Parts of Speaking Publishing

Years ago I read a book by Douglas Groothuis. He is a professor at Denver Seminary who has written many books, is known by some friends of mine affiliated with that seminary, and somehow became a "friend" of mine on Facebook. I guess I added him and he agreed. I always like his posts. He also wrote about his first wife's long battle with a disease.  He posted this link to an article on what the Apostles' Creed and affirms and that by saying we believe it, we are actively denying a lot of other false teachings. This might be a good article for discipleship groups or similar gatherings for a discussion of doctrines. I find that most Christians are really uninformed about false teachings and have, at the very least, misconceptions. There are a lot of false doctrines out there.   https://www.christianpost.com/voices/what-the-apostles-creed-denies.html?fbclid=IwY2xjawPhBctleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEeq29awklXzWS_SIitjW2M1fhd7dVT8pogI22j3QKewBNhq...

 I am working on an essay and podcast on binaries. There are plenty of theological, biological, and logical binaries.  But they rarely exist in politics.  This ICE issue is one of the non-binaries. As I have written elsewhere, two, three, six things can be true at once. Yes, ICE overreaches. Yes, some of their actions are cruel and disturbing and violate human rights.  Yes, Congress has failed to deal with immigration reform.  Yes, Biden let in millions of criminals.  Yes, leftist activists are getting paid to cause chaos.  Yes, American values of law and order are at stake at a higher level than one church in one city.  Yes, Donald Trump is a chaos agent. His recent actions are downright scary. He somehow manages to get what he "wants" after taking us to the brink of war, only because the U.S. has a bigger military. Yes, some immigrants come here to be criminals in a richer place.  Yes, protesters of the past, such as in the civil rights mov...

 I am posting this because I sent it to my writers group this week and it has gotten mixed reviews (they were nice about it). I know it needs work but I also know that I don't know what to do with it.  My fiction is too secular for Christians and too Christian for secular audiences.  ____________________ Laughter (title in progress) I saw her—them—today. I’d heard they were coming back but I didn’t want to believe it and I didn’t want to see them. But our village is small, and their home, a part of his family’s complex, is just three streets over. I was on the way to the market and they caught my eye as they were unloading an ass-driven cart. She looks to be at the end of her time, as if she will soon go into her confinement. The little boy, maybe three, maybe getting closer to four, carried small baskets in and out to help his burdened mother. He is a pretty child. He seems serious but with that mysterious wisdom we see in children’s eyes that often deceives us. ...

I just read the responses on Facebook to a Christianity Today article on the protesters against ICE who invaded a church in Minneapolis. The article in CT is balanced. One of the elders of the church is an ICE director, so the church was targeted for that reason. Don Lemon, who seems like a clown to me, showed up conveniently and filmed interviews with the pastor, acting very self-righteous.  In the comments on the story, which I figure are more from people trolling the sight than anything, they keep saying "Jesus flipped tables." This comment is from ignorant people who don't know Jesus. Disturbing a Sunday morning service has nothing to do with the cleansing of the temple. The moneychangers were directly exploiting the poor. The church members were not doing that. People who write that have no concept about the New Testament.  Added 1/21: They are using this as a talking point someone made up. Note how often it appears in these comments.  All that said, two things can b...

As an experiment with Open AI Art, I tried to create a cover design for my next novel, whose working title is The Foark River Hair and Tanning Salon and Bait Shop . The final one may be truncated from that. It is based on a play I wrote, which was a comedy, but the whole vibe is quite different.  I used the AI app the first time to create a rather bland convenience store look. I would not use it, of course, and as I hope to have this published by someone else, that will be their task.  Here are the two versions.  Then my husband suggested I ask it to do the same in the style of Howard Finster's art. He is a popular figure here in Northwest Georgia.  The second is eye -catching, but has some big problems. I can't have Howard Finster's name on it, and good grief, the writing is almost all gibberish. I posted this to Facebook to see what folks thought, and they love the Finster look.  I find the background interesting. That is a really sketch looking shack there. ...

 I think I would be picking at the Plur1bus post every day if I let myself, so I'll leave it alone at this point. I want to move on to Severance as my second example of Speculative Fiction that I have been immersing myself in, with several provisos or caveats mentioned up front.  I call it speculative fiction but it's a how, not prose on a page. Same with  Plur1bus.  I do read other speculative fiction, just not as often. I read Til We Have Faces and   The Memory Police in  the last year or so and plan to read them again. In the last five years I have read Ursula LeGuin and Dune and Hyperion and Wool (Silo). Overall, I tend to read literary fiction that is set "in the real world."  Both of these shows touch or "Venn Diagram" into typical space and technology science fiction but are definitely more about the psychological matters involved.  Most people know the premise of Severance. A huge multinational corporation, apparently providing hea...