The Tulip Driven Life

By: Thomas F. Booher Teenage angst is one of the main themes that runs throughout Captives, and I think it's the best part of the book. I was just as interested, if not more interested, in how the characters from Glenrock would react and behave in their new environs (and the temptations that come with it) as I was in how Levi, Mason, and the rest would save them. This, in fact, is the first question Jill Williamson asks in her discussion questions at the end of the book, and I am glad she has them there. Being a 23 year old man, recently married, expecting a child in exactly a month, I can still remember what it was like to be single and looking. The desire to be loved, to give love, to make love, that's what's on the brain of the teenage boys and girls in this story, and that's how it is in real life. Also, the sticky temptations, such as Mason and Omar both having affections for their brother's fiancee -- that's real too. One thing I want to poke at, h...

By: Thomas Fletcher Booher  I run through the meadow into the moon's gleam that trickles through the trees and splashes across the grass. And in the brightness all I see is you.   Your hair is illumined, your eyes green, your face round and delicate. You wear grey silk, like nightwear, and extend your hand to me, beckoning me to come.  I looked back but for a moment, and you were gone.  I cannot say why I turned. Perhaps I think it too wondrous to be real, to fanciful to be happening. And now that you're gone, I dread to think it all a dream. But then I approach where you stood, a strand of your radiant hair wafting in the gentle breeze, and as I involuntarily place my open palm beneath it, it rests upon it. I squeeze my hand- and my heart- around it. And that contact with you, was all it took to know you were real, to know I was not chasing shadows. So I searched. I journeyed through the forest, days without food. I slept in the cold, damp ...

I've written a post before on how the fairy-tale perspective, or even the view that tries to borrow from it and incorporate it into a marriage between Christians, is ruined by the reality of sin. I did this in the form of a story. I would like to write another short story, this time focusing on the spiritual and uplifting side of marriage, when marriage is going as it should from a truly biblical perspective (as in God's purpose/perspective, not man's, for marriage). However, I want to dedicate this entry to explaining its title, and hopefully in a separate post I can illustrate it through a story. A fairy tale view of marriage centers marriage on the physical; by that I do not primarily mean the physical appearance  of the man and woman, or sex, but the physical in general. Going places, doing things, walking, talking, socializing, working, etc. All these things, obviously, are important aspects of marriage, but, I am contending, are not the core. At least, they shou...

            The Smintons of Old Daggerly Lane mindlessly sipped their coffee from their glass mugs, which they purchased from the local store. Wal-Mart brand cups were too common-everyone had those. These, while just as cheap, could perhaps be mistaken for finer quality. Besides, the blue lines that formed the little flowers near the brim made them unique. They had bought them seven years ago, not long after they were married. It was supposed to just be temporary you see- a year or two and then they would be dining with fine china, and in much nicer lodging than their small single story home that they had rented from the elderly couple, whose names had long been forgotten. But alas, there they sat, with their cheap cups placed atop their cheap wooden table in the same old, dilapidated house. The only difference from seven years ago to now was the three children, who also huddled around the table that was only meant to seat four. Wel...