Eric E. Wright's Blog, page 44
July 11, 2012
The Giving Trees
I sat on the deck the other day, just absorbing the beauty of all the greenery surroundin
g our house. Towering white pine and maple, oak and beech, hemlock and birch. In spite of a warm spring and summer, leaves on trees and bushes are lush.
As I settled further into a contented reverie, I pondered the amazing fact that all those leaves are silently giving, giving, giving. While I’m rushing about exhaling carbon dioxide or roaring down the highway spewing pollutants, they are quietly absorbing carbon dioxide and giving off oxygen.
If only we could learn to give so lavishly; so consis
tently. Instead of spewing gossip or criticism, judgment or condemnation, we could pour forth encouragement and comfort. (I’ve already had occasion today to be gently rebuked by my wife for unnecessary negativity!)
Jesus teaches us: “Do not judge…do not condemn…give, and it will be given you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over will be poured into your lap. for with the measure you use, it will be measured to you…why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye” (Luke 6:37,38, 41). What a promise of abundant blessing i
f we can only counter our judgmental tendency!
In the mystery of photosynthesis that goes on so silently, we have an amazing created mechanism that balances taking away the harmful with giving off what is life-supporting. And as each leaf-factory operates, it also produces the food needed by the plant! Trees can teach us to give; to give is to be blessed.
July 4, 2012
Militant Robins
We have robins nesting front and back; one under our deck and the other on a gable above our front window. When I’m outside weeding the garden or cutting the grass, the robins tend to scold me unmercifully. I get that every year until they wean th
eir young.
We’ve had a long history of militant robins. In a previous location, every year, one robin would attack our living room windows for a week or two. Evidently, it was a male who saw in its own reflection a rival challenging its right to this territory.
It sure messed up the window and the surrounding area, something that made Mary Helen quite unhappy. I tried to tell her that it was only doing what comes naturally, but she was not pacified. She wanted me to invent some kind of gadget to shoo robins away from our windows.
I haven’t done any scientific study, but I’d guess we get the same pair back every year. You’d think they would get to know us and become friendly like the chickadees. But no, as soon as they nest, they scold us unmercifully whenever we go outside. And they often build their mud and straw castles in the most inconvenient places. One year it was on top of the ladder we had hung on the side of our house. Another year it was on the garage door opener. We’d got in the habit of leaving the garage door open during the day. Not very thoughtful of the robins.
Their most re
cent choice of the supports under the deck, makes it difficult to enjoy the fresh air without enduring a scolding.
Oh, I know robins are innocent of any malice. They’re just acting out their robin-nature which makes me wonder about all the talk about getting back to nature. If we happen to be human beings we don’t want to give in to that temptation. If we do, the result will be insults and anger and aggression and wars and sleeping around and eating until we’re stuffed and a whole lot of other junk. Stuff that our culture may tell us is quite natural. You get the idea.
Counter intuitively, Jesus expects His followers to act contrary to their old nature. After all, one of the main purposes of redemption is to deliver us progressively from our fallen nature. That means being meek like the Master instead of aggressive and pushy. And tough as it sounds, Jesus taught us; Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. (Matthew 5:39) Wow, that’s hard.
Paul exhorts us to follow the same New Covenant principle. Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my friends. (Romans 12:17-19)
Like the robins, we might find it easier to give in to our nature, but God expects a much higher standard from His children. ©
June 24, 2012
Reading a Five out of Five book
The Dressmaker of Khair Khana: Five Sisters, One Remarkable Family, and the Woman Who Risked Everything to Keep Them Safe by Gayle Tzemach LemmonMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
I rarely read a book that creates such an impression that I continue to carry with me the vivid pictures for months, years. This book is one such and it is true. It is an absolutely inspiring story of human triumph against difficulties that leave me with my jaw hanging open. Kamila Sidiqi's life was changed overnight when the Taliban took over Afghanistan. Her parents and a brother had to flee. She was left as the sole breadwinner for her four sisters and one young brother. What could she do, confined as a woman to her home compound, able to go abroad only with her young brother at times that would not conflict with Taliban patrols?
Kamila demonstrated incredible grit, determination and ingenuity. Through learning to sew and teaching others, she established a dressmaking concern that brought in what they needed to live...but not only her family but many others. Kamila became an marvelous entrepreneur ultimately tapped by the UN to help in their concerns.
The story, though true, reads like a suspenseful thriller. One never knows when the Taliban will discover their enterprise or arrest her for her bazaar jaunts to sell dresses.
Everyone with concerns as broad as Afghanistan/Pakistan/Iraq or how to motivate people to self-reliance and entrepreneurship should read this and rejoice.
View all my reviews
May 24, 2012
Free ebook next two Saturdays
In the book, reporter Josh Radley discovers an Arabic file holding the key to a terrorist plot targeting US interests from Canadian soil. Just when he needs to concentrate on breaking the mysterious file, he finds himself frustrated with his marriage and attracted to a beautiful Pakistani psychiatrist.
The Lighting File receives high praise from both women and men. From Rebbeca in California: "Josh's realistic problems and his efforts to overcome them make for an intriguing, past-paced story. A real thrill ride." Kimberley in Ontario: "A captivating, thought-provoking, pulse-racing thriller." Frank in Pennsylvania: "Realistic plot and believable characters."
For more info. go to, http://www.countrywindow.ca/book-ligh... Order at: http://www.amazon.com/The-Lightning-F...
Next Saturday, June 2nd, "CAptives of Minara", my second award-winning suspense novel will be free for downloading to Kindle.
Free ebook next two Saturdays
In the book, reporter Josh Radley discovers an Arabic file holding the key to a terrorist plot targeting US interests from Canadian soil. Just when he needs to concentrate on breaking the mysterious file, he finds himself frustrated with his marriage and attracted to a beautiful Pakistani psychiatrist.
The Lighting File receives high praise from both women and men. From Rebbeca in California: "Josh's realistic problems and his efforts to overcome them make for an intriguing, past-paced story. A real thrill ride." Kimberley in Ontario: "A captivating, thought-provoking, pulse-racing thriller." Frank in Pennsylvania: "Realistic plot and believable characters."
For more info. go to, http://www.countrywindow.ca/book-ligh... Order at: http://www.amazon.com/The-Lightning-F...
Next Saturday, June 2nd, "CAptives of Minara", my second award-winning suspense novel will be free for downloading to Kindle.
Free ebook next two Saturdays
In the book, reporter Josh Radley discovers an Arabic file holding the key to a terrorist plot targeting US interests from Canadian soil. Just when he needs to concentrate on breaking the mysterious file, he finds himself frustrated with his marriage and attracted to a beautiful Pakistani psychiatrist.
The Lighting File receives high praise from both women and men. From Rebbeca in California: "Josh's realistic problems and his efforts to overcome them make for an intriguing, past-paced story. A real thrill ride." Kimberley in Ontario: "A captivating, thought-provoking, pulse-racing thriller." Frank in Pennsylvania: "Realistic plot and believable characters."
For more info. go to, http://www.countrywindow.ca/book-ligh... Order at: http://www.amazon.com/The-Lightning-F...
Next Saturday, June 2nd, "CAptives of Minara", my second award-winning suspense novel will be free for downloading to Kindle.
May 9, 2012
Free ebook for Mother’s Day
Free Kindle Ebook. Award winning suspense novel, “The Lightning File” will be free on Saturday, May 12th, just in time for Mothers’ Day. In the book, reporter Josh Radley discovers an Arabic file holding the key to a terrorist plot targeting US interests from Canadian soil.
Just when he needs to concentrate on breaking the mysterious file, he finds himself frustrated with his marriage and attracted to a beautiful Pakistani psychiatrist. The Lighting File receives high praise from both women and men. From Rebbeca in California: “Josh’s realistic problems and his efforts to overcome them make for an intriguing, past-paced story. A real thrill ride.” Kimberley in Ontario: “A captivating, thought-provoking, pulse-racing thriller.” Frank in Pennsylvania: “Realistic plot and believable characters.” For more info. go to, http://www.countrywindow.ca/book-lightning.html Order at: http://www.amazon.com/The-Lightning-File-Eric-Wright/dp/1894553977
May 4, 2012
Vigilantes and Justic
The Priest's Graveyard by Ted DekkerMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
As a teenager, Danny Hansen witnesses his mother and sisters murdered in Bosnia by Serb Orthodox during the bitter war between them and his Roman Catholic village. He retaliates, joins the rebels, but finally trying to leave his haunted memories behind he immigrates to America where he becomes a priest.
However, as a priest he becomes almost an avenging angel, sending the evil and powerful to their graves. He rescues Renee who had been picked up by an abusive man to become his house and sex slave. Both out for revenge, Renee and Danny's lives become entangled in a web of revenge--a seeking for justice that may destroy them both.
Dekker writes a suspense novel that keeps the reader engaged and guessing but in a story with a hard edge. Through it all he weaves the theme of religious faith, love and the longing for justice. "The reasons everyone wants justice is because God is just." (p. 188) And yet, in the real world it seems that the most wicked and -powerful of men go free. Danny justifies his murders of such men as needed since human law does not exact justice. In each case he convinces himself that in killing x person he is saving many others for x's depradations.
Dekker's tale is another attempt by a modern writer to apparently justify vigilante justice given the impotence of the courts. Many writers take up this theme. Vince Flynn's American Assassin, and others of this series overtly justified vigilante justice to save America.
In Dekker's book, however, we have Danny struggling with his own nature to help people, to be kind, to her confessions, while wrestling with his own deep seated guilt over his own actions. Can he and Renee be redeemed? Will Danny realize that setting himself up as judge, jury, and executioner exposes his inherent hypocrisy...for all of us are guilty in one way or another?
Ultimately, individuals and nations must decide if the end justifies the means; if in pursuing justice we may use violence.
View all my reviews
Flourishing though severely tried
The other day we took a walk through a park along the shores of Lake Ontario. 
Then, with our constitutional concluded, the view was so soothing we lingered to listen to the haunting call of a loon and watch a tern dive for fish. We marveled at how cormorants barely skim the waves as they fly by.
I wandered down to the pebbly beach. Wave action has broken off zillions of smooth pebbles from the exposed layers of shale—ideal skipping stones of boys like me.
Although the beach seemed sterile and inhospitable, I was amazed to find a flowering plant rooted in the pebbles along the shore. How, I wondered, could it survive in such a barren location?
The sight of that tenacious cluster of plants, reminded me of Grace Anderson, the 99-year-old woman whose memorial I recently conducted. Grace radiated a youthful, exuberant spirit until the day she went to heaven. Her hopeful attitude toward life blossomed in spite of trials that would leave many reeling. She went as a single missionary to India as the flames of war engulfed Europe. She ministered during the Indian independence movement in an apparently barren town in the north. Her first term was nine years, in order to wait for her betrothed. Back in North America, she and her family struggled to find housing and jobs when their 23 year career as missionaries ended. Her secret? A desire to please God and do His will and a persevering faith in her Lord.
The flowering plants growing from stony soil also reminded me of many of the stories I’ve been reading lately. People rising from the ashes of poverty and sickness in Mozambique to flourish for God. A Christian released from prison, choosing to return there to minister to other prisoners. The joy of a converted biker and drug dealer—transformation changing a ruined life. A Christian woman in Pakistan refusing to deny her faith in Christ in order to escape possible execution. The church multiplying in Iran in spite of virulent opposition.
We don’t have to look far for examples of people flourishing in spite of grievous trials. I’m sure you’ve met many. The flowers of faith, hope, and love seem to 
blossom most prolifically in the lives of some of those suffering the most from job loss, ill health, disappointment, or tragedy.
In yielded souls, nothing can keep God from bringing blessing out of barrenness, beauty out of ugliness, godliness out of wickedness. “I will restore the years the locusts have eaten” (Joel 2:25). “Is anything too hard for the Lord” (Gen. 18:14)? Whatever is going on in your life right now, He can fix it. He is not only the Creator, He is also the Re-creator!
April 17, 2012
Wildflower Week
For winter’s rains and ruins are over,
And all the season of snows and sins;
The days dividing lover and lover,
The light that loses, the night that wins;
And time remembered is grief forgotten,
And frosts are slain and flowers begotten,
And in green underwood and cover
Blossom by blossom the spring begins.
(Algernon Charles Swinburne, Atalanta in Calydon, 1865, st. 4)
Spring is wildflower time! Delicate brush strokes of spring green 
touch the dead fields and naked trees. Flowery pendants hang from aspens and soft maples. Rainbow trout fight their way up the Ganaraska to hurl themselves at the fish ladder. A rose-breasted grosbeak visits our feeder. Robin and Robinette ferry straw to their secret nest. All the signs point to wildflower week. The time had come to cancel appointments and head outdoors.
Wildflowers are beginning to peek through the warming humus in a race to flower before the forest canopy closes out the warming sun. Bloodroot is the first to unfold its white petals to the sun. Soon after, clusters of delicate spring beauties and then pink and white hepaticas fringe the forest pathways. Shortly, dog-toothed violets carpet the rich soil below the maples with blades of spotted green before they gathered strength to unveil their shy saffron flowers.
Society seemed determined to distract us from this spring pageant. Marketing types turn up the pressure. Merchandising flyers litter our mailboxes. Malls plan massive sales. Real Estate agents move into high gear.
The house needs spring cleaning. The lawn cries out for attention—rolling and aerating and fertilizing and cutting. The flower beds beckon accusingly whenever I glance out the window. A flood of frantic activity engulfs us—just when we ought to take a break to walk in our woodlands.
Every year we tell ourselves, “Next year we’ll make sure we take time for an unhurried stroll through a fairyland of nodding Trilliums.” And every year the demands make mincemeat of our firmest resolves.
The woodland wildflowers that carpet our hardwood forests in the spring bloom only during the narrow window of time after the warming sun brings them to life and before the overarching trees throw out a leafy curtain to shut out that selfsame sun. We have, perhaps, two weeks to enjoy one of God’s greatest displays. The timing will vary from year to year, depending on the weather. It could be really early, an El Nino spring in late April, or a delayed spring extending into mid-May.
Whenever it comes, we should call a halt to our madness and declare one whole week: “Wildflower Week”! Then everyone could take a holiday from work and shopping to walk the woodland trails. The experience might change our whole national psyche! Natural beauty might wean us from our consumer habits. We 
might regain perspective. Even marriages might be healed if husbands would walk hand in hand with their wives and children through a sylvan cathedral strewn with wildflowers. Children might be weaned away from cyber-fantasy to develop a taste for the glory of creation. Most important, the Creator might break through the defenses we have thrown up to shield us from pondering the great questions. 
Who? What? Why? How? How long?
Wishful thinking? Perhaps, but we’d like to propose a new holiday—Wildflower Week. It would revolutionize western civilization!
It is not growing like a tree
In bulk, doth make man better be;
Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,
To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sear:
A lily of a day
Is fairer far in May,
Although it fall and die that night–
It was the plant and flower of Light.
In small proportions we just beauties see,
And in short measures life may perfect be.
(Ben Johnson, quoted in The Book of Virtues, p. 431)
