Last year was eventful as I prepared for a very different kind of life than I have lived for some time. For many years I have felt the need to put into words a story that is quite different from those I’ve seen both in local stores and advertised in Christian circles. It is not a self-help text nor a historical account, but a parable intended to illustrate elements of the epic tale, we are all living in this day.
I have spent over twenty years in IT and before that six in Social Work for the Elderly – two very different professions, yet in both I have witness very similar struggles with the advance of a world that is rapidly losing its soul. Sometimes, moving on from the past is a good thing, but wholesale abandoning it is not. The rigidity, pride and greed of Victorian and Industrial eras left deep scars in their wake including very dark attitudes towards terms of civility like “lady” and “gentleman.” The role of gender in our life is lost to us as is the nature of our experience with God. In its place a selfish, fearful agenda has allowed many to warp the influence of God in our lives or worse remove it entirely. I watch now as we dabble in AI, body modification and have herculean struggles over issues of both private and public entities exerting ever more pressure on the world to gain more profit and influence. Our voices are filling with anger, wrath and malice and setting aside love, joy and peace – forgetting entirely Paul’s exhortations in Galatians 5:13-22 regarding these very things.
To that end I have decided to commit fully to completing my novel entitled “Seven Words” in 2024, a story set in a fantasy world where technology and miraculous powers sit side by side in an epic tale of love in the skies over worlds wracked by thievery, greed, bigotry, crime and hatred. A solar system ruled by vicious pirates and traitors face off against the intrepid and sometimes unlikely heroes who seek to bring to them the enlightened kingdom of Galatia long since lost to history. The genre sits somewhere between Steampunk and Aetherpunk and although it is fictional, it is an allegory deeply rooted in the very real sacrifice and purpose of Jesus. It is my hope that through reading about the lives of others in a fantasy, we might see the lies of our own villains and the hope that we all can have in one Hero beyond compare, if we will only be brave enough to have faith.