A year ago I finished my first adult novel, a blend of realistic fiction, fantasy, and sci-fi entitled Angels & Aliens. Ever since then I’ve been trying to get it published, sending it everywhere I can think of and getting one rejection after another. I’ve been very patient throughout this process, thinking it was only a matter of time. But finally one day I lost patience and began complaining bitterly to God.
I’ve been enjoying a book that was a big bestseller back in the 1960’s: Prayers by Michel Quoist.
A rich young man knelt before Jesus, asking how to obtain eternal life. He’d always obeyed the commandments. What else should he do?
A new book by a favorite writer who died 25 years ago is a great occasion. Flying, Falling, Catching: An Unlikely Story of Finding Freedom is Henri Nouwen’s account of a great passion he developed, in the final years of his life, for the flying trapeze. Who knew?
In the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, built over the cave where Jesus was born, there is also an arresting reminder of His death.
Lewis Carroll, author of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, was a chronic insomniac who often felt the urge to write at night. Living as he did before electric lights were common, he invented what he called a nyctograph, or night-writer, along with a notation system of nyctography for writing without the aid of a light.
What are the elements of good spiritual writing? First, obviously, a deep and vibrant faith in God, such that the writing fairly glows with His presence.
Do you remember when the universal convention was to leave two spaces after a period rather than just one? If you do, then you’re probably as old as I am (70), or older. How did the change to one space come about? Who ever made this monumental decision?
I want to share with you a prayer that I’ve been praying lately. I’m not usually keen on canned prayers, but this one is a humdinger.
One reason for the great popularity of the children’s classic Goodnight Moon is that it’s really a prayer—a nighttime prayer of thanksgiving, a gentle, joyous litany of ordinary blessings.