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The Jevlir Caravansary

Author: jevlir

  • Scheduling Your Writing

    There is a great post at Study Hacks about how professional writers schedule their writing.

    I find all the suggestions quite useful. I would differ on the precise time of starting, because I have found that doing my morning devotional reading first always helps, and that takes a bit longer. I also have to dedicated the first 45 minutes to an hour of my morning to some business related activities that start my day, including posting the morning devotional, and so forth. This usually starts before 7 AM, and on many days before 6 AM.

    Immediately following that I do my devotional reading, which for me can be up to a couple of hours. Thus I get to actual writing, beyond small posts like this, by about 9-10 AM or so. I have tried writing first, but it doesn’t work. I definitely can’t move it to the afternoon, however, or it just plain doesn’t get done.

    (HT: the evangelical outpost.)

  • Kris Longknife Series Added

    I have added Mike Shepherd’s Kris Longknife Series to the Energion.com Book Store. That means books are now tagged to series and author.

  • Tlisli’s Escape

    Tlisli waited tensely for the animal sounds around her to die down. It was some time before the jungle noises settled back to normal. She was pretty sure that someone else was disturbing the jungle-perhaps many someones.

    If there was one thing she could do well, however, it was being quiet. Soon her silent waiting was rewarded. She knew that at least two, and maybe three groups of people were pursuing her. And they were close, too close!

    Her choices were limited. She was about to enter the forbidden ground. It was clearly the intention of her pursuers that she have no choice–she’d either have to surrender or die in the forbidden ground.

    It wasn’t just the taboo. There were the tribesmen, carrying bows and arrows that were poison tipped. The local tribe of Tlazil was not terribly well equipped, nor were they particularly skilled, but they made up for that in numbers and ferocity. The townspeople claimed the taboo was due to some religious proclamation or another, but the tribesmen seemed to be the most effective enforcement.

    Tlisli thought for a few moments. It would be tough enough for her to evade the pursuing groups. Her father’s men might be stuffy, traditional, and otherwise annoying, but they knew their way around a jungle.

    It had been a foolish idea for her to run away. She should have known it wouldn’t work. For a moment she thought of surrendering. She was so tired. But the thought of surrender brought her back to the reason she was running.

    There had been the troops of the grand emperor, who had quickly overwhelmed the town’s defenses. Her father had long been an advocate of resistance to the Grand-Emperor. Yet when the troops entered the city, her father had gone to greet them.

    She wasn’t sure whether her father had been a traitor all along or whether he had just changed sides quickly. He had always been a bit indulgent with her. But her husband had remained cool toward the invaders. He wasn’t any sort of rebel: he just didn’t flatter them and butter them up. He had also remained indulgent with his wife.

    She, in turn, wasn’t able to hide her contempt, and had finally publicly confronted her father. It had been a minor issue, simply a matter of skirt length. Her father had told her she was not fit to appear in public dressed like that. She should have realized she needed to back down with the Grand Emperor’s governor-general watching. It was obvious now. But she had challenged her father and then called on her husband to back her up.

    She almost wished now that he had agreed to punish her for her insubordination. The Grand Empire’s laws merely required that she be whipped. But he had stood by her, still the sweet boy she had married only three months before and still in love.

    The governor decided to make an example of him. He was stripped naked, shackled just tightly enough to slow his movement adequately, and whipped through the city streets until he died.

    Her father had then whipped her like a child. But he had made a fatal mistake–he didn’t think she would defy him. She had cried pitifully and promised obedience. But she was only watching for her chance.

    It had come almost immediately. Her father put her in her own childhood room, from which she had discovered dozens of exits as a teenager. The escape had been trivial. Yet pursuit had been almost instant. Only many hunting trips with cousins and uncles prepared her to get this far.

    And now she faced the choice. Either she must surrender, or she must face certain death in the forbidden ground. Trying to run past her pursuers would be the equivalent of surrender.

    She hesitated only a moment. She ran slightly north and east, then plunged into the stream that marked the boundary.

    To be continued . . .

    [Next episode]

    From the Tlisli Series; Set in the Energion world. This particular entry was composed entirely on my Palm Centro.

  • The Decision

    [The following is a work of fiction. I made up the community and the church. But many, many churches are facing similar decisions, though often not as clear as this one. I wonder how the elders will vote?]

     

    Celia looked around the table as she finished her presentation. She’d done more work than she had been paid for and had gone further in making recommendations than she had been asked. Still, she had been able to see the possibilities. She braced herself to conclude:

    “In summary, with your membership falling you will be able to continue to operate your church for approximately five years. That is only due to the previous members who have provided unusual financial reserves for your church. With your current programs, you will continue to decline in membership.

    “On the other hand there are several opportunities. First, you have the Hispanic community. There are a large number of Spanish speaking people in the neighborhood now. Hiring a Spanish speaking associate pastor would allow you to reach out to that community. Second, despite the impression of some church members that they cannot reach out to the African-American community, there are a substantial number of families who would appreciate your pastor’s style. We could identify those for you and help you contact them. Finally, you have cut out services for young couples and youth, and that has forced your remaining young people to leave.

    “Your decision will have to be whether to spend your financial reserves to hold on, in which case I cannot give you any hope that things will change. The demographics for your community will get worse, not better for the style of church you have had all these years. If you choose to spend your resources on preparing yourself to serve your community as it is now, there is plenty of room for this church to grow and continue to serve.

    “If I could speak from a personal perspective for a moment. This is not me speaking as a consultant, but as a Christian. You have an unusual opportunity. While you have a declining membership, you have resources that nobody else can. ‘Raise your eyes and look at the fields, because they are already ripe, ready for harvest.’ Jesus said that about a Samaritan village. I say it about your community.”

    Celia sat down. She looked at the pastor. He was well educated, but not very forceful. Nonetheless, he was the one who had arranged to get her firm to survey the community and see what could be done.

    Then the chairman of the board of elders spoke.

    “I know that we have to do these things you’re talking about if we want to grow, but then we cannot have the church we grew up with and one in which we can feel safe and comfortable as we worship. I don’t think God is calling us to make this church unpleasant for the members who have fought for it over the years. I contributed a great deal of that money that our visitor has spoken of, and I contributed it so I could have a church to care for me in my old age. I think that the people here deserve to be cared for. That is what Jesus would do.”

    There was silence in the room as everyone looked at one another. Finally the oldest man in the room moved to stand up.

    “I’m 94 years old,” he said. “I have worked in this church longer than any of you. You could say I need someone to take care of me more than anyone. But when I signed on with Jesus when I was just 11 years old, I didn’t sign on to get taken care of.” He was speaking slowly, but clearly. “The people who live in this neighborhood now are the ones God has called us to care for. And you, brother,” he continued after a moment, looking at the head elder, “that money you gave the church isn’t yours. It belongs to God.”

    He sat down again.

    The pastor looked around the room. “Let’s not stand on formal rules. Let’s just take our pulse. How many of you would like to start working based on our consultant’s report?”

  • Psalm 121: A Translation and Poetic Response

    OK, this is playing around. The first is a translation with some freedom, but with an effort to convey just a little bit of the rhythm of the Hebrew. It needs some more work. The second is just me having some fun with rhyme and meter, a practice I can always use.

    I look up to the mountains,
    Where can I find help?
    My help comes from Yahweh,
    The maker of heaven and earth.

    He won’t let your foot slip.
    Your guardian won’t sleep.

    Not sleeping,
    Not slumbering,
    Israel’s keeper.

    Yahweh is your guardian.
    Yahweh is your shelter.
    Right there with you.

    By day the sun does no harm,
    Nor the moon at night.
    Yahweh keeps you from all injury.
    He preserves your life.

    Yahweh watches when you go out or come in,
    Today, and every day hereafter.

    And now the response:I gaze as mountains bar my way,
    With pinnacle and rock and peak.
    I ask myself whose help I seek.
    Whence guidance comes I can obey.

    To God I look when fears assail,
    From right or left, by day or night.
    When arrows fly from left or right,
    My shield’s my Lord he will prevail.

    No matter when I fear not sleep,
    My Lord protects and guards my life.
    Mid toil and trial, stroke or strife,
    He stays awake, my guard to keep.

    If battle call the trump should sound,
    He watches every step I take.
    And if a misstep I should make,
    He puts my foot on solid ground.

    He is my guard, he’s ever near,
    So never danger must I fear.

  • A Righteous Disobedience

     [This is a work of fiction.  Any resemblance of any person or event to anything in the real world is purely coincidental!]

    Children, obey your parents, for this is right. — Ephesians 6:1

    He was only 11, and he was walking home from school.  It should have been simple.  He was under strict instructions to walk straight home, not to stop for anything, and not to bring anyone home unless he had asked for permission ahead of time.  It was, he knew, the right thing to do.

    But then he  saw Debbie sitting in an alley against the wall, partially hidden behind a box.  He had already disobeyed by the time he identified her.  All he knew was that there was a human sitting in what looked like garbage.  When he got closer, he recognized her.  She had been missing from school that day.

    He’d never seen anyone like this.  She had on a shirt.  Her legs were bare and he could see that she was bruised.  It looked possible that her arm was broken.  He really knew very little about it, but it shouldn’t look like that.

    She just sat there and looked at him.  There was no hope in her eyes.  She knew he was supposed to go straight home.  She didn’t look embarrassed either, that she wasn’t properly dressed.  She wasn’t crying.

    “Can you walk?” he asked.

    “Leave me here,” she whispered.  “Your parents will beat you.  They’ll send me home.  My parents will beat me again.”

    “No they won’t,” he said, and not knowing where the conviction came from he was convinced he was right.  He couldn’t remember where he had heard it, but he was sure the Bible said somewhere “let the broken victims go free.”  (Luke 4:18, REB)

    She didn’t look hopeful, but when he reached down to her, and took hold of her unbroken arm, she tried to get up.  He helped her put his arm around his shoulders, and supported her weight, and then he started walking for home.  There weren’t that many people out at this time of day–there never were–but even so he never knew why nobody stopped them, or tried to help.  Somebody surely saw the young boy supporting a bruised and battered girl as they walked down the street together.  But nobody did anything.

    He was getting tired.  The last few blocks were agony.  She wasn’t helping that much, he didn’t think.  He kept muttering that line to himself.  He was breaking all the rules, he knew, but this had to be right.

    He was late at the front door.  His mother was waiting.  He was late enough that she might have started to look for him, but she was just at the gate.  As he stumbled through the gate he said, “Let the broken victims go free, mama.  Jesus said to let the broken victims go free.”

    But his mother was busy taking Debbie in her arms, and carrying her into the house.  For the next couple of hours things were busy.  An ambulance, police, several other official looking people, all passed through.  He didn’t really know whether anyone was happy with him or angry.  The police asked him where he’d found Debbie, and finally a nice looking older lady asked him some more questions.  He answer truthfully.  Why not?  There wasn’t any good lie for this.

    Finally he was alone again with his parents.  “It was the only thing I could do,” he said, looking first at his father, and then at his mother.

    “Of course it was!” they both exclaimed.

    “You’ve learned something important today, I think,” said his father.  “There are times to break the rules.  When I made those rules, I didn’t really expect something like this to happen.  I’m terribly proud of you.”  His father didn’t mention the option of running home quickly and getting his mother.  How could he expect the boy to think of that, and how it might have gotten help faster?

    “Just don’t go using every little excuse to break the rules,” he continued.  “This time, disobeying was the righteous thing to do!”

  • It Must be Going Around . . .

    Ken links to another story on hell in the comments.  It’s eerily like mine, though somewhat different in style.  Check it out.

  • Hell Fire and Damnation

    [This is a work of fiction.  Any resemblance to any real person is purely unintentional.]

    After 10 days, or perhaps it was a hundred, the angel returned. This time he looked like a pillar of darkness, as dark now as he had been bright before. How did I know it was the same angel? I just knew.

    “Where am I?” I asked again.

    “You are where you belong.”

    “This can’t be heaven.”

    “Why not?”

    “Well, there are no harps, no streets of gold, no sign of friends and loved ones, and I haven’t seen Jesus.”

    “Do you want to see Jesus?”

    Suddenly, I wasn’t sure. But that was impossible. All my life, I had talked about seeing Jesus. It was the most important thing to do when I got to heaven. I had preached it to congregation after congregation.

    “Everyone ends up where they belong,” intoned the angel again, looking helpful.

    “But I belong in heaven. I accepted Jesus as my personal savior. I depended totally on his grace. I should be in heaven.”

    “Well, perhaps you are.”

    (more…)

  • Mixing Genres or Strong in Multiple Areas

    One of the things that makes me do some thinking when I write on this blog is that I am not entirely certain of why I like the things I like. This is especially interesting when I encounter a story that I do not enjoy, and yet that I think is well written. Something in my occasionally logical brain is offended at the realization that my enjoyment doesn’t fully follow my more technical appraisal.

    Now it may simply be that I have not done enough serious looking at the literature that I read. If I study it more closely I may do a better job of determining why I like certain things but not others. At the moment I believe that characterization impacts my appreciation of a story much more than plot. I have read some stories in which I thought the plot was not all that good, but yet I enjoyed it because of the quality of portrayal of the characters.

    But what I have noticed over the last few weeks is that I truly like stories that are very strong in more than one area. I could call it mixing genres, but these are truly properly fitted into a single genre; they just offer elements of another.

    For example, I like military fiction. I like military history as well, but military fiction is fun. I also like science fiction. But some of my favorite science fiction writers are folks who do a good job combining good military writing and science fiction, such as David Weber and David Drake.

    In recent reading suggested by my wife, I read Nora Roberts’ books Sacred Sins and Brazen Virtue. Normally I dislike romance, but the mixture of elements of mystery and a small amount of suspense made that reading workable.

    I’m not trying to get technical here–not that I could in this area–I’m just looking at what I like. I’m also not trying to be prescriptive. It’s not that such stories are better; I just enjoy them more.

  • And then Brazen Virtue

    I did it again.  I read Brazen Virtue, the sequel to Sacred Sins.  Still enjoyed it, though romance will not become a favorite.