Bethany's Buddy

Religion was always on the milder side in my waspy family. We did Sunday service, provided it was followed by donuts on the beach. We worshipped in a non-descript wood-paneled room. We were quiet about our religion.

Naturally, like my holy roller sister, I grew attracted to the exact opposite. Loud, glaring religion. The multi-hued glass windows, jewels, and gory reliquaries of Catholicism. Dancing nekkid, widdershins, during the full moon, as I read from my Llewellyn Wicca Handbook. Making a metanoia and lighting candles in front of golden icons in the Greek Orthodox cathedral. Ooo, and stigmata! Stigmata was the very pinnacle of ostentatious cool.

As I aged, I developed my own personal religion, flamboyant but lighthearted. I studied religious history, and decided which bits of the bible made beautiful, wonderful sense, and which bits were essentially political propaganda centuries out of date. Love is love, whether you’re gay, straight, asexual, or poly, and I dismissed any words to the contrary as necessary growing pains for an ambitious religion - the best missionaries are 12 little versions of yourself, right? I felt guilty about my presumptuous take-it-or-leave-it attitude, but I couldn’t help think that my Buddy Christ™ roadside shrines were my own modern way of proselytizing. And a much healthier way, at that.

It got a bit harder to laugh about my faith when Mom got sick. Mom was the one that took me for doughnuts after Sunday service. Mom insisted on the advent candles on the dinner table. Mom sat with me in Maundy Thursday services, where we shared muffled, inappropriate snickers when the pastor would awkwardly duck behind the teeny lectern, his skirt-clad rear sticking out, so that no one would see him whacking a saw to mimic the sound of the nails being driven into Christ’s feet.

I tried to blame it on oxygen saturation and medication side-effects, but near the end, when she couldn’t communicate anymore, religion sure didn’t seem to be a comfort to Mom. She was scared, and confused, and visits from the pastor or reading aloud from the bible only made her more so.

I can’t express what a hit that was. Mom was the model for all of my religious beliefs. If in the end it meant nothing to her, what on earth was I doing with my life and soul?

It wasn’t until recently that I realized it wasn’t her religion that was challenged in that moment, it was my own. Her responses were difficult to interpret, at best. It was all about the meaning I laid on them.

I can’t know for certain what she felt when she died. I can only believe that her faith was with her, and that my fuzzy, loving, it’s-all-sweetness-and-cherries God was with her. And I do believe.

Buddy Christ™ is back on my dashboard now, by the way, and we’re spreading the good news in a Ford Van, reaching out to my quivering brethren. But it took a while to find my way back.



Bethany Herron is an urban fantasy writer, freight-train conductor, and RWA Board Member living in the Bay Area. She has the blessed fortune to be connected to the Pens by blood, and blogs at http://jujuwiz.wordpress.com.

I'm Loving Angels Instead

by Gigi

I love hanging out in cemeteries.

No, I was never a Goth kid. But I've always felt a profound sense of beauty and peace in cemeteries.

One of the first plots that ever came to me was a ghost story about two teenagers who are drawn to an angel statue above a grave in a cemetery from California's Gold Rush days.

I'd still like to do something with that story someday, but I learned that writing YA is different than mystery, so I've got a lot more work to do before I can finish it. But you know what? I loved writing that story, regardless of what comes of it.

Based on that attitude, it was suggested by one of the Pens that I'm the most likely among us to become a Bodhisattva. I'm good at the Buddhist practice of calmly accepting the things around me. I accept that the cup is already broken; the things around me will all break at some point, but I'm not going to spend my life worrying.

Even when things go "wrong," it's all part of life. I've screwed up at a lot of things in my life -- being turned down for fellowships after college (which led to me taking off for London instead), getting myself on the wrong life path that I didn't quit until age 25 (which led to me meeting the love of my life a month later), not getting right that ghost story I love (which perhaps I'll find my way back to when I'm ready). By accepting these failures for what they were -- broken cups, not a broken life -- I was able to let them go and move on.

I think I'm good at that practice because most of the time I succeed in living in the moment, appreciating the people and experiences around me, instead of being focused on striving for some future payoff.

It's especially easy to appreciate the moment in beautiful spiritual places like cemeteries. You can feel the universe there. How can you worry about the petty problems in your life when surrounded by such serenity?

I've tried to capture the ethereal nature of cemetery angels through the lens of a camera. Below are a few of my photographs that show how I've experienced these peaceful places.

p.s. If anyone missed the reference in the title of this post, you're missing out on the highly entertaining Robbie Williams.

Addendum: Not five minutes after I wrote the original draft of this post, I was putting dishes away and broke one of my favorite martini glasses. Now that's a good lesson for practicing what I preach ;)

Martha Gets Religious (about writing)

Nothing brings out unsolicited advice like the declaration: "I'm working on a novel."

"What about?" strangers/friends/family ask.

It doesn't matter what you say, they will offer friendly advice. You could literally quote Genesis, and you'd get the response, "Wouldn't it be cool if you make the universe is three days instead? Three days seems more urgent."

Pile that advice on top of whatever you get from your critique group, writing friends, writing forums, seminars, and Oprah.

That's a lot of advice. The only way to anchor yourself in your story is to keep a central tenant of writing commandments. Things you know in your heart to be true about the world, about writing, and about yourself. Things you will not compromise on even as your story grows and changes under the care of others. Things that keep your story yours.

Martha's 10 Writing Commandments To Herself. Not To You.

1. Thou shalt have a female main character point of view. No offense to guys. But there's enough from your point of view in this world.

2. Thou shalt try thy bestest not to let any characters bite their lips. At least not until thou makest a friend who actually does bite her lip. Because really, thou doesn't knowest anyone who does this in real life.

3. Thou shalt not have two women fighting over a joint male romantic-interest. If the two woman shall fight, it shalt be over something substantial. And interesting. Not a dude.

4. Thy characters shall not have pets, unless they intend to eat said pet, or do something grotesquely interesting to said pet, because otherwise all they will do is feed and pet said pet, and what do you really have to say that is interesting about pet ownership? Nothing.

5. Thou shalt not write a character having a dream. Thou knowest that listening to someone's dreams is hella annoying, even when they are thine own. So why make someone pay to read them? (I should note - I have written characters waking up from nightmares but not in the process of having them. It's a thin line, but they're my commandments, so I'm cool with it.)

6. Thou shall write characters of ethnic diversity but not dwell on said ethnic diversity creating a "we are all the same at heart" message because thou knowest, as someone of diversity, that thou feels this message is total sentimental crap undervaluing the very point of diversity in that difference is beautiful and not something to be feared. Besides, when was the last time thou wantest to be the same as anyone? Never.

7. Thou shall keep thy word count under 60,000. Nothing thou hasest to say is interesting enough to hit 100,000 words. Ever.

8. Thou shall make thy books as awesome as possible. Thou knowest thy is asking for Publishers to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in personnel, materials and overhead to produce said work so make thou shit worth hundreds of thousand of dollars.

9. Thou shalt write whatever the hellest thy wants. Else, what's the point?

10. Thou shall make holy any day thy wantest to rest. Because again. See above.

The Secret of Everything

L.G.C. Smith

So. Religion. In 500 words or fewer. Really? I can’t do it.

Instead, I’m resorting to one of my stories. I’m old enough to repeat myself if I feel like it, so here goes.

In my first year of grad school at Cal, I arrived late to campus one spring morning after a gutting fight with my husband. I don’t remember what it was about, but it was the kind of fight that made me wonder what the hell I had been thinking to marry this person, and what ever possessed me to think I had the slightest inkling of who he was inside because clearly, I didn’t, and my judgment was so wildly off the mark as to call into question everything I ever thought I knew about anything.

I know what was wrong now. He had bipolar disorder. At the time, however, as I parked in the Northside lot and scuttled down to the corner of Euclid and Hearst to cross onto campus, I despaired. Something was wrong, very, very wrong, and no amount of therapy or constructive action on my part seemed to make any difference.

As I reached the crosswalk, the light turned red, and I was stuck in front of a bakery with a homeless guy with a big beard and a little collection box for the Berkeley Free Clinic. My guard down, I made eye contact.

He smiled. He didn’t ask for my spare change. “What’s your favorite shape?”

Well, that was a different approach. “A triangle,” I said.

“What’s your favorite color?”

“Blue.”

He pointed to the sky behind the redwoods to the west of the North Gate. “Look up.”

I did.

He traced a triangle with one finger against the clear blue sky. “There’s a blue triangle for you. Love and fear. That’s all there is. You decide.”

The light turned green and I went to my class, and on with my imperfect marriage and my own deep flaws and foibles. Those words have never left me.

Three short sentences spoken in a profane and painful moment, with the humble gift of an imagined blue triangle sketched in the air bore a lesson as resonant as the teachings of the world’s greatest religions.

Heroes and Heartbreakers

by Lisa Hughey

I know what you're thinking. What does that title have to do with religion?

Not a damn thing. I'm firmly in the camp of, however you choose to worship (or not) is your own business. I won't show you mine and don't show me yours :)

Instead I have some fun news. I'm also going to be blogging over at a new publisher sponsored website: www.heroesandheartbreakers.com

The site launches TODAY. :) So stop on by and take a look. And feel free to let me know what you think!!

Happy Valentine's Day from the Pens!!!!


Lisa

Big Truth

--Adrienne Miller

I remember the first time I was informed I would be going to hell. I was about eight years old. My sister and I were riding in the back of my grandmother’s van. She was up front, tsking and clucking over the terrible fact that neither of us had been baptized.

“Such a shame that they’ll be going to hell,” my grandmother’s friend said. Her tone was so matter of fact she could have been talking about eggs going bad. Well, if you leave them out on the counter, of course they’re going to be rotten.

But she wasn’t talking about eggs, she was talking about my soul.

I waited for my grandmother to contradict her, to say something, anything, about how that wasn’t true. We were good kids. Polite kids. Nice kids. But my grandmother just sighed and nodded.

My eyes went wide as I looked to my sister. My lovely sister, Lisa, a few years older and far more firmly grounded in reality than I ever have been, just rolled her eyes and shook her head. Neither one of us would be going to hell, she assured me. 

Lucky for me, I believed my sister, but the whole incident never left me. Not because I worried about burning forever in a pit of fire, but about why a woman who knew me, and who I knew loved me--deep down, really loved me--could believe such a thing. 

My grandmother would always take us to church when we spent the weekend with her, and I loved to look at the stained glass windows that lined that nave. I was fascinated by  the symbols they contained, swords and trumpets, demons and angels. They were beautiful, filled with more symbolism than I could comprehend. I knew there was something big there, something more than the simple linear story they told, something just beyond my understanding. 

Even at eight I knew I wasn’t seeing what my grandmother was in that illuminated glass.  She saw answers there. She saw a way to live a life. She saw a pathway to redemption.  But even when I tried my hardest I couldn’t see what she found there. Reason always battled with belief.

As I grew, my fascination with mythology grew, but I still could never find the kind of absolute truth that my family and friends found in their various religions. As an adult I was able to cobble together an unorthodox patchwork system of spirituality that I hold close to my heart.

But time doesn’t heal some hurts. I know that my grandmother went to her grave believing in her heart that she and I would be separated for all of eternity, but I’d like to believe that the Truth is bigger than our worldly struggles for understanding and sense. I’d like to believe that the Truth is big enough for all of us...and yes, I mean all. 

Finding one’s helpful demons

By Juliet

I'm not what you'd call a church-goin' gal. Maybe because I've never felt a true calling, I find religious faith fascinating. Especially how it inspires creativity: art, music, and writing.

For instance, what happens when you shut a bunch of men away for hundreds of years, tell them not to have sex, and scare the crap out of them with tales of the devil?

Above: President Buer, 10th demon

They think a whole lot about demons. And they come up with really interesting characters. And spin some great tales about them.

There are seventy-two major demons in the Christian demonic pantheon, and they all have names and unique personalities and --at least to this heathen-- sound like the sort of characters with whom one wouldn’t mind sharing a bottle of wine and swapping stories.

Here's the really interesting thing: You don’t summon these guys to inflict B-movie horror tricks upon your neighbor in retaliation for weed-whacking at 7 in the morning.

Instead, these guys are helpful. They help people. Seriously. The conjurer, also known as the exorcist, calls these fellows up for a chat, then uses them to learn about science, or literature, or to get some serious work done. Even Noah was said to have called on the demon Shamdon for help in planting the first vine.

It’s all written down in grimoires and tomes with names like the Pseudomonarchia Daemonum and The Lesser Key of Solomon, consisting of the Ars Goetia, Ars Theurgia Goetia, Ars Paulina, Ars Almadel and Ars Notoria. These books describe the spirits and the spells needed to compel them to do the will of the conjurer

Right: Marquis Ronwe or Ronove

The demons are referred to as kings, princes, earls, marquises, dukes, counts, and presidents.

I love the ritzy titles. They’re all royalty, and they have some really interesting talents.

Vapula is a powerful Duke of Hell that commands thirty-six legions of demons. Depicted as a griffin-winged lion, he teaches philosophy, mechanics, and sciences. Leraje is a mighty Great Marquis of Hell who has thirty legions of demons. He inspires battles and disputes, and makes gangrene wounds caused by arrows. He is depicted as a gallant and handsome archer clad in green, carrying a bow and quiver.

Or my personal favorite, Dantalian, of whom the The Lesser Key of Solomon says: "He is a Duke Great and Mighty, appearing in the Form of a Man with many Countenances, all Men's and Women's Faces; and he hath a Book in his right hand. His Office is to teach all Arts and Sciences unto any; and to declare the Secret Counsel of any one; for he knoweth the Thoughts of all Men and Women, and can change them at his Will. He can cause Love, and show the Similitude of any person, and show the same by a Vision, let them be in what part of the World they Will. "

Above, Duke Abigor, desribed as a "goodly knight" riding a steed given to him by Beelzebub

The Pseudomonarchia Daemonum describes the demon Phenex: "Phoenix is a great marquesse, appearing like the bird Phoenix, having a child's voice: but before he standeth still before the conjuror, he singeth manie sweet notes. Then the exorcist with his companions must beware he give no eare to the melodie, but must by and by bid him put on humane shape; then will he speake marvellouslie of all woonderfull sciences. He is an excellent poet, and obedient, he hopeth to returne to the seventh throne after a thousand two hundredth yeares, and governeth twentie legions."

It's easy to get lost in this stuff. So if you’re looking for inspiration for a novel, you might want to check out the antics, talents, and tragic figures in this list of demons. Most of them command many legions of lesser demons, so there are thousands more where those came from.

And here’s the great thing: these demons were full of knowledge, wisdom, and beauty. From them one could learn the secrets of the world. But if they weren’t controlled, if they took over, there was hell to pay.

Hmm. Seems like there's a metaphor for the creative life in there somewhere....