Month: August 2023

Looking Through the Window that’s Not Really There

D. Michl LoweLeave a comment

If you look at the picture above, you might be remiss to think I stare at the wall all day and to some degree you would be right. However, the pictures haphazardly taped to the wall around me are all important parts of the creative process from my book. You might not be able to fully tell by looking at it, but the maps have minor and major changes made to them. The one on the right has the most.

The black and white pictures on the left are mostly armor, clothing, and weapons from throughout history. I admit, I would rather have a nice bay window behind my desk to glance out of, but I like my little corner. The temperature is cool down in the basement and at times even quiet. So there’s an allure to the basement space that makes it nearly ideal for a writer.

However, I take some umbrage at saying I don’t have a view. I do have a view. In fact, I have a very unique view. My view is a window into a world where I am God. I don’t say that lightly either. Writing is an interesting pastime. Writers spend a large portion of their lives creating story and character. In other words, they make people who live out lives in worlds of the writer’s creation. Whatever happens to them, at them, by them, all of it, is the design of the writer.

We get to play at being God. I was talking to a new friend of mine and we were discussing different books we had read. This new friend and I suddenly realised we had both read the same book and nearly at the same time exclaimed, “man, that character was messed up!” speaking about a particular character who had a rough life growing up. When we read a story, or watch a movie or tv show, we allow our brains to move us into that reality. We become.part of that world, if for only a little while. It’s a truly magical and wonderful ability we have.

So I do have a view. I view the World of Pillar. The Mammon Engine is not just a book, but a place I feel I watch through the window of the computer screen. I am getting to know the characters of Thistlewart, Dasa, Christoph, Meshiah, Nicodemus, and Schalk. I watch them and listen to them. They speak to each other and in turn, they speak to me. I get to spend to each of them and talk to each of them through the mouths of the other characters. At times, these characters are more real to me than people I see on the news or people I pass on the street. I am intimately aware of Meshiah’s doubt. I feel Thistwart’s shame and Christoph’s anger at God. Dasa’s loss and depression are at times my own. Dasa is pictured below.

Maybe someday, when I finally finish this book, you will fall in love with this world and these peoples as I have. Maybe for you, you will begin to understand why staring at the wall has been so fascinating to me. Maybe you too will feel the shame and anger and adventure I feel. I hope you get that chance, and soon.

D. Michl Lowe

Kicking the Back of My Chair

D. Michl LoweLeave a comment

Occasionally, I find an article or a video about a person on an airplane and the struggle with having a child behind them on the plane that kicks their chair. I don’t know what it is, but there is deep seeded primal annoyance with chair kicking. I’m not sure there is a person alive who this wouldn’t bother. However, there is a valuable lesson in chair-kicking etiquette that I would like to share with you. Our church combines the two services we usually have during the year into one service during the summer. As such, that one service is often full. So it was this morning. My wife and I came in just as the service started and sat in one of the back rows.

As the service continued, a newer family sat behind us. Throughout the service, the youngest son consistently kicked the back of my wife and I’s chairs. She wrote on the bulletin that he was kicking her chair, and I nodded. It’s tough to learn about Noah, while every couple of minutes, you get bumped. However, I thought about that new family in our church and their young children. That family needs Jesus. Their kids are sitting in our pews and listening to our Pastor talk about living life in dedication to Christ. Isn’t that worth a distraction? Of course, it is! I want nothing more than to have more kids kicking my chair. Of course, it is.

A week or so later, a friend sat in front of us at church. Throughout the entire message, she whispered to the young man beside her. Now, when I say whispering to him, I mean constantly! An almost neverending stream of whispers. You might be thinking, “How rude.” However, again, there is more at work here. My friend is translating (as quietly and unobtrusively as she can) so that this young man can hear the word of God. Is it distracting? Maybe, but it’s not a big deal to me. This young man is being fed the truth of all the universe through a loving and compassionate woman who wants nothing more than to allow this young man access to the gospel.

Years ago, a minister told me a story about a hotdog get-together his church was having. They were having hotdogs and advertised it throughout the surrounding neighborhood. “Come out for free hotdogs and Gospel singing!” the signs read. Many new people showed up. After the hotdogs, the people piled into the sanctuary for the singing. In the back, the minister watched a little boy come into the sanctuary carrying two hotdogs, one in each fist.

He was dirty, his hair a mess, and he had clearly dressed himself that day. His hotdogs were loaded down with mustard. That’s how he liked them; he had prepared them just right. But as he walked to a seat in the front pew, he dripped little spots of mustard up the aisle. He sat on the front pew, happily munching his hotdogs, singing along with the choir, spraying hotdog and mustard the entire time.

The service ended, and several people approached the minister and complained. He merely walked to the custodian’s closet, took out the rug cleaner, and got down on his hands and knees to clean the floor. He smiled at those complaining and said, “That little boy was fed tonight. And he had fun singing songs he didn’t know yet. Mustard on the carpet is worth a soul.” That’s how I want to be. That’s the kind of church I want to help create for the masses.

Please, give me more families. Please, give me more children. Please, give me all the people, the multitudes. Give me the single mothers with the crying babies. Bring them all into MY church because it’s not MY church; it’s Jesus’ Church. Swell the walls, make it hard to find a seat, give me the kicking on the back of my chair, and the kid dripping and spraying mustard on the carpet. Give me all of it. Make my church a destination of discomfort for those who regularly attend so that those who do not regularly attend will feel welcomed and loved. God make me uncomfortable until I am willing to realize that it’s not about me.

D. Michl Lowe