partsofspeaking

The credentials I bring to this subject are one published novel, two novels under contract, and two I am working on.  There are at least ten others in my head.  I also read very widely in different genre, specifically chick lit, some fantasy, literary (men's and women's), detective, "Christian" (not sure about what that is, exactly, but I know it if I see it) and classic (currently reading Little Dorrit by Dickens, what a delight.)  I don't read romance and Western or much scifi.  I also have an M.A. in Writing. Whenever someone sets out rules about fiction writing, the rules cannot be hard and fast and usually anyone who reads very much can readily and easily point to an example of successful and even well done writing (not always synonymous) that violates the rules.  (did you notice the parallelism in that sentence?  That's for another post.  There was, intentionally, way too much, yet Dr. King does it brilliantly in Letter from a Birmingham Jail.)...

In September I began a writers' group.  Well, I can't take total credit for it.  I belong to the writers guild of a local semi-large Southern City.  I attended one of their established writers groups and found it too large for my taste.  Because there was not one in my "neck of the woods" (whatever that means; for me it means my county which is a suburb of that semi-large Southern City), I decided to say we would have one.  I arranged for it to meet in a library and away we went.  The first meeting had six people; we are up to maybe ten now.  It has gone through some evolution and probably still will.  To let you know what I've learned, here goes. Our group is multi-genre.  That will not work for everyone; it works for us right now.  I think if everyone is writing the same genre there may be a tendency toward turfism and jealousy, as in "that's not the way I would do that."  If the group were full of professional, multi-publishe...

My son is an adult now.  I have to remind myself of that everyday. I still like to read about child rearing, though.  Yet one thing that puzzles me is what I hear all the time, "This is so hard." Why is it so hard?  OK, I only had one, go ahead, tell me that I wasn't really a parent because I only had one.  Whatever.  Every minute was awesome.  He was so much fun.  He was funny.  He was learning.  He said such interesting things.   Even when he had a seizure disorder, threw up all the time, had to take meds for seven years. He was never hard to raise.  Others were always saying, "wait til he is two."  "Wait til he is a teenager." Parents just have the wrong perspective.  First, they are too worried that their children should experience every sport, event, instrument.  Second, they are worried about what other people will say about them.  The competitiveness among parents amazes me.  "I am a better ...

Note on July 21, 2012:  I have noticed this post gets a lot of traffic and that there is another website with the same title.  This one is about the biblical meaning of circumcision.  It has nothing to do with the medical practice as done today on male babies.  However, since you're here, we did have our son circumcised because we believed it to be healthier and cleaner, and so he would not see himself as looking unusual if it came to that.  He would kill me if he read that!  Anyway, if you're looking for information on the medical practice, this is not it. That's a really silly title but I have been thinking about this subject for a long time, which is also a silly thing to admit to. I have taught a women's Bible class for many years, and although I have taken a break, I'll be teaching tomorrow.  This subject isn't technically in the passage but sort of.  Anyway, it comes up quite often in both the Hebrew Bible (I am trying to be politic...

In my first iteration as a doctoral student in 2006 at Georgia State, in a discussion in a communication education class, I was told I was oppressed. "No, I'm not."  To me, that was as absurd as telling me I had green hair or a million dollars in the bank.  My interlocutor was an African American gentleman whose face and conviction I remember well but whose name I have forgotten.  He was a fellow doctoral student, further along in the program, and even older than I was (in his mid-fifties).  He had been in social services work, confessed to be a Christian.  I believe he was a sincere, fine man. But today that conversation is as vivid as if it happens last week, as is my perplexity as to why I--American, middle-class, healthy, white, educated, professional, homeowner, voter--is considered oppressed.  It's because I'm female. I let him know that I rejected that self-identification.  "There are millions of women on the planet who are oppressed," I s...

Recently I have seen a number of video "clips" of service personnel returning from Afghanistan and especially Iraq.  God bless them, and their families. What I notice is that the first reaction is not to talk, not to get a good hard look, but to embrace, touch, caress.  Skype is wonderful; we can see who we are talking to on the other side of the planet. I know it has been an encouragement to millions, especially those who have been and are fighting in the Middle East.   I attended a Skype baby shower this summer.  The couple was in San Diego, where they live.  The husband, a chaplain, will soon be deployed for ten months.  He will be able to see his baby girl frequently. But Skype is not presence.  Presence is validated by touch; touch is only possible in one's presence. Touch is the realest of the senses, followed by taste.  You can smell without physical contact, you can also see and hear, but only within inches of each other can you feel...

Someone just wrote me an insulting email.  The person probably thought they were making a point and it would hurt my feelings.  Joke's on them.  I have been accused of so much evil in my life, it's amusing.  I am the most innocuous person in the world, yet people (usually men) find ways to try to bring me down.  Remember, persons who insult you, especially in an email, is only revealing their own true colors.  If they truly care and have something worth saying, they will come along side in the spirit of Christ and take the time to admonish, not just use invective.

Hunstman and Perry out this week.  Big surprise.   Newt Gingrich?  Really?  Seriously? And we're upset Romney has money?  Do they think a poor person can run for president?  If he was a failed businessman and didn't have money, would it make him more qualified to run for president?  Why do these same people think Trump would be all right? (both, by the way, come from moneyed families; at least Romney doesn't act like he was raised poor.) Romney didn't break any laws to make or live off his money.  I'm not crazy about him, but in the absence of some others coming forward, he's the best the Republicans have.  I like Santorum, but he's unexperienced.   But he's a good man. Why is there a double standard in the media for Democrats and Republicans?  It's so obvious, it's frighteningly amusing.  And then there is Ron Paul.  OH MY GOODNESS.  Who is actually voting for this guy?  (Actually, I know of several...

These seem to fall into six categories: Adulation:  the congregants are far too in awe of the pastor's persona and/or gifts Subjective:  the congregants are subjects of the king Combative (Adversarial):  Us-them/We-him(her)--never good Collaborative:  shared leadership/nonadversarial/mutual respect Cooperative:  pastor leads, congregation agrees to follow and cooperate Tentative:  not just time-sensitive; uncertainty However, this is in no way a criticism of a pastor or pastors, just a conclusion from many years of observing.  I could put names behind each of these categories, but I'll refrain.   The pastorate has to be one of the hardest jobs in the world; any kind of leadership is.  Sometimes a leader has to just do what his/her lights tell him; sometimes he/she can collaborate with those being led. 

My son bought me a Kindle for Christmas.  I love it!  I didn't think I would, but I do.  Unfortunately, I am really swamped with reading for work right now.  I am reading Little Dorrit.  It was free!  But the first book I downloaded (and it wasn't free) was Serena, by Ron Rash.  I had not read any of his work before but had read reviews of this book.  If we have to talk about books or movies in reference to other works, I would call this "the story of Sarah and Abraham and Hagar meets MacBeth meets Cormac McCarthy meets ....well, something Appalachian and environmentalist.  I like that he puts the story against the backdrop of the establishment of the Smoky Mountain Park, and his writing is impeccable.  Beautiful.  But as a friend said, it's rough. A Bostonian, Pemberton, owns a lumber operation in the North Carolina mountains.  He brings home his new bride, Serena.  She is beautiful but mannish; a horsewoman; the ...

This is a fine response to the common "Jesus hates religion" truism.   http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevindeyoung/2012/01/13/does-jesus-hate-religion-kinda-sorta-not-really/ It's a short trip from Jesus hates religion to Jesus hates religious people. I especially like Kevin DeYoung's comments that we Christians need to stop blaming ourselves and buying into the lie that we have somehow caused all the problems in the world.  Yes, we could do more, lots more. But we are not causing the problems.

This seems to be well documented. http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=16500 However, I am not sure Dr. King would be happy with some aspects of the Republican party today.

I was glad to see on Facebook that a number of my "friends" had posted quotes from Dr. King.  Quotes are nice, but I prefer big pictures.  The best is A Letter from a Birmingham Jail , which I teach in a rhetoric class.  http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html   To me no one should graduate from college without having read it and internalized it. I am off today, as most government employees are, and feeling a bit guilty/cynical/uncertain about why we get this day off and ignore it or give lipservice to it.  Most white people, and I am afraid some African Americans, just use it as an excuse to sleep late on a Monday.  I do know that some colleges, for example, Bryan College in Dayton, TN,use it for service learning.  I hope that is more true than I realize.  Of course, we get Labor Day and Memorial Day off too and pretty much ignore their meaning, so I suppose it is a reflection of the self-centered times we live in. To ...

I rarely sit down and watch football with my husband, who watches it constantly.  But last week I did sit down at the end of the Broncos/Steelers game for a few minutes.  I saw the Steelers not get a score at the end of regular time and the game go into overtime; I saw the world’s shortest overtime period.  The play was so amazing that it seemed staged.  But it was beautiful and a lot of fun to see Tim Tebow throw a pass when all I’ve heard about him is that he can’t throw the ball (which means of course, not that he can’t literally throw the ball but that he doesn’t get touchdowns that way.) I have been home a lot for the last four weeks and have had to listen to Skip Bayless and Stephen A. Smith scream at each other because of Tebow.  Of course, the Broncos lost decisively last night to the Patriots, as was expected, so maybe some of those tirades will calm down. Also of course, Tebow is not just controversial because he may or may not be one of football’s g...

My son has been saying that he’s had a bad year, although he is not seeing the forest for the trees.   He graduated from college, got to go to Florida for a very enjoyable spring break,   has no debt, is healthy, and has a place to live.   He just can’t find the kind of job he wants (I have to avoid comments such as “Join the club”).   But since I went on blogging hiatus for three weeks after Christmas, and have returned, I wanted to update on my 2011. We experienced tornadoes in our town of Ringgold, Georgia.   While the damage was nothing like that of Tuscaloosa, AL, and Joplin, MO, last spring, tragedy is not relative.   If you lose your home, or a loved one, from a swirling wind coming down from nowhere; if you see clouds moving faster across the sky than you ever thought possible, and then an explosion on the horizon where you know the town is; if your son calls you four hours later frantic because the news has shown what the town looks like and he ...

I listen to two radio stations:  the local NPR one (even though I had vowed to give up NPR for their hypocrisy, I fell away from my vow) and the local Moody station.  On one I get news, on the other music.  Today I heard Fernando Ortega sing one of the most common hymns of American experience, "Come Thou Fount." I know all the words by heart, (well, the first, second, and last stanzas--Baptists are notorious for not singing the third stanzas).  However, I only remember them to music, so I had to look at another website. Come Thou Fount of every blessing Tune my heart to sing Thy grace; Streams of mercy, never ceasing, Call for songs of loudest praise Teach me some melodious sonnet, Sung by flaming tongues above. Praise the mount! I'm fixed upon it, Mount of God's unchanging love. 2. Here I raise my Ebenezer; Hither by Thy help I'm come; And I hope, by Thy good pleasure, Safely to arrive at home. Jesus sought me when a stranger, Wandering from the...

I am fascinated by the subject of creativity.  What I must remember is that creativity is not bound to the arts not necessarily lucrative  won't necessarily get you noticed a gift from God because of his nature within us to be enjoyed I find creative in many places; I liked to be surprised by it.  Today I heard of an album title:  "The stars are indifferent to astronomy."  That is so apt, and reminded me of the Walt Whitman poem, "When I heard the learned astronomer." (below) A poet in my writers' group has a line "I looked for the ocean where it should have been."  So much there.  Creativity makes something that hits us immediately and yet stays with us and that we stay with, trying to plumb its depths. I don't consider myself creative, even though I write fiction.  I consider myself more of an observer and recorder; it just that I record human experience in a different order than where it might have happened. W HEN I heard the lea...