Life is like a river.

At times we have the mountain-top experiences where cool and sparkling clear water bubbles out of smoothly worn stones or cascades down the steep rocky slopes into the pebble strewn brook below, where salmon hatcheries spawn their minute baby fish and eagles fly high. The rivulets come together to form tributaries and they in turn join to form the river. It flows through the thirsty land bringing urgently needed refreshment yet still it flows on and on to the river mouth. Here in contrast to the earlier convergence, it divides into multiple streams where it deposits nourishing silt into its delta region and finally delivers the precious cargo of fresh water and now stronger fish into the Waiting Ocean.

While there are times, precious moments of receiving, like the river our prime purpose is the delivery of that endowment in many and varied forms and in various places and while we know that in the ocean there are sharks and other dangers waiting to steal away the fruits of our work we still continue to produce, to deliver, to serve as we ourselves have been served.

The distraction is to live an unbalanced life by staying too long on the mountain-top or selfishly allowing the flow to dam up or foolishly trying to deliver without first being filled.

The challenge is to deliver with the same freshness that we received. To do this we must live dynamic, fast flowing lives, delivering and being filled often and regularly.

So what then is this precious sparkling invigorating liquid? Is it not knowledge, insight, wisdom and productivity or perhaps it is also more mysterious; sharing blessings with charisma, mutual respect and empathy?

Meet Sam Goma

The World that He gave - Sam Goma

Yes that's the name of my next book. The story is a continuation of the first book, but it has a well defined protagonist, viz. Sam.
This lovable character, not yet 20 years old, is straight from the heart of Africa. Besides his mother tongue he speaks French fluently and English adequately. He is important because he has a high New-Ray Ratio of greater than 5%. The New-Ray Ratio indicates is what many might call 'psychic ability' and the normal is about 0.1%. This is not too surprising because he is a Sangoma; called a 'good' witch doctor by some.

With this pedigree he is a prime candidate to be taught the skills of telepathy and teleportation. He is a natural and is soon promoted to become the Chief Pilot in New Ray Tech. Events escalate unpredictably almost out of hand, first on the Planet called Olympus and then on Earth, and this results in his becoming Admiral of a huge Naval Fleet and with this he saves the people of Earth from a fate worse, much worse than death.

Writer's Voice

You may have heard of the ‘Writer’s Voice’. This is the voice in the writer’s head that assembles the words and sentences to write from all the ideas, plot, story line, characters etc. floating around in the mind.
Well this morning after frying eggs for breakfast when the pan was rather hot and made the edges of the eggs delightfully crisp I put them on a plate and grabbed a knife and fork. In my haste, or was it my sleepy state, the knife was the short one used for buttering bread instead of the normal longer one for eating with. While I was reprimanding myself for the mistake or perhaps it was my mother’s voice scolding me from the past, my writer’s voice popped into play and suggested “Cutting Egg Technology.”

Writer's dilemma

When writing a work of fiction that is allegorical in design how far may the author stray from the truth?
More particularly how close to the truth should the Story of Sam Goma stray from the regular teachings of acceptable doctrine?
So what is the problem? Well Sam is a witch doctor. He declares that what the missionaries told him was unacceptable to him. He was looking for the spiritual side of his nature to be relevant for his current and present situation. Stories of ancient history that did not repeat in today’s world – unacceptable – so where is faith and hope. We understand faith to be the stuff that makes unseen things real today and hope is the stuff that makes future things real today. History is not unseen nor future (except when it is repeating itself). More specifically are the miracles such as walking on water and healing the sick and ascending up into the heavens part of these things “greater things than this shall you do”? I see no reason why not. It is these sorts of miracles that demand faith. Certainly the children of Israel looked back at the past and drew their faith from history – the works of Moses and the like. The new testament faithful look forward for their hope and at today’s activities for to exercise their faith or not?