Archives for December 2007

064: Christmas Stories 3: For This Purpose

MERRY CHRISTMAS! This is the 3rd of 7 Christmas stories. Click here to read: Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Part 5Part 6. Part 7.

AND — if in the year-end rush you missed our earlier Hanukkah Week series, you can jump back to enjoy that here: Part 1 of 5 for Hanukkah.

    If you haven’t caught onto our style this week, it will become apparent today. Each of the Christmas stories in this series is distinctively different. On Monday, the narrative was a prayerful reflection on the Advent season. On Tuesday, we explored childhood memories.
    Today, writer Tim Moran takes us in an entirely new direction. Stay tuned, because each story in this series represents a different facet in the overall Christmas star.
    Tim is a nationally known freelance writer, focusing mainly on news about business and the auto industry for a wide range of publications. He’s a Renaissance man with a lifelong interest in scholarship concerning the Middle Ages and the American Civil War. He’s an active Presbyterian layman, involved in social justice issues including the need to reconnect urban and suburban communities.
    Like all of our stories in this series, this memoir is a slice of real life — from Tim’s life years ago, in this case.

    AND NOW, a holiday gift from writer Tim Moran …


For This Purpose

    It was the blue fumes rolling in through the heater vents that stopped them just west of Ocotillo, not the smell of burning oil. The burning smell had been with them since the McDonald’s that crouched across the Will Rogers Turnpike, where leaving the parking lot something had gone “thump” in the tiny Japanese engine of their wedding-present used car.
    A flag of smoke had followed the car down the long slant of Oklahoma, past glittering ice, narrow streams and thin lines of sparse, leafless trees that marked the valleys where cattle sheltered from the wind.
    They drove, tucked up tight in the draft of convenient trucks, 55 miles per hour and watching the odometer like young hawks — only five months married and scant on cash for this journey.
    It was their first real trip. They took pictures of one another driving.
    Two pieces of luggage, one set of Sears tools, a small collection of token gifts and a case of oil followed them under the back hatch. The tools were insurance. The oil would last for exactly 1,200 miles. Then, another case would be needed, they knew.
    Thank God for $10 motel rooms and a grandmother’s American Automobile Association Trip Tik. The pages of the spiral map flipped in sequence, blue notes about “rolling terrain” in counterpoint to riffs on local history as Sapulpa, Amarillo and Tucumcari rolled past.
    Albuquerque, a 2 a.m. limping point, was ugly in colorless streetlights and vacant of traffic. They had no visions of a “mother road” beneath them, only the endless rhythms of the Route 40 surge.

    “Where will you be for Christmas?” the bride’s sister had asked in smoldering July at the wedding reception, just before thunderstorms broke. “Spend it with us,” she had urged, her eager toddler scrambling over her shoulder. “Mom and Dad will be heading off in January, and the company won’t let them out of Brazil for two years, so it might be nice — if you can make it. If you can come. I mean, we understand if you can’t.”
    So the trip was born, leaving directly from final exams, feeding what little cash they had into the car at 80 cents per gallon, fleeing from gray skies, ice and snowplows.
    Now, the mountain of Flagstaff sat on the distant horizon for hours, never drawing nearer — then suddenly it arrived as the road climbed through scrub that became a Christmas tree lot of evenly scattered pines. Then, a long plunge followed, down the map’s red-yarn thread of Route 17 into Phoenix rush-hour traffic shuddering past imported palm trees in the dim evening light.
    The city squatting under a shroud of pollution, where unexpected rain destroyed the Old Testament certainty of the AAA-Trip Tik directions, washing out bridges and pushing out a harvest of police detours onto unnamed state roads.
    And that wasn’t the end of it.

    “We shouldn’t have come,” she said, later, tears sliding from under her eyelids. “Stupid, stupid, stupid!”
    And she kicked the car’s tire, before walking a few defiant steps past the glow of the flashlight beam — back toward Yuma with her shoulders shaking. At that point, the car was dripping fat blobs of hot oil from under its hood. Dark smears marked their hands. Somewhere miles behind them, an irreplaceable plastic oil cap lay on the desert floor, forgotten after the last infusion of fresh oil.
    Sometimes, a truck passed with a crash of wind and a long whine of tires, leaving them still standing there beside the dark road, listening to their car’s ominous ping, ping, ping.
    They were strangers, now together for the first time. Eventually, they sat against one another and cried a little. They were traveling through the world, yet felt completely cut off.
    It would be nice if a truck stopped and a jovial driver jumped down, full of bounce and an optimistic: “Shoot! What have you got? We can fix it! Here, ma’am, have a cup of coffee while I help your young man.”
    Then, maybe a: “All set! And, you’re not lost. Naw. I know just where you are, and here’s where you’re going. Just follow me.”
    But it didn’t happen that way.
    Instead, they stuffed a leftover paper bag with tissues and rammed it into the oil hole, and they wiped each others’ faces mostly clean of oil smears, and drove on into the dark.

    She fell asleep, eventually.
    He drove, consumed with one question: What might a paper bag sodden with oil do at the worst possible moment?
    Shadows rose in front, first cutting off the road’s curves, then beginning to blot out the stars that had filled such a clear sky. Powerful, pirate Mexican radio stations overrode the green-glowing dial, pumping accordion music and ranting announcers into the little car.
    She slept, and he felt perilously proud and trusted.
    The road climbed and climbed, the car strained and shifted, gasping around unexpected curves and trembling across sudden bridges.
    Mountains pounced, closing out the sky. The radio signals weakened, became intermittent, decayed into static. In a drifting world of darkness, the car crept close to unseen hillsides, drops, unmeasured precipices.

     Then, there were lights, just a few to begin with and far off in the distance. Then closer.
    A small community here. A recognizable sign there. The freeway bent down, passed between two peaks and at last there was a long downward glide. The car purred as the roadway widened, divided, divided again into four, five, who knew how many lanes? 
    Big signs appeared, friendly green-and-white lettering arching across the route with easy directions for weary drivers. Down and down they went, the rocky ground giving way, tropical greenery and flowers reaching out hungrily.
    A city bloomed across a wide valley in front of them and, in the distance, lay a blackness of sea.
    “Wow,” she said, awake now.
    “Yeah,” he said. They rolled down the windows and warm air rolled in. Off the main road there was a wide, easy exit lane, then a series of switchbacks and cascades of bougainvillea masking tumbled granite slopes.
    They caught a glimpse of the whole city from a hillside curve. Amazed, she said, “I’ve only driven here during the day.”
    And, now, they laughed for no reason when he missed a downshift.
    Up an improbably steep driveway where the scent of eucalyptus drifted, they threw open the car doors in the tipsy silence at the end of a long road.
    They drew deep breaths; they held hands. It was warm. It was a gift. It was embarrassing to walk toward the door.
    A snowman was melting on the porch next to some leggy, blooming geraniums. The door popped open and light streamed out: “You’re here!”
    And a yell from inside: “They made it!”
    Her sister looked deep into her face and proclaimed, quietly: “Quite the trip, my dear.”
    They nodded, speechless with hugs. The porch filled with eager people. Family jostled around them like a pack of hounds, bumping, touching, reassuring.
    “We went up to the mountains today to get that snow for you. We knew you’d miss snow on Christmas.”

    For this purpose, everyone made his way to his own town …

.

COME BACK TOMORROW for another Christmas story.

TELL US WHAT YOU THINK, please. Click on the “Comment” link at the end
of this story online to leave a comment for other readers. Or, you can
always Email me, ReadTheSpirit Editor David Crumm, by clicking here.

 

063: Christmas Stories 2: Christmas Sprouts


MERRY CHRISTMAS!
This is the 2nd of 7 Christmas stories. Click here to read: Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Part 5Part 6. Part 7.

AND — if in the year-end rush you missed our earlier Hanukkah Week series, you can jump back to enjoy that here: Part 1 of 5 for Hanukkah.

    Our 2nd Christmas
Story this week introduces a writer who we hope you’ll come to enjoy in 2008. For most of his career in media, Rodney Curtis has been known for his expertise in the visual arts. A longtime photographer, videographer and photo editor, Curtis also has been jotting down memoirs over the years, but — until now — he has been tossing them into a drawer without much thought about the lives his stories might touch. Here at ReadTheSpirit, when we got wind of his skill in the genre of spiritual memoir, our colleagues began to pass around some of his essays — and we were hooked. In 2008, ReadTheSpirit Books plans to publish a first volume of Rodney’s stories, affectionately renaming him: “The Spiritual Wanderer.”
    Today’s story is typical of his jottings. His memoirs read like letters from an old friend. We hope you’ll enjoy his fresh voice.

    AND NOW, from Rodney Curtis, The Spiritual Wanderer …

Christmas Sprouts

Maybe my buddy Chris had it right. He and his wife, ignoring convention, decided not to spread wild rumors and weave false hopes in their daughters’ minds. Instead, they told them up front, from as early an age as the girls can remember: Santa Claus is a myth. I don’t know how they managed to pull off such a counter-cultural move, but their kids seem unscarred.
    Me?
    Even writing the words — “Santa Claus is a myth” — makes me nervous.

    Chris’ strategy does beat what my wife and I had to go through when each of our daughters discovered the awful truth. Our eldest, after an evening of tears, proclaimed that her entire childhood had been a lie as she rattled off the demise of the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy and even St. Patrick’s Day leprechauns.
    Our youngest, after an evening of tears, went back to believing in the guy. I appreciate her style. We had lied to her for so long that, when we dropped the ball, she picked up the fumble and ran with it. We’re pretty sure she knows what’s going on by now, but we don’t really want to go through a second round, so we aren’t going to bring it up again.
    Avoidance is a wildly under-used parental tactic.
    It’s great until, after never having gotten around to purchasing a better fake Christmas tree, I was forced to haul out the old one that we agreed we’d never use again. After fiddling with the tree stand in the basement for what seemed like the full twelve days of Christmas, I finally started swearing at the engineers who designed such complicated rigging.
    In our family, we remember that as ‘The Year Daddy Swore at the Christmas Tree.’

    We’ve all got holiday traditions that we share with a smile and a shudder, don’t we?
    As a pre-adolescent boy, my mother figured that I wasn’t embarrassed enough in social situations. So, as Christmas came around one year, she and her twin made me join my cousin in playing holiday songs on our trombones outside in the snow. Worse, they took pictures and wanted us to perform an encore in front of our church as Christmas Eve services let out.
    To this day, “Good King Wenceslas” makes me break out in hives.

    Tradition also demands that every couple of Christmases, Mom gets to retell the story about Rodney and the Magic Beans.
    No, I didn’t get them from some guy along the road in a swap for the family cow, but they did sprout in a giant way — far too fast for the Pepsi bottles in which I secretly kept them under my bed, watering them religiously every night for two weeks before December 25th.

    I was so proud of those sprouts! Until that year, my whole family had been ordinary meat-and-potatoes Protestants. Then, my parents discovered healthy eating and bean sprouts were the new “It” food. What better Christmas present than two giant Pepsi bottles stuffed with sprouts?
    To this day, my mother breaks into hysterics as she retells the story about hearing strange dragging noises upstairs when I went to bed each night. She thinks it’s the funniest thing to imagine me pulling the glass bottles from underneath my bed and furtively watering them in the bathroom sink. But what brings tears to her eyes with each new telling of the story is remembering how she and my father thanked me for the lovely gift — then spent Christmas day shaking the bottles furiously to dislodge the tangled mass through the narrow glass necks.

    Not all that funny, you say?
    So, what holiday stories do you retell, year after year?
    Bottles and bathrooms are strange holiday motifs for me. One eerie Christmas tale of bottles and bathrooms even involves a guinea pig, named Squeaky.
    I was such a dutiful kid that I always took great care in cleaning out Squeaky’s glass bottle with her special toothbrush that reached all the way down to the bottom to clear out the accumulation of gunk. And, it was at Christmas one year as I performed this nightly ritual that my brother Scott walked in and yelled:
    “What are you doing with my toothbrush?”
    “It’s not yours, it’s Squeaky’s,” I said. I just knew he was mistaken.
    But, no.
    He and Squeaky had been sharing that toothbrush for months. I’m not sure who came first, but Squeaky was definitely the last to use it.

    Still not laughing?
    Well, I never saw the humor in these stories, either, until my Mom sent me the following email: “The more I think about the Bean Sprout story, the more I realize why it still isn’t funny to you! You were the one who was trying his utmost to surprise and please his Mom … and it’s difficult for you to hear me laughing about it! But to me, it’s such a precious story for the very same reason!”
    She’s right.
    At Christmas time, no matter how old I am chronologically, I’m still a 10-year-old boy in my gut. Even my own daughters know it! One year, they bought me a GI Joe — and, the next? A race car set.
    What’s worse is that all they want are clothes or gift cards. They’re 12 and 13 — already two and three years older than I am at Christmas.
    They understand my stunted growth, but man, it stinks when your kids are older than you.
    This year, I’m hoping for an iPhone.
    They’re hoping for pants.

COME BACK TOMORROW for another Christmas story.

TELL US WHAT YOU THINK, please. Click on the “Comment” link at the end
of this story online to leave a comment for other readers. Or, you can
always Email me, ReadTheSpirit Editor David Crumm, by clicking here.

062: Christmas Stories 1: Presents to Presence


MERRY CHRISTMAS!
This is the 2nd of 7 Christmas stories. Click here to read: Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Part 5Part 6. Part 7.

AND — if in the year-end rush you missed our earlier Hanukkah Week series, you can jump back to enjoy that here: Part 1 of 5 for Hanukkah.


M
ERRY CHRISTMAS!
    This month we are previewing one of our major innovations at ReadTheSpirit: We provide a welcoming, online home where people around the world can turn to experience the year’s spiritual seasons in new ways. In January, we’re actually helping to start a new observance: the 1st Annual Interfaith Heroes Month. Throughout 2008, we will provide thoughtful, inspiring stories during traditional seasons like Lent, Passover, the Jewish High Holy Days, Ramadan and Advent.
    We’re doing this because we know that learning about each other’s traditions and hopes in these seasons enriches and strengthens our larger community. So, earlier this month, we marked Hannukah. As we write about religious traditions, we’re not trying to convert anyone. Even in reviewing new spiritual media, we’re trying to help us all understand a little more about our neighbors, as well as our own traditions.

    NOW, it’s time for our series of Christmas Stories.

    ReadTheSpirit is a new kind of media network, drawing on writers and other creative voices nationwide and, just as we did in Hanukkah week, you’ll hear from an array of wonderful writers who have contributed these special pieces — simply because they want to help this new online home shine with holiday joy.
    It’s delightful to see so many creative voices coming together here. Check in daily for these holiday treats!
    TODAY, we’re starting with Prayer, which is a universal desire — and a theme that was central to our earlier Hanukkah week. We’re also recommending a new book: “Bless This Food,” by Adrian Butash. Click on the book cover above to jump to our bookstore, read our review and buy a copy, if you wish.

    So, our 1st Christmas Story this week is a marvelous narrative prayer by the Rev. Marsha Woolley, a United Methodist pastor and writer who is known in the Midwest for her expertise in liturgical arts. Last month, she contributed an inclusive Thanksgiving prayer that many readers praised in their emails to our Home Office. Today, her prayer is for the season of Advent, voiced in her own Christian tradition. In late January, you’ll read a whole week of reflections from Marsha — an important spiritual voice who we’re delighted to call a regular friend of ReadTheSpirit.

AND NOW, from Marsha Woolley …

An Advent Prayer for Presence

O ADVENT GOD — we’re doing it again, aren’t we?

Every year we claim it will be different, and every year we get caught —
Caught by all the worldly trappings of the season —
Caught with lists of “to do’s” too long to reasonably accomplish —
Caught with too many things to do, too many places to go, too many people to see.
 
How easy it is for us to get caught up in the shopping and the decorating and the preparing —
How easy it is to get so caught up in getting ready for the season — until we nearly miss it.

How much easier it is —
To prepare our homes with decorations, than to prepare our hearts for the message.
To buy presents for those we love, than it is to simply tell them we love them.
To adorn our homes with twinkling lights, than it is to adore one another in ways that light up one’s eyes and heart. 

How much easier it is to get caught up in the spending and scurrying, the baking and buying, the decorating and the doing, than it is to ponder and wonder, relax and remember the story, the gift, your Love.

You must laugh at all our hoopla, O God; our grand and glorious gestures! 
Do you understand that we love your gift, and that all this frantic pageantry is our way of squealing with delight over your perfect gift to us? 
Do you understand that we constantly seek new ways to tell others about your gift in the hopes that they will discover for themselves all that you offer to us in this child – 
That in the midst of it all is our desire to share the story, and the love?

We really are trying to get it, O God. 
Be patient with us. 
Teach us again that Emmanuel means simply, “God-with-us.”  Not “God-doing-for us,” not “God-expects-of-us.”  But simply and mysteriously God-with-us, human like we are human. 
Yes, You, O Wondrous God, coming to be with us, in the hopes that we might be with you. 
That somehow the message of Christmas is about being present to each other, not giving presents to each other. 

So in this Advent season, help us to be present to others in the name of the One who is present to us. 

Present to the homeless through our gifts of time, of hospitality, of safe shelter, warm food and clothing;
Present to the lonely through a cheerful visit and a listening ear;
Present to the children, by offering them our time and our care and our love and our interest;
Present to the colleague through our acceptance of who they are and what they offer;
Present to the family member who seems to demand extra effort and understanding;
Present to the elderly in ways that tell them they are of value —
Those who need to tell their stories and who need physical touch and care;

Present to those broken in whatever way, offering our embrace and comfort;
Present to those we see as better than us, by releasing our jealousy, our competitiveness, our selfish hoarding;
Present to those we deem less fortunate, by sharing who we are and what we have, and by letting go of our need to judge and criticize;
Present to all persons of any race, creed, nation or orientation, so that we might reflect the inclusiveness we proclaim.
Present to the church and causes for good, through investment of our time and talents as well as our treasures.

Present to the world as persons through whom justice and peace are visible and possible.

In these coming days, O God, may we not only tell the story, but live its message.
May we not only sing the songs with our lips, but sing their truth with our deeds. 
As we, an Advent people, watch and wait in anticipation of a Christ who might greet us anew, let us not wait to share the parts of the story that have already been made known to us. 

And as we prepare to peer once again into the manger, may we see not only the infant babe of long ago, but the saving, loving presence of Christ for today.

Make us present, too, to one another —
Because, present you became.
Present you are, O loving God.

AMEN.

TELL US WHAT YOU THINK, please. Click on the “Comment” link at the end of this story online to leave a comment for other readers. Or, you can always Email me, ReadTheSpirit Editor David Crumm, by clicking here.

061: Your Voice Matters … from Home to Hajj


Y
our voice matters.

    That’s a powerful affirmation in this era, when the great temptation is to think of ourselves as helpless in the face of the thunderous flood of media cascading all around us from the moment our clock radios spring to life each morning — until we flip off the TV and check our email one last time at night.
    If ReadTheSpirit has any prophetic power at all, please believe what we’re telling you:
    Your voice matters.
    As the Founding Editor of ReadTheSpirit, I see proof of this everyday. Here are several examples from this week alone:

VOICES ARE RESONANT ACROSS TIME:

    Dinah Berland, the poet who is reviving “Hours of Devotion: Fanny Neuda’s Book of Prayers for Jewish Women” — and who occasionally has been sharing the stories behind this amazing project with our readers here at ReadTheSpirit — sent me a fresh note about a way that she used her voice.
    Listen to this, because what she did was so simple, yet so powerful:

“David:
    “Today, I finally got around to delivering a copy of ‘Hours of Devotion’ to
Sam Johnson’s Book Shop — the used-book store in my neighborhood,
where I originally found that 1866 English copy of the prayer book that started this whole effort.
    “Larry, the
co-proprietor of the shop — a slight, rosy-cheeked man, probably in
his early 70s — was so taken aback by my story, he could hardly speak.
He just kept looking at my book and back at me with an incredulous
smile. I wanted him to know that his enterprise of collecting and
selling used books to others could actually change people’s lives.
    “He
said that the store has been in business for nearly 30 years and he
could tell from the writing inside the cover of this older volume that
it was probably among the first books in the store. So that means that
it was right there, on the shelf, waiting for me for 20 years — before
I even moved into the neighborhood!
    “What a great joy to be able to
present him with an inscribed copy of the new edition of the book that resulted from my finding the 1866 book in his store!
It was one of the most gratifying moments in this whole awesome
journey.
    “Dinah”

    This is, indeed, awesome! She took the time to return to the shop and thank one of the proprietors, which is remarkable in itself. How many of us take time to say, “Thank You.” Then, as Dinah talked with him, this became a moment of deep connection between them — and affirmation of his work in the shop.
    Then, beyond that exchange, think about the words Dinah chose to describe the 1866 book: Sometimes, things are “waiting” for us to find them.
    What’s waiting for you today? Will you see it clearly? And, if you do, will you tell someone about your discovery — and, thus, share it?
    Think of it: even the keeper of a seemingly obscure little shop had given Dinah a life-changing gift. And, eventually, Dinah gave him a gift in return.
    And, by sharing her story with us, she gave all of us a gift.


IT’S ALL ABOUT THE VOICE, NOT ANY PARTICULAR BOOK or RADIO SHOW:

    Of course, this is the No. 1 affirmation in our list of 10 founding principles.
    This affirmation lies deep within our religious traditions. In Genesis, God speaks … and Creation unfolds. In the gospel of John, Christians are reminded that: “In the beginning was the Word …” And Muslims, too, know that their Quran originally was spoken and was intended for humans to preserve and recite to others.
    This week, I was reminded of the importance of this central idea in a telephone call from a longtime radio personality, a guy famous throughout central Indiana: “Big” John Gillis. Big John retired recently as one of the most popular voices on WIBC’s drive-time radio shows — just as I’ve retired recently after decades at the Detroit Free Press.
    If you’ve never been to Indianapolis, but know somebody who lives there — or has lived there for some years in the past — drop the name “Big” John Gillis on them. I can almost guarantee what will happen next. They’ll grin and tell you: “Yeah, the radio guy! He’s, like, The Voice of the streets of Indianapolis. Yeah, I love that guy!” (That’s Big John in white next to the WIBC helicopter in which he sometimes flew.)
    Although technically retired from news media, Big John and I share a strong sense of vocation after decades of working in communities with thousands of people just like you.
    When he called this week, Big John said: “I just want to remind you of something. You’re really onto something with all of these ideas you’re unfolding at ReadTheSpirit. But I want to keep reminding you of this one point: Don’t forget that it’s all about the Voice. Everything can change around us. Newspapers can fade into the Internet. Radio stations can change formats. All the technical stuff can change. How the message reaches us can change in all kinds of ways.
    “But people always need to hear a Voice that calls them together and reminds them of who they are,” Big John said. “That idea goes waaaay back. Just make sure you never forget it.”
    And I won’t — especially with friends of ReadTheSpirit like Big John down there in Indianapolis.

    During the season of Lent in early 2008, there’s a good chance that you’ll be treated to some special audio reports from Big John via ReadTheSpirit. Stay tuned!

FINALLY, VOICES TRANSCEND SPACE, CIRCLE THE GLOBE — and — CAN EVEN PART THE SEA OF MEDIA:

    A reminder of this essential spiritual truth came in an email from another old friend: Victor Begg, who now is a nationally known Muslim peace activist. He’s based in Florida at the moment, but he has been a major pillar in Michigan’s interfaith community for many years.
    Starting January 1, this broad movement of people that Victor helped to launch, along with others in southeast Michigan, is coming together to declare an entirely new national observance: The 1st Annual Interfaith Heroes Month. From January 1 through January 31, they plan to expand upon the annual Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.
     We’re a big part of that effort, too.
     Here at ReadTheSpirit, we will be opening up a whole new branch of our site — a beautifully designed new “home” within our overall Web hub where we’ll welcome all of the men, women and youth who want to explore this new observance along with us. In fact, I’m heading to Asia myself in mid January to visit several countries where I will be talking with people there about these new ideas.
    Click Here to read a summary of what’s unfolding in January.
    BUT, what Victor wanted to remind all of us about is that, right now, 1 billion Muslims around the world are spiritually focused on the annual pilgrimage to Mecca.
    “This is a very important time as Christmas, Hanukkah and the Hajj are very close to each other this year,” Victor said. “You’ve done stories on Hanukkah and I know you’re going to do stories on Christmas. Tell people about the Hajj, too.”
    To help in this effort, Victor wrote this brief summary: “Hajj is one of the five pillars of Islam, required to be performed once in a person’s lifetime by able-bodied Muslims who are financially able to undertake this travel. Preparation for Hajj includes asking for forgiveness from friends, relatives and acquaintances who you may have offended at some time. It is not unusual to see Muslims bidding farewell, asking for everyone’s  good will and taking care of their obligations before they leave for Hajj.”

     NOW, here’s what is astounding about what Victor did in this simple email:
    His “voice” reached our Home Office here in Michigan, where I began to check around on the other huge, religious Web portals to see what I could find in the way of Hajj coverage.
    I thought: Surely all of us in online religious media are including coverage of the Hajj at the top of our Web sites, right?
    After all, as of Thursday this week, the official office for the Hajj in Saudi Arabia reported 1.5 million men and women had arrived for this sacred observance. This is a HUGE human movement of the spirit all around the world. And, we’re right in the heart of it, now. The peak of the pilgrimage is expected on Tuesday, authorities were saying late this week.

    I began to look around — and my jaw dropped!
    I checked Beliefnet and — do you know what I found as of Thursday? Nothing on their home page. There is a very nice Hajj overview of the sacred rites and rituals — deep inside the Beliefnet site — if you know to search for it. We’re going to help you find it by clicking here, because you won’t stumble across it, otherwise.
    As I looked at various Web sites, it began to seem as though this  vast movement of Muslims was invisible.
    How about Newsweek-Washington Post’s big new On Faith site?
    Nope.
    As of Thursday night: Nothing. Eboo Patel was featured on the home page Thursday with an intriguing commentary — and I’m a strong supporter of Eboo’s work. I’ve recommended his autobiography, in fact. But even Eboo’s piece was focused on controversy in American headlines — and never so much as mentioned the Hajj.

    There is always an ocean of American media flooding around us.
    That’s how we live today.
    And, yet, there’s scarcely a drop reminding people to wish the more than 1 billion Muslims around the world a blessed Hajj, whether they are on the pilgrimage themselves this year or are prayerfully thinking of the 1.4 million who have made the trip.
    Well, news of the Hajj DID show up here at ReadTheSpirit, didn’t it? It’s a top-of-the-page headline today through Sunday.

    Please don’t misunderstand. My point here isn’t to criticize my very busy and highly respected colleagues in other online Web hubs. We all miss things.
    The point is — speaking for OUR home online — we’re thankful this weekend to mark the Hajj and wish our Muslim neighbors well in their travels, or in their home-based reflections in the pilgrimage.
    Quite frankly, we’re doing this because a simple Voice came through from a friend in Florida.

    Your voice?
    It’s powerful, too.

    Please — keep telling us what you think. Click on the “Comment” link at the end of this story on our Web site to leave a comment for our readers. Or Click Here to email me, ReadTheSpirit Founding Editor David Crumm.

 

060: BANG! Exploding the Comic Cosmos


This is Part 3.
FOR THE REST OF THIS 3-PART SERIES
on the creative explosion in spiritually themed Comics, click here: Part 1. Part 2.

    Ahem! Ahem! Let us now pause in a moment of silent respect for Houghton Mifflin’s salute to the rapidly blossoming field of comic books and graphic novels. No kidding. I’m dead serious about this.
    The editors at Houghton Mifflin deserve a serious Thank You from anyone who cares about new forms of spirituality in media. This is the second-straight year that Houghton Mifflin has put its substantial imprint on the comic cosmos.
    You know, in 2015, we’ll celebrate the centennial of the hugely influential series, “Best American Short Stories.” If you don’t know the history, it’s worth exploring. Sometimes referred to as “BASS,” this is the traditional annual collection that helped to launch such American literary greats as Ernest Hemingway.
    Then, last year — after well over a century of terrific cartooning in America — Houghton Mifflin’s editors finally concluded that comics had reached the status of serious literature. So comics finally got  their own annual “Best American” anthology.
    The Oscar the Grouch of the comic-book world, Harvey Pekar, slumped irritably over the helm of the inaugural issue late last year as its General Editor and all-around curmudgeon. Now, Chris Ware, another giant in this emerging field, has placed his name and his creative blessing on the second annual volume.

    (CLICK HERE to jump to the new Comics section in our ReadTheSpirit bookstore — to read individual reviews and buy copies of books, if you wish.)

    BUT, where we really want to take you, on the last day of this special 3-day series, is into the lives of some of the high-energy writers and artists who are not as well known nationwide as, say, Harvey Pekar or Ernest Hemingway.
    Here at the Home Office of ReadTheSpirit, I need to say a sincere “Thank You!” to Kurt J. Kolka, the creator of a religious comic strip called “The Cardinal.” I’ve known Kurt for a number of years and encouraged his work on “The Cardinal,” by covering him and his red-garbed superhero occasionally in my decades of reporting on religious trends for The Detroit Free Press.

     Kurt really prompted me to take this fresh look at what’s unfolding in comics, these days, because he explained that — speaking for himself as one grassroots comic artist — he is feeling moved to develop his own comic series in complex new ways.
    I could tell from his email that he wasn’t just talking about the sophistication of his artwork. His whole enlarged view of the way that faith interacts with the world reminded me of the startlingly fresh preaching I’ve been hearing from Rob Bell, the best-selling author and widely traveled evangelist.
    Here’s what Kurt said in his newsy email to me, catching up on news about his comic work as well as his spiritual direction these days:   

    Over the past couple years I’ve been working on revising the
Cardinal strip and putting it solely online.  Rather than highlighting
theology as I have in the past, the new strip will dealing with the
more “practical” side of faith with Rich (The Cardinal) spending much
of his time as a volunteer at the local mission helping the poor and
homeless. By night he’ll protect them as The Cardinal. His faith will
be shown as being more connected to serving others.
     I’m
also expanding the setting of Arbor City, making it the U.S. in
microcosm. 

    Rather than all the “good” characters being Christian, I’m
creating more positive characters from all walks of life and all
religions and philosophies. It’ll be a far more developed and complex
world this time around. And the threats Arbor City faces won’t just be
from criminals, but from corrupt politicans, financially strapped
police forces and dangerous living conditions for the poor.

    As Kurt was describing his new approach to his comic series, I thought: What he’s describing is like a thematic overview of several Rob Bell “Nooma” films.
    So, I asked Kurt if he would help me develop part of this 3-day series this week. I asked him to contact some other religiously inspired comic creators — and, in turn, we asked them to send ReadTheSpirit notes on where their spiritual vocation is carrying them today.

     So, we’ll close today with three of those personal notes.
    And — NO — this is not our last story on comics. It’s our first series of stories on this emerging genre. Yes, we do plan to write more about this in coming months.
    But, right now, click on the following links to meet a couple of very cool comic veterans. You’ll enjoy their stories:   

    CLICK HERE to MEET BUZZ DIXON, who moved away from a prolific career in movies and television, where he racked up more than 130 television credits as a writer on shows ranging from “Batman” to “Transformers,” “My Little Pony” and “Tiny Toons.” He also worked on games and Internet projects.
    But his first love in media was the comic book.
    That’s where he has had his greatest impact. Now, he’s known as a successful pioneer in adapting Japanese-style manga formats (which are thicker, mass-market comic books, essentially) for an audience of religious seekers.

     CLICK HERE to MEET BEN AVERY, who has so many projects unfolding that it’s difficult to concisely summarize his work.
     Exploring his work online, I was attracted to a simple yet powerful idea he has posted online — a “one-shot” comic, called “The Tempest,” which he is selling online as a fund-raiser for the Salvation Army. Specifically, he’s earmarking donations from sales of the comic for the assistance of victims from tropical storms.
    What intrigues me is the way he describes the plot of the comic, which stars an artist. (Hey, Woody Allen always used to star as himself, didn’t he?) Here’s what Ben says about the “Tempest” storyline:
    “He’s just an artist. A normal man who writes stories of heroics and
tragedy. But now, surrounded by news of tragedy and disaster,
confronted with his own limitations, and facing the lifting veil of
innocence, he is forced to ask some difficult questions. Starting with,
‘What can I do? I’m just one man.'”

    FINALLY, CLICK HERE to MEET ROBERT LUEDKE, the creator of a beautifully designed, large-format graphic novel, “Eye Witness,” which I’ve spotted in a number of evangelical churches I’ve visited in the last few years.
    What I like about Robert’s story is that he went from a love of this genre — to running a comic store — to actually creating comics. That’s a remarkably successful journey.
    He’s also got a mature sense of irony about the strange twists and turns that life, spirit — and media — can take these days. At one point in his life, Robert decided that a career in comics was completely impossible! He writes, “Like the scriptures say: Once I became an adult, I had to put away childish things. And, for me, that included my pursuing a career in comics.”
    Yeah, right.
    Instead, Robert wound up right back in the middle of this booming genre.

    TELL US WHAT YOU THINK. We always welcome notes from you, your suggestions and especially your tips on what you’re reading and seeing right now that inspires you. Click on the “Comment” link at the bottom of this story online — or, you can Email me (ReadTheSpirit Editor David Crumm) by Clicking Here.

COMICS: Robert Luedke’s Eye Catches a Movement of Spirit

Finally, here’s a self-portrait from Robert James Luedke. Amazingly, he is self taught. The “eye” has been a gift in Robert’s life. His visual skills were sharp enough to help him perfect his own artistic style — and his most famous graphic novel is called, “Eye Witness.”

Here are Robert’s words:

I have been involved in the comic book and graphic novel industry one way or another for about 15 years now.  I established and ran a pair of comic book stores in the Dallas area, from 1989 through 1995.  In mid ’95, I founded Head Press Publishing as a way to bring my sci-fi adventure story, Template, to life.  After writing, illustrating and publishing an issue of Template (and its spin-off title, Max Damage), approximately every 60 days for a span of about two years, I finally had to throw in the towel because I had run myself out of working capital and the comic market was extremely difficult in those years, (especially for indy titles).  But on the bright side, Template was voted as one of the 10 Best Indy Titles of 1998, by the now defunct trade magazine, Combo.

    From 1998 through 2000, I teamed up with my wife, Sandy, and built a very successful nutritional distribution company and along the way I found God.  I became born again in Christ, in October 1999, and became consumed with determining what part I was to play in God’s big picture.  Was I to go into ministry?  Was I destined to teach, which is what I was doing at that point in my business life?  Was there someplace God wanted me to be besides Dallas-Ft. Worth, Texas?

    After months of prayer and reflection, the answer came to me in the form of a Bible study I sat through in late 1999, entitled, “Did Jesus Really Die on the Cross?”
  This presentation opened my eyes to the fact that there was medical and archeological evidence to support the biblical telling of the passion story and that highly educated people truly could (and did) believe!  Since I had always been driven by learning the facts behind everything, (I’m an avid History-Channel fan), hearing this information really served to strengthen my faith.  The foundation of this lecture became my first graphic novel, “Eye Witness: A Fictional Tale of Absolute Truth,” and I truly understood how God would work through me — by reaching young people through an artistic medium that had really not been utilized much to further his kingdom.

AN EARLY LOVE AFFAIR

As someone who purchased his first comic book at the age of nine, (and yes it was only 12 cents way back then), submitted his first artwork to Marvel at the age of 11 and had created boxes full of my own comic creations by my teens … I grew to love comics not only as a form of entertainment but also as an art-form.  By my high school years, I could amaze my comic-reading friends by not only being able to name the penciler on just about any Marvel or DC title just by looking at the pages, but also the inker.
    Like many young comic fans, I dreamed of one day becoming an artist for my favorite titles.  But like many young adults, I soon found that the time it took to crank out a continuous supply of sample pages for my portfolio started to test the limits of my patience and my ability to focus on pursuing a “real job.”
    So like the scriptures say, once I became an adult, I had to put away childish things…and for me, that included my pursuing a career in comics.  That is of course until my early thirties when I opened my first comic book shop.

MASTERING THE TRADE

As an artist, inker and writer, I’ve been mainly self-taught. God gifted me with the ability to look at a work of art, including comic pages, and be able to figure out and duplicate the techniques used to create it.  I’ve spent many hours at comic book conventions over the years, pouring over stacks of original art, making notes, then going back to my studio to work on mastering the techniques I had viewed.  During my con visits I’ve also asked as many questions as I could of established pros.
    I didn’t set out to become a trailblazer or spokesman for the developing genre of Christian based comics and graphic novels!  At first this was just about creating something that God had placed upon my heart, using the gifts and lessons he had supplied me with over the course of my life.  That responsibility, it seems, was added to my mission as I began to create a marketing strategy for the first Eye Witness book, back in 2002, when I saw how few titles there were with a Christian influence in the marketplace.  There was a number of small or self published creators doing titles, but no one was really pushing the envelope and bringing their creations to the attention of main-stream comic fans.

    It falls upon more artists and writers to come out of the spiritual closet, so to speak, and use this medium as a tool for witness and worship. The development of Christian contemporary music industry over the last decade was, in part, a similar response by modern musician to this same void that had occurred in musical arts. And their music has been used effectively to reach hundreds of thousands of young people with spiritual messages. But there are so many other avenues of worship within the graphic arts that can be utilized! 

WHAT’S NEXT?

    I am currently working feverishly to complete the artwork on next book in the Eye Witness series, Rise of the Apostle.  This third book in the tetralogy, is scheduled for an August 2008 release to book stores and comic shops, with a world-premier at Comic-Con International 2008, (in San Diego), in late July.  It features a cover painting by world-class illustrator, Lee Moyer, and interior coloring by Carsten Bradley.
    By the time EW3 is released, I’ll already be working on the art for the forth chapter in the Eye Witness saga, (which has already been scripted), and wrap up the series.  That volume will tentatively be ready by late 2009.  From that point, I’m going to go back and re-master the original volume from the bare art pages forward, add some new pages and bridging sequences, and produce a collected edition of the entire series in a smaller digest sized edition.

    To hear more of my personal testimony, learn more about Eye Witness or see what we are up to at Head Press Publishing, visit us at: www.headpress.info Or, go to my page at Shoutlife.com:  http://www.shoutlife.com/profile_view.cfm?uid=2307

COMICS: Ben Avery Soaring from “Star Wars”

Here’s another self-portrait by an important comic innovator, Ben Avery. As you read his story, you’ll realize that Ben is like a whole of us in gathering his own fresh creative energy from exciting storytellers he encountered as he was growing up. Specifically, he caught a major creative wind from the vast “Star Wars” saga, which unfolded in all kinds of different media.

(And, no, that’s not the specific “Star Wars” comic book he recalls — but you get the idea, right?)

Here are Ben’s words:

I’ve always loved comics. When I was a kid, from the time I was able to

read, I loved comic books. I didn’t have very many comics, but the ones

I did have were treasures. I still have some, relics from my childhood.

I still remember missing school for a dentist appointment and then

going into the Stop Shoppe with my mouth all numb and funny and my

mother buying me a Star Wars comic. Comics were a treat. A reward. And

they fueled my imagination.

    Around 1979 or 1980, I got two
comics books that influenced me forever. One was a Star Wars comic and
the other was an Avengers reprint (Star Wars #33 and Marvel Super
Action #15, reprinting Avengers #56). I read and reread them as a five
or six year old, and beyond, and they still hold a place of nostalgia
for me.
     The
Star Wars comic had a story that has molded my definition of heroism.
Luke Skywalker faces a bad guy, and as he does he learns that he has
more control over the Force than the bad guy. But, Luke uses it to destroy
the bad guy’s bionic glasses (the bad guy was blind without them). I just remember that bad guy on his knees after Luke escapes, saying,
“He could have struck me down. He was powerful enough. But he didn’t.”
And the bad guy was confused about why Luke spared him.
    That’s always
stuck with me: Villains are heroes to one person: themselves. But, heroes are heroes to everyone.

   

Somehow, I lost that Avengers
comic, but I tracked it down (through the wonders of the Internet)
and reread it recently. It withstood the test of time. It also got into
dramatic and emotional ideas of heroism, this time dealing with
sacrifice. All these things were pretty heady stuff for a little kid,
but it influenced me to this day.

My
goal as a comic book writer now is to write those stories that
emotionally involve the reader, but also inspire them to action — to be
more than they are. I love action, and that stuff is lots of fun, but
it takes on a new dimension if you care about the characters. And the
dynamic of the ideal hero is the same dynamic we see Christ showing us.
Care for the weak and needy. Turn the other cheek. Love everyone.
    In
fourth or fifth grade I started drawing my own comics with my best
friend Richard. I have no idea what Richard is up to now, but I
remember back then we were going to go to art school and work for
Marvel. I never thought about that until just recently — but that goal
has happened! I just skipped the art school part. You see I stopped
drawing comics in high school, when I learned I could not draw.

    All
through junior high, high school and college I remained interested in
comics and writing comics. In college I started reading more “mature”
comics. And I discovered a handful of new, non-superhero comics that
were touching those emotional chords with me again. In different ways
than they had when I was five, obviously. Those kept me interested in
comics.
    I was still interested in making comics.
I had no plan, I was just interested. My real plan was just to get into
film. After college and film school, though, opportunities came to work
on some comic book projects. In 2000, I formed Community Comics with a
handful of like-minded people. Our goal was to create Christian comics
and encourage Christian artists to do the same.
    Meanwhile, I was
also given the opportunity to work on some books for other publishers
as well. I started on some books that were published by Image Comics.
Eventually, my work found its way to Marvel. And my plan to get
involved in film, sidetracked by comics, has become a reality because
of comics — my fantasy series, ArmorQuest, is being developed into an
animated movie.

   Most recently, I was given the change to write some
graphic novels for Zondervan, including “Kingdoms” and “TimeFlyz.”

    Now is an interesting time for
making Christian-themed comic books. We have some major publishers
(like Zondervan) producing and publishing comics. We have Christian
bookstores that are actually able to put up a comic book section. All
of this is good, as comics are gaining acceptance in non-traditional
places. I am a little worried about there being too much, and that
publishers who do not understand the medium may try jumping on the
bandwagon, which could set back some of this headway.
    But most of what
I’ve seen out there is good, and it is slowly finding its audience.
    We’re
also seeing a number of Christians getting work in mainstream comics,
which is exciting. Some are on high profile gigs, and it’s cool to see
them be able to shape these stories with their worldview.

    The
body of my work shows many themes, but they all go back to those ideas
I found as a kid. Some of my stories use the superhero as a Christian
metaphor, other stories focus on the literal heroism of Christ. Some
focus on sacrifice, some on the idea that a true hero must trust in
God. But all probably have one thing in common: I want to encourage
kids, especially young Christians, to be heroes — to make a difference.
I hope that my readers have fun reading my comics. But I also hope
there is an emotional resonance with my readers. And a spiritual
resonance. And that, ultimately they will be encouraged to grow closer
to God.

    If you would like to learn more about me and my work, you can check out my website, www.benaveryonline.com which has news and a link to my blog and my projects. You can also contact me through that website.

    Community Comics can be found here: www.communitycomics.com
— Community Comics has links to free comics and also has a catalogue
of many different kinds of Christian comics. We also have links to a
number of different places to learn more about Christian comics.

    Another site to visit is www.zgraphicnovels.com.
It also is a resource for free Christian online comics, and also has
information about their six graphic novel series. I’m writing two of
those series: TimeFlyz and Kingdoms. But all are wonderful.