailboat by Delilah Smith

The Three Wise Guys

The Three Wise Guys by Brenda York

Ending with something completely different:

The Single Sister's House

“The Moravian Single Sisters’ House on Church Street was used as a combination dormitory, industrial and religious center for single women within the community.”

Family Reunion: Advent Ghosts 2012

“Not this again!” William growls.

The traditional roasted chicken and dressing, gravy, green beans, and corn sit steaming on the table while his wife glides about the room, bringing honeyed ham, broccoli casserole, rolls and muffins, tomato and squash soups—everything as overabundantly perfect as it had been every Christmas. Beautiful, but ethereal.

His sons and daughter, their bodies scorched from the fire three years ago, quietly urge him to eat “to forget this weary world.”

Eyes burning, he throws a coat over his pajamas and stumbles into the icy street. His wife follows with a cup of flaming cider.

(Index of all stories submitted to the Advent Ghosts Storytelling Fest)

“What Child is This?”

Long, long ago, when I used to sing solos in Christmas programs, my standard was “What Child is This?” I made a point of doing all three variant choruses. I’m happy to note that the divine Sissel does the same (no doubt she was a fan of mine).

A blessed Christmas to you and yours.

Best of 2012

Sam Storms has an 11 book list of his ten best books of 2012, included two books on, if not actually by, Jonathan Edwards. He also worries that D. A. Carson’s The Intolerance of Tolerance will not find the readers who need it.

Crossway has a butt full of recommendations for serious readers (I’m sorry. I meant to type heart-full, but a Twitter trend got in my way #replaceheartwithbutt So juvenile.) Crossway’s staff recommend serious titles each, from John Frame’s The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God to Ender’s Game. They also asked their authors to recommend reading for the coming year, and of course after removing all of the self-promotion, they had a pretty good list.

For more non-fiction recommendations, Tony Reinke of Desiring God Ministry has a list of twelve.

If you haven’t perused the fun novels, etc. at The Rabbit Room, you should.

Tolkien Takes Lewis to Task on Marriage Laws

“My dear L.,” Tolkien writes in a draft letter from 1943. “I have been reading your booklet Christian Behavior. I have never felt happy about your view of Christian ‘policy’ with regard to divorce.” Tolkien did not send this letter to his friend, C.S. Lewis, but it was found and published after his death.

[Y]ou observe that you are really committed (with the Christian Church as a whole) to the view that Christian marriage—monogamous, permanent, rigidly “faithful”—is in fact the truth about sexual behavior for all humanity: this is the only road of total health (including sex in its proper place) for all men and women. That it is dissonant with men’s present sex-psychology does not disprove this, as you see: “I think it is the instinct that has gone wrong,” you say. Indeed if this were not so, it would be an intolerable injustice to impose permanent monogamy even on Christians.

Toleration of divorce—if a Christian does tolerate it—is toleration of a human abuse, which it requires special local and temporary circumstances to justify (as does the toleration of usury)—if indeed either divorce or genuine usury should be tolerated at all, as a matter of expedient policy.

Jake Meador discusses this disagreement more in his article for Christianity Today.

A Buried Land, by Madison Jones


“They [the previous generations in the region] had edges and angles, rough sides. You could get hold of them, you could tell what they were. And they weren’t always on the make; they already were something. They weren’t just getting to be something else all the time. They were already human beings.”

“You make them sound pretty ideal,” Magruder said without irony.

“It’s the truth.” She lifted the glass uncertainly to her mouth, she was a little tight. “If it isn’t, it ought to be. It’s what I remember.”

“Really, though, weren’t they pretty ignorant and backward – insulated?”

“All right if they were,” she said. “It’s not any better now; everybody’s insulated now – from everybody else. And still ignorant too; it’s just different, it’s all inside. And everybody’s hiding it; that’s why they look so slick. Do you know what we are? Scared; everybody is.”

America does have fine Christian writers in its recent history, beyond Flannery O’Conner and Walker Percy. It’s just that nobody knows about them. The works of Madison Jones were recommended to me, and I sent away for A Buried Land. It’s a very dense book – written with tremendous craftsmanship, with layers and layers of meaning and symbolism down to the bedrock, which is pretty far down.

Percy Youngblood is a smart young man in a small Tennessee town. When we meet him it’s before World War II, and he and his friend Jesse are working for the Tennessee Valley Authority, helping to build a dam that will flood Percy’s family farm and many others. Percy’s at odds with his father, who can’t see the point of destroying a way of life he likes just fine, in order to create a world he doesn’t want in the first place. Percy takes up with a local girl cast off by his friend Jesse, with unplanned consequences that leave him and Jesse carrying a shared, guilty secret.

After a hiatus in which Percy serves in the war, he returns home to take a job in a local law firm. As he tries to fit in with the town’s progressive set, he’s haunted by his guilt, and terrified because a certain person has come back to town – someone who may or may not suspect him and Jesse’s crime. As in every tragedy, the very actions he takes to protect himself work to his destruction.

A Buried Land is a true work of art as literature, and a harrowing Purgatorio of guilt and sin. It’s a hard read though, because there’s no whimsy here; no moment of relief. The downhill road is a long and oppressive one. Also, I fear that today’s readers will miss the point. Instead of locating the sin in Percy’s heart and actions, they will blame the Puritanism of the times, the laws of the times, and sexist oppression. Which is too bad, because there’s much to learn from this book.

Recommended, if you have the stamina for it. Adult themes, but no major language or explicit scenes to complain of.

Solstice news

Tomorrow is the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, known in the church calendar as St. Thomas’ Day. It was on St. Thomas’ Day in the year 1028 that Erling Skjalgsson, hero of my novels, The Year of the Warrior, West Oversea, and (soon) Hailstone Mountain, was killed at the battle of Soknasund. (Or Boknasund.)

By coincidence or divine appointment, I have today reached verbal agreement with Baen Books to re-release The Year of the Warrior in e-book form. Look for it soon.

Addendum: Thanks to Ori Pomerantz for facilitating the negotiations.