The redeeming aspect of being sick is that I get lots of time to read. So while nursing a rotten cold, I finished off two very different books today. The first involved an evil queen, a princess with a fairy’s curse, a troll with a penchant for mangled cliches, and a young hero who doesn’t know who he really is but is about to discover who he wants to be. Once Upon a Marigold by Jean Ferris made me smile, and that in itself is worth the time I spent reading it. If you enjoy fractured fairy tales, you should try it. You’re still wondering about the mangled cliches? Here are a few examples:
“That didn’t amount a hill of figs.”
“Don’t you know we’re up against a creek with no paddles?”
“Personally, he thought Chris was barking up a dead tree.”
“I hate to be a wet blanket in the mud.”
And my favorite, “it’s always darkest just after the lights go out.”
Oh, and the princess and the hero communicate via p-mail (pigeon-mail). I like that, too.

The other book was also a YA novel, a bit more on the serious side. Shadowmancer by G.P. Taylor is chock full of very obvious Christian symbolism and doctrine, and at first I didn’t know how it got to be published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons, a mainstream secular publisher. However, this from the author’s website seems to explain:

Mr Taylor, 43, from Cloughton in North Yorkshire, did not begin to write until he was middle-aged.
When he completed the manuscript for Shadowmancer, he was advised that no publisher would be interested in a parable about Christianity and black magic set in the 18th century.
He decided to ignore the doubters and published it himself for £3,500.
The novel’s popularity spread by word-of-mouth as parishioners, friends and neighbours recommended it to fellow readers.
The film rights for Shadowmancer were recently sold for £2.25m, taking the vicar’s total earnings to £6m.

As for the book itself and my opinion of it: it takes place in 18th century Yorkshire, along the coast. The world of Shadowmancer seems to be rooted in reality; the author mentions smugglers and dragoons, John Wesley, the names of real towns and villages in Yorkshire, Africa. But this world is also populated by boggles and witches, thulak and hobs, and other even more dangerous and evil creatures. If you’re uncomfortable with a book that includes, practically celebrates, the supernatural, both demons and angels, skip Shadowmancer. That’s not to say that the demons are glorified in any way; in this book good is good and comes from God, and evil is evil, even though Satan (Pyratheon) may be disguised as an angel of light. Three young people struggle against the powers of evil and darkness, and eventually, of course, the Light overcomes the Darkness. As the angel Abram says to Pyratheon (Satan):

“. . . your own anger deceived you, your lust for death engulfed you. A light shines in the darkness and the darkness will never overcome it. See, he is coming, the bright morning star shines upon the earth and your days are numbered.”

I wouldn’t say that this book rises to the level of Tolkien or C.S. Lewis, but it is well written and action packed. And it does embody truth.
Raphah, the main Christian character, on demonic powers:

“It’s as if they are on loan. He (the evil priest Demmurral) can use them, but they do not belong to him. He is deceived into believing he has the power, when in reality he too is a puppet. People who use these forces never really understand the true energy behind them. They think they are the masters when in reality they soon become the slaves. Pyratheon gives them what they want . . . until he wants them.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself. May we all be protected from the deceptions Satan uses to enslave.

On January 25, 1984, Apple Computer released the first Macintosh to replace the Apple II. The new Macintosh sold for $2495.
We have two Macs in this house and two “other” computers. We like the Macs best. They’re more reliable. About 12 years ago our Macintosh looked like this:

I’ve been re-reading The Singer by Baptist pastor and poet Calvin Miller. The book and its two sequels, The Song and The Finale are subtitled “a mythic retelling of the New Testament.” The Singer stars Jesus as The Singer and Satan as World-hater. Here are a few quotes to whet your appetite:

Humanity is fickle. They may dress for a morning coronation and never feel the need to change clothes to attend an execution in the afternoon. So Triumphal Sundays and Good Fridays always fit comfortably into the same April week.

Earthmaker set earth spinning on its way
And said, “Give me your vast infinity
My son; I’ll wrap it in a bit of clay.
Then enter Terra microscopically
To love the little souls who weep away
Their lives.” “I will,” I said, “set Terra free.”

Decision is the key to destiny.
“God, can you be merciful and send me off to hell and lock me in forever?”
“No, Pilgrim, I will not send you there, but if you chose to go there, I could never lock you out.”

Yesterday was the 32nd anniversary of the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade that eventually legalized abortion throughout the United States. Today many churches celebrate Sanctity of Life Sunday both to affirm the value of human life and to remember the staggering loss of so many children over the past 32 years to abortion.

” She has said to me many times that she would continue to write her books even if nobody read them, because she really enjoyed doing them,” Baxter (MacLeod’s sister) said. “It was a very exciting and satisfying thing for her to produce a novel.” (Exactly the way I feel about my humble little blog)

Mystery novelist Charlotte Macleod died last Friday. I only have a handful of mystery writers for whose names I search the shelves when I go to the bookstore. Macleod was one of the handful. I especially enjoyed her series of books about Bostonian Sarah Kelling and her eccentric family. I tend to like books with eccentric characters.

Feast by Edna St. Vincent Millay
I drank at every vine.
The last was like the first.
I came upon no wine
So wonderful as thirst.

I gnawed at every root.
I ate of every plant.
I came upon no fruit
So wonderful as want.

Feed the grape and bean
To vintner and monger;
I will lie down lean
With my thirst and hunger.

All joy (as distinct from mere pleasure, still more amusement) emphasises our pilgrim status; always reminds, beckons, awakens desire. Our best havings are wantings.
C.S. Lewis, Letters, 5 November 1959

The experience is one of intense longing . . . This hunger is better than any other fullness; this poverty better than all other wealth. And thus it comes about, that if the desire is long absent, it may itself be desired, and that new desiring becomes a new instance of the original desire . . . The human soul was made to enjoy some object that is never fully given – nay, cannot even be imagined as given – in our present mode of subjective and spatio-temporal experience.
C.S. Lewis, The Pilgrim’s Regress, Preface.

If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

In a film series we are watching at church, Ted Tripp says the we are all made to worship. There is no question as to whether or not we will worship—only whom or what we will worship. We can try to be satisfied with wine or food or wealth or ______________, but we can never be truly satisfied in the object of our worship until we find ourselves in eternity in the prescence of I Am Who I AM. In Him is fullness of joy; it is to be found nowhere else.