http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/1g6rpXFqjcklyq0pwH7GNnV/philip-pullman-s-five-tips-for-writing?intc_type=promo&intc_location=news&intc_campaign=philippullmanwritingtips&intc_linkname=radio4_fac_article

Ignore the market and write what you want

Publishers will be very keen to tell you to a write specific type of book, namely something similar to the current literary craze or bestseller. Write what you want to write, be the next big thing and not another iteration of a phase that will pass. People don’t know what they want to read until they actually start.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/10/20/kayaker-saves-life-lost-iguana-swimming-four-miles-sea/

When you write you find you are a different person than you believed you were.The topics I find coming up in my poems are worms,dust,earth,ashes,snails,blindness of human beings, humour,funny ideas,creativity,snails,tree roots and  the world we cannot see yet depend on,the value of love,creativity,death,loss

This is not what I expected

The driver of the  bus lives far away
His home is mobile,but not smart like our phones
He lives in a small caravan, he says
Yet of all the drivers he’s the one.

He always waits till I ,crippled, sit down
Advised me to sit until he stops
He has a smile and rarely makes a frown
Though sometimes in his words some anger’s wrapped.

Alas, he unsurprisingly believes
That all the money goes to foreign folk
By the tabloid press he is deceived
Yet due to pain, his  hidden fires must smoke

The least men are the kindest to the weak
Believe me,I know well what I  here speak

When true love’s gone and doom hangs over head

When life runs like a river to the sea

Then shall I take new lovers to my bed?

And with their carnal touch consoled be?

When my love lies,so breaks my tender heart.

When life seems grey and rocks bestrew my path.

Then, shall I my life of evil start?

And on the world shall I bestow my wrath?

When true love lies and wrecks all loyalty.

When puzzlement makes all my world seem mad.

Then I shall upend causality

And let myself do deeds which make me glad.

For I have love’s sweet child inside my soul

And I shall tend her till at last she’s whole

The gravity of loss brought me to earth
Beneath the rotting leaves, I lay with worms.
I wondered if I were of any worth

No more to be enchanted by love’s mirth,
I  with unnamed particles was turned.
The weight of loss bears down the heart to earth.

I could not rise alone but saw a path
While I slept  new unity had formed
I learned I need not think of what I’m worth

My sorrow brought no guilt nor fear of wrath
I am both  eagle and  a twisted worm
In my little grave, I  loved the earth.

Like the adder, shocked into rebirth.
I from silent underworld had learned
Not to judge my soul to be of worth.

I shall not  fear the flames of hell that burn
When blackness is accepted, may one learn?
The weight of loss breaks down the soul to earth
With dusty shredded leaves, we then converse

Blogging about God has created a problem for me

“We are not in God’s hands.  We are God’s hands.  It is our job to take this world as we find it and make it better.  In general, I think those who are inspired by God are more active than others, but there are many, many exceptions.  Oxfam, my favorite charity, is thoroughly secular.

What is God doing in the meantime?  I like the answer ofCharles Hartshorne.  God rejoices in our joys, and sorrows in our sorrow.  Lots of people seem to think that a God like that is hardly worth worshiping.  My answer is that if you want a God of infinite might, then you are worshiping power, not goodness.

Jesus Christ

I’m a Christian, and so I’m expected to think that Christ was a great event in history.  I do, but not for the usual reasons.  Jesus Christ is not my personal savior (whatever that means), but I don’t think he was just a wise teacher either.  The story of Christ is the story of a God who allowed himself to become human and suffer as humans do in order that he might know more about us, his creation, and so that we can imagine a God who is not all powerful.  In other words, God became human so that he could know us, and we him.  If so, then basic human standards of good and evil must apply even to God.  It’s good to worship God because God is good. Just not all powerful.

Lots of people, probably the vast majority of Christians, believe that Christ was never fully human, for he performed many miracles.  The Nicene Creed says Christ was both fully human and fully God, which doesn’t really help. The Gospel of John treats Christ as though he was just pretending to be human.

What’s so great about Christ’s journey is his vulnerability, his willingness to be forsaken and humiliated as only a human can be.  The Old Testament, as Christians call it, has most of the great Bible stories, but the story of Christ is a really great story, particularly if we read it not primarily as a promise of salvation, but as a story about God’s limits.  “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me.” (Mark 15:34; Matthew 27:46) Who could say this but a God torn in two, doubting even himself for a moment?  As all of us, including the most tenacious, have doubted God.  (Christ’s cry is not just a reference to Psalm 22; he was not teaching Bible studies.)”