community after all. You call me “brother,” and I call you “sister.” You companion me with an active love. You turn dried peas into green words. We engage in a dialogue, you and I. In consequence you grant me pur- pose and being.
It is a covenant of monumental grace and significance. •••
When I publish my work—say, a novel—in book format, there may have passed more than a year between my first draft and your purchase.
But now I intend to close that gap. It is still possible for you to find my name—together with a whole list of my books—on
Amazon.com, and then to order one or two. That’s good. The following is better. I am now offering books on Kindle, download- able in a twinkling.
Good for you because the price is less than half what you would pay for something between covers. Good for me because the author’s percentage is much higher (since he has become his own, and she her own, publisher).
Good for both of us because we meet more swiftly than before. These days an author can depend upon publishing houses less and less. Like every other business, they are cash-strapped. Therefore, they spend money to market only a very few new titles a year. Nor does it matter if an author’s previous books have done well by them. One of my works, The Book of God: the Bible as a Novel, has been translated into 15 languages and has sold worldwide more than a million copies—doing especially well in Japan.
Others (such as The Book of the
Dun Cow, which won the National Book Award; Ragman; or several children’s books; my book on mar- riage titled As For Me and My
House; devotional works like Reliv- ing the Passion [Lent] and Prepar- ing for Jesus [Advent]; and Paul, a Novel) have done remarkably well. Nevertheless, those who pub- lished these books aren’t in a hurry to publish my next. So, online I go.
And online I invite you to come. Meet me still on
Amazon.com and take me to the beach. Or give me to your friends as Christmas presents. Or take me to bed with you, and I will murmur mysteries in your eyes. •••
The forest fire was contained, and we got down the mountain unscathed. But that was not the last I saw of it.
In September, I hiked the Cas- cades alone. It hadn’t been my inten- tion to come upon the scorched ridge and valley. Actually, I thought I was
following the path we’d taken in May, but I had wandered wide of it. Suddenly the black land lay before me, the trunks of tall pine pointing skyward like obelisks or flagpoles or dead sentinels. Across the valley and up its distant ridge the earth seemed to me to be a corpse with a fuzz of black hair. I heard nothing but the soughing of the wind and felt altogether alone. Perhaps this is how Herman would imagine my loneliness before a dark and empty computer screen. But I was not, in the end, alone. For when I took boldness in my teeth and walked into the valley of char, I began to see the stems of small green trees poking through the black. Of course. Lodgepole pine seeds wait underground for just such a fire as this, whose heat pops them open, and they grow.
DENALI NATIONAL PARK
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Alaska Tour & Cruise 12 Days
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$1998*
Fly to Anchorage to start your land tour of the “best of Alaska’s interior!” Tour includes the Iditarod Headquarters; Talkeetna (made famous in the TV show Northern Exposure); Scenic drive to Denali; Denali National Park and Preserve; city tour of Anchorage; and the scenic drive to Seward. Board your state-of-the-art ship the 5-STAR Celebrity Millennium for your seven-day Alaska cruise from Seward, through the Gulf of Alaska, to Hubbard Glacier (the largest tidewater glacier in North America); located on the edge of Mendenhall Glacier, the state capital of Juneau; Skagway (where the gold rush began); uniquely Alaskan, Icy Strait Point; and the fi shing village of Ketchikan. You’ll disembark in Vancouver and take the picturesque drive to Seattle for one-night, then fl y home. *Price per person, based on double occupancy. Airfare is extra. Seasonal rates may apply.
For reservations & details call 7 days a week: 1-800-736-7300 December 2012 31
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