Recently, en route to a Virginia speaking engagement, I stopped for dinner with my daughter and son-in-law. Relaxed and happy, excited to share our new projects with one another, I at last confessed that I was nervous about speaking the next day. My son-in-law, surprised, bluntly asked, “Why? What are you afraid of?” My first inclination was to tell him …
More Transformational Fiction–Perfect Summer Read
This week I read Murray Pura’s The Wings of Morning, a WWI novel set in Amish country. You’re right—that combination sounded like a conundrum to me, too. But I realized, as I read, that the challenges facing the Amish regarding war, the bearing of arms, the essence and sacredness of life, is something we all must come to terms with …
Father’s Day With Funny Cake
In our house the two go hand in hand. In fact, my husband requests “Funny Cake” for every possible celebration—Father’s Day, his birthday, and any other person’s birthday, assuming he can sway them from their own favorite and convince them of the virtues of that Pennsylvania Dutch treat. The original recipe came to me via my mother-in-law, along with a …
Transformational Fiction Fans
A new Face Book Group has launched: Transformational Fiction Fans. Conceived by award-winning author Nikki Arana, author of the newly released The Next Target, Transformational Fiction Fans is a site for readers and writers to connect and talk books that have made or are making a strong impact on their lives—including those with hot button topics. We share news and …
June Roses and Tussie-Mussies
While researching wonderful varieties of flowers and roses and herbs for Promise Me This, I revisited gardens I love—and took up their language, the language of flowers. Accordingly, in the world of tussie-mussies, I am wealthy beyond measure, for today my yard is covered in golden buttercups, the flower symbolizing riches! My riches are rivaled only by coquetry, evidenced by …
“In Flanders Fields”
In the midst of WWI, while all the earth round Ypres lay ripped and torn, trees blown to kindling and men to less, a young Canadian soldier noticed clusters of blood-red poppies in full bloom, sprung from ground freshly turned for burials of his comrades. John McCrae penned a poem that has become synonymous with WWI, and with our call …
Rattling Bones
I just returned from a family reunion—the first time this branch of my family has gathered in nearly 30 years. I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to reconnect, or to bear witness while the old guard, our parents’ generation of wise mentors, walk among us. But what I learned shook me to my core. As in every family, we have …
The Writing Road–Detours Aplenty
My husband has a saying that begins our every road trip, “When we’re lost, enjoy the scenery.” That used to drive my let’s-just-drive-from-Point-A-to-Point-B nature crazy, but I’ve come to see that I can either embrace the journey that is—with all its twists and turns—or make myself miserable by wishing everything was different, shorter, clearer. I think that’s true for writers, …
Chuck Colson
Chuck Colson, founder of Prison Fellowship, was ushered home this week. Knowing that a man so practical, so no-nonsense and down to earth, aware of the deep needs of others and of society at large has gone before, the veil between this world and eternity seems more thinly drawn. We’ve a glimpse over Jordan of a man walking on (maybe …
NEVER AGAIN
“Confronted with the persecution and murder of Europe’s Jews, witnesses had a choice of whether or not to intervene.” –from The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s article, “CHOOSING TO ACT: STORIES OF RESCUE.” Conflicting testimonies abound regarding how much everyday citizens who lived during the years of the Holocaust knew—here, in Germany, Poland, France, England, and more. Some have claimed, “We …