A pagan king with a bloated ego set an ultimatum. Pay homage with deep obeisance to his self-monument or burn alive. Three teenage boys stood their ground in a sea of groveling sycophants. They told a rage-maddened king that they didn’t answer to him, knowing full well the mortal consequences of doing so. The petty selfishness of a human ruler had no power to bring them to their knees because they served the King of kings. That King could have brought their enemy to his knees, destroyed him and set the boys up as kings in his place. He could have rained down His own fire on the misguided people who submitted to the despot. Instead, He merely stood in the fire with three teenagers, a shield that made rage impotent.
The great council of elders, appointed by Rome to judge matters considered beneath the empire’s notice and beholden to empirical favor for any authority they wielded, held its own people in a dictatorial vice. Independent thought threatened council members’ precarious position and status; developments not specifically approved by them exposed the lie in their carefully crafted image of themselves as the hands of God. When two fishermen gave sight to a blind man under their very noses at the gate of the temple and declared the council’s guilt of murdering God rather than serving Him, the council used its most drastic measures in retaliation. No longer allowed power over life and death, the members imprisoned the outspoken fishermen and sought to intimidate them with threats and posturing. The fishermen stood their ground in a sea of desperate faces, knowing that the consequences might well involve long-term imprisonment or even being handed over to deadly Roman discipline on false charges, calmly informing the power-crazed council that they did not answer to it. The conviction of the fishermen and their impossible healing paralyzed the council, exposing its true focus and stripping from it the fear it had cultivated in the people it ruled. The fishermen were released and their message flooded the city with hope and courage.
An egotistical man imposed his will on a group of faithful men and women. Unwilling to bend his will to any authority, he twisted the words of God and maligned any who challenged him. He isolated the group from outside influence, refusing to offer welcome to faithful visitors and ostracising any who defied his refusal. The same fisherman that faced the great council wrote to a faithful member of that beleaguered group, setting the example of conviction and encouraging the faithful to remember that they did not answer to any arrogant man. Their joint refusal to comply would sterilize his threats and free them to do the work of God.
Evil has many tricks to confuse our attention, to trick us into answering to the wrong demands. Not only does it launch open attacks from the outside, it creeps in through the chinks to sow doubt and confusion. A misguided sense of respect for human prestige, fear of temporary consequences, and overprioritization of human desires all result in forgetting the Authority above all authorities. Of what are we truly convicted? To whom do we truly answer?
“Aren’t you on medication? I thought it was helping. Why do you feel so bad?”
If you have a chronic illness, you’ve probably heard some variation of this ad nauseum. We live in a culture that expects some version of Star Trek medicine, where every problem can be fixed, every ailment can be cured, with the pass of an instrument or the click of a button. Or the swallowing of a pill. When reality doesn’t live up to expectations, confusion and suspicion of the sufferers reigns.
Now, obviously, some of those who say such things have the best of intentions. They genuinely care that another person is hurting and they want the hurt to stop. Then there are those whose voice is just a little too sharp, whose smile is just a little too forced, whose eyebrows rise a little too high. They don’t understand why help us not helping according to their expectations.
The problem is the expectation, not the help. Humans don’t exist in cookie cutter shapes, and our lives are as unique as we are. There is no pill, no therapy, no trekkie fix that can make every person fit the same mold. When wiring goes wrong, when internal connections “leak” or don’t match, there is no quick fix. There may be no fix at all. What help exists may simply make symptoms easier to endure.
Until it doesn’t. A hot day, a disagreement, a small pain, a touch, a deadline. Maybe today the brain can’t communicate with the hands. Maybe every sensation is magnified. Maybe sensations are so muted that the brain doesn’t have the tools to make decisions. Without outside help, those things can result in brutal public meltdowns or complete functional paralysis. With help, those days may allow getting out of bed, being able to muster a smile, have a conversation. They may allow the ability to say, “I can’t fulfill obligations today because I feel horrible.”
When society forces a cookie cutter ideal on sufferers of invisible illnesses, a new illness grows. It’s called self-doubt. “Maybe there’s nothing really wrong with me. Maybe I’m just selfish. Maybe I’m making it up. Maybe I should stop using my help. Maybe I’m just stupid and worthless.” Charybdis yaws, drowning talents and hope and purpose in the depths of misery.
“Aren’t you on medication? I thought it was helping. Why do you feel so bad?”
As many of you many have noticed, the blog has been a little neglected of late. Life comes in seasons, and my family has been experiencing a mildly difficult season. We needed time to work out some instabilities, and that has made writing difficult to accomplish. It also proved to be a time of refocusing and reevaluating.
My children are growing older and maturing into new interests and abilities. My oldest rapidly approaches the teen years and leaves any lingering babyhood behind. My baby at five embodies Megamind and can’t decide whether she wants to be a child or attempt world domination. More and more often our quiet time together involves the great stories of the ages rather than the delightful picture books of childhood.
Economic instability has made the need for better financial planning abundantly clear. Work that is dependent upon the good graces of employers is no longer reliable, and chronic health conditions make meeting imposed hours and standards increasingly difficult. We have begun to take steps toward owning our own businesses and becoming more economically independent.
Our church family is undergoing a period of upheaval as well as the passage of time and evolving needs change the shape of our fellowship. Adjustments are painful and time-consuming, and much more of our time is devoted to helping each other through than had been enjoyed in each other’s company for some time. This also leads to sleepless nights, hours of extra study and prayer, and an inability to schedule.
Because of all these developments and evolutions, there will be changes made here as well. You may find shorter but more frequent snippets of fiction, more spiritual/life reflections, and fewer but more mature book recommendations. Some weeks may be filled with content while others may be silent, depending on the needs of the time. Most importantly, throughout all these changes I will be here, sharing and writing and connecting to the best of my ability. And with book two of the Magicborn series in the works behind the scenes, you really don’t want to miss any updates or teasers that might come this way!
Recently I posted a series of questions on social media. I wanted, and received, feedback revealing how we as a society understand certain concepts that are central to a civilization. Need, work, and identity are necessary in order for a culture to thrive, but perception of what constitutes those things varies widely. When those varying perceptions clash in a battle of wills, a civilization teeters on the brink of collapse. Differences of opinion don’t have to be a death knell, however; if considered carefully without prejudice, they can become a stronger, more stable framework that incorporates every possibility.
As evidenced by many of the answers given, we often get stuck in one pattern of thinking, a pattern that applied to a particular society with particular tools at a particular time. We look back with disdain on past eras, talk with pride about progress, celebrate increased opportunity for prosperity, while at the same time treating everything that led to our current situation with contempt. New ideas, different opportunities, can’t be good ones because our grandparents didn’t have them. New tools must be luxuries because our grandparents didn’t need them. Little consideration is given to how new ideas, new opportunities, and new tools changed the civilization in which we live.
As little as a hundred years ago, the automobile was unaffordable by all but the wealthiest. Roads were narrow and unpaved, traveled by pedestrians or horse-drawn vehicles. Some of the bigger cities might have the convenience of streetcars or elevated trains, and long distance travel relied on the railroads, but even those were recent developments. Communities were smaller and more self-sufficient; schools were smaller, with their primary focus teaching basic literacy skills, as children entered the workforce early to contribute to the family’s support. The children were educated in the factories, the fields, the construction sites, or if they were very lucky, behind the counter of a store. The arts were expensive pursuits that the common citizen could not afford to pursue and that the wealthy, although they enjoyed the entertainment gleaned from artistic production, considered demeaning. The wealthy, focused on increasing their wealth and status, pursued a classical higher education and built careers in business or politics. Information about the world outside one’s immediate community was limited to rumors or newspapers, and arrived slowly if at all. Telephones existed but were expensive and often communal.
Now, a century forward, our nation would be unrecognizable to the people of the past. Not only are automobiles so common that roads, communities, and cities are built around access by car, but the train has been made obsolete by air travel, a possibility barely even imagined at that time. Schools are not only available to the average citizen, but require attendance of every child under a certain age. Not only does every citizen have access to higher education, but lack of a college degree has become a barrier to employment or advancement. Not only are telephones common, but the invention and development of computer technology has turned phones into handheld instant access to information and long distance communication. Improvements in transportation and communication opened up the world beyond the community, allowing the average citizen access to opportunities impossible in small communities. Family businesses can now become large corporations with worldwide customer bases in a relatively short amount of time thanks to the ability to network and market via the internet. Creative pursuits are now not only possible for the average citizen but often extremely profitable, even independent of established circles.
The world has changed, and with it the definitions of concepts. Bare subsistence by the definitions of a hundred years ago is now considered a moral standard to be achieved, as if barely avoiding starvation and exposure in a world of plenty makes one virtuous. The opportunity of exercising one’s God created individuality by using one’s God-given abilities to support oneself has expanded the definition of work and jobs, yet we cling to the outdated insistence that only doing manual labor in the employment of another is “real work.” Intellectual pursuits, although glorified in the form of insistence on college attendance, are still despised as leaching off of the “real workers” of the world. Those same opportunities only exist using the great connective powers of modern technology, making technology a necessity in our culture, yet we call it a luxury and religiously advocate to prevent the pursuit of our God-created identities.
A hundred years ago these opportunities did not exist. People didn’t have a choice. The average able-bodied citizen was forced to ignore and repress individuality in order to survive. Life was hard and the people who endured it often equally so. Those who possessed physical or mental disabilities couldn’t conceive of even the limited opportunities available to the able-bodied and able-minded. Most were institutionalized, tortured with experimental treatments for conditions that no one understood, and often died young. Some few with undeniable gifts in the arts found patrons who allowed them a semblance of a normal life, but even they were often ostracized by society for “scandalous” behavior and ended up self-destructing. Their lives held no value to other humans because as far as society was concerned they could not contribute a fair share.
In our age of information, understanding, and opportunity, attitudes haven’t changed. Oh, we talk a good game, but we still insist that everyone meet the same standards, perform the same work in the same way, rise to the same challenges, produce the same outcomes. In an age where individuality is so obvious and tools are so readily available, we despise differences and try to force uniformity. In an age of plenty, we try to force poverty. In an age of information, we try to force ignorance. In an age of opportunity, we try to force disadvantage.
In this incredible time and place, we have the greatest of opportunities. We can choose to value every life, every contribution, every ability, every effort, and every challenge without prejudice. We can support the intellectual and the manual laborer with equal respect to the different types of effort required. We can accept the vast amount of time and skill required to produce an artistic endeavor and take time to enjoy the result with respect that the artist cared to bring joy into our lives in the form of entertainment. We can provide relief for our loved ones who suffer from visible or invisible differences in ability, and ensure them the opportunity to contribute in their own equally valuable way. We can recognize that need is as individual as individuals, and support each other without disdain or dismissal. We can break away from conformity made unnecessary by opportunity, and choose to celebrate the designed individuality of every member of God’s creation.
We like to think that hard only happens in stories, that hard is a thing of the past. But it isn’t. We like to think that the ultimate achievement would be to eradicate hard from our memory. But it wouldn’t.
A young woman breathes deeply through the pain of her muscles contracting. Her skin stretches to its limit as a tiny head presents itself to the world. She collapses in exhaustion, sore and weak, but lifts her arms to receive a screaming, wiggling new life. Her breasts ache with pressure of milk flowing, and she winces at the tug of her baby’s eager tongue. Hard. Necessary. Beautiful.
A toddler struggles to his feet, swaying a little on unaccustomed legs. He reaches for support, but it’s just too far away. Slowly he leans forward and shifts one foot slightly. He falls forward but catches himself with his hands and struggles upright again. Undaunted, he lifts his foot again and manages to move it two inches before he sways and nearly falls again. Encouraged, he tries the other foot. This time he does fall forward, but his daddy’s hand that he reached for from the beginning is there and he has taken his first steps. Hard. Necessary. Beautiful.
A mom of five lies awake long after her family is asleep, her mind churning. One of her children has challenged her will, determined already at five years old to plot her own course regardless of destruction. Another struggles with an alien within that tries to destroy him against his own will. Another blossoms rapidly into womanhood, her gentle innocence challenged by changes she does not yet understand. The mom weeps alone, praying for the wisdom and strength to face another day trying to fulfill all the needs. Hard. Necessary. Beautiful.
A man, his hair prematurely gray, fills the fuel tank of his old truck with grim resignation. He has been near broken so many times he lost count long ago. This latest seems beyond his power, and he prays for resolution. War looms, the meager contents of his wallet stretch thin, and he can’t seem to collect resources quickly enough to ward against what threatens. He didn’t want this; someone far away with more power than is healthy chose their own temporary gain over true good. He counts through a mental budget yet again, trying to balance his family’s needs against ever shrinking ability. Hard. Necessary. Beautiful.
A soldier shivers with pain, tears burning paths in his cheeks. All he wanted to do was respect the country he loves, and make his family proud. He never expected to fight a war, to stare down the barrel of a weapon at living people he was tasked to kill. He never expected to purge himself over mutilated remains beneath rubble, or to have his gut ripped open with shrapnel from a carelessly launched missile. He never expected to be lying in his own blood on foreign soil, wondering if that would be the last thing he ever saw. Hard. Necessary. Anything but beautiful.
Hard makes us who we are. The specific hard we endure makes us individual, whether it’s the hard of providing for a family, the hard of dealing with illness, or the hard of facing pain and death. Hard is meaning and purpose; hard is the reason the human race still exists. Hard is necessary. Usually, hard is beautiful.
Baby has a busy day ahead, fixing problems from cats in trees to burst pipes. A superhero’s work is never done. Not even dirty diapers and naps can keep her down for long. But what will Baby do when her nemesis turns up in her very own nursery?
This book is perfect for any young child who loves superheroes. They’ll fly around your living room saving the world like Superhero Baby. If a little sibling rivalry interrupts the fun, well, Baby has that covered too. Enjoy a few giggles before the kids drift off to sleep along with Baby.
Most babies and toddlers are given toys involving various shapes that fit in specific holes. The purpose, of course, is to develop the reasoning skills to match like items. Usually young children are fascinated by this physical, concrete challenge and will try and try again until they master the toy.
Unfortunately, we do not often carry that same enthusiasm over to the more abstract challenges of human personalities and traits. We attempt to press all into the same hole, regardless of what shape each individual may take. Any sharp corners, any odd protrusions, are labeled with ominous sounding letters and either bullied or medicated into invisibility.
Our family happens to possess many such inconvenient differences, some shared and some unique to one or another. Those traits have exerted prominent influences on everyday life recently, causing enough difficulty that we have had to call attention to certain differences in efforts to overcome. A few days ago I overheard my children at the lunch table discussing their differences. “I’m OCD.” “I’m ADHD.” I’m Anxiety.”
Although it’s hard to avoid absorbing some of that attitude from society in general, we as a family do not approach differences in that way. We took the time that day to redirect our thinking. These letters are not who we are, they merely describe a small part of ourselves, a part that makes us unique. Because those corners don’t fit in the prescribed hole, others see them as weaknesses to be eliminated. Instead, when we find the correctly fitting hole, those assumed weaknesses become great strengths. The perfect circles can’t fit into our holes anymore than we can fit into the circular hole. We possess something others do not and must learn to use our unique traits for their unique purposes. Only when all the shapes in the puzzle find their matching hole can the puzzle be complete. Only when each individual embraces and directs uniqueness into a fitting pursuit can a society function as a whole.
There’s a running joke that the day after Christmas all the moms blow their stacks. Let’s face it, we all know the feeling of waking up to the piles of empty boxes, wrapping paper, and new toys that don’t fit anywhere. That’s why this year I can’t wait for Trash Day.
I don’t mean the day the trash can gets picked up, although that’s pretty important. Actual Trash Day requires an empty can ready to be filled. Before all the empty boxes get thrown out, the house gets purged of all the old clutter. The kids will sort through their rooms for unappreciated or broken toys and “treasures” that no longer hold value to them. Mom and Dad will declutter closets and corners that hold unnecessary collections.
This year the clutter seems worse than ever. Perhaps less space is available as the kids grow; clothes do take up more and more room. Perhaps we’ve simply hit several developmental leaps at once as we leave preschool for good, discover hidden talents, and surge inexorably toward adolescence. I’m leaning toward the latter, as most of the piles seem to be supplies for various growing interests.
As much attention as I am paying to physically cleaning out old things, the things represent something much more to me. The last few years have delivered many struggles along with the lessons to be learned from each. As a result our lives seem to be cramped and overflowing inside trappings and constructs that we have outgrown. As we physically fill our trash can with discarded things, we mentally shed our old selves in order to make room in our lives for new ideas and new beginnings.
Many people make New Year Resolutions in an effort to set their lives on track. Most find themselves unable to keep such contextless promises to themselves because they have no room. We make no special resolutions here; instead, in Trash Day we experience a completely fresh start.
It’s the countdown to Christmas. Time to decorate the house, finish all the gifts, watch all the movies, listen to all the music, and cook all the food. At least, that’s the plan.
The Christmas tub was stored on the porch through all weathers this year instead of making it back to storage where it belonged. A snowglobe exploded inside it, mildewing all the stockings and the cardboard box of ornaments. A good long soak in the washer saves the stockings, and most of the ornaments escaped damage, so after a few hours that crisis is averted.
The tree skirt finally bit the dust after twelve years of use, so a new one must be selected and ordered. I would make one, but my make list is already daunting. I suppose if the new one doesn’t make it on time we’ll just hide the lack with presents.
The lights wouldn’t fit in the tub last year, and no one can find them. Anywhere. We have exactly three short strands that I bought as emergency backup at the dollar store a week ago. Last year we had an entire flat. And I have sticker shock from a quick online search for replacements.
Every year we go as a family to pick out a live tree. It’s the most important tradition of our season. OCD has decided it doesn’t want to go this year, the rest of us should just go. We have until Friday to work that hiccup out. After which we still won’t have lights to put on it.
All the things will work themselves out. Adventures will be had in the solving of some of them. Children will go insane with excitement, parents will take many breaks outside in the cold to ensure they don’t lose their holiday joy, cookies and treats will fill the house with good cheer, and Christmas morning will arrive with all its usual magic and fanfare, just like every year before. And we will forget December 1st until it arrives once more to remind us that we are the magic.
_United_, Book 2 of Magicborn, is officially in progress. Because you are my most loyal supporters, I am giving you a rare sneak peek into the first draft of my process. Very few people get to see anything this early, partly because it is mostly bare bones of story waiting to be fleshed out and polished in later drafts, and partly because my stories tend to change as they grow and I often rewrite the early chapters completely a few times. So, enjoy the exerpt below and consider yourself privileged to see Seline as I see her at this point in her story.
— Several minutes passed and nothing happened. Finally Narrayssi trudged back over to us, her forehead wrinkled and her arms crossed over her chest. “I can feel the dragon when I reach for it but I can’t draw it out. The magic here is – different. Weaker, I suppose.”
— Dagda shifted where he leaned against an oak but said nothing. He had managed with some effort to create a small kettle for cooking what food we had scavenged over the past two days, but all efforts to shape the trees or the land into even a crude shelter had failed. As a result we had shivered an entire night away in an October rainstorm. Dagda’s blankets hadn’t done much good soaked in cold water.
— I sighed, rubbing my temples with chilly fingertips. “I guess that just leaves me.” I paced, thinking. “I still think you have the best chance of connecting with the Atlanteans. If I can change, I want you to fly with me. We can link and maybe between the two of us the magic will be strong enough.”
— When she agreed, I rubbed my arms vigorously and strode off to the center of the clearing. I stood still, my arms loose at my sides and my eyes closed. The magic was still there inside me, but using it felt like pulling my feet out of the mud on the trail in Fae. Where it had flowed through me without effort in Fae, now it settled and waited for me to draw it out. I wasn’t sure I had the strength to transform or to hold onto the great power of the dragon when I had, but I had to try.
— I reached for the part of me that had awoken in Fae. It stirred, much more slowly than before, as if a great beast disturbed in hibernation uncoiled itself with much stretching and grumbling. I closed my eyes, a wrinkle forming above my nose from my effort to concentrate solely on the dragon within. As if angered by the break in its slumber, it rushed upward, its roar blasting fire into the sky as black wings filled the clearing and scraped trees with their tips. I revelled in it, even as it drained the magic from my blood.
All of you lovely readers here have been so supportive, helping me to grow this little corner of the universe. Without you I’d still be sending my stories into empty air! In the spirit of the season of gratitude and giving, I am drastically reducing the price of _Chosen_, Book 1 of Magicborn for one day only.
As a specific thank you for all of your support, I am making a small token of my appreciation available just for my blog followers. Comment below during the month of December, tell something from the book that made you smile, frown, laugh, or cry, and include your mailing address, and I will send you a signed bookplate for the inside cover. I’m so excited to hear your reactions and talk about the story with you!
The Word Worker 
