Monday, June 29, 2015

Summer Reading from Local Authors

The dedication, work, creativity, and vulnerability required to publish a novel is simply astounding to me - it seems like the crowning bucket-list achievement {in my mind} for any writer. It's commendable. Risky. Gutsy. Inspiring. 

Two authors local to Northern CO, have recently had their works published, and I would so encourage you to check out their writing and to support them in their creative endeavors - I believe it is no small task to put a dream on paper. 

Below is a quick snapshot of each of their works and where you can find them. I appreciate their heart for why they wrote what they did:

Donna Wichelman, author of "Light out of Darkness":


A prestigious art exhibition turns into a horrific spectacle when a murder sends an art curator and a professor on a hunt for a highly coveted stolen painting.

Jamie Holbrooke came to Italy to escape a painful past in Ohio. But Jamie’s past follows her during an evening stroll along Varenna’s shoreline walk when an assailant, who looks like her dead brother, presses a mysterious riddle into her hand. Still reeling from shock at breakfast the next day and clueless about what the riddle means, she discovers that her long-time paragon Dr. Alessandro Marianni may have a link to the enigmatic riddle. Finding Jamie and her questions intriguing, Alessandro’s answers are cut short when their colleague falls prey to an assassin’s bullet. Convinced the riddle and murder are connected, Jamie and Alessandro risk their lives to discover why an obscure painting has caught the attention of art critics and criminals alike. At stake is a two-thousand–year-old drama, unfolding in the contemporary world of the Northern Italian Alps. Will Jamie and Alessandro stop powerful organized crime figures before the painting is lost forever and with it a secret more valuable than the prized artwork? Will Jamie find the answers to help her reclaim her life again? She will need the courage to face her fears and the persevering faith of Dr. Alessandro Marianni to heal her wounded heart.

"The concept for the book began in the early 2000s after our family took a vacation to northern Italy. The beauty of the landscape made me think it would make a great setting for a novel. But it wasn’t until I read an article in the Biblical Archaeological Review about J.M.W. Turner’s Bible Lands Paintings and more research led me to a little known pre-reformation group of the northern Italian Alps that the story began to take shape around this ancient religious sect called the Waldensians. Their real-life story of valor and enduring faith in the face of Roman Catholic persecution in Europe throughout the second millennium touched and encouraged my heart. I wanted to bring their story to life in a contemporary suspense novel about courage and faith. The titleLight Out of Darkness—comes from 2 Corinthians 4:6 and John 1:5 and is the text written in Latin, Lux lucet in Tenebris, which appears on their emblem dating from the 17th century."

"Light out of Darkness" can be found at
 http://www.amazon.com/Light-Out-Darkness-Waldensian-1/dp/0996187103/ref=la_B00VIUJ1GK 
or visit her website at www.donnawichelman.com
You can also read Donna's blog at http://donnawichelman.blogspot.com/.

_______________________________________________________________________________

Marie Evergreen, author of "Quinn":


Quinn Brooks woke in a hospital room with no memory of how she got there; she only knows she must escape or die. Fortunately Samantha Woods was willing to pick up hitchhikers, and the two women became friends.

As they travel across Alaska, Canada, and into the lower 48, Quinn ‘Travels’ uncontrollably in time. 

Pursued in the present and shot at in the past, can Quinn find the answers she needs before time runs out?

"Have you ever picked up a book, expecting it to take you on great adventures, only to have it filled with sex, drugs and swearing? When my daughter was younger, she was a very advanced reader. We both were disappointed to find the teen section over run with these types of books. It was very difficult to find anything worthy of reading. My name is Marie Evergreen. I have been a writer for several years. It was not until my daughter got to this point in her reading, that I felt a desire to write teen fiction. From that desire, Quinn was born."

Quinn is the first book in The Travelers series and can be picked up at 
http://www.electric-scroll.com/index.php?content=book&id=13

Tuesday, June 2, 2015

A Case for Creativity - Guest blogger Jon Jorgenson

A Case for Creativity

If you’ve ever doubted the importance of creativity, please consider…

God, in all three parts, is divinely and supremely creative. Out of all the possible actions that God could have taken, the very first verb of the Biblical narrative is create. Creation, and creativity, are the divine source, the root, from which anything and everything that ever walked, talked, or inhabited the universe flows from. Where there is no creativity, there is no progress. Where there is no creativity, there isn’t even a beginning from which progress can be born. Without creativity, nothing that has ever existed would have had the chance to exist.

If you’ve ever doubted the importance of creativity, please consider…

God reveals Himself first and foremost as a creative being. Before all-knowing, before all-powerful, before loving, compassionate, awesome, fearful, great, Son, Holy Spirit, or even before Father, we receive a glimpse of Creator God. This description precedes all others.

If you’ve ever doubted importance creativity, please consider…

Creativity is play. It’s recreation. Meaning re-creation. Meaning that when we exercise our creative gifts, in whatever arena, we are truly living as children of God, created in His image, called to be His imitation. Never do we more strongly bear the image of the original Creator, than when we answer the call deep within us to play.

To create for God is to pour out what has been so carefully poured into you.

How can we deny and overlook the need for great art and creativity in the church when from the beginning of time, the number one way to praise God was through the singing of music and the playing of horns and instruments?

If you’ve ever doubted the importance of creativity, please consider…

One does not have to be an “artist” in order to be a creative being. What we consider “art” is not the only form of creativity, but all creativity is artistic in nature. The innovation needed to run a business, the perseverance and imagination needed to raise children, the extra personal touch that makes the ordinary teacher an extraordinary educator, it all stands as it’s own form of art. Creativity is the vital link to unlocking the best we can be in everything we do. We were made to imagine new ideas and to put them to the test.

The world was formed through the creativity of God.
And it will be changed by the creativity of His children.

We were made to create.

Jon blogs about the importance of creativity, and expanding our view of what an artist is. Find more from Jon on his blog (www.jonjorgensonblog.com) and ping him on Twitter @jonjorgenson. He would love to hear from you.

Monday, June 1, 2015

Waves

Why am I discouraged?
    Why is my heart so sad?
I will put my hope in God!
    I will praise him again—
    my Savior and my God!

Now I am deeply discouraged,
    but I will remember you—
even from distant Mount Hermon, the source of the Jordan,
    from the land of Mount Mizar.

 I hear the tumult of the raging seas
    as your waves and surging tides sweep over me.
 But each day the Lord pours his unfailing love upon me,
    and through each night I sing his songs,
    praying to God who gives me life.

Psalm 42:5-8


Waves - Mr. Probz (Robin Shulz remix)

I have tied my heart to Yours - O Rock, my Anchor.
I am set adrift.
Call me back to You
before I float on into the deep.

There is beauty in repetition... the ebb and flow of the tide. At the feel of a pull, the waters turn, summoning all mysteries of the deep to the surface, a churned-up mixture of seawater and debris rising just to fall... again...and again...and again... 

each time the crash exposing and turning over what has been uncovered, what has been called forth from murky depths.

To be made alive, to be given breath, to create, to love and to live sacrificially. 
We are filled in order to be emptied again... and again... and again. This repetition.
The thunderous rise and fall of familiar giants. 

To serve to the point of complete depletion. To then be re-injected with enthusiasm, brought back to life, re-animated, as if a puppet or corpse {dead to itself in this way, to be Used}. To re-visit past territory with a used torch, to withstand shot after shot, arrow after arrow, to receive an ear-ful, to steel myself within rusted armor - to determine to keep standing. To wade through saltwater.

On our own, it's exhaustive.
In Him, it is enough.

Each crash exposing our inadequacy, weakness, and dependence.
Each upturn a reminder of His sufficiency.
Every wave turning over grace.

Three different times I begged the Lord to take it {the thorn in his flesh} away. 
Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” 
So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Paul, 2 Corinthians 12:8-10

This grace is enough.
Perhaps you are my thorn; perhaps I will always carry you with me.
Through weakness and through strength, through the desert and through oceans, through every
season - I will follow You. I am tired, and I am Yours, and that is enough.

As You lead us through uncertain waters, I drift behind, tethered to You, drowning in this grace.