Locked and Loaded, A Sneak Peek at "The Blood Cries Out" Newsletter!!

I have a confession to make; "Locked and Loaded" may not ultimately be the name of my new newsletter, but I figure why not try it on for size first?  It is kind of growing on me...

Now, if you're familiar with my Kickstarter Project (Spare a Dollar for a Great Book?), you've probably seen me referring to the newsletter.  I thought I'd offer just a glimpse of the kind of content I have planned.  First, I'd like to offer look at part of the novel's outline.  Second, I'll offer a few words about the places in and surrounding the story.  Third, I am going to include a short excerpt from the novel.  Fourth, I'd like to try a Q & A section.  The challenge here, is that I'll be asking and answering the questions.  In the future, I'd like to invite other authors to answer a few questions about writing--among other things.  As it is, I'll do my best to ask myself hard-hitting questions.

A Glimpse of the Outline

What happens when Seattle Police Detective David Lightholler must face the brutal death of a friend?  The story, divided into two parts of six chapters each, opens with the protagonist responding with his partner to a particularly bloody murder scene in Seattle.  He soon discovers something about the victim that sends his emotions spiraling out of control...

A Sense of Place

I seem to either connect or not connect with a place; there's seldom a feeling of ambivalence.  In the case of the south and midwest, for instance, I always felt like a fish out of water.  Don't get me wrong, I love the people, but I can't feel a sense of connection to the place.  In Washington and Oregon, there's so much beauty and majesty all about you, that it's sometimes hard to take it all in.  You get accustomed to it.  I think this is part of the reason why it was so important to me to get the details right.  I wanted to convey a strong sense of place in The Blood Cries Out.  Early reader feedback suggests that I was successful.

Neil Low gives me the royal tour of SPD.

I love Seattle.  I attended Seattle Pacific University in the late 1980s, and I worked at the university in the early 1990s.  It's a special place, and I love the light and atmosphere of the city.  I could spend a lifetime photographing it, but I never have the time these days to spend considerable time there.

  In the spring of 2011, we took a few days to visit areas of critical importance to the tale.  This included the Seattle Police Department, where Neil Low graciously came in on his day off to give me a department tour. The tour was great, but, sadly, the Seattle weather was...a lot like Seattle weather.

St. Francis Catholic Church, Friday Harbor, Washington

Friday Harbor was that other western Washington area we visited on that 2011 vacation.  The weather was lovely the first day, but things began going downhill on the second.  It didn't matter much to me, though.  It was wonderful to visit the island again.  It had been far too long--and it has been so again!  Some authors will say that that these kind of personal visits aren't necessary for fiction authors, but I think this kind of in-person research is terribly important if the writer is to successfuly capture and convey the unique feeling of a particular environment.

Welcome to Oregon's Wallowas.

While it's true that the northeastern region of Oregon referred to as the Wallowas only plays a minor role in the novel, that wasn't the original plan.  More on that later!

The Blood Cries Out Excerpt  (Updated July 2014)

It was early Friday morning by the time David was finally in bed.  Exhausted, he fell into an uneasy sleep, his bloodshot eyes closing on the image of his badge and holstered .45 caliber Smith and Wesson with its ejected magazine beside it on the bedside table.  The room was dimly illuminated by the moonlight beyond the rustling lace curtains.   Outside, the night wind blew the old madrona’s branches against the house.  The clanging of sailboat rigging blowing against the tall masts drifted up from the harbor along with sound of a distant foghorn.  The Friday Harbor ferry terminal below lay dark and still.  Deep sleep came eventually, but then the nightmarish blackness seized him.  He was dragged to the place he dreaded the most.  He tried to turn away, to run, but he stood immobile now before that evil house on Parkmont Place.  It was late evening with an unsettling reddish light, and he was utterly alone.  A damp and cold wind blew, and he felt something pulling him forward, towards the steps.  Against his own will, he pushed the unlatched door, and it creaked in protest--or warning.  He walked silently up the steps and turned into the second bedroom on the left.  The stillness of the room was in sharp contrast to his beating heart.     

The blood was everywhere, and Catryn lay exactly as he had first seen her.  Only this time there were no uniformed officers milling about outside, no detectives taking notes or talking on the phone, and no squawking radios in the background.  The night beyond the windows was an impenetrable mass now with no sign of life or light, a darkness that could be felt.  Her mouth was agape at a distorted angle, a mockery of life, and she was crumpled up in the corner like so much garbage left on the roadside.  Her torn blouse exposed that jagged and terrible laceration in her chest.  It was too horrible to look at, but...curse his eyes!...there it was.  He couldn’t turn away from the silent woman gazing up from the crimson floor.  His eyes were drawn to her slender fingers, now bloodstained.  No, it was impossible, but something was happening!  Her index finger gestured for him to come closer, but he managed to hold his ground.  It was madness.  In desperation and terror, David felt for the reassurance of his holstered service weapon, but it was gone.  Suddenly, his hand fell unexpectedly upon his grandmother’s familiar rosary, the one he sometimes kept in his pocket.  Something like a distant bell sounded from far off, and the icy chill of the room began to melt away. 

Questions and Answers: Karl and Karl

Q: What's a fiction passage you've read recently that you not only loved, but that somehow conveys something important about how you think about the art of writing?

A: I love Flannery O'Connor, and one thing I love about her is that her characters are real to me; they're authentic.  It's so hard to find characters I can connect with in a lot of modern fiction.  Flannery O'Connor has my attention at her first word.  Here's a passage from her short story "Revelation" that I am particularly fond of.  (It's not quite the same unless you read it in its entire context.)  


The book struck her directly over her left eye. It struck almost at the same instant that she realized the girl was about to hurl it. Before she could utter a sound, the raw face came crashing across the table toward her, howling. The girl’s fingers sank like clamps into the soft flesh of her neck. She heard the mother cry out and Claud shout, “Whoa!” There was an instant when she was certain that she was about to be in an earthquake.



Q: Why else is it important to visit the areas about which you want to write?

A: Another reason is that people are so different from place to place.  Having a conversation in Joseph, Oregon is entirely different than speaking with someone on the streets of downtown Seattle.  Authors who don't take the time to understand their settings, also usually fail to understand their characters.

Q: This Kickstarter thing of yours is kind of annoying.  Why are you doing it?

A:  Sorry!  I’m doing it because the publishing market has changed so drastically over the last decade.  This seems like a legitimate option to help an author bridge the gulf between the children’s market and adult fiction.  (I always have to mention now that, no, I don’t mean that kind of adult market.  I mean older readers, folks!  I also don’t plan to start writing romance novels…)

Q: What’s in it for me?

A: Well, I think crowd funding is a rather cool way to raise funds for projects close to people’s hearts.  It brings a sense of shared community and purpose, and it allows people be a part of some pretty exciting endeavors.  I was happy to be able to make a (very) small donation to Sean Astin’s recent Kickstarter success  for example, and I found it pretty rewarding to have played a tiny, tiny part in that project’s success.  

In my case, it’s only a novel, but I think in the right hands, this book could go far.  I will also say that I am always happy to help a fellow author with a similar venture down the road—if I feel that I can connect with their tale.  Some types of fiction are hard for me to enjoy, but I will do my best!

Q: I know your one of the original founders of the Catholic Writer’s Guild.  Has this book been awarded their Seal of Approval?  

A: No, unlike Tristan’s Travels, this book has not received this important stamp of approval.  There are a lot of reasons why I didn’t want to rush into that too early.  For one thing, the novel requires a strong editor’s hand.  I’m learning it takes a special author to successfully edit his own work.  Many self-published authors end up embarrasssing themselves with a wyde variety of editorial problemzs.  

My use of a hybrid press, such as Inkwater, is an effort to create the highest quality work I can possibly create.  Another reason is that the content of the book strives for realism, and realism isn’t always pretty.  In my younger days, I spent countless hours racing along as an observer with police officers in Washington State—from Yakima to Seattle and Port Townsend.  It was awesome for a young man to experience the excitement tearing down dark streets with lights and siren (at close to a hundred miles per hour a few times), and those experiences really helped shape my novel.  Realistic scenes and characters are always my goal.  I’d also add that, as author and teacher Regina Doman has pointed out, the Catholic reader is sometimes…a strange duck.  More on that another time perhaps.

Q: Are you planning to write a sequel?

A: YES, but I haven't started yet.  :)

If any of the preceeding content caught your interest, I hope you will check out my project on Kickstarter!

Beginning at the Middle

Cover art for "The Blood Cries Out"

Since I am pursuing a non-traditional publishing route, it seems only fitting to explain the non-traditional origins of my new novel.  The article originally appeared in Savvy Authors, but it is not currently found anywhere else on Google.


As Anne Lamott reminded us in her enlightening and engaging book about writing and living, Bird by Bird, the best way to approach an overwhelming project is often to break it up into its smaller component parts.  This has a way of transforming the seemingly impossible writing task into something that just might work.  A couple years ago, a co-worker shared a piece of dark family history that sent chills down my spine.  For a person like me whose writing usually contains a spiritual dimension, that family history was something I wanted to find a way to incorporate within fictional context, most likely a mystery novel.  The problem was, after obtaining the family’s permission, I had no precise idea where to begin. 

I tried the “traditional” approach of story outlining and character sketches, but I didn’t want to begin to write the story until I head a better idea of who and what I was writing about.  In the past, beginning a tale too early has only served as the story’s death knell.  There’s something about putting it to paper that solidifies or cements those words.  In my mind, at least, it’s better to avoid a few re-writes at the outset and delay seriously starting the tale until it’s really had a chance to ferment in one’s mind.  Of course, this doesn’t mean that you’re not scribbling down notes all the time.  Still, there’s something fundamentally different about outlining the story or jotting notes on character development and actually writing the opening paragraph of the tale.  My own over overabundance of caution was seriously delaying me from moving forward with this challenging project.

About this time, an unexpected e-mail arrived from a small publication in Kildaire, Ireland.  Having read and enjoyed a short story of mine entitled “The Stars Within the Glass,” the writer was inquiring if I could supply a short piece of original fiction for use in a publication.  I have to admit that this idea did not sound terribly appealing at first.  After all, it represented a potentially significant time investment for a relatively small publication.  It occurred to me, however,  that perhaps I could use the request as a motivator--i.e. kick in the pants--for starting work on my novel.  The question was, yet again, where to begin?

After some thought (and a little procrastination), I decided to write a short story from roughly the middle of my outlined novel.  My idea was something along the lines of a serialization of a piece of larger work of fiction--except nothing had been written previously.  The story ended-up being about a chapter in length, and, at this point, it should conclude part 1 of my planned two or three part novel.  When this short story soon appears in print it will be a streamlined version of the chapter to come, since not all details are really necessary in a trim short story.  If all goes according to plan, this short story, then, will someday be a chapter within a much larger work.  

What did I learn from this unusual approach to starting the writing of a novel?  Well, I don’t know if this is always a great strategy for getting to work, but for me it’s helped to see my characters more clearly than I otherwise would have so early in the process.  It’s also been an interesting way to elicit feedback on the project.  For example, I was planning to go one particular direction with the work, but several of the test readers who seemed to enjoy the short story the most expressed a sincere desire that the story would end up going a completely different way.  In fact, one of those readers is my wife, so I have to give their proposal some careful thought!  In short, if you’re having difficulty figuring out how to get started on your next book, you might just try beginning at the middle.  

Check Out My New Pinterest Boards!

Hope you can check out my new activity on Pinterest. This technical stuff doesn't come naturally for a guy whose first computer was a Sinclair ZX-81 in the early 1980s...but I am learning!  

I'm particularly happy with my new page dedicated to my wife's artistic family.  Hope you can visit Collier Family Art today.

Five Free Kindle Books This Weekend!

Excited to announce a big Kindle book giveaway this weekend.  I've put the dates of the free days below each title, and the dates will serve as a link to the books themselves on Amazon.  Hope you can check these out.  Regarding the last three titles, they have been recently edited and streamlined.  If you enjoy, please review!  (In fact, the last humorous title will likely disappear for good without a review or two--same with Stars Within the Glass.)

Free September 13 and 14th!

Free Sept. 13-15!

Free Sept. 13-15!   

Free Sept. 13-15!

Free Sept. 14-17! 

(NO LONGER AVAILABLE)                               (NO LONGER AVAILABLE)



UPDATE:  "Toupee Mice" is now available to Kindle readers for $4.99!

Fresh and Real Sound from Lorde (Revisited)

(Artist's copyrighted image.)

If you had the unfortunate opportunity to room with me in the late 1980s, you know I tend to listen to a lot of the same music over and over.  (Sorry, Dave Elkins and the rest of SPU's Camp Casey work crew on Whidbey Island.)  Yes, my musical tastes are a little hard to pin down--and I don't mind putting tracks on repeat for a few hours.  From Beethoven and Bach to U2 and Gaelic music, my tastes are a little eclectic.  (In fact, I'm listening to a Bizet opera as I write this little review.)

Maybe that's why I'm so excited about a new New Zealand singer named Lorde (Ella Yelich-O'Connor).  As Owen Stretch commented in his recent Huffington Postblog, she's the "anti-Miley."  Where Miley Cirus is all about "twerking" and pushing the envelope--without  pushing any kind of fresh, authentic sound or substance--this artist actually writes her own songs, and her insightful comments mark her as a deep thinker.  In an interview, she mentioned being captivated by the look and meaning of words.  Last month, for instance, she tweeted "perfecting that nursery rhyme melody thing that makes good pop songs repulsively hooky."  

It's a simple tweet from a young woman, but it betrays a deeper kind of thought and care about content than we are accustomed to seeing (or hearing) in the popular or independent music scene.  This woman is a writer, a poet who also happens to also be a great singer.  Her shy attitude and gentle smirk convey a self deprecating kind of humor and a depth to her thinking that's refreshing indeed.  It's been a long time.  As one of many from a broken home, there's also something in her honesty about friends and family that I find praiseworthy.

How fitting that her siren call would be sounding forth from New Zealand, the beautiful and rich place that helped bring Lord of the Rings to the big screen.  There is something otherworldly about this young woman's voice--like the elvish song from a dark Middle Earth wood.  I hope you will give her a chance.  A good starting point would be her "Royals."  I look forward to a great future for this new performer.

I should add that my profiling of this artist doesn't mean I'm endorsing any particular kind of lifestyle she may represent.  I gather she smokes, has a drinking problem (probably as a futile attempt to address her anger issues), and that she may hold conflicted feelings concerning the nature of God and "organized religion"--even though I would argue there is a Christian undercurrent or message present in some of her music.  So, I don't hold her up as any kind of a role model for young people--or anyone else.  In fact, I largely stopped following her on social media recently, because I found her tweets so greatly less inspiring or engaging than her music.  There was a negativity or sadness there that became grating after a time.

I just know that I enjoy most of her songs, and she seems like a young woman to whom we should lend our ears for a moment.  I trust this singer will only improve with age.  I just hope she learns to deal with bitterness and pain without the poisonous salve of alcohol.  It's sad when the brilliant ones burn out early with a flash; I hope Lorde stays around for very long time, and I wish her well.

Injured and Alone

Our hike into Oregon’s Mt. Jefferson Wilderness had begun so auspiciously that Friday morning.  My wife, daughter, and our Newfoundland puppy named Chester saw us off, hiking with us into Lake Pamelia (3,884 ft. elevation) where we parted ways: they returning to the trailhead, and my father, son (Stephen), and I pushed higher and deeper in to Hunt’s Lake (5,236 ft. elevation) via the Hunt’s Creek Trail.  That first day had been backbreaking as we backpacked up from Lake Pamelia.  The trail was steep and poorly maintained in sections, often requiring us to negotiate huge fallen pines and other debris.  It was hard enough without a pack, but the added weight made my back ache and the sweat drip incessantly from my face.  When we passed the Cathedral Rocks, towering high into the mountain air, I knew our long day’s journey was nearly done.  The welcome of that beautiful lake a little while later made the hard day’s hike seem worthwhile.  Surrounded by colorful wildflowers and long swaying grasses, it was like a glimpse into heaven itself.  Half a dozen small streams flowed into the lake from all sides, and wild trout broke the surface as they leapt for the passing insects.

After some time spent the following morning exploring the breathtaking upper alpine meadows, we started the trek back down to the Lake Pamelia trailhead around one that Saturday afternoon.  With the hike mostly downhill now, we assumed we could make the Hunts Creek crossing within a couple hours, or so.  Our plans were about to change.  The accident happened fast around 2:30 on that afternoon.  One moment the three of us were hiking along the narrow trail, enjoying the beautiful day in Oregon’s Mt. Jefferson Wilderness, and the next my father slipped off the path and cried out in pain.  I heard the crack of bone from his right leg, but I didn’t want to admit it.  He was going to be just fine, I lied to myself.   In fact, I even told a passing hiker, with a satellite phone clearly in his daypack, that we would be okay.  He disappeared up the path before I could change my mind.  The day was transformed from pleasure and recreation in the backcountry to one bearing fearful uncertainty.  The majestic mountain and the beautiful forested hills became a barrier now, something to be overcome, and we were about six rough miles away from the trailhead.

Everything changed with that shattered ankle.  As my father tried unsuccessfully to walk with me carrying his pack, I realized how serious it was.  This wasn’t an accident on a city street with emergency services just around the corner; there was nothing here, and we had made a relatively late start on the hike back as it was.  My father sat down on a rock, and I followed his directions, interspersed with exclamations of pain, as I tried to create a brace for the injured foot with torn pieces of a t-shirt.  He groaned as I tightened the black cords of fabric around his foot in a figure-eight pattern.  His pale and sweaty face warned that shock was trying to take hold.

For a while, he limped along the trail fairly well; the brace seemed to help.  It was clearly hard for him, but he kept putting his feet down slowly, one after another.  My son took the front as I took up the rear, keeping my father between the two of us.  I mistakenly assumed that we could catch him before he fell again.  The falling resumed all too soon when he came crashing to the ground again, yelling in pain.  We lifted him up and plodded along once again.  His steps were so small in comparison to the rugged distance we had to cover before nightfall.  I didn’t know what to do.  About the second or third time he fell, I whispered a prayer up to God.  I said that we needed help right away, and I prayed for people to come along the trail.  I felt so incredibly alone and powerless.

Within about fifteen minutes, I noticed a mother and two small children venturing up the trail towards us.  They appeared to be day hiking up from Lake Pamelia below. She introduced herself as Becky and graciously offered to carry my father’s Kelty Expedition pack down to their lakeside camp.  I unloaded the second pack I had been carrying and thanked her profusely.  She turned around and headed back down for the valley floor, assuring us that she’d try to also look for someone with a satellite phone.  About the same time, three more hikers appeared behind us.  One young man ambled by without so much as a word, but the older couple stopped and asked what they could do to help.  I explained the situation, and the gentleman, Jim, retrieved a set of high quality Leki telescoping hiking poles out of his small pack.  They weren’t perfect for our particular situation, but they turned out to be a big help in the coming miles.  Even more helpful, though, was Jim’s promise that they would hike out as quickly as possible and notify the ranger or sheriff’s department of our situation.

Once the people had disappeared, the sense of hope also began to fade.  My father’s face was ashen, and great beads of perspiration fell from his forehead.  The hike down the steep trail was frequently punctuated with my father’s cries as he fell—repeatedly.  Sometimes I would manage to catch him before he struck the ground, but usually he would lose his footing too quickly for me to be able to grab hold.  Each time he fell, his strength and spirits sank a little more, and he frequently twisted his broken ankle on the way down, bringing excruciating pain.  Large rocks embedded in the trail were becoming increasingly difficult for him to step over; he was losing strength fast.  I think it was about the time that he crashed into a blackberry bush, tearing his shirt and scratching his back, that I whispered my second prayer.  We needed something to help us, or it felt like we were not going to make it down by nightfall.  My dad commented about needing a sturdy crutch, but we knew the likelihood of finding something of the sufficient strength and right height and shape was very unlikely indeed.  The feeling of desperation was taking hold again.   

As we paused a moment for him to rest a few minutes later, I glanced down to my right.  Hidden amongst the dry moss, leaves, and weathered tree roots beside the trail was a long, straight limb with a short u-shaped fork toward its end.  I reached down and pulled it up and away from the clinging soil and forest moss.  I raised it up and looked at it with shock—perhaps just a little like King Arthur examining Excalibur the first time.  “That’s it,” I think my father exclaimed—about the first positive exclamation in a couple hours of miserable walking.  He took a sock from a pack and placed it in the branch’s fork to provide some cushioning before trying it out.  It functioned about as well as one could imagine anything working in our situation, and it provided him a lot more stability as he plodded along the path.  As so often happens, I didn’t immediately recognize it as an answer to prayer, but, upon reflection, I see God’s providential hand in both the meeting of the kind strangers and the discovery of this perfect wooden staff. 

It bolstered our spirits, making the hike a little more bearable for my father.  As the afternoon passed away, we slowly neared Hunts Creek below.  The sound of the rushing water was encouraging while, at the same time, daunting.  My dad and I felt that we needed to cross the river before we stopped and setup his temporary camp.  I’m still not entirely sure where this particular goal or accompanying sense of urgency came from, but it just didn’t seem safe to camp until we had successfully forded this river that emptied into Lake Pamelia about a half mile to the north.  The three of us knew that fording an icy river with a broken leg was a dangerous thing to do—especially at dusk—but we felt that it was a necessary risk.  We had no idea how long it would take help to come.

About this time, my father asked me to run ahead and try to collect his backpack from Becky back at the lake.  He needed its contents if we were to establish an emergency camp while my son and I pressed on to ensure help was on the way.  This errand, however, was easier said than done; I was exhausted, sore, and dehydrated.  I thought briefly of sending my fifteen-year-old son, Stephen, but something told me to go on ahead myself.  The last thing we needed was my son getting separated from us after dusk in the Mt. Jefferson Wilderness.  Better safe than sorry.  I jogged down to the river and carefully made my way across on a log above the water—an option I argued against later for my dad on account of the high risk of falling into the icy water and breaking something else or becoming hypothermic.  Safely on the far side of Hunt’s Creek, I propped up my very heavy backpack against a fallen tree and began to hurry north, down the trail towards Lake Pamelia.  Dusk was closing in fast with the final shafts of sunlight slanting down above the ridges and through the high trees.   I tried to recall the camp description Becky had offered earlier, but after fifteen minutes, there still was no sign of her.  Rushing along the rough path, I began to use my emergency whistle at regular intervals.  I hoped that she’d hear it, but I was almost to the north side of the lake by the time I finally spotted her on the trail just ahead.  I felt a huge relief at seeing her standing there with my dad’s pack already secured on her back. 

Some twenty minutes later, I was back at the river, and my son and father were waiting on the far side.  Crossing the swift river with my dad was something I was really dreading.  I helped him check his bandages, and he was under the impression that his injury was a compound fracture—bone sticking through flesh.  While I didn’t get a good look at the foot itself, I noticed there were blood blisters everywhere on his lower leg.  It was a shockingly bad injury, and I worried he might lose his foot.  It was time to cross the stream.  My son took my father’s left side, where he could keep close watch on the placement of the improvised wooden cane.  I took my father’s right arm in mine and silently prayed as our feet hit the water together.  Our footing held firm on the stream’s rocky bottom, and the rushing water didn’t rise above our knees.  I was so tremendously grateful at that final step onto the rocky shore, but there was lots of work still requiring our attention before my son and I could make the final journey to the trailhead beyond Lake Pamelia.  As quickly as we could manage in the dying forest light, we assembled my father’s tent in an open spot there beneath the trees.  Even if help couldn’t come until morning, we would leave him with plenty of food, water, and extra clothes. 

In fact, when we were done setting everything up, I also decided to leave my own pack behind at his makeshift camp.  It was growing dark, and my son and I felt we needed to hike back to the trailhead as quickly as we could safely manage in order to get my dad extricated before dawn.  The next hour and a half were some of the most frightening minutes of the day.  The forest was soon pitch black, leading to false turns and general disorientation.  Moonlight graced the sky above, but little of its gentle light reached the forest floor.  Soon, we couldn’t even see our own hands without the help of a flashlight.  


We each carried a good light, but we were careful to avoid leaving the beams on too long; the batteries had to last until we reached the car.  I tried to flash the light briefly down the trail, then switch it off and walk some distance on memory.  This worked well for the straight stretches of the trail, but it was problematic when false trails would appear out of the darkness.  Recognizing that the fall rains and winter snowmelt would sometimes create small streambeds that could resemble trails for a short distance, we had to watch our steps carefully and ensure that we were on the true path.  Other times, we caught what seemed like movements or mysterious sounds off in the dark tangle of trees along the trail.  I’d direct the bright beam into the woods, but we never saw any animal illuminated in the light.  My mind went to the stories of violent cougar and bear encounters in the Pacific Northwest woods, and I regretted very much not carrying my forty-five.  My son confided he was thinking of a particular video game set in in a dark forest; he was not a happy camper.  We proceeded into the darkness as quickly as we could manage, stopping every so often to check our bearings or more carefully illuminate the trail ahead.  My son passed along our progress as we went by particular checkpoints he recognized.  It was good to see familiar sections of the trail as well as the trail markings on some of the trees.  I noticed a light shining ahead.  I realized it was a flashlight beam playing down the trail in our direction.  Imagine my relief when we arrived at the trailhead to be greeted by a Linn County Deputy Sheriff.  His badge glinted in our flashlight beams.  He told us that seventeen search and rescue volunteers were already on the way.  He assured me that my father would be out of the woods within a few hours.

Some fourteen hours after the trail accident, my father was seen and treated in an emergency room in Salem.  As he had suspected all along, the injury was a compound fracture.  There were a total of three breaks in his right ankle.  He remembers the grinding of those bones every time he took a step during those awful first hours.  After we arrived at home, I was too exhausted to immediately see the degree of God’s guiding hand in our situation.  As rest came, though, so did my certainty that God guided us through that miserable day, bringing substantive good out of a horrible situation.  While my dad was recuperating for a few days at our house, he made a comment that resonated with me.  He said that there was an “aura” of peace in our home; it seemed a welcoming place of rest to him.  This meant a lot, and I’ll always fondly remember our hours of good conversation that weekend.  Our wives will probably veto any more backpacking trips in the near future, but I’d say that the trip brought me closer to both my father and my son.  It also powerfully reminded me of the power of prayer in our lives.  No matter how dark it becomes or how dangerous the path is before us—our own valley of the shadow of death--we are never alone in Christ.  Indeed, if God is for us, who can be against us?  Trust in Him and ensure you stay on the true path—and remember a sturdy pair of boots, too!

You may also enjoy these three older posts on our Mt. Jefferson hikes--what to do and not to do!  

Also, please check out Oregon, My Oregon, A Photographic Journey, The Mt. Jefferson Wilderness.  This electronic coffee table will soon be available for Kindle readers!


A Day Hike to Lake Pamelia

Lost in the Woods / Learning from my Mistakes

An Open Letter to the US Forest Service 

Oregon, My Oregon, A Photographic Journey (Mt. Jefferson Wilderness)   NEW!

See You at the Authorama!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

            September 6, 2013

FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:

            Ann Scheppke, Librarian

            503-588-6124                     

            ascheppke@cityofsalem.net

           

Salem Public Library Presents Authorama

Salem Public Library presents Authorama, the Library’s second annual local author fair, on Saturday, September 28, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. The event will take place at the Central Library, 585 Liberty St. SE.

Forty authors from throughout the Willamette Valley have accepted the Library’s invitation to participate.  In addition to displaying and selling their works, some authors will do short presentations.  These presentations will include something for everyone, running the gamut from poetry readings to presentations on travel and time management.  A complete list of participating authors and a detailed schedule of events is available on the Library’s website at www.salemlibrary.org.

 Many genres will be represented, with offerings including local history, romance, children’s and young adult fiction, travel, how-to, memoirs, and more.  The fair will give those in attendance a chance to discover new writers and to network with authors who have successfully published.  And if that’s not enough, there will be prizes!

This program is free and open to the public.  For more information, visit Salem Public Library’s website at www.salemlibrary.org or call 503-588-6052.