You are 100% replaceable at WORK. You’re 0% replaceable at HOME. If you died tomorrow your job would replace you in a week. Your family would NEVER get over it. Home is your real life. Home is where your real legacy is built. Keep that perspective. Work hard but be FULLY PRESENT when you’re home.

I also agree with @PaulAnleitner's take on this. There is a mythic, truth bearing foundation to the prequels, which the sequels lack. This is why they ultimately feel like an integral part of the same saga as the original trilogy. Lucas' intention of preserving and defending the vitality of that type of storytelling carries through all six films, and it's why the prequels were primed for reevaluation when, like Lewis says, we were old enough to love fairy tales again. The sequels establish themselves on an entirely different foundation, which was deconstructive and consuming. The center cannot hold, and so as modernity dissolves into modernity, they are increasingly discarded, for that is the nature they chose.

“What Shadows Give,” by Plain Runner I hadn’t seen her in ten years. Yet, this was the street. These were the stones her bare feet walked upon as I held her heels. This was the light where I first saw the little smile. Maybe she knew in that moment when we crossed to avoid the puddle. Maybe she always intended to bring me back here. The light made her look like a ghost, half in shadow, half revealed. Like she’d come back, but only for this sliver of time, either to finish what she’d begun or to escape it… I couldn’t say. But she was wearing the same jacket she’d had that night I lost her. The bullet holes were the giveaway. Photo by @KingAriPress

I have had a hard time sticking with writing since publishing. Initially, I chalked it up to being tired. The five years prior to releasing Travel By Star saw an increasingly emotional series of life events: Two children marrying, two parents passing away after long fights with illness, losing our family dog, another child finishing college and stepping into adulthood, one moving out of state, wild swings at work wherein one moment I couldn't catch my breath to suddenly facing the prospect of job loss, all of this running through the pandemic, then finally spending this last year trying to find a better balance of writing and marketing while working 50-60 hours a week and tending to neglected relationships. To cap it all off, I've had some ongoing health issues for the past nine months which have destroyed my sleep. The last thing I want to sound like is a complainer... I'm just a little worn out, and maybe a little lost. I want to find my way back to purposeful writing and I really want to do right by all those who've been so supportive of my work. I keep feeling like the Lord has been building me for something... what, I'm not sure, but I want to be ready for it, at least as much as possible. I want to honor God with my work. I want to serve well the people I love, and I want to get some real traction on this writing thing - not necessarily in sales, as I trust those will come - but in good words down on paper. But it's a fight on all fronts these days and both my spirit and my strength remain elusive. His grace is sufficient, I know. And, maybe He's telling me to let this go for awhile... again, I'm not sure. All I know is I'm tired of feeling sick and sick of feeling tired. Something needs to break this siege. So, yeah, I would appreciate any prayers you could say on my behalf. Thanks as always to everyone who's encouraged me here.

Forgive me, Keanu Reeves, for saying you couldn’t do Shakespeare. I had only seen you in “Much Ado About Nothing”, and not “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.”

Karen Gillan, who is a Highlander, says Henry Cavill's Scottish accent in the Highlander reboot is absolutely "bang on" She also says he was so dedicated to authenticity, he was even correcting people who were mispronouncing Gaelic words (via @Collider)

I hear tell October is a good time to sell novels that touch on the haunted side of things. To which I can only say... "Beware the Crin."

The reason I don't watch horror, besides the creepiness, is the people who make it. The mindset they have to be in, the creepy ideas and sets they have to come up with, and stories of behind the scenes stuff I have read just tells me the people making these movies are not in a spiritually healthy place. Which makes me think it's pretty unhealthy to be taking it in, too.

Learning to love each other through all the ways life changes us…even the snoring (Although I think Mary Beth is making that part up)…it’s all part of the great adventure of marriage! We talk about this and a lot more in our new book, Still Here.