Second Novel: Plot Preview

My second novel, The Other Side of the Bonfire, is scheduled for release in just over a week!

Reviews so far are very positive, and I’m looking forward to my favorite moment—the first time I get to hold the baby/book in my hands. I know e-books are the wave of the future, but I love the weight of a paper book. I love the sound of pages. Electrons will never replace that loving feeling.

To pass the time until the book is a reality, here’s what you could learn about the story by reading the back cover.

Must Read! “A Place of Brightness”

I just stayed up much too late to finish reading A Place of Brightness, by Keith Massey.

Have you read it?  Read it! This is a must for anyone interested in the possibility of an Orthodox Christian literary genre. If you read it, we can talk about it! I’m eager to hear other views of the book and to discuss it.

I promise to avoid spoilers. Even without touching on the finer points of the plot (and it had some fine points!), there are many things to say about this novel.

Very interesting…

As of page 143, this is definitely a book that falls into the category I was describing earlier, a novel written from a Christian viewpoint but without being “Christian fiction” in the sense in which we most commonly see that genre in the USA. First, it’s historical fiction without being about the American West, the American South, or World War II. Second, it’s written by a man and (judging by what I know of men as an observer but clearly not a member of that gender) it would be appealing to men. It’s well-known that the primary reader of a Christian fiction novel in the US is female.

What makes this book even more interesting is that it’s not written from an Evangelical Christian or even Protestant Christian perspective.

“Of Gods and Men”

My husband and I watched this movie last night on television. It’s an award-winning secular film based on the true story of a group of Catholic monks caught between a military government and extremist guerrillas in Algeria in the late 1990s. There is tremendous pressure on them to leave the country, and they must decide whether they will leave or stay as the situation around them continues to disintegrate.

The film is beautifully made. The cinematography and the portrayal of each character were perfect, in my mind. It was difficult to remember that the actors were actors, and that the film was not a documentary. It remained wholly human and touching, all the way to the end.

As I was watching it, and musing on how attached I was becoming to the monks in the story, I started thinking about how I would (or wouldn’t) place it in the frame of Christian culture. I followed my own train of thought for a few minutes, then turned to my husband, opened my mouth, and heard myself saying, “See? This is a real movie, not a Christian movie, but look at how it’s portraying these monks!”

“Bringing into captivity every thought to Christ”

This is from St. Gregory the Theologian’s Funeral Oration for St. Basil, whose perspective I shared yesterday.  St. Gregory says:

I take it all intelligent men agree that among human advantages, education holds first place. I refer not only to our nobler form of it, which disdains all the ambitious ornaments of rhetoric and attaches itself only to salvation and the beauty of spiritual contemplation, but also that external culture which many Christians by an error of judgment scorn as treacherous and dangerous and as turning away from God.

Hmmm.

I believe it’s safe to say that one ingredient that should not be included in an “Orthodox culture” is judgment. I’m not referring to the type of judgment also called “good sense” or “discernment.” I’m referring to the type which seeks corroboration in all details for its conviction that its own way is bettter than the other person’s way.

Culture Perspectives: St. Basil the Great

In my on-going quest for Orthodox perspective on culture, I ran across the following excerpt from St. Basil the Great’s “Advice to Young Men on the Right Use of Greek Literature.” This is an Orthodox perspective on the non-Christian “culture” of the time.

“For just as bees know how to extract honey from flowers, which to men are agreeable only for their fragrance and color, even so here also those who look for something more than pleasure and enjoyment in such writers may derive profit for their souls…For the bees do not visit all the flowers without discrimination, nor indeed do they seek to carry away entire those upon which they light, but rather, having taken so much as is adapted to their needs, they let the rest go. So we, if wise, shall take from heathen books whatever befits us and is allied to the truth, and shall pass over the rest. And just as in culling roses we avoid the thorns, from such writings as these we will gather everything useful, and guard against the noxious. So, from the very beginning, we must examine each of their teachings, to harmonize it with our ultimate purpose.”

Fracture lines in Orthodox culture?

In our ongoing blog-versation about Orthodox culture, Jonathan Kotinek asked what  ”fracture lines” I see in the American Orthodox scene.  He noted that in his experience, the lines tend to be political lines, which in America usually means either liberal/conservative or Democrat/Republican.

I have certainly seen those lines also, especially here in Washington state where the same-sex marriage law is causing no end of acrimony and rhetoric on all sides, in and out of church.

But when I look at what I’ve seen of Orthodoxy (and I don’t pretend to be an expert), I see lines that are much deeper and more powerful than politics. The marriage law will be in the news for a while, and then it will be replaced by some other hot-button issue, and that issue will sink under another, and another. In some ways, politics are temporary. The beliefs underpinning the politics are not temporary.

Only God Does That

I must confess something important about my views on Orthodox culture, or indeed on any Christian culture creation.

It’s essential to keep our goals clear. There are some things that we can’t do. In my observation of Christian culture-makers of various denominations, I’ve noticed a viewpoint that shows up in every Christian context I’ve been in (and I’ve been in several). There is an impression, either conscious or unconscious, that it is within our power to change the world. If we just hit the right formula, the right combination of message and medium, we can turn the broader secular culture on its head and drive evil back from all its strong points in the world.

No “Orthodox culture”?

In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m Orthodox. For the past few days, I’ve been in a conversation with an Orthodox friend about whether there’s any such thing as Orthodox culture in America.

This is a complicated question.

I had one thought about it this afternoon, and here it is, as the beginning of my attempt at answering the question.