Timothy's Thoughts

F requently, I see someone talking about something they believe would make a great story. Sometimes it’s a writer. Sometimes it’s a person who has no idea what it would take to write a story. The problem is an issue of plot vs. situation . A situation is the current state of things. For example, if you wreck your car then you have a situation. If you meet an important person, that’s a situation. If you have a disease of some kind, that is a situation. As unusual as your situation may be, it doesn’t guarantee that writing about that situation will produce and interesting story. Plot is what happens in a story. The plot makes or breaks the story. We may begin with a situation, but we have to work it into a plot. Consider the book, The Magic of Ordinary Days . The situation was that a young woman committed adultery and must keep her pregnancy secret. Now, consider also the book Not My Will . It too is built around the situation of a woman needing to keep her pregnancy secret, but the two...

I ’ve been giving some thought to worship services. In particular, I’ve been giving though to some of the stuff people do to “improve” the worship service. Over the past few decades, churches have been changing stuff up by incorporating contemporary music into their services and shortening the sermon. They’ve replaced the pulpit with a high stool and the pastor no longer wears a tie. They’ve removed the hymnal and gone to big screens. You know what I’m talking about. Here’s the interesting thing: I’m not so sure these improvements are improvements at all. Take contemporary music, for example. I like some of the contemporary music and think it should be used, but in every church I’ve visited that had gone totally to contemporary music I’ve heard someone (usually a church member) complaining because the music is too loud. I can’t really say much about the tie. I think most of these guys would look better if they’d wear a coat and tie, but as long as they peach the word, I don’t suppose ...

S chool themed movies typically portray the cheerleaders and the jocks as terrible people who are too stuck up to pay attention to anyone. It’s a wonder they get along with themselves, much less anyone else. But the fact is that people like being in the in-crowd. The in-crowd is designated by the uniforms they wear. People want to be part of the group and once they make it they get to wear the same uniform as the others. Although, it isn’t about the uniform. What people want is to be special and the group makes them special. I think that’s part of the reason so many writers cluster around literary agents and editors. It’s also likely that this is the reason so many people prefer the idea of having an agent to self-publishing, even through the probability of success is greater for those who self-publish. There’s something about having someone tell you that you’re part of the group. There’s also something about being able to tell people that you know a person that everyone recognizes.

T his is hilarious, though it shouldn’t be. In Yahoo, Yoga, and Yours Truly , Albert Mohler reports that his inbox is filling up because the Associated Press made people aware of a post he wrote about Yoga. I saw the original article when he wrote it and wondered if he was making too much out of it. Basically, I have the same concerns he does about Yogo itself, but I figured most of the Christians practicing Yoga were actually just “twisting [themselves] into pretzels or grasshoppers” only for the exercise rather than true Yoga. But look at the following e-mail he received: I get more out of yoga and meditation than I ever get out of a sermon in my church. My favorite image I use in yoga is that of Jesus assuming a perfect yoga position in the garden of Gethsemane as he prays. How do we know that the apostles and early Christian guys did not use yoga to commune with Jesus after he left? This woman clearly sees something more to Yoga than simple exercise, leaving me to think that people...

Y esterday, I wrote about a person being split in two. A more realistic situation is that of a person being declared dead, then returning home to find that his wife has married someone else. I would never want that to happen to me, but I like the concept because there’s no clear cut solution that works well for everyone involved. The woman married one man, expecting to grow old with him. She moves on to another man, so when the first returns she’s in love with two men. Of course, neither man wants to give up on his claim to her affections. Stories like these are like a pressure cooker. As the story builds, the pressure grows greater and greater. Eventually, the story will burst. Something will have to happen to release the pressure, but it isn’t clear where that will be. As in real life, the break will occur in the weak spot, but it may take a lot of pressure to find where that spot is. The two equals will face off against each other and the pressure will keep building. That’s exactly...

F or a long time we’ve had this concept of a person duplicating himself. Often we see this on ads, a woman cleaning house divides into several copies of herself and the work gets down, of course that is to illustrate how much easier life would be with whatever product they’re selling. It’s an interesting concept because we wouldn’t mind letting someone else go to work so we can take time off, but it would never work. Can you imagine if you could just divide yourself in two? You would run into problems right away. Which person would do what? If you’re a naturally bossy person, both of you would be telling each other what to do and neither of you would do anything. If you’re a natural follower, both of you would wait for the other to decide what should be down and neither of you would take charge of the lead. (On a side note, I think that is why God designed marriage the way he did.) I’m somewhat fascinated with the concept of one person becoming two because both people would have equa...

T he good of the many outweighs the good of the few, or the one” the line says from Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan . The argument seems valid. If the death of one person can result in saving the lives of a hundred, it seems like a good trade, though none of us want to be that one or for that one to be a close friend. It’s the way wars are fought. A commander doesn’t want to lose men, but sometimes he has to send people into a battle they probably won’t win so that the rest of his men can position themselves for a battle that they will win. Soldiers choose to go to war because they know that even if they die it will make life better for their families back home. But it’s not easy to show an individual’s willingness to sacrifice for the group. With Spock it made sense because he was a very logical character. From seeing him in action before we knew that for him to do what he did he would have thought it out logically and had come to the conclusion that his sacrifice was the logical opti...