Into the Fire

Now about spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be ignorant.

1 Corinthians 12:1 (NIV)

The first five sentences of Chapter 1 from my novel The Fixer:

CHAPTER 1

The rain assaulted the trees, the gutters, the double-pane windows, hard and cold, leaving even the midday seeming like the darkness of evening. Unpleasant to watch, she twisted the blinds closed and decided it could be just as gloomy inside as it was outside. Miserable. Chilled inside herself. Darkness triumphed.

Father, thank you for the words, the stories, the inspiration. Apart from you, I can do nothing. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.

(From April 3rd, 2012)

Belonging to . . . The Thirteenth Tribe                    

No surprise to my readers that Robert Liparulo is a favorite author of mine. So happy to see his new novel The Thirteenth Tribe come up in the CFBA Tour, I immediately signed up. Published by Thomas Nelson, The Thirteenth Tribe will supply a unique premise and take you on a journey from an archaeological dig site on Mt. Sinai to the catacombs of Paris and back to a specific location in the USA.

Jagger Baird is your prototypical tough guy with a tender heart toward his wife Beth and son Tyler and a hefty beef with God. This former Army Ranger doesn't resent his wife's Christianity or his young son's faith, but for him the car accident that took his closest friends' entire family and left Jagger with a prosthetic arrm and "fractured" memories also left him with a major grudge against this God he can't understand. As much as he distrusts God, he loves and trusts his wife for handling his withdrawal and distancing himself from her and Tyler after the accident. Jagger lands a security job on the Sinai dig site with lodging for his family at the monastery of St. Catherine's. This new gig is his way of establishing a fresh beginning for his family. One of the senior monks has taken a liking to them and particularly to Jagger's little boy, eager to show the home-schooled child and his mom the many historical pieces of the monastery in the ancient layered city.

The strange arrival of two helicopters at different times in restricted air space sends Jagger on a search for an individual perched up on the hills above the site. This sets off the beginning of non-stop conflict where Jagger is forced to trust a stranger called Owen who also arrives via air after unexpected explosions and tragedy. When everything goes absolutely wrong, Owen is the only one who supplies potential solutions to the havoc playing out in Jagger's family.

In some ways The Thirteenth Tribe is a typical Robert Liparulo thriller. Guys and gals, you know you're going to get lots of explosions, multiple weapons, fighting, wounding, dying, and high-tech scheming and execution. In many ways Robert is ahead of his time. He takes the most sophisticated technology and stretches it to the next level while mixing in historical facts and antique weaponry to demonstrate how the art of killing remains the same.

The Thirteenth Tribe twists our thoughts with its premise and shows us the struggles of Jagger Baird who doesn't argue against the existence of God but resents His perceived cruelty, epitomizing the anguish of the soul most humans must face and conquer to become a believer. And that conflict is what separates this novel from other Liparulo thrillers. It doesn't touch lightly and bounce away from the subject: it tackles the problem headlong and wrestles with it. It's a bold step for Robert as a writer because I'm sure over the years he's gained a lot of fans who haven't been challenged by faith issues in his stories. There's always been a thread of spiritual content for anyone to see in his previous books, but this story leaves no doubt about the gospel. I say: Bravo! 

At the heart of this story, which starts at a moderate pace but accelerates with a rush, is a depiction of the human condition. Lost, helpless, subject to fake and phony spiritual theories, closed to truth, we either come to the end of ourselves or we don't. We either exalt our false ideas or we discover how very little we know of the big scheme.

With some quirky and bizarre characters and concepts, some subtle – some not – symbolism, and a clever and well-delivered surprise toward the end, The Thirteenth Tribe fires on all of its high-octane cylinders.

http://www.amazon.com/13th-Tribe-Immortal-Files-Novel/dp/1595541691/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1333413344&sr=8-1
http://www.robertliparulo.com/

Lord, you know the blessings I pray over Robert. Please continue to reward him for his graciousness to others. Supply the stories you have for him to tell and bring the increase. Please protect him and his family and keep them safe from all harm. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.   

Just below I've posted the lyrics from Simon & Garfunkel's song America. A telling story of the late 60s and early 70s, the times of losing one's way in the onslaught of drugs, sex, rock 'n' roll. The guarded reserves of the 40s and 50s were being shattered in an era of "free" love, total rebellion, irresponsibility, war, protests, "dropping out", and some of the greatest music ever produced by musicians most of whom were heavily influenced by various kinds of drugs. Morality took a serious nosedive into the deep end of a sinful sea.

America didn't move or change, the culture did. And it has been on a downhill slide with each generation's version of justifiable sins tearing up a country that was built on godly principles and eventually referred to as One Nation Under God in its Pledge of Allegiance.

Summarizing the tale in the song as well as the lost ways of those days – and these days – is the line:

"Cathy, I'm lost, I said though I knew she was sleeping
And I'm empty and aching and I don't know why"

Much of the chaos and those empty feelings, the rage and temper tantrums of our days, the perversions, and "politically correct" demands and restrictions from those who are offended at anything and everything arise from having no relationship with the Creator of the universe and mankind. Born into sin, we stumble and paw our way through life with selfish desires and lusts of all kinds wanting our way in every circumstance with little patience to learn what life is truly about. 

It's true you know: we're lost. Without Jesus, we're oh so lost. Presently, eternally. Lost. We can gorge on pleasure, but we will find there's an empty hole at the end of it and it's in our hearts. Reserved for Jesus Christ. Nothing else can fill it because that's how it was designed. The only puzzle piece that fits and completes the whole picture. 

Ask Him. Talk to Him. If you're for real with Him, you'll meet Him. He's not limited by time or space and He will meet you where you are. On a Greyhound, in bed with a stranger, at a racetrack, on an old dirt road, in America, or anywhere else. He's there. And He wants to rescue you from your lost-ness and emptiness. Like no one else can. 

America

Simon & Garfunkel, Paul Simon

Let us be lovers, we'll marry our fortunes together
I've got some real estate here in my bag
So we bought a pack of cigarettes and Mrs. Wagner's pies
And we walked off to look for America
Cathy, I said as we boarded a Greyhound in Pittsburgh
Michigan seems like a dream to me now
It took me four days to hitchhike from Saginaw
I've gone to look for America
Laughing on the bus, playing games with the faces
She said the man in the gabardine suit was a spy
I said, be careful, his bowtie is really a camera
Toss me a cigarette, I think there's one in my raincoat
We smoked the last one an hour ago
So I looked at the scenery
She read her magazine
And the moon rose over an open field
Cathy, I'm lost, I said though I knew she was sleeping
And I'm empty and aching and I don't know why
Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike
They've all come to look for America
All come to look for America
All come to look for America

Songwriters: PAUL SIMON
© Universal Music Publishing Group
For non-commercial use only.
Data from: LyricFind

Father, a zillion thank yous are never enough for what you've done for me. Thank you. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.

More of those amazing tunes . . . seems like only yesterday.

Father, over and over again I thank you for rescuing me, for allowing me the grace I needed to be set free from the days of lost ways. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.

Moving Target is Book 3 in the Elite Guardians Series by Lynette Eason.

Maddy McKay and Quinn Holcombe have been dancing around their relationship for a few years. Supposedly just friends and sometimes co-workers, they're reunited on the hunt for a missing persons turned serial killer case. Back in Quinn's history a young woman was murdered because, according to the prosecutor, Quinn's evidence was insufficient to hold the killer, and he had to let him go whereupon he of course killed again. 

Suddenly Maddy and Quinn find themselves locked in a concrete room recovering from being drugged. A camera records their awareness and a voice tells them they're going to receive a meal before they're turned loose to be hunted. 

When Maddy and Quinn fail to show up for Quinn's scheduled birthday party, her Elite Guardian (bodyguard) friends grow suspicious after trying to contact each of them. 

The sadistic chase begins for Maddy and Quinn as they realize there are cameras exposing their locations. They dodge bolts from a crossbow and try to figure a strategy which will help them escape this barbaric captor. There are many threatening events and significant terror throughout this story of a ruthless psychopath who incorporates biblical clues into his pursuit of the pair. Maddy, Quinn, and the Florida sheriff who is helping them throughout the search for the killer think they have a lead and it turns out to be wrong, frustrating them all.

Intermittent personal realizations and confessions infiltrate their relationship as they each reveal past pain. The trauma they experience draws them closer, but they drift back and forth as they try to cope. Just when they think they've arrived at a conclusion to this terrifying mystery, things go south. Literally.

Moving Target is a great title with an attractive cover for this quick read by Lynette Eason. Maddy and Quinn are well-suited but not without their annoying traits. Quinn was downright unlikable at first until they got into their life and death situation. The well-organized and clever self-righteous ruses of the killer keep the pages turning in Moving Target.  

Father, please continue to bless Lynette's life and meet her needs as you provide the incentive to keep creating the stories you have just for her to tell. Watch over her and keep her safe. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.

A wise son heeds his father's instruction,

   but a mocker does not listen to rebuke. 

Proverbs 13:1 (NIV)

Okay, let's do a reverse of our last Friday Five. What five places do you have zero interest in visiting? 

Any of the Arab countries

Most of Africa

Most of the "stans" (Afghanistan, Pakistan, other "stans")

Phillipines 

Indonesia 

However, my choices do not mean these places have nothing to offer. I'm fully aware there is beauty both in landscapes and people types. That said, I do not want to travel there. 

Lord, you have placed beauty everywhere. It might be hard to find in some places and shrouded in spiritual darkness, but you go to the dark to provide the light. You know hearts. Thank you for rescuing me from the darkness. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.

       From June 9th, 2008: Take A Tour of Winter Haven by Athol Dickson.             

“Mousy” and vulnerable accountant Vera Gamble’s eyes are x-raying a computer screen for a few dollars and cents on a Friday afternoon when she receives an unusual telephone call from the police chief of an unknown-to-her island town in Maine. Shortly afterward as she strives for control of her emotional reaction to the call, her handsome boss manipulates her into spending her weekend working to finish the figures on an apparently important account due for presentation on the following Monday, her birthday, not even considering that her first reaction to stay in Texas might be borne out of a rejection to the grief and that he had previously assured her of getting her birthday off.

The story begins with her first person telling of roiling seasickness on a mail boat making its regular excursion out to the island of Winter Haven where her estranged, and absent for 13 years, brother “Siggy” lies in wait of extradition for burial back in Texas. As her fateful trip to the island produces both vomiting and the regurgitation of events leading to the decision to travel for retrieval of her autistic brother’s body, she does the unspeakable just before her arrival to the remarkable but austere island location, allowing her memories to produce a near white-out of sorts in her brain.

She discovers upon arrival and after introductions that her brother is being held in an old fish packing shed, literally packed in ice awaiting departure since Winter Haven has no mortuary. Without actually seeing his corpse she declares the dead person cannot be her brother, realizing the size of the person lying in the shadows of the shed is a young person, and her brother would now be a man in his late twenties. However, before she finally exits this poor excuse for a funeral home, she decides to look directly at the boy to confirm the mistaken identification. To her amazement it is Siggy looking just as he did 13 years ago when he left home spouting prophecy from his autistic dialogue of the Scriptures.

Immediately the reader is plunged into the mystery of Vera and her family, how she has become who she perceives herself to be, and how she blames herself for the ill-fated and untimely death of her brother who looks no different than the precise moment she watched him walk away from home, alone, some 13 years ago on her birthday.

This is an interesting and utterly intriguing mystery where the features of the island itself are as much individual characters in the story as are the unique and somewhat bizarre folks who inhabit this eerie town. There are suspicious occurrences, freakish townspeople, a sense of life itself being drained out of Winter Haven’s inhabitants while Vera herself is uncertain of what is untrue and what is actually happening both in her head and on the island. Her dark mental adventures, as she simultaneously (along with the man who is “the law”) determines to discover how her brother could not possibly have changed in 13 years, nearly convince the reader Vera is out of her mind or soon will be without some honest and reliable information and assistance.

Athol Dickson, winner of a prestigious Christy Award for his earlier novel River Rising, is known for his lovely layered prose, and this novel is no exception to his rule. A condemning God versus a forgiving and merciful Lord is examined within the pages of this story, and the journey to find who this God really is continues through the supernatural events mixed with imaginary thoughts tied seamlessly to what you hope is a form of reality—all this alongside the search for how Siggy could possibly turn up in Winter Haven, Maine, exactly how he left home in Texas 13 years ago. There are jolting twists and turns with a satisfying conclusion which the cynics in the crowd of readers who prefer “dark and dreary” will no doubt criticize. I, for one, appreciated the ending and was grateful for it.

Let me give you just a taste of some of this delicious writing from Chapter 15 . . .

“I was the daughter of a healer and the sister of a prophet. I knew some kinds of calculations—the ones that mattered most—would never yield an answer. Sometimes you could add one more complaint to another and multiply by every form of misery there was and divide by all the heartache in the world, and even if you reached infinity, the sum of all your questions would still be met with nothing but an evil whisper, a vacant stare, or else a silence like the taste of lukewarm water, the feel of empty air, a vision of the color white. When it comes to evil, God does not explain.”

Athol captures all the angst and torment of a young woman who has carried both guilt and condemnation for most of her existence, having attempted to bury it all beneath the compulsive obsession of orderly numbers and mathematical equations. When she is rousted from her pedestrian and lifeless cocoon of accounting, all hell breaks loose in her memories and in her life-threatening and life-changing experiences during her tour of Winter Haven.

If you’re a fan of moody mysteries, you’ll enjoy this unique and well-written story.

Father, I pray you would continue to bless Athol, to give him inspiration, more stories to tell, and allow the beauty of language to come forth from his creations. Keep him busy with the work you have for him to do and remind him that every good and perfect gift comes from you. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.

W words just because it's Wednesday . . . 

Wallow

Whine

Wicked

Windward

Wiley

Worst

Whilst

Woeful

Wonky

Please share your Wednesday Words.

Father, you created words. We perverted words. Words can do such good and yet they often do such harm. We're desperate for you, Lord. Always. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.