Nate Fleming's Blog, page 35

Thimblerig Climbs Amazon Charts!

Thimblerig’s Ark is the 6th top best-seller in Amazon’s Children’s Literature and Fiction today!

What an amazing story!

Today, the little un-represented, self-published book about a groundhog weathering the Great Flood has climbed to the top of Amazon’s charts, storming the free download section like the world’s coming to an end!

The best part?  You can help Thimblerig reach #1!

Here’s how:

1.  Download Thimblerig’s Ark for free yourself!

2.  Share the picture below with your friends, and encourage them to go and download Thimblerig’s Ark

3.  Be happy that you were part of something very cool!

4.  And after you read Thimblerig’s Ark, run back to Amazon and write a review.

The free download offer is open until September 14.

Thanks for supporting an indie author and self-publishing!

Thimblerig’s Ark is now free! For three days only!

 

 

Click here to make your way to Thimblerig’s Amazon page

And please share the news!  I want to get a thousand free copies delivered over the next three days.

You can help make it happen!

I Won’t Forget.

One of the reasons I appreciate teaching internationally, is that every year I get to share the story of that day with a new group of students, many of whom don’t have a clue that it even happened. Most aren’t Americans, and so I help them to see the reason why this was a worldwide tragedy, and I get to challenge them to be a force for positive change in the world.

The Computer Giant, The Rock Band, The Groundhog, and Free Downloads

I woke up this morning, like the rest of the internet, to the fascinating story that U2 and Apple had teamed up once again, and that U2 was offering their new album, Songs of Innocence, for free download on iTunes.  And the internet is still ringing with the shockwave that followed that announcement.

But, in the midst of the shock, one thing that most folks reporting this story seem to have missed is that apparently U2 and Apple apparently coincided their big news to apparently “drop” just a couple of days before Thimblerig’s Ark became available, also for free download!  

Coincidence?  There are no coincidences.

Not when the worlds of big computers and big music collide with the world of little-known self publishing animal-centered biblical fantasies.  When that happens, all bets are off.

To make matters even more compelling, Thimblerig was actually on hand in Cupertino for the big announcement!  He’d saved up his figs for several weeks to make it there, managed to get onto the stage, but before he could do anything he was forcibly removed by some blue-polo-wearing, no-necked, hipster-bearded Apple Genius thug.

You would think this scandal would be on the front pages of all the websites of the world!  You’d think that blogs would be picking it up and running with it!  You’d think that Matt Walsh would have written a scathing, insightful, controversial editorial about the incident by now!

But somehow Thimblerig’s sad story has been quietly swept under the carpet.

Thankfully, the great equalizer – the internet – will help us prove it.  After all, a picture posted on the internet is the best proof, right?  Remember the Derbyshire Fairy?  Hercules, the world’s biggest dog?

But I digress.  To the proof:  Here’s Thimblerig, trying to get Bono’s attention, right before the no-neck Apple genius hipster rushed him off the stage.

 

 

(AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

Some people might think that this was all a stunt on Thimblerig’s part to try and get Bono to read Thimblerig’s Ark, or to get Tim Cook to release a new special edition purple iPod with Thimblerig’s paw print on the back.  But nothing could be further from the truth.  He just wanted to ask Bono to help get the word out about the free download of Thimblerig’s Ark, which will start on September 12 (PST) and run for three days!

In fact, as he was hoisted on the shoulder of the Apple genius-thug like an undignified sack of potatoes, Thimblerig reportedly screamed, “Just for three days!  You can download Thimblerig’s Ark for free just for three days!  It starts on Friday – Pacific Standard time!  Hey, can you guys play Bullet the Blue Sky?  Can you play Bullet the Blue Skyyyyy?“

But he was lugged out of the hall and straight into the Apple Company store, where he spent the rest of the afternoon playing Flappy Bird on a display iPad, and then bought a retro Apple coffee cup before heading home, dejected.

Now Thimblerig’s feeling down, feeling like he could have done more.

Well, he couldn’t.  He screwed up.

But you can help!   “How?” you might be asking your computer screen.  Well, if you would like to help Thimblerig’s morale, then you can do three simple things.

1)  Go to Amazon on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday (PST) and download Thimblerig’s Ark for free.  Then, if you like it, write a review!  Reviews are the bread and butter of non-U2-sized artists/authors.

2)  Share Thimblerig’s inspirational story with the world through your own social media outlets.  Take the picture below and post it all over the place!  Help get the word out!

3)  Finally, if you know the Edge, tell him Thimblerig apologizes for grabbing the sunglasses off his face.  He left them with a nice person named Kip at the register in the Apple Company store.  Thimblerig is pretty sure Kip worked there.

—

There’s a good chance that none of the events in this story are true, that it’s some form of parody.  But what isn’t parody is that Thimblerig’s Ark really is available for free download (September 12 – 14), and we hope you’ll give it a try!

Especially if you are Bono.  That would be really, really cool.

And share this picture!

You think you know the story of the ark? Think again.

You already know about Noah.

Just wait until you read the animal’s story.

“I found the pages flying by…”

“a breath of fresh air…”

“not just for children…”

Four and a half stars on Amazon!

Thimblerig is a little groundhog with big problems.

He’s a loner con-artist who’s losing his mojo; the wild dogs who run the forest harass him at every turn; he’s having vivid nightmares of apocalyptic floods; and worst of all, he believes he sees unicorns when everyone knows unicorns are only the stuff of legend.

But what one animal might call a problem, Thimblerig calls an opportunity.

In a moment of inspiration, he comes up with the ultimate con: persuade as many suckers as he can that a world-ending flood is coming; the fabled unicorns have told him where the only safe place will be; and only he can lead them to safety.

All for a reasonable price, of course.

When the flood really does come, Thimblerig has a choice: either save the ones who trusted him, or lose everything.

And that’s when he discovers that his problems have only just begun.

Children’s book author Nate Fleming at a book signing at the Bookworm, Chengdu, China – summer 2014

Children’s book author Nate Fleming at a a book signing at the Binding Time Cafe in Virginia, summer 2014

 

Purchase and/or download Thimblerig’s Ark today!

Reclaiming the Anchor of Hope

I’ve been thinking a lot about hope lately.

It’s a good word, isn’t it? No one I know dislikes the word, unless it is preceded by some form of “I don’t have any” or “I’ve lost all”. And even then, we usually mourn that someone is without hope.

A Hopeless Dawn 1888 by Frank Bramley 1857-1915

When hope is taken away, it creates a visceral response in us, doesn’t it?  Something is wrong in a world where hope has been lost, and that’s the thing – it does have to be lost. It’s like we come factory made, ready-loaded with hope – and we have hope until someone gives a reason not to.

But I don’t want to focus on the loss of hope.  There’s enough darkness in the world that revels in the destruction of hope.  Rather, I want to focus the presence of hope, what that means, and how we can avoid losing it.

We all want hope, don’t we?  And it doesn’t matter our place or situation in life.

The Blind Girl – John Everett Millais-1856

The teenager, thinking about university?  Hopeful.

The nervous guy, about to propose to his girlfriend?  Hopeful.

The young woman, waiting to see if she got the job?  Hopeful.

The married couple who are trying to get pregnant?  Hopeful.

The older couple just entering retirement together?  Hopeful.

And we find themes of hope scattered all around us; in music, in art, in film, in literature.

For example, The Shawshank Redemption, one of my all-time favorite films, has a strong theme of hope.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_diyX7yNeE

We find the theme of hope coming back up again in one of my brother’s favorites, Hitch.

And then there’s this…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cc_h5Ghuj4

The world – as seen through the lens of Hollywood – gets it.  Hope is a good thing!

And then we have popular music, which is full of songs about hope.  For example…

There’s the Script’s Hall of Fame.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mk48xRzuNvA

Journey’s Don’t Stop Believin’.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBEXSiFzOfU

Sarah Bareilles’ Brave.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUQsqBqxoR4

Alright then.  So I think we can all agree that hope is a good thing, that it is something that we should all be encouraged to have, and that we should be encouraged to express our hope.  So what then?  What’s your point, Nate?

I want to turn the page for a moment to find my point, and look at the idea of hope from a Christian perspective.  If you aren’t a Christian, just hang with me.

In the Christian faith, hope gets an added boost in that it’s one of the triumvirate specifically mentioned by the apostle Paul in his famous “love” chapter of 1 Corinthians – the one that lots of people, Christians and otherwise, have read at weddings.  In that chapter, Paul clearly lays out the power of love (to borrow from Huey), but ends with:

And now these three remain (or last, or endure): faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Think of all the other good words that Paul could have put into that verse as the things that will remain.  He could have mentioned all of the “fruit of the Spirit” from Galatians 5:22 as enduring: joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self-control.  But he didn’t.

Only three things will endure through anything, and they are faith, hope, and love.

Do you get the power of what Paul is saying here?  When everything else is gone, these things will last.

Hope remains.

Isn’t that amazing?

When the sky is darkest, and the tempest is about to break, hope remains.

When your world has fallen apart, hope remains.

When the one you married has left you behind for a newer edition, hope remains.

When the bank account reads negative, hope remains.

When the doctor gives  you the last prognosis you ever wanted to hear, hope remains.

And to put a more global perspective on this…

When a group of thugs has rampaged across your country and you’ve lost everything, hope remains.

When the earthquake destroyed everything you ever knew or cared about, hope remains.

When the ever-present threat of terrorism has you living in fear of going to the market, but you have to go to get food, even then hope remains.

But here’s where we run into a problem with hope.  Where do we get it?  Where does it come from?  What kind of hope can survive all the crap that the world throws at it, able to remain?

Think about the screenwriter in Hollywood who is putting his hope on his ability to write the next big script, and properly play the networking game to get it made into a film, thus making him a success in his field.

Think about the surgical resident who is putting her hope in her hard-earned skills, and through her sheer determination to be able to overcome the biases and stereotypes inherent in the system so that she will be able to become a fully qualified surgeon and do what she’s dreamt of doing.

Think of the farmer who is putting his hope in the weather, that the rains will finally come and he’ll be able to actually have a harvest this year.

Think of the unemployed single mother who is putting her hope in the government to provide enough money to pay the rent and feed her kids.

Think of the displaced refugees – who have lost their ancestral homeland, who have lost family members to hatred and ignorance, who are hated for what they believe.  And so they put their hope in the military of another country to come in, clean house, and set things right again.

Do you see the weakness in these hopes?  Like ships dropping anchors in sandbars – they are all examples of people putting their hope in things that are malleable.  They are hoping in things that can and will change in a moment’s notice.  They are hoping in things that may not actually be dependable at all.

And a hope built on something that isn’t dependable is a weak hope.

It’s a hope that can be stripped away.

It’s a hope that will fail.

And that’s not the kind of hope that Paul was talking about.  Not even close.

Remember, the hope Paul’s talking about is one of the three things that will last, no matter what.  This is a hope that nobody can take from you, even yourself.  This is a hope that will never fail.

In the first centuries of her existence, the church was undergoing fierce persecution at the hands of the Romans.  To be able to meet clandestinely and safely, the followers of Jesus would mark a location with an anchor.  It was a symbol that looked innocuous enough, but held the image of the cross, and so the believers could use it freely.

Anchor, fish, and Chi Rho symbols. Slide Photo by Ferrell Jenkins, 1975.

The anchor represented safety and security, and the image of the cross it contained reminded the believers that they could find their safety and security – their hope – in the Jesus who died for them on that cross, no matter how hot the heat of persecution became.  They knew that He was the one they could count on, even when the difficulties, the tragedies, the hardships of life were threatening to capsize them.

They knew that if their hope was in Jesus, it was like a ship who drops anchor and finds purchase, and is able to ride out the storm without being dashed to pieces on the rocks.

And so, as I sit here, pondering hope, pondering the ultimate source of hope, I’m challenged to reconsider where I get the hope to which I’ve been clinging.  

Me?  I’ve been hoping on my friends, my family, my work, my gifts, my abilities, my dreams…

I’m challenged to let go of these temporary things that I’ve been depending upon, good things though they may be, and to reclaim the kind of hope that Paul was speaking about, the kind of hope that sustained those early Christians in the face certain death.  I’m challenged to place all my hope in the anchor that holds, to have the kind of hope that remains.

To be honest, I’m still trying to figure out what this means.  It’s a journey, after all.  Into uncharted waters.

But if I’m going on a journey, I don’t go alone.  I go with the faith and hope that I have a dependable anchor, an anchor that – as odd as it sounds – loves me.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

 

 

The Song Trailer

I’m hopeful for Richard Ramsey’s The Song.

Beware of Christians – Thimblerig’s Review

The other day, I came across the trailer for an upcoming film called Believe Me, which has this logline: “Desperate, broke, and out of ideas, four college seniors start a fake charity to embezzle money for tuition.”

This film caught my eye because it is being marketed as the anti-faith-based film – a movie made by Christians that tells the kind of story most faith-based filmmakers aren’t willing to tell.  It is a movie that the filmmakers aren’t interested in labeling a “Christian movie”.   In an interview with The Christian Post, director Will Bakke said emphatically, “to be clear, ‘Believe Me’ is not a Christian movie. Christianity is the backdrop to the story, but there’s no hidden agenda or altar call at the end of it.”

When I read this interview, part of me was intrigued.  After all, it sounded like these guys were trying to do exactly what I’ve been challenging the readers of this blog that Christians needed to be doing – making good films that don’t necessarily have “a family-friendly, faith-based, Dove Foundation approved” label slapped onto it.  A film that might actually attract people from outside of the church, and plant a few seeds through excellent storytelling rather than bashing them on the head with didactic on-the-nose preaching.

You know, kind of like Jesus used to do.

Radical idea, eh?

But then my cynical nature popped up, and the warning lights started flashing.  After all, what if these guys were playing some sort of game?  What if they were conning us, just like the characters in their film?  What if they were just a group of guys who really weren’t interested in the Christian faith, but who were savvy enough to recognize that there were a LOT of Christians out there who haven’t jumped on the sub-par faith-based film bandwagon?  That there were lots of us looking for an “anti-faith-based” film made by Christians?

What if they just saw that there was money to be made by saying all the right things, but not really believing them?

So, being the good blogger journalist I’m endeavoring to be, I decided to do some research.  I scoured their website, where I saw that these guys were pretty creative and seemed to be a bit on the hipster side with their retro Mad Men suits, but what I didn’t see was anything that confirmed or denied what these they were saying in the interviews.

I realized I would have to go a step further, and check out one of their previous films in the hope that I might get some confirmation, one way or the other, which led me to download Riot Studio’s 2010 provocatively-titled documentary, Beware of Christians.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMIydiF69mA

Beware of Christians is a film made by four young college-aged Christians who decide to spend five weeks backpacking across Europe, talking to people and each other about their thoughts on God and the following seven topics: identity, materialism sex/relationships, church, wealth/poverty, media/entertainment, and alcohol.  The film opened with one of my favorite quotes from Brennan Manning, which caught my attention and started me wondering if the Riot Studios boys might be Ragamuffins, too:

“The single greatest cause of atheism today is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips and deny him with their lifestyle.”

It was a good sign, and so I pressed on.

Filmed as if the viewer had just walked up on a conversation in progress, we’re introduced to the four affable young men: Alex, Will, Michael, and Matt, sitting around a table surrounded by darkness, but bathed in a single light.  They are typical early 20-somethings, talking alot, often about nothing at all, but surprisingly sometimes about much, much deeper things.

Through a series of quick shots, they share the reason for this documentary – to get away from all of the influences and distractions of their American Christian lives to try and figure out what Jesus wants from them.

And so they fly off to Europe for five weeks to try and wrangle this out.

This thought came to me pretty early on in the viewing:  When I was in college, why the heck didn’t I think of flying off to Europe with my friends and making it into a documentary?

But I digress.

On the one hand, I appreciated that these four guys were earnestly asking questions, and I appreciated that they seemed willing to dig deeper into the things they’d been taught growing up in the Bible belt.  Too many Christians never take that step, blindly believing what they’re taught.  This makes for flabby, sheep-like Christians who typically end up following a charismatic pastor rather the Good Shepherd.  These misguided sheep also don’t have a problem flocking to poorly made “faith-based” films because the films hit all the right beats that reaffirm their place in the flock.  In Beware, I was impressed both by the questions these four asked, and the fact that they were willing to search – not for something to replace their faith, but for how to be authentic Christians.

On the other hand, it was obvious from the get-go that I was not a part of the intended demographic for this film.  The filmmakers plainly made this film for their peers – churched kids in their late teens or early twenties – not married dads in their mid-forties.  This meant that as I watched the film, I had an increasing awareness that I’m years away from the stage of life of the intended audience, and while I don’t claim to understand everything about the Christian faith, I have already been through much of the same soul-searching, but it’s been a while.

The result?  Half the time I wanted to pat these guys on the back in support of the spiritual journey they were documenting, and the other half the time I wanted to smack them upside the head for their goofiness and general immaturity.  Really?  Dressing like gladiators and fighting with toy swords at The Coliseum?  Stealing your friend’s postcards and lying about it?  Does twenty years of life really make that much of a difference?  I suppose it does.

Perhaps an unintended consequence of watching Beware of Christians was a renewed respect for the folks who are called to minister in campus organizations like Intervarsity, Crusade, or FCA, or those called to teach on university campuses.

To speak to the quality of the film…

This is the second film that Riot Studios produced, and so while the film was reasonably well-cut, and the pacing was fairly brisk, the finished product was still a bit rough and I felt like it could have done with some trimming.  For example, it seemed like they tried to create a little conflict between a couple of the guys with the previously mentioned stolen postcards running gag, but in my opinion, this was a darling that should have been killed.  It didn’t add to the film, and just made Alex and Will look a bit like jerks.  Just let the guy send his postcards!

Overall, I would recommend the film for youth groups or university ministries, as those demographics would probably appreciate the antics of the leads, but more importantly, the film could be a great launching point for discussion about God, life, and the Christian faith.  The quartet does a good job of raising questions, and I was gratified to see that they consistently look for answers in the right place.

And the best part for me is that now I won’t go into Believe Me with any reservations about the spiritual foundation undergirding the filmmakers.  I feel reassured that they will probably be doing their best to produce a well-made film that will contain an important nugget or two of truth, even without a hidden agenda or alter call.  And I hope beyond hope that it will be the anti-faith-based Christian film that I’ve been waiting for.

And considering that Believe Me has Nick Offerman in a supporting role, I think there’s a pretty good chance that it will be just that.

Tarkovsky, “Stalker”, and Christian Art: Approaching Truth in Humility

thimblerigsark:

I’ve never seen “Stalker” (even being married to someone from the former USSR), but now I want to. I especially appreciate the analysis of modern Christian culture – and our desire to make the complex simple.

Do we do this to make God’s truths more manageable? To make it easier to consume? But is God manageable? Should God be easy to consume?

Maybe he should be. After all, God humbled himself and became a man – he became one of us – and in doing so he helped us understand him better. That was the complex becoming simpler.

But even so, weren’t people perplexed by him most of the time, even though he was one of us?

Great article Nick!

Originally posted on Nick Rynerson:

For those in the film world, there are few stars that shine as bright as that of Andrei Tarkovsky, the great Soviet film director. Tarkovsky directed only seven films in his career yet has cemented his place in the cinema canon. Very surprising, since he was doing all of his work in the heavily censored Soviet Russia at a time when there was only minimal creative freedom, yet that may be that very fact may be the reason Tarkovsky is so great. Aside from his staple cinematography, Tarkovsky is known for his highly symbolic and highly allegorical themes. Which, if you think about it, makes perfect sense. If you’re going to make anti-communist art in Soviet Russia, you better make darn sure it goes over the heads of the censorship bureau!

Never has then been done better than in his 1979 magnum opus, the three and a half hour long

View original 557 more words

A Unicorn Singing Michael Bolton. Just because.

I’ve been writing a lot about faith based films lately.  Now I think it’s time for a unicorn singing Michael Bolton.

You know, because Thimblerig’s Ark has unicorns and all.

Anyway… enjoy.

By the way, you can also enjoy Serenading Unicorn singing Culture Club and Boyz II Men.