Rachel Starr Thomson

While we have been blogging about Andrew Peterson, Andrew Peterson has been blogging about us.

My favourite thing about CSFF Tours (even ones like this, which I hardly qualify as participating in because I didn’t read the book) is author involvement. Authors used to be sort of mythic. They didn’t live on the same planet as the rest of us — well, except for C.S. Lewis, who they say used to answer letters from readers. All of them. But it’s not like that anymore, because we all live in the Internet Age, and in the Internet Age, marketing is about building relationships with readers.

While I still can’t build relationships with most of my favourite authors (because most of my favourite authors are dead), this change in the business landscape is huge for me. For you, too, if you write. It’s tremendously liberating.  I used to shudder at the thought of marketing. Now I don’t, because  marketing does not equal “self-promotion.” It equals “making friends.” And for those of us who want to serve God with our writing, it means even more opportunity to share Christ, glorify God, and invest in people.

How’s that for a revolutionary thought?

In this great CSFF interview, Chawna Schroeder asked Andrew what he wanted readers to take away from his books. He said, “Most of all I hope they brush up against that holy Other who haunts the world of man and proclaims His truth in stories and art and music. I hope the story pushes them closer to belief.”

I’m with you, Andrew. May our whole lives, marketing and all, push readers close to that belief — or rather, pull them along with us!

I haven’t, as I said yesterday, read North! Or Be Eaten, nor have I read Andrew Peterson’s first book. I’ve now read a bit of his blogging at The Rabbit Room (and intend to keep visiting long after this tour is over). I’m struck by Andrew’s vision of Christian art. In “About the Rabbit Room,” he describes a visit to London:

The tour ended at the Eagle and Child, the pub where the Inklings often met for beer, friendship, and the sharing of their latest writings. I dragged my wife inside and promptly ordered fish and chips at the table where Tolkien, Lewis, his brother Warren, Charles Williams, and others once enjoyed one another’s company . . .  I’m not sure what’s so fascinating to me about these men and their works, their approach to creativity and their understanding of the source of it all. Their brilliance was remarkable; they were Christians, intellectuals, and yet childlike enough to love stories and seek fellowship in their making.

That last comment brought to mind one of the blurbs on North! Or Be Eaten, written by an author whose own series-in-the-making deals much with the power of art, stories, and childlikeness:

“In a genre overrun by the gory and the grim, Peterson’s bite-sized chapters taste more like a stew of Gorey (Edward) and Grimm (the Brothers). North! Or Be Eaten is a welcome feast of levity–and clearly a labor of love. Andrew Peterson has awakened my inner eight-year-old, and that is a very good thing.”
–Jeffrey Overstreet, author of Auralia’s Colors and Cyndere’s Midnight [and Raven's Ladder, due to be released next month. I'm reading it right now and it's fantastic.]

Children see stories in everything. At least, I did. And by seeking out the dynamics of story wherever we go, we’re more likely to catch glimpses of the Author. I’m excited about Christian fantasy literature that awakens inner children and makes us more aware of stories and their power.

Here’s more from Andrew’s essay. Go read it. It’s really good.

London itself was a wellspring of inspiration for me. We strolled through Kensington Gardens where Peter Pan was born, ate still more fish and chips in pubs that had welcomed travelers for four hundred years, I thought about Robin Hood, George MacDonald, Harry Potter, King Arthur, and Shakespeare. And of course, I thought about the gospel. History breathes in London, seeps through the cobbles and like mist it rises from the Thames. It’s easy to see why so many beloved stories have sprung from England’s imagination.

History swept me up when I walked beneath the portcullis of the Tower of London, when I took communion in Westminster Abbey among the tombs of long-dead kings. The blood and body of Christ, shed for you, peasants and kings, pagans and priests. The feast at the table is good and gives life, and is your only hope for meaning and peace and rest from the baying of the hounds at your heels, because Death and Sin and Hatred pursue you and would swallow you up if not for the strong voice of Jesus saying “Peace. Be still.” And at his word the dogs snap back into the darkness with a yelp as if reaching the limit of their chains. History belittles us. Its story is one of conquest and murder and vast darkness, and the noblest of men ends up as dead as the thief. I realized as I walked through the hall of kings in the Abbey that my time here is brief and my earthly crowns are worthless as chaff; the words of my epitaph will ring hollow lest they point to the fullness of Christ.

Good morning, world! (OK, fine, technically it’s afternoon. But I have a morning sort of spirit today, so good morning it is!) Today marks the start of the first CSFF Blog Tour I’ve done since Haunt of Jackals, and alas and alack, this tour has gone awry. Our Fearless Leader’s computer crashed after I sent it my request for the book, taking said request down with it, so I never did get a copy of North! Or Be Eaten by Andrew Peterson and so I cannot review it.

But. I can still help with the tour . Here’s the usual Amazon link to the book. And here’s my Amazon affiliate link, if you’d like to click it and give me credit (and even possible slight earnings) for helping you find it: North! Or Be Eaten: Wild escapes. A desperate journey. And the ghastly Fangs of Dang. (The Wingfeather Saga).

North! Or Be Eaten is the sequel to On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness, which was toured by the CSFF Blog Tour in March 2008. Here’s a post from Becky Miller that incorporates a review, links, lots of discussion, and some thought-provoking ideas about what makes fiction “Christian.” The books are the first two installments in The Wingfeather Saga. Since I never got a chance to read On the Edge, I’m not TOO distraught over missing North! Or Be Eaten — though both books have garnered such positive attention so far that I fully intend to catch up on the whole series when I get a chance.

In the meantime, Andrew Peterson is an interesting fellow who also writes and records music, blogs and sells stuff at the intriguing Rabbit Room, and has (if the Creaturepedia has anything to say about it) a fertile imagination. Have fun checking out some of these links today, along with the comments of my fellow bloggers (some of whom actually read the book). Tomorrow I plan to come up with something interesting, original, and relevant to say . We’ll see!

The rest of the tour:

Brandon Barr
Justin Boyer
Amy Browning
CSFF Blog Tour
Stacey Dale
Jeff Draper
April Erwin
Todd Michael Greene
Ryan Heart
Timothy Hicks
Becky Jesse
Cris Jesse
Jason Joyner
Julie
Carol Keen
Krystine Kercher
Dawn King
Rebecca LuElla Miller
New Authors Fellowship
Nissa
Donita K. Paul
Crista Richey
Chawna Schroeder
Andrea Schultz
James Somers
Steve and Andrew
Rachel Starr Thomson
Robert Treskillard
Fred Warren
Jason Waguespac
Phyllis Wheeler
Elizabeth Williams
KM Wilsher

I’ve been reading the Epistle to the Hebrews for the last few days, and yesterday was struck by the way God chose to perfect Jesus. If the Bible didn’t say that Jesus had to be made perfect, I wouldn’t believe it; I would believe that He was already totally perfect when He got here. But look at what Hebrews 2 says:

But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man. For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. (Hebrews 2:9-10)

I’ve often run into the idea that suffering makes us perfect by burning out our impurities and sanctifying us; that by going through pain, we become holier. But that can’t be what this passage means when it talks about Jesus. He didn’t have any impurities to burn out; He couldn’t have been holier than He was. Instead, the perfection in question is that of suitedness to a certain role — in this case, to the role of “captain of our salvation.”

This got me thinking, and I realized something: the crucifixion was excessive. Jesus did not have to suffer like that in order to pay for our sins. Think about it. The animal sacrifices that foreshadowed Christ were not tortured to death; they were killed quickly and cleanly by practiced hands. The blood of Christ takes away our sins, and it would do so without the scourgings, the mockery, the crown of thorns, the betrayal, the nails, the insanity that is suffering inflicted on a man by other men.

So why do it? Why voluntarily die like that?

Because, as Hebrews 2:17-18 goes on to say,

In all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted.” (Hebrews 2:17-18)

Jesus was made perfect in His role as our advocate and priest because He chose to suffer like us. Because He chose to identify that deeply with who we are. Suffering has been part of human experience since the world fell in Adam. Suffering is often senseless and confusing. It tempts us to abandon faith or lash out at others. Suffering is often brought on by others, deliberately, compounding the pain. And Jesus chose to experience all of that so He could perfectly identify with us.

I’ve always known the cross was proof of God’s love, but this takes that to a whole new level.

I asked my friend Sarah if I could post her updates from Haiti. She said yes. Here’s what she sent out today.

I empty bed pans, I clean out wounds, I remove old bandages and replace them with fresh ones, I clean out and place ointment on holes in peoples heads, arms, hands and legs, I pat peoples foreheads when they scream in pain… These are things I’ve never done before.

On Sunday we were sent 54 patients the hospital had no room for. These are all people that should have been attended to right away, but there was no room. Audrey Martin, one of our Ywam staff has been heading all this up. She is a wonderful homeschooling mother of three children. The patients are calling her an angel from the Lord.

On Wednesday I was asked to be her assistant as we are scared she is going to burn out soon.. I had spent the last few days before sitting with different patients and their families. (they all have straw mats on our arena floor) I’ve gotten to know nearly everyone there.

Audrey told me that I could walk around and see who needed attending to and then attend to them. I just stared at her thinking that she can’t really mean what she is saying, I don’t know the first thing about broken legs and arms, huge holes in peoples bodies? “Or,” Audrey said “I could help her.” I decided that sounded like a better idea.

I watched as she found a girl who had no more skin on half of her hand. Audrey gently cleaned and and put ointment on the hand, I helped her creatively figure out how to then wrap the hand so it might be protected and heal. Half way through I knew I had to start helping other people. “I could do this”, I said and got up. “Alright” Audrey said and motioned to me where the plastic gloves were. I couldn’t help but grin as I put on the gloves. “Good thing I’m “trained” as a doctor!” I laughed. Audrey laughed too. “ We just have to do what we have to do” she said.

So here I am, in Haiti. I’m a school teacher that never had any training and never has been to school in my life, and now, I’ve done what people go to school for years for as a nurse. Ya, just like you I call this crazy too.

One guy had a huge chunk of leg missing. My friend Anne helped me clean it out and then carefully rub ointment on what I would call the “whale blubber” of his leg. Ya, most people have these huge gashes/wholes on their bodies. It’s this white stuff, that looks like a thick firm sponge. With gauze and tape we figured out how to cover up the area. Anne and I cleaned and re-bandaged a ladies lower back, a boys legs, ( he had four huge wholes on his one leg.

This boy is my favourite. I actually want to adopt him even though this doesn’t seem like the right time of life for me to. His name is Erson. He’s about 7 or 8 years old, he doesn’t know how old he is. He’s the one that had been thought dead and put in a group coffin with other dead to be buried later on. Someone walking by had heard knocking, and got the coffin open, and got him out. He has a gash/crevice in his head two inches long and half an inch wide. He has those huge gashes all over is legs and arms. His one knee is still dislocated and both ankles are broken. He is the most sweetest child with the biggest smile. The last couple of nights I’ve sat beside him an stroked his head until he falls asleep. Last night I sat between him and another orphan boy and stroked both their foreheads until the fell asleep. (six of our patients are orphans from before the earthquake)

Yesterday as I was helping in our area (we now call the hospital) one older lady started screaming as a real nurse was cleaning and redressing her wounds. I went over and held the older ladies hand and stroked her forehead throughout the time. She calmed down right away. She kept saying “thank you Sarah”. Everyone knows my name now!
I ended up our one nurses assistant yesterday as she went around helping people.

We do have a couple of Haitian doctors and one nurse here. They are doing next to nothing. They weren’t here at all on Wednesday, and yesterday they just sat around. I started pulling on gloves and picking up gauze and things and the nurse called over. “what are you doing Sarah?” I said I was going to help people, and she said “ok fine”. I thought I’d offended her so I called out to her, “that since she was the real nurse she should help”. She laughed and came over. I figured out later, she really was never offended and had no worries about me helping the patients, she really didn’t care.

It has been very hard for us to watch how people are being treated. The other day while the doctor was working on one of the little boy’s leg, (he was just re-bandaging) the little boy kept screeming. It was “my” little boy. People were holding him down, and I couldn’t handle it. I went over and started stroking his forehead and singing quietly to him. He calmed down.

Besides the no compassion of these doctors, we don’t even have enough of what we need. We’ve been using the same plastic gloves on more than one patient, cause we don’t have enough. We’ve been reusing used bandages because we don’t have enough of the wrap. Then with the people who need actual surgeries we don’t even have the hospital available to be use. It has been very discouraging.

The good news is there are doctors and surgeons coming in on Sunday. They are from Canada and the USA, and they are supposed to be flying in on a plane that can land on the water. (we are right beside the water) as the airport apparently is closed? That’s just what I heard.

Speaking of what I’ve heard. Every day we hear about more devastation. More gangs taking over Port au Prince, more looting and people rioting, more deaths.

But with each piece of bad news we hear about good news. People are getting rescued. One five month old was pulled alive from the rubble the other day. There is no way the child would have survived with out the presence and grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

We have Ywam staff staying in Port au Prince helping with clean up and finding people. We’ve been having teams from all over come in and help out. It was been a very big blessing.

Please do not stop praying.

If there are people who want to help or send supplies the best way is to contact our Ywam base her in St. Marc. Keturah Snow should be the one that you would correspond with. (she is overly busy, so you might not get a reply right away, or else it might be someone else responding to you.)

My personal prayer request is that the Lord would continue to lead me and guide me each day. It has been challanging to teach school as well as help out with all the other needs. As a school we’ve gone over to the “hospital” three mornings this week and sand for half an hour for everyone. My dance students were able to perform one of their choreographies. I now that not only the patients were blessed, but our own students as well.

One special moment for me was on Tuesday evening I’d been talking with some of the patients and their families. (They are all here together, because they’ve lost their homes and are just waiting until the refuge camp that we are running will be open) As we were chatting I mentioned that I am a ballet teacher. Later two girls came to me and asked if I could teach them ballet. So I did! I spent half an hour with them. We had no music and many people watched as I taught these precious refuge girls ballet! It was a beautiful time.

On Wednesday, I got home pretty late, I poured myself a glass of water and just sat down totally exhausted. That was the first night I’d started actually helping patients. I was so tired. All day I had been planning to spend quality time with the Lord. I read my bible and pray tons through out the day, but hadn’t spent actual time with the Lord. “Lord” I said out loud. “I haven’t spent any time with you today!” I felt like the Lord spoke to me. “What you’ve done for the least of these you’ve done to me”. I just started weeping. I thought of the Lord’s heart for these people.

I am crying as I write this now. The Lord loves these people and this nation so much. One of our Haitian teachers shared with us this week. He says how the devil has had the nation of Haiti in a prison for years, and now God is breaking that prison and setting Haiti free. My prayer is that the Haitian people would walk in the victory the Lord has ready for them.

The last story I will share with you is as we went around physically helping the people the other night. One man called us over. Anne and I cleaned and bandaged his leg as Audrey checked his back. (He also has a broken arm) As we finished bandaging up his leg Audrey asked us to pray with her for the man. Half his back is open and raw and there is something sticking out of his back. “this one is too big for us” she said, “ this one God is going to have to take care of.” We prayed to God, who is the healer.

Audrey herself has led five people to Christ. One lady, she discovered was a new Christian for only a couple of days. When asked when she decided that Jesus was her Lord. “The day of the earthquake.” She answered, “I knew then”, she grinned, “that if I was alive, it’s only because of God.”

Please do not stop praying.

Also, every time I close my eyes I can feel the earth shaking. The hard thing is that sometimes, it really is. Much of our staff sleep with bags packed by their doors just in case we need to run in the night. Anytime, anything moves or shakes people get startled. There is much fear in Haiti.

Thank you for those who have sent me bible verses! What a huge encouragement this has been to me. My sister Hannah sent me this one, “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.” Lamentations 3:22-24

As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him . . . for him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in him. (Colossians 2:6-10a)

Jesus said, “It is finished”: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost. (John 19:30)

Haiti still dominates the news, and rightly. The world is pouring people and resources into this impoverished nation, reeling in need.

If you’re a believer, you’re a member of the body of Christ. Think about this: there is enough wealth in the body of Christ to provide for the physical needs of Haiti. Have you sent money? Have you considered going over or supporting those who are helping? Psalm 14:6 declares, “You would shame the plans of the poor, but the LORD is his refuge,” and as the Lord’s people, we are a real part of that refuge. Are you doing anything to help the poor?

But though we ought to help Haiti physically — and not only Haiti, but the poor of the world, and in our neighbourhoods, on an ongoing basis — Haiti’s needs are more than the immediate need for resources and medicine and housing we see now. My friend who serves there wrote the other day, “Haiti was a mess before the earthquake.”

What Haiti needs, really needs, to not only survive this terrible day but also to overcome its poverty and darkness long-term, is the gospel of Jesus Christ. What Haiti really needs is to enter into the finished work of Jesus and come under the rule of the kingdom of God. Haiti needs reconciliation with God and atonement for sin. So we need to pray, too, and not only give as the world does, but give as Jesus does. We need to pray recognizing that everything Haiti needs is already accomplished in Jesus Christ. That there is nothing Jesus has not already done to set these people — and all of us — free.

The work we’re called to now? Walk out what Christ has already accomplished. Be His hands and feet, but be a voice, too. Go tell the poor that Jesus Christ has reconciled them to the Father. Go tell the world that their sins are paid for and their warfare is accomplished. That eternal salvation and temporal transformation are both in Jesus.

Rael of Reflective Beauty has reviewed Burning Light:

The middle of a series can be a hard book to read and, I expect, to write.  But Rachel Starr Thomson has done very well here.  This second book in her Seventh World Trilogy is just as exciting, just as full of wonder, and even cranked up a few notches from the first book.  It’s much more intense, and dark, and sad.  Characters grow miles deeper.   Wonderful and horrible new places in the Seventh World are explored.  I think even Rachel’s storytelling and word-smithing improved, and that’s saying a lot!

Check out the whole review here . Thanks, Rael! Positive reviews are fuel for The Advent-writing fire.

Mist slips all around
Wisping haze, signs pointing the way
To an ancient town –
A place I almost remember
A place I think I’ve been

- from Dream, our Vancouver work-in-progress

What do we need?

I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately. When you write a book, you’re supposed to give the Protagonist a Central Need — something that drives him or her through the story. And books do mirror life to a certain degree; we all have a Need, whether we know it or not. Devastating events like the earthquake in Haiti bring these questions to the fore. When everything is stripped away, can we see our primary need more clearly? If I lost everything, would I discover that none of it meant as much I thought it did — that my real need is something much deeper?

Of course, as  Christian I believe that would be the case. That if I lost everything — as someday I will, we all will; you can’t take anything beyond the grave — I would see my need starkly. Because I do believe in Christ, I will see that Need fulfilled. Others may only see it too late and be left with it still gnawing into eternity.

We can call it “salvation” or “grace.” Whatever we call it, the Need is to get back to Eden. To the place we all almost remember. We need to get back to a world and a self that is without sin, without the curse, and most of all, in right relationship with God. Because it’s God, more than anything else, that we’ve been missing all these thousands of years. It’s His friendship, His presence, that we’ll all desperate for.

“Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light: who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son.” Colossians 1:12-13

I’m back in Niagara this weekend doing Soli stuff — this time, coming up with two new short poetry/dance pieces to perform in Vancouver during the Olympics and continuing to work on the productions for Easter and the summer tour (which is actually a spring tour, but that confuses me because I get Easter and spring muddled in my head). Today I spent two hours staring mournfully into the air, flipping through songs on iTunes, and trying very hard to be brilliant.

It is hard to be creative on command.

Several hours, two drives, and talking with other people later, I think I have one of our Vancouver pieces mapped out. Three songs picked, a concept to hold them all together. Tomorrow I get to try and make a narrative for it. Pray for me, if you think of it; this one will actually be shared with people, many of them people who are not believers in Christ, and we want this to be a witness that really touches people where they’re at.

A quick scroll through Facebook updates. Funny updates, comments on the mundane, friendly chatter. And then, every two or three statuses, something about Haiti. Fundraising. Requests for prayer. Sobered and sobering thoughts, promises to pray, worried questions about loved ones.

Yesterday the island of Haiti was hit by a 7.3 earthquake that wreaked incredible havoc in Port-au-Prince. Death tolls may fall between 45,000 and 50,000, and the quake may have left 3 million people “hurt or homeless,” according to this article.

I can’t even imagine those numbers.

And yet, for all that, my day has been pretty cheery. I’ve prayed for Haiti, but my heart has not really been there. I have one friend there, working with YWAM about an hour and a half from Port-au-Prince, and she’s safe.

Her e-mail newsletter yesterday said that as she and her coworkers ran for safety in a large field,

You could hear the entire city all shouting and yelling at once. It was a very eerie sound.

This morning nearly all of the guys on our staff drove out to Port au Prince, as well as the “5th Section” to check on their friends, family, and to see what we can do. They did not return until dusk. I’m not sure if any one of them will be the same again.

Apparently almost every building in Port-au-Prince (an hour and a half drive away) has flattened. The prison flattened killing everyone in it. A school flattened killing 400 children. Almost every business has flattened, including some of our only large stores.

At the moment the UN are only driving around. The aid workers are taking photos. What is so crazy is Haiti doesn’t even have the tools to dig the people and debris up.

These things are so far from my experience, in my lifetime and today, that I can hardly imagine them. My emotions can’t go there. I pray, but I’m not crying — not like those of my friends who have been there, who know people there, who wish more than anything they could help. My heart is not really in Haiti.

But God’s is.

As Christians, we have access to the throne room of God. Bold access, Hebrews tells us. Come today and pray for Haiti. I will be. And I won’t be praying out of my heart — there’s not much of value in it in a crisis like this. Instead, I want to pray out of God’s heart. I want to pray knowing that our Creator knows the name of every person lost, of every person homeless, of every person injured, and that our Saviour cares. Yes, come and pray; come and give; help practically if you can. Not because of how much you care. Because of how much He does. Add your voice to those around the throne asking mercy and salvation and provision for this nation.

I’m preaching to myself. I want to find that my heart, over the next days and weeks and months, is in Haiti.