Confirmation and Conviction

It seems to me that the church today largely ignores the aspect of having one’s beliefs or actions confirmed by teaching. How often have you listened to a sermon or Bible lesson and heard the speaker say something like, “This passage is so convicting to me, because I realize that I don’t do this well enough. Let’s all pray that God will help us to do this better.”

But you’re sitting there reading the passage and thinking, “I don’t know… That’s not really somewhere I have problems. In fact, this is one area of my life where I’m pretty sure I’m walking rightly!”

Am I the only one who does that?

Ideas for Marketing a Self-published Picture Book

My friend Katie Lynn Daniels just launched her new self-published picture book, The Tale of Pirate Shishkabob. She was looking for marketing ideas a few months ago, and that intrigued me.

How does one market a self-published picture book? It’s not like an e-book novel, where you can try to market to people online and get them to buy it on a whim. This is a hard copy, sit-in-my-lap-and-let-me-read-to-you book. The target audience isn’t online! You can’t depend on little Johnny seeing your book in Wal-Mart and begging mommy to buy it. No, you really have your work cut out for you!

But there must be some way, so I began to think of ideas for her and came up with the list below. I haven’t tried most of these, but they’re here and maybe somebody will find them helpful.

Subtle Selfishness

Maybe I think about phrasing far too much, but there’s this one phrase we say all the time that I think is subtly selfish.

It’s the simple phrase, “I wish you were here.”

And I know you’re thinking I’m crazy to find selfishness in this phrase that’s always used to mean one is missing a friend or loved one. Hey, I said that I might be over-thinking this! But let me explain.

Musical Influences

I play the guitar. Almost every week, I can be found at Elim Baptist Church with a friendly bunch of other musicians, smiling big and doing something I absolutely enjoy.

I also love to listen to all kinds of music. I listen to film scores, bluegrass, classic rock, folk, electronic, classical, pop, blues, zydeco, gospel, jazz, and on and on and on. It’s all so interesting and fascinating to listen to, and I love the variety.

Of course, my listening tends to flow naturally into my playing. And there are also other people and things that influence what I do on my guitar. This post is about as many of those influences as I can think of.

Musical Stuff That Makes Me Smile

Recently, I tweeted this:

I’m a total sucker for songs with “do-do-do-do” parts or whistling. True story.

That started me thinking about other musical things I’m “a total sucker” for. What makes me smile, will 99% of the time mean I will have a new favorite song?

Well, I’ll start with the two I mentioned in the tweet and move on from there.

Lullabies

Today, I am obsessed with lullabies. I think it was brought on by my reading a particular scene in The Hunger Games two days ago, and it’s just taken this long to catch up with me.

I’m absolutely enraptured by these beautiful, simple songs that convey a sense of calm and I-love-you. Some are wistful, some are whimsical, and some are just wonderful. And those are three of my favorite emotions.

A Word I Adore

I just checked to see when my last post was. *gulp*

It’s not because I haven’t been writing. In fact, I have drafted several posts over the past couple of months… They just haven’t been posted because… Well… They’re a little dangerous. Unconventional. Trouble-making. And they’re not done. And even if they were done, I’m not certain I should post them.

So, since I haven’t been posting those, I thought I’d drop a new favorite word and let you puzzle it out.

Lately, I’ve been absolutely enraptured by the word serendipity.

Look it up if you don’t know it. See if you like it, too.

Why do I like it? I can’t quite explain that. It’s something you have to feel.

(L. M. Montgomery, all these italics are entirely your fault!)

I Became Poetic While Cooking

I became poetic while cooking last night;
My muse came on as quesadillas browned.
It all began when I thought out with delight,
“I drain the milky whey from my cheese.”

This awful pun did set me off;
I no longer could think in prose.
Though normally I would stop and scoff,
My mind wouldn’t leave that phrase alone.

So now I put it here on my blog
And hope this brings me relief.
I’m sinking in a wordplay bog
But maybe now I’ll get free.

For Valentines Day: Words I Dislike (And Why)

Here comes Singles Awareness… I mean Valentines Day again. This year, various conversations have reminded me of a set of words that I absolutely despise.

What words? Girlfriend and boyfriend.

Why?

Taking girlfriend as an example, since I’m a guy, here’s my reasoning for not using these words.

I Miss the Rain

I miss the rain that fell
as summer ended months ago.
Gray sky today speaks of rain;
it won’t really come till spring.

Waiting, sighing, pleading
for the
pretty
rain
to
fall.