I hope these short stories, novellas and other bits bring you joy. Writing them brought me joy because the creative process is inherently joy filled. We are given the raw material of language from before birth, when our brains and bodies undergo the truly mind blowing process of pre-programmed creation. From the moment of conception the self-extracting instructions stored on DNA follow the path towards birth without any further input from the mom or dad.
Eventually we’re born, and with no further need of the womb we are at the mercy and love of our parents. We make lots of noise, crying mostly, when we’re young. Eventually we make complex noises, learn more vocabulary and grammar rules and start having conversations. Girls develop speech faster than boys but we eventually even out and learn to frustrate one another by too much or too little speech.
It helps me to remember that God spoke our world into existence then provided us with instructions regarding what to do with it all.
I love it that there is development in our civilization. A beaver building its den and dam doesn’t have to re-invent the process every generation, neither does he have to innovate or improve his den with power windows and built in bookcases. Beavers today are following the same process as beavers 2000 years ago. They seem pretty happy with themselves so I’d soon just let them be.
Humans, on the other hand, think a lot. We’re always sharing or stealing ideas and manipulating them to our own benefit, giving patent attorneys fits. Our biological needs, like the beavers, haven’t changed in 2000 years. But our building processes and materials have become increasingly more complex as our understanding of material science has grown exponentially. We live in an age of breathtaking technological progress.
Although we inherit the bounty of previous generations’ hard work and ingenuity, we have not seen the same growth curve of inherited peace, patience, kindness, longsuffering, love or joy. The teachings of Jesus, His prescription for a life built on solid rock, and not sand, must be re-learned with every generation of His followers. There is no “repository of spiritual maturity” from which people can make withdrawals to improve themselves. Every generation must pass through some very painful stages of growth. We don’t have to re-discover Newton’s laws of motion, or the lifting properties of a fixed wing in aircraft.
The writer of Ecclesiastes notes, “There is nothing new under the sun.”
The beavers, at least, know this. We learn as we go, like on the job training.
The characters in my stories are all loved by Jesus, at least I love them in Jesus because they are me.
I am Seargent Winter in “Winter Growth”
I am the skeptical old man in “The Birds And The Bees”.
I am Kukli in “Sky Writing”
I am (retard girl) in “The Beast At The Christmas Party”
I am Abby in “Hidden Abby”
Maybe my little stories are more like thought experiments, which require no flasks or chemicals, incubators or vacuum chambers, scalpel or microscopes. The elements of the classical scientific method, Thesis, Experiment, Observation, Conclusion, are all performed in our minds.