Maybe. I mean, it could be worse, couldn't it? God, I hope not. But we humans are always looking over the fence toward some better grass. My son illustrates this principle well in this little gem from '17. Gabe didn't want to get off the couch, walk across the living room, and get something. He …
Continue reading Spontaneous 11: All I Want For Christmas is 2021
On linen and straw
lay a birth and a death.
God hedged by flesh
shepherds, magi.
∞
It pleases us to imagine
God just born, vulnerable
delivery’s slick dross clings
the ache of mortality.
∞
It’s comfortable: God
on bovine-scented straw
held in woman’s arms
and a lowly one at that.
∞
It’s Christmas: a keening deity
swaddled. Bound
by a choice to come
die. One day. A black Friday.
∞
Not Black Friday savings
markdowns, slashed prices.
But marked, slashed, battered
He saved us.
∞
It’s God:
carrying His death and ours
to a far-off hill, an infinite burden.
A mustard seed must die
For a tree to thrive.
Centuries’ old tradition
…finished.
∞
In linen and blood
hangs a birth and a death
God hedged by flesh
Crucified.
All writers beat their stories. Don't give me that look; they do. Any writer who wants to be read, who doesn't keep the stories to himself and tries (oh how hard he tries) to find an audience, that writer will beat and be beaten by his stories, often simultaneously. Whether or not he rises again …
Run fast, stand still. In quickness is truth. The faster you blurt, the more swiftly you write, the more honest you are. In hesitation is thought. In delay comes the effort for a style, instead of leaping upon truth which is the only style worth deadfalling or tiger-trapping. - Ray Bradbury Learning from iguanas. Close enough.
...to vote for your favorite flash fiction. I teach writing to homeschooled students. Readers, would you be willing to help out? All you need to do is click the thumbs-up to cast your vote for a flash, and if you can't choose just one, feel free to choose more. And if you REALLY feel moved …
Just as true this 2020 Election Day as it was when I posted it in 2013. After reading C.S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters with my 5000 Words class, I can guess what the infamous devil-professor would say about this election (between fits of jumping up and down, clapping, and cheering)... My Dear Wormwood, I am pleased to see you …
"Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate." Carl Jung Atomic Habits by James Clear pulled back the curtain on my unconscious mind and revealed the old man who pulls levers and pushes my buttons and tells me not to mind him at all. That old …
Continue reading I am What I Daily Do, Not What I Wish Were True
Most writers, myself included, are an unlikely mix of brazen and bashful. Brazen: Who puts words out there for anybody to see, is never more than moderately certain of their accuracy and origin, and still forges ahead, possibly confidently wrong? And bashful: Who's more comfortable undressing her soul to the world-at-large than to a friend, …
Confidently wrong. That is a phrase that's been used to describe me. It's quite annoying. I don't mean for me. I'm talking about those unfortunates who ask me a question. My confidence causes them to take my advice, and my wrongness causes us to be, well, wrong. And we usually discover it together. In the …
Continue reading I Stand Corrected: You Can Have Your Cake & Eat it Too
I had a dry spell for several months, so it felt especially good to have my flash story "A Far Fall" longlisted by Reflex Fiction. I woke up to the lovely surprise of seeing it in print today. You can read it here. (I hope you will!) Interested in subbing to a free flash fiction …
