Lost Crusader #131 God Bless the Child That’s Got His Own.

 “So when the Samaritans were come unto him (Jesus), they besought him that he would tarry with them: and he abode there two days. And many more believed because of his word; and they said unto the woman, Now we believe, not because of thy saying: for we have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world.”

John 4:40-42

Perhaps you’ve read about Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well. If not here’s the gist of it: Jesus broke tradition and addressed a woman who had come alone to draw some water from the community well. After some Q&A about why he did that, Jesus pointed out her life thus far had been less than stellar. This drew from her an epiphany that he was the promised Christ.

Thrilled she had met the Messiah, she went into town and began telling people about what she had discovered. The townspeople when out to see for themselves and upon hearing Jesus drew the same conclusion as the woman. In what was probably a less than friendly way, they made sure to downplay her role in pointing out Jesus. But, in doing so, made a very strong case for Christianity based on personal experimentation.

Pastors, preachers, and priests are heralds of the good news of the gospel,

and they have a high calling of great responsibility—but…

While faith comes by hearing the word of God, faith is more than hearing. Faith is more than belief and more than what can be reasoned from the scriptures. It is even more than meeting Jesus. Faith is all of these in combination that initiates personal action.

The prime action of faith is to make peace with God. The scripture says that many are called to this action, but few take it. This is so because the peace treaty is non-negotiable. It is a take-it-or-leave-it proposition made by God that demands unconditional surrender. These are not terms well suited to those who must be in charge, must be right, must be the winner, and must be first—in a word, terms contrary to the natural state of the human mind.

Neither accepting nor rejecting God’s terms makes the Creator more or less than He already is. So, what does God get out of our making peace with Him? The satisfaction of seeing His Creation restored to the original design—a loving fellowship with humanity.

What do people get out of this surrender? It seems strange to quote Satan on this point, but—“ye shall be as gods…”—full partakers of the Divine nature.

No one can make that peace for you. Realizing true peace with God is not something you can have by listening to others talk about it, or watching other people do. Congregating isn’t enough and memorizing rules is not enough. You must hear the terms, weigh them, and accept them without reservation.

On Judgment Day it will not matter what others have said or done to you. It won’t matter how hard you tried or how close you came to perfection. It will not even matter how much God loves you.

What does matter is that you met Christ on his terms and accepted, of your own free will, the peace treaty he offered.

Maranatha

The Colonel #93 The Pot and The Kettle

 This week one of BLM’s leaders “allegedly” used funds donated to the organization to purchase a 6 million mansion and was called out on it by a reporter from The New York Magazine. The immediate, kneejerk reaction? Racism!

That the reporter also happened to be black is inconsequential, it’s not really about color, it’s about thought and the control thereof. It is racist to break with the agreed-upon line of thought, even if you are black, if that thought is contrary to Critical Race Theory (CRT) and the social agenda founded on it.

Economists like Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams have been ostracized for their constant pointing to the numbers and the science of economics that deny minorities are worse off economically because of white oppression. That educated black men like Sowell and Williams place the fault for current social conditions at the feet of the black community cannot be anything but racist.

BLM readily admits that they are not about improving the conditions in predominately black neighborhoods and opting instead for working for some vague notion of social justice. No sense in getting to the root of the problem—no headlines there.

Of course, not being woke, I fall for numbers that tell how fatherless homes produce children in trouble, prolonged adolescence produces a sense of entitlement, and finger-pointing worldviews like CRT produce a built-in incentive, if not to fail, then to kill all sense of personal responsibility that is needed to succeed.

I am also foolish enough to think this is not a black problem, a brown problem, a red problem, or a white problem. It is a problem with human thinking. People of all races, times, and places are too quick to seek the path of least resistance. This too human tendency inspires tyrants, dictators, and megalomaniacs to give us an enemy to hate and blame while we surrender responsibility for our lives for their promise of security.

Make no mistake about it groups like BLM, the KKK, La Raza, the PLO, and any other race/political based movements' first and foremost duty is to advance their ideology, not the people they claim to represent. Hypocrisy is color blind even if we are not.

Sic Semper Tyrannis

Know Jack #342 It’s the Law

 “The acceleration of an object depends upon two variables – the net force acting on the object and the mass of the object.”

Isaac Newton

Math and physics aren’t my thing. I did well in both while in college, but…

So, I’m not going to try and explain Newton, at least not in a proper context, because I’m here to talk about writing and selling books. I’m pretty sure that Sir Isaac didn’t have authors in mind when the apple dropped on his head loosing a flood of insight into the way the universe works.

Be that as it may, Newton has important truth to share with writers about accelerating their work—at least as far as sales are concerned. I’m going to take his two variables mentioned here in reverse order, because writers hardly ever do things the way everybody else does.

The acceleration of your book to the coveted bestseller list is determined by the mass of your book. That is, the quality of your writing. Aunt Phoebe may buy your book because you’re her favorite nephew, but no one else is going to. The average self-published book sells about 50-60 copies—mostly to friends and family. The quality of the writing, or the lack thereof, is generally the reason why.

I don’t mean to rain on anyone’s parade, but it was your high school English teacher’s job to encourage you to write. Just saying… Of course, that doesn’t mean they were lying to you. If you’ve read the blog and have come to Know Jack, then you know I believe writing is a gift people are born with. You also know that’s not good enough and going it alone is a bad idea. If your target is 50-60 book sales, you don’t need much more acceleration, you’re on target.

The mass of your book, to get anywhere, needs a net force to act upon it. The force, as all Star Wars fans know, is out there, moving in and around everything. It just needs to be focused to move your book. To bring the net force into motion, you must get its attention. Remember, there is no try.

The net force, as you might have surmised is made up of readers. The more attention you focus—the more readers’ eyes you draw—the greater the potential for action! Not everyone who sees your book will buy it or read it, but a small percentage will. It’s a crapshoot at best. One thing is certain, however, if they don’t know your book exists, they are not going to read it.

The net force must act upon the mass for acceleration to occur. When I was young, most of my cars had a standard transmission. That worked out well because I can’t count the number of times that I had to push-start them. In doing so I learned the more people you have pushing, the easier it was to get the car started. (I did have one that I only parked on a hill.)

Readers are the propellant that will launch your book. Reviewers will keep it flying. There is no such thing in writing as perpetual motion, constant force is necessary. Finding your ‘tribe” or your “people” is all the rage. Don’t be surprised when you find yourself gravitating to those friends who not only read your books but introduce you as their friend—the author.

Newton's words used here aren’t just a good idea, it’s the law.

Maranatha

Lost Crusader #130 This or That

 “The devil always sends errors into the world in pairs—pairs of opposites. And he encourages us to spend a lot of time thinking which is the worse…He relies on your extra dislike of one to draw you gradually into the opposite one.”

C.S. Lewis

Earth has two poles, but generally speaking, no one lives long on either of them. Life is somewhere in between. Views on everything from morality to politics, to childrearing, to the existence of God follow the same pattern. You don’t have to look far in our society to find polarization.

We sometimes find the same polarized type of battleground in the interpretation of scripture: faith or works, knowledge or experience, to partake or to abstain. None of these is ever truly presented in the scripture as a case of this or that. The truth lies in a moderate blending of the two, worked out in each Christian’s heart through the use of reason and experience.

The truth arrived at by this method is not ambiguous. The truth, as personified in Christ, is given to us as broad principles and worked into specifics through the partnership of the individual and the Holy Spirit as that relationship actively moves through life.

That is not to say that there are many truths, but rather that there are many ways to apply our understanding to one sound principle. Some of those applications may be closer to the spirit of the principle than others but rarely are any, thoughtfully arrived at, without merit.

The ministry of Jesus has been called “radical” by some. I agree but probably not in the way such people suppose. Jesus was radical because he rebuked the legalism of the rabbis and the Council as soundly as he rebuked the abandoning of the faith by publicans and sinners (he socialized with both groups by the way). As famously told in the matter of paying taxes to Caesar, it was not a matter of paying or not paying but paying the proper authority in the proper medium of exchange. That is, the things that belonged to Caesar to him, the things of God to Him.

Isn’t it ironic that the world which criticizes Christians for being too black and white in both thinking and practice, views the scripture in the same polarized fashion and so never honestly investigates its validity through experimentation? Well, maybe not. When you live in one extreme end of the spectrum, it’s very difficult to see the other side.

Of course, the world need not go so far afield as Christian thought to find a warning against extremism. The classical philosophy of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle will tell you the same thing.

Christians are admonished by scripture to work out the practical applications of salvation in such a manner that their moderation is known to all. However, in all honesty, moderation comes with maturity—and so few in modern society, Christian and non-Christian, aspire to maturity.

Maranatha

The Colonel #92 How Much is That Freedom in the Window?

 “Whenever one object exerts force on another object, the second object exerts an equal and opposite on the first.”

Isaac Newton

To the chagrin of many, Newton’s law of motion seems to apply equally well when speaking about people. Masked in the anonymity of social media, it is believed that one can say or do whatsoever one pleases without consequence. That, my friends, is not how freedom works.

There is not a single act of freedom that does not entail a price. Jesus cautioned his followers to weigh the cost of discipleship before casting their lot in with him. The amount of his teaching lost on today’s world is unfortunate.

I shoot my mouth off on this blog with regularity. Sometimes I do it on purpose just to elicit a response, other times that’s just me shooting my mouth off because I tend to do that. I never do it unprepared for what it might cost me to give voice to my opinions.

If I have a saving grace, (hey, there might be one) it is that I allow everyone else the same privilege—for the same price. There’s nothing free about freedom, but you need not go that far, you can stop with a simple, there’s nothing free.

Every act of freedom, every free choice we make connects to an equal force that would hinder our liberty. Freedom doesn’t only affect the person exercising it. It triggers those who disagree with or oppose that choice to adopt tacit consent or take up active opposition. Action and reaction, if you’ve used Facebook or Twitter, you know how that works.

I’m all for people expressing their opinions, even those I disagree with. I publish books for people expressing views opposed to mine—which costs me at times, but I am not opposed to paying the price for the freedom to publish what I will.

Just about every Memorial Day I take a walk through a military cemetery. I’ve yet to run upon a name I know. It doesn’t matter, I am equally indebted to every person lying there for paying the cost of my freedom. God forbid that I should hide the freedom they died for, or silence it to soothe the feelings of the ungrateful.

In growing numbers, Americans are setting aside their freedom—just another commodity that has grown too expensive. It is so much easier and cheaper to shut up, mask up, and put up with the lunatic fringe peddling a new normal on television and computer screens than to be called names.

There is no reason to stand on the outside looking in. Step inside, and take the mantle of freedom off the rack, and wrap it around you—just remember you have to pay for it on your way out the door.

Sic Semper Tyrannis

Know Jack #341 I Quit

 “Then I witnessed the torture of Sisyphus, as he wrestled with a huge rock with both hands. Bracing himself and thrusting with hands and feet he pushed the boulder uphill to the top. But every time, as he was about to send it toppling over the crest, its sheer weight turned it back, and once again towards the plain the pitiless rock rolled down.”

Odysseus

Odysseus upon descent into Hades came across the tragic figure of Sisyphus, one-time king of Corinth, who twice cheated death only to be consigned by Zeus to push a huge stone up a mountain for all eternity. It is my personal belief that I will be a storyteller forever wandering endless galaxies with my stories.

To my way of thinking, that is not a bad thing. Freed of my present physical limitations it is an event to be anticipated with great joy. More than one person has told me that writing is a part of who I am. I accept that intellectually, but I am often found railing against it emotionally and physically. I can’t tell you how many times I have “quit” this strange profession because there have been so many times.

This week I announced aloud, “I’m done!” No more writing, no more editing, I wanted only to crawl into a book and never come out. Like Don Quixote, find a trusty steed, cobble together some armor, and lance in hand sally forth to battle giants. It happens all the time.

However, I never find the “right” book and never sally forth except to try and write it myself. I find the darkness of no story too much, drag myself up and shoulder to the great stone of the next book, and start it rolling.

I think if you haven’t quit writing at least twice, you might not be doing it right. If stories are like children, as experts say they are, then the joy/dismay nature of the craft certainly fits the allegory. Somewhere in the tension created by the opposing forces is the muses’ hiding place. Calliope is not going to come looking for you and neither will you find her sitting in the comfort of the dark. You must seek her.

How? Start writing, get the stone rolling, help comes when you are working. You can quit all alone—no help needed.

That said, I am currently on the third rewrite of my latest book and still only on Chapter Ten and wondering if number four is hiding just out of sight.

Maranatha