Return of the Novice Blogger

       Wow, it's been nearly five years since I started this blog, and almost three since I last wrote in it. Since then I've been greatly distracted, or else I haven't had much to say. Last spring I put together a website for my book. One thing that went along with it was a blog, and I wrote some things in it, some of them being repeats of my adventure series in this blog. More recently there was a redesign of the website, and a new blog went along with it. I thought I was going to do away with this one and the second one, but I think I might keep all three, which is probably kind of stupid for a guy who hardly ever blogs. Maybe I'll do better, though. We'll see.

Penguin Backlash?

Since March of the Penguins came out, many movies and books featuring penguins have followed it. I've felt the possibility of overdoing it, which isn't good for me, because my book is also primarily about penguins. I haven't done a great job of promoting it, and as a result it isn't very well known, even though people who've read it seem to to like it a lot. If I was a great marketing guy, I would have jumped on the penguin bandwagon when March of the Penguins and Happy Feet came out. I still hope my book will catch on, but I'm afraid people are on the verge of being tired of penguins, and my book will be looked upon as "another stupid penguin book" trying to cash in on the popularity of penguins, even though my book was published before all these other things. Whatever the case, penguins are still swell people, and it's not their fault.

A Response to Carter's New Book

Hats off to the 14 members of an advisory board at the Jimmy Carter Center who resigned this week. The former president’s new book comparing the apartheid of South Africa to Israel’s treatment of the so-called Palestinians is ridiculous. Because of it, the advisors said they couldn’t associate themselves with Mr. Carter’s work any more. It’s good to see someone making a stand for the truth.

Israel and the Church

The center of world events in our time is the Middle East. Events happening there have affected the stability of the rest of the world. We can’t afford to ignore it, but what can we do?
God told Abraham, “I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you.” That is a promise that is passed down to the heirs of Abraham, those who are descended from his son Isaac. Those people are the Jews, and their homeland is Israel. The Church and what is called Christianity in general have been at best complacent toward Israel throughout history, often much worse. It’s time for those of us who call ourselves Christians to speak up in support of the Jews and the nation of Israel, and even to confess the sins of complacency and the terrible persecutions that have been done in the name of Christianity.
Some are afraid to favor Israel because they fear their enemies who have the tendency to blow up people they disagree with. Some think that by backing their enemies and pressuring Israel to give up land, peace will come to the region. The demands to give up more land won’t cease until Israel is no longer there. The radical followers of Islam have said plainly that their goal is the annihilation of Israel. The supposed peace process is a sham. It’s time for us to see it for what it is and stand up for what is right and true. Israel isn’t perfect, but they are only fighting for their lives. They only go on the offensive when something needs to be dealt with in the interest of their national security, but anything like that gets portrayed as “Israeli aggression.”
So the question remains for Christians: Do we believe what the Bible says, or are we just playing church? Will we stand up on Israel’s side or remain complacent, or even side with those who want to destroy Israel?

Spontaneous Generation

I remember in my school days learning about the Dark Ages—those days when people were stupid and believed in things like spontaneous generation. The idea was that if you left garbage like old rags and food lying around in a box , after a while mice would form there. This was taught with a condescending air, of course. We were supposed to think, "How foolish people were then and how far we’ve come in our knowledge of science."
I wonder if scientists in future generations will look back at ours and think, “How stupid those people were in those days. They believed life could form out of nothing and become increasingly complex on its own, given enough time. They multiplied the time it took whenever they felt they needed more time for the whole process to work out in accordance with their beliefs.”
I guess I have to ask, “Does anybody really believe this? Is there some reason they keep promoting it as the truth? Is it that they don’t like the alternative?”

Review of Fly Like a Penguin

I recently discovered a review of my book at bookideas.com. Many thanks to John Hoh for a nice review. http://bookideas.com/reviews/index.cfm?fuseaction=displayReview&id=2595

Some thoughts on reading

I like reading. It’s one of my favorite things to do. I have a long list of books I want to read, but I wonder when I’ll ever get a chance to do so, and I’m sure many other books will be added to the list.
I have two categories of authors—classical and contemporary. Classical authors are all dead. Contemporary authors are for the most part still alive.
Most of my reading over the past five or 10 years has been classical books. I tend to go on binges of favorite authors. It started with Jules Verne. Around the World in Eighty Days has always been one of my favorite books. For a while I had to read everything he wrote. He wrote great stories, although sometimes he tended to describe things too much, especially in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. Then a friend gave me some books by George MacDonald. I had to read everything he wrote. I think this year I completed reading all of his fiction. A few years ago I read Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens. I wondered why I hadn’t read more by him. So I began my quest to read all of his stuff. I still have a long way to go, mainly because his books tend to be long, and he wrote so many. I’ve read about seven of them. C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien are also among my favorites. Other authors are on my list of books to read.

Until recently my contemporary authors included Frank Peretti. If anyone would have told me about an author who was as good as Peretti, I would have thought, “Yeah, right.” Now I’m rethinking this attitude. Actually I wonder if it’s a good thing to have favorites, especially if it doesn’t allow others into my circle. A few years ago, I opened the door to try someone new. It began with Randy Alcorn, and that was good. Then more recently Ted Dekker. He’s had books out for a while now, but I hadn’t heard of him until about a half year ago, and now he’s my latest binge. The first I read was his Circle Trilogy, which was like reading C.S. Lewis’s space trilogy for the first time when I was enthralled with the imagination of a new world and a great story. Recently I read Robert Whitlow’s The List, and that was good.
The point of all this is that I’m learning and growing. All these writers have something to offer, both in the realm of imagination and enjoyment of a good story and in learning about how I fit in the plan of God. These people aren’t in competition. They complement each other, even though I might like one writer’s style above another, and some stories are just more interesting to me. Other readers might like other authors more, and that’s okay. For me, I just want to enjoy what I read, whoever it is, and try to learn from it.
I think I will have a series of blogs about some of the authors I’ve read, and this is somewhat of an introduction.