The Raindancer

Tapestry.

The Metropolitan Museum, The Cloisters  New York Dimensions: 8" x 12"
The Metropolitan Museum, The Cloisters New York
Dimensions: 8″ x 12″

If your life is currently brimming with all sorts of good things of your own making — and a few you had absolutely nothing to do with — this post is not for you. Of course, you’re welcome to read any post of mine; but this is probably the type of post you might not be interested in squandering time on when you could be living la vida loca. If, on the other hand, your immediate response to the current state of your union can be summed up in a facepalm, this post might make your heart smile.

I’ve transitioned from the outlining and plotting phase of my next book, The Raindancer: Finding Joy in the Storm, into that creative free-fall phase where I barf up the book page by page free of any self-editing knowing full well that this first draft will be — as Ernest Hemingway said so eloquently — shit.

Today I had the honor and privilege of interviewing the wife of the real-life inspiration for one of my principal characters. My purpose: to gain a little more insight into this person’s backstory to flesh out my character’s motives. As with any principal character in a book or movie, the reader is introduced to my character at a pivotal point in his life and over the course of the story through a series of choices (disguised as seemingly unrelated circumstances) the characters winds up irreversibly changed. For the better.

Shortly after our two-hour conversation, I had the following epiphany.

Life’s events — past, present, and future — are woven together like an elaborate tapestry. Unfortunately, we don’t have the ability to see the tapestry as a whole. We’re limited to kinda maybe sorta seeing the present with very limited information about why others did the things they did, not to mention how our own choices affected others. And we can only view the past only through the gift of hindsight coupled with time.

It’s kinda crazy.

But at the same time it’s not.

My muse went through a ton of crap. He didn’t know which way was up. Life knocked him down, beat him up, and put him through the wringer on many fronts. But he had a unique quality: he was (and is) a man of his word and just kept plugging away.

And now?

This guy is on top of the world! And living a life he could’ve never imagined a few years ago. He’s married to a wonderful wife, has a blossoming career in music, and is an all-around changed man. (If you think that sounds pretty cool, just wait till you read about him in the book.)

The Take-away  There’s a few you out there in some really dire situations — medical challenges, family challenges, financial challenges, the loss of loved ones, employment situations, marital uncertainties, and more — but hang in there. You may not see the point of it all, but remember this: all things work together for good to those who love God. (Romans 8:28) A better day is coming.

The Bigger Picture

An Encouraging Word: Why and How to Offer More Compliments

By Brett and Kate McKay, for The Art of Manliness.

“Idle words are characterless and die upon utterance. Evil words rankle for a while, make contentions, and then die. But the hopeful, kind, cheering word sinks into a man’s heart and goes on bearing fruit forever. How many beautiful written words—words in book and song and story—are still inspiring men and making the world fragrant with their beauty! It is just so with the words you write, not on paper, but on the hearts of men. I wish there were room to mention here the testimonies of great men to the power of some hopeful, encouraging word they had spoken to them in youth and in the days of struggle. But every autobiography records this thing. Booker T. Washington tells how the encouragement of General Armstrong saved the future for him. I know a young man who is to-day filling a large and useful place in the world, who was kept to his high purpose in a time of discouragement by just an encouraging word from a man he greatly admired. That man’s word will live and grow in the increasing influence of the younger man. This world is full of men bearing in their minds deathless words of inspiration heard in youth from lips now still forever. Speak hopeful words every chance you get. Always send your young friends from you bearing a word that they will take into the years and fulfill for you.”

—The Enlargement of Life (1903) By Frederick Henry Lynch

All the World's a Stage

On Rejection

By Kirk Douglas, for the Huffington Post

Portrait of Kirk Douglas with his back against an enormous fallen tree trunk, circa 1945. (Huffington Post)
Portrait of Kirk Douglas with his back against an enormous fallen tree trunk, circa 1945. (Huffington Post)

Actors are often described as “people who love rejection.” That’s not true. Every year hundreds of young boys and girls come to New York or Hollywood with dreams of becoming an actor and having their name in lights. They never expect to meet with rejection. “Too fat! Too thin! Too loud! Too soft!” Most of them go home. I stayed.

The Bigger Picture

The Value of Suffering

Illustration by Daehyun Kim
Illustration by Daehyun Kim

by Pico Iyer for The New York Times

NARA, Japan — Hundreds of Syrians are apparently killed by chemical weapons, and the attempt to protect others from that fate threatens to kill many more. A child perishes with her mother in a tornado in Oklahoma, the month after an 8-year-old is slain by a bomb in Boston. Runaway trains claim dozens of lives in otherwise placid Canada and Spain. At least 46 people are killed in a string of coordinated bombings aimed at an ice cream shop, bus station and famous restaurant in Baghdad. Does the torrent of suffering ever abate — and can one possibly find any point in suffering?