As of the end of yesterday morning, I got Chapter One sketched out. It’s enough to establish the general direction of where I want to go with the story. I hope that the direction I chose will allow me in due time to introduce as much of the richness of my “backstory” as possible.

Of course a blog format suggests that I could give a chapter summary every so often. But since the book is as yet unpublished and may undergo great revisions before it is, that seems not to make a whole lot of sense. So other things will have to fill in, at least for the moment – when I think of things that are appropriate and worth reading.

So let me “fess up” to a potential obstacle in this particular quest. I’ve been battling against bipolar disorder, then high blood pressure and high cholesterol, and taking medications for all of these. Now on top of all of that, I’ve been diagnosed with diabetes. Dealing with all of that is going to take a lot of time both from my normal paying work and from this particular project. So I’ll have to decide what is most important to me and do those things first.

Yes, I know that last is no great revelation of truth to many of you. It isn’t to me either, yet a weakness of my personality type (ENFP) is to take things “on the fly” too much. Type counselor Vicky Jo Varner (INFJ) told me about a very helpful analogy. If you put the sand first into the jar, the sand will keep the big rocks out; but if you put the big rocks in first, then the sand will fit in too as you pour it around the rocks. A fellow ENFP must’ve seen me on days when I managed to remember that principle, for he gave me an almost mythic description of how I used to handle time effectively in high school and college. I do recall that I paid an enormous cost in mental and physical energy to do it – perhaps a sign that it’s not something natural or easy for ENFPs.

Blessings in Messiah (ברכות חמשיח),
John Wheeler (יוחנן רכב)

P.S.: As of this morning, the first draft of Chapter 2 has been finished. (I likely will need to fill out these chapters, unless I write a lot of very short books!)

This morning marked a turning point for me as an author of speculative fiction. In the wee hours of last night I decided to write a proposal letter to the editor at Marcher Lord Press concerning my fictional ideas. This morning I received a short but very encouraging note for him. So now, as I have the time, I’ll be preparing my first draft of what I hope will be Book One of a series of books.

Heretofore (on Triond.com) I’ve been using the umbrella title of A Ring of Stars. But the scope of my fictional scenario is theoretically and potentially so incredibly vast that really it seems to make the most sense to call the scenario by what makes it possible: The Portal of Light. And it also seems to make the most sense to start the series at its historical beginning. Thus the working title of my first book is The Portal of Light: Covenant.

I should’ve taken down the name of the person who came up with that neat graphic on the left; it makes a good template for part of one of the flags of my fictional Realm. Anyway, it certainly seems as good a graphic as any to mark the blogs in this series.

Really the implications of what has happened today are more than I can talk about here; it would reveal more about me that I yet feel comfortable saying just anywhere to anyone.. Let me just say that I feel as if in many ways I’ve traveled my whole life to get to this point, not certain of what I’d find when I got there, and now…here is this challenge of bookwriting, and all that it will bring to my life, looming like a snowy granite mountain in the middle of a clearing in the middle of an endless forest that I’ve finally passed through. And only I can climb this particular mountain to reach the sunlight glinting at the top of its peak.

Blessings in Messiah (ברכות במשיח),
John Wheeler (יוחנן רכב)

The Barbados Beach Club

Though this may come as a surprise to some people even yet, New Testament Christians didn’t observe Sunday, Christmas, Easter, Valentine’s Day, Halloween, “saints’ days” or any of the syncretic celebrations that accreted from the second century of our era onward. They observed the Sabbath, Festivals and Holy Days – “the appointed times of the LORD (מועדי יהוה)” – that Israel (when obedient to God) had always kept (Leviticus 23). The first Christians (who were Jewish by descent) taught the Gentiles who joined with them to do likewise (cf. Matthew 5:17-20; 28:18-20).

Colossians 2:16-17 (a most misunderstood passage) shows that the first Christians kept these days in a new spirit, as “shadows of the things to come”: of what Jesus Christ had done, continued to do and would yet do to save His Church, His nation Israel and ultimately the whole world. They were not limited by all the strictures of the Law of Moses (let alone of later Judaic halakhah or Gnostic philosophy) in their observance, however (same passage, rightly rendered from the Received Text: “but [let the Church,] the Body of the Christ, [judge these matters]“).  Nor were they limited to Jerusalem as their place of observance (cf. John 4:19-26). These realities became all the more pertinent when Second Temple Jerusalem fell in 70 AD and it was no longer possible to carry out the ceremonies associated with the Law of Moses.

The Living Church of God, being an organization with congregations all over the world, has sites where it observes the Feast of Tabernacles in many different countries. This year I had the opportunity to keep the Feast outside my native United States for the first time, and I chose to go to the island of Barbados. I already had a pen pal there (what does one call a “pen pal” or “pen friend” in this age of the Internet?) and wanted to meet him; but I also wanted to “stretch myself” by encountering a cultural and ethnic mix different from what one can find in the U.S., or what I had found even in Israel or London, England. As it happens, the LCG kept the Feast of Tabernacles this year at the Barbados Beach Club.

Part of my pre-trip research was in that ever-handy starting point, Wikipedia. Interestingly, this source claims: ”Barbados’s Human Development Index ranking is consistently among the top 75 countries in the world. In report published on October 5 2009, it was ranked 37th in the world, and third in the Americas, behind Canada and the United States.” On arrival I found that true to Wikipedia’s hints, Barbados has a fascinating blend (even in its often-flagrantly-unzoned architecture) of old and new, rich, middle-class and poor, African, European, and Asian. Economically (I was told)  it is much better off than most of the Caribbean, although I suspect that could change quickly if world finances seriously impact its chief source of income, tourism.

The one obstacle I feared on my trip – tropical heat and humidity – was there as expected. Mercifully, Barbados has and uses air conditioning, although perhaps not as much as Houston, TX. Also the weather was unusually rain-free for that time of year. I found that even the insects were rather laid-back. Mosquitos that would lunge for the capillaries in desperate hunger in Houston seemed surprisingly few and lazy in Barbados, as if to say, “There’s no hurry, really. The human has to go to sleep sometime.” And that was the only time I got bitten by anything: while I was asleep (twice). Maybe I was just specially blessed, or maybe the bugs are worse in the interior. But on a bus trip there, I wasn’t bothered at all. Nor did I get more than a touch of sunburn (one application of sunscreen, on the day in question, did the trick).

And as for the seven-day Feast of Tabernacles itself, plus the eighth day – what the Jews call (based on biblical Hebrew texts such as Nehemiah 8:18) Sheminit Atseret, and what we (based on John 7:37) call the Last Great Day? The focus of this period is on the services: hymns, sermonette, sermon, and Special Music (not necessarily in that order). Between the featured local elders and the visiting speakers, we had outstanding spiritual nourishment, just as I hear was true elsewhere this year. The Special Music was good to outstanding, and I was kept busy playing hymns most of the Feast. And meeting the brethren – sometimes-challenging local accent and all – was a blessing. It took me some time to break the ice with some of the older people, but my own turn at Special Music did the trick at last (thank God, my musical performances usually do). There were also abundant opportunities for fellowship on trips (island tour, caravan cruise, submarine cruise) and over meals.

Oh yes…let’s raise a glass of local rum punch to that fine local delicacy, flying fish! This is the official national fish of Barbados. Unhappily (as you will read), the flying fish is encountering serious problems in that part of the world.

I have on Photobucket two slideshows of photos from Barbados: all that turned out. This slideshow (250 photos) and this slideshow (40 photos) will give you a good taste of my experiences in Barbados. (No, the young man in the first slideshow isn’t dancing; he’s demonstrating kung fu moves for me. I have a video of another demonstration he did for me – maybe, with his permission, it will show up on YouTube.)

Best wishes in Jesus Christ (שלום בישוע המשיח),
John Wheeler (יוחנן רכב)

"The Spirit or Genius of the European" - Emil Pearson

Recently I received something new from Interstrength Associates (founded by Dr. Linda Berens). (Its book list is here; a list of related links is here; and one of those links, a PR release of interest, is here). I refer to the workbook Character and Personality Type by Dr. Dario Nardi (whose “best-fit” personality type, he says, is INTJ).

The workbook was written in 1999, before Dr. Berens set aside Dr. David Keirsey’s famous names for the four temperaments in favor of names more suggestive of the roles those temperaments play in organizations (those newer names are the subject of the PR release). Thus the workbook uses Dr. Keirsey’s names. Otherwise, Dr. Nardi’s writing style is as closely reasoned as a computer program, which gives quite a different flavor from the workbooks authored by ENFP Dr. Berens. (Not surprisingly, I as an ENFP find Dr. Berens’ workbooks somewhat easier to follow! I really have to engage my “developed-self” INTJ mode to follow Dr. Nardi.) But I find the book fascinating and helpful in its insights, which have to do with “life themes” and the “flavors” within various personality types.

I could sum up what I’ve learned about this subject in one sentence: “Character is what you do about your personality.”

Best wishes in Jesus Christ (שלום בישוע המשיח),
John Wheeler (יוחנן רכב)

"The Spirit or Genius of the European" - Emil Pearson

While looking for an article I wanted to show a friend, I stumbled across something more useful in the long run. Here on Google is the text of a workbook called “Multiple Intelligences and Personality Type” by Dario Nardi, who co-authored the article I was trying to find. I’ve been wanting to order this workbook (part of a series of which I have four, all authored or co-authored by Linda Berens), but for the moment I can now read it online. And now that I know this book is online, perhaps Google Books has the workbooks I have online too so I can point others to them. But that can wait – I have other fish to fry!

Best wishes in Jesus Christ (שלום בישוע המשיח),
John Wheeler (יוחנן רכב)

(Update 2009-10-13: I found the workbook for resale via Amazon.com and a third-party supplier. Not only must it be out-of-print, it must also be much in demand, for it was selling for what was probably seven or eight times its original price. I can hardly afford that much for a book of any kind, but on the other hand the information is so important to so many things I’m doing that I can hardly not afford it either. And in addition, I’ve ordered Dr. Nardi’s latest workbook, which is in print by its original publisher and apparently much-anticipated and appreciated. It’s also much more reasonably priced.)

From Wikipedia Commons

It’s been so long that I’ve been able to write any posts on my blogs that I’ve been wondering if I’d ever get back to them. Well, even if not many actually read them, I need the writing practice, and if they profit only a few people, still, every profit counts.

So let me get back into the swing of things with something light. Today a Facebook Friend and I (acquainted some years now through a poetry BBS) were discussing an aspect of contemporary politics, and I was reminded of the famous “You Have Two Cows” jokes about economics and politics. I was curious to see what was online about them, and I found a Bing list with a good many entries (including Wikipedia, Unencyclopedia, About.com and this one). If you want to spend a good long afternoon wasting time and laughing at human nature in the process, this might be just the mooooove you need to make.

Best wishes in Jesus Christ (שלום בישוע המשיח),
John Wheeler (יוחנן רכב)

P.S.: Check out the tale of the world’s smartest cow…what if there were two of them?

The Ark of the Covenant

There has been so much political debate about health care in the U.S. that it’s almost impossible to see the forest for the trees. The truth is, no solution is going to work unless God’s whole way of life (as outlined in the Bible and as backed by honest empirical science) is taken into account — and doing that would change the United States completely beyond recognition (for the better, but utterly). In that light, I’m delighted to see this article about the health care crisis on the Tomorrow’s World Web site, which is sponsored by the Living Church of God.

This article on America’s status as a Christian nation (to which the former article is linked) is most relevant too, but so much more could be said on that topic. I say something more from my own perspective on this morning’s edition of LCG Scribe.

Peace in Jesus Christ (שלום בישוע המשיח),
John Wheeler (יוחנן רכב)

Bloom Country (reprinted 2009-08-07)

Musically speaking, the 1950’s are sometimes considered the Age of Schmaltz. “Schmaltz”, originally a Yiddish word for “chicken fat” (prepared in a particular way as a butter substitute), has come to mean “effusive or even excessive sentimentality; maudlin”. (That’s my paraphrase of how the different definitions intersect.) That certainly seems to describe the chief trait of much of the popular music at the time…not that everyone minds such effusion of romantic emotion (see above)!

This line of thinking came up because one of my friends happens to be a lover of Bobby Vinton’s music, apparently without distinction (although to be fair, he’s never said his appreciation goes that far). I can’t say the same. As with every other artist, excluding only the biblical psalmists and prophets, I appreciate some of Bobby Vinton’s work and some of it I don’t. Given my longtime study of the mechanics of music itself and my recent study of the mechanics of personality, I wondered why this is so with me.

I’m not certain enough of my friend’s personality type to deal here with how our personalities (as such) deal with Bobby Vinton’s music. But on consideration I realized that much of Vinton’s music takes lyrics expressing private sentiments and sets them to music that is best suited to express public sentiments (that’s where the “schmaltzy” quality comes in). Other songs he sang express private values lyrically in a private, intimate way musically, and those strike me as his worthwhile songs (not “schmaltzy” at all, but rather heartwarmingly romantic). I haven’t heard yet if any of his songs combined public sentiments lyrically with public sentiments musically, but I’m thinking that those too would strike me as worthwhile. Vinton was undeniably a very talented and heartfelt singer at his prime.

It occurred to me then that one finds these distinctions across the board in many genres of music, sacred and secular. I have the same reactions to John Denver’s music (for example) for the same reasons, and Denver has been one of my favorite artists for a long time. Musicians and composers (and poets too) seem to have a hard time remembering the distinction between public and private values, and that if you have words with private values, then your music should express private values too (the same goes for expressions of public values).

It occurred to me then that seldom if ever has music ever been “in the balance” in human history. One thought process, one temperament or social style or personality type, or even one truly psychotic frame of mind, keeps on predominating at the expense of the rest of what music should express. Personal preferences, which are a matter of “taste”, keep on being set up as the standard by which all music (and art) should be judged. The sad part is that if one tries to point out that there are objective standards by which music can and should be judged, many cannot or will not accept that statement. They’d rather keep their own tastes unchanged and sometimes make out that one is simply trying to imposes his own tastes on them. Yes, sometimes that happens, but when someone claims there are objective standards, he at least deserves to be given a hearing.

In terms of personality type, I’m an ENFP. I like certain kinds of music by natural preference for that reason. But I’m not such a fool as to want to impose what are merely my personal preferences on everyone else. Why? Because there is an objective biblical standard of what “good” music is and should be, one that transcends my personality type, my culture, my tastes and my biases; and it’s helped me learn to pick and choose among the songs of various artists in various styles, genres and time periods. Truly, in music as in everything else, the Bible is the foundation of knowledge. I only wish that more people understood both Hebrew and music composition and theory, so that they could benefit as I have from encountering this foundation directly.

One thing the biblical chant has taught me as a poet-composer is how to express private values privately and public values publicly; in the Hebrew Bible, the music changes to fit the characteristics of the words. Many of the Psalms are private prayers that were eventually performed publicly, but despite their intensity of emotion they aren’t “schmaltzy”; the music is turned inward, as are the words. Others, of course, are public hymns of praise and thanksgiving, again in words and music alike. One could say that introverted lyrics demand introverted music (so that the “energy flow” of both is turned inward), and extraverted lyrics demand extraverted music (so that the “energy flow” of both is turned outward). Now why should it be so hard for some musicians and composers of so many genres to keep that basic technique in mind?

Peace in Jesus Christ (שלום בישיע המשיח),
John Wheeler (יוחנן רכב)

The Earth

I had the dubious privilege of seeing the film Blast From the Past at a friend’s house last Saturday night. “Dubious” because thanks to the Law of Unintended Consequences, the film shows just how far our society has degenerated since the days of the Cuban missile crisis (1962) to 1997 (the year in which the main action of the film takes place) — and draws its comedic material via contrasting then and now. Hoo boy…

As the Virginia Slims cigarette commercials used to put it, “You’ve come a long way, baby…” Of course, the same argument could effectively be made about the famous Wagon Rides of Death that Calvin and Hobbes used to go through…

It says much about our society that after seeing something like Blast From the Past, or a serious documentary saying the same thing, its members aren’t (as they should be) calling for fasting, mourning and repentence before their Creator. We may have been on the brink of Mutual Assured Destruction (thanks to mutual paranoia) in 1962, but in such times of crisis people tend to remember basic distinctions of right and wrong. We are forgetting them, fast…and the trend started really rolling at Fort Huron in 1960, although the seeds had been sown many decades earlier.

Peace in Jesus Christ (שלום בישוע המשיח),
John Wheeler (יוחנן רכב)

From “Candorville” (August 9, 2009)

This one speaks for itself.

Peace in Jesus Christ (שלום בישוע המשיח),

John Wheeler (יוחנן רכב)