Number One

Apparently 'God' is now following me on Twitter ;) Didn't see that one coming when I was asking Him for some help this week. Perhaps He moves in mysterious ways and knows where all the email Feedburner subscriptions have gone - apologies to anyone who has missed a few posts, Blogger are working on the problem.

I don't know about you but I love being surprised - if you've lived and travelled, once you get to this stage in life you feel like you've seen it all/heard it all. Researching infidelity for the next book I came across a whole genre I didn't know existed - Christian Lit, big in America but unheard of over here. We have a lot of MBS books, but nothing I think like the Fireproof phenomenon from Sherwood Pictures, 'the (quote) hope-filled, heartfelt moviemaking ministry of Sherwood Baptist Church that continues to touch the world from Albany, Georgia'.

I'm sorry but as an averagely cynical Brit that just makes you ... Anyway. In the UK you get Sister Wendy, the self taught fantabulous art nun, or Songs of Praise. What you don't get are burly firefighters battling their inner demons and pornography to save their marriage. Perhaps I'm missing something - as the Grumpy Old Bookman recently commented in Writers' News for William P Young 'religion was the key to his success'. Clergymen marketed 'The Shack' and it has sold 2 million copies. As Grumpy said 'It's hard for us Brits to appreciate just how powerful these outlets can be, because we have nothing like them'. Oh, and Mr Young self-published.

I think a lot of the MBS books reach a market filled with spiritual hunger, where nothing makes sense. Whatever your beliefs - Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Hindu, Shinto, Buddhist, Atheist, Agnostic etc - I get a sense that these are fairly spiritually bereft times we are living through in the West and people are trying to come to terms with them through explanation or belief, (and mine for the record are at the High Church end of C of E - can't quite do the full C because I do believe in women priests, and other issues that I see as a basic question of human rights - probably why I first studied philosophy rather than theology). Both of my children were christened by remarkable women vicars. One of them, I grew up with, the other it was her first christening and it was a joyous day for us all.

Perhaps we're all alone, and scared, and searching for something. My world view suits me. I don't go to Church (right now can't get the children to sit still long enough), and never felt happy with my Methodist background (and my Dad built churches ...). But I find perfect peace in a few stolen moments in a centuries old cathedral or church as much as I do from a deserted beach in New England or a forest in Hampshire. Maybe it's just a sense that you have or you don't of your own insignificance and that there is someone, something, some cosmic spiritual order bigger than you. Call it God, call it landscape, call it love. I love writers like John O'Donohue for this reason. I can't do 'happy clappy', or 'heavy' lace and reliquaries and got hysterically giggly the one time I tried Transcendental Meditation. I don't get it. I love life. It's wonderful, surprising, messy, bewildering, and heartbreaking, but as they say it's probably better than the alternative, and it's this basic gratitude that has carried me through some dark days recently. But I'm very curious about the whole rock'n'roll Christian scene in America I didn't know existed. What are your views on MBS or Christian Lit? Do you write it? Does it affect you?

With Blurb, Lulu, My Publisher, Shutterfly, Snapfish, Xlibris etc it has never been easier to self-publish. Have any of you tried them? It's never been easier to get your book in print and self market so what's stopping you? If your book has a particular - rather than mass commercial market - why not check some of these sites out? As the local parish magazine that dropped through the door last night helpfully pointed out: 'The happiest people don't necessarily have the best of everything: they just make the best of everything they have'. So - you have all this online magic at your hands - if you feel your book has a limited local audience why not give it a whirl, print to demand and try your local bookstores? Or, perhaps, enlist your vicar.

TODAY'S PROMPT: Even if He isn't talking to you through Twitter ;), there's a whole bunch of stuff we all take for granted everyday. Have you ever noticed how small your children seem at night asleep - I'm sure their personalities during the day project them beyond the confines of their little bodies? Our perception of life is everything. How about when you are really tired and have been up working all night and the rooms feel smaller like Alice in Wonderland? (Hope that's not just me?) Or rub the mist off a full length mirror after a morning bath and how insignificant is your head compared to the rest of your body? But we give faces a lot of attention. So - what do you focus on? What - or who for that matter - do you take for granted?

The Parish mag went on to say 'Life isn't about how to survive the storm but how to dance in the rain' - at which point the inner cynic in me reared up. I am sick of the storm but would love to hear more about the great things happening in your part of the world. You say 'patata' I say 'pohtahtoh' and so on. When the stats went back up this evening I was amazed to see how many people are subscribing, and that WKDN is reaching over 90 countries now. So - if you're not 'dancing in the rain' how about sharing three simple things that amazed you today? Our top ten countries are: US, UK, Canada, Germany, Spain, France, Netherlands, Italy, Japan and Ireland. There are 10 posts to go before the big 200 so if one new or old commenter pops up from each country I will write about that country and what I found amazing it. Three things. That's all. I'll start with the UK:

1) a full rainbow over the Bishop's Palace driving into Bishops Waltham this afternoon
2) three children and an Afghan Hound bouncing on a trampoline at sunset
3) a forest full of bluebell leaves - no flowers yet but a glistening field of green leaves full of promise.

So - what amazed you today? x