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Tanara McCauley

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Tanara McCauley

Tag Archives: writers

Moving Right Along

26 Wednesday Nov 2014

Posted by tanaramccauley in Writing and Pursuing Publication

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

amediting, amwriting, blog posts, blogging, Christianity, editing, faith, growth, living in the past, moving forward, progress, self-help, trust God, writer, writers

oneway

 

Let your eyes look straight ahead, and your eyelids look right before you.
Proverbs 4:25

Not too long ago I was alerted to a new comment on one of my old blog posts.

I had to read my entry for context before responding, and found myself frowning. At the time that post was written, I had a thing for semicolons.

What started out as a harmless reply attempt turned into a critique and edit session. I whipped that thing into shape, replied, and was just about to sign out, when the link to another old post caught my attention.

Hmm. What’s this one look like?

I pulled it up and rolled my eyes, asking, “Tanara, could, you, possibly, add, one, more, comma?” The actual writing? Don’t ask.

That one ground into presentable submission, I attacked a few others. Some of them were so bad they fought back.

Though my schedule’s already packed, I convinced myself something had to be done. But before I could commence Operation Edit a Hundred Blog Posts, the following verse came to remembrance:

“Behold, I will do a new thing, shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” 
Isaiah 43:19

As an unpublished novelist, it’s tempting to make sure every public word I’ve written lives up to my ever-increasing standards for writing. It may seem a worthy endeavor, but at the end of the day it’s simply a prideful attempt at perfectionism.

To learn and write new things, looking forward and not behind, is to let God guide and grow me.

He won’t make roads in the wilderness and rivers in the desert if I choose to camp there with my own little pickax and water bucket. And I can’t move forward if I keep tinkering with what’s done and over with.

Should I edit my novels? Of course. Year-old blog posts? No.

Glimpses into my writing past should result in praise for what God’s done since.

The foundations of a road have been laid, a riverbed hewn, a writer made better and growing still.

A writer determined to keep moving right along.

Your turn: When are you tempted to dwell in the past? What helps you to move forward?

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The Write Kind of Life

17 Monday Nov 2014

Posted by tanaramccauley in Writing and Pursuing Publication

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

amreading, amwriting, authors, books, chocolate, coffee, community, editing, inspiration, relationships, writers

IMG_9213.JPG
Writing is a solitary business.

Sure, lots of people do it. But when it’s time to put words to page, the writer is often isolated behind four walls.

We talk to ourselves. We get talked to by inspirational quotes we’ve framed, tacked, or taped all around the writing den, not to mention characters we’ve made up.

We stare into space. Drum fingers. Type. Delete. Backspace. Rewrite.

Minutes pass into hours. Hours produce hundreds of words, maybe thousands. Or not.

And we do this, enjoying or enduring it, day in and day out.

Alone.

Yet there are things that bind us. Little constants, partaken of or adhered to by writers, that act as invisible dots. From that keyboard clacking in the cubbyhole of an office, to the one tap-tap-tapping from the lounge chair on the beach.

A sip of something hot and steaming between paragraphs.

A nibble on sweet treats at the close of a scene.

A dip into the pages of someone else’s book while we break from writing our own.

Coffee. Chocolate. Chai.

#anwriting to #amreading.

Word counts. Daily goals. Settings. Arcs. Plot points. Characters. Dark moments. Platform.

These things take the solitary, isolated writer and give her a place among thousands of sisters and brothers who live the writer life.

The write kind of life. And we dare not trade it.

Your turn: What are your favorite things about the community you belong to in your line of work?

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Gone Fishing, Author Style

02 Sunday Nov 2014

Posted by tanaramccauley in Writing and Pursuing Publication

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

amwriting, author, Christian fiction, diligence, editing, faith, fishing for words, fishing skills, hard work, nanowrimo, novel, perseverance, word count, writers, writing, writing strategies

This was originally posted on 11/09/2013. It’s that time of year again…

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As a child, I fished with my father. Dark, quiet nights, sometimes nothing but the calm sound of water lapping the bank, or the buzz of mosquitoes testing the perimeter of whatever insect repellent we wore. It’s been a long time since we’ve done that.

Lately, however, those memories are rushing back. Memories of fish too large for my lanky little arms, fighting against me, tugging so hard on the line I feared a time or two that I’d be pulled in instead of the fish being pulled out.

Memories of determination, refusing to give up; of reeling in those bullish fish.

The cause of these memories? National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), and this commitment I’ve made to the program to have 50,000 words by the end of November; the side bet I’ve waged with myself to hit 80,000.

Striving to meet an ambitious daily word count–against all odds and come what may–is like fishing for words that are fighting to stay in the water.

Some days inspiration sleeps in. Creativity goes MIA. Skill leaves a “Be Back Later” sign on the door. And the words are left to swim amuck in an unsupervised pool of mockery and defiance; determined not to be hooked, refusing to be tamed.

I’d really rather not fight with the slippery suckers. Especially when the house is asleep, coffee’s lukewarm, and I’m getting a series of teasing tugs on my line with no bites.

Searching, straining, desperate for words, it gets tempting to just cut the line. Reel it in empty. Fish again another day. Maybe.

But to do that–to give up–is to get pulled in.

When I fished with my father I never got pulled in.

Strained a few muscles. Got mud on my knees. Suffered scrapes.

On the flip side my muscles grew stronger, my stance firm.

I didn’t quit then. I won’t quit now. One day, one word, one catch at a time.

Going fishing. Be back soon. ❤

And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart. ~ Galatians 6:9 NKJV

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A Writer’s Labyrinth

11 Saturday Oct 2014

Posted by tanaramccauley in Writing and Pursuing Publication

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

amwriting, author, brain teaser, challenge, Christian fiction, fiction, goals, inspiration, labyrinth, motivation, progress, writers, writing

Not too long ago my father-in-law presented me with a challenge. I placed all of my fingers together at the tips except the middle fingers, which touched at the knuckles:IMG_8516.JPG

Easy enough, right? Then I had to tap each pair of fingers together on command, all without moving the middle fingers. First the pinkies, then thumbs, next the pointer fingers.

Child’s play…until he called out the ring fingers.

I couldn’t move them. At all. I strained just about every muscle in my body. Nothing.

I resorted to glaring at my fingers in an attempt at telepathy. Nada.

No matter how hard I tried, they wouldn’t budge, though I always seemed to be just on the edge of success.

Worse, long after figuring out that those fingers were staying put, I spent a lot more time and energy trying to prove otherwise. I earned for my efforts a stabbing three-day headache. It reinforced the idea that if you think too long or hard on something, the effects can be crippling.

Likewise, in writing–or any worthy goal–it’s easy to overthink a project or try to force an ill-placed scene.

One can puzzle for months how to approach a story, but at some point the words to that story must be introduced to their pages. Some scenes or characters need cutting, others filling out.

Thoughts must become decisions that turn into action.

Otherwise, precious time gets lost in the Labyrinth of Perpetual Thought and Distraction, where corridors are lined with finger statues, and progress hides behind a foggy horizon always just out of reach.

“Think it through too long, and it may stay a thought forever.”

Your Turn: What are your biggest obstacles to progress? Try the exercise (though don’t spend too much time on it). Were you able to tap the ring fingers together?

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When Mom’s Away…

21 Sunday Sep 2014

Posted by tanaramccauley in and Other Topics, Faith, Relationships, Writing and Pursuing Publication

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

ACFW, American Christian Fiction Writers, amwriting, author, authors, children, conference, humor, parenting, relationships, St. Louis, writers, writing

As I gear up to head to the American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW) conference in St. Louis, I’m tempted to fret over how my family can possibly manage without me. My husband is off work and my father-in-law will be flying in to keep him company, still I’m skeptical of two men being able to manage every group of the food pyramid (we won’t even discuss cooking it), school uniforms, practice schedules, games, homework, chores, gardening, an all day four-year-old, and countless other things. Not to mention what my two daughters’ very long, exceedingly curly, extremely thick hair is going to look like by the time I return from five days absence.

This short, fifteen-second commercial helped me to put the brakes on all that worrying. When I’m gone, things won’t be done my way. And that’s just fine. While I might find a few things to cringe about if I could watch the goings-on of my household from my cell phone (is there an app for that?), I’d also find my kids safe, prayed over, fed–with something, and happy.

I’m blessed to have a husband who supports my dream. And I’m grateful for a place to go where I can connect with other writers, grow in my craft, worship the Lord, and pursue the next step.

So St. Louis here I come! May the Lord bless, keep and protect my family, and every other family His writers are leaving behind. And for the moms en route with me, here’s to having things dad’s way for a time :-).

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Blog Hop – My Writing Life

04 Wednesday Jun 2014

Posted by tanaramccauley in Writing and Pursuing Publication

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

American Christian Fiction Writers, amwriting, authors, blog hop, blogging, c. joy allen, Christian fiction, christian writers of the west, contemporary fiction, contemporary romance, editing, novel, pantser, plotter, robin w. pearson, ruth a. douthitt, series, writers, writing, young adult

laptop

I’ve been asked to participate in a blog hop. The assignment is to answer four questions about my writing, then select three other authors to answer the same questions on their blogs within the next couple of weeks. Be sure to see the links to their blogs at the end of this post and find out more about these wonderful writers. A huge thanks to Dana McNeely, president of Christian Writers of the West, for inviting me to participate! You can find her answers to these same questions on the Christian Writers of the West blog.

What are you working on?

I am finishing up my second novel, which is actually the third book in the series I am working on. It’s a contemporary romance about a Major League baseball player who’s managed to maintain a low key lifestyle, until now. Of all the recent changes in his life, three women prove the most complicating–a sports reporter, a sports agent, and the near-dead woman found in his home.

I’m also a third of the way through the second novel in this series, which follows the baseball player’s twin brother to Guatemala, where cartels are terrorizing the countryside for control of the drug trade. He meets and falls in love with a woman who does everything she can to avoid him. He’s determined to find out why, not knowing that the answer will cost him.

How does your work differ from others in its genre?

My motto is “Fiction might not be real, that doesn’t mean it has to be unrealistic. There’s no room for perfect people in my stories.” Add to that sentiment “perfect lives, perfect situations, perfect outcomes”…you get the picture. Only God is perfect, so I’m not afraid to put my characters in real life, messy situations that they need a perfect God to help resolve. I’m also not afraid to diversify. My characters come from mixed backgrounds, races, classes, etc. You won’t find many novels with a main couple of two different races, where their racial difference is not the topic of the book. You’ll find such a thing in my writing. I try to stay true to each story put on my heart, choosing characters, setting, and backdrop that strengthen, not distract from, the plot. My main concern is honoring God by writing it to the best of my ability. I worry less about making it “fit.”

How does your writing process work?

Okay, real life again. I’m a stay-at-home mom. I have two 9-year-olds and a four-year-old empress. So…you can’t set a watch by my writing schedule. Sometimes I sit in the corner of a karate dojo with a laptop propped on my knees, other times I’m tapping in the notes section of my phone from the passenger seat of my truck while my husband drives to Costco. Being a night owl helps. Typically I write after I’ve put the kids to bed, spent time with my husband, and cleaned the house. (A nighttime clean is the most rewarding; it lasts more than five minutes.) So it’s not unusual for me to be typing and backspacing away from about 1 to 3 (or 5) in the morning. Every now and then I’ll pop into a Starbucks at opening time on a Saturday and stay until I’ve reached a word count goal. Ultimately I have to make time to write around my family’s schedule. Depending on what’s realistic any given day, I’ll set a time goal or a word count goal.

I’m also a pantser. I have a general idea of what’s going to happen in a story, and I make notes and loose (very loose) outlines. But for the most part the story unfolds as I’m writing it.

Why do you write what you do?

The stories I write originate in different ways: people watching, past experiences, “what if” scenarios, etc. Only the ones that continue to resurface–those that produce this sort of burning in my chest–actually make it on the list to become a full length novel. Writing is not just hard, it can be downright torture sometimes. But to quit would be to waste a gift I’ve been given and to choose not to honor God with it. That’s a choice I’ll never make. Plus, I have a suspicion that if I give up before that (ever-growing) list has been completed, I’d be subjected for a lifetime to small, relentless voices whispering “write me, write me, write me.” So I write.

Tag, you’re It!

Robin W. Pearson is a gifted writer who is also a stay-at-home mom and homeschooler. Her debut novel A Long Time Comin’ (formerly titled Women & Children First) was a 2012 semi-finalist in the Christian Writers Guild’s Operation First Novel contest. She has done editing and article writing, and currently blogs about faith, parenting, and writing. She lives with Eddie, her husband of almost 20 years, and their seven children. Within the next week or so you can find her answers to these questions on her blog Mommy, Concentrated, where you’ll also find relatable stories about parenting with a focus on Jesus.

C. Joy Allen is a recent finalist in Clash of the Titles’ Olympia writing contest. She writes contemporary fiction and romance. She completed her first novel in January 2013, and has plans for another. When she’s not writing, she’s enjoying her marriage of fifteen years and counting, and homeschooling her four children. She also loves volunteering for American Christian Fiction Writers where she is a member. Within the next couple of weeks you can find her answers to these questions on her blog To See Joy, where you’ll also find other enjoyable blog posts about faith, writing, and life in general.

Ruth Douthitt – In 2004, author Ruth A. Douthitt completed The Dragon Forest, which was picked up by OakTara Publishing in 2008 and released in April 2011. Ruth currently teaches Writing/Language Arts at an elementary school. She enjoys running, gardening, and drawing in addition to writing. She lives in Arizona with her husband. Within the next couple of weeks you can find her answers to these questions on her blog The Writer’s Pen, where you’ll also see some of her amazing artwork and find access to her books.

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White Chocolate Banana Nut Bread

17 Tuesday Dec 2013

Posted by tanaramccauley in Faith, Relationships, and Other Topics

≈ 15 Comments

Tags

amwriting, author, banana bread, coffee, cookbook, cooking, culinary, Essentials of Baking, food, holidays, recipes, white chocolate, William-Sonoma, writers

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My favorite banana bread recipe is from William-Sonoma’s Essentials of Baking cookbook. If you can find the book, which is no longer available through their site, I recommend you snag it. It’s a culinary gem.

I’ve since slightly altered the way I make the banana bread recipe, mainly adding white chocolate, more nuts, and cutting or tweaking an ingredient or two. I make it often, and promised a friend I’d share the wealth in time for the holiday season.

2-1/2 large ripened bananas (or 3 medium ones)
1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour*
1/2 cup whole-wheat flour*
*(I sometimes do 1 cup of each type of flour instead)
2 tsps baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp nutmeg
2 large eggs, room temperature
3/4 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar (dark brown has a richer flavor than golden in this bread)
1/2 cup 2% milk, room temperature
6 tbsp. melted butter
1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans
1 cup white chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and make sure rack is centered in the middle of the oven. Butter* and flour either a 9×5 loaf pan, or a large muffin (makes 6) pan.

Combine the dry ingredients and mix together well. In a separate bowl mash the bananas until smooth. In another bowl (or mixer) mix together the brown sugar, eggs, milk, and butter until well blended. Mix in the dry ingredients “in 3 batches alternately with the bananas.” Add the chopped nuts and the white chocolate chips and stir in.

Pour the batter into the loaf or muffin pan. Add nuts on top (chopped, whole, decorative or random). In my oven I bake it about 50 minutes. The original recipe calls for 55-60 or until a toothpick comes out clean. In the muffin pan the baking time is cut to about 35-38 min.

ALWAYS best served warm (it might fall apart if you don’t let it cool completely, but who cares when you’re gonna chew it to pieces anyway), with coffee, and a house full of friends. Enjoy!

*Cooking Tip:
When I finish a stick of butter, I save the butter wrappers in a Ziploc sandwich bag specifically for the purpose of buttering a pan when baking. Take the wrapper out and let it sit at room temperature. The butter residue melts fast and you can rub it all over the pan fairly quickly, easily reaching corners and sides without the hassle you get from using the actual stick.

 

 

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Ready…or Not: An Author’s Pre-Conference Petition (and Parody)

08 Sunday Sep 2013

Posted by tanaramccauley in Faith, Relationships, and Other Topics, Writing and Pursuing Publication

≈ 24 Comments

Tags

ACFW, agent, American Christian Fiction Writers, amwriting, author, Bible, Christ, comedy, editor appointments, elevator pitch, faith, fears, humor, introversion, introvert, onesheet, parody, personality traits, prayer, relationships, spiritual warfare, spirituality, synopsis, thorn in the flesh, weakness, worship, writer conference, writers, writing

In less than a week, I will kiss my husband and kids goodbye, board a plane, hoist my carry-on in the overhead compartment, and fly to Indianapolis for the American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW) Conference.

I’ve worked on my proposal and one-sheets (all that’s great about your novel on one page), practiced my elevator pitch, become acquainted with other first-timers via a group thread, and have been praying for God’s will, whatever it is, to be done.

I’m ready…almost.

The idea of being among hundreds of other authors–all Christians, all with the goal of using the craft of writing to glorify the Lord and touch lives while doing it–is astounding. And I’m amped to worship with these folks.

I’m praying to walk away with a new writing buddy. Not just a “trade likes on Facebook” type of buddy (though I’ll take those too :-)), but a special sister I can connect with on that deeper level to take this journey with.

The worship and the buddy connection I’m anticipating are enough to have me so excited I burn calories just thinking about them.

But then I think about the appointments–those two fifteen minute slots I’ll have with an editor or agent (I won’t know who/which til I get there)–and I ask, “What on earth have I gotten myself into?”

It’s silly really, I know. Tell that to my beating heart. Tell it that those fears of showing up to my appointments and not remembering my own name (let alone the summary of my story in thirty words) is unrealistic. As is the notion that I’ll open my folder to pull out a one-sheet only to find it empty, or open my mouth and start selling my story…in Chinese.

This past week the nerves have put me in a very “productive in every area but conference preparation” sort of mode.

Instead of fixing the formatting issues on my one-sheet, I’ll look at my 3-year-old and think, “I haven’t updated her baby book in a while.” I’ve trimmed my plants, organized closets, categorized photos for goodness sake…anything to avoid thinking about that whopping thirty minutes of the conference weekend.

According to all that’s sane and scriptural, it’s ridiculous. The worst thing that can happen is I pitch my book and they’re not interested. Rejection is nothing new in the world we writers live in. So, being at peace with that potential outcome, why can’t I shake these “interview” jitters?

I don’t have a concrete answer. Some on my first-timers loop (my new peeps) have suggested spiritual warfare, which they’re experiencing in various ways. And it makes sense, since introversion walks a fine line between personality trait and personality flaw, and it’s definitely an area where I’m susceptible.

It could also be the weakness I have that Christ uses to tell me “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.”

And like I told my peeps, “Though I’d love to be that person who’s so confident and carefree their only worries are what places of interest to visit during free time, I have to say that my insecurities have made me cling to God and bury my face in His robe like a child stuck to the leg of a parting parent. So I’ll take it.”

Regardless of the why, however, the what is not an option. I will, for lack of a better epithet, “get er done.” I will polish my proposal, put some more practice on these pitches, fix this annoying alignment issue on my one-sheet, and, oh yeah, pack.

And I will ask for your prayers.

Pray for me that I will finish strong in my preparations, and that I will go to this conference trusting God. Pray also that He will help me to just be myself, to be open to and serving of others, to be confident in Him and joyful. Pray that His will be done.

And pray for my family that He watches over and guards them while I am away, and that He brings me home to them safely. And if you are willing, pray the same for the hundreds of others rowing the same boat that I’m in. We all need it.

Thank you, and God bless you.

Now I’m ready.

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Critters & Estrogen

17 Friday May 2013

Posted by tanaramccauley in Faith, Relationships, and Other Topics

≈ 14 Comments

Tags

brave woman, caterpillars, creepy critters, disgusted woman, estrogen, gardening, girls, pests, planting, tomboy, writers, writing

As a child everything was fair game:

Gutting fish I’d caught with my dad, baiting hooks with worms, or catching and hooking large grasshoppers when worms weren’t available. Myth-sized spider? Step on it and keep moving. Wouldn’t even flinch.

Sometime along the journey, however, I traded in my tomboy toughness for a generous helping of girlie-girl jitters. Now critters make me jumpy. So when I discovered yesterday that my mint plant had been destroyed overnight by a horde of caterpillars, instead of:

ID-100111957

I was all like:

ID-100162613

Removing the greedy little beasts was a job for braver souls: my kids.

I blame it on the estrogen.

First image courtesy of marin/FreeDigitalPhotos.net, Second image courtesy of anankkml/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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The Atheists, The Agnostic, and The Not Even Sunday Christian – Truth or Fiction Story 3

16 Tuesday Oct 2012

Posted by tanaramccauley in Short Stories, Songs, and Poetry, Writing and Pursuing Publication

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

agnostic, atheist, author, bar, Christian fiction, faith, giveaway, short story, spirituality, true, truth, vote, writers, writing

It’s Truth or Fiction Tuesday! To be eligible to win the $25 Amazon gift card remember to cast your vote using the comments box. For detailed instructions click here.

We sat there–bellied up to the bar no less–debating about the Bible.

The modest pub was a sectioned-off box connected to a restaurant, and it was ours for the night. Different motives led us there. Mine was to ire the date who’d tried to stand me up, despite him being a good guy with a good reason. The two middle-aged Africans were new to the area and checking out the nightlife (or lack thereof), and Alan was working. Everyone else who entered took one look at the empty scene and left without a greeting.

My new friends and I were equally matched in passion, secondhand information, and a steady supply of rhetorical comebacks. The lot of us Bible experts–though none of us had read it.

“But if you look at the scientific proof of evolution…” It was how Brooke started all of his sentences. His voice was like honey. I was tempted more than once to ask him to sing a tribal ditty; but he’d dip into his bag of Darwin, whip out redundant theories and throw in big words no inebriated mind should hear, and I’d lose my train of thought.

He was an enigma to me. I wasn’t raised Christian–or any other religious affiliation for that matter–but I’d certainly never met a black atheist before. I probably would’ve marveled over him all night if not for Johan, the other South African.

Despite all I’d heard about apartheid, the heart of which was racial inequality, it had never occurred to me until then that a South African could be a tall, pale blonde who spoke in an almost Australian accent.

The new knowledge was distracting–and a bit of a blow to what I thought was my intelligent mind–but not so much that I couldn’t hold my own in our verbal scuffle.

“Don’t get me started about carbon dating,” I said. “Oh yeah? And where did that come from?…Okay, so where did that come from?…Say something new, Brooke, say something new.”

I rolled my eyes and took occasional swats at the smoke from Johan’s chain of cigarettes. We all ducked in and out of heated words and bouts of laughter, and they took turns buying drinks while I silenced my phone every time my no-show called.

Johan detoured from our contest of biased facts and popular verses. “Tell me what makes you so certain of your beliefs,” he said through a cloud. He pulled a stack of large bills from his pocket to buy the next round, moving as calm and slow as he talked. I sipped on my Apple Martini and thought hard for an answer.

I didn’t have one.

There was never a time I had not believed God existed. It was something I just always…knew. My faith in Christ, however, still in its infant stages, was sparked by something I couldn’t explain with the same logic that had run our conversation around the same track all night.

And though time had diminished the initial urgency I’d felt for Christ, I was all of a sudden very aware of it.

And very aware of Him.

I lowered my drink and shut my mouth while Johan looked on with a curious expression.

Alan broke the silence. “You don’t really believe in evolution do you? Look dude…” Whenever he said dude he pulled half his mouth up in an actor’s smile. “A house has a designer. Four walls and a roof, man. As basic as it gets, and it still has a designer. You mean to tell me you honestly believe that this whole workup we’ve got going here–galaxies, orbiting planets, gravity, seasons–all this order, and it just happened on its own?”

He wiped the clean spot in front of him with a rag, moved some glasses around, and kept talking. “I’m not gonna go so far as you,” his smile told me he was sorry for not committing to my camp, “and say there’s a god or anything.” He looked back at Brooke, “I just think if you look at it logically, dude, you have to accept that we have a designer out there somewhere.”

He’d said something pretty profound, but he still didn’t get it.

“If that ‘designer’ isn’t God,” I asked Alan after a moment, “then who is he?” He looked like I’d felt when I discovered black atheists and white South Africans.

My phone rang again. This time I answered it. I was no longer interested in a battle of wits and cunning debate. I didn’t know much after all, except that I had never fully committed to Whom I knew to be true.

“I have to go,” I said when I hung up. And so our religious debate ended without ceremony.

“You’ll come back next week?” Brooke stood. “Bring the lucky guy with you.”

I smiled without answering.

We parted with the lingering hugs of people who’ve known each other forever.

“You won’t be back will you?” Johan said in my ear when I embraced him last. “I have a feeling I’ll never see you again.”

And he never did.

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