Gathering Together

Posted on May 21, 2013 by

The Bible warned Christians not to forsake gathering together. It doesn’t say not to forsake going to a certain building to attend church or not to forsake listening to a sermon.

We may learn from a gifted preacher or teacher, and that learning may or may not take place in a building with the name of some church out in front. There is certainly nothing in the word saying not to listen to teachers or preachers or not to enter church buildings, but that’s not actually how we gain spiritual strength.

Our spiritual strength, of course, comes from the Holy Spirit, but the power of that spiritual strength comes from unity with other Christians. You and I can’t alter the power level of the spiritual strength the Holy Spirit sends us, but we can concentrate whatever power He sends by gathering together with other Christians.

When I stand alone, I receive a certain level of spiritual strength from the Holy Spirit, but when I stand together with another Christian, the strength he receives and the strength I receive somehow interact and produce a combined strength much greater than that of either of us alone.

It’s as if we each radiate a magnetic field. When two of us stand side by side, our fields combine and become much stronger. As we add additional members to our little group, the power grows, as long as we are in union with one another and not dividing ourselves with bickering and quarreling.

The last few weeks I’ve experienced this in a real way. My basic gathering place for intermingling with and relating to other Christians is my Sunday School class. I’m a part of a very loving group that has been together for a long time, and every time I’m with these people, my spiritual batteries get charged, and the charging has a cumulative effect.

Not gathering has a cumulative weakening effect, too. I’ve missed my class two of the last three weeks because of commitments elsewhere, and I feel the effect of that weakening.

Writing my Tuesday blogs has become difficult during this period. Today, I sat here completely dry for over an hour with no ideas coming to write about. I began to wonder why that was, and that’s when the subject of gathering together came to mind.

Do you experience “dry spells” when you miss whatever group you gather with regularly? Do you begin to feel an estrangement from God Himself if you miss the fellowship for too long?

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If you abide in Me and My word abides in you, then you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.

For more information about David N. Walker, click the “About” tab above.

For more information about his books, click on “Books” above.

Contact him at dnwalkertx (at) gmail (dot) com or tweet him at @davidnwalkertx.

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Hijacked!

Posted on May 17, 2013 by

They say nobody actually owns a cat. In reality, if you have a cat for a pet, the cat owns you, not vice versa.

I wonder if the same thing could be said of fiction. Do we own our stories, or do they own us?

Those of you who read this blog regularly know that I’ve been working for most of the past year on a series of novellas called Fancy. The first five novellas are currently on sale. Click here for more information or to learn how to purchase them.

Volume six is being edited as you read this and will go on sale next month. I’ll try not to keep it a secret when it is published.

All this time, I’ve been telling you there would be a total of eight volumes in the series, which would leave two more to be written. This is where the cat analogy comes into play.

As I started working on volume seven, it began to talk back to me. It said, “I’m not a volume all by myself, and neither is number eight.”

Of course, I pointed out that I’m the author and it’s my story. I’ll write as many volumes as I want.

That’s when it reared its ugly head and said, “Wanna bet?” Then it enlisted my computer in its little conspiracy. All of a sudden, I couldn’t get the computer to accept my ideas for text and put them into print. It just balked.

In desperation, I decided to listen to what my story was trying to tell me. It said in very plain language, loud and clear, that volumes seven and eight needed to be combined into one volume with the two stories told in parallel.

After much argument, I threw up my hands. I would have thrown in the towel, but I didn’t have one handy. Anyhow, I acceded to the demands of the story and agreed to combine the two volumes into Fancy: The Final Chapter.

Since I agreed to that, I’ve finally been able to move forward once again. The original schedule would have seen volume seven published in August and volume eight in October. I now suspect the final volume to be published in September.

How have your stories rebelled and taken over your computer? Have they actually held you hostage? My readers would love to hear your experiences.

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We may not have it all together, but together we have it all.

For more information about David N. Walker, click the “About” tab above.

For more information about his books, click on “Books” above.

Contact him at dnwalkertx (at) gmail (dot) com or tweet him at @davidnwalkertx.

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The Difference Between Men and Women: It’s Probably Moot

Posted on May 14, 2013 by

Today, it’s my pleasure to host JT Therrien as part of a blog swap. To see my post today, click here.

JT is a Canadian fiction writer working in a variety of genres. His latest release, Sprainter, is an inspirational, young adult, art-themed, dystopian, romance novella for Astraea Press. It crosses five literary genres. Take it away, JT.

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I’ve been mJT Therrienarried to a saint of a woman for 27 years, 28 in two weeks! I’m serious when I describe my wife as a saint: she is a member of the Legion of Mary (the largest lay organization of the Catholic Church) and as such, she visits the home-bound, the sick, and the dying to offer comfort and to pray. She does this several times a week along with a slew of other charitable works. Let this be a thumbnail sketch of her character.

So, over our, let’s call it 28 year marriage, we have had some disagreements. Nothing ever too serious. My wife doesn’t yell. She never has. She doesn’t throw things in anger (or in any other mood), she doesn’t storm off in a huff, or drive away in a cloud of dust. That… um… would be me. I’m the more emotional one of the couple. But enough about me…

There is also one other major, important difference between us, and although I have lots of time to think about things, I feel that I may be starting to obsess about this one, teeny, tiny, issue. You see, she cares not a whit that there are, approximately, ten to twelve released songs that use the word “moot” in their lyrics.

Moot?

Yep. The only song I’ve ever heard that uses this word is the one performed by world-famous Rick Springfield, aka Dr. Noah Drake of General Hospital fame. If you don’t know the reference, ask your mother (or grandmother).

For those of you interested in the Jessie’s Girl video you can watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYkbTyHXwbs

Anyway, I’m a child of the eighties, so I’ve been listening to Jessie’s Girl for 32 years. And every time I hear it, I wonder about that odd word: “moot.” To the point where a couple of years ago I Googled it. I would’ve bet the farm that it would appear only in Rick Springfield’s song. I mentioned my unbelievable discovery of ten other songs to my wife and… gosh… this is so difficult to admit… Well, it was almost as if she didn’t care!

In fact, her words were something to the effect of: “So what? Why are you even wasting time thinking about this?”

“So what?” I was amazed there existed even ONE song with the word “moot” in the lyrics, imagine my shock to discover there were at least ten others! And all she has to say is “so what?”

Unbelievably, she really wasn’t kidding! This issue did not concern my wife in the least. And at last we’ve arrived at the problem. “Moot” is an odd word that doesn’t really rhyme with many other words besides “boot”, “hoot”, “Old Coot” – definitely not pop or love song material. In fact, Rick Springfield rhymes “moot” with “cute,” a stretch that would send most self-respecting poets into serious conniption fits. I realize there are other lyrics that sound just as odd, but this is the one that really bugs me.

But it’s also my wife’s lack of interest in the matter that, in part, keeps me awake at night. We’ve been through so much together: Twin Peaks, odd Survivor twists, and real-life issues that were just as bizarre. And we’ve always agreed on everything. So why not this lyric issue?

I blame hormones, or genes, or some biological issue. There, I’ve said it: I think it’s a male thing! Or female. Am I right? I’d love for readers to leave a comment so that I can get to the bottom of this disturbing issue once and for all. Then I can move on with my life (or seek professional help). Whichever.

Anyway, thank you for reading along. I wish to thank David for his generous offer of his blog today. For those of you looking for his regular post, which, I assure you, has nothing to do with the word “moot,” you’ll find it on my blog here.

You can find me everywhere on the interwebs, but I mostly hang out on Twitter, where I retweet my friends’ tweets. I’m also on Facebook, and on my blog:

https://twitter.com/jttherrien
http://www.facebook.com/JTTherrienAuthor1
http://jttherrien.blogspot.ca

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If you abide in Me and My word abides in you, then you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.

For more information about David N. Walker, click the “About” tab above.

For more information about his books, click on “Books” above.

Contact him at dnwalkertx (at) gmail (dot) com or tweet him at @davidnwalkertx.

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DFW Writers’ Workshop 2013

Posted on May 10, 2013 by

We may not have it all together, but together we have it all.

You’ve probably already read a blog or two about the DFW Writers’ Workshop, but I hope you’ll bear with me while I add my two cents worth. The conference started last Saturday morning, but the fun started Friday.

I’d been in touch with two friends I met at last year’s conference, Jess Witkins and Julie Glover, and I went to Italiano’s to meet them. They’d had lunch there and forgotten to get up and leave.

When I got there, my old friend Kristen Lamb was with them, along with a brand-new friend, Rachel Funk Heller. I’d seen Rachel on Twitter many times, but had never met her. She turned out to be a barrel of fun.

Friday evening, Kristen wanted everybody to experience Angelo’s, a legendary barbeque restaurant in west Fort Worth, about 100 miles from the conference. Okay, that’s an exaggeration, but there was plenty of rush hour traffic on the way.

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In honor of the occasion, Ingrid Schaffenburg and Donna Newton and Julie Glover wore their western boots, as you can see in the photo above. I think Donna’s the first English cowgirl I’ve come across, but hey, after all, we were in Cowtown.

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You can tell from Kristen Lamb’s and Julie Glover’s serious demeanors that we were all business and not there to have fun. You can’t really see the shirts all that well, but they both wore superhero shirts. Well, they’re super writers, why not?

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Rachel Funk Heller, Ingrid Schaffenburg and Kristen mugged for this photo at our table at Angelo’s. Rachel flew in all the way from Hawaii, so you guys who live in Denver and Cheyenne and Rochester and Toronto and such places have no excuse for not coming next year.

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Julie and Jess Witkins went over to play with a bear—one of several products of the art of taxidermy displayed around the restaurant. The bear was a little bigger than they were, but he seemed to enjoy their cuddling. I’m not sure what they all did after Angelo’s. I went home from there, and they presumably returned to their hotels.

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Saturday night, I got to meet Tameri Etherton. She and I have become pretty good cyber friends, and it was great to meet her in person.

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Saturday night, Gloria Richard—for some reason I don’t have a photo of her—brought a book that excited all the girls at my table—IYKWIM! Maybe the print on the title is small enough not to embarrass my readers, although the girls were having too much fun to be embarrassed.

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Not sure whether this was lunch Sunday or at the Gong Show, which is the closing event of the conference, but there I am with two of my favorite peeps, Jess Witkins and Piper Bayard. Good company to keep.

By the way, Piper conducted the last—and in my opinion, best—workshop I attended. She talked about social media, and although I’ve been on Facebook and Twitter for several years and am coming up on my 300th blog post, she tossed out a couple of pearls I wish I’d known sometime back. I think this was Piper’s first time as a presenter at a writers’ conference, but she was great. Kudos, Piper.

One of the things Piper discussed prompts me to offer an apology to my Tweeps and FB friends and blog subscribers. I was introduced to Hootsuite a couple of years ago as an easy way to schedule announcements on Twitter and Facebook in advance with links to blogs as I posted them. Someone told me I should schedule several announcements the day of the post and several more the next day.

Piper pointed out that this is pretty much equivalent to spamming. From now on I will make one real-time announcement on Twitter and one on Facebook for each blog I post. If I’ve been spamming you, I apologize. It was unintentional.

Another lady I picked up some valuable info from was Birdy Jones. She taught a couple of different sessions on self-publishing, and, although I’ve done that six times so far, I picked up a couple of things from her i needed to know.

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For more information about David N. Walker, click the “About” tab above.

For more information about his books, click on “Books” above.

Contact him at dnwalkertx (at) gmail (dot) com or tweet him at @davidnwalkertx.

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Insidious Attacks

Posted on May 7, 2013 by

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If you abide in Me and My word abides in you, then you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.

As I drove around this morning running several errands, an unbidden thought crept into my mind: You consider yourself a Christian, but you don’t know how to pray as well as real Christians. Quit kidding yourself.

Ever have thoughts like that just sneak into your mind? We know where they come from . . .

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. . . but they’re so insidious they can sometimes throw us for a loop.

I know Satan is a liar and that his mission is to steal, kill and destroy, but at times he sneaks up on me so effectively I’m at a momentary loss as to what to do. Sometimes I actually sit and contemplate what he says for several minutes before I snap out of it.

All I have to do is mention that Jesus defeated him 2000 years ago and that he has no power in my life. He runs away and hides at the mere mention of the name of Jesus, so why do I entertain the thoughts he puts in my mind?

Of course, I really don’t know how to pray right. None of us do. But as Christians we have the Holy Spirit taking our prayers and relaying to God what we should have said, and we have Jesus Himself sitting at the right hand of the Father making intercession for us. So what if we don’t know how to pray right. God wants us to pray anyhow. He can sort out the message.

Do you have off the wall thoughts like this pop into your mind causing you to question your Christianity—at least for a moment? How do you handle it when this happens?

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For more information about David N. Walker, click the “About” tab above.

For more information about his books, click on “Books” above.

Contact him at dnwalkertx (at) gmail (dot) com or tweet him at @davidnwalkertx.

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Great Ladies

Posted on May 3, 2013 by

We may not have it all together, but together we have it all.

Last week the Ladies Professional Golf Association came to the Fort Worth-Dallas Metroplex for the first time in over two decades. As an avid golfer and fan of the LPGA, I was thrilled.

The North Texas LPGA Shootout was only placed on the calendar in January, an extremely short time to organize an event like this. I have no idea how many late nights and early mornings the organizers put into this tournament, but an LPGA representative said it normally takes two years to put one together.

For years, I’ve thought about volunteering to work at Colonial, on the men’s tour, but I never actually did. This time, I had to. These ladies are my heroes. I’d much rather watch them play than the guys on the PGA tour.

When I submitted my volunteer application, I checked “walking marshal” as my first choice of jobs. I learned that the bare minimum number of marshals needed for a tournament is around 100 and that most established tournaments will have 300 to 400. I think they said there were about 70 of us.

Due to that shortage, they didn’t have any walking marshals at the beginning. Those are the ones you see on television walking along with the players as they make their way around the course. Instead, they had to assign us to specific holes, where we stayed for our entire shift rather than following a group.

Stationed at the third green, I got to see a lot of interesting shots. Number three is a par five that most of the players could reach in two. I saw Paula Creamer, my favorite of all golfers, almost hole out her second shot in the pro-am for a double eagle.

During the tournament, you don’t speak at all to the players. They’re busy trying to concentrate on winning a golf tournament. But during the pro-am, it’s okay to talk to them, and I got to speak to a number of my favorites, including Paula.

Two players really impressed me during the pro-am: Morgan Pressel and Juli Inkster. Morgan is a young player with a major championship under her belt. Juli is the senior among active players at 52 or so and has won practically everything out there at one time or another.

The ball Morgan Pressel’s team chose to play on my hole was in a sand trap beside the green. In this format, they choose one player’s shot and then all hit the next one from there, so she and all four of her amateur partners had to hit shots out of the trap. One guy almost completely whiffed the ball, so Morgan took about ten minutes to give him a lesson on sand shots before she hit her own. Her kindness to this man really blew me away.

Juli did something similar. One of her partners hit a horrible shot trying to chip onto the green, and Juli took a good five minutes to give this lady a lesson on chipping.

Things like this really set the LPGA apart from other sports organizations, in my opinion. Most professional athletes are all about $$$. If they’re not getting paid for it, they lose interest quickly. In fairness, the PGA and Champions tours have pro-ams also, but somehow I don’t see those guys taking the personal interest in a pro-am partner these two ladies did.

I spoke to each of these lady pros as she came off the green on pro-am day, and every one of them at least said hello. Most of them even thanked me for serving as a volunteer.

None of my favorites contended seriously for the title, but I’m coming to admire Inbee Park, the world’s number one player, who won the tournament. Behind a stroke or two most of the day, she just patiently persisted in playing her own game and waiting for her opportunity. When it came, she was up to the challenge.

In a world where so many professional athletes expect the world to be handed to them on a silver platter, it’s refreshing to be around a group like this in which everyone is so appreciative of any little thing anyone does for her or her tour. I salute these very special ladies, and if you’ve never watched them compete, I urge you to do so.

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For more information about David N. Walker, click the “About” tab above.

For more information about his books, click on “Books” above.

Contact him at dnwalkertx (at) gmail (dot) com or tweet him at @davidnwalkertx.

Posted in Freestyle Friday | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Nothing

Posted on April 30, 2013 by

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If you abide in Me and My word abides in you, then you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.

Sorry. I had a post prepared for today, but at the last minute I realized that although I didn’t name anyone in it, the situation might have been recognizable to people who could either be hurt or offended by some of what I said. Since I so frequently just jump in with both feet and cause unintended trouble, I decided not to run this one and didn’t have time to write something else. I’ll have something for you next week.

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For more information about David N. Walker, click the “About” tab above.

For more information about his books, click on “Books” above.

Contact him at dnwalkertx (at) gmail (dot) com or tweet him at @davidnwalkertx.

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