CSFFBT: "Merlin's Nightmare" by Robert Treskillard (III)

What day is it? Huh, huh, huh? What? What is it?

That's right, HUMP DAY!  And day three of another Christian Science Fiction and Fantasy Book tour.  This is the wrap up for  Robert Treskillard's novel Merlin's Nightmare.

The first day I talked about technical aspects and yesterday I discussed the Fantasy elements. Today, as (hopefully) a sort of capstone, I'll talk about how the work affected me as a Christian piece.

And now, boys and girls, we jump! Hold hands!

Thoughts on Kindle Worlds & vars-n-sund

A post on Passive Voice -

- which has turned out to be quite interesting, if only because the volume of posts pretty much guaranties that there will be something of interest daily -

- touched on Kindle Worlds -

- which I knew to be a thing, and whilst I was interested in it, I hadn't heard that it was worth the following.  PV's linked post, quoting GigaOm supports that position -

"In the month of June, authors contributed 46 Pretty Little Liars works to Kindle Worlds, which sounds like a fair number — unless you compare it to the more than 6,000 such works that appeared during this time on two other fan fiction sites."

The article goes on to point out a number of cultural & economic reasons why KW is struggling upstream against the torrent that is Fandom-as-we-know-it: restrictions on language, plot, & most especially sexual content, paying for content, and "quality" checks.  (For 'xample, I looked up the restrictions for GI Joe, and found them to be more or less as I might have guess, with a couple addendums that made me chortle.)

What Tushnet (the lawyer who wrote the original referenced article: All This Has Happened Before And All This Will Happen Again: Innovation In Copyright Licensing) says is true - putting quality restrictions, encouraging longer length stories, requiring readers to pay for reading, and most especially limiting sexual content - is going to limit Fandom participation in a huge way.

Fandom thrives on the adhoc, on the piecemeal, and on-the-fly prioritization of time & effort. Anything resembling a restriction - ie SPELL CHECK YOUR @#$# FIC BEFORE YOU POST IT - is going to reduce fannish fic participation.  Content limits - esp touching on the porn which makes up a huge portion of fic - is going to reduce it even more.  (Although, seeing as FF.net (aka the pit of voles) is still going strong, after all these years, it's important to note that those restrictions do have limits on their impact.)  Most significant, I think, is the current limited variety of 'fandoms' - source canon - represented by KW.  Fandom, as I said, has the attention span of an AHHD mayfly.  Readers need a new shiny, and twenty canons isn't going to cut it.

In some ways, I think that Fandom's way is better. It's not like God puts grammar and content restrictions on prayers - not while please God let me not @#$% this up remains one of the most popular prayers in any language - and it's not like we don't live our lives in this moment, doing the best we can in the moment to hand.

But there is something to be said for standards, for polished preparation, for attention to detail, and for years spent improving a craft, a piece of art, a life.

For me, I think that KW has a lot to offer in terms of what I value - preparation, a story beyond simple porn, knowledge of the original author's approval/permission, and a chance to support the canon that I want more of.  But it would be a mistake to assume that these things are needful in order to produce a high-quality, stirring, impactful story.  I've seen it done.  Not as frequently as Sturgeon would have you think, but still.

***
Another post off PV led me to this passage from  a Gawker article:

"Pish posh," you might say. "You're one to talk. Your grammar is wronged, your metaphors are blunt bricks, and your similes are like a hot needle to the eyeball. Your infinitives are split, your participles are dangling, your spelling is eroneous, your cliches are old as time, your sentences are repetitive, and your sentences are repetitive. Your concepts appear to have been plucked from thin air with no foresight, hindsight, or insight. If anyone is in need of a good editor it is you. And you are ugly."  

 The Gawker family of websites (including IO9) is on my list these days for annoying ad content, and Gawker in particular strikes me as one of the less edifying members.  But I keep getting reminded that blanket biases - like absolutes in science - are wrong.

***

Saw Guardians of the Galaxy.  Great fun.  Much explosion.  Between Snowpiercer, Edge of Tomorrow, and the rest, it's a good year to be a geek.

Tannhäuser (Marion Zimmer Bradley)

Some of this will be hard reading. It was not easy writing.

There is too much.

The short version: All of fandom has been plunged into war navelgazing over recent articles which highlighted what some already knew: the late Marion Zimmer Bradley, icon of SF feminism, SCA cosplay, and a multi-award winning author, had been complicit in covering up the sexual abuse of minors by her late husband Walter Breen.  Others suspected Bradley of committing some abuse herself.

And now the long version, below the cut.

Cutie Mark of the Beast

The cutie mark of the beast.

(Re: Discussion of "My Little Pony" hatedom ) (*)

I never got into MLP in any form, but the idea that somehow it makes everything it touches evil is just...

Well, at any rate, it appears that the font of the number of the beast is Snap ITC, Ravie, and Magneto.  Because why pick just one?

Short discussion of santity and sanctity of mocking of 'mark of the beast' and other devil related material below:

Parable of the Rich Family In Church

Trying to keep my temper and my attitude pointed in the right directions. Craziness going on (internets and elsewhere) is not helping.

***

Also trying to avoid procrasting in an unhelpful manner. Yet here it is, already after 1 pm.

***
A tale, a fable, a parable...

The Rich Family In Church

(http://www.mikeysfunnies.com/archive/richFamily/)

The Rich Family In Church
By Eddie Ogan

I'll never forget Easter 1946. I was 14, my little sister Ocy was 12, and my older sister Darlene 16. We lived at home with our mother, and the four of us knew what it was to do without many things. My dad had died five years before, leaving Mom with seven school kids to raise and no money.

Noah

Dear Blogspot: get a freaking clue and put in a cut command WITH A FREAKING END TAG. Thank you.

***

Learned how to pronounce (badly) molon labe today.  A cancelled appointment opened up a good four hours for studying. Sun is out and shining. Life is good.

***

Memory Is A Tricky Thing, #187: I read the Baen Fantasy Contest guidelines the other day, and could have sworn the line went “political drama where nothing happens” and not ( as it currently reads) “political drama without any action.”

***

'Go sir, gallop, and don't forget that the world was made in six days. You can ask me for anything you like, except time.' - Napoleon

***
Thoughts on the movie Noah -

Short version: I saw, twice. I liked.  Thought it was fairly scripturally sound, and that the variation from Genius were more like the difference within the Synotic Gospels than the differences between those recitations and that of John. Wonderful special effects, thought the actors really brought out the humanity of the characters.

Long version:

Thanksgiving

Two links to share, both from Ta-Nehisi Coates' Thanksgiving thread. (I respect TNC's writing more than I like him, and I like him more than I like his comment section. But what he writes is frequently worth reading.)

First: Uncle Sam's Thanksgiving Table. Idealistic, and still not present, but the world is getting better every day. I think what I like best is the Momma giving the little one what-for.

Secondly, for all of us who have ever spent a holiday meal with adult members of our families: Loudon Wainwright's Thanksgiving Song.

Update And a third - John Scalzi's Science Fiction Thanksgiving Grace.

***

Read as a lector, yesterday, for the first time in just over a year, and for the first time ever in this parish. As the only scheduled reader -

Those other people out there that God also loves

Still tip-toeing back into journaling. Which has been complicated by new&different things at work, and the threat of new&exciting things at work.

It's good to have work. It's good to have purpose.

Two days ago I wrote 501 not-very-good-and-not-very-connected words. This is a win.

Yesterday I started re-sorting books throughout the house. Still in progress, but with the eventual goal of 'make the books you haven't read yet accessible. Oh, and sort the non-fiction by subject. And the fiction by author, so you can get rid of duplicates.'

Today I actually opened up Google Reader to read the blogs I'm supposed to be following on this blog.

Of note: Neil Gaiman suggests giving away books for Halloween. Brilliant.

Anchoress on 'purging' Bad Catholics. Related (at least in my head): Becky Miller talks about godly writers writing about ungodly things. (Maybe it's related in my head because of the Elizabeth Moon stuff.)

...I don't have a good answer. There is the commandment to love each other. There is the responsibility to not let badly-acting companions tempt one into doing what one should not. There is human weakness and avoiding the near occasion of sin. There is keeping ones mouth shut if one can't say anything, and there is refusing to sit by and fold ones hands.

My guess is that Christ would have a separate solution for each situation. Which sounds like work.

Speaking of which - On Steve Colbert's Catholicism.

Oh, and NaNoMo is coming.

Talking to tax collectors without coming across like a Pharsee

Last Sunday we had a guest lecturer priest - a missionary with Cross International. I can't speak for Cross International itself - this was the first I had heard of them - but the priest was straight out of the Catholic Worker "economic justice was Christ's first priority" school of faith.

For the record, I have never heard a rich person speak of the poor with the hate and loathing that many social justice advocates use when speaking of the rich.

I...have a hard time with that. [snip more in-depth comments as trending too close to the political] And I had a harder time with the presentation (taking the form of a homily). For me, who tithes a fair bit (although not as regularly or as much as I should) the homily nearly encouraged me to snatch money back *out* of the offering plate (metaphorically speaking.) And not because I don't doubt that there are people who need it - or that I am in need of giving it, regardless of the want on the other side. The homily was so much a one-sided (complete with cherry-picked scripture and tirades against 'rich corporations' who avoid paying taxes) blast against the wealthy (without, conveniently, defining 'wealth') that I was nearly (I hope) at the point of rolling my eyes.

The homily pretty much completely fit the label of "not helpful." It seemed to make the visiting priest feel better, though, and it did lead me to review my tithe schedule, so it wasn't completely a loss.

But I can't help thinking that maybe, given a different twist on the words, more could have been done.

There has been an on-going conversation in my house (for about five years now, on and off) about 'how to change people's minds'. And change their actions. How to fulfill the obligations of spiritual grace to admonish the sinner.

I don't have an answer, yet. But part of the answer is, I think, that yelling at people in righteous fury does more to make me feel better than it does to change the world. And, in this case 'make me feel better' is not in the sense of 'make me feel closer to God'. More is done, I think, by choosing the right words, the right time, and the right manner of speaking, in order to apply the right leverage at the right point in order to move a stone.

How to know the right words? Well, speaking to someone in French when all they speak is Mandarin is an example of 'not the right words.' Speaking disparagingly of treasured cultural icons of the listener is another. Speaking hatred instead of love is a third.

I have not found it easy to find the right words. It requires, I think, skill on the part of the speaker, a deep understanding of the message (so one can speak Truth and not just repeat a memorized magical script) and an understanding of the impact of particular words on the listener. So one must understand the listener. Usually by spending time with them, coming to understand what burdens they are struggling with, what their gifts are, what they value and what they hold lightly. Then one can more easily speak and have effect.

This is hard.

In part, it is hard because it means spending time with, and learning to put on the mind of those 'others', to better know how the message will be received. This not only means hanging out with 'horrid' people, but opens one up to the (wrong-headed) values that one was trying to change in the first place! Dangerous ground indeed.

Far safer, and easier, to stand at a distance and yell, than to step forward with open arms. And that's less of a metaphor than I would like, in today's age.

But it is also hard because it means we have to come to know and love the people we oppose. It means setting aside hate, distian and righteousness, and our own agendas, and taking on God's mission.

Tough stuff. I have never been able to pray St Francis's prayer ('grant that I may never seek so much to be understood as to understand') with ease - dadnabit, I'm right, can't you people see that? I do not trust easily. And I judge all too swiftly. I count it as a victory, now, years down this road, that I *know* I should understand, should forgive, should love, *first*, and not expect to only grant those gifts to those who have already understood, forgiven, and loved me.

It is only what the Man did - and expects of those of us who follow him -'love God with all your heart, all your mind, and all your soul, and love your neighbor as yourself.'

News Reaction: What should be said, and when

One of the things I've struggled with, blogging wise, is how (and when, and why) to respond to events in the news. And not just blogging - when, in daily life and passing conversation, does one bring up the latest insanity that's made headlines?

(Other people may have an easier time with this than I do - I argue with the radio in the car and mutter things under my breath at the tv playing in the caffiteria. Of course, I do this with TV shows and movies, too. Unquestioning consumption doesn't come easy.)

To add another wrinkle - much of the time, my reaction is negative - disagreement, fact-checking, and plain old 'look-at-the-world-we-live-in-it-these-kids-these-days'. I'm fairly well convinced that constantly spouting negativity is good for neither me nor who ever happens to be sharing my space. (And heaven knows the current state of political and social discourse in American society needs less divisive talk and demonizing, not more.)

And yet, is self-censorship ('if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all') the solution? Or is silence the same as agreement? No single person could possibly comment intelligently on every news article or blog post printed daily - even if they just limited themselves to things on which they had some degree of expertise! But just as the major networks, magazines and newspapers are accussed of bias in the things they talk about the things they ignore, so do we all pick and choose what we 'amp the signal' on, and what we walk past. (1)

Some things shouldn't be ignored. Some things shouldn't be given the dignity of a response.

And sometimes it's best to remember that God doesn't want me to be concerned about what other people do nearly as much as God wants me to be aware of what I'm doing.

***

Following that - this article about a Louisiana Justice of the Peace who refused to perform a marriage ceremony for an interracial couple has been getting traction, as they say.

The JP gave this reason for not performing the ceremony - that he felt the childern of interracial marriages had difficult lives and were never fully accepted into either 'black' or 'white' society. Instead of performing the ceremony, he referred the couple to another JP.(2)

I'm going to leave aside the legal requirements demanded of an elected official, and say that I can see where the JP is coming from - and that I don't disagree with his specific point, on the incomplete social integration in this country. There has been a great number of electrons spent on this point - the social, economic and health consequences of being African-American, Latino, or Native American in America.(3)

Much the same has been said, in fact, about the childern of single mothers, of Downs syndrome babies, of the childern of poor families, about the childern of women who have been raped - that they will be underpriviledged, unloved, and possibly abused. And because of this, the arguement goes, it is legitament for the mothers of those childern to abort childern in those situations, rather than carry them to term and let fate - or God - determine what happens then.

Both are rational, logical opinions that look carefully at the world we live in today.

And I reject both conclusions. We should not, I think, be looking at the world as it is, but at the world as we would like it to be. We should strive to treat people as though they were capable of reaching the highest potiential, instead of assuming they were pre-destined to some lesser capability.

Neither our striving to treat each other well nor our indivdual efforts to excell are going to be perfectly successful, and we should recognize that. But that should not stop us from trying.

***

Other items on a similar theme:

Journalist attempts shopping only at African American businesses (Actually, there is a whole movement behind this - check out here, here, here, and here. Note: I'm not convinced that selecting businesses based, first and most importantly, on the race of the owners isn't race-based bigotry.)

Slightly related to the above: 100-mile diet

Different definitions of racism

***

Notes:

(1) Something that gets throw out there - "Why are you talking about X when Y is obviously so much more horrible/significant/interesting/vital?" Different strokes for different folks - and just because H1N1 isn't Ebola doesn't mean that H1N1 is insignificant.

(2) This point - that the couple was sent to another JP, and that they were married shortly there after, so that the whole incident is less than two weeks old at this date - has been dropped from some news reports.

(3) This is an embarraessment for the land of the free. That we are still, imo, better at complete integration than any other nation on the planet doesn't change the fact that we can and should do better.

August CSFFBT: Offworld, by Robin Parrish (III)

This is the last of three posts (in keeping with the Christian Science Fiction and Fantasy Blog Tour guidelines) about Offworld. Previously, I focused on technical details, story-crafting, and characterization; yesterday, I talked about the science and science-fiction aspects of the work and today I finish up with a post on the Christian elements.

***

Before I forget - added from yesterday: one more SF work that Offworld reminds me of: "Houston, Can You Read" by James Tiptree, Jr.

***

Faith, God, and Christianity in Offworld

- The faith and spirituality of Offworld is more subtle than other SF/F works carrying the 'Christian' marketing label (that I have read.) I'm good with this. I think it's vital that we have a range of spiritual expression in different works - if nothing else because people who might turn their noses up at the Creationist hero in The Enclave would cheer for Cordelia Naismith in Shards of Honor.

- Having said that - is it clear at any point that the God of Offworld is the God of Scripture? Is Christ implied at any point? I don't seem to remember anything (but I could be wrong.)

- If I was to pick a phrase that described the type of faith that was portrayed in Offworld, I would say something like, "Finding God in one another." The crew members, Mae, even Rowley and Parks - they all search for ways to serve something other than themselves. This is most apparent, I think, in the crew, and their continued bond to each other.

- The other theme that suggests itself is 'God works in mysterious ways.' I'm thinking particularly of Owen, who had been placed on Ares in case of some ill-defined contingency. That contingency never came - not during the mission, at any rate - but during the dash across the Gulf Coast, when a bad-ass super-genius was needed to save the world, there was Owen.

- I like travelouge stories. (Can't seem to convince the bookstores to sub-categorize stories as 'journey SF', though.) This links well with stories showing a person (or persons) traveling through a spiritual quest. Offworld contained not one, but two 'real time' journeys - one back from Mars, and one from Florida to Texas. I wonder if the crew thought of their trip to Mars - any of them, in any sense - as a retreat, a journey in to the desert.

- Mae - wow. The character and treatment of Mae - a soul, yes, but not a complete person, because she wasn't integrated into society. (Orphaned might be a good descriptor here.) I think I found this among the most affective of all the elements in Offworld. And - as I said earlier - I was impressed by the relatively low-key approach to the topic of abortion.

- Burke and his father: I wonder how much of a God-and-Christians analogy Parrish was going after, here. God as distant-seeming-father-figure, always demanding more work, taking the Christian child away from the fun in life, pushing the child towards a greater destiny that, in the end, the child will have to choose on their own. Even in my head, it's far from a perfect analogy, but I think it has some merit. I'm less sure this analogy resembles anything Parrish had in mind.

- Space vs Earth as Paradise: Depending on who is telling the story and when the story is taking place, 'Heaven' holds a shifting location. At least in the Western world 'Heaven' and 'paradise' is assigned to a stellar location. As our knowledge of physics and the solar system have increased, we shifted to a more extra-planar concept of God's domain. Still, the imagery of writing about space travel includes references to the concept of the stars as 'Heaven'. In the story, despite the hardships of the journey, the crew of Ares was ready to leave Heaven and come back to Earth. I wonder if future humans will continue to associate God's domain with planets or with the starry void.

- I find the attempt by Roston and his group to 'take away the causes of war and hatred' - in short, to create a paradise on Earth - laudable, but, in the end, tragically mistaken. Take away all the bombs, all the guns, all the tanks, all the swords...and we'd still have the rock that Adam's son used to commit the first murder. Joss Weldon used the movie Serenity to talk about a similiar thing - our impulse as humans (and irrespective of political stance) to legislate improved morality into people.

***

And that's all I've got. Next step, look for what other people wrote. That should keep me busy at the airport tomorrow.

***

Fine print:

Find Offworld at Amazon.

Robin Parrish’s Web site - http://www.robinparrish.com/
Robin Parrish’s blog - http://twitter.com/robinparrish

Other CSFFBT participants:

Brandon Barr
Jennifer Bogart
Keanan Brand
Grace Bridges
Canadianladybug
Melissa Carswell
Valerie Comer
Amy Cruson
CSFF Blog Tour
Stacey Dale
D. G. D. Davidson
Janey DeMeo
Jeff Draper
Emmalyn Edwards
April Erwin
Karina Fabian
Beth Goddard
Todd Michael Greene
Heather R. Hunt
Becky Jesse
Cris Jesse
Julie
Carol Keen
Krystine Kercher
Dawn King
Mike Lynch
Melissa Meeks
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Mirtika
Eve Nielsen
Nissa
John W. Otte
Steve Rice
Crista Richey
James Somers
Speculative Faith
Stephanie
Rachel Starr Thomson
Steve Trower
Fred Warren
Elizabeth Williams

August CSFFBT: Offworld, by Robin Parrish (II)

This is the second of three posts (in keeping with the Christian Science Fiction and Fantasy Blog Tour guidelines) about Offworld. Previously, I focused on technical details, story-crafting, and characterization; here, I intend to talk about the science and science-fiction aspects of the work and (hopefully) tomorrow finish up with a post on the Christian elements.

Science

- I was fairly happy with the level of science included in the novel - especially in the first half. Actually, I should modify that - I was fairly happy with the advanced tech use in the novel - and that included the different sort of problem solving tricks that the crew used during their journey to Houston.

- The insistence that "we're going to figure this out!" - in the face of both opposition and uncertainty - was one of the things that kept me interested in the book. (This is as much a characterization thing as it is a plot thing - I love characters that keep on keeping on.)

- As noted, there was less inventing new things/discovering new things than there was adapting tools left lying about by other people. Granted, this is what nearly every immediate post-apoc novel does - follow the heroes as they wander about looking for a can opener. This trend continues even after the crew gets to Houston - they're just fighting with the Men In Black SUVs for the can opener. I would not have minded more *investigating* as they went - if it could have been done without sacrificing the pacing of the plot.

- I did like the electric cars and a couple of other notes that showed the difference between now and the future of the novel. It's a hard line to draw - how to make it enough different to keep up with the visible rate of change (*cough*Star Trek's clunky handhelds*cough*) and yet not overwhelm the reader with culture shock. I would have voted for *more* change in 35 years, but that's just me.

- That a portion of the internets was still up, much less GPS - I'm on the fence about that. On the one hand, it was only a couple months. On the other hand, it was a couple months!

- I'm afraid I wouldn't have bought the safe landing of the crew at Canaveral at all in a secular novel. In CSFF, I can say 'Oh, hand-of-God, okay' and ::handwave:: it that way.

Science Fiction

- I was also pretty pleased by the science fiction aspects of the novel - which, frankly, got a big boost from the absolute 'we're not in Kansas anymore' factor: I'm about as likely to ride in a space ship to Mars as I am to wander about a deserted Earth at this point.

- Of the many different sorts of SF, I thought this novel fell closer to being 'hard'-SF (physics, space, startravel), rather than the 'softer' SF that makes up psychology and social sciences, etc. I had this concept in my mind that most Christian or faith-driven SF was going to be 'soft' SF, and I'm not unhappy to be wrong.

- Extra-dimensional devices are also v. cool - even if they are, in part, driven by ancient glowy boxes of uncertain provenances. I particularly like how the incident on Mars was worked back into the main plot. (more about how the incident on Mars was handled from a faith angle in the next post.)

- Some sources that reminded me of this book/that this book reminded me of: Life After People - the history channel tv series, and World Without Us, a book by Alan Weisman. Of course, post-apoc books are as old as the bomb (ed: *cough*Revaluation*cough*) - or older! - and journeys through deserted lands are a stock part of SF, I think. Part of World War Z was strongly evoked for me, as was Left Hand of Darkness.

- For the space & Mars parts - Mars, by Ben Bova. I'm trying to remember something other than Space: 2001 that actually featured free-fall space travel.

***

Again, fairly shallow. (Doesn't help that I'm on the road, again.)

***

Fine print:

Find Offworld at Amazon.

Robin Parrish’s Web site - http://www.robinparrish.com/
Robin Parrish’s blog - http://twitter.com/robinparrish

Other CSFFBT participants:

Brandon Barr
Jennifer Bogart
Keanan Brand
Grace Bridges
Canadianladybug
Melissa Carswell
Valerie Comer
Amy Cruson
CSFF Blog Tour
Stacey Dale
D. G. D. Davidson
Janey DeMeo
Jeff Draper
Emmalyn Edwards
April Erwin
Karina Fabian
Beth Goddard
Todd Michael Greene
Heather R. Hunt
Becky Jesse
Cris Jesse
Julie
Carol Keen
Krystine Kercher
Dawn King
Mike Lynch
Melissa Meeks
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Mirtika
Eve Nielsen
Nissa
John W. Otte
Steve Rice
Crista Richey
James Somers
Speculative Faith
Stephanie
Rachel Starr Thomson
Steve Trower
Fred Warren
Elizabeth Williams

My basket is full of things

One of the books I've been going through lately is Following Francis: The Francisican Way for Everyone. The author, Susan Pitchford, is a NorthWest American college professor, and part of the value of the book for me has been the way the author's values and mine don't overlap.

This week's section has been on Obedience - about what submitting to authority means. I'm one of those people who really likes rules - they give structure, they make a foundation, they set boundaries and make a bowl so life doesn't slop over the sides and get wasted as you're mixing things up. I follow rules (like walking on the sidewalk and not the grass) even when there's no sign posted, and I fret internally when I don't follow the rules.

(Don't get me started on what I think about people who delight in rule-breaking. It's far less charitable than I should be.)

Some people have nightmares about the Nazis coming for them. Me, I sometimes have nightmares about shoving people in ovens. Because that's where I'd fail - to not have the courage to examine what I'm doing.

***

Other parts of Following Francis have dealt with Simplicity and Poverty - dealing with not having things that we want. Which - hmm. I've traveled a fair bit, so I understand that people's perceptions of what is needful vs nice-to-have can vary quite a bit. (Right now I'm still hung up on indoor flush toilets.) But I travel - and even before airtravel became a global warming beating boy, world travel has been a sign of (a great deal of) disposable wealth. Even when you're doing missions-related travel.

So I read with interest this BBC report on average home sizes across the globe. And this article about different ways of measuring healthcare across the globe. And this article about the outrage over an op-ed by a Whole Foods CEO - people who regularly buy very high-priced foodstuffs are outraged by the suggestion that present schemes for reforming health care aren't the best option. (Connected to that: an article on the limitations of Fair Trade schemes.)

One of the most frustrating things about "the current political climate" - although I'm not sure this was ever *not* true, as my memories of calm harmony probably had more to do with ideologicial isolation than of actual peaceful discourse between people of different stances - is that people seem to insist on "litmus tests" of ideology (government control is bad, fair trade is good, health care reform is needed NOW, war is bad, gun control is bad) without allowing for degrees of difference.

***

Speaking of traveling and staying healthy and different priorities: here is an article about working out while Muslim and female. And an article about different cultures responding to facial expressions was very interesting - if a pretty good example of a not-very-good study: 13 subjects in two groups means not a terrific setup. One of the issues with communication is that so much of it is non-verbal. Imagine if a nod or a frown means different things.

(Critters do this too - Scottish fold cats have permanently bent over ears, that make other cats think they are angry. Rodesian Ridgeback dogs have spiky hair on their backs that mimics an expression of aggression. Dogs that want to play wag their tails, and lift a forepaw - both of which are expressions that cats use to mean "go away, I don't want any.")

***

One last thing, to end on a "the world is getting better all the time" note: Elephant gets prostetic limb.

CSFFBT Roundup

So.

My first Christian Science Fiction and Fantasy Blog Tour is done.

That was fun! Also, tiring. My crit toolbox had been getting dusty, and it took longer than I thought to put my thoughts in order. Adding to the crunch, I didn't get the book (bought on my own, not through the tour, not their fault) until the week before. So instead of having the posts atleast well outlined before hand, I was frantically typing on the day of posting. Which means that I forgot at least one thing on the third day that I had made a note of, on the first day, to follow up on later.

And on top of that, a last-minute work trip came up, so I was away from my usual haunts overnight. ("No, boss, can't go to the other location overnight, I have this non-work related post to finish drafting!" Right. I like my job.)

And I still don't know why that computer was only spellchecking in French.

It all worked out. I had fun. Very nice and SMART people - including the author, OMG - dropped by, I read a few other posts, and I did post all three days.

Next time, I really want to have what I want to say already drafted before the tour starts, so that I can spend that time reading other people's posts and commenting there. I really feel like I missed out on half the blog tour experience by only checking out a few posts.

(My intent is to try to catch up on that over the next week. I hope.)

(Had a former boss who told me that 'hope is not a method! hope is not a plan! you better have some other way of getting that accomplished!'Never asked him, at the time, what he thought of prayer as a method.)

Anyway.

Had fun, want to do it again. This time with double checking the spelling of character names!

***

Thunk for the day, from Ron Rolheiser:

Daniel Berrigan once quipped: Before you get serious about Jesus, first consider carefully how good you are going to look on wood.

Yeah. 'Never promised you a rose garden.'

July CSFFBT: The Enclave, by Karen Hancock (III)

This is the third of three posts on Karen Hancock's The Enclave, this month's CSFFBT's selection.

Previously, I talked about the book in general and the science and science fiction parts of the book.

Today I'm going to look at the Christian elements of the book.

In a way, this is more difficult than the first two posts: each of us interacts differently with God. I feel much more comfortable making definitive statements about elements of style and treatments of science in a book than I do about how I see the Christian elements, and what impact those elements had on me.

However, I think that one of the valuable aspects of Christian science fiction is the ability to use the genre to both examine and spread the Word.

So here it goes:

Christianity as practiced by Characters

- The first page isn't over yet, and already Our Heroine is stepping back from condemning a co-worker (Our Hero, but we don't know that yet) because it isn't right to be angry at other people. That's one of the things that sold me on this book. The theme of forgiveness was something I could follow throughout.

- Lacey's struggle between reaching for shiny things - including the fulfillment of her professional dreams - vs reaching for God seemed real and was something else I could relate to. I also appreciated the candor of her doubt - she wasn't even sure that she did believe [in the Bible] anymore.

- It was somewhat disappointing to me that Lacey's reaching for God didn't seem to include reaching out to other people. Nor does the charity expressed in the first page really get applied to people who are not Cam. I'm not sure how much weight I want to give this, because it would be really beyond reasonable for me to expect Lacey to develop - over the course of even a 500-page novel - into a person who tries to express Christ-level love for everyone, including people who kidnap her and try to use her as an incubator for human-monster hybrids.

- Lacey looked up stuff in the Bible. This is probably a small thing, but I love it. When in doubt, read the citation yourself.

- Cam was actually the character whom I found most accessible, and I greatly appreciated his attempts to live his faith. The combination of "I'm here to try to bring the Good News to these people" with "What am I thinking? I'm such an arrogant idiot for trying to take this on" seemed spot-on.

- I also loved that Cam was shown to be as much a research geek in his faith as he was in his work. I think that was about perfect, that Cam would try to dig very deep into Biblical scholarship, and would read weighty books with lots of footnotes in Latin about the Bible and Christian thinkers. (Note: This might not have been exactly what the author intended me to think.)

- That both Cam and Rudy accepted the orders given to them - and the roles set out for them by God - echoed for me the centurion's response: I am a man under orders; give the word and I know it shall be done.

- Cam's willingness to accept that Gen might yet come to believe in God, too (at the very end of the book) was another appealing part of his character.

- Cam's Creationism: ehh. I'm...disquieted, here. In the 'public stoning' - where Cam is dragged in front of a group of his peers and forced to defend his faith - Cam is asked why he became a geneticist if he believed that the modern diversity of life had not developed along evolutionary lines. (Heavily paraphrased.) Cam's answer is "Maybe I wanted to prove it false." On the one hand, that's not really an answer. On the other hand, it's an indication of lack of integrity - going at something (and working for someone) under false pretenses. On a third hand, it's not as though Cam was hiding his bias.

- Cam got up in front of that crowd to defend his faith.

- One of the interesting and very close to awesome parts of the book was Zoan's interactions with God. That Zoan was looking for God before even knowing what God was, that was really kewl. That sequence - Zoan's questioning of the world around him, and his quest for answers - that also hit home.

- It bothered me, how easily the main characters dismissed the Wives and the K-J technicians and security guards and all the others killed in the Nephilium attack. One of the things that makes me twitchy in books and movies is a callous attitude towards collateral damage. Spear carriers are children of God as well. If I have to pick my main issue with Christianity as depicted in this book, it would be that - the relative self-focus of our two main characters.

Christianity as shown in the book

- A couple things seemed a little off, like the attention paid to the fact that Cam's church community advocated 'daily bible study.' (I wonder what the executives at K-J would have made of a Catholic who wanted to attend daily Mass!)

- As I said previously, it has not been my experience that a whole group of scientists would have been either vocally hostile or silent while others were hostile towards people of different religions. Particularly because there are so many different levels of 'living your faith out loud' - someone might be very committed to demonstrating the gospel at all times, just not in words.

- It's been suggested that the strong anti-religion feeling among the scientists happened because Swain & co all picked anti-religious scientists for the Institute. This seems reasonable.

- Jade's dismissal of the Bible as "an old book that ought to be dead by now" seemed...extraordinarily ham-handed, for a person who hadn't shown a great deal of capacity for thoughtlessness up until then.

- On one hand, it was a relief to see an Evangelically-toned book with a negative portrayal of a separatist cult. On the other hand, part of the Enclave's activities seemed to mirror Catholic (or High Church) rites. On one hand, it might be difficult to create a rite that didn't seem to reflect Roman Catholic tradition. On the other hand, I might just be overly sensitive here.

- I would have liked to have seen more discussion of Swain's pov on the Bible and God - his true, real thoughts - given the proven existence of the Nephilium. I think it was telling that he referenced Genesis in his presentation.

- When God said, "You think I can't handle that?" to Cam, it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. God is capable of extraordinary mercy and beauty, but I really appreciate that this book took the opportunity to show God's power as well. Plus, thunderbolts!

- I liked the depiction of the clones (Zoan and his friends, at least) as perfectly normal people. This contrasted with the feeling of abomination I read into the descriptions of the Wives and the clone/hybrids. I can see a number of reasons for not going into details of the lives of the Wives, but part of me thinks this was an opportunity for more examination of the meaning of humanity. Surely a child with golden skin or a third eye or neck quills is no more an abomination than is a leper or an AIDS patient.

***

Well, I think I've come to the end of my notes. I really appreciate anyone who's taken the time to read all this.

Time for the fine print:

Featured book, The Enclave - http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0764203282

Karen Hancock’s Web site - http://www.kmhancock.com/index.htm
Karen Hancock’s blog - http://karenhancock.wordpress.com/

Other CSFFBT Participants’ Links:

Brandon Barr
Jennifer Bogart
Keanan Brand
Grace Bridges
Canadianladybug
Melissa Carswell
Valerie Comer
Amy Cruson
CSFF Blog Tour
Stacey Dale
D. G. D. Davidson
Janey DeMeo
Jeff Draper
Emmalyn Edwards
April Erwin
Karina Fabian
Beth Goddard
Todd Michael Greene
Heather R. Hunt
Becky Jesse
Cris Jesse
Julie
Carol Keen
Krystine Kercher
Dawn King
Mike Lynch
Melissa Meeks
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Mirtika
Eve Nielsen
Nissa
John W. Otte
Steve Rice
Crista Richey
James Somers
Speculative Faith
Stephanie
Rachel Starr Thomson
Steve Trower
Fred Warren
Elizabeth Williams

Book Review: Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana, by Anne Rice

I did not think that I would like this book.

Back in the day, I read Rice's Interview with a Vampire slowly and painfully - the writing was hyper-Tolkienesque in density, the characters were not easily liked, and the action seemed excessively slow. I never saw an reason to pick up another book in the series. In addition, I heard enough third and fourth-hand about Rice's attitude towards fan-fic writers and towards editors ("I write and rewrite every page until it is how I want it to be, and I don't need editors to give me their feedback") to harbor a low level of hostility to the woman and how she conducted her craft.

And when word came out that Anne Rice had (re)found God, and was only going to write Christian fiction, I joined with other people in mocking and sneering at her pretension. (I regretted this since.)

It was a bit of that regret that drove, in part, my picking up the paperback from the rack in the department store. What the rest of my motivation was, I can't say. I will say that I bought the book practically without opening it, which is not usual for me. (Reading the first page is a decent litmus test to see if I will like the book at all.)

Starting on vacation, I pulled it out when I got to the airport. And by the end of the third page, I was hooked on the language and the voice Rice used for Christ.

If it were not for the name on the cover, I would not have know the book was written by the same person who wrote Interview - this book was written lightly, in spare language that was no less carefully chosen, but also infused with a joy and appreciation for the world that had been lacking in the vampire book.

Road to Cana is the second book in Rice's series, and covers a season in Christ's life just before and after he meets his cousin John at the Jordan.

Rice does some remarkable things in this book - she recreates the feel and rhythms of turn-of-the-age Palestine, she unravels what is known and guessed and proclaimed about the Holy Family and reweaves it into a cloth that is at once familiar and brand new, and she presents a Christ that is both God and human, and struggling with His role - and yet never ceases to be either.

This Yeshua can be seen as perfect, but he does not live in a perfect world. The faults and follies and festering anger of the people of Nazareth are drawn clearly, if sympathetically. (There are no hopeless evil things here - only humans who have done wrong.) The politics of the larger world still go on, and the ripples reach out to Palestine. The society of the time is closed in, dependent on manual labor, and tightly segregated by gender, family, and class, but the people who live in that society are not presented as caricatures. I was well satisfied not only by the world-building and the plot (which I did not guess all the details of before hand, even though most of the world knows how the story goes) but also by the care given to crafting all the secondary characters.

One of the things I appreciated best about the book was the way the rest of Nazareth treated Yeshua - they called him 'the sinless', but it was as much a weary confusion and a mockery as it was a praise-name. Yeshua confuses and disquiets these people - as, I think, he would those who knew him in any age.

In flaws I have only three major items: one, that the first two paragraphs were not the best hook, and I didn't start getting intrigued until the second page; two, that the repetition of names (while not the fault of the author) was confusing throughout (too many names starting with 'J'!) and finally, that the book lost some steam in the last couple of chapters, as Yeshua started gathering disciples. But these are minor things.

I have ordered the first book (Out of Egypt) and am looking forward to the third in the series.

Roads Less Traveled

Ulvik is a small town in Norway, located on Hardangerfjord. It is a lovely place in early summer (heck, most of Norway is) with the quiet atmosphere of an out-of-the-way place.

Ulvik was our second walk, and our only 'walk to get there' trip. We got off the bus at Granvin and turned uphill. (This part - "turning uphill" - was a constant part of our trip. Really constant.)

The path began as a single-lane asphalt road, became a narrow unmarked asphalt road, twisted and turned, became gravel, and then we turned left off the road, and were on the trail.

It was called "the post road" because, until Ulvik got its own post office, the people used to walk over the mountian to check their mail (which came twice a week.) One way, the trip took three hours.

***

A few months back, a storm of protest arose on the internets in the space of 24 hours, because Amazon.com mis-labeled a whole stack of books, making them difficult to find on the webpages, and then (most horribly) failed to swiftly correct the problem. This storm arose on Easter Sunday.

***

As a long time reader of The Tightwad Gazette, I have found the recent spate of articles on 'living on a budget' interesting, and even occasionally helpful. Most of them echo the age old advice of "don't buy it if you don't need it' and 'pay your bills on time'.

Some articles go a bit further.

CNN linked earlier today to an article on 'disconnecting' - electronically, at least - and 'living simplier'. The thoughts shared in this article share a thread that keeps re-appearing in much of my recent reading on monks and other religious - that the distractions of modern life can help make us unhappy. You don't need stuff to make you happy.

I asked for all things so that I could enjoy life. I was given life that I might enjoy all things.

In the current economic situation - which many blame on the greed of lenders and bankers and/or the foolish materialism of those who bought things (including houses) that they couldn't pay for - not to mention the climate change debate which seems to hinge on condemning wasteful 'progress' and the pollution from industrial development - there seem to be many who agree. And yet...is it not a crisis because we don't have stuff? Because we don't have money to pay for stuff?

I think that one of the great gifts of modern civilization is all the 'stuff' we have - including the internet, post offices in our town, and paved roads. Oh, and open-heart surgeries, electric lights, and airplane travel. I think that having certain levels of 'stuff' - esp. food, shelter, physical security, and ways to learn more - makes us better people, and makes it easier to follow Christ, just as having a good night's sleep makes it easier to not scream at people who are annoying you. And let's hear it for things that make it easier to communication, like literacy, education, cheap paperback printing, telephones and the internet.

But I agree that the quest for getting more 'stuff' just to have 'stuff' is a distractor - and that it can make it hard to identify the most important 'stuff' for an individual person. And I think that individual choice is important. The publishers should go on printing tons of romance novels, even though I'll never read them, and there should be enough peas grown and harvested for people who like green peas to eat them. (I'll stick with SF and mysteries, and lima beans, thank you.) Ditto good cars for people who care what they drive, and big houses for people with big families.

We all, individually, need to pick what we need, and be willing leave lay what we don't. How learn this - and how to teach it, without denying access to things we don't think needful, but others might - that's a bit easier to say than to do.

***

Somewhat related: 100 Geek Skills. Also somewhat related: Heinlein's list of life skills.

A Responsibility for Joy

The last few days I've been struggling with a case of the funk. Some of it has been due to recent reading - Emma's War's lack of heroes and positive outcomes has been pretty typical for the non-fiction I've been reading lately.

World news hasn't exactly been a fount of hope and joy, either. (North Korea, what are you thinking?) Memorial Day is a downer of its own - either I'm thinking of people gone, or wishing I was celebrating the day in a more traditional fashion (ie, beer and BBQ), or getting grumpy with people who are enjoying themselves this last weekend -

- and seriously, while I don't want to speak for anyone else, I would like to think that the veterans we honor on Memorial Day would want people to be celebrating and happy. I don't think they'd hold it against us -

- which is truly not the best way to look at things.

I've started and abandoned a handful of posts on this theme - about how everything is horrid and miserable and I'm going to go out into the garden and eat worms.

I even had a list of worms I was going to eat - links to all sorts of things that made me sad and unhappy.

Then I went to Mass this evening.

Today is the feast day of St Phillip Neri - a man who abandoned his studies for ordination and became a lay leader of the church. His attributes were humility and gaeity, and he, like St Francis of Assisi, was one who delighted in God.

In that spirit - in the spirit of Christ who is ever willing to look past our failures, our anger, our laziness and our indifference, and passionately pour out his love on us all, a short list of things which are more butterfly than worm:

Amy Deanne at 160acrewoods posted book review of Faith to Faith - about conversations and commonalities between Christians and non-Christians.

Another book - Shop Class as Soul Craft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work - which might have implications for those who are trying to find a balance between work and prayer. (Or it might be something else - haven't read it yet.)

Some others may also remember Sister Wendy (the art nun) judging the Jesus 2000 painting contest, and the controversy surrounding the winning portrat. I managed to come back across the painter's web site: Jesus of the People painter. I think it really is a glorious piece of work.

A Happiness Project

And if all that is insufficent: I Can Haz Cheeseburger - I find the ongoing references to Ceiling Cat and Basement Cat funny and frequently (if accidently) profound.

Finally: Where the hell is Matt? - out in the world. Dancing.

Easter

And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him. And very early in the morning the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulchre at the rising of the sun. And they said among themselves, Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre?

- The Gospel of Mark, 16:1-3

***

The best thing about digging into my faith, for me, is that every year, every day, there is something new to learn.

***

Sometimes, you can't do everything. But if you're not on the road, heading to the tomb, why would God roll away the stone?

Self - get on the road.

Keep walking.

If the rock's still there when I get that far, I'll figure it out then.

Good Friday

But I tell you: Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you.
- Matthew 5:44

***

I am a part of a group that meets once a week, for breakfast, a brief scripture reflection, and a request for prayers. We talk about the things we're struggling with at the office and back at home, about loved ones in harm's way and struggling with medical issues. We offer counsel for difficult situations and congradulations on obsticals overcome. We ask God to heal sicknesses, to provide strength, to grant wisdom, to give insight. Often - but not quite often enough, we even ask that God's will be done, and not our own.

Prayer is...not as easy as it sounds.

***

But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.
- Luke 7:27-28

***

Unless you are a far saintlier person than most I know, there are at least one or three people that you interact with regularly that you loathe. Might be someone at the office, a guy who works out at the same gym at the same time, a gal in your internet circle, someone at the job who's arrogant or incompentent or lies or has the b.o. of a skunk ape.

Someone whose mere presence or every word is like sandpaper on your eyeballs. You might not go so far as to say you hated that person, but if you never saw them again, you'd surely not miss them.

And when you say 'Good morning' to that person, you surely don't want them to have any thing pleasant at all.

I have a person like that - heck, I have a list.

This is, for me, the hardest part of being a Christian.

***

"A car rigged with explosives detonated Thursday in a market crowded with women and children in northern Baghdad, killing 16 people...Residents said a driver left the yellow Renault parked along a street lined with shops and stalls parked along the curb. They said the man walked away with a limp and five minutes later, one small explosion was heard, then a devastating blast before noon."
--Washington Post http://mobile.washingtonpost.com/detail.jsp?key=367233&rc=na

***

What would it take to pray for that man - to pray that his limp be healed, and that he be able to walk sound, run after a child, kneel and stand to pray with ease?

What would it mean, for a Christian to pray for the salvation of the soul of Aldof Hitler?

Who could pray for Osama bin Ladin to be recieved back into his family, embraced the prodigal son of parable, accepted again, beloved again? Who could ask God that he have grandchildern to hold on his knees, and nephews to ask him for stories? For an old man to have the aches in his bones depart and his hands be strong again?

To beg of God that this one person, whom you loathe, be awarded a promotion at work, win the lottery, be healed of their corns, recieve good news from a loved one?

I can't do this. Not often. Not at all, most days. And every time I try and fail - either fail to form the words, or change into something half-hearted and self-centered - God, just bring him to see that I'm right. God, make it so I don't have to fight with her today. God, just make them leave me alone. - every time I wonder if I'm going to be able to try again.

***

When they came to the place called the Skull, there they crucified Him, along with the criminals, one on his right, the other on his left. Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

The Gospel according to Luke, chapter 23, verse 33-34