L. Jagi Lamplighter's Blog, page 62
January 13, 2013
This amused me tremendously
This is an excerpt from the latest Christian Science Journal. It is an inteview with Kittie Burris, an FBI Agent turned Christian Science Practitioner. If you want to read the whole article, it is posted here:
Was there any particular story from your time at the FBI that helped prepare you for the practice?
There are some really great examples of protection and guidance while in danger, but unfortunately I can’t really talk about them. Confidentiality in the Bureau and confidentiality in the practice are just about the same thing. But there’s one story that has stuck with me that I can share because it was before I was with the FBI.
To me, prayer is universal—it's for all humanity. It's communion with God. It’s living my life as a Christian Scientist, looking for the good in people, hearing and seeing what I can of God’s love for them.
Don and I had not been married long, maybe a few months. He was not a Christian Scientist then, and he had not read the weekly Christian Science Bible Lesson with me. So one day I read the Lesson out loud to him. Of course, you know what the subject was, everybody’s favorite mouthful—“Ancient and Modern Necromancy, alias Mesmerism and Hypnotism, Denounced”!
Later that day we went out—in those days we did do some partying—and we went to a dinner club. Wouldn’t you know it! The star that night was a hypnotist. He came out, and he started to do his thing. It was obvious he was not successful. He could not get people to go under.
Finally he walked out—now this was a crowd of probably three or four hundred people—and he walked right over to our table with about six of us there. He looked right at me. Then he turned around to the rest of the crowd, and he said, “I cannot perform this evening. There is a Christian Scientist among our group.”
Get out!
Yeah! I wish Don was here to verify it because he loved to tell this story. I mean, I didn’t know whether to stand up and say, “Yes, it’s me!” or go under the table!
What did you do?
I just smiled at him, and he actually gave me a very pleasant smile. He was not unkind. He just went back up, and he said, “I’m very sorry, but I cannot perform.” With that, he walked off the stage. Of course, the ones with us were all looking at me like, “Whoa!” They all knew I was a Christian Scientist. They weren’t, but they knew I was.
Were you praying during this?
Well, I left that part out. Yeah, I was! As soon as I realized that we would be seeing a hypnotist perform, I was thinking, “Oh my gosh, I’ve just read the Bible Lesson about hypnotism being denounced. What is Don going to think?” Then the thought came, “There are not minds many. This ‘hypnotist’ does not have a mind separate from God.” I prayed to know that he could not invade my thinking or make what I had read in the Lesson not only untrue, but questionable to Don. I wasn’t trying to disrupt the hypnotist’s performance, but I was defending my own thought, as well as trying to defend Don’s thought.
What was Don’s reaction when the hypnotist singled you out?
Well, you had to know my husband to know that. He just shook his head. Years later I gave it as a testimony in church one time, and afterward he just shook his head, and he said, “That was Kittie; she was always getting me into some crazy situation.”
We continued to talk about that particular Bible Lesson, which had been very clear that there could not be any transference of thought. That’s another way of describing hypnotism. If you’re hypnotized, you’re under the influence of someone else’s thought. You act like you’re awake, but you’re really asleep. The Christ comes to human thought to keep us truly awake to any wrong thinking or mental manipulation.
January 9, 2013
Happy New Year 2013 From the Wright Family!
2012 was an intriguing year for us with many blessings and a few setbacks.
The highlight of the year—perhaps of the decade—for me was a trip to China with Ping-Ping for Chinese New Year last January. Words cannot express the wonder or the magic of this trip—two and a half weeks in a magical land where I was an unaware stranger, and my daughter was a princess.
For more on this wondrous journey, you can read the blog entries I wrote while I was there—if you have not seen them already. To my amazement and delight, quite a few people have read these and seemed to enjoy them. If you have seen them before, there are more pictures now. (If you read them when I was in China, you probably haven’t seen any of the pictures. ;-)
http://www.ljagilamplighter.com/works/nonfiction/china-posts/
John and the boys soldiered on at home—with help from Grandma and Uncle Bill. To our amazement, when we returned, all was well.
Writing-wise, there have been ups and downs. Both John and I had manuscripts we hoped to sell in 2012 that did not sell. John turned in The Judge of Ages—Book Three of the Count To A Trillion series. He is hard at work on Book Four, which I think is called The Concubine Vector. Meanwhile, I am hard at work on The Raven, The Elf, and Rachel--Book Two of The Unexpected Enlightenment of Rachel Griffin—a kind of Harry Potter for girls with magic, danger, and angsty romance.
Car repairs this summer kept us from our yearly trip to Chincoteague. The princess was delighted. She doesn't like roughing it away from the computers. The boys were crushed. I really missed it, too.
The most amazing thing that has happened in the latter part of 2012 is that I suddenly cleaned the house. If you were avoiding visiting because you hesitated to enter one of the Malebolge of Hell, fear no longer. The place is clean and relatively tidy. Come on by!
The House before the cleaning.
John had a new book come out in December. The Hermetic Millennium, sequel to Count to A Trillion. We came upon it in the bookstore before Christmas. John held it up and announced that the customers should buy it. The only customers present were small boys, who fled. But behind us was a lady who did not run. Turns out she was a Conservative Roman Catholic who had been praying to know which science fiction book to buy for her son. She and John had a wonderful conversation. (She bought an autographed copy of Count To A Trillion.)
I did a lot of traveling this year—China, Georgia, Goshen Scout Camp. When not traveling, I worked on my Rachel Griffin novels and on the related games—either playing in the game the book is based on, run by our friend Mark Whipple, or running games to work out the kinks in my Roanoke Academy/World of the Wise background with Virginia Johnson, Erin Furby, and more recently Bill Burns. John and the boys occasionally help out, too. My latest achievement has been a map of the Floating Island of Roanoke.
Recently, I had a conversation with my daughter about the kind of stories she likes: stories where people like detectives or doctors help people. She doesn’t like love stories that are sad. But she loves mysteries and stories with love that are funny and have magic. And I thought: Ah, and that is exactly what I want to write!
The children are flourishing:
Ping-Ping had a wonderful time on her China trip, where she was feted as the Princess for two and a half weeks. I feared she would be sad when she came home. Not only had she been looking forward to this trip for two years, but Ling Shan, her friend with whom she had been spending all her time, was gone. However, other than a few ‘no one to eat with at lunch’s, she seemed as calm and focused as always.
She thought she had a summer job lined up…but it turned out to be unwise. She could not find anything else, so she mainly slept, watched Chinese TV on the computer, and made paper flowers with chocolate in the center for the summer. We did have two nice visits with old friends. One with her two girlfriends Ming and Li Ming at Longyear Gardens in Pennsylvania, which was lovely, and another with her ‘Little Brother’ who has been adopted by a family in Georgia and is now Joe Hedden.
The Princess and her friend, the Incomparable YiYi, in China
Orville is now as tall as a sequoia. Or at least, he is inching up on John (who is as tall as two sequoias.) He is in eighth grade and is doing quite well. He earned First Class in his Boy Scout Troop, which made him one of the very few members qualified to be a Patrol Leader, so he is now the leader of a patrol called the Bison.
Orville’s favorite activity is to watch Let’s Plays on YouTube…this is other people playing video games and making funny comments about them. He seldom actually wants to play a game, but he is very interested in hearing about them. He also loves reviews of old toys—also done in a wisecracking fashion, and Japanese Anime. Recently, we’ve set up a system where he needs to earn points to watch on the computer. It is amazing how many chores are suddenly getting done. 
The Cherubim is now as tall as I am and has the beginnings of a mustache. He graduated from Sixth Grade in the spring. He was supposed to dress up, but he had outgrown all his nice clothes. So, he graduated in his blue Superman shirt and blue shorts.
He had the most interesting summer of all the kids. He loved his first year at Goshen Boy Scout Camp, where he participated in the New Scout program. He went to Summer School. He went to Georgia with Ping-Ping and I to visit Ping-Ping’s “little brother” from China, who has been adopted by a wonderful family, and he went on a Boy Scout overnight.
The fall has been hard, though. After seven years at Bull Run Elementary, he moved onto middle school. He has not been as happy there, though he is with some of his friends and seems to have an excellent teacher.
Justinian has had a phenomenal year. This is his second year at Bull Run Elementary School, where he is simultaneously in Special Ed and the Gifted and Talented program. These classes are much more interesting to him than his old classes and he even admitted to enjoying school a bit. A huge step forward.
Juss spent two years working to control his temper to earn a DS. Finally, this Christmas, he achieved his goal! He is now the proud owner of a 3DS. This is the first time we have ever bought him a game that is actually at his level. The Pokemon DS game actually keeps his interest and seldom causes him to scream in frustration. A joy for everyone.
The first Pokemon videos arrived in our house when Orville was 3. He is now 14, and this is the first time we’ve owned a Pokemon game. I was amused to discover that something in the cartoon that I had been wondering about for eleven years is a direct tribute to something in the game.
Juss has been active in Cub Scouts. He won second place in the Creative Design section of his Pack’s Bake Off – with the Mario Mega Mushroom Cake you see below:
January 1, 2013
Forgot to mention…
Decidedly odd living in a generally clean house. I can walk around the dining room table! Definitely a new experience.
Also, in the last week, Orville has cleaned two bathrooms, vacuumed three sections of the house and swept a floor. — amazing what making him earn his computer watching time does!
Happy New Year!
Haven't written my annual New Year's Letter yet. I will. In the meantime, 2012 was both a wonderful year and a very hard one. I am both happy to be onto the next one, and mildly disappointed, as if I missed something I had been waiting for. Maybe I had odd expectations, since the date figured into prophecies I read back in the 90s, so it had stuck in my mind as significant.
On the other hand, I have this odd feeling that, looking back, I may find it more significant in retrospect that I am aware of at the moment.
I must say, thought, looking back to this time last year, I am so utterly grateful that I am not preparing for a major overseas trip at the moment!
On the other hand, very few things I have ever done compare with the two and a half weeks I spent in China last January with my daughter. ;-)
December 26, 2012
There And Back Again–A Movie Wonderland
Saw the Hobbit.
Many years ago, when I was ten, my cousin told my father about two authors I might like: C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. My father bought the books and kept them in his office, which was downstairs. Every week, when I did my chores, I would get one. Occasionally, I would sneak and read ahead while I was vacuuming the office.
When I read The Hobbit, my favorite character was Thorin Oakenshield. I remember reading about his death, caught up in the story. I cried. Something I never, ever did at the age of ten. (It was not until I was 12 and hit puberty that I started crying occasionally.) I looked up and realized that I was on the school bus. I was so afraid someone would see my tears. But I was soooo sad.
I loved Thorin so much.
I also loved another noble Tolkien character who was calm and majestic. Aragorn. The movies were not good to him. He was played by a loud-mouthed whiner who was nothing like the character in the book. (I know some folks liked him, but they tended to be people who did not like the book Aragorn. I loved the character in the book…best of anyone in the series, except maybe Thorin.) The LOTR movies were ruined for me. I didn't really want to see The Hobbit. I was afraid they would ruin Thorin Oakenshield.
But they didn't.
He was wonderful. Perfect.
The whole movie was perfect.
May be one of my favorite movies I've ever seen.
Thorin Lives Again.
Ten year old me would be so happy.
December 25, 2012
Merry Christmas!
God bless you, Every One!
December 18, 2012
Behold the Apocalypse!
End of the Mayan Calendar?
No!
The Elf King alphabetized his Wii games.
By himself.
No one told him to do this.
Or even suggested it.
Surely, the End is Near…
Or a wondrous new beginning!
December 17, 2012
No longer living in the Slums of Limbo
Sometime about a week or two ago, I woke up from NaNoWriMo and realized I was living in a truly terrifying state of disarray. There were malebolges in Hell more pleasant than my house. On top of that, a friend donated all sorts of stuff to me when she moved.
Something had to be done.
People, so foolish as to vist, disembowling themselves in their effort to escape the horror.
A number of things happened. I won't describe them all…but one was that I came up with a method to motivate some of my children to do chores. When Orville actually went and got the vaccuum to do a chore to earn points…I figures I should make an effort to make the room possible to vaccuum.
So…I set out to clean the house.
It took me two days to get the first room clean. It was a bathroom. A really small bathroom.
But at the end of two days, it was clean…the floor was scrubbed.
Then the hall…HUGE improvement.
Then, the kitchen. Not the counters, mind you, but the floor, the refrigerator, some cabinets. Nearly all of them by now.
Today, we tackled downstairs. There were back allys of Calcutta that were more welcoming. This is where the kids basically lived. If they could find their computers.
More pleasant than my basement was this morning
All that has changed.
The area is clean and neat. The rug has been washed. The computer tables are dusted. Everything extra has been moved away. The VHS tapes we don't use are gone and the room used for the Wii games and remotes…making a nice little video game center that is welcoming and easy to use.
The basement looks…cheery and welcoming. I doubled to quadrippled the amount of room the kids have available.
Mind you, I've been moving major things and scrubbing the floor. I have not yet cleaned off the stuff I dumped on the train table (or the kitchen counter for that matter) but I hope to have all that done by Christmas.
As an added bonus, the spot we put the Christmas tree is now clear and ready!
The Next Big Thing
The Next Big Thing is a round robin effort to promote authors new works. Here is mine. Below are some links to others…or at least to their websites:
What is the working title of your book?
The Raven, The Elf, and Rachel – Volume Two of: The Unexpected Enlightenment of Rachel Griffin
Where did the idea come from for the book?
It is based on a roleplaying game run by a friend.
What genre does your book fall under?
Young adult fantasy
Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
Tiffany Tang to play Rachel…or a little girl version of her. Someone like Jeremy Sumpter in Peter Pan to play Siggy.
What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
Intrepid Rachel Griffin discovers there is a world even more secret than the World of the Wise and it’s dangerous, though that doesn’t even begin to stop her!—all while she is adjusting to her new life as a freshman at Roanoke Academy for the Sorcerous Arts…oh, and falling in love.
Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
Don’t know yet. My previous books are with Tor.
How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
Book One took about 9 months.
What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
Harry Potter meets Narnia meets Nine Princes of Amber meets Lovecraft meets Fringe.
Who or What inspired you to write this book?
I fell in love with the game the book is based on, with the characters, and with the journey of discover and revelation the characters undertake.
What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
It starts in a world without monotheism: no Jews, Christians, or Muslims. Only, it turns out knowledge of these things have been removed by magic. There is no knowledge of the Powers of Good on the world…but that has not kept the out the Powers of Darkness.
Other authors to visit:
Douglas Cobb: http://douglascobb.wordpress.com/2012/10/23/the-next-big-thing-blog-hop-article-douglas-r-cobb/
Mindy Klansky: http://www.mindyklasky.com/index.php/2012/12/the-next-big-thing/
Misty Massey: http://madkestrel.livejournal.com/
