Grace and Glory

So, this is another short talk I wrote for a Sunday service I was asked to do, this time at Woodend Hospital in Aberdeen earlier in the year.  I meant to upload it ages ago and somehow never got around to it, but it's interesting to note that discussions of the topic of grace have characterized much of the rest of the year and the talk I gave at an English-teaching bible camp in Hungary had a very similar theme - one I felt much more confident to talk on having looked at this passage.

As Christians, no matter how sound we may think our doctrine is, we always need to be reminded of God's grace, so I hope this will be of benefit to you.  If you're not a Christian, then my hope for you is doubly strong.  This is the greatest gift on offer in the universe and I implore anyone to whom the message is given, please, accept it.

The reading for this talk is Ephesians 2:1-10.  If you can turn to it now, that would help, then click on the jump!

Commanded to be Strong

The following is another talk which I was asked to make at a sheltered housing complex this week.  The passage it was on is Joshua 1, at one time my favourite chapter in the whole Bible, and certainly still a contender.

            Joshua is a significant book in many ways.  It can be read as a coda to the Pentateuch; God demonstrating his faithfulness by fulfilling the promises he made to the patriarchs: leading the Israelites into the Promised Land despite all of their unfaithfulness.  This is a particularly helpful way of looking at the book as a whole when we then choose to narrow it down to chapter one, because the beginning of any story is always an uncertain place, it’s the part where events are set up, plans are made and we don’t know how they are going to turn out, even if we already do because we’ve read the story a thousand times before. 

            And that, surely, is how the Israelites felt at this point.  They had faced much to reach the Jordan: forty years of wandering, the loss of an entire generation, the battles against Sihon and Og, the death of Moses.  They were finally on the threshold of the Promised Land, but there was much still to do and all the things which had made them turn away at Kadesh forty years before were still true.  I’m not sure how I’d have felt if I were one of them - a mixture of emotions, most likely - but I imagine that chief amongst them would have been anxiety, a fear of the unknown.

            God knew this.  He knew that despite all that the Israelites had witnessed, despite the miraculous interventions time and again, his people would need a pep talk before they faced the land of Canaan.  I know that I would have.  Despite the numerous times that God has proven himself faithful in our lives, don’t we find, from time to time, that we need to be reminded?

When I first became a Christian I was not a strong person at all.  I was a shy, scared eleven year old who didn’t have much in common with the other boys at school and who was pathologically afraid of drawing too much attention to myself.  I was prone to worry about everything and would panic easily.  I was not, in short, the ideal candidate for sharing the gospel.

            There were two things I prayed for more than anything else in my teenage years: for more faith, that I would believe and act accordingly in all situations and for courage, that I would be able to live and work like a normal human being and serve God faithfully along the way.  In the midst of such prayer, I first discovered Joshua chapter one and it quickly became my favourite passage in the whole Bible: a reminder that God is always with me;  an encouragement to be strong and courageous!  It was exactly what I was looking for.

            Eighteen years later and I am still sometimes shy, often scared, still easily worried and I can stress for Britain if given half a chance.  I still pray regularly for more faith and I still ask God for the courage and confidence to meet everyday tasks, let alone the big stuff.  Does this mean God has failed?  Has he answered all my prayers with a hollow ‘No’?  I don’t think so, after all, here I am standing up and talking about the word of God to you fine people.

            In fact, God has called me often to step outside of my comfort zone and to do something I would never think of doing myself.  He delights in making me stand up in front of people to sing, to talk, to act, to give testimony and even, on one occasion, to dance.  These things which would have terrified me in other situations have enabled me to grow and develop as a human being, pushing my boundaries and helping me to pass on learned skills into other areas of my life -  a blessing in and of itself - but, more than that, they have enabled me to serve in the Kingdom of God despite all my weaknesses.  It’s just that I keep needing God’s pep talks, those little reminders of all the times I’ve stepped forward before at his urging and found that, yes, God is faithful.

So, it’s interesting, then, that God doesn’t merely remind Joshua of all of his past deeds and say, ‘see, you can trust me!’  He is much more direct.  Joshua isn’t simply reminded here, he’s commanded.

            ‘Be strong and courageous’, God says in verse 6 and again in verse 7, ‘be strong and very courageous’.  Indeed, God gives Joshua this command four times in this chapter and it is not until the third time in verse 9 that he adds those famous words of encouragement and consolation, ‘Do not be terrified, do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go’, and even that was prefaced with ‘Have I not commanded you?’

‘Have I not commanded you?  Be strong and courageous.’

What does this tell us about God?

Yes, it tells us that he is a God of comfort and consolation; yes, it tells us he knows when we need to be encouraged and spurred on; yes, it tells us he really is with us always, through all circumstances, but there is more to this than that.  God isn’t simply being comforting, he is commanding!  This is the almighty God, creator and sustainer of heaven and earth, commander of armies of angels, the one to whom the vastness of the universe is as a speck of dust – This is  that God, meeting with the leader of his people, giving the necessary orders for battle.  The first order he gives? ‘Be strong and courageous’ and by adding ‘Have I not commanded you?’ later he’s making it clear that the command alone really ought to have been enough - of course it should be, it’s coming from God – but despite this he adds the consolation anyway, because he knows his creatures better than we know ourselves.

So,  God commands us to be bold.  He commands us to have confidence in ourselves and in him when we are doing his work and the command itself should be enough.  God knows we are weak, so the consolation will always be there, but the command comes first.  We must be strong and courageous for God!

I always read this passage as a comfort for socially awkward me, a word God whispered in the back of my mind when I needed a little lift, when the pressures of peers, school, work, life were getting me down.  Now I realise that the emphasis here is very different from what I had thought and the result is, astonishingly, all the more glorious.  Rather than God comforting me to help me achieve my goals, which may or may not happen to line up with his, this is God commanding me to be bold so that I might achieve his goals, which are better for me than anything I might want for myself anyway!

Is this still encouraging?  Is this still a boost to faith and confidence for those struggling?  Of course it is!  God is reminding us here that we should have faith and confidence simply because he is!  God does not just give us consolation and encouragement, he is our consolation and our encouragement.  He does not just give us strength but he is our strength. Isn’t that so much better than a mere quiet word at a tough time?

But we must remember the context, the eve of invasion.  As well as being a comfort, it’s also a call to arms to meet God’s mission head on.

For Joshua that mission was to see the fulfilment of God’s promises to the Israelites and we can see throughout the rest of the book of Joshua just how that works out and how God continues to be faithful at every step of the way – often in surprising ways!

For us that mission it is to see the fulfilment of God’s promises to the whole world, through Christ’s work on the cross and the commission he gave us to spread the word.  There are many ways we can do that, as I have found in my relatively short Christian life, and indeed there are many ways we are each working towards that goal in our everyday lives. If we’re struggling, however, if the command to go forth and tell seems a hard one, then remember the God who gave the command, who is with us wherever we go and who will strengthen us as and when we need it.   And remember that it is a command from the Lord of Hosts and that before he told us to go forth he first commanded:

‘Be strong and courageous!’

Memetic Makeup

Following on from last week's article about all the stuff I'm (technically) working on at the moment, I have been tagged by the lovely Eruntane (my wife) over at her blog, Josephine Must Write, in a writer's meme of sorts.  Duty and some kind of memetic addiction compel me to complete it.  For what it's worth, it is reproduced below.

What is the working title of your book?

Well, as I said last week, I’m working on at least two things right now, so the novel is called The Dream and the web fiction series is called Shadow.

Where did the idea for the book come from?

Well, The Dream came to me in a dream… I’m kidding.  I came up with the idea for that novel in 2001 or 2002, when I was trying to find a clever twist for a fantasy novel (I was struggling with the traditional fantasy genre at the time).  I found a premise I really liked and thought I could work with, but then when I tried to write it I kept getting bored.  I’ve come back to it several times over the last decade or so and only recently have I found the right voice and the right sense of setting to really feel comfortable with it.

Shadow on the other hand came to me originally as an idea for a piece of chain fiction to write with friends.  I wanted to explore the idea of a city on another world which would be humanity’s true origin, wild and dark.  It never happened.  Then, when I was bored in work one day I started writing this story for a friend and the setting of the city of Shadow seemed perfect for what I wanted to do.  The city has turned out very differently from what I had originally intended, of course, but the base ideas are still there and keep growing all the time.

What genre does your book fall into?

An easy one this!  The Dream is a traditional fantasy novel (or trilogy) with, what I hope is, a fairly unique twist (no spoilers here!)  Shadow on the other hand is a mostly light-hearted Steampunk-lite fantasy tale.

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

You know, for all that I love the idea of my stories being turned into films (in contrast to my wife) I am rubbish at thinking of actors in connection to my characters.  I can see them and they don’t look like people I know, mostly.  Having said that, Siren from Shadow was always supposed to look a bit like Kaley Cuoco with her hair dyed black and  Gulliver was inspired by Mackenzie Crook’s Ragetti from Pirates of the Caribbean.

What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?

The Dream:  The world of Erinëa is falling apart: people vanish without a trace, wars and plagues are rife, a darkness spreads across the lands that is more than the mere absence of light and for four young friends - a bard, a priest, a mountain guide and a soldier – there will be a personal journey that will change the way they think about the world and themselves.

Shadow:  Ellis Graves is a normal English lad with his fair share of relationship troubles and identity issues, but when he finds himself inexplicably sucked into the world of Shadow - a world of monsters, machines and mad scientists – he finds himself a pawn in a much larger game; the goal: Earth.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

Shadow is already being published weekly online.  I have vague plans to release each volume of it in eBook form as well.

The Dream is really too early in development (yes, even after a decade) to say what will become of it.  I’m not sure I’m really good enough a writer to attempt anything beyond self-publishing anyway, but who knows?

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

This question is really non-applicable, I think. The Dream is unfinished and Shadow is an ongoing serial publication.  Still, the former has been worked on, on and off, for around a decade and the latter for about five years.

To what other books in your genre would you compare this story?

Again, this is another tricky question.  The Dream is, ostensibly, at least, a traditional fantasy and that means it carries a lot of that baggage of that genre with it.  Part of the reason it’s taken me so long to get going well with it is because I was unhappy with the clichés I was trotting out with every page.  The current version plays about with the setting a bit more even before the twist which, I hope, makes it a lot more unique in its genre.  I could compare it to some well-known sci-fi properties instead, but, I’m afraid, that would constitute a spoiler.

As for Shadow, I’m actually woefully under-read in the Steampunk genre and am not sure what it might be like.  It’s really my own take on it and it’s a lot more light-hearted and frivolous (with far less attention to detail) than many would be.  It certainly doesn’t aspire to be good literature, just an entertaining weekly read and an exploration of a crazy and, I hope, fairly original world.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

I’ve discussed inspiration already, I think, but I will say that The Dream was partly inspired by a famous Science Fiction film, which led me, eventually, to ask the question, ‘What would a fantasy version of this be like?’.  Shadow was inspired by not enough work to do in a Call Centre, ha ha!

What else about your book might pique your reader’s interest?

As I’ve said before, The Dream is a hopefully fairly original twist on the traditional fantasy genre and I hope it’s premise will intrigue and entertain.  Shadow is like an ongoing Steampunk fantasy TV series, only written down and with a bigger special effects budget.  If either of these things sound like your thing then, chances are, you’d find reading them worth your while.

Here endeth the meme.  I know I'm supposed to tag someone else now but (sad admission) I don't have anyone else to tag and not just because I don't know anyone else working on any writing right now.  Oh well.  If you're reading this and this applies to you, consider yourself tagged and please post a link to your completed meme in the comments!

Words, Words and More Words.

I'm a very undisciplined writer, aren't I?

The reason there have been no new posts for a while (or any regular posts, ever) on this blog is that I am poor at making the time to write.  The reason Shadow continues as it does is mainly because I have a deadline built in to writing it, which encourages me to hurry up a little, and because I do most of m y writing for it during my breaks at work as part of the necessary process of escapism.

Murkland fairs less well.  I was writing that in the mornings before breakfast and then winter hit and all I wanted to do was sleep.  I resolved this year that I would finish it before Easter, but apart from that New Year entry, I have not managed to work on it since.

Why am I recounting this tale of slovenly writing?

Well, the reason is that my wife, the beautiful Eruntane, whose own blog can be found here, has just finished writing her first full attempt at a novel and it has put me in that itchy typing finger kinda mood, indeed, the last few weeks of increasingly fervent writing from her part has meant that I've been keen to get something more serious done for a while.

Well, what have I achieved?

To be honest, not a lot.  What I have done is to unearth the novel I began writing as part of 2011's NaNoWriMo, The Dream and try to sort out some of the formatting issues it developed when I downloaded it from the free online writing software I had been using to keep working on it during breaks at work (recurring theme?).  I have thus far managed to reformat about six chapters and have made some of them available for friends to read, which will hopefully result in a little feedback and thus the encouragement I need to continue working on it.

I'm dreadful.  You think those pleas for comments on Shadow are because I want feedback?  Well, yes, they are a little, but mostly they are because I just want proof that people are reading my stuff.  If you read it, I will write it, otherwise I'm likely to loose interest...

Anyway, this seems like as good a time as any to survey my current list of writing projects, either ongoing, or merely in a holding pattern in my head.  It looks something like this:

Shadow - The ongoing Steampunk fantasy web fiction series.

Murkland - A Supernatural horror web fiction  novella, currently on hiatus.

The Dream - A fantasy novel or trilogy of novels with what I hope to be an interesting twist.  It has been attempted to be written about four or five times since 2001 when the idea first occured to me. Currently sitting at about 53,000 words thanks to NaNoWriMo 2011.

DARKSYDE - A Gothic fantasy/Noir novel and set of short stories totaling around 100,000 words,  The novel has been untouched for about eight years now and the last short story was finished about five years ago.  It may, one day, be suitable for web fiction, or as a novel, but much of it would need to be rewritten either way.

Chronicles of Dust and Air - An anime-inspired wild-west/steampunk fantasy story intended to be made up of several different POV character stories which would intertwine with a strong allegorical element.  It currently exists in only two chapters.  It could be suitable as web fiction or as a novel, although I'm veering more towards the former, despite the lack of money in it.

Kemet - A fantasy tale inspired by Egyptian mythology and the works of C.S. Lewis, which I original orchestrated as a fairly successful piece of roleplaying/chain fiction with some friends and which I one day hope to re-write, probably as web fiction.

Music of the Gears - A very roughly sketched out science fiction story most probably inspired by George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire novels.  It would involve some Steampunk elements as well as some elements of medieval history and Imperial Rome to conjure up a decadent future empire rife with schemes and intrigues.

It would seem that my mind is a busy place to be some times.  Remember that the next time I just stare vacantly into space...

Creative Christians

This is a talk I have been working on for the last week or so and which I gave as part of a small service at a sheltered housing complex in Aberdeen today.  The core issue is one I have been considering for some time and being asked to do this talk seemed to be a good opportunity to solidify my thoughts and seek the Lord on the topic.  I hope that it is, in some way at least, edifying.

Job 38: 4-7

Exodus 31: 1-11

            There has been something bothering me about the Christian community for a while now, an issue I cannot fully make sense of, a question that I gnaw at from time to time, hoping to find a satisfactory answer.  To my shame, or perhaps to our shame, I haven’t found one yet.

            It is a question that comes up every time a well-meaning friend recommends another Christian band or novel and I find out they are no more to my taste than any of the others.  It is a question which arises every time I read the works of C S Lewis, or see a spiritual painting by one of the masters in a gallery, yet see no analogue in modern Christian life.  It is a question cowering within me every time the world tells us that Christians are boring and that God is irrelevant.

            What is the question?

            In the simplest form I can muster it would be this: Why aren’t Christians today more creative?

As part of our life and worship we are supposed to become more like God every day, to reflect his image outwards into a world that doesn’t know him as it should.  We know that God is loving and merciful and so individuals seek to help those they can and Christian charities lead the way in many areas of humanitarian work.  We reveal the loving character of God in our practical Christian lives.  We also know that God judges the world with righteousness, and as Christians we are certainly very good at appearing judgemental, even if that’s not actually the same thing, or to be commended in any way.

We were made to reflect the image of God and whether we give a pure reflection or not, how we behave, how we react to situations and how we express ourselves will always help the world to form an opinion of our Heavenly Father.  We know this!  We strive to live better lives and to present an outward image of godly living that can serve as a witness to the world.  It takes up hours of sermon time, of bible studies and commentaries, and this is as it should be, but it is far, far less often that we will be spurred on to acts of creativity, or hear encouragement for the creative Christian.

We worship the God of the universe – the most creative, imaginative person in existence, who has ever existed and ever will exist.  This is the God who made stars and solar systems by the billion, dusting space with nebulae and galaxies over distances it is impossible for the human mind to comprehend, who created the awesome diversity, complexity and beauty of every living thing, from blue whales to amoebae, buttercups to redwoods. This is the God who sculpted the Himalayas, the Rockies and the Andes and gave the birds their song.

In the passage from Job we see just this aspect of God at work, explained to us in terms we can understand and which, it seems, God himself relates to: God as craftsman, a master builder perfecting his art.  Whilst God was making a different point entirely to Job, the description of his creative work is also a significant insight into God’s attitude towards creativity.  God does not consider creation a simple, one-off act of thought, but a work of care and attention and, as verse 7 clearly suggests to us, of great beauty.

God’s Creation is Art with a capital A.  It was made to be seen, enjoyed, investigated and debated.  It was made to have meaning found in it and it was made to transcend all meaning.  And, like all art, it is at times controversial.  If you’re not convinced try asking a group of Christians for their opinion on spiders, or Brussels sprouts...

My point is this: God is the ultimate artist and creativity is a fundamental part of who he is and how he acts, and yet I do not see all that much creativity at work in the Christian community today.

I do not deny that there is creativity, but if we are to be emulating God in this, being his representatives in this world, our art should be the most beautiful and diverse art after Creation itself.  We seem to get stuck in a rut, or think that only a very few media, styles or genres are really acceptable.  We shoot ourselves in the foot.

If we look at the Exodus passage, then, we can see the importance God puts on creativity within his people.

Firstly he chooses Bezalel.  As Christians we understand the significance of being chosen for God by any task, but the Hebrew is a bit more specific and many older translations reflect this.  The KJV, for example, says ‘I have called by name Bezalel’.  This turn of phrase denotes God choosing Bezalel for a specific and, above all, important task.  It is an extremely high honour.

Secondly God fills Bezalel with his Spirit.  This is in fact the first instance in the Bible where someone is specifically mentioned as having been filled with God’s spirit and whereas we might assume God might anoint someone in this way for a role as a great political, spiritual or martial leader, God’s aim here is quite different.  This is God commissioning an artist, but unlike any other patron in the history of art God not only provides the goals to be met and the means to meet it, but the very skills to be used on the way – ‘skill, knowledge and ability in all kinds of craftsmanship’.  As in all other good things, God sets the ultimate example.

Has God called any of us by name?  Has God filled us with the Spirit?

As Christians we are all called to use our different gifts and talents, and whilst none of us is likely to be asked to make a new tabernacle, we have all been commissioned by Christ to go out into the world and make disciples of all men.  As long as the world is inspired and encouraged by great art and music and literature it is part of that mission to see that at least some of that art glorifies the God who made it all possible.

We are not all Michelangelo, we cannot all write like Shakespeare, or compose like Handel; we might not have the design talent of William Morris, or the directorial talent of Hitchcock and, if I can expand our ideas of creativity a little further, we won’t all be able to program video games like Warren Spector or Peter Molyneaux, but somewhere in the Church there is a Christian who will.

So, two things:

            Firstly, as Christians we should reflect the beauty of the world and of our God in our creativity, whatever form, large or small that takes, to inspire others and glorify God in all his creative genius.  That creativity doesn’t always have to be overtly Christian, any more than the work we do might be, or the conversations we have each day, but in that same way it must be done with him in mind and for his glory.

            Secondly, we should encourage others whose gifts lie firmly in this area to use them and to exercise their God-given talent along with their Christ-won freedom to show the world that God still inspires, he still commissions, he is still endlessly imaginative and he is still the most beautiful, the most complex and the most meaningful of all.

A Night to Remember

The following is the text of a talk I gave today at a small half hour service I led at a sheltered housing complex in Aberdeen.  I post it here because it sums up a number of different things I've been thinking about recently and wanted to share, but couldn't quite find the words until this challenged me to organise my thoughts properly.  The Bible passage for the talk was Luke 22, 7 -19.

2012 is a funny year, isn’t it?  There are so many things happening this year, especially for those of us living in the United Kingdom.  The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.  The Olympics.  Lots of events are being planned to tie in with both of those.  And then there’s the one for those with a more outlandish taste, the end of the world as we know it on December 23^rd – or, at least, if you believe certain mis-readings of the ancient Mayan calendar...  There are lots of events, things to look forward to or dread, occasions to look to the future and those that recall the past.

            For me 2012 was always going to be a year that seemed centred on one of the latter, a link to the past.  Two weeks ago, on the 15^th of April, it was the 100^th anniversary of the sinking of the RMS Titanic.  For as long as I can remember I’ve been fascinated by that ship: a work of supreme Edwardian elegance, an engineering triumph, a terrible, unexpected disaster and a grave in the cold depths of the lonely Atlantic.

            I have no particular connection to the ship.  None of my relatives were passengers on her that I know of,  nor did they serve on board or help to build her.  She sank 71 years before I was born.  My only connections, as I see it, are that I was born in Birkenhead, on the other side of the Mersey from where she was conceived in the offices of the White Star Line, and I grew up in the small coastal town of Donaghadee in Northern Ireland, around the corner from Belfast Lough where she was born and first set sail with hundreds watching her.  They would have been able to see her from Donaghadee harbour, I imagine, waving and cheering in their best clothes.

            Despite this, I was haunted that weekend, two weeks ago.  The wreck of the Titanic seemed to call to me, to burden me with its immense weight, with its 1,514 lost souls.  It felt real to me in a very unnatural way and it was actually difficult for me to focus on much else.  I found it strange at the time, having, in a macabre sort of way, looked forward to the anniversary, but I was glad to see it finally pass, without ever knowing why I felt anything for it at all.

            Which brings me to another anniversary of sorts this month.  The week before it had been Easter.  I was privileged enough to have been part of the Aberdeen Passion and so, for once, I felt very strongly connected to the whole event, having, or so it seemed, relived the final days of Jesus’ life several times that weekend, albeit from the rather inauspicious role of a Pharisee.  In the midst of the all the emotions we experienced that weekend, excitement and nervousness, sorrow and joy, I couldn’t help but wonder why I didn’t feel like that all the time.

It highlighted for me how distant I can feel from the Easter story at other times, or even at other Easters.  After the Titanic commemoration I found myself wondering, why do I feel connected to a ship wreck that has nothing to do with me and yet can feel distant when reflecting on the core history of my faith?

            I thought about it a lot and in doing so realised something quite precious.  I was brought back to thinking about a different night to remember, the night of Maundy Thursday, before Jesus was arrested.  The night of the last supper.

            During the course of that meal Jesus did something very important for people like me, prone to forgetting the wonderful things he has done.  He instituted a sacrament, in which we are reminded of all that he has done for us, but he didn’t just give us a religious ritual to perform, or a trial to pass.  No.  He gave us a meal: a meal to share with friends.  Isn’t that astounding?

            Jesus has always known the full depth of human weakness.  He knew that we were lost to sin and deserved punishment, so he came to earth to take that punishment in our place.  He knew that we would struggle to repent of our sins, even in light of what he had done, so before he started his ministry he who was without sin was baptised in the river Jordan and repented for us.  And he knew that despite all of that, we would forget and we would let the enemy distract us with other fixations and ideas, so he gave us a simple, joyful thing to do, sharing a meal with our friends, to make sure we would always remember the path to our salvation.  What a kind, what a gracious God we have.

            God is a God who remembers.  That much is clear to anyone who reads the bible, especially the old testament.  His people cry out to him again and again, ‘Remember us, oh Lord!’ and he does, faithfully.  And he commands us to remember, over and over again: to remember the things he has done for us and the commands he has given.  Remembering, it seems is an integral part of both who God is and what we are called to do as Christians, living our lives following his pattern. But in the communion meal, the bread and the wine, Jesus body and blood, it seems to me that, once again, God is doing something for us because we’re no good at it.  He is remembering for us.

            I still don’t know why the Titanic calls to me so much.  There are lots of reasons, I suppose, the glamour of the ship, the portentous period in history, the tales of heroism and cowardice…  I don’t know.  In the end it’s just one instance in history.  One disaster.

            And I don’t know why Easter is sometimes more distant to me than that, an event confined to the pages of the bible, even though it’s an event which rewrote the universe and transforms the lives of those that follow Jesus forever.

But I know that God will keep reminding me, calling me back to him again and again as I partake of the bread and wine, and for that I am grateful.  What does it say to you?

Murkland live this evening!

Murkland will go live this evening at 6pm British Summer Time.

Coming Soon: Murkland

Seraphic Worlds has just received a make-over.  I'm not 100% sure that this is the look I'll be sticking with, but it is already looking a bit fresher and a bit more suited to the use I intend to make of it, i.e. a hub for my web fiction projects.

Which brings me to the point of this post - to announce the newest addition to my web fiction portfolio, Murkland, which will be up and available to read later this week.

Murkland is a horror story in the vein of Konami's Silent Hill series of video games.  Set in an ancient Scottish city on the longest night of the year, it will see four strangers have to come together to face their personal demons and the demons of the city's past.  It's update schedule is still to be decided, but it's likely to be updated twice a week with shorter updates than those you might be used to from Shadow.

Look out for more info in the coming days.

Just like startin' over

So, once again I make the attempt to resurrect this blog, although this time I have a more reliable purpose in mind for it and one which I think it will be better suited for.

So, from now on, Seraphic Worlds will serve as a sort of hub and commentary blog for my web fiction series, of which at this precise moment there is but one, but I am working on another at this very moment (well, not literally) and I have a few other ideas up my sleeve for further down the line.  Until any of these other projects surface I will use this blog for any news, commentaries or whatever that relate to Shadow, although I will still post news articles in the Shadow blog itself as well, just so no one is left out.

But what of this new project, I hear you ask?  Well, I can tell you that, just like Shadow, it's not really new.  It's something I was working on a few years ago and put on hold for a few other projects and, as is so often the case, I never got the time to go back to it.  So, it seems I am going back to it now and I'm rediscovering that I actually rather liked it and that it's format might lend itself particularly well to serialised web fiction.  It is very different from Shadow.  Here's a list of comparisons:

Shadow is a fantasy adventure story, [Project Name] is a supernatural horror story.

Shadow is aimed at a wide audience, suitable for almost all ages, [Project Name] is suitable for adults only.

Shadow has no definite end point, being an ongoing, TV series-like tale, [Project Name] was intended to be a Novella - it may get extended some in this format, but it will always have an end point in mind.

And those are just for starters.

So, if you like supernatural horror and particularly if you a fan of the Silent Hill series of video games/films/comics, then you will probably want to keep an eye out for when [Project Name] goes live.

That's all for now folks!

'The Macra Terror' and 'The Waters of Mars' reviewed.

So, in an effort to provide slightly more regular and engaging reading, I'm going to begin by reviewing some of the things I'm watching at the moment and right now that means Doctor Who, both the classic and revived series.  What better way to begin this than to review a story from each.

First up, we look at a story from 1967, The Macra Terror.

The Macra Terror, was the seventh story of Doctor Who's fourth season and was the fifth story to feature the second Doctor, Patrick Troughton.  His companions at this stage were Ben Jackson, Polly Wright and Jamie McCrimmon.

This era of the series was markedly different from the first three seasons, not just in the presence of a new Doctor, but also in the style of the episodes.  Whereas the stories of the first Doctor's era tended to be long and relatively slow-paced, focusing on atmosphere and mystery more than anything else, the second Doctor's era had the hallmark of shorter, faster-paced adventure stories.  The character of the Doctor had changed to match this, moving from the thoughtful, often grouchy first Doctor of William Hartnell, to a more whimsical, chatty but also less human second incarnation.

As it happens the style of the episode plots and the character of the second Doctor really appeal to me.  I grew to love Hartnell's Doctor as I watched my way through the first three seasons, but Troughton won me over far quicker and it is his charm, more than any other feature, which makes The Macra Terror entertaining.

By modern standards the plot is fairly cliché, but then Doctor Who often is and it is not always that much of a problem for the quality of its episodes.  The Doctor and his companions arrive on a planet with a human colony that quickly turns out to be too happy to be true.  We soon meet the crab-like Macra (who will later hold the record for the longest gap between appearances on the show when they reappeared, super-sized and super-stupid in the revived series three episode, Gridlock) and it becomes apparent that they are running the colony behind the scenes for their own benefit.  The Doctor bumbles around in his slightly insane way, his companions get caught, escape, get caught again, turn against each other and generally achieve very little and then, in his continued bumbling, defeats the Macra and frees the colony.

It's all fairly prosaic and the Macra themselves are fairly ridiculous - not because of the quality of the special effects, which seem fine for the time (as much as one can tell from soundtrack and telesnaps only), but simply because they are apparently super-intelligent, lumbering crab monsters.

I have no idea why they had to be crab monsters!

Despite all this the story is perfectly entertaining and it's all because Patrick Troughton has such charm as the Doctor.  His unravelling of the equation that controls the gas which the Macra need to stay alive is hilarious, as is his confounding of the gas flow process.  The rest of the story could disappear and it really wouldn't matter all that much.  We pay to see the Doctor, or so it seems.

Another actor who's charm redeems a great many sins in the role of the Doctor is David Tennant, however even his skill does not do quite enough to make me like my second story: The Waters of Mars.

Written by Russell T. Davies (who seems to think that good science fiction is spouting nonsense and covering it in a thin veneer of Coronation Street) and Phil Ford (who belongs to the same school of thought as those writing Doctor Who in the era of Patrick Troughton), The Waters of Mars is one of the series of specials which made up the gap between seasons four and five of the revived series and the end of Tennant's tenure in the role of the Doctor.  It has won awards.  I'm not entirely sure why.

The premise of the episode is an interesting one, albeit one we have seen many times before: first colony on a new world, terrible menace, everyone destined to die, struggle for survival, etc. etc. etc.  The twist is that the Doctor is there and that he knows what is going to happen and that he cannot change it.  The events that are supposed to unfold are somehow to shape humanities future in a profound way and the Doctor knows he cannot interfere.  So along come some monsters which are supposed to be creepy (and so nearly are) but which look too rubbery around the mouth and patently ridiculous when they start spouting water and the Doctor prepares to leave the crew of the base to their fate.

But he changes his mind and the scene which follows is a familiar moment of awesomeness - the Doctor defying fate and saving the remaining crew in flamboyant style.  Tennant's flair for the part really shows off here and the combination of music and visuals is really exciting - the best part of the episode so far.

And then we hit the epilogue and we learn that characters who had been facing death moments before actually kinda wish they had died (although they give no good reason as to why) and the Doctor, who, admittedly at this stage is starting to sound overly arrogant, is forced to realise that he was wrong to change their fate.

It all fits in very well with the classic series story The Aztecs, where the Doctor was constantly saying the history could not be changed, but at no point do Davies and Ford give us a convincing reason that the people of Bowie Base One had to die, or that the Doctor could have convinced them that and when Adelaide Brooke, the commander of the expedition and fulcrum of humanity's apparently great future, tells the Doctor that no-one should have the power to decide that future, she seems to forget that everyone has that power every day with every choice they make.

Okay, sot he Doctor knew what was going to happen in a way no ordinary participant of history could, but still, it's all just too much nonsense trying to be profound.  Tennant plays it all very well, but it's the one episode of the revived series that, on re-watching, actually makes me angry.  I feel insulted by it!

The fact that it then follows on to The End of Time parts one and two, probably only adds to that insult, but that is another review for another time.

Until next time...

A Sense of Direction.

It has to be said that this blog has been lacking any kind of forward momentum.  The truth is I'm never entirely sure what to write in it.  A brief re-cap of some of my earlier posts has reminded me of the stuff I have written in it before and that has revealed a mixture of complete nonsense, minor profundities, TV episode reviews, autobiography and creative writing.  None of these things sit terribly well beside each other, but it seems that I have lost the knack even for such randomness as all that.

So, this blog is currently under review.  I aim to give it a purpose.  It might not be a very strict purpose, but at the very least, I shall try to post in it more often and with more relevance and interest to the casual reader (whoever you might be - my stats currently suggest that you are no-one, by which I mean no offence) and perhaps a greater connection to my more serious blogging effort - Shadow.

This questing for a sense of direction has become something of a theme in my life over the past week.  It seems that every year, around about this time, I suddenly find myself with itchy feet, longing to escape from my job, or my creative doldrums and get out and do something more meaningful, more productive, that sort of thing.  None of this was helped when a friend in work revealed that he was leaving to do just the sort of creative work he has always wanted to do, and he's likely to get paid quiet a bit for it as well.

Well, it was with such thoughts in my mind that I found myself sitting in church yesterday morning listening to a man talk about the work of The Samuel Trust (Sams), a Christian group who aim to work with the young people of disadvantaged areas in Aberdeen.  They were looking for new volunteers, having run so low on them that they had to put one of their clubs on hiatus.  The sermon that morning was about the end of Romans 9 and the whole of Romans 10, in which Paul speaks about the need for people to be told about the gospel and Dominic, our minister, tied this in with the work of Sams as an example of the kind of gospel work Paul would be calling people to now.  I can't remember the exact context, but at one point he spoke of us having 'itchy feet for the gospel' and the use of that term, which I had had in my mind so much over the past week really (and here I borrow the terminology of the esteemed Professor McGrath) - this phrase really resonated with me in that context.

So, long-ish story short, I met with the guy from Sams after the service and have agreed to go along on one of their trips for older kids to see how I find it and whether or not it's something I can do.  I've already worked out that I have the time for it every other Thursday and that I can do some flexible working to make sure I arrive on time.  I'm pretty sure the folks at work would agree to it all.  It all seems so convenient, in fact that I really do feel that it might be a calling.  I guess I'll know for sure when I do it.  It could turn out to be exactly the wrong thing for me to do, but that in itself would be helpful to know as otherwise I'll always be swithering.  Either way, then God has opened a door for me so that I might see beyond it and perhaps find that sense of direction which I seem to have been missing recently.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Clerihews

We interrupt our scheduled silence for some Clerihews.

J. Edgar Hoover
Liked drinking nail-varnish remover.
Whilst being so high,
He became the founder of the F.B.I.

and

David Lloyd George
Worked hard at the forge.
He made Ireland his mission
And left it in a state of Partition.

and how about

Sir Francis Drake,
Regarded a rake,
Had in mind
A more golden behind.

And I'm done.

Homelife, Home, Life...

So, I'm on holiday in Northern Ireland at the moment.  For those of you who might not be aware of such things, that's where I'm from originally... well sort of.  I'm actually English by birth, but my father's from 'Norn Iron' and we moved here when I was five.  I left for Aberdeen to go to university when I was eighteen and it seems I haven't looked back since, but the funny thing is, the longer I'm away the more interest the country has for me when I return.

It seems to me that when you grow up in a place it either becomes somewhere you're eternally attached to, causing terrible homesickness even when you go on holiday, or it becomes, in your mind at least, the least interesting place on the planet.  I was closed to the latter.  I didn't dislike Northern Ireland, exactly, I just assumed that everywhere else would be more interesting and when I moved to Scotland I was initially convinced that this was, indeed, the case.

Of course, I have learned now that this is nonsense and that there's as much to enjoy and find interest in in the Province as anywhere else and I find that I'm increasingly proud of my connection to it, even though to most people I sound English and even folk from Northern Ireland need some convincing to believe I lived thirteen years of my life there.

And there's another thought.  I'll probably always think of Northern Ireland as being the place I've lived the longest.  Naturally it was during my 'formative' years, so it's impact must be considerable.  But if you add up the years of my life so far, like so:

0 - 5 - Bromborough, Wirral, England.

5 - 18 - Donaghadee, County Down, Northern Ireland.

18 - 27 - Aberdeen, Aberdeen City, Scotland.

it becomes very clear that whilst Northern Ireland still holds the top spot in terms of time spent there, I have now spent more than half my life in other places.  In a few years time, assuming I stay in Aberdeen all that time, and that seems likely at the moment, I will have lived there for the longest portion of my life.  That seems like a momentous thought, like I should notice when it happens immediately and that the whole balance of my life must shift, but I suspect that it will pass completely unnoticed.

And this brings me, tenuously, to a second topic.  Being at home has given me the opportunity to see my maternal grandmother again.  She has Alzheimer's and, seeing her as irregularly as I do, I find her in an increasingly worse state each time.  Before I left for university she was still fairly compus mentis, with just the occasional lapse in memory.  As the years have passed she's moved into a nursing home and has begun to forget who all the relatives visiting her are.

The last time I saw her she didn't seem to know I was her grandson, but saw me as someone she cared about a lot nonetheless.  She always smiled and laughed and talked about how lovely I was.  It was very moving in a strange way; sad and yet reassuring that she seemed so happy.

I visited her again yesterday - the first time in about a year and a half.  She didn't speak at all, just smiled and laughed and hummed along to the Viennese waltz from The Sound of Music playing on the big screen TV.  She could hardly stay awake.

I know that she wasn't unhappy, or distressed by her situation at all, and yet I had so much trouble reconciling the sleepy, blissfully unaware old woman with the bright, sometimes fearsome lady I remember visiting as a child in Birkenhead.  Back then she was looking after her own mother at home, a hunched over figure in a chair and a blanket with a basket of sweets from which I was often treated.  I don't remember her very well other than that, but I know that my grandmother must have worked very hard to look after her in her own home.

I remember flying back over to the Wirral with my mother sometime after we'd moved to Northern Ireland for the funeral, which I did not actually go to.  It didn't really mean much to me then.

I wonder now alot of things and they all make me feel sad.  When might I get called over here for my grandmother's funeral?  Will there come a time when I might see my own mother fall into such a decline?

I hope and pray that I do not, but there is some comfort from knowing that we all must face moments like this, one way or another.  It is likely that Jesus faced Joseph's death early-on in his life.  In this as in all things we can go to him for comfort.  He taught us that we need not worry about the future because our Father in heaven knows the things we truly need and will provide them for us.  We need to focus on what we're doing day by day and making the most of our lives.

I had aspirations of rounding this point off in some profound fashion, however I'm now being distracted by television - oh irony of ironies - and cannot think straight.  Go figure.

More Shadow

Well, it has been a surprisingly long and quite stressful week thanks, mainly to driving lessons, but now a new week has begun and, consequently, there is a new episode of Shadow for you to read.  In truth it's really this episode that starts the story off for real.  Episode I is more of an introduction, but it doesn't give you much idea what to expect from the series as a whole.  Episode II is much more honest and it introduces the character who I like most of all those I've ever written:  The Former Baron von Spektr.

As Shadow continues it will become clear that he is a very eccentric and enigmatic character, but despite his comic appearances he has a surprising amount of depth and history.  I don't know it all yet and I always enjoy discovering something new about him.  I suppose he's like my version of the Doctor from Doctor Who. In fact, since discovering classic Doctor Who I can now compare him with a somewhat more comical version of the First Doctor, although I was not familiar with that character when I created the Former Baron.

Anyway, visit Shadow, read it and tell me what you think.  I'd be really interested to know.  I'd also be interested in any advice people might have about getting the word out about it, although since I haven't even managed that with this blog, it seems unlikely that anyone will reply.

Or will you?

Drivin' and Larkin

Well I had another driving lesson last night and it did not go well.  I was in a new area, it was very dark and a little wet and I was quite tired and so it is probably not very surprising, when you consider how little confidence I have behind the wheel, that I panicked often with nearly disastrous consequences.  My instructor got annoyed with me and I got annoyed with him and in the end I snapped.  The result was kind of cathartic and in my remaining lessons booked with this company I hope things will improve, but I'm considering switching company anyway as I'm clearly a slow learner and it's getting too expensive.

The rest of the evening was better.  Eruntane and I had Haggis, Sneeps and Tatties (neeps being parsnips, as there were no neeps) and a little wine as it was Burns Night.  Neither of us are Scottish, although we've lived here for quite some time now, so I asked her to pick a poet to toast.  Apparently she'd had a bit of a bad day as well, since she picked Phillip Larkin.  I wonder if he'd enjoy being toasted, or whether the context would somehow confirm everything he ever believed about life and the human race...

Driving Business

So, the Shadow blog has had its first complete day of existence and, somewhat unsurprisingly, it has not become the No. 1 most read blog on the internet.

Don't worry, I'm not deluded.  I would, however, be genuinely interested in advice on getting the word out about the site.  There has to be a way to increase readership, other than just word of mouth and posting a link on Facebook, but I'm not really sure where to begin.  If I'm going to take this seriously, I need to consider my options.

In other 'news' I had a driving lesson today.  I think this was the seventh lesson, which makes fourteen hours so far.  I can't say that I enjoy them and I'm too stressed out by all that I have to keep remembering when I'm behind the wheel to really be able to enjoy the driving itself either.  Hopefully as I gain more confidence it'll all become clearer, but part of me (a part I have to kick into line everytime) just thinks it's stress I don't need.

Of course, I <i>do</i> need it.  Or at least it would be really very helpful.  Eruntane and I cannot spend the rest of our life relying on the kindness of strangers (and not just because that didn't work out too well for Blanche DuBois), or on the malevolent conveniences of FirstBus and trust me, I could write a whole other post about the things we have seen and/or heard on those diabolical conveyances!

No.  I have to learn to drive and I have to learn to do it well, but boy do I find myself marvelling at all those billions of people across the world who do it everyday without even breaking a sweat...  Seriously - how?

Argument

So, in an effort to keep my first post upon my return to this blog as something a little more 'pure' I've decided to leave all explanations to this post - a secondary post, but one which gets to the point a lot quicker.

Last night I watched Julie & Julia because my wife had just read the book and we'd just signed up to Love Film and a very sleepy friend had come over to visit and so this got put on. It was a good film, if admittedly of the 'girly' kind in terms of it's themes, but it was well put together and very well performed and I found something in its premise very challenging. Here were these two women, both with a connection to some kind of writing, trying to make something of it, putting so much effort into it that, in the case of Julie, it was actually destroying her marriage - which is obviously going a bit too far - but actually trying. And what have I been doing?

It was made somewhat more challenging by the fact that Julie Powell was taking charge of her writing career in the form of a blog, and here was this blog just sitting here, almost forgotten about, flooded with SPAM comments and links to sites I don't even want to imagine. (I'll have to work on deleting those, sorry).

So I guess the film was a bit of a call to arms. Now, as I said in my last post this is not about making grand promises or plans, despite the fact that I would probably work better under the same conditions as Julie, i.e. with a set deadline and target, but, to be honest, I can't really think of one right now. I'm too far out of my own stuff to be able to relate to any of that. What I can do, however, is try to blog more often. And I have another idea, one I might need to work on a bit to get going, or which I might succeed in starting up tonight - I'm not really sure. All I know is that this is probably worth doing - if I care enough about it, that is - so I'm going to give it a go.

Wish me luck.

EDIT:  The new project is 'go' - view it here.

Reintroduction

That last blog post was ironic. It was seeped in irony. Irony drips from its every typo and punctuation mark.

None of it was intentional.

You see Bebo came and went and with it (although in a somewhat more accelerated fashion) so did my blogging. I have barely blogged at all for 4 years and that includes my occasional journal updates on DeviantArt.

4 years is a very long time. Long enough for me to change job and change roles within that job. It's been long enough for me to stop writing almost completely and change the standards to which I want to write, even though I don't. It was long enough to get married, long enough to move into a flat which I actually own. Long enough to get a cat!

4 years is a long enough time to make me wonder if I'm still the same person who wrote this blog before, or if I've become something new. I wonder if that new thing is better, or worse, or if it's just a delusion born of a mind prone to pretentious delusions and self-deception.

4 years is very, very long time. I'm sorry I have not recorded much of it within the confines of this blog and sorrier still that I have fallen short on so many writing goals as to make a mockery of any attempt to call myself a writer. And yet, I do not regret any of those years. They are mine but, also they have been in the hands of one far greater than I and there have been many blessings to offset the disappointments I find within my own plans. I find myself in greater plans and in those greater plans, I think, I've found a little bit more of myself than I had before.

And so now I return here and wonder if I can start writing again.

No great promises. No grand commitment. No 12 step plan.

Let's just see what happens, shall we?

It's all over bar the blogging...

Well after an absence of, er, nearly two months, I am finally back online aproper, but this will also be my last blog on this site. I have sold my soul to Bebo (I think I'm over-using that phrase now, but it seems so apt) and so all future blogging shall occur there @ seraphism.bebo.com.
All good things must sell out and go somewhere else I guess...

I'll never hear the end of it.

Se you there then...

More Tales of, well... Everything! (Warning! May include Bees.)

Apologies in advance, Dear Reader, for the unbearable silence I am sure you have been experiencing from what has, sadly, been my forced absence from this blog. If you have been keeping up to date with my situation you will know that I was finishing Uni and moving flat. The present participles there used (that yould be the -ing endings) must now become past participles (-ed) to say they have (and here I misquote an old BBC schools programme) Happened.
Yes, very silly use of the english language aside, I am now officially a Graduate of the University of Aberdeen, complete with a degree certificate to prove it. You may now call me Seraph BSc. Equally as exciting, the move has been completed and I now share a nice flate, comp-elte with whtie walls, laminate flooring and not quite enougyh storage space with the Green One, the Other One having moved on to his year's volunteering at a Scripture Union (A christian organisation) conference centre-type place. IT feels like now is the tinme to use sound effects like 'Oooh' and 'Aaah', but there's also a fair amount of 'Eeep' and even 'Eeeeyaaaaagh!' as I now find myself in the position of seeking Full Time employment and, frankly, not doing a very good job of it. I am existing at the moment on my Part Time wage plus vast quanities of overtime and money given to me by my parents, who also offered substantial amounts of support during the move as they were up in Aberdeen at that time for the graduation ceremony (Pictures may be forthcoming).
I should also be writing, but with the demise of my laptop and the lack of acess to it's hard-drive's contents that's also looking a bit hard. Not being able to RP as we don't have an internet connection yet (the reason for my long blogging absence) combined with much watching offilms and the X-files as well as reading Jeff Vandermeer's excellent Shriek: An Afterword, has left me with a desperate need to write or tell a story, but without any actual story to tell. It's quite frustrating.
Eruntane has left for France, where she will be part of a gospel choir for two weeks. The Doctor has returned to her native Northern Ireland, before helping her family emmigrate to Canada and the Heckler is, like the Green One and I, left behind like a ghost in the muggy heat of the Granite City. It's a very strange situation.
We are planning to see Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest tonight, however. I have already seen it, having gone with Eruntane on Thursday evening as she had to begin her travels the next day.
I've heard various things sdaid about this film so far, but here's my point of view.
It's not as good as the first, but it still has some fantastic moments and the characters become a lot more interesting as the story progresses. Bill Nighy's Davy Jones is fanatstic and and scary witch woman is also very well characterised and performed. Jack Sparrow is, of course, the same character we all know and love, and although soem re-used jokes fall a bit flat towards the beg9inning of the film and some alter scenes just seem silly, much of the comedy, especially that centred on Jack, still remains. They scene shifts p[erhaps a few too many times, the story sort of meanders between it all, but, in fairness, the adventure is still a good one and even the first film was a little messy in its structure. It didn't stop it from being fantastic and Dead Man's chest, whilst not reaching such lofty heights, is still a fun film to see. The promise of the third film is greater however, and, if they can solve the problems of this film before it's release, it could well be a finish to remember.
I'm going to shut up now, but not before I give you the promised Bees [wasn't it more of a warning? -Pedantic Ed.]. HAving come into Uni to use these PCs and write this account, I found myself sumamrily unable to proceed as my computer account had been closed, but, having spent a full £1.20 in bus fares to get here I decided to visit the nearby park and enjoy the sights of the river Don, using up filmin my disposable camera as I did so. At one point, whilst trying to line up a shot of the river dissapearing into a beautiful bit of woodland I stepped down onto a wooden jetty of sorts, assumedly for kayaking and resumed taking aim for the piocture. Still unsatisfied I eximned a lower portion of the jetty and was consdiering descending onto it when I saw a bess fly up to me. I froze and then I realised it wasn't alone and that, from beneath the jetty, many more bees were issuing forth. I swore. I ran. End of story.
See you next time, folks.