Wes-Granberg Michaelson gets it right on global climate change
Right here ... because he's been spending time right here:
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Advice for writers …
Quite often I receive requests to read unsolicited manuscripts to assess their potential for publication (which I wish I could do, but can't), or requests for advice, like this one:
Any advice for aspiring writers? It isn’t the writing part that’s the struggle. My question is, what in the world do you do with the final product?
A better answer than any I could give was given by Margaret Feinberg (a gifted young writer herself) here. Along with a lot of great links, she offers this:
I
n a nutshell, my best advice is simply to write, write, write. This is an art form, a craft, and time is your friend. Once you know what you want to write, put together a proposal and get yourself to a writer’s conference where you can get one-on-one time with an editor and listen to honest feedback. Then, it will be time to write, write, and rewrite some more.
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Hiroshima and Nagasaki …
On this sixty-fourth anniversary of my nation's decision to drop of nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (August 6 and 9), it's a good day to learn about Faithful Security.
And it's a good day (it's hard to use the word "good" in this context, isn't it?) to ponder what taking 250,000 civilian lives looks like. It's a good day for meditating on Jesus' words:
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God. I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Take no sword. Those who live by the sword will die by the sword. If my kingdom were of this world, my disciples would fight. My kingdom is from another place. Love one another as I have loved you. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. As you have done it to the least of these ... you have done it to me.
It's a good day for praying this prayer:
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
when there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
Grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand,
to be loved as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Thank God for groups (like this one) who are working so that nuclear bombs never fall again.
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Q & R: Please dismount your high horse …
A reader wrote ...
My name is XXX which has absolutely no meaning, relevance or significance to you. I am not famous, nor noteworthy. I have no more power nor influence than my Anglican-American middle class status affords me, which I realize in the overall scheme of the world structure puts me in the "upper echelon," but in terms of Who's Who in the US and the world, you will not find my name there with yours, or in any other circle that your name exists.
Those words may seem somewhat inflammatory, as will some of what I say that follows. Ironically, however, before I go on I would like to establish that I truly am an avid fan of your theology. I have recently begun a new Sunday School class in our United Methodist congregation, mostly due to and inspired by your trilogy. Indeed I, like you, believe that it is not only time for, but perhaps gravely past time for, a theology that cries out for a new kind of Christian.
A very good friend of mine, who's foremost passion is for the victimized and ostracized segment of our society that Christians have,for centuries, and continue to even today, persecute--the LGBT community--invited me to be part of a book study which consisted mostly of gay men. The book they would be reading next was one of your own--the first of the trilogy.
It would require a more lengthy and in-depth explanation than I care to share at this point, and I'm certain more than you would care to read at this point, but in as short of form as I can hope to convey this message, after having been raised in an environment that was very homophobic, then going through a God-inspired transformation that only God could have orchestrated as my own son went through the process of realizing a same sex orientation, through God's Grace I inadvertently became a part of the "emerging conversation" that I had no clue was taking place.
After having lived the experience of participating in and reading your trilogy in what I refer to as the "Gay Men's Book Club," I gained a respect and admiration for not only your theology, but you as a writer. You, sir, are extremely gifted and have the capacity to reach out to a world that is so desperately in need of your brand of what I feel is a true understand of and example of, Christ-followance. If only everyone could understand Christ as you do........
Now, having boosted your ego, which after reading Everything Must Change I have come to the conclusion you have no lack of, I must say to you that I hope you will get off your damn high horse and come back to ground level to speak to the vast majority of the public that needs speaking to.
More after the jump ...
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