It used to be that Christians who wanted to share their faith would go out into the larger world to tell the good news and share scripture, teachings, and traditions of their church.  But now the very term Christian seems to turn some people off and the minute you mention faith, beliefs, church, or God you face an icy stare.  If you look closely at the person’s life – if that…

Writing is an opportunity for me to think about my life, the larger world, and the issues of our times. Reflecting is akin to pondering and one of the women I admire most in the world was know for doing just that. Mary, the Mother of God, must have pondered many things in her heart. Her fiat was a strength which stemmed from God’s grace and her ability to ponder,…

There seems to be a prevailing argument that the world would be just as well off without Christianity – that the best in humanity will save us from the worst in humanity. Yet, if you have spent much time studying history, you will quickly realize that humanity has failed to make Heaven on earth every single time we’ve tried.  But just for the sake of argument, l’d like to consider…

1) In Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, readers encounter characters that remind us of the best in ourselves.  Yet none of the characters are without flaws.  They all struggle, but it is in their very struggle to overcome their weaker selves…

I recently read an article and viewed the accompanying picture which will haunt me for some time. It was about one of the Ebola victims and how after she had died her young daughter was left crying, alone, in their yard and the neighbors did not want to approach for fear of contracting the deadly illness.…

When I first started reading The American Catholic Almanac, I was afraid that it might be boring because I link the term “almanac” with dull statistical facts, but this reference book is anything but boring.  Since I home school my kids, we know a fair amount about American Catholic history, so some of the stories and histories were familiar, but they were taken from…

1) Monday the washing machine was fixed and life began to return to normal – with the exception that every time I saw that particular appliance I felt ridiculously happy. Nothing like clean laundry to do a mother’s heart good.

2) My second daughter performed at her first violin recital on Sunday and played the Canon in D andThe River Flows in You and…

This evening, as most evenings, my kids and I took our sunset stroll and as we walked along and we exchanged stories about the days events – some good, some silly, some challenging – I looked around at the crimson touched leaves, the golden, ready-for harvest corn, the purpling sky, and I breathed in a sigh of relief that we have such beauty as a part of our every day lives.  The angst I sometimes feel,…

1) Our washing machine broke this week and for a while it looked like there was little chance it would be fixed any time soon.  I briefly considered a nearly suicidal attempt to hand wash the clothes (yes, for all nine of us – like I said – it was a brief thought) but then I considered how hard and time consuming that would be, so I then imagined having the kids clean their own clothes.…

I am, at the moment, holding a fussy five year old.  It doesn’t make for the greatest writing conditions – but I suspect God has a point here.  I have long believed that the best gift I can give my kids is my focused attention.  Now that being said, I home school seven of my eight children, and unless I devise some method of dividing myself up into pieces on a routine basis,…

There are a lot of fruit themes in history.  Genesis begins with a garden setting and the command: “You may eat of the fruit of any tree in the garden except the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.”  Not even attempting to dissect the motivations of why God would make a tree that He summarily tells His people to shun – I still have the opportunity to…

1) There are a lot of ways to die – but if you’ve gone to the movies recently you’ve probably seen at least 2,465,399,753.2 of those ways, including ingenious new methods of going through buildings. Not to make fun of death.  Death is real and not something to joke about.  But really, I am about apocalypsed out. The daily headlines are scary enough. I need some good…

  1) Actually getting to Mars might be a little tricky, but I can see why there is some fascination with leaving this world to visit another one – any other one. Sometimes it seems that the troubles we face here are so overwhelming we can’t possibly get past them, while the challenges of a new life somewhere else seem soooo remote. The fantasy of “what if…” outweighs the fears…

The real cover for Georgios is still in design, but here is a glimpse of an idea we are working with. And here is a sneak preview of the first chapter.  More next week.  Enjoy!

 Georgios

Chapter One

The Island of Patmos

Circa Anno Domini…

The imagination is a funny thing. We fill in the blanks of our understanding with images that comfort or frighten us, as the case may be. In ancient days we filled in the blanks about angels with wings and clouds. After all, we knew through faith that God created a separate race of beings who could move with the speed of thought and were always in the presence of God. So wings and clouds made sense. As our scientific minds have reached further into the outer recesses of our universe so we…

I am happy to announce that Neb the Great made Honorable Mention in the 2014Hollywood Book Festival in genre based fiction.  This means that every book of The Deliverance Trilogy has won something.  ARAM won runner up for an Indie Publishing Contest.  Ishtar’s Redemption made…

1) Pickles are nearly a stable around my house which is why my motto for the cucumber patch is “plant ‘em early, pick ‘em quick.”  This year my three youngest daughters decided that they wanted to learn the art of pickling and since I had just picked up the pickling packets (say THAT three times fast!) I was already for the adventure.  We made over six quart jars which  will last us say, three…