Isaiah 39-66

Isaiah 56:6-7
Also the sons of the foreigner
Who join themselves to the Lord, to serve Him,
And to love the name of the Lord, to be his servants --
Everyone who keeps from defiling the Sabbath,
And holds fast My covenant --
Even them I will bring to My holy mountain,
And make them joyful in My house of prayer.
Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices
Will be accepted on My altar;
For My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations.

Hey, look! The Old Testament God is talking about the salvation and righteousness of gentiles!

58:6-8
Is this not the fast that I have chosen:
To loose the bonds of wickedness,
To undo the heavy burdens,
To let the oppressed go free,
And that you break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
And that you bring to your house the poor who are cast out;
When you see the naked, that you cover him,
And not hide yourself from your own flesh?
Then your light shall break forth like the morning,
Your healing shall spring forth speedily,
And your righteousness shall go before you;
The glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.

People like to talk about the Old Testament God and the New Testament God (as i facetiously did above). The truth is, God is God. "I am that I am." Remember that the Bible was written by human beings, who were influenced by the culture and time period that they lived in. I had a class in my freshman year where the professor (now my pastor) used to remind us every day that the things we say about God reveal a lot more about us than they do about God.

So the things that the authors of the Old Testament said about God said a lot more about the authors than they did about God, and the same goes for the New Testament. That's why it's important to read the whole Bible, multiple times, and to talk about it with others, and read commentaries and scholarly works on it: it is still possible to learn truths about God from the Bible, but you've gotta take everything in it with a grain of salt.

This passage, however, is a good example of how God's nature is eternal and unchanging. In fact, all of Isaiah is a pretty good book to read to help people untangle their understanding of OT and NT God. We see God repeating Himself a lot, and those messages are generally good ones to pay close attention to.

Psalm 66-150, Proverbs 1-18

How long has it been between these posts? Two weeks? Whatever; i'm covered by the blood of the Lamb, right?

Moving on.

Psalm 139 is probably my favorite right now. Poetically, i hate it; or rather, i hate the author, because he beat me to this. I wanted to write this psalm, and i've tried to a couple of times, but he already stole all of the ideas. Other poets suck, and i love them for it.

Full disclosure: one time, i was really pissed at God, and i wrote a reverse-imitatio of this psalm. Basically, i just changed a few words here and there to talk about how i felt like God had abandoned me. It was a terrible poem, but i felt better afterwards.

vs. 9-10
If I take the wings of the morning,
And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
Even there Your hand shall lead me,
And Your right hand shall hold me.

vs. 14
I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Marvelous are Your works,
And that my soul knows very well.

Really, i could quote the whole thing here and never write anything again and be perfectly happy, but instead i'll make you read it on your own and i'll keep up with the second-rate blather.

Proverbs 3:5-6
Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
And lean not on your own understanding;
In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He shall direct your paths.

I grew up in a denomination called Nazarene (similar to Baptist or Methodist). One of the things we do is a scouting program (like Boy Scouts, only even more religious) for kids from 1st through 6th grade. Kids do traditional scouting things (knot-tying, pinewood derby car racing, tent pitching, fishing, etc.), and also study the history and theology of the Nazarene church. It's pretty cool, actually, and helps cut down on kids who are like, "Well, I'm (fill in denomination here), which is, like, different from other ones? I guess? I think we baptize babies or something."
Anyway, Proverbs 3:5-6 is one of our big memory verses every year. And really, it's a good one. Trust God.

Proverbs 8:1
Does not wisdom cry out,
And understanding lift up her voice?

Shout out to all my teacher friends!
And, uh, me, i guess. I'll be teaching soon (Lord willin' and the crick don't rise), and then i'll be one of those lifting up my voice for wisdom and understanding. I've been doing it for many years now on a smaller scale, and i'm looking forward to a captive audience.
Because seriously, guys, wisdom cries out and understanding lifts up her voice. Just listen, okay? Geez.

Proverbs 16:3
Commit your works to the Lord,
And your thoughts will be established.

I think about sin a lot. (Hubba, hubba.) No, but for real: i spend a pretty good chunk of time pondering the nature of sin and badness and evil and how we can rise above it. So many things are habit, or we don't know that they're wrong, or the thoughts and words come so quickly and sometimes we can't pull them back in time. Sometimes it really does seem like we are rotten to the core and can't do anything about that, and like trying is pointless because how can you ever conquer all the sin in your heart, anyway? if you lived long enough to do that, you'd also live long enough to pick up all kinds of new sins. And either we're covered by grace or we're not, so just do your best and don't worry about it, right?
Well, yeah, but also no. Do your best, and don't worry about it, because doing your best means surrendering fully to God, who can conquer ALL of your sin. All of it? All of it. Even the ones you don't know about? Even the ones you don't know about. Even the ones that are long-held bad habits? Even those. Even the ones you're in denial about. Even all of them. Even everything. Commit your works to the Lord, and your thoughts will be established.

*          *          *          *          *

Esther 3-10, Job 1-33

Job is one of my favorite books, and has been for many years. The poetry in the middle section is so great, and the poetry when God shows up is absolutely transcendent (which only makes sense, since He's God and all).

My Bible study took a pretty in-depth look at Job, but did so in only two weeks, so we left a lot out; there's a lot to be said about this book. People always say that the Bible speaks to you in new ways every time you read it. This may be slightly heretical, but that's never stopped me before, so here goes: i'm not sure that that's true of the whole Bible. I don't know how many new things you can discover when you're reading the same genealogy for the sixth time. I'm not sure that there are many great spiritual insights tucked into the measurements of the Temple.

But Job always has something new, at least for me. When i read it in different seasons of my life, when i come back to it after some significant experience, when i revisit a passage in a new translation, i notice something new.

This year, i noticed three passages.

Job 13:20-21
"Only two things do not do to me,
Then I will not hide myself from You:
Withdraw Your hand far from me,
And let not the dread of You make me afraid." (NKJV, emphasis mine)

I want that last line tattooed on my skin forever. "Let not the dread of You make me afraid." I read this verse in multiple translations to make sure i was getting the right message. (There's still room for interpretation, but i'm pretty confident in my understanding.) We talk sometimes about fearing God. Some denominations talk more about this than others; earlier generations talked more about it than we do now. "Fear", in this sense, doesn't mean, like, nightmarish terror of the thing under the bed. It means an awed respect for something or someone much greater and more powerful than you, something or someone who is so far beyond your comprehension that you can never hope to meet its level, and yet this thing, this person, is reaching out to you; you were in awe of it when it was on a far-off mountaintop but when it reaches out to take your hand? it's more dreadful and awesome than you could ever imagine. It's the terror of falling in love, really in love, and realizing how much power this other person has to hurt you, and also trusting them completely to keep you safe. It's entering the lavish throne room of a king and seeing him in his great throne, towering over you, with the divine right to control your life, and then seeing him smile at you.

I fear God, but i am not afraid of Him.

In Bible study one week, we talked about the difference between trusting God and trusting in God. Trusting God means being certain that He will never allow anything bad to happen to you. Trusting in God means that you know that bad things will happen to you, but that God is still God throughout, and that His will will be done in the end, trusting that His will is ultimately a good thing, even if it necessitates your death and pain and suffering. This is what Job learned: his life and health and happiness were subject to God's whims, but God is still God. God still loved him. God kept His hand on him. God was dreadful, but Job was not afraid of Him.

Job 16:1-5
Then Job answered and said:
"I have heard many such things;
Miserable comforters are you all!
Shall words of wind have an end?
Or what provokes you that you answer?
I also could speak as you do,
If your soul were in my soul's place.
I could heap up words against you,
And shake my head at you;
But I would strengthen you with my mouth,
And the comfort of my lips would relieve your grief."

Job 32:3
Also against his (Elihu's) three friends his wrath was aroused, because they had found no answer, and yet had condemned Job.

We do this all. the. time. We blame the victim, because if whatever bad thing happened is somehow the victim's fault, than we can just do the opposite of whatever they did or didn't do, and then nothing bad will ever happen to us. We give condemnation to people who are hurting, instead of comfort, or we offer a weak comfort like, "His ways are higher than ours! We don't know what the Hell He is doing! Just shut up, lie back, and take it!" Job's friends could not find an answer, they could not find a sin that he had committed, and yet they persisted in telling him that he must have sinned in some way. That his kids must have sinned in some way. That somewhere, somehow, someone messed up and called down the Wrath of the Almighty on their heads. Of course, those of us in the audience know that no one did anything wrong. And when we're not in the audience, when we're on the stage, it can be hard to keep everything in perspective. It's important to remember, therefore, the lesson of Job's friends: comfort comes before condemnation, and condemnation only comes after proof. Relieve the hurting of their grief, and refrain from insisting that everyone who has ever had something bad happen to them must have asked for it in some way.

words, words, words

Hello!

I know you're all DYING to know what's happening with my comic book, so here's a quick update: STUFF. STUFF is going on.

One of my roommates (the Outlaw) is also a writer, and we've both been sorely missing the regular workshops that we had when we were in school. Recently, we decided to start workshopping again, hoping to draw other people in and forming a real writing group. So far, we have two and a half people.

The Outlaw and i have met twice. The second time we met, i gave him what i had so far of my comic script, and i got some really great feedback -- helpful, constructive, informative, encouraging. I have a LOT of work ahead of me, but i'm energized about it, so it won't be too bad.

We've decided to meet every week, and to vary the format: week one, we will workshop our own individual pieces. Week two, we will work on a collaborative play/short story thing that was Outlaw's idea. This gives us time in between meetings to write and revise based on workshops, helps us keep up our momentum, and allows plenty of time for thinking and reading and re-reading.

The half person has been invited to join the workshop meetings and is excited. Hopefully, we will have our first meeting with her next week.

So i'm re-writing my prologue and expanding it, and then i'll continue with the rest of the story, editing and darkening and writing, writing, writing. I'm very excited to have other people look at my work, and to see work from other people. There is nothing more inspiring than a really good workshop.

And if you live in the Boston area and have been looking for a writing workshop, let me know! We'd love to expand the group further.

1 Corinthians 10-16, 2 Corinthians 1-7

The Pauline epistles are tricky. On the one hand, you have heaps of brilliant theology and whole long passages of stunning poetry. On the other hand, you have twisty, legalistic arguments about theology and statements that, taken out of context, are cripplingly misogynistic. And even in context, some of the things he says are not exactly uplifting to the "weaker vessels".

1 Corinthians 11:3-12
But I want you to know that the head of every man is Christ, the head of ever woman is man, and the head of Christ is God. Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonors his head. But every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head, for that is one and the same as if her head were shaved. For if a woman is not covered, let her also be shorn. But if it is shameful for a woman to be shorn or shaved, let her be covered. For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of man. Nor was man created for the woman, but woman for the man. For this reason the woman ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels. Nevertheless, neither is man independent of woman, nor woman independent of man, in the Lord. For as the woman was from the man, even so the man also is through the woman; but all things are from God.

Passages like this one used to make me livid. And then i remembered something: Paul is a man. He is not God. He is not Jesus. He was not even one of the original twelve apostles. He is brilliant and wise and many good and Christ-like things, yes, but he is not the ultimate authority in all things Christian. Not by a long shot. He is fallible, and is prone to his own prejudices and deficits of experience and knowledge.

Paul was never married. He was a life-long celibate. And he thought that everyone should be celibate, to give them more time and energy to focus on God. And i am reminded of the misogyny of C. S. Lewis' early writings, which soon gave way to a wholly egalitarian point of view once he was married. Perhaps if Paul had ever married, he might have softened the edges of some of these verses.

Furthermore, check out the ending: "Neither is man independent of woman, nor woman independent of Man, in the Lord. For as the woman was from the man, even so the man also is through the woman . . ." There is not a single man alive today who did not arrive here because of a woman. No man can ever live without a woman being involved at some point. We all need one another.

1 Corinthians 13
I've written about this one before, and it remains one of my favorite passages of scripture. It is so simple, so beautiful, so powerful and important. Let me just highlight a few key verses:

"And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing. Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."

question

SPOILER ALERT FOR MY COMIC BOOK

Okay.

So for this comic book i'm writing? It will span about a thousand years. I'm roughly following the timeline of human history, at least in terms of clothing styles, technology, cultural activities (jousting tournament vs. football game), and architecture. I won't be including real things like civil rights (they've always existed in this world) or WWI or II. It's not set in a real country. I won't be worrying about vocabulary, except when it's fun (S'blood! Look at that swanky tomato! Groovy!)

However, the thing about comic books is that they provide something of a shortcut. You don't have to spend pages and pages setting up the plot and explaining that this takes place two months before Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed. You don't have to give background or describe the demographics of the hometown. You can just show a couple of panels of people wearing particular clothing and having brief conversations about MLK while engaging in particular activities, and everyone knows exactly what you're talking about. You've cut to the heart of the story without wasting time.

So regardless of the actual country that my story is set in, and regardless of the actual events discussed within it, if i have men in powdered wigs and knee-breeches, or women in flapper dresses with shingle haircuts, everyone is going to feel like they already know something about the story. There will be certain feelings and expectations brought up by the visual cues, which is the whole point of having visual cues.

I know. The title of this post is "question", and so far all i've done is lecture you on comic book visuals. I'm getting there, i promise.

The last issue will take place somewhere in the 20th or 21st century. I've thought a lot about the visual cues (bell-bottom jeans vs. pencil skirts, top hats vs. backwards baseball caps), and i've thought a lot about the subtler nuances of culture conveyed by those visual cues (Civil Rights movement, suffrage for women, Great Depression, Space Race).

I have narrowed it down to three decades: the 1920s (flapper princess?! What's not to love?), 1950s (suits and cigarettes and bright red lipstick), and 2010s (a princess with skinny jeans and tattoos?). I'm asking everyone for an opinion on this, because when someone hears the bare bones of this story, there are certain feelings and thoughts evoked, and certain visuals begin to swim around their heads. Readers tend to make up their minds about certain things and to know what makes sense and what doesn't, and i'm trusting those instincts.

The overarching narrative of this whole series is two-fold: the fairy world is in conflict with the human one, and two fairies are struggling to rule one another. The two fairies are half-siblings, and the older one is of mixed race. They therefore have equal claim to the throne, and after many centuries of fighting they have decided that one of them will keep Faerie while one gets the human world. Of course, each is secretly planning to kill their sibling and take over both worlds.

In this final issue, they have decided to each marry one human, so as to gain a foothold in the human world to help jumpstart their conquest. But Rhynesh falls for the princess and kills his sister, putting an end to the plan. He then cuts all ties between the two worlds, ensuring that fairies won't be able to harass humans any longer.

So what decade? 1920s, 1950s, or 2010s? If you have an idea for another decade, feel free to make your case.

Acts 22-28, Romans 1-4

Romans 2:12-16

For as many as have sinned without law will also perish without law, and as many as have sinned in the law will be judged by the law (for not the hearers of the law are just in the sight of God, but the doers of the law will be justified; for when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do the things contained in the law, these, although not having the law, are a law to themselves, who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them) in the day when God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to my gospel.

Rambling parentheticals and semicolons aside (Paul, originally a Pharisee, writes like a lawyer; does he remind you of anyone?), what this passage says is really powerful and deep. Let's break it down:

"For as many as have sinned without law will also perish without law" = If you do something wrong without knowing, you're off the hook. You can't be punished for not knowing any better.

"And as many as have sinned in the law will be judged by the law" = Conversely, if you know full well that what you're doing is wrong, you will be held accountable for that.

"for not the hearers of the law are just in the sight of God, but the doers of the law will be justified" = It's not enough to say, 'I go to church, my family are all Christians'. Salvation does not work by osmosis.

"for when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do the things contained in the law, these, although not having the law, are a law to themselves, who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them" = Gentiles don't know the law, yet they still do a lot of the things they are supposed to do. Like when atheists volunteer at soup kitchens, or help build orphanages, or do pro bono health care work. They don't know what we know, yet their own hearts and consciences direct them to the right actions, the right feelings.

"in the day when God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to my gospel." = Finally we come to the end of the parenthetical! Let's take out the parentheses for a moment and look at this sentence: "For as many as have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and as many as have sinned in the law will be judged by the law in the day when God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to my Gospel."

Basically, you won't be penalized for doing wrong if you don't know any better, but you will be rewarded for doing right even if you haven't been told what is right. And if you do wrong when you do know better, that's obviously going to cost you.

the things i carry

I read "The Things They Carried", Tim O'Brien's brilliant work of metafiction, in my sophomore year of college.

This book changed. my. life.

I could write a whole post about that, but i'm not going to. Just read it.

What i will do is say that when we read it, we did a free-writing activity where we dug into our own backpacks and purses and talked about the things we carried, and what those things said about us. I'm notorious for finding strange things in my purse and being unable to explain how they got there (a fork, glittery sunblock, rope, broken pieces of glass, a Joker card from a deck i did not own), so the piece i wrote was probably nine kinds of fascinating. I don't really remember.

Today, however, this is what i carry:

• a white, Precious Moments Bible, NKJV, with about a million blue post-it notes to keep track of my reading schedule. My parents gave this Bible to me when i was three, for an Easter present. I've carried a lot of Bibles over the years, and this one is my current one for two reasons: i like the translation and it fits in my purse.
• a composition notebook nearly filled with poems, post-it love letters from my boyfriend, dried leaves and flowers, homework assignments, recipes, travel itineraries, shopping lists, and Bible study notes. I always have something to write with. ALWAYS. If i'm going to a wedding and can only carry a tiny little delicate clutch purse, i fill it with a miniature composition notebook, or with old receipts, or a handful of cocktail napkins.
• a composition notebook half-filled with a story rewrite. I love composition notebooks. Every July/August, when back-to-school sales start up, i have to stop shopping at Walmart or i will come home with another three composition notebooks that i don't need. I have about twenty notebooks that are completely or mostly empty, waiting to be used, and i keep buying notebooks anyway, just in case Mead ever goes out of business and i need to keep a stash hidden away.
• printed pages of another story, ready to be storyboarded/scripted. I keep getting so exited about this book i'm writing that i leap ahead to the next part before i've totally finished the part i'm on. You know when you're reading a book and you're totally into it and your heart is racing and you've forgotten to eat or pee in the last seven hours and you are approaching the denouement and you're reading SO FAST to find out what happens next that you can't even totally take in what you just read? It's like that.
• printed poems to be edited. Despite the excitement, however, i'm starting to get a little restless. I really really really want this book to be done, already. It's been seven years. I want to start something new. I'm excited, and breathless, and can't wait to get it into shape and start scripting and storyboarding and finding artists and agents and publishers, but i also want to do other things. And i very badly want to publish some poems.
• phone and iPad chargers. I stayed at my boyfriend's apartment last night (scandal!) and there are no plugs on my side of the bed. So i have to charge things at work.
• phone and iPad. There are games to be played and text messages to be sent!
• The Truth, by Terry Pratchett, and the third volume of the Batman Chronicles. Because they're what i'm reading right now.
• wallet, keys, pens, gum. Because secretly i'm a soccer mom.
• a gum wrapper. Which is weird, because i'm rarely more than two feet away from a trashcan. Also, there's only one.
• three Dunkin Donuts napkins. Because i spill things on myself all. the. time.
• three different church bulletin-y things. Because the guy who hands them out is persistent, and i never remember to toss them in the recycling bin when i leave. However, i do use them to write hasty notes to myself, like "I am Asher Lev", which i think may be a book title or something. Somebody Google it and let me know.
• a coupon for Dove soap. Because my boyfriend is 97 and likes clipping coupons and wants me to shower. (Full disclosure: my boyfriend is not 97. He is 23. And precious. And you can't have him. And i shower more or less regularly.)
• three receipts. In case i need scrap paper for writing and run out of composition notebooks, church bulletins, and Dunkin Donuts napkins.
• shopping list on an index card for the things i accidentally left at Walmart and had to re-purchase. Should be self-explanatory. Plus i used it to practice writing with my new fountain pen, which is really cool-looking.
• two pay stubs. Because i'm bad at filing.
• two thank-you notes (from other people, to me). Because i am utterly and uncontainably wonderful, and my wonderfulness is constantly sloshing out and spilling all over people whenever they get near me, and they can't help but express their appreciation with notes and baked goods. Plus, envelopes = scrap paper. Just in case.
• deli menu. I ate there once. It was okay. But i saw that they offered free delivery, and sometimes you really want mediocre deli food brought to your door.
• Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair, by Pablo Neruda. I like to carry a book of poems around with me, like a security blanket. Plus i always think i'm going to use spare moments to memorize poems, instead of reading blog archives or making sarcastic comments in my head. I am always mistaken in this delusion, but Neruda doesn't judge me. 

Acts 14-21

You know what's awesome about Acts? Besides all the miracles and shit? The women.

We did see a few women involved in Jesus' ministry: prostitutes, his mother, Peter's mother-in-law, Mary and Martha. And women were the first to see the empty tomb and the resurrected Christ, the first to preach the good news that He was risen. Jesus brought about a new order wherein women were a vital part of the ministry, and the disciples continued that trend after he was gone.

Granted, women are not nearly as prominent as men. Fewer of them are mentioned by name, or mentioned at all, but tucked in here and there are stories of women serving the Lord, and kicking ass and taking names.

In Acts 16:14-15, we see Lydia. The text calls her a "seller of purple", and without going into the historical and cultural details, we know that this means that she was pretty wealthy. Her husband is not mentioned; she may have been a widow, or she may have been married and her husband was simply inconsequential to her business success or her conversion.

We know that she was wealthy and independent. We know that her name was Lydia. And we know that she and her whole household were baptized, and that she opened her home to all the disciples of the Lord, whenever they were in the area.

In Acts 17:4, no one is mentioned by name. But as Paul and Silas preached in Greece, we are told that "a great multitude of the devout Greeks, and not a few of the leading women, joined Paul and Silas." (emphasis mine)

Now, they were Greek, so the culture was different. But the women are still mentioned apart from the men, and are still called "leading women". Their authority was recognized by the author of Acts, despite the different culture, and their conversion was considered significant. In those days, you worshiped whatever god or gods your husband worshiped. If he converted, so did you. If you came from a different country where different gods were followed, you left them behind. Granted, many women kept small idols or shrines or rites or other scraps of their home religions, worshiping in secret as they could, but it was assumed that their devotion was to their husband first, and their god or gods second. This is an idea that unfortunately has won some ground in certain "Christian" circles. I actually read a book that explained (with helpful diagrams to assist the comprehension of the poor little ladies who were struggling to read anything longer than a cupcake recipe) how a woman is able to serve and worship God through her husband. Man was made for God, the book said (and illustrated with diagrams), and woman was made for man.

Bull. Shit.

These women converted on their own. They didn't go home and talk to their husbands, they didn't follow the practices of their husbands, some of them may even have been unmarried or widowed. They converted because they believed. They came before the throne of God of their own volition, and they surrendered their own wills to Him, and not to anyone else.

This is the kingdom of God on earth. This is the new order. This is what Christianity should look like. Tell your friends.

Phoenix

I said before that i didn't adapt existing fairy tales to fit the structure of my book, except when i had writer's block. And i don't really have any interest in continuing to work on these stories, to adapt and edit and turn them into comics that have a place in the narrative i have created.

But i kinda do.

It wouldn't be part of the overall narrative, probably a separate volume of bonus issues, with maybe some behind-the-scenes stuff (old drafts, scripts, etc). One of those things that doesn't really have a place on the timeline, but that nevertheless belongs to the same sort of world.

It would be great to do a few of my favorites, including some of the unfortunately overlooked ones (The Six Swans would be particularly well-suited to my world), but i'd mostly like to avoid the overdone, Disney-fied ones (like Snow White, who only manages to stop being Betty Boop in my head when she is written by Gregory Maguire or Gail Carson Levine). And Cinderella exists in every culture in the world; what's the point of rehashing that one? The gruesome roots of Sleeping Beauty might be kind of fun to explore, but i'm not sure i actually want to publish a fairy tale about rape and attempted cannibalism, especially since people are not very good at Googling and would likely assume that i made up those elements of the story. (I didn't).

So i was all set to hunt out obscure and beautiful stories that were easily adaptable. And then one day, i was out for a walk around my neighborhood, when it occurred to me that there was still something new to say about Cinderella.

My Cinderella is an agent of AVIS. (Don't worry if you have no idea what that means. I don't think you're supposed to yet.) She is one of the most powerful and talented magicians/witches/agents (haven't figured out what to call them yet) they have ever seen. And AVIS badly needs some political support and power. Cinderella (Phoenix) wants to continue her studies, train other agents, and launch an attack against Faerie. AVIS wants her to become a queen so that they can get an official militia behind them.

Eventually, she is pressured into marrying the doofus prince (what kind of man bases his decision to marry you on how tiny your feet are?), but she is angry and frustrated. She therefore uses her magic to live up to her name and escape the banality of her existence, all in one fell swoop (bonus points to whoever figures out how she does it).

infinite loop

If you have ever read a short story, novel, poem, or piece of speculative fiction about time travel, if you have ever seen a TV show, movie, web short, play, or commercial about time travel, if your physics professor ever mentioned time travel in class, you know the most important rule: don't change anything in the past.

If you change something in the past, even something totally insignificant -- like, say, giving Native Americans safety pins or encouraging Napoleon to grow a beard -- you will return to your present time only to find that it has transformed into a nightmare world, where Nazis have teamed up with Martians to enslave lesser races and turn them into hamburgers. If you somehow travel into the past, you must make sure that your presence there is totally undetectable, that your arrival and departure create no ripples in the fabric of existence, that you change nothing. God forbid you should somehow prevent your parents from meeting, or from getting married, or anything like that -- you will wipe out your own existence!

Except that, if you wipe out your own existence, there will be no "you" to interfere with your parents. Which means that they will meet and get married and have you, and you will be born.

Which means that there will be a "you" to interfere with the past, wiping yourself out of existence.

Which means that there will be no "you" to interfere, meaning that everything will unfold in exactly the way that it already has.

Which means that you will be born.

Which means that there will be a "you" to interfere with the past . . .

The problem with interfering in the past is NOT that it would change the rest of the course of history, necessitating a trip back to set everything right (hilarity ensues as the hero finds himself fending off advances from his own mother!). The problem with interfering in the past is that it would create a tear in the space-time continuum, and send you rocketing back and forth between existence and non-existence like a metaphysical tennis ball. Plus, remember the butterfly effect: if your parents had never met, obviously you wouldn't exist, but what else might have changed? Who would they have married instead? Would one of them have found the cure for cancer? Would one of them have become the next Hitler? Imagine a world of constant, rippling change, where you rocket back and forth between existence and non-existence, the whole face of the two worlds drastically different. One world would be the one we know, but what would the other one be? Utopia or Hell?

Which is a fascinating concept for a story.

We all assume that life proceeds onward in a straight line, unhindered by any science fiction tropes. But in reality, there was a time traveler at some point in the past/present/future who so badly fucked up that the entire universe is constantly being re-created and destroyed. Every generation, the re-set button is pressed, and none of us are aware of it, because we are all living inside the loop (Matrix-like). There is no progress, no moving forward. Just endless, senseless reincarnation. And physics.

John 2-8

John 5:8-10
Jesus said to him, "Rise, take up your bed and walk." And immediately the man was made well, took up his bed, and walked. And that day was the Sabbath. The Jews therefore said to him who was cured, "It is the Sabbath; it is not lawful for you to carry your bed."

The man in question was a cripple. He had been unable to walk his whole life, but Jesus healed him. And the Jews immediately got upset because the man was "working" on the Sabbath.

It takes a while to finish healing. When the doctor takes the cast off of your leg, you have to work hard to regain muscle tone. The skin needs to be exfoliated and cleaned and moisturized. You need to re-learn how to walk. When you come out of rehab, it takes a while to figure out how to avoid temptation in the outside world. Beer commercials are on TV, on the sides of buses, in magazines. Pills are everywhere. The people you knew before may try to bring you back to your old ways.

Healing takes time. After the initial, painful, technical healing (detox, bones re-fusing, deciding to let go of anger, breaking off an unhealthy relationship, being miraculously healed of a chronic condition), there are millions of smaller healings that come all day, every day, for a long time.

These people were looking at a walking miracle, and they got distracted by the fact that his healing was ongoing. How often do we see a new Christian and get distracted by their potty mouth, or their smoking habit, or the clothes they wear to church? Instead of being overjoyed that they are trying, that they are growing and learning, that they have taken a big step in their lives, we get upset that they haven't taken that step the "right" way. We need to give people room to grow, room to learn, room to heal. We need to see the miracle, and ignore everything else.

John 7:52
They answered and said to Him, "Are you also from Galilee? Search and look, for no prophet has arisen out of Galilee."

There's a first time for everything, kids. Again, don't let your own preconceived ideas about the "right" way to do things distract you from the presence of the Divine.

John 8:3-11, 15
Then the scribes and Pharisees brought to Him a woman caught in adultery. And when they had set her in the midst, they said to Him, "Teacher, this woman was caught in adultery, in the very act. Now Moses, in the law, commanded us that such be stoned. But what do You say?" This they said, testing Him, that they might have something of which to accuse Him. But Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground with His finger, as though He did not hear. So when they continued asking Him, He raised Himself up and said to them, "He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first." And again He stooped down and wrote on the ground. Then those who heard it, being convicted by their conscience, went out one by one, beginning with the oldest even to the last. And Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. When Jesus had raised Himself up and saw no one but the woman, He said to her, "Woman, where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you?" She said, "No one, Lord." And Jesus said to her, "Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more."
"You judge according to the flesh; I judge no one."

This. This right here.

At no point does Jesus make excuses for this woman; she has sinned, and He knows that and is sorrowed by it.

But neither does He judge her.

Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more . . . You judge according to the flesh; I judge no one.

He knows that she has done wrong. He asks her not to do it again. But He doesn't judge.

There is a big difference between holding someone accountable and judging them, a big difference between acknowledging that someone's choices are not beneficial to their lives and thinking less of them because of those choices.

Also, can i point out that the law of Moses that they reference (Lev. 20:10 and Deut. 22:22) state that PEOPLE caught in adultery should be killed? In fact, both passages are pretty clear that BOTH people are to blame, and that BOTH should be put to death. So where's the dude? How come only the woman was brought to Jesus? If she was caught in the act, the guy must have been there. So where is he now?

Call for Artists

Guys, this is for serious. Everyone in my office is on their staff retreat right now, so i'm basically writing nonstop at my desk. This is great, because i don't have a desk at home, so it's very hard for me to write when i'm there. I've been very productive yesterday and today, and the book is really coming into focus.

And it has to be comics.

Until i started reading comics, it would never in a trillion years have occurred to me to write one. I don't write superhero stories, i can't draw, and i'm not interested in attending conventions with people dressed as Spock or Batman. I didn't know that it was possible to write comics outside of those parameters. I thought that comics necessarily equaled superheroes and loner nerds.

Sandman has proved me wrong. V for Vendetta has proved me wrong. Hell, even Batman and X-Men have proved me wrong. Suddenly, i get why people like these things, why comics have endured for generations, why kids can grow up reading comics and be no less in love with them as they approach (or even pass) middle age.

And now, the book i've been struggling to write for over seven years makes sense. It needs to be a comic.

But i still can't draw. I still need an artist.

So if anyone reading this is a comics artist, or knows someone who is a comics artist, or has a cousin whose ex-husband works with a guy whose daughter's college roommate is a comics artist, send them my way. It's going to take a while for this whole thing to be ready to roll, but with everything suddenly making so much sense in my head and on paper, i don't want to delay any more than i have to.

So, seriously. If you know anyone who might want to collaborate with a stranger on the internet who claims to have a great story for a comic book and has never been published before, send them my way. But do it discreetly, because anyone who reads that last sentence and thinks, "This sounds like a wonderful and totally legitimate business opportunity!" may not be someone i want to work with.

Luke 19:28-24:53, John 1

John 1:1-5
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

John 1:14
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

John 1:16
And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace.

I AM SO EXCITED TO START READING JOHN!!! John is, in my opinion, the best-written gospel. John had a special relationship with Jesus, so his account offers a unique perspective, and he is also a great writer. The passages above are twisty and weird, but also beautiful and theologically deep. I still get chills when i read over the first half of this chapter.

John 1:46
And Nathanael said to him, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" Philip said to him, "Come and see."

This verse, John 1:46, is interesting for a different reason. I've read lots of books that attempted to factually prove the existence and divinity of Christ. While i do think that there is evidence of these things, and while i agree that intellectual satisfaction is important for a life of faith (especially for me), i don't think that we'll ever have absolute proof. Where is faith in the face of overwhelming evidence? Furthermore, i think that this is entirely the wrong approach to take with most people. We choose to disregard facts every day. People see pictures of smokers' lungs and still go through packs a day. We attend funerals of drunk drivers or their victims and still think that buzzed driving is okay. We refuse to wear seat belts, we eat junk food and avoid exercise, we drink coffee and Red Bull by the gallon, we eat out instead of buying groceries and cooking.

Jesus goes beyond fact. It's not enough to make arguments, to create bulleted lists, to produce eyewitness accounts.

Philip doesn't try to tell Nathanael about the things that he has seen. He doesn't remind him of prophecies, or tell him what John the baptist said, or try to get into an intellectual debate. He just says, "Come and see." Because in the end, there is no substitute for our own experiences.

Faith in Jesus is more than accepting a list of facts, more than bowing under the weight of incontrovertible evidence. Faith in Jesus is a personal experience. You have to come and see for yourself.

Luke 4:31-11:54

Luke 6:6-10
Now it happened on another Sabbath, also, that He entered the synagogue and taught. And a man was there whose right hand was withered. And the scribes and Pharisees watched Him closely, whether He would heal on the Sabbath, that they might find an accusation against Him. But He knew their thoughts, and said to the man who had the withered hand, "Arise and stand here." And he arose and stood. Then Jesus said to them, "I will ask you one thing: Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil, to save a life or to destroy it?" And looking around at them all, He said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." And he did so, and his hand was restored as whole as the other.
(emphasis mine)

Sometimes, we get so caught up in the "don't"s, in the things that we are not supposed to do, that we forget about the "do"s. It is true that God forbade work on the Sabbath, that He set aside that day for rest and worship. But worshiping God by doing nothing is not better or more important than worshiping God by healing the sick or feeding the hungry. It is important to be kind and tactful with our words, but avoiding swearing is not more important than conveying truth. It is important to be aware of sin in our own lives and in others, and to refuse to condone a harmful lifestyle and bad decisions, and to hold others accountable to high standards, but it is not more important to judge or condemn or correct than it is to listen and understand and love.

Wednesdays are swiftly becoming book writing days, huh? It's mostly unintentional, but maybe i should make it official. We'll see.

Anyway. This is a brief post, just to say this: four years after penning what i thought was the final installment in my series of fairy tales, i am contemplating a new one. As i read back through the old stories, i realized something important. While i have worked hard to both preserve and break the classic structures, my fairy tales are still not as feminist-empowering, equal-rights, civil-liberties, freedom-and-justice-for-all as i would like them to be. I'm remedying that now, rewriting descriptions of some characters to make them non-White races, tweaking characters to make them more independent and powerful, giving my queens and princesses just as much power, authority, and freedom as my kings and princes. But it's still not enough.

So i'm crossing the final frontier and attempting to write a same-sex fairy tale where one princess rescues another, so that they can live happily ever after.

I'm nervous about this for two reasons, one way more noble than the other.

The first, more noble reason, is that i'm not gay. I'm not even bi-curious. I'm about as straight as it is possible to be. I'm not sure how to write from the perspective of a lesbian princess. I don't want to get anything wrong. I don't want anyone to be hurt, or confused, or offended, by what i write. If i'm going to get angry letters, i want them to be from Christian fundamentalists who are condemning me for contributing to the decline of morality in our nation, not from angry lesbians who insist that i stop trying to represent something i know nothing about. I understand that it can be a really tricky area. I've read things written by well-meaning men in strong support of women and women's rights and feminism and so forth that still set my teeth on edge. I don't want to be "that guy".

The second reason is that i know damn well that including a lesbian romance in my story will make it harder to find a publisher. Publishers don't want to get angry letters from anyone, whether Christian fundamentalists or lesbians. Publishers don't want bookstores to refuse to buy their stock. Bookstores don't want to be boycotted or to have to pull stock that isn't moving or is causing controversy. I don't want to lose money because i'm trying to write a fair story.

But at the end of the day, i'm going to say "fuck it". Because my concerns assume that someone somewhere will want to publish my book, and that if they decide not to, it will be out of fear of retribution and lost money, and that's pretty arrogant of me. Because i'm not doing this to make money or to be famous, but because when i try to sleep at night my head buzzes with the stories i haven't told. Because i'd rather write well than sell well. Because my need to be honest is greater than my need to succeed. Because the world needs more positive models of feminine strength and healthy relationships, even if those models are both women. Because this is one more story that has buzzed its way into my brain and heart, and i know i won't be able to move on until i've told it.

I may post excerpts here as i work on it. Or i may not. We'll see.

Mark 14-16, Luke 1-4:30

It's funny; for all the similarities between the gospels, there are also some pretty stark differences. Mark follows Matthew very closely, but is twelve chapters shorter. Luke (the doctor) wrote an incredibly detailed account. John wrote a lot of poetry in his version. Matthew and Mark tend to blend together a little in my head, but Luke and John are sharp and distinct.

The funny thing about Luke is how he can be telling an incredibly detailed story and then just kind of end it. An example is in Luke 4:28-30. Jesus has been preaching in the synagogue, and has just announced that He is the Messiah, and everyone is starting to freak out a little. They try to deny His authority, but he responds quietly and calmly and refuses to get riled up.

"Then all those in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath, and rose up and thrust Him out of the city; and they led Him to the brow of the hill on which their city was built, that they might throw Him down over the cliff. Then passing through the midst of them, He went on His way."

What? An angry mob dragged Him to the top of a cliff to throw Him off and He walks away? How? Did He do something to distract them? Did He influence their hearts and minds to forget what they were trying to do? Was He invisible?

Luke gives us genealogies, family background, stories about John the Baptist, reports of civil unrest and political intrigue, descriptions of the emotions of each major character at important points of the story, and geographical detail. And then he leads us to the top of a cliff and simply walks away.

Shoddy storytelling, Luke. If this were a graded assignment, you'd probably end up with a C+.

Matthew 14-21

I don't have anything big to say this week. I guess all of my inspiration was crowded into last week's passages. Still, there is a lot of good in Matthew, just nothing that is particularly touching me right now.

I will say this: Jesus spoke in parables. Even His own disciples didn't know what He was talking about most of the time. So how can we read translations of memories of his words many years later and assume that we know anything? Parables are stories, and as someone who holds an English degree, i can tell you that stories are meant to live inside of you, to be explored and discovered and shared, to be discussed and analyzed and argued and loved, to be whispered at bedtime and shouted from the rooftops. They are not meant to be concrete. They are not supposed to be the same thing to every person, or even the same thing to the same person every time. I've read the Harry Potter books at least a dozen times through, and i still find new things to wonder at each time. Do we think that Jesus is less complex than J. K. Rowling? Do we think that His teachings are easier to understand and pin down?

Instead of trying to find The Answer to all of Jesus' teachings, The Lesson that He wanted to give us, why not accept that the Bible is a living text and that the Holy Spirit still speaks to us today? Why not read the Bible the same way that we read other literature, and understand that its shifting, multifaceted meanings are what make it beautiful and valuable?

Matthew 16:1-4
Then the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and testing Him asked that He would show them a sign from heaven. He answered and said to them, "When it is evening you say, 'it will be fair weather, for the sky is red'; and in the morning, 'it will be foul weather, for the sky is red and threatening.' Hypocrites! You know how to discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times. A wicked and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and none will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah." And He left them and departed.

Ezekiel 24-48, Daniel 1-10

This week, there was nothing specific that really jumped out at me. But in reading Daniel, i noticed something interesting: While Daniel has earned some honor and respect for himself in Babylon, the Babylonians have not converted to Judaism. They realize that his God is pretty powerful (witness the interpretation of dreams, the fiery furnace, the lion's den, etc), but they continue to worship their own. It is this, in fact, that gets Daniel thrown to the lions in the first place.

But every time there is some kind of confusion or emergency, and the king's advisers call on Daniel, they refer to the Hebrew God in glowing terms (Daniel 4:34-37, 6:24-28, etc). It's unlikely that "heathens" who worshiped a different god would be so complimentary of this one. They might recognize His power and authority in some areas, but they would not speak of him worshipfully. They would either convert or be a little less effusive.

History is written by the victors. I'm not saying that the "history" parts of the Bible are a pack of lies, but it is important to remember that the Hebrews themselves wrote it. It is possible to write an account that is 100% factual, and yet present the information in such a way that even other eyewitnesses wouldn't recognize the story. And i have to wonder how often the Hebrew scholars and historians painted up the facts a little. Did the king's advisers trust and respect Daniel? Yes, the ones who didn't want him dead. Did they have some respect for the God that was able to protect him from harm and interpret dreams? Yes, the ones who weren't so jealous of his success and his closeness to the King that they created religiously oppressive laws for the sole purpose of having him killed.

Those of you who remember Veggie Tales might recall one of my favorite songs, the one where the king's advisers are scheming against Daniel:
Oh no, what we gonna do?
The King likes Daniel more than me and you!
Oh no, what we gonna do?
We gotta get him out of here!


It's important, when reading the Bible, to keep in mind who wrote it and what motivations they may have had for presenting the truth in a certain light. A people enslaved by another nation need a reason to feel superior to their captors. Like the certainty that all the Babylonians were in awe of the Hebrew God.

Just something to think about.

Not a Real Review: Sandman

This is not so much a review as a ramble about what might just be my new favorite book series.

I'm very new to graphic novels and comic books. I started reading the X-Men comics a few months ago, and while i have been enjoying them so far, they are strange to read. Comic books are not simply more grown-up versions of illustrated story books. They tell stories in a different way than i am used to.

Reading a comic book is a little like watching a TV show. The way that stories are structured, the way that longer arcs are serialized, and the way that exposition takes place are all strongly reminiscent of TV, but they are still written and not performed. Learning to read them is a little like learning to read a new language.

If comic books are TV shows, graphic novels are movies. The pacing is more deliberate, the suspense more sustained, the serialized arcs and exposition are longer and deeper. They're not inherently better or worse, just as movies are not inherently better or worse than TV shows. They're just different.

Those who are interested in graphic novels should start with Sandman, and they should read Mark Oshiro's reviews alongside of them. Mark is much more familiar with this genre than i am, and is also a much better reviewer. Reading his reviews has helped me to unpack what is happening in each issue of each volume of these novels.

Sandman is not for the faint of heart or weak of stomach. These stories are dark, and harsh, and gritty. And they are very, very real. To paraphrase what the Sandman himself says in the third volume, something need not have happened to be true. These stories are absolutely true, and that is the source of their horror. They expose some of the most unpleasant truths about human beings and examine some of our darkest realities.

But this is not shock for shock's sake. There is redemption and beauty to be found here as well. Just as in life, however, stories take longer to resolve. This isn't an after-school special where the happy lesson comes after half an hour. This is a serious film, where the ultimate resolution may not be found until several sequels later. There are moments of joy, moments of love and peace, moments of quiet. But they come at the price of suffering and horror. Consequences are rarely uplifting, but always credible.

These stories may not be everyone's cup of tea, but i can guarantee that they won't be easily forgotten. These are stories that sink down into your psyche and stay.