To Which Ted Said

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51uhZXPC3xL. SL160 To Which Ted SaidMy recent review of Ted Dekker’s Eyes Wide Open was, shall I say, less that flattering. Not so much because I didn’t think it worthwhile but because I, along with more than a few others, found the marketing of the books less that desirable. To the author’s credit, here is his response my review at Amazon along with my reply to him. I was public with my misgivings and he should be allowed the same forum to speak for himself.

Hi Tim… Ted Here.

Truly, I am sorry for the confusion that the release of this episodic story has caused some. Perhaps the main message in the release pages for Identity wasn’t clear enough. The whole idea was to present Eyes Wide Open like a TV series like Dexter or Homeland (which is what we compared it to in the copy (WHAT WOULD A TV SERIES FROM TED LOOK LIKE?) where Identity is the pilot, offered free, just like iTunes does so often for TV series. Nothing new… Just convenient (even expected of many these days, a return to the era of Dickens, as you point out.)

Eyes Wide Open is the whole season, as we said. We also compared it to Black, Red, White, a series in which each ends in a cliffhanger, only Eyes Wide Open is shorter. Somehow in all of that the message should have been clearer — not everyone reads the full description in the Eblasts and or posts. Live and learn. Next time we will find a different way to present it.

Either way, Identity is free… Just like Black, no one is obligated to continue to find out what happens to Thomas (Black ended with a gun to Thomas’s head:) Eyes Wide Open is definitely a return to the kind of intense spiritual struggle found in my earlier work… I hope you find the whole ride both challenging and rewarding. I know it was for me in the writing. Thank you for following my writing for all of these years. See around cyberspace…

To which Tim Said …

First off, let me say thanks for taking the time to comment here. I was not offended to the point I didn’t purchase the next two installments and plan to finish Eyes Wide Open. As a publicist and a writer myself I am aware of how easily the best laid plans can go in unexpected direction. And as one has clients who are self-published and must constantly look for creative ways to be seen and heard I understand what you were trying to accomplish. I never meant to imply there was intended deceptive marketing on your part – perhaps just a need for some different wording.

With that aside, let me say to you and those who read my reviews, The Circle is one of the reasons I found myself pulled back into writing after many years of ignoring the craft. Thank you for introducing a new generation to the kind of storytelling that Bunyan gave birth to hundreds of years ago.

So has anyone read the installments available? If so, what do you think about Eyes Wide Open?

 

5 Signs of Conversational Terrorism

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Winston Churchull 02 5 Signs of Conversational TerrorismCONVERSATIONAL TERRORISM is best defined by offering examples of how people pretend to want to have meaningful conversation while secretly planting land mines for the person with whom they are talking to step on. We witness these acts of conversational terrorism all the time but in this day of overhyped everything we tend to be hoodwinked into thinking a conversation has actually occurred.

Dean and Laura VanDruff have divided this kind of anti-conversation into five categories, each of which should serve as warning signs:

  • Ad Hominem Variants - Attacking the person instead of the subject at hand

  • Sleight of Mind Fallacies – Mental “magic” to cheat logic and fair dialog

  • Delay Tactics – When the brain freezes, the lips flap on…

  • Questions of Opportunity – A favorite of politicians

  • General Irritants – Verbal grenades, irritants, and ploys

You’ve seen all of these and, if you are honest, have been guilty at times of strapping on a conversational suicide vest before engaging a group of unaware bystanders. Here are some examples of typical comebacks and comments that hint a conversation is about to suffer a sneak attack:

  • “You support capital punishment because of a deep-rooted death wish common among those who have suffered emotional traumas during childhood.”

 

  • “You oppose capital punishment because of an irrational suppressed death taboo common among those who have suffered emotional trauma during childhood.”

 

 

  • “You weren’t breast fed as a child, were you?”

 

These are all Ad Hominem code for, “What you have to say doesn’t matter because you can’t possibly speak objectively about this subject and I can.” Other variants of this include the classic, “You can’t possible understand because you’re a man” or “you’ve never had children” or “are you are at that time of the month?”

Trust me; any of my fellow men who utter that last one are not only conversational terrorists but delusional and suicidal as well.

Before you feign innocence in the Ad Hominem category, be aware there is also the Reverse Ad Hominem remark. Just make it sound as though the other person is attacking you rather than making a simple point or correction. Rather than staying on topic, act like a victim. This subtle form of conversational terrorism occurs when the person in question suspects they are wrong or about to lose the case for his or her line of thinking.

The reverse Ad Hominem goes something like this:

  • Wife – “Honey I think the reason the guy in that truck is honking at you and waving his hand like that is because that sign back there said STOP not GO FASTER.”

 

  • Husband – “So you think I don’t know how to drive?”

 

The issue is not whether the husband knows how to drive but whether he observed that street sign, noticed the guy in the truck giving him the one finger salute, or heard his little girl praying in the back sit while her brother whispered “Cool.”

Winston Churchill is remembered as a statesman capable of astounding oratory. The man was a wizard with the English language. However, one of my favorite quotes from Churchill concerns the art of saying nothing.

“Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.”

At this point someone is saying to themselves, “I notice you said ‘you’ a lot and not ‘I’. The reason you go on about how other people talk and not yourself is because you have a deep-rooted need to point out the wrong in others common to those who have suffered emotional traumas during childhood.”

To which I respond with my much more clever and insightful …

“You weren’t breast fed as a child, were you?”

Identity by Ted Dekker

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Identity by Ted DekkerIt’s been quite a while since I read a novel by Ted Dekker, partly because my to-read pile is threatening to overwhelm me and partly because I was left somewhat flat by the second installment of his joint venture with Tosca Lee in the Book of Mortals. The jury is still out for me as to whether that series failed to grab me because I expected something to match the Circle or because what we got was a continuation of the Circle disguised as something new.

With that off my chest, book one of Eyes Wide Open is a winner so far. I say so far because Dekker is offering this novel in four installments. I enjoyed the frantic and escapist tale as it unfolded in this first installment. At the same time I had to continually work to get the bad taste out of my mouth about the marketing of this book. But more about that later.

Identity is the story of two characters, both seriously disconnected from the people and society around them. Christe Snow (17) is a young woman with a largely missing past, illustrated in the silver locket she wears that contains nothing but stock photos. Austin Hartt (19), her only real friend, is a prodigy. His life consists of the books that surround him, auditing classes at Harvard though he’s never enrolled, and the realization he may have a tumor threatening to destroy the intellect he so cherishes.

When Christie returns to an abandoned hotel basement to search for the cherished locket she somehow misplaced, she finds the fragile identity she so carefully protects threatened in ways even she, with all her insecurities, could have never imagined. First trapped in the abandoned basement she breaks through an old wall to find herself in the hallways of St. Matthews’s psychiatric ward. Soon she and then Austin who comes looking for her, find themselves trapped in a nightmare of different sorts. Both she and Austin are labeled as delusional patients with different names and their own identity effectively erased.

Since this is in essence only the first few chapters of what will be a complete novel, I will withhold questions about plot issues for now. This has a definite YA feel and since I don’t read a lot of Young Adult fiction I also won’t judge the story by its style. So far it’s a story that’s both entertaining and that compels you to keep turning pages to see what will happen to Christie and Austin as they struggled to hold on to their identity.

Now back to that lingering taste in my mouth I can’t quite get rid of. Besides being a writer, I am also involved in marketing and it is there that Eyes Wide Open uses a risky and to some a bit shady ploy. For weeks Dekker advertised this as a “ground breaking” method of telling story. Bold promises were made to recapture the story telling spirit of The Circle. In fact, I along with thousands of others signed up to receive Identity free. We were told it was the first of four books, each complete in itself, that would tell one unified story. And nothing could be further from the truth.

Identity ends with nothing complete in itself. I received at least three emails after signing up trumpeting the day I could enter information to receive my “free” copy of Identity. Never once, until that day came was it identified as a Kindle version of what amounts to the first six chapters of an incomplete book.

There is nothing wrong with using a serial approach to get a story out there. In fact, Dean Koontz did this quite effectively with Odd Interlude. The difference in the two is that Koontz never presented the three installments of Interlude as anything besides what they are: three parts to one story none of which stand alone in any way.

Eyes Wide Open is a good story but there is nothing ground breaking about how it is being doled out. Dickens was found in installments in London newspapers long before they became the classic books we know today. Same goes for Louisa May Alcott, Isaac Asimov, Philip K. Dick, and a host of others.

Nevertheless, even though I am a marketer and understand how I was manipulated, I quickly bought the second installment of Dekker’s new work and am set to read Mirrors this afternoon. Perhaps, like Christie and Austin, I am a puppet in Ted Dekker’s maniacal hands. Or perhaps I just like a good story and so far this one is. Toothpaste can do wonders for a bad taste in one’s mouth but a book with no story cannot.

_____________________________________________________________

image3 Identity by Ted DekkerTED DEKKER is a New York Times bestselling thriller author. Heralded as a “master of suspense” by Library Journal, Dekker has sold millions worldwide, establishing himself as one of the most widely recognized author brands.Ted Dekker’s fans are comprised of readers of all ages, backgrounds, and belief systems who love his compulsively readable stories, authentic characters, and universal and relatable themes that he explores from a unique point of view.

Confessions of One Who Cursed the Darkness

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image Confessions of One Who Cursed the DarknessAS WE ENTER THIS NEW YEAR, many are cheering what a few like me lament. I confess that, in the past, I chastised those who were pessimistic about the future of this great country. But it is time for me to acknowledge the obvious; the times they are changing and as far as I can see, not for the better.

In the weeks and months after Hurricane Ivan a few years back nature proved it is ruthlessly efficient at making formally hidden flaws painfully obvious. Long-standing buildings that appeared structurally sound could no longer mask poor and under-code design. Once seemingly invulnerable oaks betrayed by their hidden secrets of internal disease and rot joined their less noble pine brethren in a common grave of burning debris. The relentless winds simply hastened the inevitable.

Mike Duran, in the aptly titled In Which I Throw in the Towel, was one step ahead of me when he wrote:

“My conservative friends, we are fighting a tide that has turned … We’ve reached the tipping point. The liberal intelligentsia’s control of academic institutions, state-run education, the courts, the entertainment industry, and the mainstream media has become insurmountable. We may nurture a strong remnant, but be advised, we will never, ever, control the national conversation. Again. We are the minority. We are the dissidents…”

Storm winds of cultural and societal change have indeed revealed fractures and flaws some of us didn’t want to admit existed beneath our very feet. Those of us of Biblical faith are indeed the loyal minority, but is that really a new thing? Is it really the surprise so many within the faith community feign it to be?

John S. Dickerson in his soon to be released The Great Evangelical Recession makes a convincing case that orthodox Christianity had become a minority position in American culture long before Roe v. Wade, Same Sex Marriage laws, and free condoms in public schools. Through the 60s, 70s, and 80s, even as the Jesus movement gained steam and mega churches sprang up across the land, disease had already introduced itself deep within the root system of our churches, society, and government.

Like many in the late 70s, I listened to and admired Cal Thomas. And now, like him, I confess my starry eyed foolishness in believing there ever was any such thing as a Moral Majority. Once a central figure in that movement, Thomas sees things far differently now. Looking back on that era he writes:

“We were going through organizing like-minded people to ‘return’ American to a time of greater morality. Of course, this was to be done through politicians who had a difficult time imposing morality on themselves.” Thomas then notes what I and too many others failed to embrace at that time. “No country can be truly Christian. Only people can.”

Neither liberal nor theological coward, John MacArthur tackles head on the church’s foolish attempt to change culture either through legislation or supposed majority rule. Consider MacArthur’s words from Why Government Can’t Save You: An Alternative to Political Activism:

“Rather than demanding our rights and creating for ourselves a world where we feel safe and accepted, we need to see the deep spiritual needs of the world and concern ourselves with offering people hope through Jesus Christ … Above all, the believer’s political involvement should never displace the priority of … the gospel because the morality … that God sees is the result of salvation and sanctification.”

Does this mean I no longer have opinions about what should be happening in Washington or the local mayor’s office? Not at all. But it does mean I have found a certain peace in embracing my minority status. There’s just too much to do and too little time to do it to lose sleep over what Augustine called “the city of the world.”

I know there are those who read these ramblings of mine who are not followers of Christ. Even some of you who are believers don’t have my misgivings about the direction of our culture. Others, deeply troubled by the state of current affairs, are determined to fight the good fight of changing the public conversation. I wish them well but wonder if that energy couldn’t be used in better ways.

As for me the gloaming time is past. I am quite certain that night has fallen on the Baby Boomer fantasy of spirituality by legislation and the supposed redeeming influence of the institutional church. Now is the time to shine my light in the darkness rather than curse or rail against it.

And … there is a strange and wonderful peace about accepting this place of dissidence. I still want to see the city of this world a better place. But even when it appears to be at its best, I know it is ultimately what D.A. Carson calls a “brutal illusion”. At its best, this world is still at its worst.

In this city of the world those who follow Christ will always be in the minority, a band of holy rebels raising weapons of truth like firebrands in the darkness. Help me Lord, to embrace this noble calling to go outside the camp where Christ is. To be nothing that He might be everything.

Those Pesky Memes

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gone03 Those Pesky MemesA popular thing these days in the blogosphere is memes. Some say they are the result of a creative network  – others say they are more akin to a virus that keeps popping up. Whatever you think of them, here is a meme that apparently will not stay out of my inbox if I don’t address it. So here goes:

 

“The Next Big Thing”

1. What is the title of your next book/work?

  • Gone

2. Where did the idea come from for the book/work?

  • A blog post I once wrote about the invisible people in our world.  Check it out here.

3. What genre does your book/work fall under?

  • Psychological Suspense

4. What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

  • Rand Jackson (protagonist) - William H. Macy
  • Thomas Kyd (antagonist) – William Forsyth
  • Vera Mathis (female character actor part)- Catherine O’Hara

5. What is a one-sentence synopsis of your book?

  • As Destiny, Texas sleeps Rand Jackson rediscovers a gift that once was his biggest curse, and might well still be.

6. Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

  • Yet to be seen

7. How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

  • Still working

8. What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

  • Falling Away – T.L. Hines (minus the spiritual warfare angle)

9. Who or what inspired you to write this book?

  • A mixture of my youngest son’s experiences in the military and a few of my own monumental screw-ups in life.

10. What else about the book might pique the reader’s interest?

  • “The past is a cruel mistress isn’t she Rand? Just when you think you’ve settled down with the present with a glimmer of hope for a future, she shows up out of nowhere getting all bent out of shape because you’ve been ignoring her.” – Line from Thomas Kyd (antagonists)

So now – if you are a writer, what’s the next big thing? And whatever you are, what is the next big thing in your life?

Who is Enough!

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marc camille chaimowicz man looking out of window Who is Enough!I REACHED OVER and stroked my wife’s hair at 4:10 this morning and said a silent prayer; the same prayer of gratitude I have voiced for over twenty years. That may not seem so unusual to you but then you weren’t where I was back then. On that day, so distant and yet so very near, I was standing in an Intensive Care Unit trying to figure out how I could tell me wife that she was going to die.

The only thing louder than the constant wheezing of the ventilator that pumped air in and out of her lungs was the muffled scream imprisoned deep in my throat. She was my teenage sweetheart and the mother of two fine sons still in elementary school. She was the pride of my life, the love of my heart, my constant companion, my best friend. And now, she was lying with her head shaved after nine hours of brain surgery.

The words of the Neuro-Surgeon ate at my insides like acid. “If she lives another year it will be a miracle. You’re the best person to tell her”.

“How could I be the best person to tell her something I couldn’t even voice to myself”?

Early in the day, during the surgery, a friend had secreted me away to a secluded stairwell far from the over one hundred friends and family who had gathered at the hospital to pray and wait. She understood I needed to be alone for a while. I had done all the socializing and listening to “all things work together for good” that I could handle.

Later, as the echoes of well-wishers were swallowed up in the void of my pain, I sat alone in an empty hospital room watching a dying sun drop below the horizon. The life I had shared with my best friend looked to be sinking with it.

All I could think to do was pray but words eluded me. For years I had given myself to helping others through crisis: presiding over dozens of funerals and wrapping my arms around an equal number of grieving parents and spouses as their loved one closed their eyes to this world. How many times had I spit out glib and trite words of pre-packaged comfort devoid of any real emotional or spiritual nourishment?

Time after time, for what must have been hours, I started to say something and choked on the first syllable. Finally I cried out the one word that has stymied mankind since Adam and Eve first found their son murdered in a field, the word missed by sleeping disciples in Gethsemane as the God-man faced the certain reason for His coming. Three letters, combined to create one monosyllabic whispered plea pushed their why past by lips – WHY?

A whispered question gave way to a tidal wave of “whys” that threatened to tear me from what little foundation I still felt under my feet. Finally, spent from the outburst of pent up emotion, I leaned against the window seal and watched the last pastels of twilight give way to first grays and then the darkest of blacks.

And then? Then the same sun that had set on my exhausted lament the night before rose in glory a few hours later. I gathered myself and found my way to the private room my wife had been moved to. It took most of the day before she was alert enough to ask me how it went. And, it took me even longer to find the right words to tell her. The why then gave way to “what now?” And that question offered no more reply than the first.

The next morning a friend of ours called. “I was praying,” she said, “and reading my Bible this morning and God gave me a verse that I know is for the two of you.” I sighed. Oh please dear Lord, I believe Romans 8:28 but I cannot bear to pretend I feel like I believe them. Know that I believe them, yes. Feel like it, no. Because I was beyond feeling. Just numb.

And then she read these words to me from Joshua 3:5; “Sanctify yourselves: for tomorrow the LORD will do wonders among you.” I thanked her and wondered if it really meant anything at all. My prayer had been so weak, and my faith so small. What wonders could God do with me?

Soon we went home, chemo and radiation therapies already scheduled for the days to come. Buried and almost forgotten were those words, “tomorrow the LORD will do wonders among you.” The phone rang throughout the day and into the night. People brought lunch and supper. And another night fell amidst the same echoes – WHY?

The phone rang yet again and I started not to answer but knew I must. The voice on the other end was that of our neurosurgeon calling from his car as he drove through a thunder storm almost a hundred miles away.

“Tim, I had to call you. We got some more tests that we sent off back and I just don’t understand it.”

“Don’t understand what?”

“The cells were atypical. Textbook, as in the only place I or the other doctors has ever seen them.”

“Now I don’t understand,” was all I could think to say in reply.

“The operation is all that she will need. She’s going to live a long full life. Your wife does not have cancer”.

The hours that followed were surreal. Our family physician and his wife showed up at our house giddy with excitement well after nine that night. After they left, those words finally came back to me, “Tomorrow the LORD will do wonders among you.”

And so, here I am all these years later. Has life been easy in the intervening years? Not at all! We have gone through many trials and failures. We have seen good times and bad. That “why” and so many since stand in line hopefully waiting for an answer that may or may not come in this life.

But there is one question that has been answered time and again. When that question is asked the answer comes rushing in a torrent of divine power. That question is “WHO?” Knowing that answer is enough.

_______________

My Christmas gift to my friends and readers is simple but invaluable – learn to ask the right question and you will always get the right answer.

Can I Quote you on That?

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It’s no secret that I love quotes. Smart ones, profound ones, prophetic ones, even funny and stupid ones. Here are just a few of my favorites that I have shared in blog posts, on Facebook, and elsewhere.

If you see one you like just hover your mouse over it, right click, and save the image. They said it not me, and besides most of them are dead so I don’t think you’re going to be sued or anything. Enjoy.

By the way, how about sharing some of your favorite quote with the rest of us.

Murder by Degrees in the “Mainstream” Media

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image thumb1 Murder by Degrees in the “Mainstream” MediaA headless body floating in the East River, a newfangled execution device called the electric chair, and a corrupt police department – what more could you need for a great murder mystery?

The Murder of the Century: The Gilded Age Crime That Scandalized a City & Sparked the Tabloid Wars by Paul Collins reminds us that non-fiction is a greater challenge to write than fiction because it’s more difficult to make believable.

The Murder of the Century is about, as you might guess, a murder. But more than that it is the story of how journalism became sensationalism and truth was forced to play second fiddle to headlines that sell. Perhaps most telling of all is the fact this story shows us that real news has been the victim of murder by degrees for much longer than most of realize.

Long before CNN, MSNBC and FOX News, Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst were betting their fortunes on creating a new kind of media. Ironically, Pulitzer is now remembered for the likes of iconic Pulitzer Prize winning authors, Harper Lee and William Faulkner. But in 1897, he and Hearst all but invented yellow journalism. Pulitzer would spend the end of his life trying to build a different legacy and Hearst was later immortalized in the movie Citizen Kane.

Behind this is a story of a headless body found in the East River, a new fangled execution device called the electric chair, and a police department that needed to be whipped into shape by a young man by the name of Teddy Roosevelt. Like so many news stories today, the media became the star and the actual players in the murder mystery took a back seat.

In fairness to those players, The Murder of the Century involved a twisted love affair. The principle suspects in the murder were Augusta Nack and Martin Thorn. Mrs. Nack was a mid-wife rumored to have performed hundreds of abortions. Thorn was a barber who had a fling with Mrs. Nack and killed her husband with her help. Or so the story went. Thorn ultimately died in the electric chair and Mrs. Nack lived like a celebrity in prison for a few years before living out the rest of her life in New York City where she had grown famous.

How the papers covered the story and millions followed it is all but incredible. The papers invented color pictures just for the trial. They even created their own version of Twitter in a telegraph age. Champion homing pigeons were brought from Europe to relay court room artist’s sketches back to the news rooms for mid-day extras.

Collins masterfully immerses the reader into a New York City both foreign and amazingly similar to today. Instant news punctuated by sound bites for the masses hungry to be told what to think abounded. In the end, it is likely the real mastermind of the murder walked the streets of New York free for years to come. Mr. Thorn was not so lucky.

“Newspaper may be the first draft of history, but most of what they cover never gets a second draft.” – Author Paul Collins

In this age of instant news offered up in a 24/7 format, there is much to learn from The Crime of the Century. We are each responsible for filtering what passes for news through a reasoned mind. It is our responsibility to determine as best we can what should be accepted as fact and what should not.

Competition between the papers of Hearst and Pulitzer was intense and a bit cut throat. Neither was above inventing facts when none were to be found. Hearst even when so far as to use his own reporters as a kind of mercenary army to aid the rebellion in Cuba. “Remember the Maine” became the battle cry of America in 1898. Unfortunately, the war with Spain that ensued was more manufactured by the media than reality.

The author invokes powerful images of legions or reporters fanning out on their bicycles to either find or make the news. While Mr. Thorn languished in squalid conditions and ultimately died in Sing Sing, Mrs. Nack became a reporter’s dream celebrity. Though imprisoned for nine years she lived much of that time in relative ease because she posed a sympathetic picture and granted reporters unlimited access. She had a story she loved to tell and the public was willing to pay to hear it.

Turn of the century New York City was inhabited by 100’s of language groups. Living conditions were meager and near illiteracy was rampant. As a result, the average man turned to dime novels and sensational “yellow” papers for entertainment and news. Parallels between that gilded age and ours are not hard to find.

So do you still much attention to what happens in the national news? Local? On a scale of 1 to 10 what how would you rate your trust level for much of what you see and hear in the media?

Sharia Law: It’s Not Science Fiction

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image6 Sharia Law: It’s Not Science Fiction

We struck and then we hid. We talked peace while planning destruction. We used our own brothers’ suffering as fuel against those who were more sympathetic of such things. We sowed discontent.

Kerry Nietz – A Star Curiously Singing

In his trilogy, The Dark Trench Saga, author Kerry Nietz paints a startling picture of a world dominated by a global fundamentalist religion. The main character is a lowly technician who has served at the will of his masters since the age of ten, that obedience insured by a surgically implanted and state approved conscience. Unwilling to simply educate or propagandize their servants into submission, this world’s rulers have invented a surgical implant that virtually assures it.

While we are never told the name of this all-pervasive religion, Nietz leaves little doubt what he modeled this future world after. “But that’s just Science Fiction,” some will say. Anyone who has read much of the genre know that such stories often serve as a magnifying glass on what is already happening or soon will happen around us. The quote from Nietz’ novel was from one of the agents of the world government explaining how Sharia Law came to be the law of the world.

So do I have your attention now? The idea of the Islamic rule of Sharia Law being accepted in Western countries is not science fiction at all!

The courts have become the tip of the spear in Islam’s march into our country. One of the main avenues Muslims are now using to express their identity is in the courtroom. And with each victory in our liberal courts second generation Muslims and converts are becoming more and more confident in asserting their legal rights for Sharia.

But the war for the American concept or religious liberty may well have already been lost on the most strategic battleground of all, the educational system. In his soon to be released, The Great Evangelical Recession, John S. Dickerson notes that Islam is already viewed far more favorably on many college campuses than evangelical Christianity. He quotes a study done by Jewish and Community Research that asked 1200 university professors if they had “unfavorable feelings” toward various religions.

Less than one in four college and university professors have negative feelings toward Muslims, but a majority of them have negative feelings toward evangelical Christians.”

In the minds of American college and university professors, Muslims are a more peaceful and preferred people than Christians.

Sharia law is the most radical and intolerant system of government on the face of the earth? In countries that enforce strict Islamic standards there is no freedom of conscience, no freedom of speech, and no equality for women or non-Muslims. Don’t be fooled by the unrest spreading across the Muslim world. The people in Egypt and Libya are not rejecting Sharia Law; they are rejecting despot rulers who hoard everything to themselves. One need only look at the Taliban in Afghanistan to see what happens when everything breaks down and the people look to someone to restore order.

This is not a defense of the current state of evangelical Christianity. There is plenty of work to do on that front! Nor is this an indictment of Muslims as a whole. They are no more fallen than any other human being on this planet. This is simply a call to consider whether this snippet of dialogue from a piece of fiction isn’t coming to life all around us:

“We struck and then we hid. We talked peace while planning destruction. We used our own brothers’ suffering as fuel against those who were more sympathetic of such things. We sowed discontent.”

Philip K. Dick wrote a near-reality bit of prophecy called Minority Report in a drug induced and quasi schizophrenic haze. If that could happen then surely it would be wise to pay attention to the chord Kerry Nietz, who obviously is seeing things quite clearly, has struck concerning Sharia Law.

Edwarda O’Bara was No Fairytale

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image5 Edwarda OBara was No FairytaleMy teenage years were tumultuous to say the least. Between 1967 and 1969 I stood by the graves of my grandfather, two brothers, and my father. As a 12 year old I entered seventh grade fatherless and to some extent motherless as my mom grieved for the man and a life she would never know again.

And the world wasn’t in much better shape. Vietnam was at its height and my generation had already pronounced those who parented us a total failure. My peaceful Mayberry world now rocked to the strains of Grand Funk Railroad and Jimmy Hendrix. And the lockers of Pineville Jr. High School were vibrating from head shots to opposing races in the midst of forced integration.

Why couldn’t my life have been quieter, less dramatic, more settled? Perhaps a life like that of Edwarda O’Bara, the girl in the picture. She never was forced to move three times in one school year. Nor did she have to worry when the Russians might dispatch intercontinental missiles our way. And, as the years progressed, she didn’t have to watch in disappointment as Richard Nixon resigned. Edwarda didn’t even have to watch in horror as the twin towers fell on 9/11 and I wondered what would happen to my youngest son just enlisted in the Army.

Writers are prone to look for a story in everything so what’s the story here? How did some girl named Edwarda luck up and miss out on all that drama? Was there some kind of twist in time, some rip in the space-time continuum in 1970 that allowed her to avoid all the craziness in the years of my life that began just before the decade of the 70’s?

Not a speculative kind of person? Then perhaps this girl’s story is a mystery. Maybe she disappeared under veiled circumstances and rumors still abound as to what became of her. Or maybe her story is a romance. Perhaps she was in an accident while on a high school trip to Europe. In a fugue of amnesia she wandered off alone into the heart of Paris and eventually came under the care of a wealthy wine magnate who fell in love with her. By the time she regained her memory she had no desire to return to America and lived her life in seclusion with the man of her dreams ever since.

Or perhaps there isn’t a story to find in the life of Edwarda O’Bara. Perhaps her life IS the story. Perhaps the fact that in 1970, a 16 year old Florida girl with dreams of one day becoming a pediatric physician slipped into a coma from which she would never return tells a far grander tale than any work of fiction.

And what story could possibly be more interesting or gripping than some Robert Ludlum or Vince Flynn thriller? How about this:

In the early hours of January 3, 1970, Edwarda O’Bara woke up shaking and in great pain because the oral form of insulin she had been taking wasn’t reaching her blood stream. She was rushed to a hospital and as she lay in her bed, she turned to her mother, Kaye O’Bara, and pleaded with her to stay near. “Promise me you won’t leave me,” she begged.

And for 42 years a mother and the rest of her family kept that promise. During those years, first her father and just five years ago her mother, gave their all for their daughter and died leaving the promise to others to take up. And then this week, the Miami woman who some called the Sleeping Snow White, the world’s longest coma patient, died at the age of 59.

There are stories all around us. At first glance they may seem mundane and unworthy of attention. But in truth, fiction is a much more boring than real life. Fiction has a plot. If you read mysteries or romance much you began to see the formula most follow. They’re still fun to read but not nearly as surprising or profound as we often give them credit.

But life is far more complex, less predictable, and less formulaic. One day a smiling girl just setting out in life has her picture taken. It is a picture of hope and promise. And then out of nowhere everything changes.

And here I am with a wife of 37 years, two fine adult sons, and three grandchildren. Here I am so glad I lived through every one of those wonderful, awful, exciting, boring, promising, disappointing years with my eyes wide open. So how about you, what’s your story?

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