The Misunderstood Power of Christian Art, Part 1

What makes art ‘Christian’?

I’ve talked about my disgust for the movie God’s Not Dead, and how I discarded Christian music.  After I released We are the Living, I had a couple of good conversations with people simply because it wasn’t a “Christian book”, or at least, I wasn’t sure their junior high kids should read it.

I feel the concept of Christian art has been misunderstood, and, as it is a subject I am passionate about, I thought it was time to discuss my philosophy of faith and art with you over the course of the next few posts.

In the field of imparting ideas, the piano and paintbrush are more powerful than the pulpit.  Not to put down preaching.  It is wonderful.  But art has power to cross boundaries that sermons cannot, and that is why it is important that we as Christians understand it.  A preface: while informed by Scripture and Christian artists and thinkers, this is my humble opinion.  No doubt it will evolve as I do.

Can Christian Art be Defined?

Art is loosely defined in the New Oxford American Dictionary as:

• The expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.
• Works produced by human creative skill and imagination.
• Creative activity resulting in the production of paintings, drawings, or sculpture.

No explicit mention of film, literature or music is mentioned, but I expect there is little doubt that these are part of the arts.

But what is Christian art?  This is much more slippery–like a wet football, in fact.  Here is the definition I’m going to work with: Christian art is that which is produced by a Christian, in obedience to, and to the glory of God.

But what glorifies God?  That is where things become more difficult.

What is the Call of the Christian Artist?

Madeleine L’Engle said, “The artist must be obedient to the work, whether it be a symphony, a painting, or a story for a small child.  I believe that each work of art, whether it is a work of great genius, or something very small, comes to the artist and says, ‘Here I am.  Enflesh me.'”  If God calls his child to art, the art becomes his or her duty.

But the manifestation of that art is their unique calling.  Some will be called to hip-hop, like my friend Malcolm.  Others will write speculative fiction, like me.  And some will write Amish romances (which I neither understand nor enjoy, but others love), some will do acrylic paintings, and some will dance.  Some will write to a strictly Christian audience, and some will write to a mainstream audience.  Each field needs Christians who are obedient to the works God has prepared in advance for them (Ephesians 2:10).

Art is the work of the artist, and as Dorothy Sayers said, “Work is not, primarily, a thing one does to live, but the thing one lives to do. It is, or it should be, the full expression of the worker’s faculties, the thing in which he finds spiritual, mental and bodily satisfaction, and the medium in which he offers himself to God.”

My Philosophy of Christian Art

I believe Christian artist must be these three things:

• Excellent.  The Christian must perform or create their art to the best of their ability.  Where they lack, they must practise, research, and submit to mentorship by more accomplished artists.  There is no half-heartedness here.  There is no ‘I won’t memorize my lines for the church play’.  There is no ‘I’m not getting paid’.  It is your best, or nothing.
• Courageous.  When you are inspired to a work, the decision to do or not to do must be based on conviction and wisdom, not fear or selfish ambition.  I believe this applies, especially, to censorship.  Censorship is sometimes necessary, but it should not be because you are afraid to not conform, or because you want people to like you.  Rather, it is because you think you’ve transgressed beyond God’s laws, or good sense.  The truth is NOT always sweet to the ears.  Just because it is scary does not mean it is wrong.
• Truthful.  Christian art cannot fall victim to denial, self-indulgent fantasy, or a lack of integrity.  This is not to say that it cannot be ‘fictional’.  I’ve often said that just because it’s fiction doesn’t mean it’s not true.  Simply, Christian art must not engage in deceit, nor try to make the receiver believe an untruth.

The Opportunity

The Apostle Paul said in Ephesians 5:1, “Walk as children of light (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord.  Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them” (ESV).  What an excellent description of our mandate as artists!

When we are obedient to the work, we produce what is good, right and true, and we expose darkness. This takes courage, for sometimes the darkness we expose resides within us, and we wrestle with our selfish desires as we create.  But out of this courage comes work that can probe where no scholarly literature or sermon can go.  That is the nature of art–to bypass the well-guarded gates of the mind, and go straight to the soul.

Which means that art can be very dangerous as well.

In the next post I will discuss why I departed from the genre of Christian fiction, and where Christian art may go awry.

Suggested Reading:

Dorothy Sayers, Why Work?  Read this excellent essay on the sacredness of work here.

Madeleine L’Engle, Walking on Water.  A rambling but inspiring account of her philosophy of Christian art.  I really enjoyed her perspective.

 

 

 

Tell Me Yours, I’ll Tell You Mine

An excerpt from my recent novel, We are the Living, a post-apocalyptic love story.  A more tender scene–at Mom’s advice 🙂

I examined his face. There was the beginning of a mask tan on his face. “Do you have to wear the mask all the time?” I asked, in a feeble attempt to redeem myself.
“No,” he said, no elaboration. He took another forkful and chewed slowly, the muscles of his jaw bunching and relaxing in slow, deliberate movements.
“I’m sorry. Perhaps not while you’re eating…”
“No, it’s fine,” he said after he swallowed, “I get along well there.”
“Yeah,” I said, half-laughed. “It looked like you’ve hit off with them.”
His lips twitched. “Heck of group of soldiers, in their own way.”
“Soldiers?”
He shrugged and laughed sheepishly. “Not really. None of them actually are—heck, they have MP5 submachine guns from the army, but about all they know about them is how to pull the trigger. It scares the hell out of me.”
“Yes it does!” A man about my age with a respirator hanging around his neck plopped down beside Liam. He fixed me with a stare that was a little wild. “After Liam teaches us, we’ll know which end to point.”
“Oh, shut up.” Liam grinned, but his eyes flicked toward me. “Even Kayla knows which end of the gun to point, and she’s probably better shot than you.”
“I don’t want to think about that, Liam.” For all my big talk, I didn’t want to think or talk about shooting. Panic, like bile, rose in my throat. I’d had dreams of the grey-eyed infected, still wearing a business suit, flying backward in a pink spray.
I felt Liam’s gaze on me again.
Max leaned in, his rubber mask clunking on the table. “Is he right?”
“Leave it, Max,” Liam said.
“You’ve shot infected?” he asked.
Liam grabbed Max and pulled him back onto the bench. “Leave it!” He turned to me. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have brought it up.” His navy eyes said he could guess what I was thinking. And then his lips twitched. “And Max is generally an idiot. Ignore him.”
I pushed away my plate. “I’ll be fine.” I’d be fine, but I wouldn’t be eating. I couldn’t expunge the image from my mind that quickly.
Liam sighed, elbowed Max, and stood up. “Walk with me?”
We slipped out of the courtyard, across the piazza, past the rusted-out Siena truck, and meandered down the road toward the east wall, all without speaking.
As we turned around at the far end of town in front of Rudy’s wheat beds, we paused and stood facing each other in the middle of the road.
“Are you sleeping any better, Kayla?” He asked.
“A little.” It seemed that my sanity had returned after joining the greenhouse crew, as if belonging brought life back to me. “You?”
He shrugged. “About the same. Listen, when Max was… yammering back there. What did you see?”
I looked up at him and gulped. It all flashed before me again. Grey eyes. Lipstick. Poof! The gun knocked me on my ass as her blood sprayed all around. I forgot to breathe.
His warm, rough hand closed around mine. “You tell me yours, I’ll tell you one of mine. No judgment, I promise.”
I swallowed. “I saw… I saw me and Simone in the back of that truck we took from the GI. We drove into the pack of infected, and I shot this one. She was in a business suit and then she just… disappeared.”
Liam flinched hard, and I could almost see the scene play out on his eyes. “I didn’t see that. I’m sorry.”
I swiped at my eyes. “Your turn.”
“I keep dreaming about Alex,” he said. “I’m driving faster and faster toward Torino and I can hear him screaming in the back of the truck.”
I was gut-punched. “He didn’t scream.”
He pressed his lips together, hard. “When we get to Torino, it isn’t him dead in the truck. It’s you.”
“Oh God.”
We stared at each other, with the full weight of our shared horror hanging between us. It drew us together slowly, and I sagged against him, my face pressed into his neck. We didn’t cry. We were past sorrow.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered into his warm skin.
His hand slid up and caressed the back of my head. “Just don’t die, okay?”
“I’ll do what I can. Same to you.” I lifted my head and stared him in the face. “You take care of yourself, okay? Wear your mask, and sleep, and talk about… talk about this stuff.”
His face tightened and he sighed, “I’ll see what I can do.”
We began walking up the hill, slowly. “It bothers me that you aren’t armed here,” Liam said.
“That’s not Father Lucien’s style.”
“It’s my style,” Liam said, then quickly added, “Though I wish it wasn’t.”
“But do you need to fend off the infected any more?”
Far away a truck started up, and Liam glanced up the hill before looking me in the eye. “We’re not concerned about the infected. It’s the GI.”
The words I’d planned to say disappeared from my mouth. I blinked up at him.
He propelled me onward. The piazza was in sight. “I haven’t seen them recently. Don’t worry.”
“I wish you’d stay.”
“For my safety?”
“Yeah.”
We paused at the tailgate of the truck. Max and the other guy were already in the cab. Liam would be riding in the back, alone.
“I know I’m being stubborn about this,” Liam said quietly. “But I have my reasons, okay?”
“I’ll take your word for it,” I whispered. I reached out and touched his hand, and the look in his eyes squeezed the breath out of my lungs.

We are the Living is available on Kindle and Paperback through Amazon, as well as on Kobo.  You can read further samples here.

It Never Became Light Again

Combat veteran Liam’s steely calm has not failed, but after the traumatic death of one of his friends, his facade slips and we get a glimpse of his past.  A scene from We are the Living.

I walked out to the truck and looked at the bullet hole through the tailgate, at the piled boxes, the scattered bottles, and the blood—a dark dried stain that stabbed me harder than any cry. Just like that, fury overtook me.

I slammed the tailgate down and jumped inside. One sweep of my arm, and half the boxes flew aside. A blue vodka bottle rattled across the truck bed, to my feet. There was a bloody handprint around it. I picked it up and hurled it out the back. It shattered against the building, scattering blue shards all over the packed earth. I took a bottle of water in each hand and poured it over the truck bed. Then I stripped off my shirt and began scrubbing at the stain.

The grey fabric turned burgundy and brown. I was only smearing it. I needed more water. I needed…

“Liam?”

I swung my head around. Simone, grim-faced, stared at me from the tailgate.

“Oh.” Her face sagged a moment. “Good idea. But let me get some water.”

I shoved the t-shirt across the blood again. A moment later the truck wobbled as Simone climbed up.

“Move over. I’ll pour it.” She held up a big plastic jug of water.

Mute, I crawled out of the way. She poured the water, and Alex’s blood streamed toward the tailgate. She just kept pouring, until it had all ebbed away. Then she set it down and came to hunker down by my side.

Everything she had done barely registered. My body shook, white light flashed behind my eyes.

Oh God. Oh God, no, no. Keep it together, please!

I shut my eyes tight, and the scenes that were so familiar played before my eyes like a movie—but worse, because it was not just before my eyes but around me, in my lungs, in my nostrils. One second, a laugh is burbling from my throat, next the screech of tearing metal and the boom of the explosion. The seat I’m in separates from my body and the roof parts as I pass through it. I hit the ground. I see Breanne, sprawled beside me, her eyes catch mine, her mouth parts, the light goes from her gaze. And then everything goes dark.

And it never truly became light again.

I didn’t want to, but I whimpered.

“Liam.”

This is my fault somehow. If we’d switched spots… if I hadn’t been…

“Liam.”

My eyes cleared, and I saw Simone’s heart-shaped face and bloodshot blue eyes staring up at me. She grabbed my bare arms and my confusion and anger gave way to shame, yet I forced myself to meet her eyes.

She shook me gently, “Liam, this wasn’t your fault. If anything, was it not mine?”

“What does it matter?” I looked down, past her.

“But it is what you are thinking, is it not?” And then, before I could react, she leaned in to me and her warm hands brushed up my arms to my neck. She kissed my jaw with rough, chapped lips. “Because it’s what I’m thinking too.”

I grabbed her shoulder, if only to brace myself against her. My skin could not decide if it should recoil, or tingle with warmth. A rough laugh squeaked through my lips. “I don’t know if you can call it thinking. I haven’t been so confused since…”
She reached up and touched the scar along my hairline. “Let me guess.”

I nodded.

“It’s okay,” she said softly. “I’ll cover for you.”

I stared into her eyes, trying to formulate a response. Her head bobbed closer, and my mind made itself up. I pushed her gently away.
She looked down. “Sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry,” I said. “I just can’t… right now.”

She laughed breathlessly and backed away. She rose up into a crouch and scrunched her face into a smile of sorts. I had a feeling it was her brave face. “Well, we’d better find you a shirt. Can’t have people getting ideas.”

I laughed half-heartedly and followed her off the tailgate. The heaviness pushed away just for a moment, and then swooped back in deeper and harder than before.

We are the Living, a zombie apocalypse/love story is now available on Amazon Kindle, as well as other E-Readers through Smashwords.  The print edition (which I’ll admit I’m super pumped about) will be available within a few days!  

Zombie Baby

The following is an excerpt from my novel We are the Living, an apocalyptic love story set in a small Tuscan town.  In this scene, Liam and his colleague are cleaning corpses from a house in the dead city of Siena when they make an unexpected discovery:

“Liam, we forgot that one.” Gennarosa contorted her face in an attempt to adjust her mask without touching it. Her gloved hands were slick with gore and decomposed flesh. She tipped her chin toward a house with a green door and pots of dead, dry geraniums on the doorstep. Behind them, Max shouted at Julio as they came out of a store, carrying a corpse between them. The radio crackled, and someone rattled off in Italian. Gennarosa ignored it and so did I.

I sighed and stepped toward the door. I stood, gun trained on the door, and Gennarosa reached over and opened it. The door slammed against the wall. Through the protection of my respirator, I caught the faintest whiff of rotting flesh.

I peered into the semi dark.   The kitchen looked undisturbed, like the owner had stepped out for a bit and would soon return.

Gennarosa motioned for me to go first. We passed through the kitchen. The dining and living area had been tossed. Blood splattered up one wall, and there, below the bloodstain, was the bloated corpse of a man. His arm was flung out, fingers frozen, pointed toward the doorway. He was definitely dead, not infected.

I pushed open the bedroom door. Only a sliver of light peeked through the drapes. I pulled the flashlight from my belt and swung the beam of light around the room.

“Feet,” said Gennarosa, pointing.

Two shoes stuck out from behind the unmade bed, half covered by draped blankets. I rounded the bed, the gun trained on the feet and bundled bedclothes. Just as the body came into full sight, it moved.

I jumped back, taking Gennarosa with me. We crouched, half-expecting the body to spring up, or at least make another move. It didn’t. It remained as it was, with only the legs protruding from under the blanket.

“What the hell?” Gennarosa leaned forward, but stayed safely behind me.

I reached out with one foot and poked the leg. It didn’t move. To heck with it. I kicked it. There was a faint movement around what should have been the torso, and then a squeak.

“What?”

“I’m going to pull off the blanket,” Gennarosa took a step closer, “At the ready.”

Poised on the balls of her feet, she leaned forward and yanked away the blanket.

“Oh God,” Gennarosa said.

The body was that of a woman, whose long dark hair splayed away from her browning skull, face erased. Her arms were locked around a little form, a baby. The baby was burrowed into the woman’s body-cavity, intestines spread around it like dried sausages.

It lifted its head. Its face was grey, eyes vacant and its cheeks were smeared with blood. It was a zombie baby.

 

We are the Living is now available for purchase through Amazon Kindle, and for Kobo, iBooks and other platforms through Smashwords.  You can download samples on those sites, or read samples I have posted here.

 

 

What Can My Small Voice Do?

Monday, Robin Williams dies in his San Francisco home, succumbing to severe depression. Tuesday, across the continent, I am in a factory making antidepressants. This isn’t lost on me. I mourn helplessly as I watch the hundreds of thousands of tablets rush by.

Iraq: Christians, Yazidis and other innocents are systematically killed under the onslaught of the ISIS. Outrage explodes all over social media, and every Christian blog sounds the trumpet. “Wake up!” they say. “Grow a pair!”

So I write to my Member of Parliament, and I look for an organization to donate to, and I pray, all the while knowing that the letter won’t reach the government for days, and the money can’t throw up a brick wall between the bullets and the little kids.

What can my small voice do?

In times like this it’s stylish to bash North American apathy. Oh yeah, I have it easy. I’m safe at home in front of my MacBook after my shift in the pharmaceutical factory. But what the hell do you want me to do? Get a gun and hop on the first plane?

Does anyone ever tell you that you must live your own life?

You cannot for one instant become an Iraqi Christian, take a bullet and be cleansed of the guilt of being a rich, white American. You are yourself, and here you are, in front of your MacBook.

But consider that Robin Williams was also a rich, white American, and he died in his own home, in the agony of depression. He’s a public case of a common story. We are surrounded by people who feel alone and hopeless, who stagger under the crushing weight of mental illness, physical abuse, relational brokenness, financial burdens, failure at their job, and unbearable schedules. Twitter isn’t hopping with their stories, but the pain is real.

We are surrounded by a sea of troubles.  We don’t need to look so far into the distance when they are right under our noses.

I fear that North Americans come off as apathetic because they’ve been convinced that they are too little to fix things.  Think of what we say: “The government ought to… My boss ought to… My parents need to…”  Our movies are all about BIG problems fixed by action heroes, spies, and superstars.  Heck, even the Evangelical Christian world is dominated by megachurch pastors and their best selling books.

That’s bull.

I can’t help but think of the proverb “If everyone would sweep their front step, the whole world would be clean.”  It is by ten-thousand small acts that the world changes.

I hope I’m not coming off too preachy. In fact, this post is the result of hours of contemplation and quite a few helpless tears. What can my small voice do? I’ve come to the shaky realization that I must do what only I can do. I must complete my assignment on this earth.

There are four ways I believe this can be accomplished.

1. Accept our Assignments.

No one has the exact combination of friends, family, location and predispositions that we do. We must be at peace with our starting point because it makes us uniquely qualified to work in our circle of influence. The moment we say “I wish I was…” or feel guilty for who we are, we inadvertently say “I am too good for this.” Instead, start looking for what you are good at, and what provokes you, and consider this the trailhead to your mission.

2. Become experts.

We begin by acceptance, but we can’t be satisfied with who we are. The resources and knowledge we begin with won’t be sufficient to live a meaningful, excellent life. We’ve got to become educated, to move past shallow opinions to a true understanding of what we believe. Moreover, we’ve got to develop the skills needed to propel us forward, be it interpersonal skills, business know-how, communication and writing–in my case, all of the above. University is good, but not necessary. Quality books and audios are much cheaper, and readily available.

3. Build a Community

It has been said that you are the results of the books you read and the people you associate with. It’s important to assemble a team of people around you so you can encourage each other, learn from one another, and shore up each other’s weaknesses. I have a community of writers around me who’ve encouraged me and have taught me everything from the mechanics of writing to business and marketing. I wouldn’t be the writer I am today without them, and six months or a year from now, I will be much better because of them. They speak truth to me.

4. Make an Impassioned Plea

Let your voice be heard. Talk about what is important to you. Write letters to your government representatives write to editors, blog, post on Facebook and Twitter, and talk to your friends. Do this with gentleness and respect, and the deepest understanding you can muster.

I denounce the use of guilt tactics to try to wake us up.  Guilt is a lousy fertilizer for growing spines. But I don’t condemn that every blog is talking about Robin Williams and the slaughter in Iraq.  I wouldn’t have heard about it otherwise.

Let your voice be heard, but don’t be satisfied with just speaking.  Reach out–with your gifts, your connections, and your knowledge.

“It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because you can only do a little.  Do what you can,”–Sir Sidney Smith.

Resources:

How to Communicate Effectively with Your Member of Parliament

LIFE Leadership (A well-rounded source of training on interpersonal, leadership and success principles)

The Center for Social Leadership

Exciting News! ‘We are the Living’ Now Released

Hello Friends,

Can a Canadian Mennonite write a post-zombie-apocalyptic-romance novel set in Italy with Catholic heroes?

If you’d like to find out, We are the Living is now available on Kindle!  As many of you know, this is my first novel and I’ve been working on it for some time.  I’m excited to share it with you!

Kayla’s plans are as finely tuned as her cello, so when Liam joins her friends on their tour of Europe, she resents him.  The ex-soldier with a fragile psyche seems like a liability.  But when political turmoil in France explodes into a zombie apocalypse, their lives may depend on this warrior’s skills.

Their flight takes them to a tiny Italian community where a mysterious priest is curing zombies. There, Kayla and Liam’s shared horror draws them together.  But they aren’t the only ones who want the cure.

As the threat of the living eclipses the danger of the undead, they must decide whether to run, or to fight for those they love.

To read samples, click here or go to Amazon to download the first chapter.  Thanks for your support!

 

 

Judge this Book by its Cover

We are the Living is so close to release I can almost taste it.  In fact I do taste it.  It savours of puke at the back of my throat, I’m so dang nervous!  Here is the first look at the cover.

The description from the back:

“Kayla’s plans are as finely tuned as her cello, so when Liam joins her friends on their tour of Europe, she resents him.  The ex-soldier with a fragile psyche seems like a liability.  But when political turmoil in France explodes into a zombie apocalypse, their lives may depend on this warrior’s skills.

Their flight takes them to a tiny Italian community where a mysterious priest is curing zombies. There, the Kayla and Liam’s shared horror draws them together.  But they aren’t the only ones who want the cure.

As the threat of the living eclipses the danger of the undead, they must decide whether to run, or to fight for those they love.”

Stay tuned!

Geralyn

“They’re Overrunning the Barricade”

A scene from We are the Living, which is to be published this summer.  In this scene, the main characters have caught a ride on a military truck out of Paris, which is now overrun with zombies.  They stop at one of the military barricades for night, intending to carry on the next morning.  The scene is from the point of view of Kayla, the lead female character. To my gentler readers: this scene contains strong violence.

We were stopped in the middle of a two-lane road, and warm, humid air. There were the shadows of a few large buildings nearby, maybe a chimney. It was the industrial outskirts of the city, the very last of Paris. The only light was the blinding spotlights set up at the roadblock. Trucks, like the one we’d come in, were clustered around. The white light silhouetted a few soldiers.
Liam and one of his new soldier friends walked us across the road, up to a troop-carrier with a canvas cover at the rear of the roadblock. Again we found ourselves rolling out spare clothes and trying to get ourselves comfortable on the hard metal truck bed.

“They can’t expect road-blocks to keep a mob of infected inside the city,” Morgan whispered as Liam settled down beside him.

Liam sighed. “There are patrols around the border. But you’re right. There’s no way they can contain the whole city. Go to sleep, Morgan. We’ve made good progress today.”
I lay my head down and cuddled up to Alex, my back to Morgan and Liam. I heard a click and looked back. Liam had popped the magazine out of the pistol.

“How many rounds?” Morgan asked.

“Full mag minus one.”

The lost feeling crept in again. My father owned guns, and I’d seen him shoot them, but they’d always scared me. I’d always refused to shoot. I bit my lip and pushed my face into Alex’s shoulder. I hoped to God I could keep that policy.

***

I heard a yell, and a chatter of gunfire. Liam was up before I’d lifted my head. Light shone, green through the canvas cover of the truck, then a square of brightness as Liam peeked out the back.

His hand closed around the pistol in his waistband. “Infected,” he hissed.

I never saw what was coming toward us, and for that I was grateful. Liam told me later what he’d seen—a wave of infected rushing toward us, unmindful of the gunfire and the bodies falling around them. The rattle of small arms was joined by the deeper clamor of a machine gun. The zombies came on, undeterred. As long as they could stay on their feet they still moved.

I, cringing in the corner of the truck bed, still heard a scream even though my hands were clamped over my ears. Then came the ringing report of Liam’s pistol and Morgan’s yell. A disfigured face gaped at me through the gap between the canvas and truck before Liam’s gun barked again. The head exploded backward and out of sight.

“They’re overrunning the barricade!” Liam cried. He lunged toward the canvas flap.

Morgan grabbed him by the jacket. “Don’t you dare go out there!”

Liam staggered back, and steadied himself. He stood taut, gun ready. Something scrabbled on the metal behind me. I whimpered, crawled toward the middle. The barrage of machine-gun fire faltered, stopped, started again. An assault rifle chattered, just on the other side of the canvas and metal and something splattered against the side. There was a low, animalistic moan. Again, scrabbling, like claws or nails on the side of the truck. The gunfire beside us stopped. The machine gun stopped. A garbled scream. The canvas at the back of the truck bowed toward us in the imprint of a head and clawing hands. Liam turned toward it and shot straight through the fabric, right between the pits where the eyes were. The green canvas turned brown as it slid down the side and out of sight. Another moan, then, silence.

In the quiet, a soft patter started on the canvas. Rain.

Still Liam stood. Morgan crouched beside him. Alex slowly rose to his feet. Liam held out his hand. “Don’t.”

We waited. The drizzle became a downpour. I watched with dull eyes as the dark smear on the canvas ebbed downward. It was still quiet.

Finally, Liam eased the edge of the canvass away and peeked out. “Oh, God.” He pulled his head back in and pressed one hand against his chest. He’d gone pale against his grey-blue jacket. He sucked a slow breath through his nostrils and shut his eyes. His body steeled, and he opened his eyes. “Morgan, come. Let’s make sure it’s clear.”

Morgan’s eyes were huge in his pale face but his jaw was just as tight as Liam’s and eyes every bit a stern behind his glasses, even though I could see his hand shaking as he rose to his feet. They jumped down. I heard Morgan say something, and Liam reply. Their footsteps departed.

“E-Everyone’s dead,” I said. “The infected got them all. They’re all dead.” I grabbed for Alex’s hand, as if it were an anchor, because my world was split in two, so far from my control.

“Kayla, we’re alright,” he breathed in my ear, but I could hear the strain in his voice. His fingers were clammy.

I took a shuddering breath. “For how long?”

Imagination Turns Dangerous

“Is it possible to read a story and not enter into it; to write a story and not become part of the script?”—Ravi Zacharias.

Isn’t it amazing how obsessed we can become with an ‘imaginary’ character?

I enjoy the BBC series Sherlock. I think it’s smart, snappy, suspenseful, and the actors are brilliant. But some people LOVE that show—they make Sherlock memes, Sherlock valentines, go to costumed Sherlock events, and write kinky Sherlock fan fiction. They masquerade as Sherlock and Watson by tweeting in character. Pretend long enough, and it becomes real, right?

Some girls dig Mr. Darcy and wish he was real, and in a moment of weakness I’ve probably done the same. I once cried because there were no men like Aragorn, Faramir and Eomir (from Lord of the Rings) in my neck of the woods.

In hindsight, that is probably for the best—the swords and all, but it’s hard not to fall for that kind of badassery.

Stories, whether on the page or screen, engage our imagination. In our minds, these people can be everything we want them to be. We can rewrite the sad endings, put the broken relationships back together, even insert ourselves into the story. As a novelist, I find I embody my characters and see through their eyes—like an actor, taking on the thoughts and intentions of her role.

But what if this becomes dangerous?

Ravi Zacharias, in his book Why Jesus, gives an extreme example:

In [The Dark Knight], award-winning actor Heath Ledger played the sinister role of the Joker with nearly satanic powers. Once again, you walked away from the movie thinking it was “just a movie.” But was it…?

In the real world, devoid of pretense, when the news of Heath Ledger’s sudden and mysterious drug-related death at the age of twenty-nine hit the news, the question being bandied about was whether his portrayal of the Joker had so overtaken his thinking that he couldn’t break free from the script of Batman. According to his co-actors and friends, Ledger ended up possessed by the Joker and unable to break free from the character, even away from the set… The sinister won the day and the Joker was no longer a phantom character, but was embodied away from the set with dire real-life consequences.

I got a taste of this phenomenon last winter. I was already suffering from Seasonal Affective Disorder (aptly initialed ‘SAD’) when I began researching Post Traumatic Stress disorder to add depth to a character I was writing. Immersed in the stories of soldiers, whose lives had practically been stolen by this affliction, I began to wonder if I was writing myself deeper into depression. Sometimes I wasn’t sure if it was me or Liam (the affected character) who was screaming inside my head–a little melodramatic, but scary all the same.

This reminds me of my responsibility as an author: to speak truth, mindful that whatever I weave into my story has the potential to be expanded on the screen of the reader’s imagination. And also, to choose what I read, and what I view carefully—because unlike the ideas that are force-fed in a classroom, statements a movie or novel makes are insidious. They creep in slowly, and stick while we are still saying “it’s just entertainment.”

Is it just entertainment, or is it real? Ask the guy who tweets as Sherlock.

Welcome to the Dead City

The following is an excerpt from my upcoming novel, We Are The Living–‘raw footage’, if you will.  The novel is in the beta stage, to be released this summer.  In this scene, Liam arrives in post-apocalyptic Siena, Italy.

“In the early days,” Gennarosa shouted over the wind blowing past us, “The army was here in Siena. They fought mobs of infected in the first few days—tiny streets like this, there was no way to get away from them really.”

Max, his respirator clamped over his face, added something but it was so garbled and the truck rattled so much that I could not understand him.

The truck chugged up through a Roman-era gate onto a narrow street, hemmed by sentinel trees. I gazed at their green leaves. After weeks inside Emilio, the trees looked so live and so wild to me, even amongst the flat-faced brick and stone buildings.

“Will we see any infected?” I asked.

Gennarosa shook her head. Her pony-tail caught the wind and blew out beside her into Max’s face. “Probably not. There aren’t many left. The disease kills them eventually.”

At that moment, we crested a hill and the wind blew straight into my face—with it, a stench I’d never forget: decomposing flesh. I choked and shoved my nose into the collar of my t-shirt, but Gennarosa smirked at me.

“Just wait. It gets worse.”

I gritted my teeth and imagined the narrow, winding street like I’d seen Siena in the guidebooks: teeming with people, with the odd car, with voices and music and with sunlight. We had the sunlight, but the only sound was the groaning engine of the truck. We were the only people.

As we swung around a tight corner onto an even narrower street, I caught the first glimpse of the carnage that had gone on in this place: pockmarks on the yellow stone wall of a building, and a brown splatter. I gripped the hot metal side of the truck and stared as we rumbled past more and more bullet holes. The street was clear, but no rain had come to wash away the blood of whom? Infected? Soldiers like me?

“This is the creepiest place ever,” Gennarosa yelled. “Infected or no infected.”

In a couple minutes I caught a glimpse, in the gap between two buildings, of a slender tower rising above the flat roofs. It was the Torre del Mangia, on the edge of the Piazza Del Campo, and home base was right beside it.

As we imerged onto road that ran around the Piazza del Campo, the sun went behind a cloud and shrouded the Piazza in grey. I had the images from the guidebooks in my head, and I wasn’t prepared for the emptiness, and the ravens perched on the fountain at the far side, and the ravaged buildings. The storefronts gaped empty: windows shattered, stone facades speckled with bullet holes, awnings vibrating in ribbons. The red pavement of the piazza was blotched here and there. It was blood, or body fluids.

Welcome to the warzone, Macpherson you old fool.

The truck jerked to a halt and snapped me from my observations. The square, ochre building still said ‘Pizzeria’ on the outside, but every window was sealed from the inside and the door was reinforced by heavy steel. Gennarosa jumped over the side of the truck and led me in.

There were remnants of the pizzeria: the front counter where I imagined the till had been—the doorway into the kitchen where I could see a glimpse of the stone oven, but the rest of the ground floor was gutted. The walls were torn up, with distinct bullet holes here and there.

“They’ve fought here?” I asked.

“Not while I was here,” said Gennarosa. “Hey!” she yelled. “Let us up!”

I heard a rattle, and then with a deep creak, the ceiling opened up: two heavy, steel-enforced trapdoors rose and a stairway dropped down. The hole was dark, as if they had no lights upstairs.

Nice.

“The original stairways have been blocked.” Gennarosa sprang up the stairs and I followed on her heels.

Someone grabbed my arm and hauled me up onto the landing. “Thanks,” I said. I looked into grim, dark eyes—a man taller than me, whip-cord lean, a silver cross around his neck.

“Father Domenico,” Gennarosa muttered to me. She turned and addressed him in Italian. He gripped my hand and gazed into my eyes and Gennarosa translated his words:
“Welcome, Liam. Gennarosa has told me of you. You are most welcome here.”
I felt as if my spine had stiffened in his presence. I felt alive, ready for battle in the presence of this priest, my commanding officer.

“I will show you around and give you the rundown,” Gennarosa said quietly. She nodded to Father Domenico, and he released me. As we stepped inside, the trapdoors shut with a metallic ‘chung’.

It was baking hot inside, with only slight whiffs of breeze coming through, almost so hot it felt cold. My body was in an instant sweat. As my eyes adjusted I saw why. Every window but two, on polar ends of the room, were shuttered and barred. I noted, with a thrill in my gut, that each shutter had cross-shaped holes: gun ports. The interior was gutted—every stick of furniture gone, but for cots and pallets along the back wall, only a few interior walls standing. But it was clean, swept up, and there was a wooden crucifix displayed prominently on the wall opposite the trapdoor.

“Welcome to the fortress,” said Gennarosa. “Weapons this way. Not much else to see.”

Weapons.

She led me behind one of the standing walls, into a makeshift supply room: two shelves, two cabinets, and a table, and another set of stairs.

“That leads to the third floor,” she said. “We’re not using it.” She opened up a cabinet and pulled out a submachine gun like the one she carried, handed it to me, and then gave me two magazines of ammunition, and a half-mask.

“To be clear,” she said with a sardonic hint in her eyes, “The gun is for emergencies. We see a infected, we tranq it.”

“You’ve never shot one?” I thought of the skittering, slavering creatures overrunning the barricade at Paris. Tranquilize those?

“Nope.” She filled up her cheeks and blew them out with a pop. “Others of us have—it does happen, but prepare for the wrath of Domenico if you do. To Domenico, they’re still people.”

“Can’t argue with that.” I’d been infected, after all. I flipped the submachine gun over and popped open the action. It felt a bit stiff. “Where’d you get these?”

“The army supplied us with them.”

“Hmm.” Father Lucien had mentioned some sort of connection to the army, after all. “So what, the army just left the weapons and Domenico took over?”

She nodded. “Pretty much. Lucien and Domenico persuaded the army to stop killing infected so that they could start curing them.” Her eyes glinted. “Some of the guys who were here first said that Domenico waded in while they were still fighting, cured some of their guys, and persuaded to stop.”

“Holy shit,” I muttered.

“Now, the riot act.” Gennarosa faced me square on and thrust her thumbs into the belt loops of her jeans. She pointed her chin at the MP5. “Like I said, that is last resort only—as in life and death. If you see a zombie, we neutralize it with this.” She picked up another gun from the table, beside the cabinet. “Tranquilizer—strong.” She looked around the room. “We work seven to one, three to eight. The truck goes to Emilio twice a week, and we pull straws on who gets to go. Water must be boiled before drinking. Birdbaths only—you can shower if you go to Emilio. Uh… don’t eat any of the food unless its mealtime.” She pressed her lips together and rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. “Did I miss anything? Yeah, so I’m one of two girls here. You can’t sleep with either of us.”

I laughed. No problems there.

“Serious. Padre’s rules. Okay?”

I nodded. “Yeah, no problem. No offense, but I’m not interested.”

She smirked. “Don’t sleep with any of the men either. But if you do—,” she tipped her head toward the stairs. “Third floor.”

O…kay.

Max called from the other room, easily identified by the garbled voice. “Gen, time to go. Grab a radio.”

“Off to work.” Gennarosa turned and led me out. All eleven of them, including the priest, clambered down the stairs, guns swinging over their shoulders. I noted three tranquilizer guns among them, three hand-held radios, and two bags of unidentified supplies.

“We started piling bodies today,” Gennarosa said. “We’re cleaning out the area closest to our place, and hauling them out of the city.”

“And then you’ll do what?”

“Burn ‘em.”

My stomach dropped to my boots. “Isn’t cremating against, uh… against Catholicism?”

She shrugged. “I’m guessing that they never brought up zombies at any of the church councils.”