Inspiration
All About “Becoming”: An Interview with Linda Boulanger
Today, I’ve invited Linda Boulanger to visit me in my virtual living room, to talk about her latest book Becoming, which is a collection of inspirational, faith-based short-short stories. Hi, Linda. Hi, Tim! Becoming starts with a story about a young woman whose father bails her out of jail, which will inevitably have political repercussions [...]
Depression: An Interview with Author Sharon Cathcart
I’m sitting here in my virtual living room with author Sharon Cathcart, to talk about psychological depression—which I’ve had my own experiences with, as you may know if you’ve been following this blog for any length of time. Sharon has been a journalist, a newspaper editor, and an award-winning poet. Now, she’s authored a novel, [...]
Two Women Search for the Meaning of Life
I finally got to see Julie and Julia over the weekend. Unlike many stories, it doesn’t serve as a means of escape. Rather, there is substance and inspiration woven through it. The film compares the stories of Julia Child and Julie Powell. Both faced an impasse in their lives; both set out on a search [...]
Thoughts on Life and Loss
I’m preempting my usual “Friday Fun” column, because this past week was a crappy week, crappy enough to justify a little mourning. Tuesday afternoon, as you know, a catastrophic earthquake hit Haiti, killing tens of thousands—maybe even 100,000. That number represents one out of every 95-or-so people in that small country. Shortly thereafter, we received [...]
Faith’n'Fiction Saturday
My hope this new year is to form deeper relationships, to connect with people more closely, and to make greater, positive contributions to their lives. I’d say this post is one of the first big test cases. I introduced these “hopes,” which could have been New Year’s resolutions—though I called them “wishes,” because I didn’t [...]
A Dream to Explore
A quick midnight blog post and an announcement. I swear I did not coordinate this with Jamie Ridler. It’s either an astounding coincidence or a message from God. At midnight, a couple hours ago, Jamie prompted for Wishcasting Wednesday, “What dream do you wish to explore?” And as the song says, a dream is a [...]
Have you ever dreamed a New Year’s wish?
Once in a while you have one of those dreams that sticks with you after you wake up, moves you, speaks to you, but in ways you don’t understand upon waking. I had such a dream New Year’s morning. And the first thing I did was to write it down, or at least as much [...]
Resolutions: 0; Wishes: 1
It’s the fifth day after Christmas, and you know what that means! Our thoughts turn to last-minute charitable donations (which we had every intention of making the previous year), New Year’s resolutions (which we have every intention of keeping the following year), and desperately searching for someone not too ugly to kiss tomorrow night when [...]
Finding the Answer to the Meaning of Life
I’ve been absent here, because I’m working on a new novel. After collecting mounds of marketing data, I’ve discovered that I absolutely must write Confessions of a Veteran Software Developer— That’s not a novel, but a true story of my years as a professional software developer. However, I have to find a new title. (Apparently, [...]
When Nothing Goes the Way It Ought
This past week, I asked on Facebook, “When NOTHING seems to be going as it should, how do you avoid getting all negative?” My Facebook friends gave me a number of possible answers, but nothing really hit home, this past Saturday morning in synagogue when we read a selection from First Samuel chapter 1. Suddenly, [...]