Under the Watchful Sky

I’m still learning how to use this blog to self-promote. I may still be laboring under the idea that self-promotion is somehow noxious or offensive. I guess it’s all in the definitions. Self-aggrandizement, the exultation of self over others, is certainly offensive and even sinful. But if self-promotion is simply calling attention to the fact that you’ve done something, while leaving to others the judgment of how good or worthy that thing is, seems a different thing.

What might the future hold? Authors and poets mine that theme extensively, coming up with answers that range from the intriguing to the highly improbable. But for the most part, such authors place their foretold futures at some remove, a century or more in the future, often after a period of significant change. This facilitates suspension of disbelief, for the reader can allow that circumstances might be different then.

But what about the very near future? How might things look in, say, a generation? What conditions might we find in twenty or thirty years? This sounds like a simple matter, but I’ve found it a more difficult question to address. Conditions would be close to those found today, but not too close. The imagination can wader, but not far, for the world would not be very much changed (though considering how much it has changed in the past thirty years, it may be more changed than you’d think.) Yet imagining the near future provides a superb opportunity to examine the current choices a society is making and project where they might take us in very short order. Some of the great speculative fiction of the 20^th century, such as 1984, Brave New World, and That Hideous Strength (in my opinion the greatest of them) all postulated a future that was within the lifespan of their readers.

It was with this in mind that the germ of a story occurred to me back in 2013. Looking where social and political trends seemed to be heading, and considering questions of economics and demographics, I asked myself, “What kind of issues will be percolating in our culture as I approach the end of my life? What challenges will our country and God’s people be facing, and what kind of responses will be called for?” Characters came to life in my imagination and a storyline began to form, and before long, I was outlining Under the Watchful Sky.

This is a hard book to categorize. It’s a thriller, but it doesn’t involve police, military, or secretive government operatives (well…maybe a few). It isn’t set in an exotic locale like Vienna or Shanghai, but in nearly-rural eastern Michigan. Its protagonists are everyday people making what seem like everyday decisions – until those choices put them into desperate situations facing life-and-death choices.  Above all, it is a tale that considers where some trends and choices being faced today may bring us in the very near future.

The two protagonists, Derek and Janice, are casual friends who encounter circumstances that take them on sharply divergent paths. Though an unusual encounter, Derek is drawn into a world rich with the love and belonging that his life has lacked – but the deeper he goes, the more he learns of the secrets that world hides, and the terrible reason for them. Janice, also lost and lonely, gets lured into a different world, one that at first seems glamorous, attractive, and compelling. Only as she’s drawn further in does she learn the real reason for this world, and the high price she must pay to belong.

Under the Watchful Sky follows the two as they walk their different paths, facing challenges and making choices. They encounter friends and enemies, people both wonderful and atrocious, until a series of calamities brings it all crashing down around them. Derek is forced to flee for his life, only to have to walk right back into danger to rescue Janice from the foes whose hands she had delivered herself into. Trapped by the cunning of their enemies, only a feat of towering heroism can free them.

Fortunately, there’s a hero right at hand.

Under the Watchful Sky is intended first to be a good tale, a solid example of the art of storytelling. I hope it achieved that goal, though if reviews and feedback are any indication, it is at least that. It is also intended to provoke thought, to help the reader look at life from a different perspective, without being preachy or engaging in sermonizing.  In this sense, writing stories about the near future is easier, because you can use current-day situations and assumptions and project just a little bit so that people can see where their attitudes could easily lead them.  

My publisher has billed the work as “dystopian”, though that is a little misleading, because that genre makes people think of works like The Hunger Games or Children of Men. Watchful Sky doesn’t reach that far in the future, or postulate such a radically changed culture, but it is intended to engage and entertain readers, as well as get them to think about things they perhaps haven’t considered before. I hope it will do well, because it is the first in a four (so far) book series, and if Watchful is reasonably successful, the others may be published.

 "This is by far, the best 'Catholic' novel written since Michael O'Brien published FATHER ELIJAH 20 years ago. This is an absolute page turner, gripping the reader from beginning to end. Combine the intelligence of early Tom Clancy with the wit of Flannery O'Connor and the symbolism of Tolkien (there are Tolkien references throughout the book) and you'll come close to Roger Thomas. I was upset when I finished this, as I wanted to second in the series, NOW!" -  Dr. Brad Birzer of Hillsdale College.

The Lucifer Ego by T.M. Doran

If you like your intrigue brewed hot and your skulls well duggered (is that a verb?), then place your order for T.M. Doran’s latest work, The Lucifer Ego. This colorful novel is a sequel to Doran’s debut novel, Toward the Gleam (Ignatius Press, 2011), and is as rich and fast-paced as anything he’s written so far, including his remarkable Iota.

The story picks up in the current day, when protagonist F. Lyle Stuart (the “F” is for Frodo), a professor of archaeology, is called by his uncle to investigate a theft. The uncle, as it happens, is the  abbot of a monastery, the very monastery that is the setting for the beginning and end of Toward the Gleam. The stolen item is the manuscript left in the custody of the monks by author “John Hill” forty five years earlier – the manuscript purported by some to be the basis for the most renowned and well-loved fantasy tale to come out of the twentieth century. The manuscript is of unspeakable antiquity, and has been taken by parties unknown, with the theft not discovered until months after the fact. The abbot uncle wishes Lyle to undertake the recovery, if possible, of the treasured artifact.

This task Lyle is unwilling to undertake, partly out of skepticism about the veracity of the claims about the manuscript as well as (one suspects) a desire to distance himself from the story in question (there’s a reason goes by his middle name.) But undertake it he does, however reluctantly, with the help of his brother Sam (you guessed it - “Samwise”) and his canny and devout girlfriend Beatrice. Both of these supporting characters have depths of experience beyond Lyle’s ken, and both serve him well as the tale unfolds. As Lyle reluctantly pursues the missing manuscript, he finds himself running afoul of a tangled web woven by a poisonous personality, one closely tied to the antagonist of Gleam and even more merciless.

The reader should be prepared for two things: first, this is a time-hopping tale, with the author interweaving events that happen decades apart to form a compelling story. Fortunately, events that happen at the same time are grouped into chapters, which are identified by dates, so pay attention to the chapter headings. Secondly, this is a tight sequel, so if you have a copy of Toward the Gleam, you might want to re-read or at least skim it while waiting delivery of Lucifer Ego. Many of the scenes in Ego directly allude to events in Gleam, and having those fresh in your mind will make the story more enjoyable.

Doran’s style might seem abrupt and choppy, but it indicates roots in the detective writers of the classic era such as Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. The fast-moving, staccato dialog keeps the reader on his toes as it propels the story along. It’s quite suitable for the tension that slowly builds as the reader realizes that Lyle and his companions find themselves ensnared in schemes that reach decades back, and the target of a cunning mastermind who has spent his life polishing the art  of manipulating people, even to the point of murder.

If you enjoyed Toward the Gleam, you’ll certainly appreciate The Lucifer Ego. Doran has developed as a writer and teller of tales, and this one won’t disappoint. I anticipate his next work eagerly.

Tribute to an old friend

I heartily agree with the principle that we should love people and use things. But occasionally there are things that we've both used and loved, and when it comes time to say good-bye, there's a twinge of sadness.

So it is with heavy heart that we say farewell to one of our old and faithful servants, our 2000 Saturn SL2. We acquired him in June of 2000, one of only two new cars we’ve ever purchased. We promptly named him Samwise Gamgee, because he wasn’t flashy or elaborate, but a plain, simple servant who would give good service. And so he did – he was primarily my car for commuting and other business travel, but he was useful for many other things as well. Our daughters in particular, who were in or approaching high school when we acquired him, loved having a zippy little car (with a working CD player!) that they could occasionally borrow to drive around on errands. He’s gotten good mileage to the end, and though he has some chronic problems, he’s still reliable for around-town driving. With eighteen years and over 320,000 miles under his belt, he’s been one of the most reliable and cheapest vehicles we’ve ever owned.

It may seem a waste of time to get sentimental over a machine, but when you’ve spent as much time in a car as we’ve spent in Sam, it’s hard not to have some pleasant associations. He took Ellen and I for our weekend getaway in Stratford for more times than we can count, and several trips to and from Ellen’s homestead in Pennsylvania. He’s long been our most reliable car, until recently, when years and miles have caught up with him. Ellen and I both had the same thought: we wish we could just bury him and set some kind of monument over him. But getting rid of cars is slightly complex – our last private sale incident did not end well – so we’ve decided to donate him to a local car donation program. It’s not that the tax write-off will be of much use to us, but it’s as clean and easy a way of seeing him off as we can find.

Sometime this week the tow truck will come for him, and I’ll return from work to find his spot in the driveway empty. Life will go on, and our two current cars will serve us well. But we’ll always fondly remember the “Sam years”, as I imagine our children will, when the sight of a little blue Saturn sedan pulling into their driveways meant that Grandma and Grandpa were here. May he serve some other family well until he’s unable to serve at all – but someone else can make that final call.

What We Can Expect

File this under “things I never expected to see in my life.”

(Along with a great many other things that I’ve seen recently.)

This brief article  recounts how a cheerleader for the Miami Dolphins has filed suit against the cheerleading team organization because she felt that she’d been discriminated against for her decision to not engage in sex with anyone but her future husband, and then only after marriage. The issue came up in the course of a conversation where her teammates pressured her to provide details about her sexual practices, which she couldn’t because she didn’t have any yet.

It’s the fallout from this that is telling. According to the lawsuit filing, in her next “review” with the cheerleading team management, the cheerleader was told by the team director that “As far as [the team] is concerned, you have taken something that was once upon a time pure and beautiful and you’ve made it dirty.”

If this is an accurate account of what was said, then it’s one of the finest examples of moral inversion that you could hope for. Keep in mind that this young woman wasn’t trumpeting her virginity, or seeking to persuade her teammates to emulate her, or in any way “shaming” them (for the uninitiated: “shaming” is one of the only mortal sins recognized by our culture.) She’d made what our culture would call a “lifestyle choice”, a choice that just a couple of generations ago would have been considered normative. Furthermore, we’re not talking about the Vegas stripper circuit or the Hollywood starlet culture. These are performance dancers for a professional football team, a group of amateur women drawn from the hometown area and in some measure trading on the wholesome girl-next-door image. Yet in their midst, apparently, someone who made what was once considered a normal and commendable choice is now branded an aberrant freak and a source of tension.

This example is noteworthy because it illustrates what Christ’s disciples can expect as the culture around us grows darker and our testimony becomes clearer. No matter how “non-judgmental” and inoffensive we try to be, if we are obedient to Christ we will give offense. The very witness of our obedience will be like fingernails on the chalkboard of the souls of some. The contrast of our obedience with the disobedience of those around us will be abrasive, not because of anything we say, but because of the voice of their conscience. We will see Wisdom 2:12-20 in action.

This is important to keep in mind as we explore ways to more effectively speak the Gospel to our culture. While practicalities such as better service times and innovative use of communications channels have their place, we need to acknowledge from the outset that there will rejection, which at times will be fierce, that will have nothing to do with the sophistication of our message or the elegance of its delivery. The witness of holiness is to some fragrant perfume and to others a harsh stench, depending on the state of their soul. There’s nothing we will be able to do about that.

May the Holy Spirit strengthen us to continue our witness despite opposition, and obey in clear conscience that we seek to give offense to nobody – but offense will inevitably be taken, because of the nature of the Gospel message.