Category Archives: Writing

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In Search of Authentic Christianity: A Protestant Crosses the Church Divide

Some of you know that I’ve been writing a book that has a monastic flavor to it. I spent a year making weekly visits to a Trappist monastery, the Abbey of New Clairvaux in Vina, California. While there, I would write my observances and then blend them with personal viewpoint, philosophical insights, and spiritual understanding and also highlight some of the events in the world scene. I’m completing a careful edit of the manuscript right now. I haven’t settled on a title that is to my liking, I refer to it as The Golden Silence. Here is a section “lifted” from its Introduction. I’ll be curious as to what you think. Leave a comment, por favor.

INTRODUCTION:

“God has a way of showing us what he wants us to see and learn. Prior to my year of weekly visits to the monastery, an emerging change of viewpoint was taking place within my spiritual life. It was a six year process of seeking God through a wide range of sacred readings outside my comfort zone. Looking back, I realize God had to break down some long-standing barriers of isolationist thinking to show me that my understanding of the church was too narrow and scripted, and more people are of the faith than I formerly had believed and also some who think they are solid in their faith probably are not.

Human nature likes boundaries, rules, and regulations. We find people who think and act like us. We cling to them and dismiss those who do not agree with us. There can be error in this. I believe God wanted me to know that his church includes many Catholic brothers and sisters and others of the liturgical community. You may wonder how God did this. How did he get my attention? What made me think outside the box of comfortable religious convention and how did I come to this radical, though not new, realization?

It started with a friendship. Several years ago I was invited to join a close friend for church services at an Anglican church in my home town. Out of respect for my close friend, I decided to attend but with some inner reservation. My first visit to an Anglican service was on Christmas Eve. Others visits were soon to follow. These visits exposed me to liturgical worship, which was totally foreign to me. The way the Anglicans worshipped caused an unease in me because of their forms, interpretations and observances. Yet I found myself drawn to certain aspects of their liturgy, and I found it to be beautiful as well. The quiet peacefulness of their worshipful observance was appealing to me and also the reverence and respect with which they treated holy things.

But. But there were areas of belief in which the Anglicans differed from my pronounced Protestant Evangelical Baptist belief system. As a very honest person, I felt untrue to myself and to my beliefs when I was at the Anglican services. I couldn’t, or, quite possibly, wouldn’t, let myself “go there” in my heart-belief. The resistance within me stemmed from a belief that they were “wrong” and off-base, unscriptural, and I was “right,” correct theologically in my biblical understandings of scripture.

It was hard to navigate with such strong feelings warring within me, but I was drawn to the areas of shared sameness as well. I could tell we shared a love of the Lord and a real desire to share our faith with others who do not have faith in Jesus Christ.

As time went on, to help myself become more welcoming of God’s presence in the liturgical setting, I began to ask God to help me worship whenever I was in attendance. Because, by nature of my firmly-held beliefs, I found myself somewhat put-off when, infrequent though it were, I was in attendance at the Anglican services. I eventually chose to not over-think the situation. My respect and affection grew and my distress and fears lessened.

At an earlier time after a crisis of my own, I promised myself to God, to give him the rest of my life to use as he would see fit. First, he healed me of deep hurt and set me free from areas of bondage in a very real, life-transforming way. Then he brought me into a close relationship with him, in closeness of unity and tender intimacy. He wasn’t finished, though. The road I was on had an unexpected bend ahead, and I couldn’t have been more surprised where my spiritual journey would take me next. An awakening was about to happen in me where I least expected it.

There were limitations in my way of thinking that were constricting my spiritual life. I liked my evangelical worship with its freedom of expression and its hands-on answers that minister to people in need. But my appetite for learning had been sufficiently sparked by a few visits to the Anglican Church and my exposure to a liturgical form of worship. After tasting of its form of worship, or rather, the peace found within its quiet form of worship, I was tempted to go beyond that which is familiar, traditional, and comfortable.

I couldn’t quite silence the voice calling out to me, telling me to pay attention to the bigger picture, to notice where God’s life-changing footprint is ministering to global needs across lines of religious separation. I wanted to know more. Maybe it was me who was wrong, or at least about some of it. I wasn’t sure. Was I narrow and out-of-tune to the greater work of God? The spiritual path began to open up. I was sitting at God’s table and ready to learn—more and different—but this time without blinders on. Bring it on.” (Manuscript excerpt)

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5 Indie Publishing Mistakes & How to Avoid Them

My recent reading of five indie books has uncovered some book errors, or problems, if you will, unnecessary, avoidable, overlooked, less-than-great (and easy-to-fix) mistakes. These mistakes shouldn’t have been made and, consequently, downgrade the quality of the reading experience–and they have nothing to do with message or content. To be fair, some of these books were vanity published which is a layer of added expense for the author in regards to editorial and extra services. Still, there is no excuse for poor book quality.

Every one of these books has a great message and an important purpose.  However, the problems get in the way. It’s hard to write reviews for indie books like these because of notable errors that flash out at the reader. I wish Amazon could offer 4.5 star reviews. Then I could dock a book for grammar or formatting errors. As it stands now, books that are mostly great are confusing to rate: 5 stars seem too high and 4 stars seem too low. Many indie books range between good and great due to obvious errors and shortcuts. It’s a shame the authors didn’t improve their books. In fact, I hope these authors will write more books for they have something to offer.

INDIE PUBLISHING OOPS: Where the authors short-changed the book.

Book 1 – Inconsistencies: Glaring punctuation and spacing errors. Proofing before publication should have corrected these errors. Both curly and straight quotes are scattered throughout the book. A few times silly spacing errors appear before the periods in sentences and with no space after the period. Like this .I don’t think it’s working! This truly delightful book is less than stellar because of these obvious errors and a few others. (I found myself cringing every time straight quotes appeared on a page.)

Book 2 – Incomplete: Box insert on the side displays a partial sentence. A key point is left dangling, unfinished. The end of the sentence is dropped, chopped off–never to appear again, anywhere. Double the trouble because it uses enlarged text designed to highlight a quote from within the body of the work. It is a paperback book, so I don’t know how that got missed. (I searched and searched for the original sentence because I wanted to know the point of the sentence. Nada.)

Book 3 – Unacceptable: Multiple spacing errors and fragmented format. It appears the author rushed to get the work in print, and it shows. The first half of the book is well done, quite lovely, but the ending chapters have increasing numbers of errors, sentences running together, sentence spacings are off . . . and the font size is too small for ease of reading. An otherwise beautiful book with wonderful, well-thought-out content is spoiled to some degree. (I appreciated the subject matter enough that I overlooked the formatting, but it made me sad at the same time.) Side note: The author paid thousands to an imprint. It seems unconscionable that the publisher didn’t take more responsibility for the end result.

Book 4 – Unappealing: The book cover detracts. Its artwork looks unprofessional. The cover looks homespun and unappealing. It appears the author created his own hand-drawn artwork; the images look unnatural and, well, second rate. The message of the book is strong but the book’s cover is a limiting factor to its future success. Homemade drawings may seem like a nice touch, but in a visually sensitive world they come across badly. This author’s writing has something to offer, and I want him to be successful–he has passion for his subject–but something as basic as a wrong impression is going to trip him up–and that’s, so sad, too bad. (I emailed back and forth with him about the content. He plans to write a companion workbook. Should I say something about the cover?)

Book 5 – Uninteresting: The book tells rather than shows. This author has written a memoir borne out of personal experiences from when she helped homeless youth improve their lives. Her book fails to deliver in the “show, not tell” category we have come to expect in good writing. The message bogs down in the descriptions which, for me, creates a lack of energy during the reading of it. This newbie author, with a little guidance and coaching, could have crafted an entirely better, more delightful read. Fortunate for her, the story is strong enough to carry the reader to the end despite the writing deficits. (The author has a mediocre book as it stands now, but I wish it had been well-crafted because the story, itself, is quite interesting.)

TIPS & TAKE AWAYS: A few things Indie authors need to pay attention to.

1. Clean copy – Fix the book’s punctuation errors and follow the industry standard. Don’t assume your proofreader or editor fixed all of them. Recheck your manuscript, and later, your galley proof.

2. Double check – Check everything on the final review copy before the book goes to print. Be vigilant, be the clean-copy police.

3. Take time – Keep focused to the end. A book is an extension of you. If it sings, you sing. Enough said.

4. Professional look – Make the look to the book shout “look at me” to the potential reader. Ask yourself if it stands out on a book shelf. Do it right the first time.

5. Write well – Do your homework. Learn the trade. Apply yourself to learning the ins and outs of authoring before you start the book. Too late? Put energy into a rewrite and/or improving your current manuscript.