None of these events has touched me directly. I have been unusually blessed throughout my life: the Grim Reaper’s visits to my personal world have been infrequent. Two of my grandparents and both of my parents are still alive, as are all of my aunts, uncles and cousins. The last person close to me whom I lost was my great-grandfather, scant months shy of his 100th birthday.

And yet I am not unaffected. I feel like I am one thread in the middle of a tapestry that is fraying at the edges. I feel someone pulling on the weave, snatching out threads and leaving those they were connected to alone, dangling, half-stripped themselves. My heart cries out at the pain around me — There must be something I can do! — but I feel very small and fragile, and the comfort I can offer seems paltry in comparison to the pain.

What can I do? Only what I can: Give what I am able. Help in the small ways available to me. Pray. Love. Offer solace. Encourage others to do the same.

It’s not enough. It’s a drop of water on an inferno.

But if all of us do what we can, those drops join together to become a flood.

The world is on fire, it’s more than I can handle
Tap into the water, try to bring my share
Try to bring more, more than I can handle
Bring it to the table — I bring what I am able

–Sarah McLachlan, “World on Fire”

Our class cooked the food for Exhibition Night, but I didn’t get a chance to take part; I spent the whole day trying to get the class cookbook together, and eventually succeeded after THREE trips back and forth to Kinko’s. (Don’t ask.) Now, I enjoy cooking — it’s a very relaxing experience for me, most of the time — so by the time I got home I was ready to do some playing around in the kitchen for myself.

What transpired over the next hour was a perfect example of WHY I love cooking. The following more-or-less recounts my thoughts and actions in the order they took place.

1.) Look in the fridge for supplies. Hmm, there are those two chicken thighs I’ve been thawing out for a few days; I’d better use them for something now or I’m going to lose them.

2.) Pull out the chicken thighs, rinse, drain, squish out excess moisture. How can I cook these? Well, they’ve got a lot of fat in the skin and dark meat is pretty forgiving of high temperatures; I can sear the outside and then add a sauce and cook on low heat until they cook through. I have that jar of Bombay Simmer Sauce; maybe I’ll use that.

3.) Heat up cast-iron skillet to medium-high. Cover outside of the thighs with a very small amount of safflower oil, black pepper, and kosher salt. Let’s put the skin side down against the pan first; it’s a thick layer of mostly-fat, so it should crisp up pretty nicely when it hits the hot iron.

4.) Put chicken thighs in the pan, skin-side down. After 3-4 minutes … wow, look at that. The fat rendered out of the chicken and is coating most of the bottom of the pan. I’ve got enough hot lipid in there to saute some veggies. What can I use…?

5.) Quick search of the refrigerator and cabinets turns up onion, minced garlic, red peppers, and sliced mushrooms. Oooh. Okay, quickly, chop up half of the onion and throw it in there. (ow ow eyes burning ow) Flip over those chicken breasts, mix up the rendered fat with the onions to saute them nicely. Add the garlic a couple of minutes later; mix. Repeat for the mushrooms next, then the peppers.

6.) By this point a fair amount of moisture has cooked down into the pan, and we’re getting out of saute land and into stewing territory. Time to chop up some tomatoes — and yes, I have two Romas waiting for just such a purpose. (Chop chop chop.) Hmm, that doesn’t look like enough. I’ll add this can of diced tomatoes, too, after I drain out most of the juice into a mug. Mix in tomatoes and cover. Drink tomato juice. (Mmm. Lycopenes.)

7.) Somewhere around this point, I unconsciously shifted from “South Asian” mode to “Italian” mode. Maybe it was the leftover spaghetti waiting in the fridge for something to use with it. Maybe it was the fact that mushrooms and peppers didn’t seem very Bombay-ish. Maybe I just realized subconsciously that I had a jar of pesto I was waiting to try out. Whatever the reason, I put away the Bombay Simmer Sauce and opened up the pesto instead. Two heaping teaspoons, mix, mix … yeah, that looks about right. And I’ve got a ton of pesto left over for future experiments.

8.) Need green veggies. Spinach? Naw, I always do spinach. Hey, I’ve got this steamed broccoli left over! (Chop chop chop. Mix mix.) Cool, that’ll go well with everything else. Need time for this to cook down and for the chicken to finish cooking through; I’ll cover it and check back in 20 minutes. (Sets timer.)

9.) 20 minutes later … Wow, look at all that liquid. Even with all the tomatoes in there, the liquid is … GREEN! Whoa. Okay, gotta reduce this. Turn up the heat. (Bubble bubble bubble) There we go… (mix around, watching while liquid evaporates)

10.) 5 minutes later … Hmm. Okay, most of the excess liquid is gone, but this still isn’t looking much like a pasta sauce. Ahh, yes, my mom’s old trick for thickening sauces: tomato paste! (Opens up a can, mixes it in) MUCH better.

11.) Seasoning, seasoning … the pesto will have added a lot of flavor, but what can I do to spice this up a bit more? Garlic pepper, check. Fresh ground black pepper, check. Oregano, check. … That’s enough, I think. Don’t want a repeat of the Vegetable Beef Soup Incident. (mix mix mix)

12.) That chicken has GOT to get broken up now. Is it done? (Presses in spatula tip, breaks off a piece) Yep, it’s done. (Chops up chicken into small chunks, removes thigh bones, gnaws on thigh bones for excess meat) Ooh, hot hot hot … but TASTY!

13.) Y’know what this still needs? The same thing the world always needs: CHEESE. (Pulls out Parmesan/Romano/Asiago cheese blend, dumps in a liberal amount, mixes up)

14.) Moment of truth. Heat up some spaghetti noodles, spoon the chicken/veggie/pesto/chees

1. I love being tall. I’ve gone through life being self-conscious about a lot of things over the years, but my height is one thing I’m very grateful for. I can reach the top shelves in cupboards, control the projector on the ceiling by going up on tiptoe, and see over the heads of nearly everyone else in the crowd. It’s one of those things I have no control over, so I can’t exactly be proud of it - but damn, it’s cool.

2. I love planes, especially fighter jets. I used to build models of them as a kid, with my dad’s help. It’s one of the few really happy memories that I have of my childhood relationship with my father.

3. As implied by #2, Dad and I didn’t get along very well until relatively recently. In my pre-teen years I think he didn’t know what to do with me; my pastimes and interests were alien to him, as his were to me. Our relationship is much better now, as we have each grown to respect the other in spite of our (often dramatic) differences of opinion.

4. Knick-nacks on my desk: two beanbag animals (a seal and a killer whale); five D&D monster minis (including the Gargantuan Black Dragon); a model of Serenity; a dragon holding a letter opener shaped like a sword; a posable wooden mannikin; a beach scene in a bottle; a chintzy porcelain dolphin sculpture given to me by friends at work; a garter belt that I caught at a wedding (still waiting for that tradition to pan out); a headband decorated with strawberries (an in-joke present from friends); a stuffed Yoda; a bronzed bust of a mermaid, based on a drawing by Monte Michael Moore; and my Podcast Peer Award for Best Production.

5. I collect mermaids. Paintings, the aforementioned bust, books of fantasy art, images found online — I even ran a story contest once in which I commissioned stories about mermaids. I love ‘em. And, incidentally, I think that The Little Mermaid would have been ten times better if they’d kept the original ending.

6. I think I have a bit of gender dysphoria. Not enough to make me feel like a stranger or a prisoner in my own body, but enough that I find myself drawn to certain things that would be considered more feminine than masculine. This may be why I find myself drawn to using transformation as a theme in fiction; I’m very envious of the androgynes in my Metamor City setting, as they have the freedom to explore both the masculine and feminine drives within themselves without experiencing any sort of prejudice for doing so.

7. I’ve never tried nicotine or any sort of illegal drug. I used to enjoy reading about them to find out how they worked and what they did to the body, but I’ve never actually tried any of them. Of course, part of that may have been because I didn’t know anyone who could sell them to me during my younger, stupider days.

8. I sing everywhere. In the car, while out walking, shopping in stores, while cooking, in the shower, with musical accompaniment or without — if I’m not intensely focused on something else, chances are good that I’m singing.

9. I get really annoyed at writers who don’t live up to the potential of their premise.

10. Ten years ago I was an ardent opponent of “condoning” homosexuality in fiction. I even had a falling out with two of my favorite authors on the TSA-Talk mailing list because they revealed that one of my favorite characters was a lesbian. Now, I’m an ardent supporter of marriage equality and have written about several gay and bisexual characters in a positive manner. Channing and Feech, if you ever read this: I’m sorry. You were right, and I was wrong.

11. I did my master’s thesis research on water conservation in fasting elephant seal pups. Like many projects in biology, that sounds kind of silly, but it actually had significant relevance to a much broader field of study about evolutionary adaptations in mammals.

12. The proudest moment of my life to date: When I defended my thesis to my peers and colleagues at the end of my master’s program.

13. I have had a crush for years on Christian singer-songwriter Rebecca St. James. I’ve met her three times at various events, gotten her autograph on several items, and one time even gave her a gushy handwritten letter about what a significant blessing her music had been in my life. She still isn’t married, and there’s a tiny part of me that still holds on to the ludicrous hope that I could be the one she’s been singing about waiting for all these years. Which is kind of pathetic, since I seem to lose the power of speech every time I get close to her.

14. Favorite artists: Boris Vallejo, Julie Bell, Luis Royo, Dorian Cleavenger, Alex Ross, and (the oddball exception to the overall pattern) Phil Foglio.

15. I taught myself to play the guitar a couple of years ago, largely because I was the worship leader for our little church and had gotten sick of dragging my ginormous electric keyboard around. I find playing guitar to be very relaxing; there’s something therapeutic about it, and it allows my mind to enter a sort of Zenlike state that I can’t get into if I’m just sitting there.

16. I hate answering online surveys. So that should tell you how much I value our friendship, Chris. :-p

To carry on the meme, I’m tagging the following people: Dan Sawyer, Scott Roche, Dani Cutler, Kimi Alexandre, John Scalzi, Mur Lafferty, Arcturus Rann, Jenivi7, DanaeWinters, Rachel George, Cunning Minx, Heather Bowman Tomlinson, Victoria Folks, Robin Hudson, Philippa Ballantine, and Kitty Nic’Iaian.

create & buy custom products at Zazzle

I’ve been busy over the last week and a half working on the reading for my REACH Pre-Service program. Last Saturday I finished The Disciplined Mind, which is an excellent book that I heartily recommend to anyone interested in education. I’ll post my thoughts on the book in more detail in a later post. Right now I’m working on Mastery, a book written by a former Army Air Force pilot and aikido instructor — the premise of which is that there is a distinct path to self-improvement that requires us to love the process of self-improvement. We have to embrace the journey even when we’re not seeing results, because the practice itself is its own reward. I can speak to the truth of this on a number of levels, particularly in playing guitar and writing fiction.  I’m a bit more than a third of the way through the book and greatly enjoying it; I look forward to continuing to digest it over the course of my travels.

Once I arrive in Cali I’ll be staying with a friend in Palo Alto until my room in Berkeley becomes available on August 4th. Her house is quiet and beautiful and has a lot of space in which to work, which will give me a great opportunity to focus in on my remaining coursework and crank through it quickly and steadily. I haven’t been able to spend as much time on the coursework as I would have liked to thus far — my previous day job, which ended yesterday, and the work of getting ready to move cross-country have utterly devoured my time — so I’m looking forward to the chance to be alone with the books, with no greater responsibility than to absorb this material and prepare for the career that awaits me.

“All change is felt as loss.” My friend Mae said that on her blog recently, and boy is it ever true. I know that the life that I’m headed for will be more satisfying, fulfilling and exciting than anything that I’ve done in years, and I’m very pleased that I will be geographically close to so many of my best friends. But I haven’t spent the last four years in a vacuum, either. I don’t have very many people here in Michigan who I’m still really close to, other than my parents, but the ones I do have are all the more precious for their scarcity. In particular, Bryan, Sara and Andrea have become very dear to me, and it saddens me to know that I’m only going to see them once or twice a year now — unless they decide to join me out in California, which is more than I can probably hope for. I’ve had dear friends in the past whom I’ve grown apart from, and it’s always heartbreaking. I’m grateful that that didn’t happen with my friends in Cali — Joe and Sarah, Art and Steph, Stina, Heather, Christie — but it’s a persistent fear at the back of my mind: I love these people and I don’t want to lose them.

I don’t often say it in those words, because they make us uptight Americans feel all funny and awkward, but it’s true. I truly, dearly love my friends here, and it hurts to leave them. I don’t want to say good-bye. I want to take them along with me as I start my new life, to keep them close to me forever … but I can’t. They can’t live their lives for me — and I can’t stay here to live my life for them. And so we part, in the joyful hope of better lives for each of us and the bitter sorrow of knowing that our paths no longer run beside each other.

Dammit, now I’m crying. But then, Tolkien said it best: “I will not say, ‘Do not weep,’ for not all tears are evil.”

All change is felt as loss — even the good kind. A month from now school will start, and I’ll be fully caught up in my new life. Six months from now I’ll have settled into some sort of routine and will, I suspect, be very glad of the choice that I made to go. I keep telling myself that, as scary and often sad as this transition is, it would be far, far worse if the opportunity had never come. If I’d seen my hopes fall apart again, after so much time and money invested in trying to get this job … well. The sort of black despair I would have fallen into is not something anyone would have wanted to see. Things truly are better this way. This is good. This is right.

But today I will weep for the friends I’m leaving … because this new chance for growth doesn’t come without a price. And it’s a price I’m feeling very keenly today.

“Most certainly I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains by itself alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit.” -John 12:24 (World English Bible)

http://christhescienceguy.blogspot.com

Much of the stuff discussed there will probably mean little to people who aren’t already part of the Reach Institute’s training program, but it nevertheless has to take priority right now, because that blog is actually school-work for me. Those of you who are interested in seeing the sorts of things that a new teacher is trained in may find it of value. For those who are bored stiff by such things, I apologize, and I hope to be able to get back to putting fun stuff on this blog soon. I definitely want to record my cross-country adventure when it happens, so keep your eyes peeled for my travel blog…

What I find interesting is the idea that these archetypes — the hero, the father, the eternal child, etc. — aren’t universally tied to specific cognitive modes. Different people will use the same archetype to personify different ways of thinking/interacting with the world, and the outcome of who gets cast in which role is predictable based on a person’s particular personality type.

Normally Myers-Briggs personality typing assumes four modes of consciousness (called “function-attitudes”) for each person:

1.) Dominant: This is your “default setting”, the function-attitude you’re most in tune with. The dominant function gets cast by the subconscious in the role of the Hero. For me, this function-attitude is Introverted Intuition, meaning that I tend to look for the deeper patterns and hidden structures that underlie the observable order of things. The theories and belief systems that guide us are only provisional models, limited by our own imperfect knowledge; the Truth, the actual, absolute Truth, is ineffable, and when we attempt to describe it we are trying to draw lines around things that we can never completely understand. A dominant Introverted Intuitive function means that you try to look past these limitations and attune yourself with the deeper reality — which probably explains my fascination with the mystical side of the world, as well as my openness to seeing situations from different points of view.

2.) Auxiliary: This is your second most comfortable mode of operation. It is personified in dreams, according to Beebe, by the Father/Mother/Mentor archetype, the Obi-Wan to your Luke Skywalker. If your dominant mode is an information-gathering one (as mine is), your auxiliary mode will be a decision-making one (which allows you to act on the information you’re getting.) My Auxiliary function is Extraverted Feeling, which is a decision-making process that assigns value to things and ideas based upon their effects on people. (The counterpart function-attitude, Extraverted Thinking, is more concerned with abstract facts and objective outcomes.) Operating on the basis of Extraverted Feeling means that you assign moral/ethical weight to actions and policies and you see yourself and others in relationship to the community around you. This is the mode that leads INFJs like myself to become idealistic crusaders.

3.) Tertiary: This is a mode that you can learn to operate in, but it’s less developed, and you need to focus more effort on it in order to make it work for you. When you’re under stress, or distracted, it’s likely to be subverted by its “shadow function” — about which more will be said later.  The Tertiary function, according to Beebe, is personified by the “Eternal Child”, the archetype of the Peter-Pan style innocent who never grows up. I must confess that I have a hard time seeing how this plays out with my own Tertiary function, Introverted Thinking.

Tertiary Ti means that you (1) often need solitude in order to focus on analyzing things in a logical, impersonal way, (2) place heavy emphasis on personal experience, and (3) have a tendency to cling to pet theories and rigorously defend them, even if they’re unverifiable, and filter out data that don’t fit with that frame of reference. I can see this last tendency in myself in the way I used to get heavily caught up in the UFO mythos, or in the strong affinity that I feel for the idea of the Lost Kingdom (a hypothetical maritime civilization that some believe existed about ~10,000 years ago and was responsible for many ancient monuments around the globe).

Introverted Intuitives can get so bogged down with the countless possibilities that they can imagine that they tend to pre-judge things and filter out the stuff that doesn’t fit with their viewpoint, just to try to maintain some semblance of stability in their worldview. This can lead to a certain immunity to criticism and contradictory evidence if we aren’t careful.

4.) Inferior: This is the function that we are least conscious of; it’s part of our identity, what we think of as “us”, but it’s so close to our subconscious that we usually aren’t even aware that it’s at work. My inferior function is Extraverted Sensing — what one website describes as “orientation to your environment by immediate, gut-level response.” That same website describes my own relationship to my inferior function with disturbing accuracy:

As an inferior function, Se often leads INJs in either (or both) of two directions: to shun everything of a bodily nature as corrupt and animal (e.g. Immanuel Kant), or to crave “letting loose” and table-dancing or delivering some serious violence. … Some get into guns or karate, taking an off-kilter delight in fantasies of getting into a confrontation with someone and surprising the hell out of them with the damage they can do (see Taxi Driver). Some idolize jazz musicians as people who are completely in touch with their animal selves, able to “let go”. … A different way, perhaps the genuine reunification with the inferior function, is to find an unconditional pleasure in “the now” and a peaceful, live-and-let-live philosophy–enjoying each moment, “being present” no matter what comes.

Given that I often fantasize about doing spontaneous, adventurous stuff; that I have a deep interest in weapons and martial arts, even though I hate violence; that I have often been fascinated by jazz musicians and envied their spontaneity; and that I have recently been captivated by both the Christian mystics, who “practiced the presence of God”, and the Zen Buddhists, who emphasis “mindfulness” of the present moment … yeah. That paragraph could have been written about me.

Beebe says that the Inferior Function takes on the archetypal role of the Anima, the “muse” or “spirit” that embodies a man’s feminine side (or the woman’s masculine side, which Jung called the Animus). Given that, I guess it’s not too surprising that I envision my Muse as sensual, passionate, spontaneous, and fickle — she’s an embodiment of Extraverted Sensing, beyond a doubt.

So those are the four function-attitudes that make up my conscious identity, the person that I think of as “me.” But there are four other function-attitudes, as well, and these are the mirror-images of the four “identity” components. Because they’re unconscious and largely suppressed, these modes of thinking embody the dark side of my human nature — what Jung called the Shadow. And Beebe says that the Shadow’s four modes of operation are personified in our dreams by archetypes, as well.

Next time I’ll take a look at the components that make up the INFJ’s “shadow self”,  to see if they match up with the dark side I can see in my own nature. And, if space permits, I’ll tell you about that dream I had the other day that made me think there might be something to Beebe’s ideas…

I’ve often felt like many aspects of my own personality were paradoxical or contradictory, which is upsetting when you place a good deal of importance on making sense of your place in the universe. As I’ve read what psychologists have observed about people with my personality type (INFJ, in Myers-Briggs parlance), I’ve discovered that that’s not at all uncommon for people like me. My type is referred to as “complex”, and “while perhaps enhancing self-awareness, may make it difficult for INFJs to articulate their deepest and most convoluted feelings” (from TypeLogic.com).

It’s reassuring to know that I’m not crazy — that the struggles that I often face within myself have understandable, explicable causes, and that these weaknesses are tied in to the same mental structure that gives me my many strengths. Now that I understand where my weaknesses come from, I feel like I can be better-prepared to keep watch against them; I can strive to strengthen the areas where I’m weak, or at least compensate for them, without feeling like I’m “defective” or “broken” because I have those weaknesses. (Did I mention perfectionism is a trait of INFJs?) I can also seek out friends and confidantes who are strong where I am weak, and take advantage of their differing skills to complement my own.

I used to hate those self-assessments that some employers ask you to take, because I didn’t feel like I understood most of my own weaknesses. When I saw the weaknesses of the iNFJ personality type listed, however, I was able to read through them and think, “Yeah, that’s true … yeah … ouch, I hadn’t thought of it that way…” As a result, when I filled out my self-assessment for my new teacher credentialing program, I was able to give a much more balanced and realistic presentation of my strengths and weaknesses.

I’m going to be paying more attention to my dreams in the future, too. Myers-Briggs personality typing is based on the ideas of Carl Jung, who said that dreams are one of the ways that our subconscious mind tries to tell us things. Jungian psychologist John Beebe says that the different “function-attitudes” that make up our mind are often personified in our dreams in accordance with various mythic archetypes: our dominant function-attitude, the primary mode in which our brains operate, often gets cast as the hero, while the “shadow functions” that embody the dark side of our nature often take on the roles of the antagonists. I’ve already had one dream last night that seemed to fit this model very well — more on that another time — so I’m going to pay more attention from now on and see if the pattern continues.

INFJs are rarely at complete peace with themselves - there’s always something else they should be doing to improve themselves and the world around them. They believe in constant growth, and don’t often take time to revel in their accomplishments. They have strong value systems, and need to live their lives in accordance with what they feel is right. (PersonalityPage.com)

Looks like I’m cnnforming to type again. But you know what? I’m cool with that.

I am confident of this one thing:

That my eyes will be blessed when they gaze upon Your beauty
And my lips will be sweet when they whisper words of praise
And my heart will be dancing when it knows that You are with me
And I will see Your goodness … in the land of the living

-100 Portraits/Waterdeep, “Land of the Living”

That song has been a feature in my worship times for the last three years, through hardships, setbacks and disappointments beyond number — both for me personally and as I’ve seen the general disintegration of the world around me. It has been a declaration of faith in the midst of circumstances where I could see no way to move forward, an altar raised to remind me that God was not through with me yet and would not leave me stranded in the wilderness.

Now, at last, the prayer has been answered: I’ve officially been offered a job teaching at a charter school out in the Bay Area. And to make matters even better, they’re going to pay for my credentialing program. Completely.

I cannot begin to say what a blessing this is. To know that I can not only start a new career, but do it without the fear of going thousands of dollars in debt, without the spectre of student loans hanging over me, and in a place where I already have lots of friends waiting for me to arrive … I’m tearing up as I’m writing this.

Looking back, it is clear to me
A man is more than the sum of his deeds
And how You make good of this mess I’ve made
Is a profound mystery

Looking back, I know you had to bring me through
All that I was so afraid of
And though I questioned the sky, now I see why:
I had to walk the rocks to see the mountain view
Looking back, I see the lead of love

–Caedmon’s Call, “Lead of Love”

One thing I’ve learned over the last few years: you can have all the talent, all the brains, all the skills, but without the right opportunities and the courage to act outside your comfort zone, those assets won’t get you anywhere.

God has brought me to the place where I can be where I need to be and do what I need to do. This is important work, and I believe in it greatly. Now I have the chance to do it, and make a life for myself doing it.

All glory and praise be to Almighty God, who made a way where there seemed to be no way. I know that as I go to teach these teens about this amazing universe we live in, I will be helping to give them the chance to make something of themselves. This is my mission field, the work of the Kingdom of Heaven here on earth: imbuing knowledge, curiosity, and a passion to see this Creation well cared-for and well-protected for generations to come.

Thank you, God. I know now that I will see Your goodness in the land of the living. Let my service be pleasing in Your eyes.

“Difficulties in administering the penalty to ensure its arbitrary and capricious application require adherence to a rule reserving its use, at this stage of evolving standards and in cases of crimes against individuals, for crimes that take the life of the victim.”

Leaving aside the bad grammar — he should have had the word “against” after “ensure”; as is, the statement is almost the opposite of what he intended — it’s noteworthy that he limited capital punishment to crimes that take a life, but only in cases of crimes against individuals.

What other crimes could possibly be worth executing someone for?

Why, treason, of course. That’s a crime against the state, not against an individual. And it’s very clear from their choice of words that the Court wanted to limit their decision only to crimes against individuals.

232 years after our nation’s founding, long after most other civilized nations have done away with the death penalty entirely, and the Supreme Court still leaves the government the authority to kill people for political crimes. They had a chance to take a hard line, to restrict capital punishment only to cases of murder, and they still left a loophole for the most offensive use of capital punishment that there is.

I can’t help feeling disappointed with them — and a bit disgusted.

After the lesson was over, the principal picked out three of the students and had them interview me, picking out questions from a list of twenty while the current teacher watched and took notes. After I left, the principal debriefed them, and all three students recommended that they hire me. So, yes, things are definitely looking good. The teacher said that a formal offer letter should be coming my way soon.

All of which means that I have a lot of planning to do in a short period of time. I’m now looking for housing in the East Bay — currently leaning toward Berkeley, since it’s probably the closest thing I’ll find to another Santa Cruz — and figuring out what my budget will allow. I have firmly committed to live below my means so that I can save up money for the inevitable big expenditures and random disasters, something that I didn’t do when I was in grad school (to my great cost). I’m currently looking at rentals that will be about 20% of my gross monthly income, as opposed to the ~48% of my income that I was paying when I was in grad school. Even with the cost of gas having doubled, I feel good about my ability to live below my means under those conditions.

I’m also planning how I will actually get out to the Bay Area when the time comes to drive there. One thing that I want to do this time is avoid the long, lonely trek down the I-80 corridor; I’ll be driving alone, and there’s no one along most of that stretch whom I actually know. It’s not too often that you get the chance to head for a destination without any particular time when you must leave or arrive, so I figure this is a good chance for me to take a longer route and see some of the people I’ve been meaning to see for a long time.

Here’s what I have in mind for a rough itinerary:

Day 1: Detroit to Chicago, 305 miles. Taking it easy the first day, I plan to stop here and visit my fellow podcasters P.C. Haring and Cunning Minx. No shortage of cool stuff to do in Chi-town, or so I’m told.

Day 2: Chicago to Springfield, MO, 512 miles. I have family here: my aunt and uncle and my cousin Ryan. They’ve slept over at our house lots of times on their visits to Michigan; this is my chance to return the favor.

Day 3: Springfield to Denver, 770 miles. My long-time pen pal Bella Connor lives in the Mile High City, and I’m very much looking forward to meeting her in person.

Day 4: Denver to Phoenix, 911 miles. This is the longest day of the trip, but it will be totally worth it: this is the home of Leann Mabry, the dear friend who helped me to really break into podcasting. I may take Day 5 off from driving just to have the chance to hang out with her, assuming that her schedule permits it.

Day 5 or 6: Phoenix to Aptos, CA, 706 miles. My friends Joe, Sarah, and Heather all live in this little town on the southern side of the Santa Cruz Mountains, making this the perfect place to stop, rest, and hang out before making the final trek “over the hill” and up into the Bay Area.

Going this way, the trip is about 3286 miles, as opposed to 2409 miles along the I-80 corridor. The difference in gas is about $100 at current prices, which I’ll easily make up for by not having to pay for hotel rooms along the way (not to mention the possibility of home-cooked meals at some of my stops). I’ll get to see some large swaths of the country that I’ve never seen before, and share time with friends I might not see again in person for a long time.

This feels like the right way to do it: take a long, burdensome trip and turn it into an adventure, with friends at every stop. So what if it takes a few extra days? I may never travel those roads again — and if there’s one thing I’ve learned about life in general, it’s that you have to find the joy in the journey.

As if trying to look “casual” wasn’t just an uglier kind of affectation! To do away with such baseline standards of adult dress is the illusion of freedom, a lame gesture that leads to even more restrictive mores. Adolescent-minded Boomers won’t be satisfied until the only socially acceptable way to present oneself is to dress like a six year-old. And when that day comes, none of us will feel free–just undignified and infantilized. Given the choice, I’d rather be coerced into looking like an adult than a child.

Jared concluded that “We are born naked; everything else is cosplay.” The implication I took away from that was that the suit and tie are no more artificial than anything else someone might choose to wear.  I haven’t spoken to either Jared or Lord Whimsy about this, but what they seem to be arguing is that all clothes are pretense, pure affectation laid over top of the — ahem — naked truth of our physical bodies.

I respectfully disagree. To explain why, I’m going to use an extreme example to illustrate a point: 

There is a distinctive article of clothing that is usually worn by Catholic priests when they go out in public, the black shirt with the white collar. There are some other vestments that may or may not be worn with it, but the shirt and collar are the most distinctive parts of the outfit.

Now, as far as I am aware, there is no law that prohibits me from going out and getting a black shirt with a priest’s collar and wearing it as I go about my daily business. But even if I don’t say anything about it, even if I do nothing else to try to convince people that I’m a priest, people will ASSUME that I am and they will treat me accordingly. And that would be disingenuous of me, because I’m not a priest. The outfit would encourage people to draw false conclusions about who and what I was, and I might be able to use those false conclusions to manipulate them into reacting to me the way I wanted them to.

Like I said, that’s an extreme example, — but I think that we can do the same thing with other kinds of clothes. Our clothing — like hairstyles, jewelry, piercings, tattoos, or any other form of body modification — is a way of making a statement about ourselves to the people around us. And just like the words we say, that statement can be something true, or it can be a lie. Our manner of dress can be a window into our inner self, or it can be a façade that we put up to disguise what lies below the surface.

For me, the jeans and t-shirts that I wear in my everyday life are making an accurate statement about me. I value comfort and practicality, clothes that can take some abuse before wearing out. I don’t want to spend a lot of time or money on clothing because there are other things that are more important to me. My shirts usually have some sort of snarky or humorous message on them, and that reveals something else about my personality.

When I put on a suit, I’m putting on a costume. The jacket, the tie, the uncomfortable shoes, and the cuff-links, all of them represent a persona that is different from the person I am in my everyday life. Sometimes, that’s not a bad thing: weddings, funerals and other formal engagements are the rituals of modern society, and we put on costumes in order to symbolize that these events are special moments that are set apart from our daily lives. We willingly put on those costumes and subsume our own identities into the collective identity of the community – because, in that moment, our individual identities are less important than the role we’re playing. We symbolically become the community that is bearing witness to these important moments, and in so doing we take the attention off of ourselves and put it where it belongs: on the people we are honoring with the ritual.

If I were to adopt that same persona in my daily life, though, it would not be an accurate depiction of my inner self. That suit, that costume, would become a barrier between me and the world, a layer of emotional defense that would lead people to draw false conclusions about the kind of person I was. For me, it would be an affectation, because it would be using a medium of self-expression to say something untrue about myself.

Now, I hasten to add that what is an affectation for me might not be an affectation for someone else. If you find that wearing a tie or a sport coat leads to a better expression of your inner self, then by all means go for it. The beauty of our relaxed attitude toward modern fashion is that you can CHOOSE to dress as casually, formally, or eccentrically as you wish. It’s not as if anyone at the office is going to disapprove if you choose to wear a suit, and even at a science fiction convention, the bouncers aren’t going to throw you out for dressing inappropriately because you showed up in a blazer.

Contrary to what Lord Whimsy says, formal clothes have not disappeared; they’ve just become optional. Corporate America has recognized that people do not have to subsume their personalities beneath a standard uniform of suits and ties in order to be capable, effective workers. The lack of a uniform standard for “proper” attire gives us more flexibility to choose clothes that reflect who we are. That’s the true measure of whether an outfit is an affectation or authentic: not whether it’s fancy or simple, formal or casual, but whether it is a true expression of yourself.

The Christian Science Monitor put out a story today reporting on one of the most beautiful ideas I’ve heard in a long time:

A “living library” to prick stereotypes

The concept is as simple as it is ingenious: People “borrow” individuals who represent groups that are often the subject of stereotypes, then sit down with them for a half-hour conversation. The hope is to promote understanding by giving people a chance to confront their prejudices, hear the other side, and ask probing questions.

This traveling program has been used to good success in mainland Europe, Britain, and Australia, and plans are lining up to bring it to the United States. I think this is exactly the sort of thing that we need to help ward off the increasing Balkanization of our society — to start seeing people of all stripes as people.

Of course, there’s an interesting paradox here, because these living “books” are volunteering to be the faces for stereotyped groups in a program that is trying to fight the tendency to see people as stereotyped groups.  :)  But here’s the thing: the next time that the people they talked to hear about immigrants, or gays, or transgender people, or police officers, or witches, or what have you, they’re going to remember the person who sat down with them over coffee.  That group is no longer a faceless group; the volunteer is substituting his or her own face and story for the stereotype.  There will be a personal connection there that wasn’t there before.

And if they’ve made a personal connection with one person of that group, then hopefully it will be easier to make more connections in the future — and harder to paint all __________ with the same stereotypical brush.

1. Cops investigate body that has apparently been consumed from the inside out.
2. ?
3. Profit! (i.e., the Big Reveal and a satisfying conclusion)

Trying to figure out the Big Swampy Middle has been the vexing part of this whole endeavor. Part of the trouble is that mysteries are absolutely dependent on sleight of hand: you have to convince the audience that they know which way the story is going, then hit them with the left turn that takes them by surprise and casts the whole story in a new context. I’m really plotting two stories: the one the audience thinks is happening, and the one that’s really happening — and both of them have to hold up to scrutiny, at least until the Big Reveal dispels the audience’s mistaken notions about what’s going on.

I had a bit of a breakthrough today, happily. I’d been thinking about my Big Reveal and realized that, while I think it will be a very cool surprise for the readers, it doesn’t in and of itself provide a thrilling climax to the story. Then I started thinking about my favorite mystery/fantasy series, Jim Butcher’s The Dresden Files — and I realized that that’s actually okay.

Often Harry Dresden figures out what’s really going on several chapters before the end of the book; the big climactic moment isn’t when Harry identifies the bad guy, it’s when he actually goes after the bad guy — or when the bad guy goes after him, catches him, and he has to fight his way out. The Big Reveal is the moment that starts the climax of the story — the last domino to be set up and the first to be knocked down. It starts a chain of events in motion that leads inexorably to the big showdown at the end. After that the story isn’t really a mystery anymore; the mystery has been solved, and it turns into an action/suspense story as we watch to see whether Harry can win the day (and what it will cost him).

Once I glommed on to that bit of information, I knew how I would end the story. I have the framework in place for everything from the Big Reveal to the end of the novel. Now I just need to figure out how to get all of the pieces in place to bring us to that Big Reveal, while making the readers think I’m going somewhere else entirely.

I guess I’m still working on point #2 in that business plan…

My friend Heather Bowman rescued this beauty from a trash pile. We hoped that it could be fixed up and made playable again; at first glance, all it needed were new strings.

Unfortunately, the gents at the local music shop identified a tragic flaw: A crack between the neck and the body. This sort of damage is, we were told, irreparable.

Still, it seems a shame to just throw away something that was made with such obvious care and attention, particularly when it’s still so beautiful. Unfortunately, I don’t have the space to carry around extraneous items that I might, someday, have a use for.

So, knowing the number of DIYers in the podcasting community, I come to you with this offer: If anyone wants to take this beauty off my hands, I’ll send it to you for whatever it costs to ship it. I’m sure there’s any number of creative things that someone could do with this instrument if they have access to some quality tools. It might never play music again, but as the basis for some artistic modding, I’m sure that this beauty still has some life left in it.

The mandolin will be offered on a first-come, first-served basis. If you’re interested, contact me at feedback@metamorcity.com.

Balticon, Day 1

Balticon, Day 2

Balticon, Day 3

My own report on Balticon will, I hope, be finished this weekend.

He took a Polaroid every day, until the day he died

The website with the complete set of photos can be found here.

And here is a Wikipedia article about the photographer, Jamie Livingston.

You think podcasting takes dedication? This blows that right out of the water, folks.

I just … dammit, I don’t have the words.

I just don’t.

SAFE PROTECTED BY
TIME CONTROL DEVICE

Wow, I thought. I knew that Starbucks was a big, powerful corporation and all, but it had never occurred to me that they would — or could — resort to direct manipulation of the space-time continuum in order to protect their profits.

How does it work, I wonder? Does the device freeze time around anyone who attempts to break in to the safe, thus holding them in a temporal bubble until the authorities arrive? Or does the safe itself leapfrog through the timestream, only appearing at set times so that the employees can deposit the store’s earnings? Is the device self-contained, or does it require access to an external power grid? And how great is its area of effect — could the entire store be moved forward and backward in time?

Hmm… maybe that would explain how the staff is so perky in the mornings. Sure, for us it may be a quarter to eight on Monday, but maybe the staff is just coming off of a Sunday afternoon siesta. I wonder if they can “fold” time (a la The Man Who Folded Himself), so they can take advantage of the same piece of time over and over again.  If I could get the same night’s sleep twice in a row, I’d definitely be a lot more chipper.

Hmm … I wonder if Starbucks has any openings in their temporal mechanics department?

• Printed up the B42 pocket program and highlighted my appearances, as well as a few must-see events. Apparently I am going to be in two places at once on Sunday at 8 PM: the “Elrond vs. Elros” debate in the Literary track and the “Mr. Adventure LIVE!” show in the New Media track. Considering that I know much more about Lord of the Rings than I do about Mr. Adventure, I think “Elrond vs. Elros” is going to be where I end up. Indiana Jim has already volunteered to fill in for me at Mr. Adventure if need be.
• Cleaned out the passenger compartment of my car to make room for luggage. Bryan Watson and I are driving together, so there has to be room in the car for at least two suitcases/garment bags, our laptops, my guitar (for open filk night), a cooler full of snacks and drinks, and a couple of gallons of drinking water. Oh, plus all of my promotional materials. Tomorrow, I take a look at straightening up the trunk.
• Burned a bunch of CDs with the MAKING THE CUT trailer and Chapter 1 of the novel. “Welcome to the City” might be a better introduction to the world of Metamor City, but MAKING THE CUT has the advantages of a full voice cast and better production values.
• Used the last of my CD labels for the MAKING THE CUT discs — they have the new Metamor City logo (which looks very good in black and white) and the episode number, title, and chapter. I also included the URL this time around, which is VERY helpful because it means that I don’t have to use a MOO card with every disc just to point people back to the website. All told, I have 30 discs ready to give away.
• Read through the script for the first two episodes of THE TAKEOVER, an audio drama that is debuting at Balticon. It’s a dark comedy about a web design company that is bought out by ZOMBINC, a temporary staffing agency that uses zombies as expendable labor. In order to integrate into Zombinc’s “corporate culture”, all management-level employees have to become zombies — which becomes highly significant for our protagonist, Maureen, when she is offered the role of department head.

  The Mighty Mur Lafferty is the primary creative force behind this project, which was originally going to be a video podcast series at Lulu.tv (before the company went belly-up and laid everybody off). Mur has done me the singular honor of asking me to be in the show: I’m going to be playing the intern Dzoba, a brown-nosing sycophant who desperately wants to become a zombie so that he can get some upward mobility in the company. Unfortunately, he’s just not important enough to turn, which leads to continued frustration as he tries to ingratiate himself with his increasingly-decomposing boss.

  I was honored to be part of the project before but, now that I’ve read the first couple of scripts, I’m seriously excited. This show is going to be hilarious, and the talent Mur has gotten for it is nothing short of top-notch. I can’t wait to see people’s reactions when we perform this thing live — or, um, undead, as the case may be.

• Finally, because the podcasting schedule doesn’t stop for conventions, I worked on the audio for Chapter 11 of MAKING THE CUT. This episode needs to debut the weekend after I get back from Maryland, so the more work I can do on the front end the easier it will be when I get home. On the plus side, this is a relatively short chapter (30 min) and the number of voice actors is small.

And now, because work comes FAR too early, I must hie unto bed.

“People are not convinced to look into Christianity by being forced to follow our rules, they are drawn to Christ when they see those of us who claim to follow Him demonstrate His love and compassion for the hurting.” –Bryan Watson

Bryan, one of my good friends and an actor in Metamor City, has posted a cool essay on the idea of “the appearance of evil” in Western Christian culture. It’s well worth reading.

For one, Trevor comes from a long line of ministers, and this the third generation of his family in which the child’s marriage was officiated by the father. For another, both Trevor and Amanda are computer geeks who were raised in the 1980s and ’90s, and there’s just something cool about having a wedding cake decorated with binary 1s and 0s and topped with a pair of Super Mario mushrooms.

The cake wasn’t the only bit of whimsy on display. The wedding favors were little rubber duckies that floated in a glass bowl in the middle of the reception tables, and the little cards that showed where each person was supposed to sit had been folded into origami frogs. And then there were the outfits for the bridal party: black tuxes with bright lime-green tuxes, and bridesmaid dresses of green and teal. It all sounds horribly gaudy, but it worked, and it was very much in keeping with Trevor and Amanda’s off-beat, quirky sense of humor.

Amanda’s friends and family came from all over the world to attend the wedding, with some people flying in from as far away as Malaysia and Singapore. The ones I talked to were all very nice and unfailingly polite, though some of them seemed a little out of their element and jet-lagged from the long journey. Trevor’s own family spoke very highly of Amanda throughout the weekend — and for a family that is infamous for speaking their mind, that’s a very good sign.

At one point during the service, Trevor’s father quoted to him some of the scripture passages that Trevor’s grandfather and great-grandfather had used when they officiated the weddings of the two previous generations. Both of those great old men of God have since passed away, going on to their eternal reward for lives of faithful service. But as I listened to Lanny recite their words to Trevor, I couldn’t help wondering what they really would have said if they had been here to witness this marriage.

Because Amanda is a beautiful, intelligent, funny young woman who just happens to be Chinese-Canadian, the full-blooded descendant of first-generation immigrants.

Now, understand: It would be unfair and a discredit to our great-grandfather’s memory to call him racist. This was a man who gave much of his life in missionary service to the people of Haiti, and who was as kind and decent and compassionate a man as you could have asked for. But he was also a product of his times, and in those days the mixing of “the races” was strongly frowned upon. As much as Grandpa Bauman loved people of other races and gave of his own life to help them, I don’t think he ever would have considered them suitable marriage partners for one of his great-grandchildren. I wouldn’t be surprised if Trevor’s grandfather, Pastor Harris, would have felt similarly, though I didn’t know him nearly as well as I knew Grandpa Bauman.

I thought about this whole situation a lot over the weekend, and how there used to be laws against “miscegenation” in much of the United States. Most of those laws were specifically designed to keep Blacks from marrying Whites, but many of the laws were broad enough that they also would have kept Trevor and Amanda from getting married. The states that passed these abominable laws included not just the Southern ones we might expect (Mississippi, South Carolina, Virginia), but also ones we usually think of as being more liberal, such as California and Oregon. Some anti-miscegenation laws were repealed in the nineteenth century, but others persisted well into the twentieth, with the last fourteen being invalidated by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional in 1967 (Loving v. Virginia).

It is instructive to look at how people justified these laws at the time. The most popular arguments against mixed marriages were religious ones: people claimed that marriages between people of different races were sinful, contrary to God’s will.

“Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, Malay and red, and He placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with His arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that He separated the races shows that He did not intend for the races to mix.” -Leon Bazile, Virginian trial judge, in a 1959 decision upholding the ban on interracial marriage

To support their argument the supporters of these laws lifted passages from the Bible — citing, for instance, the ban on Jews marrying members of the other nations around them, or the passage in which Phinehas put a stop to a plague by killing an Israelite who was having sex with the daughter of a Midianite prince. These passages were invariably taken out of context, their meaning twisted either consciously or unconsciously. God’s Word was misapplied to justify the feelings of the majority, who feared that the mixing of the races would lead to the breakdown of the social order and the loss of proper (Caucasian?) values. By summarily invalidating these laws, the Supreme Court was probably seen by many as being guilty of judicial activism, legislating from the bench, and imposing their own beliefs to override the will of the people.

Eventually, of course, most people became more compassionate and more enlightened. They came to recognize that the Biblical passages that they had once seen as supporting their views were rooted in a cultural and social context that was very different from the one in which they were trying to apply them. They also realized that the question of who should marry whom was really a private matter, one to be left to the individuals involved. Some ministers might still choose not to perform an interracial marriage because of their own beliefs, and some religious organizations might not choose to recognize them — Bob Jones University, a religious institution in South Carolina, still forbids interracial relationships between its students — but for the purposes of legal rights and protections, people rightly recognized that the government had no basis to pass judgment on the validity of such unions. It was a triumph, not only for civil rights, but also for libertarian values.

All of this was rolling through my head repeatedly throughout the weekend — partly because of the wedding, and partly because of a piece of news that broke just two days before it.

You see, on May 15th the California Supreme Court struck down another law that imposed restrictions on marriage.

I just couldn’t help noticing the similarities.

His mother, Arabella, had gone in for her first ultrasound and discovered, not a healthy litter of five or six, but one single, enormous fetus, wrapped around the bend in her uterine horn like a man draped over the back of a sofa. The doctors had assured her that everything would be fine, but Preston had grown to a monstrous two-and-a-half kilograms before they finally took her in and removed the infant by abdominal section.

It was, Preston reflected, a fitting beginning for a singularly painful life.

By age five he was eating more than any four of his elder siblings put together. By age seven he stood eye to eye with his father. By twelve he had to stoop to fit through the doors, and his parents had to have a special bathroom built just so he could use the toilet. His own bedroom they renovated to fit his freakish proportions, so that he could stand and sit and lie down in comfort — but that only reminded him how alone he truly was.

All the adults in House Matthias assured him ad nauseum that he was special, that he was important. His great-grandfather, the old Count, came to visit on his tenth birthday and lectured him for an hour on the critical role he played in the family’s fortunes. He told Preston about FPDD, the terrible illness that House Matthias was so prone to manifest, and how a quirk of biological fate had made Preston into their salvation. Someday Preston would marry, and his children would restore health and vitality to the House for another three or four generations. House Matthias would go on, as it had for thirteen hundred years: the greatest of all the noble houses of Metamor. Preston was the key to it all.

But he heard what they said about him when they thought he wasn’t listening. He heard the names given to him by his fifteen siblings and eighty-seven first cousins: Freak. Loneborn. Throwback. And the kids of the other houses were no kinder. His parents sent him to a private school where he could learn with other children just as hideous and disfigured as himself, but most of them came from whole families that had been born that way, and they mocked him for his “weird-looking” relatives. They couldn’t understand that he was the weird one, the genetic misfit. They could never understand the sacrifice he made, abstaining from the magic that could have made him whole and perfect and … normal. Sure, he could have taken the spell — but in doing so he might have damned his entire family. There was no telling when another freak would come along, and the threat of FPDD was always waiting in the wings. He couldn’t afford to be selfish. His family couldn’t afford for him to be selfish.

Honor in service! That was the house motto. A true Matthias didn’t seek his own good above others’. Their house founder, Charles the Mighty, had saved the entire world, and taken a terrible burden on himself in the process. He had left his family and friends, the people he cared for more than anyone else in the world, and had faced darkness and terror, an evil so poisonous and alien that it had been draining the magic out of the world for eleven thousand years. Charles’ willingness to sacrifice himself for the good of all had assured him a place among the greatest heroes in history, and secured for his family the prosperity they now enjoyed.

Now, though, as he put on his tuxedo and waited for his bride-to-be, Preston wished that old Charles had let someone else handle the job. The man cast a shadow that was impossible to escape — even for a throwback like Preston, who didn’t even have the honor of wearing Charles’s form.

A knock sounded at the door and his mother came in. “Preston? Are you almost ready, dear? The priest has arrived, and I think he wants a word with you.”

Preston sighed and fussed with his tie again. He’d tried three times to get it on, and it still didn’t look right.

Mother clucked her tongue and came over to him, her feet making little tick-tick-tick sounds against the polished wooden floor. Inside this oversized room she looked like a midget.

“Poor dear,” she fretted. “Here, sit down and let me help you with that.”

Preston pulled up the lowest stool he had and sat on it, his legs sprawled out awkwardly in front of him. Mother came up behind him and started loosening the tie for another go.

“I’ve just been to see Mariella,” she said, as if divulging a juicy bit of gossip. “She looks positively radiant.”

“Mom, don’t do that,” Preston muttered.

“Do what, dear?”

“Don’t make this out to be better than it is. It’s an arranged marriage. I’ll do my duty for House Matthias, but don’t try to convince me that this is some big, wonderful thing for me.”

Mother tsked and pinched him lightly on the back of the neck, her long nails leaving little scratches on his too-sensitive skin. “Duty doesn’t have to be such a burden, dear. You just have to look at the positive side! Mariella Barnhardt is a smart, funny and kind-hearted girl, from a house as noble as any in Metamor.”

“She’s a freak, like me,” Preston said sourly.

“Oh, come now, Preston, don’t say that!” Mother admonished him. “What’s wrong with dear Mariella?”

“She’s too bloody tall, for one thing!” said Preston. “And her eyes are too close together. And her head is too big. And her nose is too small … and her ears … and her teeth.” He clenched his fist. “And she doesn’t even have any fur!”

His mother looked at him for a long moment, a deep sadness in her large black eyes. Her round, pink ears laid back against the brown fur of her head. She took her long, naked tail in her hands and wrung it in quiet agitation.

“Preston, honey … she’s a human. That’s what humans are supposed to look like.” She pointed a clawed finger at his own hideous reflection in the mirror. “That’s what you’re supposed to look like.”

Mournfully, Preston looked from his reflection to the portrait on his wall: His hero and forefather, Charles Matthias, the Rat of Might. The man he most admired. The man who, because of Feralistic Psychosocial Developmental Disorder, he was forever cursed to resemble only in name.

“Honestly, dear,” said Mother, “you’re both quite fetching, by human standards.”

Preston put his head in his hands. “I know,” he murmured. “I know.”

FIN

We’re all sort of in shock right now. CA is one of those guys who is everywhere in the podcasting community; he seems to listen to every show, and always finds time to send in encouraging comments. We’ve never met in person, but I know he is Good People. To see tragedy strike one of our own like this is heart-wrenching.

But the Tribe is all about can-do spirit. Mae Breakall, God bless her, is organizing a fundraiser to help CA deal with all of the expenses he’ll be facing over the coming weeks. If you can spare some cash, please make a contribution. Let’s show CA that the podcasting/new media community takes care of its own.

“I believe you find life such a problem because you think there are the good people and the bad people. You’re wrong, of course. There are, always and only, the bad people, but some of them are on opposite sides.” -Lord Vetinari, Guards! Guards!

As I was driving in to work today I sat in traffic behind a guy with political stickers on his car. Plastered above the “Worst President Ever” and “Pox News” decals was a long homemade banner that read simply: END THE OCCUPATION.

Now, to refer to the ongoing military action in Iraq as an “occupation” is, at best, an oversimplification. While the ongoing presence of American troops in that theater is troubling to me, it remains that they are currently shoring up an extremely delicate balance of power, one that could cause serious consequences for the entire region if it falls. No doubt there are many Iraqis who would admit, at least grudgingly, that they need us there right now. But that does not change the fact that this venture looks and feels like a hostile occupation to much of the civilized world.

I continued to ponder the uncomfortable complexities of the situation for the rest of my drive. It is probably fruitless to speculate on the motivations of the people who initially pushed for the invasion of Iraq; short of a signed confession, it would be impossible to prove whether or not they were maliciously seeking personal gain or merely acting rashly on the basis of bad intelligence. What can be established fairly easily is that most of those who initially supported the war, and thus made its execution possible, were acting on the basis of a very simple idea:

If we can just stop the bad guys, everything will be better.

In this case, as in so many cases, stop meant capture, or kill, or otherwise beat into submission with the use of overwhelming force.  We who supported the invasion of Iraq believed that, if we could just eliminate Saddam Hussein and his evil minions, the yoke of tyranny in Iraq would be lifted and the people would be free to build a responsible, proper government — which is to say, one that looks like ours. All we had to do was “get the bad guys.”

This notion that we can build a better world through the use of force is called the doctrine of redemptive violence — and of all the myths that humanity has clung to, it is by far the deadliest.

The myth of redemptive violence is practically ubiquitous in human culture. We see it in countless books, films, and television shows. It infects our popular music, our criminal justice system, and our foreign policy.

• Abolitionists used it to justify attacking slaveowners in the “Bloody Kansas” years prior to the American Civil War.
• Southerners who believed they were defending their economic livelihoods used it to justify their attack on the Union forces at Fort Sumter.
• The Western nations used it to justify the escalation of a regional conflict between Austria-Hungary and Serbia into what became known as World War I.
• Lenin used it as the justification for the Red Revolution, which overthrew the oppressive Czar and was ostensibly intended to institute a just government of the people in his place.
• America used it to justify the horrific deaths of 100,000 Japanese civilians in the fire-bombing of Tokyo, and another 70,000 in the two atomic strikes at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
• The Allied and Chinese forces both used it to justify their involvement in the Korean civil war in the 1950s, and the American and Russian forces used it to justify meddling in Vietnam.
• The Israeli Defense Force uses it to justify their repeated incursions into Palestinian neighborhoods, and Palestinian militants use it to justify their rocket attacks and suicide bombings in Israel civilian centers.
• And now, we Americans have used it to justify deposing Saddam Hussein, and the Mahdi Army and the Wahabists use it to justify attacking our “occupying” forces (as well as each other).

If you asked these people what they were doing, their answers would all boil down to basically the same thing: We’re fighting the bad guys. We’re making them pay. We’re going to destroy them so that what’s good can triumph. The problem is that while good and evil may well be absolute qualities, our human ability to perceive them accurately is neither wholly accurate nor wholly reliable. Everybody perceives themselves as being the heroes of their own story; nobody knowingly fights for the forces of evil.

Our vision is flawed; we humans cannot be blameless warriors of The Good because we cannot always know what The Good is. And even if our goals are just, even if our intentions are righteous, our willingness to wreak violence and death upon our fellow man pollutes our spirits and taints our actions.

O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle — be Thou near them! With them — in spirit — we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe.

O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells;

help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead;

help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire;

help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief;

help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it –

for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet!

We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.

-Mark Twain, The War Prayer

There is no such thing as a holy war. There may, sadly, at times be such a thing as a necessary war, but we should go forth with no illusions about what we do. War is, ever and always, an evil act. It is institutionalized killing, ritual homicide. All warfare is based in spite — the willingness to hurt one’s self and one’s children in order to hurt someone else even more. And we commit the most grevious sin of pride and arrogance when we assume that God Almighty stands behind us and gives approval to our actions because of the rightness of our cause.

Jesus Christ saw the myth of redemptive violence for what it was. Time and again, he sternly warned his followers against answering opposition with violence:

You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. -Matthew 5:38-45

“Put your sword back in its place,” Jesus said to him, “for all who draw the sword will die by the sword. Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels?” -Matthew 26:52

And he sent messengers on ahead, who went into a Samaritan village to get things ready for him; but the people there did not welcome him, because he was heading for Jerusalem. When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, “Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?” But Jesus turned and rebuked them, and they went to another village. -Luke 9:52-56

Christ’s opposition to redemptive violence was one of the most radical and significant parts of his message, and it is probably the part that has been most widely ignored. Those who honor the Prince of Peace are all too quick to resort to war when we are convinced that it is necessary, or that the people we are fighting are really bad and deserve what we’re going to do to them. We discount the words of Jesus as applying merely to our personal lives, and not to the actions of nations; or we dismiss them as an unacheivable ideal, a laudable goal but one that cannot possibly work in the real world.

But how do we know? We do not attempt the way of peace because, in our hearts, we label Christ as an idealistic fool and discard his path before we even begin. Or else we mistake his message for a call to quietly submit to evil, when in truth he was calling for nonviolent resistance of the sort that Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. would later employ against their oppressors. Rejecting the myth of redemptive violence means looking for creative, constructive alternatives to reciprocal homicide. It means actively looking for the third way that stands between capitulation and violent resistance. The path may be arduous, and it may be hard to see, but it is there.

As I continue my efforts at writing and storytelling, one of my objectives is to undermine and subvert the myth of redemptive violence. I don’t want the good guys to win just because they were more powerful or more vicious or more clever than the enemy; I want them to find success because they sought the third way and looked for options beyond the use of force. When the use of force becomes inevitable — or when the protagonists believe it is inevitable — I want to show the cost of it, to make them feel the burden of the violence that they do. If I do my job right, you will not see the heroes laying waste to the enemy and walking happily off into the sunset. That image is a pernicious lie, and I want no part in perpetuating it.

If the myth of redemptive violence is to die, it must die in the way of all myths: because enough people stood up and questioned it, repudiated it, named it for the lie that it was. All our violence and all our killing will not make a better world. If we can convince people of that fact — our children, our neighbors and, above all, ourselves — then maybe we do have a chance at making things better. But it has to start here, now, with us.

My working title for this one is THINGS UNSEEN, and that says as much about the writing process as it does about the story itself. I haven’t tried writing a mystery since high school, and my skills as a writer have (in my not-so-humble opinion) improved exponentially since then. I figured the time had come to give it another try.

The basic premise is that Kate Kitaen and David Silverleaf, our Magic Affairs detectives from the early Metamor City short stories, are investigating what appears to be a case of spontaneous human combustion. They soon discover that the person’s life force was consumed from the inside out, and set out to find out (1) how it happened and (2) who’s responsible. Once a second body shows up, dead by the same means, the hunt becomes a race against the clock.

This story is both fun and challenging to put together, because I know everything that everyone is doing on all sides of the investigation, but I’m only showing what Kate and David see. I have to deliberately craft the circumstances so as to deceive the reader, to make them think they know which way the story is going when I’m actually headed somewhere else.  It’s similar to what I’m doing in MAKING THE CUT, where the characters repeatedly reach false conclusions because of limited data; the difference is that the readers in MTC could see all sides of the story, and could thus look forward to the impending train wreck (metaphorically speaking). In THINGS UNSEEN, the readers are as blind as the characters — but I have to make them think they know what the story is going to be, then show them that they were wrong … without making them feel like I cheated.

That’s going to be the tricky part. On the one hand, I want to play fair with the audience — but on the other hand, I can’t show them all the pieces too soon, because once they have all the pieces Kate and Daniel will be able to figure it out (and the story will be over shortly thereafter). There’s also the question of whether the readers will know enough about the world to even be able to guess at what’s really going on, since this mystery is taking place in a magical setting with a lot of background history. I hope I’ve been doing a good job of fleshing out the world as the podcast has progressed, but I may not know how much people have actually absorbed until I actually present the story and see whether people are lost.

I’m a little nervous about that. This will be my first mystery for public consumption, and I want to do it right.

Maybe it’s time to put in a call to my nemesis…

And yet, in spite of the fact that I have enough reading material to last me for years to come, I continue to buy more books. Some of these I read right away, like the Harry Dresden novels or Kim Harrison’s Hollows series. Most of them, however, get added to the ever-increasing stacks around my house.

This probably qualifies as a mental illness of some sort. When I see a book with a story that appeals to me and I have a bit of extra cash, I buy it. I just can’t bear not to have it. I tell myself that I’ll get to it eventually.

The problem is that I read slowly — not “special ed” slowly, but I savor the words, building a movie in my mind. Mere reading comprehension isn’t enough; when it comes to fiction, I need the nuances and undertones, the subtle word choices and shades of meaning. I don’t think I could stop doing it if I tried.

Contrast this with my friend Andrea, who reads books faster than an optical scanner. A story that takes me 90 minutes to read aloud, she can burn through in 20 minutes. Given an 800+ page monster like Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, she can polish it off in four hours. What’s more, she doesn’t seem to lose anything from reading that fast; her comprehension of the stories is as good as any English teacher could ask for. I swear that there’s some kind of Third Wave power involved here.

Anyway, Andrea is a professional babysitter/nanny/what-have-you, so she has a lot of time to read. She burned through her own book collection a long time ago, so I’ve been giving her mine. Every week at church I bring her a bag or two full of books, and she brings back the ones that I gave her the previous week, complete with commentaries on which ones she liked best and the strengths and weaknesses of each author.

It’s very helpful in dealing with my case of literary overload: by having Andrea screen them, I can find out which books to move to the top of my reading pile and which ones to put in the back of the closet. If I can’t read everything, I can at least focus on the best stories first.

But dammit, I wish I could just mind-meld with her and copy the memories of all those stories. Because I want them in my head, and I just don’t have the time to put them there any other way.

Back in 2005 I got into a big, drawn-out, intense discussion with two of my RL friends, known in some parts of the Internet as “Raiken” and “Galadriel”. It was one of those Big Idea conversations about the nature of God and eternity, the purpose and significance of humanity, and whether anything in this life really means a damn or if we’re just muddling through a world that has been a lost cause since Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden.

It started small, as these things do — Raiken and Galadriel were complaining that Coldplay is overhyped. They were frustrated that people would ascribe greatness to a band that is really rather average in the grand scheme of things, and suspected that people believed the band was great only because they were told to by the entertainment media. And Coldplay was only one example of this sort of bandwagon phenomenon — we had no trouble thinking of examples, some of them far more important than musical preferences. We agreed that a great many people go through life without giving much thought or consideration to anything beyond the mundane details of their lives: jobs, food, entertainment and gossip seem to occupy the minds of most folks. Such people are often easily manipulated by voices of perceived authority — politicians, the media, Oprah — and like what they are told to like and believe what they are told to believe.

That led into a discussion of what should be done about such people. Raiken and Galadriel argued that these folks choose to disengage from the Big Questions and stop thinking critically, and thus bear the responsibility for allowing themselves to become dumb, gullible sheep. I argued that most people are conditioned not to think critically, practically from the moment of birth, and that it is incumbent on those who do know how to think — the Conscious, as I called them — to teach them to open their eyes and experience the world in a deeper way.

Raiken and Galadriel felt that these sheep-like people — the “Unconscious” — would gain nothing but sorrow by becoming aware of the bigger, deeper issues of life, and that it would be kinder to let them remain in their state of dull-eyed contentment. Increasing personal knowledge is not the be-all and end-all of existence, they said, and the world is a lost cause anyway; we’re not going to be able to build Heaven on Earth no matter how many people are “Conscious”. Someone has to be the one to slop the hogs, Galadriel said, and it’s better for those on the bottom rungs of society to not be tortured by higher aspirations they can never fulfill.

I countered — rather forcefully — that people can never find true fulfillment in a state of Unconsciousness; they may be able to anesthetize their pains and discontents — with entertainment, food, alcohol, etc. — but they’ll never be able to find real satisfaction when they’re basically living like animals, concerned only with food, reproduction and fleeting pleasure. Humans are made for a higher state of existence, I argued — we were made in the image of God, and that has to mean something more significant than the mundane existence the Unconscious are living. I believe that we can make this world at least a somewhat better place by having more people who are aware, Conscious, and involved, in all walks of life. Perhaps even more importantly, I believe that who we become in this life affects who we will be in eternity: if we humans are destined to become something glorious in the next life, something that reflects the image of God, then I think it’s important for us to learn, grow, and mature in this life, to act like less like beasts and more like the higher beings we’re meant to be.

Galadriel argued that, Biblically speaking, the purpose of man is worshiping God, not flexing our own earthly talents — but I took issue with her view of worship, which I think is too limited. If God has given us abilities that surpass those of animals, then using those abilities in a manner that is good and positive is itself an act of worship that honors the Creator who gave us those abilities. There is no greater compliment to the Designer, I reasoned, than for the thing he has crafted to do what it was built to do, and to do it well and beautifully. And if using those abilities honors him in this life, how much more would it honor him for us to continue to use those faculties in eternity, when we’ll be more mature and understand better how to use them in ways that befit the sons and daughters of God?

The debate escalated from there into questions of what God really considered important for us to be doing in this life, what aspects of our mortal selves would be preserved with our eternal souls, and what we actually might be doing with our eternal future existence. We didn’t end up agreeing on much at that point. Later that night, though, my mind kept returning to that idea of Conscious versus Unconscious existence: what’s really special about our lives here? What are we supposed to be learning in this sojourn on Earth? What is it that separates us from animals and angels alike and makes us so important in God’s eyes? What does it mean to be human?

I came up with four things that I think are the essence of humanity, the things that it is crucial for us to grasp in order to move from Unconscious to Conscious life:

Humans choose: I think that passivity and lethargy are the great prison of the Unconscious. Most people are conditioned to follow the herd, to go with the flow. Conform, settle down, don’t make waves. If you must be different, then you must find a bunch of other people to be “different” with you in unison; this leads to fads, trends, and subcultures like the goths and skater punks. Whatever your peer group, your political party, your religion, there’s a strong pressure on you to do what everyone else around you is doing — to believe what they believe and like what they like, with only minor room for variations on the theme.

I think that it doesn’t even occur to a lot of people that they have the power to choose in all of this — and not just to choose which of two or three stereotyped groups to belong to, but to choose to follow your own path and find the things that you enjoy or believe in. If you happen to like what’s popular, or believe what your friends believe, then all right — but you should take the time to examine these things for yourself and not just do what everyone else is doing by default. To truly be Conscious is to recognize the value and importance of your own free will. We Christians believe that Jesus himself had to come and die as a direct result of God’s decision to give us that free will, which makes it quite possibly the most expensive gift ever given; the least we can do is value our right to exercise it.

Humans think: No other creature on Earth has the cognitive abilities to match human beings when we’re at our best. Unfortunately, we frequently don’t use those abilities to their full extent; we tend to follow consensus opinions or respond to things emotionally instead of really thinking critically about them. I believe this is because critical thinking is a skill that must be learned and practiced in order for us to remain capable in it, and on the whole our systems of education neither teach it nor encourage it. (It might be better for us to call them “indoctrination systems”, in fact, since they spend far more time teaching children what to think than how to think.) Some people seem to be able to develop critical thinking skills on their own, but I think there are a lot more people who could learn such skills if they were taught how (and shown the value of being able to think well).

There’s another aspect of the Conscious life that comes up here: the need for varied experiences. The abilities to think and choose aren’t much good unless you have a broad base of data to work with. Challenge your assumptions; expose yourself to different kinds of art, literature and entertainment. Take classes in international studies and geography to learn about different cultures. Look for opportunities to meet people of different walks of life, different faiths, different philosophies. Experience; consider; analyze everything; be curious. Try to understand and appreciate other people’s points of view; even if you don’t agree with them, try to find the basic difference in your premises that leads to that difference of opinion. That way you’ll understand them better, and you’ll also be better able to consider those underlying premises on their own merits. It’s not enough to know what you believe; being Conscious means taking responsibility to understand why you believe what you believe, and to judge whether those underlying reasons make sense. In any philosophy or religion, of course, there are things that have to be taken on faith, but that faith shouldn’t be given blindly. Use the brain God gave you!

Humans create: Of all the ways in which humanity might be said to be created “in the image of God”, I think that this is perhaps the most distinctively “human”. From cave paintings in prehistoric Europe, to fairy tales, to Shakespeare’s sonnets, to the novels, movies, music and blogs of today, humans are innately creative beings. Children can have a hundred different adventures with a few dolls, or even an interestingly-shaped stick; they can compose a thousand different pieces of artwork with crayons and watercolors. But in far too many of us, that creative drive gets blocked or stopped up somewhere along the way to adulthood. The Unconscious stop inventing, stop creating — maybe even stop imagining, except in the very smallest of ways. In so doing, I fear they lose one of the most significant parts of what it means to reflect the image of God.

Being a fully Conscious human means daring to use the creative gifts you’ve been given. If you don’t know what your gifts are — experiment! Sketch. Paint. Tell stories. Join a community theater group. Learn an instrument. Give role-playing games a try — a game of “Dungeons and Dragons”, or something similar, can be a great opportunity for playacting and group storytelling. Don’t be afraid to play around with things. Don’t be afraid of not being “good enough”. Try new things until you find something that interests you — and even then, don’t stop trying new things! Never stop imagining; never stop dreaming.

Galadriel argued to me that people who are struggling to make a living don’t have time to worry about expanding their creative horizons. I don’t buy it. People have been struggling and striving to live for most of human history, and it hasn’t generally been the rich and well-off who have been the most creative. Even the poorest communities have storytellers and musicians, women who weave artistry into their knitting and needlepoint and men who decorate their carpentry and metalwork with ornamental designs. Some of my friends who are the poorest in economic terms have the richest creative lives, whether they express that creativity in writing, painting, music or gaming. Everyone has a chance to use the creative spirit God has given them — what too many seem to lack is the courage, motivation or self-confidence to use it. Choose! Act! Create!

Humans love: This one is the most important of all. As the apostle Paul said, “If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:2 NIV). Everything that makes us distinctive and special as humans — our free will, our powerful minds, our creative spark — all of it becomes poisoned and useless if love is not the motivating principle that guides us.

I’m not talking here about that fluttery, butterflies-in-the-stomach feeling that comes from being “in love” with another person. I’m not just talking about the affection and protectiveness we feel toward our families and close friends — that’s part of it, but not nearly the whole story. I’m talking about the kind of love that puts others before yourself — the love that sees all people as brothers and sisters and acts accordingly.

Love means compassion for those in need — not just feeling pity for them, but acting in order to help them to whatever degree you can. Love means empathy for others — learning to see the world through their eyes, to understand their perspective and their pain, for when you truly learn to understand another person it is impossible to hate them. Love means patience with those who exasperate you, kindness to those who are unkind themselves, forgiveness for those who have done you harm. It means treating others with respect and dignity. It means doing your best to live in peace and harmony with those around you — and, yes, it means protecting those who are too weak and defenseless to protect themselves, for there will always be people who do not choose the path of love.

This is the hardest of the four to implement, but it’s also the most essential. Living as a fully Conscious human means being aware of the consequences of your own actions and taking responsibility to act rightly. Love is the measuring stick by which right choices and right actions must be judged. It doesn’t come easily to us, but none of the rest of this means a damn without it.

The path of living as a Conscious human is a process. I don’t think any of us will ever “arrive” at a state of perfection in any of these four areas in the course of this lifetime. Nor is everyone equally equipped for the journey: everyone has different gifts. Some people’s minds are not equipped to think to the same depth and intensity as others, but they might have a powerful ability to love. Some people are extraordinarily creative or insightful, but struggle daily to have empathy for others around them. The important thing is not where you are in relation to others who are advancing along the path, but where you are in relation to where you used to be. Being a Conscious human means rejecting stagnation, choosing to grow to whatever extent your talents and gifts allow. If we do our best to pursue this path — and to help others to awaken to the benefits of the Conscious life — I’m convinced that we will find deeper satisfaction in our lives on this Earth, and leave the world a better place because of the hearts and lives that we touch.

And if the Christians are right, and this world is equipping us to be the sons and daughters of God and rule at his side in the new world to come … then maybe living the Conscious life will prepare us to be mature, trustworthy, and effective with the awesome responsibility he’s going to place in our hands.

And frankly, it was a little annoying that all of the chrislester.whatever domains on the Internet were completely unrelated to me.

So, yeah. Watch this space. We’ll figure out what it’s about together.