Fiction, Non-fiction, Reading, Religion

Against the Strømme

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I promise there will be a point somewhere further down in this post, but the first part involves a lot of Norwegian stuff. I apologize for that, after the fashion of one who apologizes for a vice he has no intention of giving up.

Someone gave our library a couple books recently, and I’ve been reading them in preparation for accessioning them, because of their historical value. They’re translations, done a few years back by a very small publisher, of a couple books by a Norwegian-American pastor and journalist named Peer Strømme (1856-1921). Strømme was quite well known—within our community—in his own time, but because he wrote mainly in Norwegian, and was not great enough to invite translation on the scale of Ole Rølvaag, he’s not much remembered.

The Memoirs of Peer Strømme (not available on Amazon, though this volume, which seems to be the first part of it, is) tells of the author’s life from his boyhood in eastern Wisconsin, though his education at Luther College, Decorah, Iowa and Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, to his installation as a Norwegian Synod pastor on the prairies of northwestern Minnesota (he would later leave the ministry and become a journalist in Chicago). Continue reading Against the Strømme →

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A Riddle for Monday

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“I never was, am always to be,

No one ever saw me, nor ever will

And yet I am the confidence of all

To live and breathe on this terrestrial ball.”

I like this one. I got it right the first time I read it, but a week later I was off. What do you think?

Now, for C. N. Nevets’ sake, here’s an cheating riddle. Who succeeded the first Prime Minister of Australia?

In other news, I will be out most of this week, and though I will be online for part of it, I doubt I will be able to write for the blog. I hear that sigh.

Fiction

Congrats to the Story Tellers

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John Kenyon’s fairy tale turn crime fiction contest drew 16 stories from the blogosphere, and our friend Loren Eaton won third place, which was not enough to get him a place on the president’s reelection committee. That’s not the kind of notoriety you want, sir. Take it from me. I was on Ford’s reelection committee as a kid, and it was the worst several months of my life.

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Winter tales

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I had this really epic picture to share with you. I got it from someone who lives in northern Minnesota, and it showed his outdoor thermometer at 8:00 a.m. this morning. The thermometer goes down to -40° F., and it basically had no mercury visible.

Unfortunately, although I could open it on my computer at work, it won’t open for me at home. So you’ll have to be content with my renowned descriptive skills, to get the sense of the thing.

Here’s a story from Norway, about a kid who found himself facing four hungry wolves, and fought back with a ruthless application of pop culture:

“I was afraid they would attack me,” Walter told the Norwegian tabloid VG, describing the incident, which took place on Monday. But he didn’t let his fear show. Remembering his parents’ advice, Walter pulled the earphones out of his mobile phone, turned the volume all the way up and blasted heavy metal music over its miniature speakers. At the same time, he yelled as loud as he could while flailing his arms about wildly to scare off the pack of wild animals.

(Someone commented on a radio show this morning that the band whose music he was playing, Creed, is a Christian heavy metal band. Their Wikipedia page says they’re not an explicitly Christian group, though their music carries some Christian themes.)

Sadly, the boy’s ordeal is far from over, I fear. Having subjected wolves to the cruelty of Heavy Metal music, he can now expect attacks from animal rights activists that’ll make him wistful for the courtesy and compassion of the wolf.

Authors

Strange Things My Authors Do

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I have to wonder if all of these little facts have anything to do with writing strategy. Passion for words outweighs most of these. 20 Acclaimed Authors and Their Unique Writing Rituals

Did you watch the first Tim Keller interview and hear him say that, when his wife was a child, she received four letters from C.S. Lewis? Wow.

Authors, Religion

Tim Keller Interview with DG (Part 2)

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Desiring God has the second of their 45 minute interviews with author and pastor Tim Keller. This one is stirring, talking about social justice and a Christian obligation to help the poor and reject a middle class mentality.

I listened to this tonight after having a difficult day for multiple reasons, one of which was my grief over the circumstances of a homeless, jobless man I know. I don’t want to pay for one night’s hotel room, because that doesn’t help him stand on his own, but what do you do when a man tells you he has no where to stay and he’s afraid he’ll freeze to death? I called around to ask for help and got a good answer from a friend in my church, but that wasn’t the answer my homeless buddy took.

I hope I don’t hear from him tomorrow, but if I do, I know what I will say. I respect him as a man made in God’s image, and I want to help him overcome his current struggles, but I can’t enable him to live in a twisted type of freedom. There’s another man he needs to go see who will develop him, a man he needs to give another chance.

I need to stop thinking about this. The Lord is far more capable than I have ever been to handle a life of hard knocks.

Bookselling, Religion

The blog post that was Thursday

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My interview with Tom Roten of WVHU radio in Huntington, West Virginia this morning went just fine, thank you. I’m racked with self-doubt about the quality of my performance, of course, but I’ve learned to sort of disregard that reflexive reaction. It’s sort of an emotional tax I pay for existing at all.

Tom says he’ll soon have a podcast of the interview available for download at the station site. Just click on his name in the box over to the right, and keep coming back till it shows up.

My only real disappointment was that he didn’t ask me what the weather was like up here. I was all prepared with a boffo response—“It’s so cold, you have to carry an ax around to chop your way out of your own breath.”

And it is cold. Traditionally we have a January thaw at some point this month, but it hasn’t shown up this year. We’re in the odd situation of having both an unusually cold month, and an unusually snowy one, running concurrently. Usually you get one or the other.

Here’s an interesting article from Fox News about Christianity in China. It’s possible that Christianity may be the wild card that changes the whole game in that country.

If China interests you, I would refer you to this blog, Seeing Red in China, written by an American teacher who’s been living there for several years. I find the blog interesting for its own sake (things over there aren’t always what I expect), but it doesn’t hurt that the author is my nephew-in-law, husband to my niece. They’re on furlough in the U.S. right now, but going back before long.

Book Reviews, Creative Culture