Monthly Archives: January 2006

Has Been, Armageddon and Glorious Appearing, & Intergalactic Medicine Show

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It’s been a while since I’ve written any reviews, so I guess I’d best get my act together:

Has Been

When I first heard that William Shatner had produced another music album, my first thought was, “Another?! What was his first?!” And my second was, “Shatner?! Music?!” All I could picture was Captain Kirk, and so I had a hard time seeing him as a sensational music star. Yet, here was his album, _Has Been_, and it is truly sensational.

To be fair Shatner didn’t actually compose the music for this album. Instead, he teamed up with Ben Folds of “Ben Folds Five”:http://www.benfoldsfive.com/ fame, who wrote the music to back the poetry of Shatner. I was skeptical when I first started to listen to the album. Few actors are able to make the transition into other mediums, and with the abysmal flop of Shatner’s Tek War series, I didn’t have high hopes for a music album. Yet, I was delighted and thrilled right from the first track all the way to the end. Ben Folds is on top of his game, and Shatner’s lyricism is catchy and engaging. It is a wholly different style from just about anything else in my collection and strikes a resonant chord with this musician and artist. I give the album two thumbs up and hope that Shatner produces another in the near future.

Armageddon & Glorious Appearing

This is probably more a review of the entire Left Behind series than of just these last two books in the series. Written by Jerry Jenkins and Tim LaHaye, the series follows a massive cast of characters across the global landscape of a planet caught in the Tribulational judgments prophesied in Scripture. Based heavily in both Old and New Testament prophecy, the _Left Behind_ series shows what these judgments might be like from the eyes of those who experience it firsthand.

The series was exceptionally well-written and very enjoyable as dramatic fiction. It is certain, however, that the books cannot do justice to the terror and destruction that will one day lay waste to the world as we know it and decimate its population to a fraction of what it is today. Jenkins and LaHaye did an exceptional job of covering all the relevant prophecies contained within Scripture, though it is certain that a fair amount of artistic license was taken with passages whose interpretation is symbolic and difficult to determine. Ultimately, though, the sequence of events is right on target and encompasses a sobering description of life between Rapture and Millenium.

Intergalactic Medicine Show

A relatively new online magazine for science fiction and fantasy aficionados can be discovered at Intergalactic Medicine Show. Founded by Orson Scott Card IGMS(Intergalactic Medicine Show) is an outlet for amateur SFF(science fiction & fantasy) authors to display their wares. IGMS(Intergalactic Medicine Show) is a quarterly publication and features several short stories in each issue, plus a short story from the Ender’s Game universe penned by Card himself (also available in mp3 format). October’s issue also included Cards first novel _Hot Sleep_ (later republished as _The Worthing Chronicles_) as a five-part series and the comic _Fat Farm_, adapted from one of Card’s short stories. Free content features movie and book reviews and columns by various writers. If you’re a sci-fi/fantasy buff, IGMS(Intergalactic Medicine Show) is well worth the $2.50 per issue fee.

Make a Smile

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Amazing what a difference a smile can make! I needed to run to the store over lunch today to pick up a few things, and as is typical, I made a point of observing people. Lately, I’ve been paying more attention to the way people behave, trying to decipher the reasons behind the actions. You notice a lot of little nuances when you do this, and perhaps the most noticeable behavior is whether or not a person smiles.

You can tell a lot about a person by their smile, maybe almost as much as you can from their eyes. People can smile, grin, smirk, or beam. They can express graciousness, friendliness, tenderness, or delight. They can look amused, happy, pleased, or elated. All this just from a simple smile.

What I am continually struck by, though, is how smiling can make the average person look ten times more attractive. A beautiful woman or a handsome man can look less attractive than the average person on the street who sports a genuine grin. Give me a choice between spending time with the one who smiles and the one who doesn’t, and my instinct is going to be join the cheerful one (though, chances are, the one who isn’t smiling probably needs the company more). This, of course, validates the wisdom that what is inside a person is more important than what is on the outside. You don’t have to be drop-dead gorgeous to be physically appealing – you only need to have a good heart. Anyone who places more importance on physical attractiveness over an attractive personality is either a fool or doesn’t really care about your well-being. It’s what’s on the inside that matters, and a genuine smile tells the world that you’re truly beautiful.

The Baby and the Bathwater

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I admit it — I’m having a hard time coming to terms with the emergent movement. Maybe it’s because I’ve almost always been in churches that have their acts together, that are active both in ministering to the Body and in reaching out to the community, but I honestly don’t see where it helps to trash the structure of the traditional church simply because some churches are _not_ doing what they are called to do. To me, that’s like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I appreciate “Grace’s”:http://emerginggrace.blogspot.com openness and honesty as she struggles and “searches”:http://emerginggrace.blogspot.com/2006/01/bit-by-emerging-bug.html to find an answer to something that has been a source of great heartache for her.

There are some philosophical fundamentals of the emerging church that I tend to agree with and that I understand. I recognize that there is a deep dissatisfaction among many Christians with the traditional church. There are, I believe, many reasons for this. For instance, it is difficult to come to church Sunday after Sunday and watch people who are little more than pew-warmers — content to take their habitual seat, keeping it warm for an hour or two, and then leave, having never been changed or affected by the worship, by the prayer, by the fellowship of the Body, by the power of the Holy Spirit. They come, they sit quietly, and they continue to live their lives as they wish to live them.

Another source of contention that many emergents point out is where the church has a larger building budget than missions budget. The focus is on creating a temple, rather than on reaching souls, touching lives, and meeting needs. For the churches that do this, I have to agree that their priorities are in the wrong place. These are the churches where weekly gatherings are little more than social clubs, where missions and community outreach are rarely mentioned because everyone is too involved planning their next potluck or church event. Not all churches are like this, mind you, but enough of them are that it creates a sense of disquiet and disillusionment for those Christians who want more out of their spiritual walk.

The church has also typically been slow to close the generational gap, though this is, in my opinion, less a problem of the church in particular than of culture in general. The older generation has always had trouble relating to the younger because trends and styles change every year. And with the innovations in technology, culture moves even faster than it did, and hence it tends to change much more quickly. So many churches are either blind to the changes in culture or simply don’t acknowledge a need to address such changes. In either case the generational gap is closed by only a few, not enough to meet the needs of the next generation or answer the questions and issues it faces on a daily basis. Further cause for disillusionment.

One other thing that I view as a major contributor to disillusionment among Christians is a rigid adherence to church beliefs and traditions that are quickly revealed as counter-biblical to any who takes the time to check them. I have watched many believers get hurt by their fellow Christians because of prejudices, attitudes, and behaviors that run completely counter to the teachings of the Bible. Rigid adherence to provable truth is one thing, especially when done in a humble, contrite manner, but rigid adherence to misconceptions and lies is quite another. It is always disappointing to me to watch someone who calls himself Christian demean and destroy another because of flawed beliefs and then refuse to receive correction when a third party attempts to intervene. And what is worse is watching an entire church fall prey to such behaviors and operate in a fashion that I am sure is disappointing to our Savior.

No wonder so many Christians today want to do things differently. I myself have been one to want to distance myself from other Christians, to set out on my own and do things the way I know they should be done, the way the Bible teaches, rather than the way I see so many Christians doing things right now. But always, in such cases, my focus has been on the people, rather than on the Christ, and I find that when I shift my focus back to Him, I recognize anew that the church is, indeed, ordained and meant to be an integral part of the Christian walk.

It is interesting that no description was given as to what the church is to look like, though Paul does give us quite a bit to work from in his letters to the churches. We know that churches need to have a pastor, someone whose focus is on researching the Bible and providing a focus on learning its doctrine, someone to guide and to shepherd, to continually steer his flock toward Christ. The church is to have elders, whose purpose to meet the needs both of the church members and of the members of the community. The church is to look after widows and orphans. It is to meet on a regular basis for the renewing of the saints and the edification of the body. Whether it is to be done in small groups or as one large congregation is never mentioned, though I suspect that, like most things, the form of the gathering and fellowship is dependent upon situation and context. But organized church is definitely something that is a requirement for healthy, vibrant faith.

I believe that the trouble today exists primarily in our lucrative culture. Surrounded by so much wealth, it is easy to lose focus and forget that we are strangers here, that this world is not our home, that what is truly important comes after this life. So, we spend more of our time making sure we have enough, making sure that we are comfortable and happy and content. We forget that so much of our faith lies in having little (or nothing), in discomfort, in pain. We don’t like to think about that and so we convince ourselves that we can have it all and still serve God fully, something which only the rare Christian is actually able to handle.

And so the disillusioned and the hurt move to get away from traditions, to get away from the way the church has done things for so long, seeking instead a new of being Christian, a way that will meet both personal and community needs. My fear is that emerging church is too far on the other extreme. I would love to see both sides come together, recognizing that there are shortcomings in both philosophies and traditions, and make the church into something better than it is now. I hate seeing people throw the baby out, when it is really just the bathwater that needs dumping. The organized church is a good thing, I believe, especially when I see churches like mine that are growing and thriving, adding members faster than we can erect buildings to contain them, spending millions on missions trips and outreach events, and administering programs that touch the needs of our community. When I see churches like this I find it hard to believe that we need to abandon such institutions. Instead, I think we need to bring the goals and desires of the emergents together with established churches, shake people up a little, and blend the Body into an institution that meets everyone’s needs and grows the Kindgom for Christ.

We should have been doing this all along, and in many cases we have been, and we need to make a more concerted effort to continue doing so. Will the church ever be perfect? Not this side of heaven, but there is no reason why we should be allowing hypocrisy and heresy to govern our churches and alienate its members, when the Bible lays out in plain language what we should look like and what we should be doing.

Focus on Christ, and not the people, and tell me how that changes your perspective. It’s made all the difference in my own.

Related links:
“Decompressing Faith: ‘Bit by the Emerging Bug’”:http://decompressingfaith.blogspot.com/2006/01/bit-by-emerging-bug.html
“The Upward Way Press: Virus”:http://www.rmcrob.com/?p=2568
“Christianity Today: The Emergent Mystique”:http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2004/011/12.36.html
“opensourcetheology: What is ‘emerging church?’”:http://www.opensourcetheology.net/node/229
“emergingchurch.info: George Lings ‘What is emerging church?’”:http://www.emergingchurch.info/reflection/georgelings/index.htm

Potluck Requested

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I am again taking “requests”:http://open-dialogue.com/blog/?p=177 for ideas to write about. I’ll let the suggestions collect over the weekend, and when I get back on Monday, we will see what interesting tidbits you all have left for me. This may get to be a weekly habit….

Brevity of Verbosity

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Have you ever noticed how most people in our culture are uncomfortable with silence? We leave our TVs and radios on, even in rooms that are unoccupied, just so that there is some sort of auditory interest. In conversation gaps and lulls have to be filled with something, even meaningless chatter, just so there aren’t any awkward pauses. We just find ourselves uncomfortable in the quiet.

I am one of those who has experienced such discomfort. I am also one of those who is learning to become comfortable with silence. I am learning that it is usually better, when you have nothing of import to say, to say nothing at all. Back to that whole “simple solution”:http://open-dialogue.com/blog/?p=180 thing — simplicity in dialogue is usually better than verbosity. Say it simply, say it plain, and when you’re done, say nothing more unless you need to. This is not to say that there is no place for the casual chatter between friends and acquaintances, but it _is_ to say that there should be no pressure to fill every silence with words, at the risk of rendering that sort of dialogue hollow and meaningless.

I am a man of words. I enjoy discussion, I enjoy writing, and as such I feel an almost inherent pressure to spout such words as come to mind. But often such venting is superfluous, and I find that functionality of communication takes precedence over artistry of communication. My job requires descriptions and explanations to be brief, since what matters are the numbers I produce and since too much written out gets skipped and ignored. Phone conversations and emails are straight to the point because getting the job done is what’s important. But even in casual encounters, I am learning to take comfort in silence. There is no need to talk all the time — just being in the presence of friends is reassuring and refreshing. Fellowship can take place even when not a single word is spoken.

‘Cheap’ Gameplay: Is It Really?

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Some of you may know that I am a _huge_ fan of the wildly popular _Halo: Combat Evolved_ and _Halo 2_ video games for Xbox. I enjoy them so much that they were the motivating force behind my purchasing an annual subscription to “Xbox Live”:http://www.xbox.com/en-US/live/ so that I could get on and enjoy the multiplayer environment with several of my friends, who are all spread out around the country (this from a guy who traditionally _hates_ most FPS(first-person shooter) games). It’s gotten to where we have our regular weekly “Halo Night” just so we can get on Live and chat, laugh, and play for a few hours each week.

Over at “Tied the Leader”:http://tiedtheleader.blogspot.com, XerxDeeJ has yet another “good article”:http://tiedtheleader.blogspot.com/2006/01/firing-squad.html about a major complaint in the Halo 2 multiplayer environment. Spawn camping is a technique that some players engage in to quickly increase their kill and medal counts, particularly in team environments. Since teams have their own bases, every time a member is killed, he typically respawns back at his own base. This fact means that anyone on the opposing team carrying the sniper rifle (who is also even remotely good at using it) can just set up camp near your base and pick you off as soon as you respawn, before you even have a chance to move. This tactic is decried as ‘cheap’ and ‘unfair’ and ‘unsportsmanlike’ by many.

“David Sirlin”:http://www.sirlin.net offers a “counterargument”:http://www.sirlin.net/Features/feature_PlayToWinPart1.htm to this viewpoint by saying that the difference here is between those who play to win and those who don’t (the author calls them ‘scrubs’). Sirlin says that gamers who play to win will exploit any and all aspects of the gameplay environment in order to secure their victory — and that they are completely justified in doing so. (He _does_ say that certain bugs in the game are off-limits, namely those games that crash the game or the system or eject any player from the game environment.) All the others, the ‘whiners’, are scrubs, who consider it bad form and dishonorable to do anything other than play the game from some arbitrary list of do’s-and-dont’s. Sirlin references fighting games specifically in his article, but his principles are meant to be applied across the board to all games.

What fuels this debate is a clash in mindsets. Many gamers play Halo 2 to have fun, to enjoy the richness and variety of a well-designed, well-implemented video game. But there are also those gamers who play for the sole purpose of winning, to dominate utterly, to annihilate the competition, to garner the fame, fortune, and bragging rights (well, the first and the last of those three, anyway) that go to the victor. These are the type whose sole identity seems to derive completely from their performance in gameplay, who seem to think that life and death and the weight of the galaxy hang upon how well they do. These are the guys (kids?) who boast and brag in the post-game lobby, who rub their victory in until it draws blood, and who are often the most proficient abusers of profanity. Because these are the guys who play to win.

There is some truth to the saying that simple is better — simplicity allows for the possibility of fewer mistakes, and it allows for easier implementation. Spawn camping is a simple solution. Why go out and find the other guy and risk getting killed when you can go to his base, carrying two fully loaded sniper rifles, and pick the whole team off as they respawn? It’s safe, it’s fast, and it looks _really_ good in your post-game stats. The trouble is that this is usually only fun for the guy doing the camping. For everyone else, it’s just frustrating. Playing to win and playing to have fun usually do not play well together. These two kids don’t know what it means to share their toys.

When you play to win, anything less than first place is unacceptable. When you play to win, anything less than first place doesn’t even approach fun. On the other hand, when you play to have fun, it’s ok to finish in 3rd place (or 5th or last) simply because you played the game. You had fun. You shared some laughs with your teammates. You revelled in the joy that is the Halo universe. Sure, you worked on perfecting your technique, but it wasn’t the end-all and it was ok if you screwed up and died miserably. A lot.

Is there anything wrong with playing to win? Not necessarily. Some of my best techniques in Halo 2 I learned from the guys that do, but that play-style is not really my cup of tea. My world, my reality, does not allow me the luxury of playing video games for hours on end, so when I do get on, I like to do the quick setup with a variant we all like and hammer out a few rounds of carnage before calling it a night. If I can perfect a particular technique along the way and further rule the leader board, so much the better. But that is not my goal, and it certainly isn’t the defining moment of my day. My goal is simply to have fun, to enjoy the camaderie of pals, and to play an excellent video game.

So, is spawn camping really cheap gameplay, and should those who consider it such just shut up and deal with it? Or is it unfair, with those who do it being considered cheaters or Halo 2 being ‘fixed’ to solve the issue? Ultimately, to me, it doesn’t matter. If you don’t want deal with it, don’t play with guys who do it or jump into matchmaking lists where the risk of spawn camping is likely to happen. My solution is simple — a private party for just myself and a handful of friends. Set up and play the gametypes we all enjoy, have a few laughs, and go home happy, relaxed, and refreshed from good times. For me, at least, that’s what matters most.

Fury

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Per certain requests, I am going to post up the first chapter of a story I wrote a while back for a discussion forum. I used to play a CCG called “Warlord”:http://www.warlordccg.com but later had to quit, due to lack of local interest and lack of finances to support the game. I joined a discussion forum for the game called “The Temple of Lore”:http://www.temple-of-lore.com and was eventually promoted to moderator status for a section of the board called Anything, where all topics unrelated to the game land. One popular practice there is for people to write works of Warlord-like fiction as they hit ‘milestone posts’ (e.g. 1000 posts, etc.), with the Anything section appearing as a country in the world in which the Warlord events transpire. I wrote Chapter 1 of Fury when hit 1000 posts on the Temple.

Some of the events in the story are specific to the forum, as a way to keep it relevant to and fun for the other people who spend time on the forum. Also, the character names are actually screennames for people there, as you will see. DruidOverlord is my Temple identity and is one of the main characters in the story.

Anyway, here’s chapter 1. Enjoy!

———————————-

Fury – Chapter 1

The forests of Anything lay in a preternatural stillness. The sun was high in the mid-morning sky, bathing the timberlands in a sweltering heat. An unnatural tension lay over the entire area, a sense of impending tragedy. The air held a thickness to it, making it seem as if every breath drawn might be the last. There had been no rain in this region for several weeks, yet not a sound could be heard for miles. It was as if the natural residents of the forest feared drawing attention to themselves, and in so doing sealing their doom.

Suddenly the silence was split by a bloodcurdling scream of pain and anguish that was abruptly cut off. A body writhed in the middle of a clearing, crawling with dozens of varieties of insects, worms, and other creatures of the soil. Were it not for the human hand protruding from the twisted mass, it would have been impossible to determine the identity of the scavengers’ wrath.

DruidOverlord stood a few paces off from the now-silent victim, watching as the insect pestilence slowly devoured its prey, observing the way in which it crawled in and out of its mouth, nose, and ears, choking off the life of the wretch in a ritual of terror and agony. The victim was still struggling to escape its fate, though with less intensity and energy now as it began to succumb to the ruination of its body wrought by the blight called down by the druid to destroy it. A look of grim satisfaction was set on DruidOverlord’s face as he watched. Only one more death, he thought, and his revenge would be complete.

After a moment, he waved his hand and the earth beneath his victim split open, surging upward and swallowing the body before sealing itself again, leaving no sign of the death that had occurred there only moments before. Slowly, the forest around him began to come to life once again, but he paid it no notice, lost as he was in his own thoughts. Normally, he would have watched until the body had been reduced to a glistening skeleton, savoring each moment of his revenge. But instead of being sweet, his vengeance had become bitter and unsatisfying.

His two-year campaign of blood and terror had brought him to this place, a penultimate stop on a mission of vengeance. Everything that he loved and had held dear had been stripped from him in a period of 36 hours by an organization of schemers and connivers that, until then, had operated in complete obscurity. They had destroyed his home and sullied his name and reputation, making him an outcast among his people. But most importantly, and most painful to his memory, they had slaughtered his family before disappearing again into oblivion. Since that time, he had hunted the culprits down, unearthing a secret society far beyond what he had expected. It had taken a great deal of time, but he had discovered the identity of each and every member of the organization and had made them pay for their crimes in pain and blood.

His anger and seething hatred had carried him through each kill, fueling his imagination as he devised horrific deaths for his enemies, energizing him in a way nothing else had ever been able. His rage had become such that even the earth trembled at his coming, and the denizens of Anything fled from before him.

His passion and determination for vengeance had flagged with each subsequent death, however. The passage of time and the fact that he was nearing the end of his campaign of bloodshed had taken some of the edge off his wrath. He was beginning to lose interest, no longer waiting around to watch his victims be reduced to dust, sometimes even questioning his motives, his desires. He felt as though the darkness of his soul was beginning to abate, and he wondered if it was even necessary to destroy the last of his enemies.

It suddenly occurred to him that in all this time he had never learned the reason why his enemies’ had risen against him. He had never even known they had existed, let alone done anything that might have incurred their wrath. It had, in fact, signaled their very demise by striking against him, when they could have continued to operate unchallenged had they simply left him alone. It puzzled him. Funny how he had never thought about it before now.

As DruidOverlord stood there lost in his reverie, puzzling over this new question, the glen was cast in shadow, the air to his right shimmered, and a shade appeared. DruidOverlord spun to face the shade as a blast of arctic air washed over him. The shade lifted his cowled head, its deathly eyes fixing on him, and DruidOverlord felt his blood turn to ice.

_You falter in your cause, dark one._ The shade’s voice echoed in DruidOverlord’s head.

“Who are you? What do you want?” DruidOverlord challenged, wariness reflecting in his eyes.

The shade ignored his questions. _Your soul belongs to the dark now, druid. There is no hope for your return. You hesitate without reason, your mission incomplete. The memories of your loved ones cannot be placed to rest until the last of your enemies is destroyed._

“What can you know my cause, shade? I know you not, and your is existence only barely tolerated in this plane,” the druid sneered, spitting that last with bitterness and contempt.

_I know what has been taken from you. I know the hatred that flows through you. It fuels your vengeance, and the energy that flows from it can be felt on the spirit plane, as well. Yes, druid, you are known. You are known, and you are watched with great interest. There are great plans for you, dark one._

“Who are you?” DruidOverlord demanded again. “Of what plans do you speak?”

The shade merely laughed, or at least that is what DruidOverlord thought he was hearing. The sound was like bones scraping together, an altogether unpleasant, otherworldly noise that made his skin crawl.

“I am no dark one, shade. I am simply an executor of justice.”

_Yours, then, is a dark justice. The pain you have inflicted on others is worthy of the most evil creatures. Consider this…_

At that, the shade launched a volley of mental images, visions, and hallucinations on DruidOverlord, causing him to stagger and fall. He relived all the torture and death he had visited upon his victims, witnessed anew the bloodshed, the agony, the horror. The immensity of it left him gasping.

After a moment the shade lowered its arms, and the visions ceased. It was a moment before DruidOverlord was able to speak again.

“It’s over shade,” he panted. “I have only one left to destroy, only one to visit pain and death upon, and then I am done. It is over, and I can rest.”

_It is not over, druid! It is never over!_

The shade launched another series of visions on DruidOverlord, this time displaying faces of others that were responsible for his pain. The mental assault went on for what seemed an eternity, a bombardment of images and sensations that threatened to overwhelm him. After a while, a madness began to creep in, and DruidOverlord saw that the conspiracy against him was total, that there was none he could trust. His rage erupted fresh and hot, and he could feel his magic flare to a burning point within him. He opened his eyes and looked at the shade.

“Enough!” A bolt of energy shot from his hands and engulfed the shade in reddish-white light. In seconds, the shade was reduced to ash and the assault on DruidOverlord’s mind ceased. He stood up, looking into the sky, and lifted his arms. Energy crackled at his fingertips, then shot into the air. The gathered clouds turned black, responding to his rage with their own, swirling down and lifting him from the ground to carry him away toward the heart of Anything.

~*–*~–~*–*~–~*–*~–~*–*~–~*–*~–~*–*~

Shed of his guise, in human form once more, the shade stood in the shadows of the forest, watching DruidOverlord depart. A triumphant smile was settled on his face. He continued to watch the broiling clouds speed away as another stepped up beside him.

“It begins then.”

“It was begun when we destroyed his life,” the shade replied. “This is simply the continuation of the plan.”

“He has grown powerful, more so than we expected.”

The shade’s smile turned grim. “Indeed. But that only serves us all the better. The destruction he will bring to Anything will be more complete, more total — and more devastating.”

The other nodded. “For them? Or for us?”

The shade looked at his companion finally. “Does it matter? We need only what he can bring. How he does it is irrelevant.”

The other glared. “Let us just hope that he does not learn of the tapestry of lies we have manufactured against him. If he ever learns that his life, his family, were destroyed for our own vanity, if he ever learns that we started all this just so we could wield him as a weapon…” He did not finish.

The shade looked back to the lightening sky. “Your fears are misplaced. He will not find out. The truth has been carefully concealed from him.”

They stood together in silence for a moment. The other broke the reticence.

“You forget his hesitancy. He is not as completely given over to the dark as you led him to believe. If he turns again, we will not be able to recover. Our weapon, our plan will be irretrievable.”

“It is true — he may yet rediscover his conscience.” The shade paused, considering, the thought clearly unpleasant to him. He nodded slightly to himself, the hint of a smile appearing on his face. “But it will not happen today. Today, Anything will bleed.”

© 2004 James P. Stitzel

New Worlds

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When taking the first steps into your new world as a speculative writer, it’s often a good idea to ignore the first things you ‘see’. It’s all too easy to get caught in the Land of Clichés, where the environment in which your story takes places resembles the generic mold for your stereotypical science fiction or fantasy story. Your first ideas about what this world should look like are not necessarily your best, and so it is important to take a second look in order to create a world that is both interesting and unique.

In his book Characters & Viewpoint, Orson Scott Card talks about how to create characters that are unique and rich. Part of this process involves taking an idea that might be common and giving it a good twist. Bring the idea in from an unexpected direction, giving it an element of surprise to the reader and thus making it more interesting to the story as a whole. For instance, in my “previous article”:http://open-dialogue.com/blog/?p=177, I wrote about a landscape of hot cinder cones. That immediately brings to mind volcanic activity, which was surely what I intended there. However, had I developed the scene further, you might have found that the volcanic activity, and hence the cones themselves were the product of the war, whose existence was implied by the debris in the volcanic field. The war could have been so devastating that it shook the earth’s balance and brought forth the its fury. Or the volcanic field could have been created by some advanced technology brought by the invaders themselves. Or twist it further, and it could have been created by the aboriginal inhabitants in order to keep the invaders out or even to cover their headquarters or subterranean cities. The possibilities are endless.

It’s a continual challenge to come up with new and fresh ideas in my writing. I am an infant in writing, comparatively speaking, and so twisting ideas to make them unique and new is still very much a challenge, but I hope that as I write more, the process will become second nature and that my stories will be more interesting and enjoyable.

Potpourri

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Here we go….

bq. Ok. You walk through one of those portals you talked about in your last post. Tell us what
you see. – “Theresa”:http://www.thismomblogs.com/

The air is hot and rank with the stench of sulfur. The sun is high in the sky, but the day is dusky due to the stifling vapors filling the air. I arrive in the middle of a labyrinth of cinder cones, indicative of volcanic activity. Yet, closer inspection reveals that there are signs of habitation — broken buildings, burned clothing strewn about, signs everywhere that there had once been a thriving civilization here. The metal fragments are recognizable enough — shell casings from ballistic weapons. Whatever happened here, war was certainly a major part of it.

A shuffling sound off to the side makes me turn my head, and I see a young girl, probably no more than three or four years old, standing barefoot on the hot ash, apparently oblivious to her burning flesh. Her hair is matted with grime, her face blackened by soot, her dress barely more than strips of rags draped carelessly about her slight form. She stands looking at me silently for a moment, then raises her left arm to point at me. Her face, blank a moment before, contorts into a disfiguring expression of rage as she unleashes an inhuman cry that echoes off the smoldering cones. The breeze blows a thick cloud of smoke between us, and when it clears again, the girl is gone. I don’t know where she came from or where she went, but I feel almost certain that she has not gone far.

I feel the ground beneath my feet tremble as something large approaches. And now my ears ring with the sound of it. Suddenly, what light there was in this hellish haze is blocked out as a ship slides into view over the cinder cones. It is larger than anything I have ever seen, extending from horizon to horizon. Spotlights swinging back and forth across the ground from beneath the technological monster tell me that whoever, or whatever, is inside is looking for something. The energy fluctuations from my portal probably alerted the dominant species in this place of my arrival. And then I can see no more as one of the lights swings over me, blinding me by its glare. I stumble to get away, falling backward into the portal again.

I was fortunate this time. I have seen that type of ship before, on another world, and few who see it are so lucky as to escape. I have managed it twice now, but only because I possess a fragment of their own technology. A short stop this time, and already time to move on. I slide through the vortex and hope that the next world I see is free…

bq. your take on the perfect vs. sinless question – “grace”:http://willfullgrace.blogspot.com/

In character, Jesus was perfectly sinless; otherwise, He would not have been able to serve as a sacrifice, as a payment for all men’s sins. In body I believe Christ was prone to the same physical struggles as other men — illness, body aches, weariness, etc. As such this is why we can say that there is no temptation common to man that Christ does not know or understand. He has been there, experienced it all, and is therefore completely sympathetic to the human condition.

It’s definitely an interesting juxtaposition — Christ as fully God being completely perfect, lending Him the ability to live a life without sin, and Christ as fully man, able to be tempted by the same things as the rest of us, able to experience the same physical maladies, yet able to stand against it all and do the right thing every time.

bq. what does it mean to get a “new body” and how does that fit in with our heavenly experience?…is it more physical or more whispy and spiritual?? –
“grace”:http://willfullgrace.blogspot.com/

Delightful question! Scripture seems to indicate that our new bodies will be exactly as Christ’s body was upon His resurrection — fully corporeal and physical, able to be touched, yet seemingly not bound by the usual physical limitations. He was able to skip across space with hardly a thought, appearing where He would and ministering to His followers in the days before His ascension. I believe our bodies will be like that, as well, and that we will continue to have full physical use of them. But I believe that, like Christ, we will be able to move from place to place at will! This has exciting implications when you consider that we may ultimately have the ability to explore the furthest reaches of the universe, all to the glory of God! Our new bodies will not be given to us, though, until sometime after God establishes His Kingdom here on Earth. I’m not entirely clear on the timeline, but it seems like it will occur after the Millenial Reign, during the creation of the New Heavens and the New Earth. It’s also possibly that the saints who return with Christ at the end of the Tribulation will already have their heavenly bodies and those who live through the Millenium will receive theirs later.

bq. what is the book or revelation really all about? “grace”:http://willfullgrace.blogspot.com/

Hope and repentance. It is written to provide hope to all believers, to show that in the end righteousness rules the day, all wrongs will be righted, wrongdoers punished, the righteous rewarded, evil banished forever.

It is written to urge the sinful and unbelieving to repentance, to urge the believers who have turned away to return, to make it clear to the unbelieving what awaits them if they persist in their unbelief.

Revelation is about comfort. God wins, Satan loses. End of story.

bq. And btw what kind of horses do you have? – “a thinker”:http://plousia.blogspot.com/

My wife and I have two (so far). Sonny is her baby, a blood-bay quarterhorse of Sonny Dee Barr lineage (grandfather). Turk is an Anglo-Arab descended from Man O’ War lineage. A couple of his ancestors were also derby winners – Determine in 1954 and Decidedly in 1956. My wife informs me that Turk is also out of the Hyperion bloodline – it was apparently big in the racign world in the 40′s-60′s then vanished in all modern horses, meaning he is also (distantly) related to – though not a direct descendent of – Pensive (1944 winner), Ponder (1949 winner), Swaps (1955 winner), Needles (1956 winner), Tomy Lee (1959 winner), Chateaugay (1963) winner, and Citation (through the dam, 1948 winner). Not bad for a little unregistered gelding, is it?

bq. I have to ask – what do you do? Are you a pastor? – “Arielle”:http://www.whomovedmytruth.com/

Nope, though I _am_ a missionary pastor’s kid. I had (briefly) considered the pastorate, but ultimately decided that was not where God wanted me. I did my undergraduate work at “Cedarville University”:http://www.cedarville.edu in Cedarville, Ohio, completing a bachelor’s degree in psychology and picking up minors in Bible, music, and math. My graduate work was in social psychology, done at “Ball State University”:http://www.bsu.edu. Now, I work at “Purdue University”:http://www.purdue.edu in the “Enrollment Management”:http://www.purdue.edu/enrollmentmanagement office as an Enrollment Analyst (they haven’t added me to the staff listings yet, I’m so new).

I write in two formats currently — the first is on Writer’s Blog, expounding on some of the deeper and richer things that cross my mind, deviating ocassionally into things of lesser weight. The second is I do some amateur writing in the science fiction and fantasy genres. I have penned a couple of short stories so far, with many others still in my mental queue, and I have a fantasy novel in progress. I’m hoping to enter the world of professional writing in the near future by trying to get some books on shelves, but most of my speculative writing is on hold at the moment while the wife and I get settled into our new home. I _have_ submitted a short story to a magazine, however, and am waiting to hear back from them.

Now, isn’t that a whole lot more than you wanted to know? ;-)

The Fellowship of Suffering

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“Philippians 3:7-14″:http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Phil.%203:7-14&version=31 (New International Version)

7But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ 9and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. 10I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.
Pressing on Toward the Goal
12Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

This is probably my favorite passage in the Bible, as it has long been my life’s creed. It was drilled home again yesterday by my pastor who reflected on the fact that the only way to truly share in the sufferings of Christ, and so to know Him better and become more like Him, is by suffering unjustly. For what had He ever done to deserve such suffering? He was sinless, having done no wrong thing ever in His life. If anyone was deserving of a perfectly peaceful and content life, it was certainly Jesus the Messiah, and yet He suffered so much more than any human being before or since has ever suffered.

We grumble and complain about the injustice of our personal suffering, of the inconveniences of being wrongly accused of some misdeed, of bearing the brunt of someone else’s scorn and persecution. Yet, Christ suffered far greater, giving His body as a sacrifice for all men to be beaten and broken, having done nothing to deserve such.

And when are the greatest life lessons learned? Often, they are learned only after having gone through a most painful time, when you cannot see what possible good can come from the situation, and yet they often prove to be the most beneficial, the most enlightening, the most growing times, and the most sweet times of fellowship with God. A new and rich perspective, for I have often thought to be like Christ in those times which I suffer, but this was a new perspective for me, having not really associated Christ’s sufferings with the unjustness of it, taking for granted the fact that He was sinless and therefore undeserving of such pain.

We can learn much from the unjust sufferings of Christ, and I hope that I can continue to pray, as Paul did, that I will know Christ and the power of His resurrection by sharing in His sufferings.