This segmented, limited printing of my forthcoming book is being released for a few interrelated reasons. The first is that I began the writing more than ten years ago and have been sidetracked by intermittent blessings or calamity since, so the book has languished and needs finishing. I don’t believe that much of this kind of inspiration comes by accident, especially to one whose life has taken the often dangerous course mine has, so there’s a sense of responsibility I feel to having it done and available to the person who might find it useful toward redirecting the course of his or her own life. Though the book hasn’t been far out of mind for me over these years, I need a more immediate motivating force to bring it to completion, something I hope sharing segments of the book as I edit will yield, creating an expectation of future segments, an expectation that though it might be of my own creation, will serve as a motive keeping me on task. As time picks up speed at an alarming rate with age, the opportunity to fulfill this mission may be behind me before I’m aware.

Another reason I’ve chosen this method of segmented sharing is that it also affords me possible feedback from those whose spirituality & life experiences I hold to be invaluable assets. Though I’m not unsure of the perspectives I hold on the subjects of the writing, delivery to the reader can be tricky and to publish without first inviting those whose wisdom I’ve come to respect would be a brand of foolishness I’ve spent a lifetime endeavoring to outrun.

Once the final segment is delivered & processed, I’ll publish as a limited run, a luxury afforded modern day authors, allowing a book to be fully printed and bound in finished form, exactly as it would appear on a bookstore shelf, in affordable limited runs of a dozen or so at a time.

There are roughly 200 manuscript pages awaiting editing, a monumental task not so much in terms of volume, but by my expectation of results. Through this writing I’ve developed a deeper respect for writers in general, but especially for authors of non-fictional works involving research & development of ideas. With such a vast, unendingwealth of information availableto us all these days, at the click of a button, I’m learning it could well be that the hardest part of publishing a work is knowing when it’s finished, or at least enough to print. I need to begin planning my approach to that, and the hope is that seeing it printed and bound will inspire me toward that end. It’s often the case that rather than push ourselves to complete a project, we need to create something with a strong enough field to pull us forward.

Of equal importance & imperative now is that the ones who have been most inspirational in my life, those I want most to share this with, are aging and time is unpredictable as to how long I have with them. Not the most uplifting subject, as thier departure will so fundamental alter the world they leave me with, but one demanding recognition.

Fletcher, my father, one of the most pivotal people to ever enter my life and without whom I’m certain I wouldn’t have been long of this world, is 84. Legalistically, Fletcher is my stepfather, but in being who he is, one of his greater lessons to me is that it is only a very small portion of the definition of Father having to do with a biological conection, so small in fact, as to not be associated at all in my opinion. A man who brings a child into the world is a progenitor, and can choose to be no more than that. A father, as I learned from Fletcher, is an entirely different thing, the most defining character of which is a boundless, unconditional love. I was twelve when we met, and I’m sure there hasn’t been a day of my life away from him as our life courses diverged that I haven’t been aware of his presence. To call Fletcher a pivotal presence in my life would like saying my own birth was a life altering experience. I remember the very first time he walked into our house, as if it was only yesterday. It was the day, unknown to me at the time, as pivotal moments can be, that my life changed course. In one moment I was in free fall toward a life of misery. The next moment there were his hands, breaking my fall, and though the damage already done would maintain its hold for decades to come, there is no doubt to me as to what my life would have been had he not arrive when he did. His very name, Fletcher, meaning “Arrow Maker” is telling.

Mattie Cayce, my grandmother, who gave me two weeks in the summer of my ninth year that left an indelible print upon me of what heaven must be like, and who has been a strength in my life these past years, is a whopping 96 (this next week she’ll have her two sisters visiting, Polly and ——, 89 & 92. Hayesville may never be the same). She is a sharp witted, funny, thoughtful, companion and teaches me that a person can be all these things and remain a wide-eyed child of God until the very last moments here.

My friend Marty Raber, 87, a retired doctor who stil believes in house-calls, who stepped in as a champion for my cause, my life & survival at a time when I was face down in the cracks of life, held me up as a man worthy of his unfaltering friendship & wisdom. I’ve suffered greatly under the weight of humiliation resulting from the spiritual and psychological brokenness I’ve worked through for the most of my life, incurred during those years before Fletcher was known to me, and it was Marty who became a conduit through which I could reach for that part of me I knew was waiting to emerge.

It’s these three, whose experience, strength & hope I’ve come to treasure, I look forward to sharing these segments in progress with, and to the discourse sure to ensue. It is these three through whom one of my favorite verses of the Bible found evidence, Hebrews 13:2, which reads:

Forget not to show love unto strangers:
for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.

The essence of the verse is that we need to be aware angels are here, that they are real. I know this to be true, having met three of them. Don’t bother getting them to confess. I believe they won’t. In fact, I believe they aren’t even aware of what they are. They just are, without knowing. Therein lies the beauty of the arrangement.

So it’s not only the lure of the fully formed, printed draft of the book that I’ve positioned as an incentive to bring about the book’s completion, it’s also the sharing of these segments, wherein I’ve created an expectation to be fulfilled, each one delivered creating a void for the next to fill.

[Note to myself : As you begin to edit this, bear in mind these things: This is God’s book, not yours. It is by His gifts alone that it is being written, the greatest of those being the gift of life beyond what should have been humiliating death a half-lifetime ago. Remember also that of the gifts represented here, there is also that of poetry, and though it may lack sophistry by literary standards of this world, it is for an audience of one that you, I, write. Do it with grace and artistry.]