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The Jevlir Caravansary

Author: jevlir

  • Christian Carnival CCC Posted

    … at Brain Cramps for God, including my story Comforted.

  • Comforted

    She wasn’t comfortable with this visit, but it was her duty.  He had lost his son just three weeks earlier and she had conducted the funeral.  The death had been sudden, tragic.  The man had lost his wife only three years earlier, and his son was his life.  At the funeral he had been devastated.

    Now he looked peaceful, almost happy.  It was very strange.  Could he get over such a loss in just three weeks?  He’d been away for the last two weeks, and had told nobody where he was going. Many had feared that he would commit suicide, or maybe already had.  But here he was, comfortable in his own living room, accepting her pastoral visit.

    “You look better,” she said.

    “I am better.”

    “Where have you been?  Your friends have been worried.”

    “I went hiking.  In the wilderness.  Mountains.”

    “You could have been hurt.  Nobody knew where you were.”

    “I wasn’t hurt.”

    “No, I can see that.  But hiking all alone, in your condition!”

    “Alone?”  He paused.  “I see why you say that.  But no, not alone.”

    “What do you mean?”

    “God was with me.”

    “I know that God is with you everywhere, but you need human contact.”

    “No, I needed to talk to God.”

    “And did God speak to you?”

    “Well, yes and no.”

    “Yes and no?”

    “Well, there was no voice.  There were just trees, rocks, streams, mountains, birds, and yes, a few animals.  But I heard God.”

    “And that has brought you this peace?”

    “Peace?  Is that what I feel?  Then yes, it brought me peace.”

    “So somehow in looking at the mountains you found a purpose in what happened to you?”

    “No, no purpose.  It still makes no sense to me at all.  But I can live with it.”

    “So you didn’t hear anything from God, you didn’t learn anything, but you found peace?”  As she said it, she knew it was wrong.  She should be celebrating his peace, not questioning it, but she couldn’t help herself.

    “Oh, I did learn something from God.”

    “Yes?  What was it?”

    “As I looked at the mountains I realized just how overwhelmingly great God is, just how much beyond my understanding.”

    He paused and she waited silently.

    “I learned just one thing,” he said.  “I learned that God is God.”

    Then YHWH answered Job out of the whirlwind and said,
    “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge.”  — Job 38:1-2 (author’s translation)

    Then Job answered YHWH and he said, …
    “Therefore I desist, and repent in dust and ashes.” — Job 42:1,6 (author’s translation)

  • Christian Carnival CCXCIX Posted

    … at The Minority Thinker.

  • Working on Stuff

    I’m busy with book releases, Megabelt on October 30 and then Christian Archy on November 2.  I’ll have some more posts here in a couple of days.  But in the meantime, enjoy-and be challenged by-this short-short story from The Question Parson.

  • Christian Carnival CCXCVIII Posted

    … at Bible Archive.  Check it out!

  • Yet Again Literary Standards – or Not

    I don’t read Dan Brown, not because I don’t like his writing (which I’ve never read), but because I don’t really enjoy conspiracy theory novels as a rule.  Now there’s a clumsy sentence, such as the author of this article in the Telegraph would dislike.

    The examples given are generally not great writing–from my perspective–but many, many people love Dan Brown’s writing and they buy his books.

    I must confess that I find it humorous for literary elitists to criticize a book which has such an obvious following on literary grounds.  The problem is that deciding that something is “good” is not purely abstract.  It must be “good” for something in particular.

    Thus Dan Brown is “good” in the sense that he entertains his audience and sells his books.  Tolstoy or Shakespeare are “good” in a different sense.  I actually have different standards for different types of reading.  What makes a good book that I read for fascination and intellectual enjoyment will ruin a book that I use for bedtime reading and recreation when I’m tired.

    A majority of elitist criticism of literature seems to neglect this point.  They want to have a list of “good” literature and exclude everything else.  I don’t choose my reading that way, nor do most people.  Publishers use different criteria for different literature.

    I believe that is as it should be.

  • Christian Carnival CCXCV Posted

    … at The Evangelical Ecologist.

  • Christian Carnival CCXCIV Posted

    … at Codex.  I encourage Christian bloggers to get involved by submitting their best work each week and volunteering to host.

  • Administration and Ministry out of Touch?

    I think The Questing Parson hit a home run with his story The Occasional Isolation of Ministry.  It reminded me in a tangential way of my previous story, I Have no Gifts.

  • Who’s the Christian?

    An excellent and challenging short story on The Questing Parson.