Goofing

"Creative Writer" Blogger Award

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Creative Writer Blogger AwardAs you have seen below, we’ve been tagged for a “Creative Writer” Blogger Award. The rules are”

• Thank the person who gave this to you. (Takk (Thank you) to Loren Eaton of “I Saw Lightning Fall.” Be sure your sins will find you out.)

• Copy the logo and place it on your blog.

• Link to the person who nominated you.

• Tell up to six outrageous lies about yourself, and at least one outrageous truth – or – switch it around and tell six outrageous truths and one outrageous lie.

• Nominate seven “Creative Writers” who might have fun coming up with outrageous lies.

• Post links to the seven blogs you nominate.

• Leave a comment on each of the blogs letting them know you nominated them.

I’m tempted to plagiarize this, but I guess I won’t.

  1. My only trip out of the U.S. has been for a tryst in Argentina.
  2. I used to work at the post office, but I spent my time writing instead of delivering the mail.
  3. I went spelunking several years ago, slipped on the rope, and fell 30-40 feet.
  4. I used to own a Prius before the radio got stuck on Air America and wouldn’t turn off.
  5. I currently advise the next president of the United States.
  6. I can “hear” the scream of murder inside a person’s heart from miles away. (You get used to it.)

Now, who else might enjoy this award?

Really, there’s no need to thank me.

Blogs, Socials, Goofing

Supposedly an award

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I’ve (we’ve) been tagged for a “Creative Writer” Blogger Award! Which means I get to lie shamelessly to you all and test your truth-detecting skills. The rules are …
• Thank the person who gave this to you. (Thanks [or something] to Loren Eaton of I Saw Lightning Fall.)
• Copy the logo and place it on your blog.
• Link to the person who nominated you.
• Tell up to six outrageous lies about yourself, and at least one outrageous truth – or – switch it around and tell six outrageous truths and one outrageous lie.
• Nominate seven “Creative Writers” who might have fun coming up with outrageous lies.
• Post links to the seven blogs you nominate.
• Leave a comment on each of the blogs letting them know you nominated them.
1. I have the power to drive women wild with desire (but only the desire to kill me).
2. I was born a poor sharecropper’s son.
3. I know how to field-strip a trebuchet.
4. The child I sponsored through Christian Children’s Fund is now the murderous dictator of a small East African country.
5. One of my novels is banned in Chechnya.
6. I have a secret superhero identity, but unfortunately he can’t find a job in that field, and is currently working as a greeter at Wal-Mart.
7. I’m actually perfectly normal, but this crazy act impresses the chicks.
When I was a kid in school, one of the most common criticisms I received from teachers was that I did things my own way, rather than the way I was instructed. I have not changed that policy, so I’ll only tag a few bloggers with this. Loren linked more than his quota, so he can have some of mine.
1. Roy Jacobsen at Writing: Clear and Simple.
2. Patrick O’Hannigan at The Paragraph Farmer.
3. Any of the crew at Threedonia.
4. Will Duquette at The View From the Foothills. (Links removed because blogs no longer exist or are inactive.)

Non-fiction

Editorial Arrogance

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Matthew Paul Turner talks about the abusive publisher of CCM magazine and how he was assigned to solicit an apology from Amy Grant for her divorce from Gary Chapman. The end of this account amazes me, but I guess I continue to be amazed at the blindness of abusive Christians, if they can be called that.

Authors

What a wondrous thing is a weekend

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It was a fairly active weekend, by my wintertime standards. Having received a windfall check in the mail, I succumbed to my long-suppressed yearning to replace my gaussed 19” TV with an HDTV. I got a pretty good deal on a 26-incher from Sam’s Club, and I’m stunned by the results. I had the Winter Olympics on most of the rest of the weekend, and I’m not even interested in the Olympics. I was just fascinated by the picture, like a baby crossing his eyes at a Big Bird mobile.

We also had our Viking feast, which is supposed to be a sort of Yule celebration, but got pushed back this year for various reasons. Aside from a few regulars being missing, it was a good time. I brought carefully researched, historically accurate Viking chocolate chip cookies. Not so great on the authenticity side, I’ll admit, but they had the advantage that people actually ate them.

And yes, I made them myself. From scratch. I’m very good with chocolate chip cookies, when I bother.

The big news in the literary world today is the death of mystery writer Dick Francis. Larry Thornberry at The American Spectator provides an appreciation here. It’s so good, I might have to try a Francis book now, despite the fact that I have zero interest in horse racing.

In any case, it sounds like Francis was a stand-up guy, the kind they’re fast running out of in England.

Or galloping out of, in this case.

Uncategorized

How Old Are Your Encyclopedias?

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A set of Encyclopaedia Britannica from 1797 has been found in Essex, England, making it the oldest privately owned set known to exist. The family bought it for £15 several years ago.

“We had no idea that they were particularly rare or unusual but we’ve always loved them for their interesting contents and wonderful smell,” the owner said.

Religion

The courage of God

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Evangelical Outpost linked today to this article, questioning the traditional understanding of the martyrdom of Lady Jane Grey. Even if all it says is true, for me it doesn’t diminish the pathos of her youthful martyrdom.

Then I read an article about Auschwitz in Smithsonian Magazine.

So I’ve been contemplating human suffering today.

Have you ever thought this thought? I’ve thought it many times: If I had been God, and had known that giving human beings free will would result in all the evil and horror that have in fact been produced, I wouldn’t have given them free will. And if the human project was unsatisfactory without free will, I’d have just skipped the whole business.

I have an answer that satisfies me intellectually. 1 Corinthians 2:9 says, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him.”

Apparently, in God’s economy, the good He is creating far outweighs all the innumerable evils perpetrated by man since the fall of Adam. From the viewpoint of eternity, we’ll look back and say, “Yes, it was well worth it.”

Now that answer raises a hundred questions in my mind. Questions for which I have no answer, and for which we have been given no plain answers.

This, I guess, calls for faith.

But it also argues, I think, for courage on God’s part. Granted, He saw the outcome from the beginning. But part of that outcome, I believe, was His own assumption of all that evil on the cross.

I read somewhere that, in the early years of the Superman comic strip, the writers came to a crisis when they’d made their character so powerful that they couldn’t come up with a challenging enough opponent for him anymore. That was when they invented Kryptonite. Something that took all that power away.

God did it in real life.

I can’t find the reference, but G. K. Chesterton wrote somewhere that all those scoffers, who call God evil for creating an evil world, are right in a sense, and that God acknowledged it (in a way) by explicitly accepting the punishment for creating all that evil.

Whatever else you think, I think you’ve got to admit it’s no cowardly strategy.