Posted tagged ‘fiction’

« Words from WW Blog home page

Looking Like Carl

December 15, 2025

“ And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” (2 Corinthians 3:18)

The Youth Sunday School Class I teach told me that I look like Carl Fredricksen from the movie “Up.” They even found a picture on the internet and displayed it on the screen in our classroom…with me standing beside a backgrounded Carl. Unfortunately, there was a resemblance. I’m a few years away from(hopefully) being a full-fledged member of the Carl Club, but he is leaking into me.

Most of us are hopeful that we resemble someone who is nice, or at least good-looking. A good friend of mine was compared to supervillain Gru from the “Despicable Me” film series. Funny how both of us have been compared to animated characters.

My hope is that, despite my similarities to Carl, minus the walking stick, I am resembling Jesus a little more each day, as opposed to being villainous and despicable. It’s a daily…no, I mean an ongoing moment-by-moment possibility. The closer I stay to Jesus the more I understand His mercy, compassion, forgiveness, and grace. When I talk about needing peace of mind, I need only to look in His direction and have a chat with Him about my troubled soul.

Our culture’s understanding of transformation is more instantaneous. You weren’t, and now you are. You didn’t have it, and now you do. My hunger was transformed in a few moments by the super-sized McDonald’s meal; and then shortly after that, my appeased appetite would be transformed into indigestion. Transformation is understood differently in the physical world.

In the spiritual world, it’s a journey, more like slowly turning a giant freighter in the midst of the vast sea. It’s a daily prayer of repentance and hope, thankfulness and praise.

I am thankful for others who have been on this journey before me and whom I can look to as reflections of Jesus. My dad was one of those. Some say I am a physical recreation of him. He was the Deacon Emeritus of his church, a man wise and grounded, kind and friendly, a listener and a doer. In his last couple of years of life, he had what was called a “hurry-cane,” like Carl’s, but he was never in a hurry when there was someone who needed a word of encouragement or redirection.

I may look like Carl Fredricksen, but I hope I reflect Laurence Wolfe.

Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Slip Ons

December 11, 2025


“Diligent hands will rule, but laziness ends in forced labor.” (Proverbs 12:24)

I bought a pair of shoes that are “slip-ons.” They sit on the floor of my closet, and I effortlessly slide my feet into them. I’m not sure how I feel about it. There’s a slither of guilt as I slip into the slippers. Is it a sign of my laziness? As Proverbs hints, am I one of those slackers that thinks work is a four-letter word? Oh, that’s right. It is.

What are the limits of convenience? I have visions of Rosie the Robot from The Jetsons, running around and making life easy for George and company.

Slip-ons are nice. I don’t grunt when I slide into them. When I revert to a pair of shoes that have shoelaces that need to be tied, I grunt as I lean over to tie the knot. I never used to grunt like a pig when grabbing the laces, but it’s now come to that. Unfortunately, I don’t have slip-on socks, so Porky is still making sounds.

Which prompts the question? What’s the next invention that will lean me even more into being incapable of labor? A car that drives itself? (Oh, I guess technology is ahead of the game already on that one!) A business that allows me to order up a meal without having to cook it, and have it delivered to my residence? (Oh! I’m way behind on that one!) A buttoned-down shirt that doesn’t need to be buttoned, but just slides on (even over my mid-section)?

I know, I know, convenience has saturated my life for a long, long time. I’m now having a hard time even remembering the pre-microwave oven days, or the days when someone had to actually get out of their chair and walk to the TV to change the channel. In the distant memories of my mind are the days before my grandparents had indoor plumbing. (Yes, they had an outhouse…complete with spiders and other creepy things)

The bible seems to promote a work ethic that has now been redefined. When work ethic is discussed, it is usually equated with getting things done, rather than slouching in the recliner with a beer and a bag of chips close at hand.

Students with a solid work ethic are usually organized and complete their assignments on time… and well. True confession! I was a procrastinator who completed assignments at the last minute. In recent times (Maybe it’s a COVID thing), students don’t even do the assignments. Sloth has settled into the classroom.

Of course, our churches have “slip-ins.” They are people who slip in and slip out, like cars in a McDonald’s drive-thru. Slip in to get a nugget of spiritual direction and slip out to resume the other 99% of life. That is, unless there is a crisis that needs more than a moment. That sounds like a variation of laziness that results in “forced labor.” Forced labor being defined as “having to deal with what has been ignored.”

Back to my “slip-ons.” One remedy is to hide them in the closet and return to my days of grunting and bending over in discomfort. Or, maybe a better solution is to balance my convenience with another way of service and help, like emptying the dishwasher, shoveling the snow in the driveway of one of our neighbors up the street who is dealing with cancer, making myself available to help at school, or inviting the neighborhood to our house for hot chocolate, cookies, queso, and chips on a Sunday afternoon. (Actually, Carol orchestrated that last suggestion this past February, and 20 of our neighbors came and stayed…and stayed…and stayed, almost like they were cherishing the moments)

Every time I slip on my slip-ons, it is now a reminder that my life is filled…okay blessed with an easiness. I’m reminding myself that the easiness is also a path that frees me up to do harder things.

Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Alan

October 22, 2025

“As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” (Proverbs 27:17)

As I flip through the chapters of my life, I have become ever increasingly grateful for the men with whom I’ve crossed paths. Not that there haven’t been some incredible women who have influenced me as well. After all, I am married to one of them.

Sometimes the male figures have joined me on my journey for a short time, while other guys have been along for the ride so much it’s like we’re grizzled cowboys sitting around the nightly campfire together. Short-timers and long-rangers have both been instrumental in my personal and spiritual development.

A recent “cowpoke”, so to speak, is an older fella’ named Alan, who sits at the same Starbucks counter as I do. Alan is nearing eighty, drinks his coffee from an actual Starbucks mug (just like my parents did…minus the Starbucks label), and shares the same faith view of life as I do. We talk about chess, our health status, the latest class that he is auditing at the local university, and life. Our lives can not be separated from our faith.

Alan reads my blog and, no doubt, will be slightly embarrassed that he is the prime focus of this one, but it’s true. My life is a little better because of our early morning chats. He tells me about books that he has read, or is reading. John Mark Comer is one of his favorites, while I lean towards Philip Yancey.

Alan shares simple wisdom with me, not wisdom that requires a theological surgeon to decipher. Our wives have the same first name and he hails from my neck of the woods. As we talk, questions arise about the confusing situations of life and how we sometimes have learned what’s paramount in importance by walking through the fires.

We don’t go to the same church, eat at the same restaurants, or drive vehicles of similar models. In fact, I always know he’s at Starbucks by the fact that his anciet Jeep Cherokee is backed into a space. At 5:30 in the morning, it stands out in the midst of the near-empty lot. He’s absorbed in his reading, often his bible close at hand, and unaware of my entry until I say, “Good morning, Alan!” Sometimes he’s in mid-swig as I say it, but at 5:30 he’s usually ready for a refill.

In return, he greets me as I walk the ten more feet to the other end of the counter and deposit my backpack. After I get my Yeti mug of the Pike Place brew, he strolls down to my position, white mug in hand, and we update each other on the goings-on of yesterday and the hopes of the day we have begun.

In some ways, we walk another day together, two brothers privileged to have come together in a most unlikely place, simply because we like coffee.

Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Speed Limit Therapy

September 22, 2025

   “He makes me lie down in green pastures;
he leads me beside still waters;
 he restores my soul.” (Psalm 23:2-3a)

I was annoyed!

The stoplight changed…kinda. It skipped me, and went back to cars going east-to-west, instead of my north-to-south direction. My knuckles went white as I gripped the steering wheel as if I was The Hulk.

A grandpa-style Buick turned from the east heading south just about the time my stoplight turned green. The LeSabre crept south at…the speed limit! I was in the vicinity of the speed limit as I quickly closed the distance between our two vehicles. And then I crept along behind Uncle Wilbur…and on…and on…and on.

I noticed my breathing quickened as impatience oozed from my body. Uncle Wilbur arrived at the next stoplight a mile down the road right about the time the light turned yellow…and then red. More east-to-west traffic.

And, seriously, it hit me…the dreaded question: Why am I in such a hurry? I wasn’t even going anywhere of importance. If I were on the way to the hospital (which was in the opposite direction) that would be one thing, but I was simply taking the car to the car wash. The car wash, where the attendant would have me pull into another line, almost bumper-to-bumper.

The light that Wilbur and I waited for gives preferential treatment to the east-west folk, so we waited. I think I needed the wait. I needed some therapy that smacked me square in the face about my speeding-though-life habit. I needed a Wilbur to be a driving force in communicating my urgent need to slow down. And not just while driving, but rather like the life zone version of a school zone, complete with flashing lights blaring at my insensitivity.

We have a new law in Colorado that allows motorcyclists to pull up to a red light between two lanes that are heading in the same direction. Invariably, when the light turns green the motorcycle acclerates to sixty before any of us vehicle-trapped people are even up to twenty. I hate the law, because it’s a reflection of our hurried-up culture, as well as a reminder to me that I’m utterly jealous. (Side note: Motorcyclists death are up sixty percent since 2018, and 2024 was the deadliest in Colorado history)

My speed symptoms are not a one-therapy-session situation. Like a dense sheep, I rush ahead with no thought about where I’m going or why I’m doing it. I need a couch in a counselor’s office that will force me to get off my feet.

Perhaps you’re more like me than you realize. Maybe we should pray that a LeSabre-driving Uncle Wilbur turns in front of us more often. It might be a case of, as Hebrews 13:2 says, “entertaining angels unaware.”

Slow angels, mind you. Real slow.

Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

My Book Life

January 24, 2024

Ginny Heslinga wrote an encouraging text to me about the 3 books of my RED HOT: NEW LIFE IN FLEMING novel series. At the end of her message, she asked me if I would consider doing a book about a girls’ basketball team. Book 4 in the RED HOT series has been written (FLEMING HOPE) and is in the midst of being revised and edited, but Ginny’s question got me thinking.

So, what if I wrote a book about a pastor retiring from ministry and looking for something to do with all of his freed-up time…so he decides to start substitute teaching at a middle school…and in the midst of that new world he’s experiencing, the school needs someone to coach the girls’ basketball team?

Throw in a few plot twists and interesting characters, come up with an unexpected climax, and there you go.

Oh, wait a minute! That sounds a lot like my life story. Thirty-six and a half years as a pastor, and then substitute teaching for the last few years, and coaching basketball (although I have been coaching for 30 years).

The hard question! Would the framework of my life story be strong enough to be the basis for a fictional novel? Would it be compelling enough for people to want to read? Or would it be just one of a number of novels that can be a cure for insomnia and end up in the neighborhood’s Little Library?

Does my life have enough purpose and impact that it can be a novel? Those are difficult questions to ask for each one of us. Many of us live lives that resemble a slow dance to a ho-hum monotone melody. There is a lack of energy, direction, and passion. We go aimlessly from one day to another, looking for something that we’re not sure is going to be there because we’re not sure what that “something” is.

What a challenge to write a fictional story that has more than a hint of an auto-biographical feel to it.

And because I just finished coaching our middle school’s seventh-grade girls basketball team in their last game yesterday, I have a ton of writing material. For example, when one of my players tried to help out our opponents by shooting on their basket…in the fourth quarter of a tie game! Thankfully, she missed the layup! Or when a player considered the line on the side of the court to simply be a suggestion and decided to dribble around the defender and then back onto the court. I think she thought she was allowed to go out of bounds, but the defense had to play inside the lines.

Yes, it brings back that old saying, “Truth is stranger than fiction!”

Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Writer’s Conference Anxiety

May 15, 2018

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                     May 15, 2018

                              

The Estes Park Christian Writer’s Conference is one day away and I’m feeling like a jittery five year old about to hug his mom and walk with shaking knees into his kindergarten class for the first day of school. What will happen? What if I have to go to the bathroom? What if I fall on the playground and skin my knee, or tip over the building blocks accidentally? What if my teacher doesn’t like me and makes me stand in the corner?

Kindergarten questions simply get redressed into grownup worries. As I head to the conference the questions cloud my mind like the halo on top of Pike’s Peak this morning. 

What if my clinic teacher tells me that my writing really sucks? What if they use literary terms that I have no clue about? What is the people there are about half a bubble off center…you know, the elevator doesn’t go to the top floor? What if I have to go to the bathroom really bad? (As you can tell, I’m a bit concerned about taking care of “my business!”) What if I get asked a question and my mind goes as blank as a stare? What if I get Gordon Ramsay for an instructor, complete with English accent and expletives? 

When you have never experienced something you begin to let your mind wander to dark places. 

I WAS accepted as one of six people in the Fiction Intensive Clinic. I had to send my book synopsis and first chapter to the clinic teacher about two months ago and the six of us that were accepted were notified at the end of April. Each of us now has the first chapter and synopsis of the others in the group. There will be some major critiquing and, hopefully, encouragement as we learn about writing tendencies and bad habits. 

I will have appointments with a few literary agents, with hopes that someone will be interested in my book enough to express desire in getting it in front of some publishers. In the midst of this is some personal pride about the story I’ve created, the characters I’ve come to love, and the value of the message that the book brings. My stomach becomes a bit queasy thinking that I’ve written four hundred pages that might get trashed. Actually, I’ve written eight hundred plus pages, because the sequel to the first book has already had its first draft finished. The third book has already been started. Through the pages of type I’ve come to love the characters like the ninth grader, Randy Bowman, and his seventh grade neighbor and friend, Ethan Thomas. It hit me a while ago that I WAS Ethan Thomas in seventh grade and I wanted to be Randy Bowman when I was a freshman. In the course of the first two books Randy helps Ethan become more than he ever thought he could be, a kid easily unseen in the midst of his school who is mentored and befriended towards the discovery of potential and value. 

And, that is also why there is anxiety about this new experience. I’m all in with the story! Like a fourteen year old who discovers his name is not on the list of players who made the basketball team, I’m trying to brace myself for the possibility of disappointment, but also hold out hope that…something just might happen!

Regardless, I believe that God has orchestrated this moment. I’m just hoping that it doesn’t sound like a harmonica in the midst of a wind ensemble!

Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, coaching, Community, Faith, Freedom, Grace, Humor, Jesus, Parenting, Pastor, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: 3 Comments

The Value Of Being Told You Aren’t All That

April 29, 2018

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                     APRIL 29, 2018

 

In seventeen days I’ll be pulling out of our driveway and heading to Estes Park, Colorado for the Christian Writers Conference. For me it has the feel of a rookie arriving at spring training camp…the anxiety of being the new kid, the uncertainty of what I’ll find out, and the fear of being told my writing sucks the wind!

I received the good news this past week that I was accepted into the Fiction Intensive Clinic, a group limited to six that will spend a number of hours together during the three day conference affirming, questioning, and dissecting the synopsis and first chapter of each other’s book.

In preparation for the conference, a friend of mine arranged a luncheon meeting with him and a man, who works for the same Christian publishing company, to discuss my book and offer me some guidance. At Estes Park I will have the opportunity to meet with several literary agents, but each of those appointments are only 15 minutes long.

We sat munching on our lunch and chit-chatting and then my lunch partner asked me a question: “Tell me what your book is about in one sentence.”

I pondered for a moment between bites and then offered something that didn’t make much sense, and was more than one sentence.

Followup: “Would you say the book is character-based or a plot-based?”

“Well, I think it would be character-based, although there is the building to a climax and…”

A couple of other followup questions and then the bad news.

“If I was a publisher I don’t think I would be interested in pursuing the book.”

Gulp! My sweet beverage suddenly had a sour taste to it.

It was hard to hear, but probably what I needed to hear. Not that the book isn’t good enough to be published, but rather that I need to be clearer on my understanding and presentation about it. A fifteen minute appointment is not a long time and in those brief moments the presenter needs to communicate what the story is about, its audience, and why I wrote it. My critic did me a favor. He showed me that after you write a double-spaced 400 page book you have to do the hard work of being able to present it.

Part of who we are, our DNA personality if you will, is the desire to “be all that”, to think that we have it…the next Hemingway, or Missy Franklin, or Taylor Swift. We want whatever our performance is to be awe-inspiring and jaw-dropping.

Words of reality are needed to bring us back to who we really are and what we need to do. I officiated high school and small college basketball for sixteen years, and I saw my share of officials who never raised their level of performance because they wouldn’t listen to the words of their evaluators. I was only able to raise my level because I listened to people who were willing to tell me where I needed to improve, questioned me about certain whistles I had during games, and quizzed me on “what if’s”.

There is value in being told that you aren’t all that! In Estes Park I’m sure I’ll hear variations of those words a number of times, but there will also be words said in a way that will spur me on towards a desired outcome.

Categories: children, coaching, Community, Freedom, Grace, Humor, Pastor, Story, Teamwork, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

The Relevancy of Libraries

August 28, 2017

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                           August 28, 2017

                                  

I remember the library in Ironton, Ohio. Its familiarity was due to the fact that it was right next door to the First Baptist Church of Ironton, the church that ordained me! That was about as close as I got to discovering the library back in those days. It was a place of books, shelves, and cranky librarians.

Sad as it is, I can not even remember where the library was located in my old high school. Yes, I realize that was forty-five years ago, but you would think I could recall its approximate location. It was not crucial, however, to the attainment of my 2.5 grade point average! Conversely, at the school where I substitute teach and coach now the LMC (Library Media Center) is the activity hub of the school.

In recent times I’ve actually discovered the INSIDE of the library that is about two miles from our house. It is wonderful! It’s a place of books, computers, DVD’s, magazines, lectures, displays, and…librarians who smile!

There is growing debate about the relevancy of the public library. Its naysayers promote the value of the internet as now being the ultimate source of knowledge, immediate access to information, and available anywhere. As is often the case their viewpoint is as one-sided as a political party position. There is merit in what they say, without a doubt, and yet there is also a naiveness bundled with it.

I’ll go to our public library tonight to spend a couple of hours in quiet and contemplation. I recently finished the first draft of a book I had been writing. Most of the book was written from a quiet area on the first floor of the library. Being surrounded by books and other people’s creativity prompted the igniting of words in my own mind.

Last Saturday I picked up a DVD from the library that we watched with our three grandkids that night.

Last week I gazed upon the display shelves of about a hundred different magazines. To see them side by side, and to read the titles of articles, was an intriguing experience.

Libraries are depositories of ideas, thoughts, and stories. They are my refuge from the noise of life. I am a lover of history, biographies, and mysteries. I’m currently reading a book about presidential campaigns by John Dickerson entitled Whistlestops; and a Greg Iles mystery Blood Memory. Before these books I read Alan Taylor’s American Revolutions, John Sanford’s Golden Prey, Kristin Hannah’s The Nightingale, and Glen Jeansonne’s Herbert Hoover: A Life. All of them I could have ordered from Amazon, but all of them I checked out from the public library.

The demise of the public library will come, not so much because of the internet, but because less people see the value in reading. We have been “Tweeterized” in our reading focus. Although reading is stressed and emphasized so much in school, adults seem to have evolved into 140 character beings. They have slumped into the non-commitment of being couch potatoes. Let’s pray that downward trend in reading  shifts back the other way because there is enough ignorance being shown in opinions right now even with the presence of libraries. To have them become a thing of the past will open the floodgates for people to say even more stupid things…and even more people to take the stupid things as being truth!

Categories: children, Community, Freedom, Nation, Parenting, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment