And on earth peace, good will toward men . . . hmmm

It’s late on December 24^th and Christmas Eve 2015 is quickly drawing to a close. Carols have filled my house for the last couple of weeks, not the Rudolf, Santa Baby, and jolly old Saint Nick kind, but the ones that tell of the truer, deeper meaning of the holiday – Silent Night, Hark the Herald Angels Sing, Little Drummer Boy.

The music whispers peace and joy in the background, but my mind is focused in a far different direction.

O holy night the stars are brightly shining
It is the night of our dear Savior's birth

I’m focused on frustrating circumstances that have plagued my life over the last several months. I’m not talking ISIS or the Middle East or Terrorists. I’m talking about home, my backyard. I’m talking family. I’m talking friends.

Said the night wind to the little lamb,
do you see what I see
Way up in the sky, little lamb

The music whispers to me, but my heart feels frustration and discouragement and, yes, more than just a touch of anger. It churns in my gut. It’s a bitter taste.

Angels we have heard on high

Sweetly singing o'er the plains,

And the mountains in reply

Echoing their joyous strains.

My music and calendar tell me it’s Christmastime. They speak to me of a holy time, a joyous time, and I suddenly feel my hypocrisy. Christmas calls to me to refocus my heart. It wants my heart. God wants my heart. My friends deserve my heart.

Little baby
Pa rum pum pum pum
I am a poor boy too
Pa rum pum pum pum

I have no gift to bring
Pa rum pum pum pum
That's fit to give our king

And I’m left with nothing more than this timeless simple message . . .

Merry and blessed Christmas to one and all. --Mark

The Red Wedding -- Stark Imagery

Recently I plopped myself on the sofa and indulged in some Game of Thrones binge watching. (For me, “binge” consists of watching two consecutive episodes before getting too antsy.)  LONG before HBO adapted George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series for TV, I’ve been a HUGE fan since reading book 1: A Game of Thrones back in 2001.

As I watched, I started thinking about the infamous Red Wedding. (A Storm of Swords / HBO series: S3E9) and the impact the scene had on readers and viewers alike. If you’ve lived under a rock for the last few years and haven’t read or watched the series, STOP NOW if you don’t want spoilers!

Overcome with Good

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. 

 

 

Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. 

(Romans 12) 

When the well runs dry

When the well runs dry . . .

Cliché? You bet. It’s also been a long time since I’ve blogged. I've broken the number one cardinal rule of the entire blogosphere. Maybe, just maybe, the cliché has some bearing on the prolonged silence.

I’m sitting at the computer now, though, staring at the monitor and struggling to somehow frame this blog while my mind wanders ethereal paths. A handmade wooden desk clock, an old, sentimental gift from my then twelve year-old son, says 10:30 p.m.. I’ve put in a long day, starting at 5:30 this morning. The house is dark except for the light above me, silent except for softly clicking keys. In a tad more than 6 hours my alarm will blare that annoying perky tune. I should be in bed with my sleeping wife, but here I am staring at the computer, trying to frame a mess of jumbled thoughts, always stressing about the novel I haven’t touched in months. How does it come to this?

I’ll add another cliché here – life happens. Family and friends happen. Work happens. When a load of stuff hits you in the face simultaneously, writing suffers. Or am I just making excuses? 

Probably.

Maybe the dream has dimmed. No, I know the dream has dimmed. It’s so damn hard to literally pour your heart and soul (another cliché!) into a story that very few will want to read. Forget all the accolades that I receive from fellow authors I know regionally. Why agonize and bleed over every word in a story? As a long-time acquaintance told me once, “I saw your Facebook posts about the release of your novel. I’m not going to buy it.” Gee, thanks for your support!

I guess that’s why I’ve stared at the same paragraph in my current writing project for more than two months, reluctant or maybe too fearful to dive back in.

You know something, though. I’m a stubborn Italian and a small ember still burns in my gut. The dream isn’t dead. Maybe it’s just covered with a blanket at the moment. A still, small voice deep inside encourages me even as I wrestle with it. I can tell you this. I’m taking part in a project for 2016 that I’m pretty excited about. More information is coming within the next few weeks. The dream will always burn inside. I'll continue to follow it through the peaks and valleys, wherever it leads.

I’m going to bed now. I have to get up for work in less than 5 hours . . .     

Sweet and Endearing Grace

Grace Yee is a young lady from my Pittsburgh East Scribes critique group. Just a couple of years out of high school, Grace's writing is mature far beyond her age. There is something so sweet and endearing in her prose. Chapter One of her story, The Lewis and Tolkien Library, is one that you experience with your heart as much as read with your eyes. Read Grace's chapter and you'll see what I mean . . .

Feel free to look over our author's sample gallery of published works on the Pittsburgh East Scribes web page.

MIA: My Brain

After racking my brain for days trying to find something (ANYTHING!!!) to blog about, a cruel realization sets in . . . 
 
My brain:                        The rest of my body:

Me, at this very moment:

 Man, do I need a vacation!

Aug. 6, 8:15 a.m. Could it Happen Again?

Aug. 6, 8:15 a.m. Seventy years ago, Hiroshima turned into hell on earth by a new and terrifying American weapon nicknamed Little Boy. The bomb dropped on Hiroshima, together with another that hit Nagasaki three days later, killed more than 200,000 people, most of them civilians. Today Hiroshima marked the anniversary with a solemn ceremony attended by thousands at the Children's Peace Monument.

We in the US have our Freedom Tower, Hiroshima has the Children's Peace Monument, Nagasaki has the Peace Park. All rose from the ashes of terrible tragedy. All three are monuments to honor the fallen and to show the tenacity of the human spirit. We can rebuild. We will rebuild. We will be stronger coming through the fire.

I was born many years after the end of WWII. With that and the intervening years, I have a tendency to view the events of Hiroshima and the A-bomb with a cold detachment. I accept at face value what I read in textbooks, that the U.S. dropped the bombs to avoid what would have been a bloody ground assault on the Japanese mainland. The bombs shortened the war and saved countless lives on both sides. I accepted that. Then today I went to the CNN website as I routinely do. There I saw haunting crayon pictures drawn by children who survived the devastation at Hiroshima. The pain suddenly became real. It had a face--a child's face.

  I saw the drawings and wondered if something unspeakable like that could ever happen again. Even as I type these words, I think of the evil infecting the Middle East, and I realize that yes, it could happen again. In a heartbeat. Without hesitation and without remorse. King Solomon was right when he said there was nothing new under the sun. Human nature hasn’t changed.  Evil still exists. Sin is still rampant in the world.

I pray I’m wrong. I pray that humanity progressed and we’ve learned from the carnage and pain of the past. Deep in my gut, though, I sense something else.  In closing, I only have one thing to say: Maranatha-- מרנא תא

Click here to link to the CNN article and drawings