Dale Amidei's Blog

Hey there. I know, it’s been awhile.

I’m writing this on the day following President Trump’s airstrikes on the three most prominent Iranian nuclear facilities. It was historic day to be sure. But historicity isn’t what concerns me at the moment.

As you know, I wrote fiction in three series, and endeavor which has largely run its course. As you might not be aware, each of those sixteen titles was structured around a different core theme comprised of an element of character. I did so each time with the ambition of going forward from the novel with my reader from then on, and if you’re one, I surely hope I have. And I still care about that, hence another post, this one, out of semi-retirement.

What I’m seeing too much of today, and what is concerning enough to prompt this column, is fear. Fear is natural, of course, but so are the other vices that challenge us from birth to death. Overcoming those is the function of character, and it’s character with which we should concern ourselves, not the avoidance of situations which might provoke our anxiety.

The wife of a Navy SEAL of my acquaintance had this advice for him prior to leaving on a hazardous deployment during the Global War on Terror (GWOT): “Don’t fear dying. It only makes you weak.”

Stacy is a badass in her own right, but that’s another story.

Our intellectual mind knows that fear isn’t productive. So what do we have available as an alternative?

I would assert that the best option is faith, which in turn arises out of faithfulness. What worries a person is telling in regard to where they are holistically. The primary challenge in life is usually maintaining perspective, gathering information, and acting in the best interest of our hierarchy of concerns. Adrenaline sometimes aids in that, to be sure, but paralyzing fear never does.

This morning in Wayne, Michigan an individual attacked a church with homicidal intent and was cooled down in admirable fashion by the congregation’s security. The video available so far shows church members in fear, and others following a preconceived plan. Guess which of those helped bring the situation to a successful conclusion?

The OODA loop– Observe, Orient, Decide and Act– occurs faster in people who have considered the possibility of a given situation ahead of time. Training does this in a structured fashion, but one doesn’t need formal training to implement a plan. One needs a plan, and hopefully one that been validated by past experience, whether it be firsthand or otherwise.

Having a plan is the best way to negate fear in the tactical sense. Faith is its corollary in the realm of of the spirit. In the matter of past experience, we have the example of the men who walked with Christ, and whose stalwart missionary work for thirty years was, excepting John, ended only by martyrdom. They did not fear death for the same reason we should not, because Jesus is there and nothing will occur that is outside of His will for us once we believe.

Knowing, being convinced, faithfully living in the light of such things leaves no foothold for fear. Caution, certainly, concern always, diligence as a lifestyle, yes. But not fear.

Jesus knew we would, and He told us we should not, and faith will provide all the validating evidence for our courage once we take up our responsibilities to believe. It’s really no more difficult to understand. Of all the things I said in my novels, this might be the most important.

Choose to love – DA

*****

In such news as I have, audio books for the sixteen titles in my catalog, previously available for iOS devices through Apple, are now also available from Amazon via their Audible program. If you at times listen instead of read, I hope you’ll find this of interest. These last, as I’ve been told, are available at a discount for Kindle books you’ve downloaded already (including my three free titles).

So, enjoy, be well, and let not your heart be troubled in the meantime. We’ve really no time for it, anyway.

Auberon
Almost Christmas Day

Boone came back downstairs from her working space on the Georgian brick’s upper story without making a sound, as the big house was silent now and its silence seemed too peaceful to disturb with bustle or carelessness. As she suspected, Terry and their daughter remained in the living room … on the sofa and biggest chair. Both were wrapped in fleece throws and asleep across from the embers of the fire that he, as always, hated to leave unattended while the hearth still shed its warmth.

She lowered the lighting to further the ambiance of the family room. The blessing of it manifested again, for they had made it so. The old if updated house was again a home, with the people here a family. Love is what did this, Boone thought with satisfaction.

With the lights dimmed, Boone was drawn to a window now traced with frost, for this Christmas Eve had brought with it a rare snowfall. Perhaps one in twenty Christmases whitened the Virginia horse country, but in this year such had arrived right on time, making the season even more special. Afterward the sky had cleared, and now there was time for the stars to shine over the scene. It would be a shame to waste it.

Boone glided to the entry and slipped into her winter boots, donning her coat and raising its fur-lined hood over her blaze of auburn hair, only now mingling with a strand or two of mother’s gray. She just as quietly undid the door and slipped outside, where brisk air–refreshing as it was–provided a stark contrast to the warmth inside. Drawing her outwear close, she stepped out onto the fresh snow, looking up at the display above her.

The dark sky sent down its glory on this night, unimpeded by a sliver of waning moon. The Milky Way wound across it, and Boone stared back in time in appreciation of the stars there. Turning to regard the scene above the house, she noticed a faint wisp of light extinguish behind the window of Elena’s upper room. Of course. I’ve tickled the perimeter security. I’m sorry, dear. Her housekeeper and daughter’s ever-protective nanny would be returning to sleep now, after confirming via her smartphone that it was Auberon’s sometimes-nocturnal mistress on the grounds in the night.

Boone turned again, wheeling, taking it all in, reveling in the blessings of her present life. She could not now see it otherwise, as the temptation to take pride in her achievements, education, finances, … her work, her marriage were part of an old mind, one that had its course corrected by faith. And only just in time, she knew without doubt.

Such was what they remembered at Christmastime. Boone’s intelligence career and her ongoing efforts for her father’s private firm dealt in things that were real. Information, sifted against other information, produced the patterns of a cross-verifying framework where she and so many like her in the field determined the given moment’s state of actuality. Those enabled solid decisions keeping those deciding on an even keel of wisdom. So it goes everywhere.

The night was so quiet. The Virginia countryside was asleep and the stars had the dark to themselves. Boone barely felt like breathing, much less moving. This is more than nature. It is testimony.

It was part of her makeup now, her perspective, though it sadly had not always been so. “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands,” the psalmist has written, and the apostle Paul had expounded on His will: being understood from what has been made. That’s what it was always about, wasn’t it?

Boone has been outside some minutes already; long enough, as the chill in the air reminded. It was Christmas Day now, she knew. Her coat pulled close as she wrapped her arms around herself, knowing it was so but unwilling to depart from the lingering moment.

“Emmanuel. God with us,” she whispered, her breath visible in the frosty air. The smile that followed was an upwelling of gratitude from her soul emerging into the world, as faith was wont to do.

*****

Merry Christmas! Choose to love. -DA

Auberon
Almost Christmas Day

Boone came back downstairs from her working space on the Georgian brick’s upper story without making a sound, as the big house was silent now and its silence seemed too peaceful to disturb with bustle or carelessness. As she suspected, Terry and their daughter remained in the living room … on the sofa and biggest chair. Both were wrapped in fleece throws and asleep across from the embers of the fire that he, as always, hated to leave unattended while the hearth still shed its warmth.

She lowered the lighting to further the ambiance of the family room. The blessing of it manifested again, for they had made it so. The old if updated house was again a home, with the people here a family. Love is what did this, Boone thought with satisfaction.

With the lights dimmed, Boone was drawn to a window now traced with frost, for this Christmas Eve had brought with it a rare snowfall. Perhaps one in twenty Christmases whitened the Virginia horse country, but in this year such had arrived right on time, making the season even more special. Afterward the sky had cleared, and now there was time for the stars to shine over the scene. It would be a shame to waste it.

Boone glided to the entry and slipped into her winter boots, donning her coat and raising its fur-lined hood over her blaze of auburn hair, only now mingling with a strand or two of mother’s gray. She just as quietly undid the door and slipped outside, where brisk air–refreshing as it was–provided a stark contrast to the warmth inside. Drawing her outwear close, she stepped out onto the fresh snow, looking up at the display above her.

The dark sky sent down its glory on this night, unimpeded by a sliver of waning moon. The Milky Way wound across it, and Boone stared back in time in appreciation of the stars there. Turning to regard the scene above the house, she noticed a faint wisp of light extinguish behind the window of Elena’s upper room. Of course. I’ve tickled the perimeter security. I’m sorry, dear. Her housekeeper and daughter’s ever-protective nanny would be returning to sleep now, after confirming via her smartphone that it was Auberon’s sometimes-nocturnal mistress on the grounds in the night.

Boone turned again, wheeling, taking it all in, reveling in the blessings of her present life. She could not now see it otherwise, as the temptation to take pride in her achievements, education, finances, … her work, her marriage were part of an old mind, one that had its course corrected by faith. And only just in time, she knew without doubt.

Such was what they remembered at Christmastime. Boone’s intelligence career and her ongoing efforts for her father’s private firm dealt in things that were real. Information, sifted against other information, produced the patterns of a cross-verifying framework where she and so many like her in the field determined the given moment’s state of actuality. Those enabled solid decisions keeping those deciding on an even keel of wisdom. So it goes everywhere.

The night was so quiet. The Virginia countryside was asleep and the stars had the dark to themselves. Boone barely felt like breathing, much less moving. This is more than nature. It is testimony.

It was part of her makeup now, her perspective, though it sadly had not always been so. “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands,” the psalmist has written, and the apostle Paul had expounded on His will: being understood from what has been made. That’s what it was always about, wasn’t it?

Boone has been outside some minutes already; long enough, as the chill in the air reminded. It was Christmas Day now, she knew. Her coat pulled close as she wrapped her arms around herself, knowing it was so but unwilling to depart from the lingering moment.

“Emmanuel. God with us,” she whispered, her breath visible in the frosty air. The smile that followed was an upwelling of gratitude from her soul emerging into the world, as faith was wont to do.

*****

Merry Christmas! Choose to love. -DA

Hi there. I know … it’s been a while.

If you’ve not already, please come to where the action is on 𝕏.com and join me as we embrace life’s ongoing mission: rescuing clarity from the insidious embrace of derp. Articles there will augment posts on this site. In the meantime …

This, as if you’ve not noticed, is a special time in American history. Ground-shifts in prevailing thought mark the times that will be remembered for the lessons they offer, at least for those who will preserve the wisdom, carry it into the future, and put it to work there.

Humans are one of the thinking animals. Those of us concerned with the quality of said thought tend to focus on broader issues: reduction to essence, deconstruction to an underlying premise, relational analysis. If there is a narrative to be promoted in this camp, it is one that encourages the Berean trait of cross-verification, for the truth fears nothing from inspection.

The polar opposite is the philosophy you might have seen embraced by NPR’s CEO Katherine Maher, where: “Truth is a distraction from getting things done.” These are the left- and right-hand outliers, one might say, on the ideological bell-shaped curve of standard distribution.

Our primary challenge in life is navigation, and that depends entirely on maintaining our perspective. Vices beckon from the left and virtue from the right: fear versus hope, dependence competing with strength-building, short-term gain versus enduring long-term gratification.

What you think matters, which is why such extreme efforts are made to manipulate your thought.

Loving life as we must, ultimately we must accommodate the fact that its beauty lies in fleeting fragility, and that to truly endure we must affiliate ourselves with something more. Faith, patriotism, fidelity, and family is where we can find a connection to the future that will outlast ourselves.

There is a distinctly American culture that remains under attack by homogenizing globalists; they realize the ideology of the Founders was specifically designed to counteract politically predatory motivating influences. The weave of American society, produced on the loom of the last decade in the eighteenth century, utilized threads of character wound with virtue rather than vice, and it’s not surprising the political Left is grasping at these one at a time to see where unraveling self-focus might begin.

Voices with your best interest in mind—as opposed to theirs—will encourage strength, independence, courage, and charity. Beware those who call eternal virtues outdated; virtue, like truth, endures for the simple reason that actuality needs to be accommodated. The state of affairs in natural law is starting point for the successful, while a faulted premise embraced and extended consistently ends in disaster (See: Harris/Walz 2024).

The political Left, at this moment, is reeling from a significant setback. To make this moment endure, here at the potential threshold of another ‘Era of Good Feelings,’ we need to highlight at every turn of the national conversation the fundamental strengths of virtue and the recurrent failings of vice. The contrasts are stark and the realization now widespread. The future depends on our courage in preserving the national character’s reflection of moral, ideological Americanism.

Granted, participating in history, rather than simply passing through it, is not for the faint of heart. Boone’s advice to a young Dina Lyubov in A Garden in Russia, though, applies for us all: “When fear keeps you from your promises, your duty, from accomplishing whatever it is you are tasked to do by your love for others … only then are you a coward.”

Go live like an American. Choose to love.

*****

In other news, my internal debate between getting a fair price for my work and having those titles go unread has been resolved, with the result of November sales outpacing the previous months of this year combined. To be sure, I was given a vision to write as I have, not one that I should much profit from the work. Such is the nature of a ministry. Interest accrues in a realm beyond our sight.

To that end, all Dale Amidei novels have been priced at less than a buck until at least the turn of the New Year. Feel free to load up your device with my compliments, please tell other readers, and we’ll see what 2025 brings.

In your case, may it be blessed. -DA

Sheffield, MD
Christmas Eve

They were on their way home from the Christmas Eve service at the little nondenominational church he had frequented since his graduate work … and that was years ago already, before the first few gray hairs had appeared in his still sandy–blonde hair. Jon Anthony turned down the main street of their town, which was home to the acclaimed Britteridge College where he now enjoyed tenure.

“Oh, the lights! Can you see, girls?” Mary, beside him in the front seat of their Honda Accord, asked, swiveling toward the back.

“Yeah, Mom.”

He saw Gracie was enjoying their tour of the light shows across town. Some neighborhoods did better than others, but Sheffield’s main thoroughfare was known for the work the town businesses put forward in a yearly contest of outdoing themselves and each other in a seasonal display of illuminated decorations. Her sister, however, seemed less enthused.

Jon glanced in the rearview to confirm Faith was strapped in her riser seat. No, she was not happy. “What’s the matter, honey?” he asked.

“It’s nothing,” Fay attempted in her usual stoic monotone that was a dead giveaway she was holding something back.

“Kiddo, you know that’s not allowed. We talk. Remember the rule?” Mary reminded their daughter.

Jon glanced at the mirror again. Faith was getting That Knowing Look from her sister; one they shared when busted.

“It’s not Christmas, Daddy.”

From the corner of his eye, he saw Mary cock her head and glance his way. This was his territory. For a decade, he’d been teaching Comparative Religion up on The Hill, not to speak of the books and speaking tours and regular television appearances as a commentator that were offshoots of this life he had somehow been gifted. To parent was to teach, and its return was tallied in a currency far beyond a salary. “What isn’t Christmas, sweetie?” he prodded in a gentle voice.

Fay pointed. “Look, on the light pole. It’s a penguin.” She picked out another decoration on the other side of the street. “And that’s a snowman. And there’s a wrapped present ….“

Yes. Jon saw the problem that was growing in his daughter’s young mind.

“At school you took us to a Holiday Party. “

Yes, I did. Mary had a look of concern on her face now, but this conversation was still his, and though he saw Gracie was paying attention as well, both of them were staying on the sidelines. “You’re not wrong, Fay.”

“It makes me sad is all.”

“And that’s okay, honey.” Jon drew a contemplative breath. His daughters’ questions about the season were answered early in their lives, as he and Mary made clear the hierarchy ordering their existence and the expectations their children were to follow through what certainly could be a maddeningly disappointing world.

Britteridge College, regardless of the lengths the institution had gone through to keep him on board after events early in his career, remained a liberal arts college. The hints of woke activism of a few years ago had blossomed into what was becoming a philosophical pathology Dr. Jon Anthony knew he would confront sooner or later on campus, if not in his own classroom. Yet, as ever, today’s the thing.

Jon glanced back to Fay again. “I have a question.” He met her eyes in the mirror when they returned, then gestured at the light displays hung up, down, and across the business district. “These aren’t always here, are they?”

“No.” his daughter answered in an unsure tone of voice.

“And even when they were hung up there they weren’t what they are right now, were they? What had to happen first?”

“It had to get dark.”

Not what I was getting at, but isn’t she right, though? Jon smiled. “And then what happened?”

Fay thought for a second as Gracie looked her way and smiled too. “Someone had to turn them on.”

“There you go.” They reached the end of Main Street and turned toward the Historical District, where the same little house they’d always known waited for all of them. Soon, the secular influences of practical people overly concerned with diversity and inclusion and avoiding offended seekers of lame advantage gave way … first to a star, then a creche, and then the bright red and white “MERRY CHRISTMAS” that always marked the house Dean Mills lit up for the season.

“It can be a dark world, honey. Be a worker in light,” he encouraged, checking the mirror and his daughters again. “And you both know how to do that, don’t you?”

“Yes, Daddy,” they said together. He knew they meant it. He caught Mary settling back to grant him another approving look, as one more lesson was deposited into his legacy. He knew—in the conscious awe of appreciation—how he and they had been blessed.

The world was what it was. It was the reason Jesus had been here, and remained here with them, just as He’d promised, even to the end of the age. For the Anthony family at least, Christmas was the gift.

Choose to love, and Merry Christmas! -DA

“Peering through reverent fingers, I watch them flourish and fall.”
-Rudyard Kipling, The Gods of the Copybook headings

Nothing is so imprisoning as self-imposed confinement inside walls raised around a false premise. The thralls of a deficient political ideology—one composed of nothing other than an amalgamation of retrograde societal and spiritual influences—daring to label themselves Progressives might comprise the height of irony.

Confirming that the state of affairs consistently falls apart under leftist leadership is a matter of observation. Determining why is an exercise in critical thinking that keeps one out of the barriers raised around embraced (and afterward doggedly institutionalized) folly in the first place.

It wasn’t always like this. In the days long before the Internet enabled the viral spread of absolute idiocy, established norms regulated behavior through social constructs that had endured for millennia. The natural human tendency to point out displayed stupidity and apply appropriate ridicule imprinted a necessarily brutal lesson:  obviously bad ideas are to be quashed rather than granted undeserved respect out of a sense of fairness. Thereby, the weak are chastised and observers edified.

We began our school days with the Pledge of Allegiance instilling the essence of ideological Americanism. What is the prevailing philosophy now?

I pledge allegiance to myself
In a perpetual state of indulgence
One concern, namely me
Unaccountable
With inherited grievance and social justice for all?

By now, mere days away from Joe Biden’s first and—hopefully last—midterm election, the stark contrast between effective leadership and wishful thinking has become painfully obvious … akin to staring into a sun lit by the fires of consequence. A corrupt and failing Democratic Party committed interstate conspiracy and dared to subvert the electoral process to install him as doddering political figurehead.

It had to be Joe Biden. No politician with full cognitive health could have withstood the humiliation of knowing how history would view him in retrospect after being elevated by blatant fraud.

Afterward, hubris acquired by the man over the course of decades revealed a would-be tyrant with the diseased mind of a reprobate: one approaching the demented and incoherent end game he’s earned throughout his pathetic, pandering, posturing and plagiarizing career.

I have subjected myself to the playbook of derp that comprises The Great Reset by Klaus Schwab and Thierry Malleret. I found it to be a wish list for an alternate reality and remain amazed that its publication has not provoked Ayn Rand to rise from her grave to claw out the eyes of the authors. Schwab’s World Economic Forum has been behind the grooming and installation of indoctrinated figureheads across Western society for the expressed purpose of advancing globalized government and weakening national identity. What is lacking in the thesis is any data from the real world where these consolidated brainstorms have produced anything but economic ruin and social dysfunction.

In elitist minds such as occupy the WEF, a dystopian hellscape will only produce a more compliant population. Scared and hungry people, to their ruling class mindset, will tend to do as they’re told instead of revolt and hang them from lampposts.

This is how The Way Things Are points out the worst of us: the ones possessing both the compulsion to assume control while lacking the innate ability to deliver the fruits of competent leadership. It’s no wonder their spectrum depends on election fraud and censorship directed at countering narrative rather than their ideology’s ability to prevail in the arena of ideas. Critical thinking is a survival skill, and the motivations propelling of the ego-driven WEF comprise nothing but the fuel for history next ash layer.

They call us Christian Nationalists. That’s how faithless globalized socialists identify their enemies: by identifying and disparaging their virtues.

What the cabal who installed Joe Biden as an alleged president has accomplished thus far into his tenure can hardly be termed progress if he was ever intended to fulfill his Oath of Office in the first place. If their goals are otherwise, yes, progress indeed has been made.

If their goal is to maintain power through perpetually inflating their vote totals via the manipulation of rigged machine counts, they’ve made stellar progress. If they intend to create and leverage societal dysfunction through inherited grievance and groomed intersectional victimhood complexes, they’ve not only made progress, but emerged as the preeminent beneficiary of the elimination of personal responsibility and utter rejection of pursued reverent wisdom.

They’ve built a high castle of wretchedness on a foundation of sand. The results are inevitable and effortless to predict even without bestowed prophecy.

Today’s Democratic Party is beyond pity. Jesus, when he allowed the demons in Luke Ch.8 to enter the herd of pigs, knew they would cast themselves into deep water and drown. The recent departure of Tulsi Gabbard has followed a virtual exodus of conscience from the Democrats. Act upon act of fiscal irresponsibility, resulting economic damage, and faithless treason has exceeded the affiliative capacity of countless Americans who can no longer move with those marching toward the precipice directly in the path of their former party.

What once could pass as ideology on the Left has crossed the boundary between rationality and mental illness. Mental illness needs to be confined and treated, not enabled and affirmed. Otherwise, it progresses until the life fueling the journey is expended, and death wins again.

It’s not the business of the living to allow death another victory. The exception, as the doctrine of Christian warfare decrees to the detriment of the unrighteous, is where preservation of what we defend outweighs the toll extracted by the battlefield.

Today’s Democratic Party, if the Republic is to be preserved, needs to be disempowered to the point of political irrelevance at every level of governance it defiles. The sin nature cultivated in their sphere of influence—the retrograde forces preying on the spiritually dead, irresolute, morally weak, cowardly and otherwise vulnerable—progresses in the same sense of pathology whereby we track the course of any other disease.

There is a cure for every ill. Sometimes the course of treatment is painful. In the worst cases the condition has progressed past the point of no return, which is why avoidance in addressing any serious health concern is unwise.

America isn’t past the point of recovery yet. God willing, should a tidal wave of resentment and dutiful attendance at the polls have an ideologically American resurgence sweep the electoral landscape in November, the ruins of the political Left will stand as a warning to others that no one should ever, ever attempt to assume power through dishonest electoral measures again.

The resulting repudiation might be difficult for Joe Biden to bear. It will be nothing less than the man has earned.

Choose to love, -DA

Third quarter 2022 arrived, and as increasingly happens in life, did so before we knew it. While the Editress and I are not old—not yet—certainly more years are behind us than in front of us, and time together now seems ever more precious.

This year is a decade past events marking major milestones in my life. January 30, 0001 hours: the first cat to choose me, our dear G. Gordon Kitty, departed from our arms to join his brother TR at the New House. May 18: The Year in the Chair dedicated to a lifelong ambition to write fiction began. July 4: Mother, like Gordon, finished her race, ascending to life in Christ and to find my father after ten more years of missing him than they’d had together in this world.

The Editress, of course, was not always so designated. She had a distinguished thirty-year career designing, supporting and maintaining venues for the edification of the public through the appreciation of history, while mine has been largely spent in public service trying to keep the world running to the best effect at any given time.

Somehow we’ve traveled from being those kids who met very nearly forty years ago to an inseparable couple beginning to think about retirement planning, and we did so in what seems the space of a heartbeat, a yawn, and a blink. Now, on this plane of existence at least, there are more years to remember than to anticipate, and, as they are designed to do, the markers we pass increasingly motivate assessment.

Motivation and assessment are the engine and fuel of accomplishment; they feed each other in a process of living deliberately. An effortless life is stagnant, lacking one of the pillars of happiness. Those were defined elsewhere as something to do, something to love, and something for which to hope, and the premise has stuck with me. Standing back, doers may assess the worthiness of their own efforts, and observers may decide for themselves. “Worth It” is always a judgment call.

I’ve been accused of being intense by people who know me well enough for their opinions to register. The mile markers of my journey were made stark by losing Dad when I was ten, and the lesson that time seems to teach best—its being in limited allocation—settled in immediately. Goals, like assessments, arrive out of perspective. Both are defining and testify to who we are, for good or ill.

If one dares to so broadly characterize humanity, it seems there are two major divisions proceeding down the same road in entirely different fashions. One camp looks, decides, and proceeds, while the other observes, references, and considers before moving forward. In my observation at least, these respectively correlate with those who fail and those who succeed. Only the latter group is leveraging the benefits of a wider perspective by taking into account the experiences of others. They are the thinkers, the contemplative souls who consider first and act last and best. They are the readers, set separate and apart from those who are missing an essential advantage in connecting to the abyssal depths of the human experience. They are the scholars of natural law and the suitors of wisdom.

To say we presently are a polarized society is understatement, as it’s difficult to imagine the catalysts of conflict withstanding much more agitation before an unfortunate reaction occurs. Those playing with the chemistry set of social engineering would be well advised to set aside their dependence on shared delusion in favor of better attention to The Way Things Are … but then again history is offering something on the order of ten millennia of action and consequence they’ve been content to ignore for this long.

June—thankfully again past—in particular now offers an annual lesson on character and vapidity arising from choices proceeding from perspective, as if the news fails to delivers enough each day throughout the year. The month once known for the launch of natural marriage is now a showcase of reprobative thinking of unlimited diversity … largely because there have never been limits on the number of ways to do anything incorrectly. The consequences of perverse sexual hobbies arrive without calling ahead, and once they hit one wonders if the victims of poor decision-making then think their hijinks were worth it.

If I have a defining motivation throughout my catalog, it is in attempting to portray the essential differentiation continuing to shape the world around us. June put us past fifty-five thousand extant copies “in the wild,” which by any standard makes the effort that went into them “Worth It.” The current contest is between conservatism and radicalized self absorption, and while the immediate outcome is always uncertain, over the long term history favors those who take its lessons into account. Premise by premise, we remain in the fight, and every time a novel sells our prayers for the reader go with it.

I’m no prophet; I only pay attention. Prophecy is the gift of the Spirit. Wisdom is bestowed on those who live well enough to appreciate the edification of concepts such as faith, humility, service, and the benefits of loving connection to elements of the human experience that will survive us, and the soon-to-arrive Fourth is a time to remember all the history of people who felt just such dedication.

Their part is over, and ours continues. We arrive, proceed and depart. The world goes on in a different state than we experienced, but operating on the same set of fixed actualities and governed by the same laws of cause and effect that bounded the generations who produced us.

We’re seated at a table of bounty, able to reach back via our minds to the labors that spread the setting before us. Whether we appreciate those long years bringing the present from there to here defines us as cognizant or ignorant, alert or asleep, living or existing, spiritually alive or feeling our way through darkness complaining all the while.

Living, faith says, is worth enduring what happens along the way. There is no other way to develop character—nobility in the face of adversity, strength to endure, empathy for those that suffer, courage—than through undergoing difficulty. There is no mechanism for compassion to exist without the reality of suffering. Whether we find worth in the fleeting flourish and folly of living—in doing, loving, and hoping while gaining appreciation of strengths made perfect in weakness—has its dependencies. So much hinges on the seeds of character finding good ground in us and taking root rather than being crowded out by wind-sown seed giving rise to an invasive overgrowth of vice.

In short: find the peace of your soul in Christ, dear child of God, and then mind your mission. It’s my hope you then find life was worth it.

Have a safe and joyous Independence Day. Choose to love. -DA

It was a hollow voice. Such a cold voice I barely heard carried across the veil between us. Even in faintness, it arrived as the crisp sound water makes in the stream of a cave.

“You stand at the foot of my grave,” it whispered, “but I cannot determine what I see. I have played my part and can ask this same of you, in whose charge now the country I served falls: Do you dwell on your duties as I attended mine?

“Do you elevate men and women who deserve to command my loyalty? Is this America where I rest, made yet today from many into one, or has it fallen to division and wretched selfishness? Do you build on the sacrifice I have sown into this hallowed ground?”

Then came another, as if from even greater distance: “Are you instead content to only lap up the gravy of liberty? That, you know, is your freedom mixed with the blood of heroes!”

The first returned, now more solemn: “My part is done and yours remains. I know the price of what I bought. Generation by generation here in this silent earth they came as I have now. Row on row, in death as we stood in life: together.”

“We are watching,” more and more of the voices agreed. They all murmured their accordance: “We are watching. We are watching.”

*****

May it be for you a peaceful Memorial Day Weekend and an observant Monday.

Choose to love, -DA

“Did you have it planed this way all along?” The Editress asked when she finished her work on Boone 7, Novel 15, Two Years With Master Quan.

Planned? I plot, yes. I think about the lives of my characters, where they came from, where they are and where they’ll go. I think about how they get there and why. Then I write novels for readers who like to think as well.

Boone’s first and last adventure takes place before all her others, as an origin story that explored the questions to which I needed the answers. We met her at her worst, and say goodbye to her here on the threshold of the life she envisioned, pursued, and afterward endured.

Along the way, I learned to love her just a little more, and by its end pitied her as youthful enthusiasm sets her on a path to what Jon Anthony’s ancient Arab poet declared to be The Anvil of the Craftsman. It’s already been called her best yet. See what you think, and then let me know. Today it is in effective full release.

Here’s the blurb:

“It is 2004. After earning a PhD in Physiology, academic prodigy Rebecca Boone Hildebrandt, drawn to Vietnam by her lust for adventure, nears completion of another two-year course of study. Here, her instructor is a master of martial arts and former wartime-era associate of her father.

After drug traffickers expanding their operations force a confrontation with the righteous old man, operatives of the West draw him into another covert war. Thrust from a study of martial arts into their most serious application, Boone joins a face-off against a hardened criminal organization backed by local communist beneficiaries.

In their frustration, an opposition seeking to prevail proves desperate enough to kidnap an honored patriarch of his village. Boone, one French DGSE asset, and an agent of the American CIA stand as the last hope for his release from the center of a trap set just for them.”

– Kindle – Apple – Nook – Kobo – paperback –

Choose to love always. -DA

Christians and conservatives are often accused of wanting to tell others how to live. Most often, those accusations come from demographic sectors where the least idea of how to go about doing just that is rarely in evidence.

Living proceeds from being alive in the first place, and as such, thwarting the process occupies much of the mind of the enemy to whom the work of Life is antithetical to his established goals. Dysfunction in living is delight to the spirit of anti-life. It’s at once a sick passion, an indulgence, and exemplifies in cosmic scale the short-term gratification abounding in lifestyles dedicated to diversity in the various deadly sins.

A truly vital perspective necessitates embracing the concepts of a personal God and a personal enemy, something else the dark patron spirit of the lost obscures whenever possible. Right and wrong are inseparable in clarity from the duality of life and anti-life, just as are love and hate.

Attempts can and have been made to separate morality and valid faith, of course. Doing so, however, requires a perspective convoluted enough to ignore historical realities preserved in the context and accounts of Scripture. Unfortunately, the ignorance of history is also as much a factor in the malevolent strategies now so prominent in current events as it is for the purveyors of spiritual death.

Much of human history—driven by human nature—revolves around conflict. History is a synthesis arising from the dynamic between the ambition of tyrants and its antithesis, that being the will of free folk to oppose subjugation. It’s no surprise, then, that tyrants husband the ignorant, encourage the dependent delusions of their enablers, and enfeeble intellect wherever possible. One cannot repeat history against the self-sufficient, grounded, and aware.

That’s why I left Facebook, and so should you. But again, I digress.

The political Left, absolutely the camp of anti-life on this plane, encourages thinking otherwise wherever possible. Lefties live in a house of cards built on the sand of shared delusion, which is why opposing voices there are ruthlessly silenced by any means necessary. Deconstructing a premise is more work than leftists care to undertake, and in the case of a valid premise is impossible in an arena of ideas where the ground is level.

The combined weight of woke opinions, irrational expressions of adopted identity, acculturated inherited grievance based on covetous envy, and unnatural sexual indulgence affect the actual state of being not at all, of course. The state of actuality, referenced here often as natural law, is as unaffected by consensus as it is unyielding in pronouncing its judgments of prospering initiative and collapsing folly. Natural laws incorporate their own enforcement mechanism manifesting in life or death.

So it might be that the whispering voices promoting wisdom, rather than wanting to tell us how to live, are actually interested in steering us to where life may be found. Those “stray thoughts” and “moments of clarity” are the subtly beneficial influences worth attending and the main benefit of embracing and incorporating personal faith.

Life is a serious subject, reflecting directly the Will of the Living God. Unserious people are its understandably poor students. Once one comprehends the distinction, it cannot be unseen.

Tyranny is a serious problem, enabled by unserious people. The aforementioned unserious, having been groomed to their purpose, have since been elevated to strategic positions in leadership roles well beyond their native capacity in order to promote predictable dysfunction. It’s no accident that the long supply lines of a successful economy are being broken down, that a universal and digital means of exchange is an increasing subject of discussion, and that fiat currency is being inflated past the bounds of responsible policy.

When people who have no idea how the world actually works are put in charge, it occasionally catches fire and partially burns down. Such is to the delight of both the dark patron spirit of the lost and his enthralled arsonists.

Serious problems are being fomented so that the unserious, being unable to govern to good effect in prosperous times, will absolutely clamor for effective leadership once we encounter systemic collapse. In the eyes of secular government, the more power consolidates, the more satisfying the temporary satiation of its addicts. None of this will be a surprise to those who’ve absorbed the warnings in the Revelation of John.

Does that statement tick a checkbox in your mind? Some, excessively grounded in the apparent, consider an eschatological perspective to be irrational and cultlike. Granted, until its fulfillment prophesy is a premise of theory, and like many premises vulnerable to unfounded extensions due to its sometimes intentional vagueness and often subtle context. There’s no shortage of folk, particularly on the Internet, seemingly willing to dig themselves a rabbit hole and then jump clear down to the bottom of the thing.

It could be a complete coincidence, I suppose, that after nearly four decades jointly spent in paying attention to both scholars of approaching end times and current events, I’ve not seen society do anything but march toward the days in John’s vision. Did human nature progressing to universal governance and coinciding with enabling advances in technology seem that predictable in the first century A.D.? Faith whispers otherwise.

Biblical foresight isn’t the purported secret knowledge claimed by the occult and those addicted to conspiracy theory. Judging by the fruits of life and death found in each, which we’ve already established as the universal standard of good and evil, it’s more apparent prophesy exists as a gift of wisdom and foreknowledge to those who in faith will look and listen.

Angels whisper their advice, and if you’ve heard them, you understand. If there’s a lesson I can relate after having been the conduit for fifteen novels, Ritter’s short story, and enough content here to fill another book, it’s this: dedicate yourself, and the Spirit flows. My advice is to be part of that work of life afterward, wherever it is you find it. It’s serious business, after all.

Choose to love, -DA

*****

In production news, the Editress has completed her work on Boone’s seventh title, Two Years With Master Quan, and the novel is now undergoing external proofreading. April, God willing, will see the completion of my catalogue, growing as shall all things green and good, with Boone’s origin story as prompted by a little girl who asked. News, as always, will be heard here first.