Crisis Online Magazine

2012, Another Ordinary Year in America

It is very difficult in the current highly political atmosphere of this country to somehow stay focused on children's fiction alone, and I hope you'll forgive me when I kinda step off that subject from time to time in order to comment on something else.

And I can't swear that all these things don't have everything to do with what we write for our children.  We can't just be trying to come up with new ways to brandish swords, ride unicorns into the night sky, and slay dragons.

Every writer for children has an inescapable responsibility.  Every story written for children--particularly children of faith--carries a message whether we endeavor to send one or not.  That's just the way children read books--they look for the underlying message, whether consciously or subconsciously, and take that message, whether good, bad, or ugly, and carry it with them.  That equals a responsibility for every single children's writer that we cannot shirk.  It's laid upon our backs whether we want it or not.

Aesop realized, waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay before the times of the iphone and the internet, that each and every story written for children must contain a moral.  Not just tell a fun story--it must also teach something.  I hold myself to that standard.  Even more than that, I see no reason why each story must only contain one moral.  Can be more than one, no?

So anything that has to do with the erosion of morals and faith should be an appropriate topic on a blog written by one who is trying to write Christian stories for children.  I must be afforded the occasional rant.  It is who I am.  It is what I do.

Many days, I find myself unable to write and unable to focus and unable to simply calm down.  It's nearly impossible, even when one 'has people.'  Try doing it with no support system whatsoever.  There are those out there struggling with depression (and what I have, I would call about 50 miles south and 45 miles west of simple 'depression') who have a support system.  They have husbands, children, friends, coworkers--even if those people don't leave themselves open for that--being there for you when you need to talk--there are people who are at least physically there for them when they're struggling.  They don't struggle alone. 

As Mickey in my story says: "That's what friends are for."  When you need to be mad, they let you be mad.  When you need to be sad, they let you be sad.  When you need to cry or rage or storm the tower, they're there for you.  Try going through this alone. 

Try being this guy...

...all alone on that bridge, absolutely terrified. Try being this guy with no people.

I googled many different words and phrases, looking for images that most closely reflected what a 'nervous breakdown' might look like.  This is the best I could find.  Most days, I feel like I'm not just in the matrix, but the only one even aware of the matrix.  Like I'm the only one who sees the elephant in the room.  That's terrifying.

Our society is both morally and sexually deranged.  It is also socially deranged.  We're disconnected.  We're fractured.  How we interact on the internet mirrors all too accurately how we interact now in real life: we treat friends like strangers and strangers like friends.  If you need comfort or support, well you need to go to a total stranger and pay them to listen to you.  We have "people for that sort of thing."  "Come back when you're happy."

We're now a culture of people incapable of emotional depth and moral response.  That's not terrifying???

So I came across that blog, above, through another blog--Orthodixie, easily my favorite program on Ancient Faith radio.  And I read that blog post at Crisis Magazine, and was again out on that bridge unable to escape my own terror.  I turn to the person next to me.  "Don't you see that?!"

And they look around, expression unchanged and not the least bit alarmed, and say "What?  See what?"

You've gotta be kidding.

From the "Questionable Christian Content" Files: Banshees

There are a few things in my book that, as a work of Christian fiction geared for kids, I fully expect to take criticism for.  The first being the Banshee of Leeds Hurst Castle.

By including the element of a ghost in my story, am I saying there are any such things as ghosts?

Of course not.  Read the book.  I would also have to be saying that there are gargoyles who can speak, think, and move around, just like people.  I would also have to be saying that a grudge is a small venomous animal that can be held.  I would also have to be saying that portals exist, and that one could travel to the dark, creepy underworld simply by standing in an antique chest.  I would also have to be saying that Shenanigans are green, furry creatures, usually small, that go pinging around in the trees, and that lawyers in Wiggle Pointe do not wear shoes.  Have we gotten a bead on what fantasy is, yet?

We need to get a much firmer grasp of what fantasy is, and Christians who think that other Christians don't read ghost stories are fooling themselves.  Christians read Harry Potter.  Even Christians that formerly denounced--unread--the entire series came to love the books after having read just one of them.  Why?  Harry Potter is not unchristian.  The list of moral lessons taught in all seven of those books is longer than my arm.

Not a single Christian child raised in the church, raised in a home that kept moral order and a moral code, that believed in God and God's teachings ever finished any Harry Potter book believing in magic.  It was only those whose grasp of reality and sanity were already being held together with bandaids and bailing wire who ran off into the woods believing they could turn rodents into goblets by waving a stick in the air. 

It's not the 'what,' but the 'how.'  The banshee in my story teaches a very solid lesson in Christianity.   If the message is good and pure, then a banshee is as valid a vehicle in Christian fantasy as any other.

Would anyone read my book and then think for one second that I believe in living gargoyles?  Then why would anyone think that I 1) believe in ghosts, or 2) am trying to suggest the ridiculous notion that ghosts exist?  Wouldn't either you or I have to be bananas, crackers, and nuts?

The banshee, as it turns out, was never to be hated and was only once to be feared.   

This is FANTASY.  It's the lesson taught, not the tools used.  As fantasy, it is reasonable and logical to presume that imaginary elements would be not only present but rife in the story, and like it or not, all kids are drawn to fantasy.  Have been since the beginning of time.  And it's increasing.  We, as writers of Christian fiction, can either write stories to sate those interests while promoting God and His teachings, or we can reject them out of hand, and continue to lose our own children to the world and its 'culture of death' by the literal thousands.

1) Read the book
2) Form an opinion

In that order.

What binds the banshee to earth (to the world and the worldly), keeping herself away from the son she loves and God Himself?

Worry
Anguish
Hate
Need for revenge
Sorrow
Despair
Doubt
Torment
Rage/anger

"Sorrow and torment wore deep on her face like callouses."

Will not all of these things--each and every one--bind you to earth, keeping you away from God?  His message?  His love?  You bet your butt, they will.

Constantine tells the story of the banshee--how the castle was overrun, and her son Euric was found in the moat.  Constantine tells the kids how she got this way--why Pandora never left the castle, even as it is now, more than a hundred and fifty years after the attack, now lying in ruins in the middle of Bedlam Gulch. 

"That's horrible," said Fidget.  She looked out into the trees, this time not with fear or disdain, but with empathy and sorrow."  

What finally releases the banshee, allowing her to go 'home,' as she finally floats upward?

The letting go of everything that appears on the list above.  This final release is symbolically shown as the antagonist (no villain is 100% evil, which is why we fail to see true evil time and time and time again) turns lose seemingly millions of fireflies.  Yes, the antagonist does a good deed.  Pandora's son, Euric, used to venture outside the bailey--the castle walls--to catch lightning bugs.  As the Stormy Petrel--the antagonist--releases the fireflies, it dawns on the kids why Pandora has been in self-imposed exile in the gulch for going on two centuries.

"Euric's fireflies.  Even I can see what's going on now," said Mickey.  "How come Pandora never figured it out?"

Constantine shrugged.  "She wasn't trying to figure it out."

See list above!

The lightning bugs began swarming around Pandora.  She stretched her arms out wide, closed her eyes sweetly, and relented.  They carried her gently upward in a spiraling cloud of brilliance and light.

"So all she ever had to do was follow the fireflies?" asked Fidget.

"She wasn't looking for fireflies," said Grigori.

See list above!

Mickey stood gazing at Pandora as she floated steadily upward until finally she disappeared altogether, and all the lightning bugs darted and danced, and merged with the stars in the sky.

See list above again--are these not the very things all Christians must let go of in order to get closer to God?  To find peace? 

Solid Christian lesson.  Solid.  Bullet-proof.  And it's all taught with a ghost.  Whether we face reality or not, it won't change the fact that all children, including Christian children, are hungry for fantasy.

We can either take them there, without losing them in the dark recesses that swallow them up in secular fiction--particularly fantasy that is written for children--or we can keep watching these same children leave the church for worldly things.  If we're lucky, some of them will come back to the church, but in what condition?  Beaten, battered, and broken.

How about we just work all the harder to not lose them in the first place?  There's nothing out there.  Nothing.  Not in that world.  Fantasy, in and of itself, is not an evil thing.  How often did Jesus Himself use fantasy in parable?

At this time of year, do you--as a Christian sitting around your television set with your Christian family--watch A Christmas Carol?  Was that story even written as Christian fiction?  And yet Christians watch it--it's back-in-the-day black and white entertainment considered wholesome, and it's absolutely dripping with morality and the Christian worldview.  Maybe you left the room at all the wrong times, but check it out: there's not just one ghost in that story.  There are three.

It's a Wonderful Life.  Ever watched that movie?  Another Christmas film--we eat it up.  TV stations run that movie, some as a marathon, at this time of year.  Is Jimmy Stewart's character in that film not every bit of a ghost, walking around disembodied, watching how life would have unfolded in his small hometown had he never lived?

I know another Christian fantasy story that features a witch--The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe.  Geebs, it's even in the title:  witch.  Another taboo in Christian fiction, and here's CS Lewis himself using a witch in one of his stories.  Anyone out there know of any Christian fantasy using ghosts in their stories to good ends?  It's like anything else--it can be used for good or evil.  

Ghosts are a valid vehicle for teaching Christian lessons to children in a fantasy setting.  It's valid.  It's legitimate. Look at the message, not the messenger. 
 

Goodreads...Bad site

Goodreads gets an 'F.'

I'm extremely upset right now, and that in and of itself is reason enough to put off writing this post, but I'm absolutely fuming.  Apparently, Goodreads is nothing more than a craigslist for book readers and writers.  They have no filtering options for people whose lives mean more than just sleeping around, getting drunk, and getting high.  You can go in there having written a story for christian children and have listings for erotica titles (nothing but literary pornography by, for, and about people with pointless, empty lives) show up all over your home page.  Can't flag them, report them, or filter them out.  You're just sitting there staring at that garbage.

I tried to search groups to join.  I'm new, and trying to get some use out of this site.  Just trying to get out there and get in the mix.  Well, the purpose of setting up groups under different headings is so that when someone has specific interests, they don't have to sift through literally thousands of different groups.  Well, what is the purpose of having different groups if Goodreads doesn't maintain the integrity of those groups?  If you can set up a group for a pornographic book and list that group under the Christian heading, then what exactly is the point of having different groups?

I went into the Christian groups heading, and there's a group for Fifty Shades of Grey.  That's pornography.  Sex in any kind of public medium is not intimacy--it's pornography.  Sorry, but we're not supposed to be spectators to sex.  We're a voyeuristic society, and any forum where sex is for viewing, a woman's worth drops to absolute zero--we're nothing but a toilet there.  I'm female.  My life has purpose and worth.  I'm not here for amusement, abuse, or entertainment.

I've about had it with the 14-year-old eye-rollers who think it's funny to take their pee pee stories and their filth and their worthless deviance, and shove it in everyone's faces and down everyone's throats.  Why is that group in the Christian category?  It's not bad enough I have F, F, F in listings that come up on the screen when I try to go to my home page or elsewhere on this site.  I can't filter that.  But you mean I can't even go to a category for groups or giveaways, and only find books that actually fit those categories that I chose to look in?  No way to report or flag or filter.

This sick, filthy garbage has to be everywhere?  Really?

Goodreads gets an 'F.'  They just don't care.  Women get abused on sites like that.  Sex everywhere, of every imaginable kind--deviance galore?  If it's shoved in Christians' faces, kids have no shot.  It's just got to be absolutely everywhere?  Goodreads is about to go.