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Special Edition Flog: Six Week Spiritual Study/Fast, Days 1-10

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I’m adding here the first two weeks of my spiritual study/fast, which I happen to believe is about as individualized and as personal as it gets. So I’ll let you decide how you want to proceed on your own terms. I started this on Valentine’s Day and have been sending it out daily to very close friends and family. Each read is short and i will update this site daily for the next 26 days with a new reading each day. Here we go with Days 1 – 7:

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Day 7

Day 8

“Yes, he humbled you by letting you go hungry and then feeding you with manna, a food previously unknown to you and your ancestors. He did it to teach you that people do not live by bread alone; rather, we live by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” Deuteronomy 8:3 NLT

Awakening. In our society one of the ultimate goals is comfort. But that is the opposite of what we are taught to seek. Our teacher tells us to give our things away and not to worry where the next meal will come from. By rejecting “things” and materialistic goals we bare ourselves, we shed meaningless connections that weigh us down, become more honest and vulnerable and thereby allow ourselves to cling to a more intimate spiritual relationship. Even when EVERYTHING is lost we are fed.

Day 9

Mark 6:35

35 Late in the afternoon his disciples came to him and said, “This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late. 36 Send the crowds away so they can go to the nearby farms and villages and buy something to eat.”

37 But Jesus said, “You feed them.”

This passage is, of course, leading up to the miracle of dividing the loaves and fishes to feed the crowd. It struck me as I read it this time as a direct instruction. We are not supposed to be on the sideline. When was the last time I gave food to a hungry man? Maybe when I was in Africa. But knowing people are hungry all around me I haven’t fed a single person since that I can remember. Meantime I haven’t missed a single meal, as you can see by looking at me! So what if that panhandler isn’t really down on his luck? What’s it to me? The fact is he is on the street asking for help. What good am I to the Faith I claim so fervently if I can’t at the very least help HIM. Jesus said it right and simple, no stuttering at all. YOU FEED THEM

Day 10

2 Corinthians 3:16

16 But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. 17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18 And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate[a] the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

 It is Day 10! In a 40 day fast and study we have made it 1/4 of the way. Although we are not together physically I know you are experiencing the struggles that come with undertaking this commitment. It has been a challenge, and that’s all I have to say about THAT. Thank you for taking The Weight up with me. Today we learn that the veil is lifted and we are transformed. In the Torah, Moses became radiant after being in the presence of The Creator such that he had to cover his face with a veil. In today’s verse Paul explains that the radiant freedom that comes from turning to Yahweh no longer requires a veil – it is reflected to those around us. Don’t fear the metamorphosis out of the old things that bound you up in chains. Allow your radiance to pour out around you. It will affect those whom you don’t even know are watching.

Out of Exile: Emerging Out of Stasis

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An heirloom seed from the Cherokee Nation unfurls in front of Mother, Child and Tupac.

Oh hello there, wherever you are. Wherever I am, Spring approacheth. I sensed it — some innate biological response to new life on the cusp. Like magic I saw buds breaking on tree branches and heard frogs singing from nearby waterways. They were having a grand time out there in the mud, by the sound of it. I felt an immediate drive to plant something. All these things encourage me to understand that no matter the distance between ourselves and nature– even behind the miles of concrete and all-encompassing webs — it remains there all the while, inside of us, waiting to emerge. Just like Spring. It makes me want to listen to rock and roll.

We are quickly approaching the one year anniversary of this Faith website blog (hereinafter “Flog”) to which I have not devoted as much energy as originally intended. I scanned over the previous Flogs and noted a couple of themes: The Supernatural, great floods, total eclipses, grand voyages, strawberries, and books, of course. Not too shabby. The problem with the Flog, I think, has been the prospect of routine. Some people crave routine, some need it, but routine is perhaps my greatest fear. But that shouldn’t stop me from being reliable. If you enjoy reading then I should be your reliable friend. So this year I will put out at least one Flog per month because there is indeed a difference between routine and reliability. Count on me.

We gave the Book Thing a whirl in January and if we’re honest with ourselves it was a massive failure. That is why I have decided to continue on with the thing. If it had been a sensational success I might’ve felt accomplished and let it go by the wayside. If you missed the first sad book club meeting, which I posted live on Facebook, you may view it here, but be warned — it’s awkward. Not to worry, I will get better:

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10215906780691771&id=1514088886

We will take a vote on our next Book Thing book selection. Here, we have 3 selections:

1) M Train by Patti Smith

2) Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

3) Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowery

You can vote by replying to this email if you’re signed up on the website or you can vote via Facebook. I’ll do my best to keep track. We’ll do a quarterly book club and re-evaluate after a year has gone by, if the creek don’t rise, etc.

Speaking of the Good Lord Willing, I’ve embarked on a 6 week spiritual commitment (it started on Valentine’s Day) that involves daily verses and ruminations on such. I’ve decided to post them here each day. I didn’t start with a formal theme in mind but it seems to regularly center on the idea of “freedom found through faith”. I don’t consider myself a leader on things spiritual, far from it. But I don’t mind sharing the good things I find, and I’ve found some good. I’ll post the first 14 in one post and then starting tomorrow, a new one each day. They’re each one a short read.

I’ll leave it at that for now. Look for more in March. Til then, I hope you’re having as much fun as the frogs.

With love and light and lots of salt,

Your old pal Faif

“So it goes.” Let’s Make A BookThing

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I like to pop up in your life when you least expect me, much like a visit from an old friend or The Herp. Here we are at the end of 2017. Now is the time when we take stock of the finished year and rate it as good or bad. We make lists of our wins and losses. I believe this exercise to be useless and without merit and thus I refuse to take part. Allow me to invite you instead to make a Book Thing with me.

I haven’t named our Book Thing yet. I don’t know the rules. I hope we don’t make many rules. Personally I’m a big fan of the 3 Rules in Willie Nelson’s Family: 1) Don’t be an A-hole. 2) Don’t be an A-hole and 3) Don’t be a $%^&(@# A-hole. Works for me. Anyhow, back to the Book Thing. I’d like to have a dangerous sounding name for our group like The Flog Party, or somesuch, that way it’s funnier when people see us and we’re actually a bunch of book-reading love bugs. That’s how I have it imagined in my brains, anyway. Does Flog Party sound dangerous? Tell me the truth.

We’ll begin with Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut. The selection source will likely vary someday in the future, but for now we will choose our books from the Time Top 100 Novels since 1923. I’ve read about 75% of the books on this list. Most of them are amazing works but a few made me want to shove knitting needles in my eye sockets. You can peruse the books here:

All-TIME 100 Novels

We’ll have our first soiree on Saturday, January 27th, perhaps on Facebook live or maybe even in person, depending on the response we have to the Book Thing proposal. After that, depending on our success, perhaps we will meet every three months. We have a new bookstore in Tulsa with a private area for book clubs. They also have beverage service and snacks so I’m hoping at some point to rendezvous there. I like the idea of getting together with some thinkers. Who knows what may come of it? Something dangerous, like a big Flog Party, I bet.

Some thoughts I plan to bring to the Book Thing discussion:
*my favorite line from the book
*what was wrong with Kurt Vonnegut
*why was Kurt Vonnegut so funny and angry
*can an artist be creative and happy at the same time
*what difference does it make, anyway
*why are we here
*does Beyonce’s lemonade-cayenne cleanse also purge Jay-Z

This is my sixth Flog in the nine months since I started up the website. I hope you enjoyed perusing these collections of letters so far. Look forward to more interaction in the coming months, as well as the release of my third book, a true-crime novel that I have been researching and harboring for the past nine months, like an alien or a baby. It’s a real doozie. Be safe out there and let’s talk again soon.

Love and light,

Faith

Indie Book Tour 2017

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I hate selling books. Ok, scratch that, it’s just that my most natural inclination is to write. Along with that comes an equally strong inclination to NOT SELL ANYTHING. Sales work feels like a dirty, undignified business to me and if I’m really good at anything it is convincing people they probably shouldn’t pay for my work. But the sober realization struck that if I didnt force myself to grow and get better at sales then I may as whilst give up on my writing career. No matter how beautiful the prose, if you’re slinging it out for free you have a hobby, not a career. And so it twas that I tricked my brain into the marketplace with the promise of travel. The sight of new environs and weird people stokes my creative fire. Having flooded the Oklahoma book market and previously toured the East with my first novel, I determined to hawk my wares in the Great American West. The purpose is to stock my books in as many indie book stores as possible and perhaps establish my “brand” outside the comfortable environs of my Okie home.

I’m making a few pit stops along the way to marvel at this country. My journal entries for the first seven days follow. There will be much more to come. If you live out West someplace and wish to recommend your favorite indie book store I will do my flat durndest to convince the proprietor to carry both of my books, Ezekiel’s Wheels and It’s Not That Hard To. Stick with me Frans, this will be a fun ride.

Day 1

Because of the financial restrictions inherent in the life of a mere writer I am determined to tent camp as much as possible on this book tour. Left Oklahoma and drove straight through to Denver. It rained. I got a motel room. A disheveled man standing alone in the parking lot said, “hey, you got delivery from Tony P?” I hope he was talking about pizza. Either way, the answer is NO.

DAY 2

A nice lady cooked up the most beautiful Denver omelette I’ve ever seen. It even had hair! The Fox news ticker read, “Meth-laced soda found in Mexico stores.” I thought to myself, “Them boys got more dope than they know what to do with”… The first Indie Book store did not disappoint. Denver’s Book Bar serves fine wines, cappuccinos and literary-themed snacks surrounded by books of every sort.  Left Denver and camped in Medicine Bow, Wyoming in the freezing cold. I ate a steaming rare piece of meat huddled in my tent, shivering and cursing my fool ideas.

Day 3

Drove to Flaming Gorge Reservoir in Utah. It began to snow up high above the gorge and the route felt just like driving in the clouds. I saw nary a soul. Ate sausage and eggs put on a wind swept point overlooking the great lake below. Utah has the best road signs of any state. Every couple of miles a sign pops up that reads, “giant marine reptiles swam here” and “Stegosaurus wandered here” or “sea deposits of ancient squid-like creatures here”. Crossed the Strawberry River. This is a magical place.

Day 4

Best Mexican food of my life at Red Iguana in Salt Lake City. The mole. Uhn. Stocked my books in the quaint SLC bookstore called King’s English. They’ve been in business 40 years so I feel privileged to trade with them. Makes me feel official. Great Salt Lake was stinky and beautiful. Took a taste. Hope I don’t grow an extry eye. It tastes…FUNNY. I saw mirages on the road just like in the cartoons. I’m straight as a string, honest. Stopped in the dead of night and camped on a solitary desert lake where jackrabbits have taken over. These suckers are bigger than some dogs I know. Giant comical ears. They tossed sand at my tent while I tried to sleep.

Day 5

Driving into California I felt an irrational desire to dislike the state. I think because of the treatment my great grandparents received when they migrated here to find work during the Dust Bowl. But I found myself drawn in against my will. Driving in on the Sierra Highway each mile left me more slackjawed and bug-eyed. Took the Tioga Road up into Yosemite and camped at Porcupine Flat. Built a fire and ate eggs and jalapeno weenies for lunch. DELICIOUS.

Day 6

Joined at camp by a group of six Spanish women. We didn’t speak the same language but I took a chance and said, “Mi Espanol es muy mal, pero, gusta vino de fresa?” The answer was a resounding “Si” and they gave me Jamon and hard biscuits in return. The last I heard of those girls they were giggling long after I’d retired to my sleeping bag for the night. Also met a young couple who climb and backpack. The young lady amazed me because she bikes and hikes across the country often by herself. She’s an artist and makes ceramic and wood spoons that she fashions out of wormwood that she finds on her travels. Her site is www.stubborndogpottery.com . I aim to buy myself one of those spoons. She is a lifelong Californian and gave me perhaps the greatest compliment of the trip when she said, “you seem like you belong here.”

Day 7

Woke up VERY COLD. 21° in Yosemite. Time to go. I didn’t know until I got out of the park that part of the rock face of El Capitan fell off and killed a hiker. That news gave me considerable pause. I just hope he was living life with conviction and passion when it happened. I’ll take that over the alternative any old day. Set up camp near Sonoma Valley. It is SO WARM and I am SO GRATEFUL. I’m over the cold camping. Went to my favorite vineyards last night and guess who I found? OKIES! Okies who read! Also met two gentlemen from NYC who say they have a need for a creative writer in their business. Perhaps this hair brained scheme will pay off after all. In a couple of days I plan to go maroon myself on an island and tent camp. During my research I have found that this island is populated with foxes that like to steal underwear. Perhaps that is why the price is right at $15 per night.

This is the halfway point of the 2017 Indie Book Tour of the Great American West. Much more to follow. Come with me, won’t you?

The Writer’s Office

 

 

 

An Eclipse of the Literary Sort

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A celestial body in flux, borrowed from the original painting ‘Ezekiel’s Wheels’ by Murv Jacob, 2012.

 

My mind is set afire by the darkening of the sun. I hold only a handful of passions. Staring up at strange things in the sky ranks right up among the best. I understand next Monday’s (August 21, 2017) total eclipse to be the rarest of the rare insofar as stellar events are concerned. The opportunity won’t come again in my lifetime, based on even the kindest of actuarial estimates. My life insurance carrier has an office pool that has reportedly reached some seven large. 

I was surprised and annoyed just lately to hear the din of jackals jubilant to diminish the whole spectacle. Several naysayers began complaining as much as a month ago at the casting of a mere shadow upon the ground. To which I wanted to reply a line borrowed from King Lear: “How long have you been a sectary astronomical?“

Old Bill was a bit of a smart aleck, eh?

In the face of their leering, my ardor transformed to zeal. I became inspired. I formulated a plan to locate and share some of the most jarring accounts of The Eclipse in Literature. The immortal words of the scribes would make my own argument for the solemnization, if not glorification, of the coming sun shroud.

 

But then I found that Shakespeare may in fact side with the jackals:

 

“This is the excellent foppery of the world that when we are sick in fortune—often the surfeit of our own behavior—we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars, as if we were villains by necessity, fools by heavenly compulsion, knaves, thieves, and treachers by spherical predominance, drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforced obedience of planetary influence, and all that we are evil in by a divine thrusting-on. An admirable evasion of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish disposition to the charge of a star!” ‘King Lear’, William Shakespeare

 

I began to consider my positional flaws. Perhaps there exists good reason to shrug in the path of the coming phenomenon. We certainly can’t have cashiers in a functioning marketplace abandon their registers to flock outdoors for two and a half minutes, right? How about the professional soldiers manning the lookout up ‘round that 38th parallel north, otherwise known as the original dividing line between North and South Korea? And what better moment for a thief to steal inside and snatch up your favorite kotchke than when you’re rendered completely vulnerable to the surrounding environs? The point is, we can’t all be caught out in some dreamy field of daisies, gazing up into the ether, now can we? Seems like a classic case of the lights are on and nobody’s home. Matter of fact, I came across a slough of other unfortunate mishaps in my search for all things literarily penumbral that may convince you that the eclipse may, as a matter of fact, be something one ought avoid entirely. Let us consider…

One of the most terrifying books I encountered as a young woman was Gerald’s Game by Stephen King. The horror comes by way of an incapacitated woman haunted by a real life monster. But  King uses the total eclipse as a sort of mystical link between two women living distinct lives and each completely unaware of the other. But for a moment the eclipse provides them with telepathic visions; a new way to see and become aware of each other. The eclipse also provides a proper distraction for one of them to commit a murderous act of revenge:

“That’s how i really got out; I remembered the eclipse and what happened on the deck while the eclipse was going on, and you’ll have to remember, too. I think it’s the only chance you have to get free. You can’t run away anymore, Jessie. You have to turn and face the truth.” ‘Gerald’s Game’, Stephen King

 

We certainly wouldn’t want to skip out on the literary rib-tickler that is the eclipse as a sign of apocalypse. Where to start?

“No, says Aunt Aggie, ‘tis a bad sign. I read in the paper that the moon is practicing for the end of the world.”

Angela’s Ashes, Frank McCourt

 9 See, the day of the Lord is coming

   —a cruel day, with wrath and fierce anger—

to make the land desolate

   and destroy the sinners within it.

10 The stars of heaven and their constellations

   will not show their light.

The rising sun will be darkened

   and the moon will not give its light.

Isaiah 13: 9-10

Numerous accounts of trickery and evil-doing show up in our literary history. According to one author, a total eclipse may have even played a bit part in the theft of an entire continent:

 

“It grew darker and darker and blacker and blacker, while I struggled with those awkward sixth-century clothes. It got to be pitch dark, at last, and the multitude groaned with horror to feel the cold uncanny night breezes fan through the place and see the stars come out and twinkle in the sky. At last the eclipse was total, and I was very glad of it, but everybody else was in misery; which was quite natural. I said:

“The king, by his silence, still stands to the terms.” Then I lifted up my hands—stood just so a moment—then I said, with the most awful solemnity: “Let the enchantment dissolve and pass harmless away!”

There was no response, for a moment, in that deep darkness and that graveyard hush. But when the silver rim of the sun pushed itself out, a moment or two later, the assemblage broke loose with a vast shout and came pouring down like a deluge to smother me with blessings and gratitude…” ‘A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court’, Mark Twain

 

“As a mark of His intent He would display a sign in the sky – a blacking-out of the moon. ‘Some feared and other mocked’, Thacher reports, then right on cue a dark shadow began to pass over the face of the moon. Abject fear gripped the Indians. They begged Columbus to intercede on their behalf.” ‘Christopher Columbus, Master of the Atlantic’, David Thomas

As a matter of fact, people have been writing about the creepy feeling the penumbral shadow casts upon earth dwellers for quite some time. Consider Homer, flanked by an excerpt from Annie Dillard’s ultimate piece on the subject:

 

“. . . and the Sun has perished

out of heaven,

and an evil mist hovers over all.” ‘The Odyssey’, Homer

“From all the hills came screams. A piece of sky beside the crescent sun was detaching. It was a loosened circle of evening sky, suddenly lighted from the back. It was an abrupt black body out of nowhere; it was a flat disk; it was almost over the sun. That is when there were screams. At once this disk of sky slid over the sun like a lid. The sky snapped over the sun like a lens cover. The hatch in the brain slammed. Abruptly it was dark night, on the land and in the sky. In the night sky was a tiny ring of light. The hole where the sun belongs is very small. A thin ring of light marked its place. There was no sound. The eyes dried, the arteries drained, the lungs hushed. There was no world. We were the world’s dead people rotating and orbiting around and around, embedded in the planet’s crust, while the Earth rolled down. Our minds were light-years distant, forgetful of almost everything. Only an extraordinary act of will could recall to us our former, living selves and our contexts in matter and time. We had, it seems, loved the planet and loved our lives, but could no longer remember the way of them. We got the light wrong. In the sky was something that should not be there. In the black sky was a ring of light. It was a thin ring, an old, thin silver wedding band, an old, worn ring. It was an old wedding band in the sky, or a morsel of bone. There were stars. It was all over.

…

Seeing this black body was like seeing a mushroom cloud. The heart screeched. The meaning of the sight overwhelmed its fascination. It obliterated meaning itself. If you were to glance out one day and see a row of mushroom clouds rising on the horizon, you would know at once that what you were seeing, remarkable as it was, was intrinsically not worth remarking. No use running to tell anyone. Significant as it was, it did not matter a whit. For what is significance? It is significance for people. No people, no significance. This is all I have to tell you.

In the deeps are the violence and terror of which psychology has warned us. But if you ride these monsters deeper down, if you drop with them farther over the world’s rim, you find what our sciences cannot locate or name, the substrate, the ocean or matrix or ether which buoys the rest, which gives goodness its power for good, and evil. Its power for evil, the unified field: our complex and inexplicable caring for each other, and for our life together here. This is given. It is not learned.” ‘Total Eclipse’, Annie Dillard

In light of these many beautiful and terrible words it seems the research completely failed my original thesis. Henceforth, I will not complain against any of you misanthropes. I get it. The total eclipse of the sun can be whatever you make of it, I suppose. As for myself, I have decided to stubbornly cling to my old excitable notions. I intend to employ a riverboat captain someplace on the northern Missouri and welcome totality lying flat on my back, steaming upriver on open water. I hope nothing bad happens.

By way of adieu, I will leave you with the one piece of solar literature to make me feel somewhat hopeful. Herodotus wrote of an eclipse that brought an end to war. It is thought to be the first predicted eclipse in recorded history, accomplished by Thales of Miletus. The war between the Lydians and Medes had drawn out for five long years. Of the sixth year Herodotus wrote:

“it so happened that in the middle of the battle day suddenly became night… When the Lydians and the Medes saw that night had replaced day, they did not just stop fighting; both sides also more actively wanted an end to the war.” The Histories, Herodotus

Ah think on it friends, just once, for life to imitate art; to witness a laying down of arms in the face of great wonder.

To quote my good but dead friend Bruce, “Keep looking up, you never know what’s coming down.”

Pre-Order the Latest Book!!

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Book Cover Photo by Lavada Nicholls Photography

 

Hello there, old friend and new. Allow me to offer a paltry, semi-believable excuse for my absence since the big Flood of ‘ot 17. I’ve been writing a true crime novel based on actual events that occurred here in Oklahoma not too very long ago. I think you will be intrigued. Look for it in Winter 2017.

Getting down to the business of this here e-comm, I’ve also been working to get my second book, ‘It’s Not That Hard To…’ in print. Sure, I published the collection on Kindle a year ago but if you’re anything like me you prefer, nay you NEED, the real thing in your hands and on your shelf.

So, here we are! The limited first shipment arrives August 7th, at which time I will ship out signed copies. The cost of $20 includes shipping and a personal note inside.

You can guarantee your copy by pre-ordering here:

https://paypal.me/FaithPhillips

The book will also be available for direct order from Amazon.com in several days. Alas, I will not be able to personally address orders made directly from Amazon, unless you bring it to an upcoming book signing. I look forward to hearing your reaction to the book. I don’t think you can possibly grasp the depth of my appreciation for your support.

Til next time, when we shall meet in the twain…

Yours,

Faith