Category: Uncategorized

March 2, 2009 / Uncategorized / 1 Comment »

Pointers from the dark side

This past weekend I was reminded again of how quick “the church” is to criticize “the church.” It doesn’t matter which blog I was reading nor who was castigating whose theology – even though both are believers. I think most of us have seen the body of Christ sadly hacking at its own limbs all in the name of doctrinal purity – or something like that.

So when I read this snippet today in Charles Spurgeon’s Morning & Evening, I felt like the 19th century theologian had read the same blog post and offered this plea:

“Observe the prince of darkness, how persevering in his endeavors, how unabashed in his attempts, how daring in his plans, how thoughtful in his plots, how energetic in all! The devils are united as one man in their infamous rebellion, while we believers in Jesus are divided in our service of God, and scarecely ever work with unanimity. O that from Satan’s infernal industry we may learn to go about like Good Samaritans, seeking whom we may bless.”

Apparently, we’ve been at this for years. Spurgeon died in 1892.

Do you ever wonder, like I do, what we could accomplish if we spent more time in the construction business than the demolition business?

February 23, 2009 / Uncategorized / No Comments »

Happy with Oscar

I suppose it’s not entirely fair to be thrilled that Slumdog Millionaire won out last night over the other four movies nominated for best picture: I ‘ve only seen one of the others also nominated. But truth be told, that really only means I can’t say it’s the best of the bunch. I can still say it was the best movie I’ve seen in a long time. So I will say it. It was.

And I am thrilled it won.

An article appeared in Sunday’s San Diego Union Tribune, before the Oscars aired, of course, that described some of the angst Indians feel about the depiction of life in Mumbai, as if this movie was a commentary on India’s woes and nothing was said of its virtues. But there is poverty in nearly every country. And mean streets. And abusers of children. And crooked cops. This wasn’t a story about India. It was a story about love. It was a story about an Indian boy and an Indian girl and the people around them – both good and bad – that took them to the edge of love’s defining moments.

I loved how the Who Wants to be a Millionaire? backdrop was a metaphor for so many other questions. Who wants to be cared for? Who wants to rise above the thumb of oppression? Who wants to live in peace? Who wants to risk everything for love? Who wants to believe we are more than what someone else says we are? This movie excelled on so many levels. A well-told story about the extravagance of sacrifical love often makes the best kind of movie.

It’s not often my pick gets the Oscar. I am content.

February 9, 2009 / Uncategorized / 4 Comments »

New clothes!

Sometimes change is a little hard to get used to, especially when no one asks you for your opinion first. When Pluto was excommunicated from planetary status I was pretty ticked no one asked me what I thought. If they had, I would’ve told them please, don’t change a thing. But no one asked, and change it they did. To me, Pluto will always be the cute little planet at the edge of our starry niche. I don’t care what anybody else says.

So, if you miss the white-on-black here on the blog and the unfrumpy EDGEWISE in all caps, sorry. But I hope you think the new digs make up for the visual assault. I have a new website design which I really am excited about, and hence the blog got new clothes, too. It was all part of the makeover. Click over to the website and let me know what you think.

The look is a mix of historical and contemporary, which is becoming my brand, and that’s why you see ancient abbey-ish features in faded tans and browns with a zippy font and warm pink accents. Old dovetailing with new. That’s what I like. When I worked on The Shape of Mercy, this is what I realized about myself – I like blending some – or a lot – of the past in my contemporary settings. We learn so much from what has gone before. We’re supposed to.

My upcoming fall release, White Picket Fences, which you will hear more about in weeks to come, is a blend of a current day drama and the Warsaw Ghetto. I think you will like it. . .

I know I promised you the reason why you never want to kill a mockingbird but I didn’t finish reading Harper Lee’s masterpiece this weekend like I had hoped. Come back Friday- if you’re not having Pluto-like reservations about the new Edgewise and I’ll tell you then.

February 6, 2009 / Uncategorized / No Comments »

Thursday at Warwicks

It’s picture day here at the Edge. Last night I had a booksigning and speaking event at one of my favorite places – Warwicks Bookstore in lovely LaJolla.

I don’t want to have a “it’s all about me” moment here because that kind of stuff drives me crazy so instead, I will express how wonderful it was be in the company of a store full of booklovers. I had a great time talking about the research for The Shape of Mercy, and what I learned along the way about why we are so quick to cast judgment, and what made me use the Salem Witch Trials as a backdrop to tell a story above love, mercy, and redemption.

But I have to say one of the nicest elements of the evening was being surrounded by books and people who love them. Especially the Warwicks staff. I’ve yet to meet someone who works in a bookstore who doesn’t love the inventory. At least I haven’t found this same level of passion with anyone who works in a shoestore. If I needed a different day job, I think I’d be quite happy spending my nine-to-five in a bookstore, happily trying on all the shoes. . . I mean reading all the books.

Have a great weekend. On Monday I will tell you why you should never kill a mockingbird.

January 30, 2009 / Uncategorized / 2 Comments »

An unexpected honor

Got some good news to post on the Edge today. And even though it is a cause for celebration, I have to say it’s a little awkward for me to use this space for horn-tooting. I prefer the piano in a quiet room. But you might want know that The Shape of Mercy has been named a finalist in the Evangelical Christian Publishers Assn’s Book of the Year contest. I have been named in the fine company of Jerry B. Jenkins, Tim Downs, Ann H. Gabhart and Christa Barritt. As the Sprint guy would say, “Pretty cool, huh?”

The other categories are Bibles, Children & Youth, Inspiration & Gift, Bible Reference & Study, and Christian Life. You can read more about it here.

The winner will be named on March 19 – the day before the Christian Book Expo begins – in Dallas. (If you live in the DFW area, you should go to the Expo. More than 200 authors will be there. Me, included). So without further ado and adon’t, here are the nominees. Celebrate with me. . .

January 23, 2009 / Uncategorized / 5 Comments »

Not real

Here’s the scene. Breakfast table. Teenage-son eating Cheerios and scanning the morning paper. Husband sipping coffee. I am in slippers and sweats making said son a sandwich for his lunch.

“You know that music you liked so much at the Inauguration?” son asks.

“Yes,” I say, thinking he is going to tell me he will download it for me.

“It wasn’t real. It was pre-recorded.”

I don’t believe him. I tell him so.

“Says right here,” he says. “It was pre-recorded. It was too cold to play.”

“No!”

“Yes.”

“No! No!”

“Yes. Yes.”

“Let me see that!” I am sure he is reading News of The Weird or someone’s comic strip or simply pulling my leg. But then I read the article myself and I see that it’s true.

That beautiful music, played by musicians who seemed to embrace the moment like it was a jewel, was pre-recorded. It was too cold to play it live, the article said.

I stomp away feeling like someone has just killed Santa Claus.

I loved that music. I loved the way the musicians played it with such heart and soul. I was amazed at how beautiful it sounded. How they didn’t seem to mind the cold. I figured they had special heat lamps that kept them and their instruments warm. Yay technology! I was thoroughly impressed with the sound, the beauty, the strength, the vitality. It was like a shining image of a nation on the cusp of renewed hope. We can get out of the black hole of uncertain economic times. See? Look how we make music when all around us is the chill of doubt.

And then this.

It wasn’t real.

I know it shouldn’t bother me that much. It’s not that big a deal. But we don’t always get to choose what bothers us.

I am bothered.

I want it to be real.

January 20, 2009 / Uncategorized / 1 Comment »

When there is no reason not to

It’s been warm here in the West.

I am not gloating, truly. I cringe to even write such a thing with all the family, friends and colleagues I have scattered across the Midwest and East. I know how cold it’s been there. So when I say we’ve had unseasonbly warm weather – warm even for SoCal – please know that I only say it to ponder something else. Something more remarkable.

My paperwhite lillies are blooming. All over my patio in their little clay-colored pots, paperwhites are blooming. Geraniums, too. The warming rays of a generous sun have convinced them there is simply no reason not to do with they are designed to do.

Makes me wonder what I could be capable of doing if I had no reason at all not to do what I’ve been designed to do. If I sensed no potential hazard, if I didn’t care what all paperwhites had done before me, if I chose to believe that the absence of obstacles was more than just an invitation to give it all I got; more like a happy obligation.

True, I worry about what will happen when chilly weather returns. What will happen in February if frosty mornings make a comeback?If I have to go back to wearing sweaters? What will happen to my paperwhites when spring really does arrive? Will they make a second appearance? I don’t know enough about bulbs and weather to know what will happen. I do know this.

I’ve had the pleasure of paperwhites in January.

Quite, quite lovely. . .

January 12, 2009 / Uncategorized / 6 Comments »

My new clock

Now that the New Year and birthday confetti has settled (I celebrated another 365 days on the planet last week) I have decided what my New Year’s wish for 2009 is. I don’t know if there’s such a thing as a New Year’s wish, but there should be. Birthday candles and their wishes could perhaps get a leg up if there was a New Year wish to back it up.

I want two hours of gifted, nightly reading time. I want two hours that don’t use up any hours from the 24 we are given every day to accomplish life. I want it to start at 10:30 every night. At ten-thirty, a magical two-hour stretch of time called bookthirty would begin. When it ends two hours later, it would still be 10:30. I would then put my book on the nighttable, take off the pitiful reading glasses, turn out the light and snuggle into the covers with two hours of booktime waltzing in my head and it’s not after midnight.

  • If I had bookthirty every night I could read all those books in my To Be Read stack. All of them.
  • If I had bookthirty every night I wouldn’t have to wrestle with a reading hangover on mornings when I stayed up too late the night before reading.
  • Bookthirty would allow me to read 20 or more additional books every year. Every year. More books. Can you imagine?
  • Bookthirty would make me a better writer. Brilliant writers read lots of books.
  • Bookthirty would make me a happier person. Unread books stacked around my bedroom make me sad. They call out to me. I call back to them, “Soon!” We all know I am lying.
  • Bookthirty would make me a more rested individual, nicer to be around, a pleasure to know, and because books teach, wiser all the way around.
  • Bookthirty would enable me to buy more books. My fellow writers, need I say more?

Whomever said “So many books, so little time” surely spoketh true words. Something must be done. I want a clock that can give me bookthirty, every night, from this day forward. And since I know how prone we are to use precious time for often ridiculous pursuits, I am more than willing to have bookthirty vanish if I begin to use it for watching a dumb movie, or even cleaning a toilet. It’s only for reading books. It will return to me the next night of course where I can redeem myself and use the two magical hours for the purpose with which they were granted to me. And of course, if I am so tired at 10:30 that I choose to relinquish bookthirty of an evening, well then, there’s always tomorrow.

I need that clock.

Who is with me?

December 15, 2008 / Uncategorized / 1 Comment »

A newborn King to see

It’s a curious habit of mine, but every year at Christmas, I latch onto a line of a treasured Christmas carol and I make it my mental bumper sticker for the holidays. Sometimes I will sign it on my Christmas cards, sometimes I just let it echo around in my mind, hoping it will act as a balm to soothe my weary head on chaotic December days.

One year, I was especially fond of the phrase, “Let every heart prepare Him room.” It went on all the cards. It’s a fabulous phrase from “Joy to The World.” Most of the time we sing that line and don’t even realize the wisdom it conveys. Another time it was “Yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting Light” Another year it was “Westward leading, still proceeding.” I love that image; that the Star is still there, pointing the way to the Messiah.

This year the phrase leapt out at me while listening to MercyMe’s arrangement of “Little Drummer Boy.” It leapt and it just won’t leave me alone. I don’t want it to.

Then He smiled at me.

Then He smiled at me

He smiled at me.

I am smiling back.

December 8, 2008 / Uncategorized / 3 Comments »

We arrived at the Home Depot parking lot a few minutes before sunset. The place was packed. You’d have thought everyone in San Diego was choosing that particular Sunday evening to buy their Christmas tree.

We came upon a parking place near the tree lot and snagged it. Then we waited for our daughter and her roommate to arrive. The mission before us was to help them get a tree to their apartment. We have the boring Parentmobible that seats seven or a six foot tree, depending.

We shut off the motor but didn’t get out. Even in San Diego a December evening can be chilly. Outside in the distance we could hear saws slicing off wayward branches and awakening comatose tree trunks.

When our daughter and roommate arrived, they called us from the entrance to the lot so that we could meet them. That’s when we opened the car door and were enveloped in a wall of scent. It was heady. Intoxicating. Pungent. Delightful.

What the heck were we thinking sitting in the car watching drivers jockeying for parking places when we could’ve waited outside getting drunk on the scent of fir trees? I closed my eyes to the swell of consumer chaos and the growls of the saws and it was like being in the deep woods at the end of a long day. Too lovely.

It didn’t take long to find a good-looking six-footer, which the girls named Douglas (get it?). We took him to the cashier where he was given a nice shave and then was wrapped in a cozy net. We slid him into the Parentmobile and closed him in. Twilight fell all around us as we headed out of the lot, swooning to the aroma of Douglas’s amazing aftershave.

I slipped in a Kenny G Christmas CD, turned to hubby who was sitting on the passenger side, and told him to pretty please pass the egg nog.

Gotta love pine.

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