Tag: story
Mary, Did You Know?
It’s interesting: the process of aging, getting older, usually means that when you hear the same stories that you’ve heard before, sometimes you discover something that you hadn’t noticed before. Life has given you a different perspective from when you heard the story originally. Nowhere else, for me at least, has this held true than the Christmas story. By age 30 – if you’ve been a life-long Christian like I am – the story gets very familiar. → Read more...
Remember Our Responsibility
My goal this year is to slow down and take a breath every now and then and renew and refocus my mind on what’s really important in this season: God and family, whether it is by blood or by the family we’ve built for ourselves through friends. So, for the month of December, this space will provide all of us with reminders of what’s really important this month. This week’s theme is: Remember Our Responsibility. In the past couple of weeks, we’ve reminded ourselves that Jesus is the reason for the season and that, in the frenzy of the holidays, we shouldn’t forget others, especially those in retail and customer service who are working tirelessly with many frustrated customers. → Read more...
Everyone Has Dignity
One a Tuesday a month, I have the awesome privilege of going to Autumn Leaves, a senior care center for those with dementia and Alzheimer’s and similar diseases. (It is across the street from our old building in Orland.) I am there with some of our high school kids in our youth group. Our goal those evenings are just to hang out and get to know some of the residents there and provide them with some companionship for a couple of hours. → Read more...
In Medias Res
Frequent readers of this eLetter will know that I love movies and serial television shows, especially ones that attempt to tell a grand story over a period of time. Some of them employ a literary technique called in medias res, which is Latin for “into the midst of affairs.” This refers to where the narrative starts in the middle of the story instead of its beginning. The characters, setting, and conflict are often introduced through a series of flashbacks or through characters relating past events to each other. → Read more...
Everything Is Planted Somewhere
With my wife, I’ve recently been watching a bunch of DVDs of an older science fiction television show called Babylon 5 created circa the early 1990s. As a writer, I’m a big fan of big stories, stories that dare to paint a large canvas and tell their stories intelligently and coherently. I especially enjoy stories where characters grow and change over time because, well, that’s how life works. No one’s ever static. Everyone’s always changing because of some external or internal force. → Read more...
Don’t Forget (Parentally), Pt. III
June 20, 2013
Calvary
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Matt
“Their children, who do not know this law [God’s commandments], must hear it and learn to fear the Lord your God as long as you live in the land you are crossing the Jordan to possess.” – Deuteronomy 31:13 “Take to heart all the words I [God] have solemnly declared to you this day, so that you may command your children to obey carefully all the words of this law. They are not just idle words for you – they are your life.” → Read more...
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