O Book, where art thou?

When I set out to write a book, I didn’t fully know what to expect or even how to exactly think through a book from initial thought to published product.  Maybe if I did know I’d still be standing there at the beginning dismissing the journey of writing, rewriting, editing and so much more editing, as one of those insurmountable heights in life climbed and conquered by few.  Namely, not me.

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step,” may certainly be quite accurate of a statement, but it is with each subsequent step slipping, falling and rising again, where the journey becomes more than just a walk from somewhere.

Each meandering morning earlier than the sun when a block of 500 words written held more value than sleep, gold or the foolishness of being a published author with book in hand stacked on top of the other.  Before too long, blocks of words did more than float on my computer screen and journal.  They stacked higher and higher still one on the next and the many following the first.  Most days spent writing seemed like I was crafting words and spinning them into a forever stretching horizon ending nowhere but still feeling warm.

Such are dreams too big and unbelonging in our little context of no and can’t and well, maybe.  That is, until we believe, and more importantly, assume beginning with a readiness to just keeping stepping into thin days where dreams quickly vanish into ridiculous.

The completion of my first book should rightly be diminished to just that: a collection of footprints maybe leading somewhere, but at least stepped onto, pressed into and smeared upon the mountain pushing down heavy into each ordinary day.

And so, not only does a completed manuscript exist, but now the wheels are a-turnin’ and the manuscript is being crafted into a real, actual book!

Here are a few updates on my book’s progress despite my lingering unbelief at times:

Final round of editing almost complete!  Editing has been the most uncomfortable element to the process, but by far and wide, the most helpful and guiding.  My editor is simply an amazing mix of strong encouragement and sharp edge slicing through unnecessary.

Book design and artwork!  Hand meets digital expression, illustration meets design.  I have an incredible duo creating the artwork for my book combining hand drawn illustration and artfully brilliant computer design.  I literally sent a few pictorial examples of what I want and excerpts of my manuscript and the design began to lift off the ground.  I can’t wait to show you guys what they come up with!

Book endorsements!  6 published authors have agreed to read my manuscript and endorse my book.  Ridiculous ...enough said.

Video shoot!  Somehow I am crossing paths with the right people at the right time (wink).  This month as editing is wrapping, design is coming together and book endorsements are being crafted, all in preparation for printing to begin, I am prepping for a video shoot with an incredibly talented filmmaker.  This video will act as a sort of trailer for the book.  Location in Dallas has been confirmed and the script is done.

KICKSTARTER!  All of this - the writing, painstaking edits, exciting art design, endorsements and video shoot - converge at one moment, the scramble to summit the mountain, if you will.  I need pay for it all.  Rather than going the route of a traditional publisher, I chose to go with a publishing imprint that will allow me to retain rights to the book that I wrote.  This means that I will own my own book instead of a publishing house owning the rights to my book.  To go this route meant me having to pay for the team to bring the book from concept and dream locked in my head to life.

I will write more about my Kickstarter campaign in the next week or so.  Please be on the look out and consider helping me in bringing this book into reality by pre-ordering copies of my book and additional items such as commissioned print copies of the book cover artwork and an exclusive ebook of poetry and thoughts not included in my book.

I cannot express the excitement building in each passing day and the depth of gratitude to you, the community who has surrounded me in support and encouragement.  In large part to each of you who subscribe to my blog, this book is soon to transcend dream!!

together, out of good.

Grant, O Lord, that as we are baptized into the death of they blessed Son our Saviour Jesus Christ, so by continual mortifying our corrupt affections we may be buried with him; and that through the grave, and gate of death, we may pass to our joyful resurrection; for his merits, who died, and was buried, and rose again for us, they Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Easter-Even, The Collect.

None of us are good.  No one one is.

As we approached the darkest of this shared season of Lent, we touched the deepest, most intimate wrong buried in of our human hearts.  Good, the lie that we are okay, can make it out on our own and all we need, all we want dwells within us.

The serpent hiss, perverted benevolence ringing in hearts rooted in choice.

We are all okay, good from beginning, innocent - a diseasing lie eating us.

Their eyes widened a bit and ears tuned in to words undoing us.  No good in us.  There is brooding wrong within each of us demanding surrender, lording desire; a problem sitting heavy on the chest of mankind.  Sin that won’t leave us alone and a scab that we won’t quit picking at.

For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.  (Romans 7:18, ESV)

An illuminated reality in my role as parent has become apparent: just as I accept that there is no good within me, there is no good within them either.  None.  Their hearts live just as displaced as mine always choosing that which the heart wants rather than what it needs.  My daughters lie to protect themselves, hate when their offended and hurt, take what’s not theirs, whine, complain, grumble and ignore others in need for the sake of comfort.  Despicable hearts dirty in sin no matter how we pretty the outer.  We stink the smell of offense.

And this particular realization and confession delivered us properly to the darkness of Lent, the eve of redemption evermore.

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.  (Romans 6:3-4, ESV)

My approach as dad now broadened focused on uprooting good from their hearts to give way for grace properly, set but then, that night when our Lenten discussions crescendoed well to redemption, the release held greatest importance.  As our devotional book closed, our hearts opened floating free.  Their little heads bowed as if looking dead into their guilty hearts and with quiet words Grace displaced good.

Like the good thief hanging guilty next to Jesus, grace and forgiveness found them readily and easy.  With gratitude and solemness we looked ahead to the remembrance of Good Friday and the promise forthcoming on Easter morning.

Praise the Lord, grace has come.

spring break pictorially.

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We took to the mountains; retreated into snow to forget for a moment and remember all that really matters, what we truly know.

Spring break in Colorado couldn't have come at a better time.  No infringing schedule or deadlines other than hiking times, a snow tubing appointment, restaurant reservations, movie times, late nights anticipated, later mornings, and of course, naps.

I'll let my words sink into the photographs and give way for them to tell the stories of our week together well lived.

One last thing, you know vacation is truly good when in the end a smile still stretches across well rested, satisfied faces.

together, in the branches.

 

Nothing beats late nights with amazing friends meandering through conversation of all that was, is and hopefully will be.  Of equal irreplaceable delight is waking up late into morning with family and those friends to another day of snowy mountain adventure.

And this is vacation; a definite break from busy, from striving and reaching and worry about not being formidable enough for the dreams swirling inside.

When we leave the Colorado mountains, nights return to earlier endings and my alarm sounds annoyingly before dawn waking me to another day, I will be rested and ready after more than 2 weeks of vacation and time away to reset and heal.  But for now, I write into a quiet morning beside a steaming mug of chai tea awaking me even more, all while lost in the view of snow capped mountains whispering adventure both now and into life ahead.

:::::::

As we continue together into Lent, discussions of the heart deeper unfold.  Words of challenge and grace fill our conversations together throughout our days away in the mountains.  I anticipated a break.  In the weeks leading up to vacation, we followed a pattern of reading and praying together for grace to help us engage in giving up of conveniences to grasp a greater understanding now of God in our day to day.  Instead of our pattern completely vanishing in the snow and easy days, each of the girls asked how and what we would fast and more importantly, when.

In their asking and reflecting of our togetherness in this Lent journey, a conversation from before the mountains, snow and rest, returned to me; a conversation of heart and words with Elizabeth, my eldest daughter.

There we sat.  The two of us words hanging in grace sheltering our weakness and covering our mistakes.  The greatest erasing of wrong leaving no sign except what we redraw in our effort earning unbelief that God could possibly be that good and undeservingly accepting of our human hearts.

She sat in sadness judged by her own heart, tangled in thought.

“Dad, ...sometimes I get so angry and frustrated at life.  I feel confused and lost.  Sometimes I say bad words in my head, really, really bad words, Dad.”

I allowed for the pause between us to encapsulate the moment, her helpless sinking knowing that scripture reading, prayer and conversation all shared together had been raking over her heart ...and finding her.

“What words do you think when you’re angry?”

“Uhh ... really, really bad words.”

“I see.  They must be really bad if you don’t want to say them.”

I sped up our conversation out of her lingering words suspended in guilt with a hopefully lasting image lifting her sinking.  Often I describe our life together in terms of journey, a landscape of rising mountains, descending valleys and sometimes treacherous impasses.  This image lifting her out of guilt and mistakes was one of a towering tree stretching substantially over us.

Grace like a tree shelters us from guilt striking down from darker skies and together we are safe in its impenetrable branches.

“Um, what?”

All three of my daughters deal with my words dragging romantic and descriptive.  They are used to just staring at me until I’m done and I’m used to their blank looks lost in words loaded with meaning.  I like our conversations that way.  Questions are sure to ensue giving way for their ownership pulling understanding into little hearts.

I pulled back the curtain a bit and assured Elizabeth that emotions exist very real in our hearts and our responses, even the bad unrepeatable words, don’t separate us from God’s fierce love.  To her surprise, I told her that often those words, even the worst offenders launch from my heart, too.

“...and that’s okay, Elizabeth.”

Grace’s strong branches will always hold us up and cover us wholly.  As a parent, no greater gift can be given than the assurance that all will be well and all, despite emotion and weakness of heart.

Grace given. Grace received.

...all in the branches together.

*image copyright inmenlo.com

together, into the undoing.

Another step down into the hazy, deeper, covered parts of our hearts where words are better to be whispered intently as to let them escape into normal conversation.  This is new, hallowed ground for all of us to be treading together. Grace like a scandal frees hearts held unknowingly in much more than innocence - in ignorance.

Child, you are not free.  Since our eyes first witnessed life and day, sin holds both you and me.  Liberty, a mirage vanishing in the heat of day burning hot and older.

As we moved into the second week of Lent together as a family, I read aloud a story in Scripture that moved my daughters’ hearts (Luke 7:36-50).  In the story, a man named, Simon, who was a righteous man known by good deeds and effort invited Jesus into his home for dinner.  Jesus accepted and reclined at table as Simon’s guest.  Upon hearing of Jesus’ presence at Simon’s house, a woman enters into the story and not with little disturbance.  Her affection interrupts Simon’s dinner conversation as she kisses Jesus’ feet washed in her tears and expensive perfume and wiped clean not with a towel but with her own hair.  

In judgement, Simon, the right doer, reduces the woman to a dirty sinner unfit for their company and Jesus to a disproved prophet fooled by the woman he allowed to care for him.  How could this woman share a table with Simon who deserved a seat with Jesus?  Why wouldn’t Jesus correct her and send her away?

He must not be all that He claims to be, not by my standard or god I know.  This is what raced through Simon’s right doer mind.

How often we judge right and wrong by our own hand and effort. And how wrong we are with repetitive regularity.

Last night we read through this story again and the question still hung between us.

“Dad, did she really kiss Jesus’ feet and use her hair to dry them?  Why would she do that?  Seems kinda inappropriate.”

And maybe that’s the best description of grace: inappropriate.  Appropriately, we should be accused called guilty for the sin we harbor within - the anger, the hatred, the lust, the lying, the selfishness - but we are not.

Together we talked about the gift of God, grace, and like the shameless woman, our response to God’s inappropriate love of us.

My challenge as a parent is to lead us into the undoing of our hearts bound by sin and marred in two dimensional right and wrong; to allow grace room enough for its roots to press deep down and break heavy soil loose and free.  For my daughters to know God as a plenteous giver of grace and acceptance is to set their hearts free ready for their days ahead.  One day they may find themselves marginalized by their decisions, dirty in their doing, cornered in by mistakes and rejected by all right.  Grace will be there and I want them to recognize its fearless reach.

::::::: He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. [Psalm 1.3]