science-fiction writers resource

I found this wonderful page with science-fiction resources for writers. Totally cool

fantasy Art resource project

"Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it. " C.S. Lewis

I'd like to say that this particular blog entry will be a nice one, but it might not. It's actually going to be about the church and, my criticisms of the pastor's position. For a brief history, I grew up in the church and have done nearly everything I can remember there. I've been to kids camp, day camp, high school camp, junior high camp and whatever else camp; I'm not much of a camper as you can tell. The fact of the matter is, I am not. I hate camping; hotels are much more my bag, but that's not why I'm writing this entry. This morning, as I lay here in my bed, I thought about the church and most particularly, my father. He was a pastor at various times and a professor at Vanguard University. He pastored San Bernardino Community Church for 10 years and after that, pastored Newport Mesa Christian Center as they looked for new pastor and almost destroyed themselves, because of a couple of wolves in the flock. BUT, that's another story for another time.
My father also pastored various churches as a guest speaker and sometimes, we were pulled around to churches that didn't even speak English. In fact, some of them spoke languages I could not even recognize, much less understand. Needless to say, as a child, these were extremely boring churches to attend and I hated attending church anyway. I wanted to be out surfing, hanging out with my friends and doing things other than listening to sermons, singing hymns (I grew up on hymns, not the cool U2 music that is being played in churches regularly these days) and most of all, the dreaded church outfit which receives many "you're so handsome today" comments, but every child dreads wearing. Having to dress nice, act nice, and most of all -- not surf -- was torture to this child.
As an adult, I enjoy going to church, though still not that much. It still has to compete with other activities in my life I enjoy doing more; although, I love hanging out with my Christian friends. I like the fellowship, the accountability and now, more than when I was a child, I like the music. Most of all, church is a wonderful place to meet new people. I don't meet a good number of new people as most of the time, I sit in front of the computer and punch out words. In addition, eHarmony has not been the best place for me to meet people, nor the World of Warcraft an incredibly addictive videogame also called "Warcrack." And that is still yet, another conversation for another time. As for the subject at hand, something is still bugging me.
The church was established to be a beacon to the world; it is the home of Christ, but very often the building and its people have become just a part of the world and not the one lighthouse in it. Pastors, for example, are at their pulpits preaching the good news, right? Well, they CAN as long as they don't offend parishioners. Even my father was prey to this on occasion; don't worry; nothing bad thank God! And don't get me wrong! My father spoke the truth much better than any other pastor I know, but as with any pastor, he requires a paycheck and therefore cannot offend too many of the wrong churchgoers. Prophets, by contrast, spoke the truth and very often got beaten and even murdered for it. Much less, prophets never received a paycheck. What would the church be like these days if pastors spoke straight and truthful -- as truthful as prophets?
For one thing, they would be fired right and left; and for another, they would be respected a whole lot more. Just a thought, but maybe more pastors SHOULD be fired. I say this with the utmost respect for my father and every other honest pastor out there. After all, my father was the funniest and most entertaining pastor ever. :-)

beach is lovely

HMC 150 (test) from Jonathan P. Baldwin on Vimeo.

love this Panasonic hmc 150

K-Grind Perspectives from Peter Barth on Vimeo.

documentary

Okay, so a friend of mine is doing a documentary about me. It's a bit crazy, but yes. People writing documentaries about me is confusing. Not much to talk about I would figure, but they think it's worthy news. That's how it should be. Nobody should go out with the intention of making their own documentary about themselves. I guess that's called an auto documentary. Well, autobiographical documentary. =D

Angels, Demons and forgiveness

Last night, as I lay awake, partially sick and partially not feeling as sick as the people in my house, I thought about Angels and Demons. I don't necessarily like to call the latter demons; I think of them more as fallen angels. Demons, I believe, are different breed had come from Genesis Chapter 6; maybe they are the nephilum. How did I get on this subject? Well, I started watching this action film called "Gabriel" that was sort of like Dan Brown mixed with The Matrix series. A lot of action, but in the midst, these angels fighting over the middle ground, the front lines between heaven and hell. Essentially, they fight on earth, or more specifically Los Angeles; that's not hard to believe. I know! Los Angeles = the city of Angels. It's better to think of them fighting in LA because it's such a messed up city. At the end of the film however, Gabriel, is sent to Earth to fight the good fight against fallen angels on a similar mission, but for the other side. The Archangel finds himself not only fighting against fallen angels, but other archangels. Michael, Raphael, several others, all came down in hopes of bettering the world, but as an added conflict in the arena, the more you use your angelic powers of healing, the less of an angel you become and the more human... you fall. It becomes harder and harder for these angels to see light from darkness and many fall prey to the sins of the world. In the end, Gabriel succeeds in doing what all the other angels could not and defeats the leader of the fallen Angels; no, not Satan; apparently, he wanted too much money to do the film... or he has to sharpen his pitchfork. Instead Gabriel has to kill... Michael who has become top dog.
I'm not saying that this movie is a perfect film, nor theologically accurate, but it did get me thinking. As Gabriel vanquished Michael, who was going under another name I cannot spell, nor remember, he forgave him. But this is where I had a thought. Is it possible for angels to be forgiven? The answer must be an emphatic "NO !" Unlike human beings who have some sense of moral ambiguity, angels do not. After all, angels have known complete good and complete evil. When an angel falls, they fall completely; there is no more good in them. Nothing that can be forgiven. Were you to forgive an angel for their sins, you would be loving the sin and the sinner. It cannot work this way. I'm not sure how accurate I am on this, but it is just a thought.�

A Documentary About Me?

ya...no joke. more to come...

Writing? (Ugh,...complain, complain)

Writing is so difficult for me, yet I'm always complimented for it. So, why do I stress? Why do I fret when writing any sort of creative work? You really should not! I mean, creativity is all about throwing colors here and there, putting nouns and verbs, pronouns and that ever elusive predicate (something I still don't know enough about) all in the places that you need. I've even read books about grammar. Grammar books that, like one, became a bestseller in Britain. Of course, a book about English grammar in Britain is much like a book about baseball in America. Nevertheless, I struggle and struggle with writing every sentence. I write, then I delete, then I write again. Rinse and repeat. After I'm done with this, I pull my hair out for awhile, then try to get a drink as the speech recognition program I use, has me talking like Joe Cocker. And then, in the midst, something interesting happens. When I finally open the doors and let everything flow through, air, trees, water, and whatever else into my mind, something cool happens. But as I was reading recently, success is a journey, not... something else. I cannot quite remember as I don't remember much from what I read. My comprehension has always been bad. Probably the reason I cheated off the redhead next to me in English nearly always. She would read, I would copy.... well, I wouldn't totally copy. I would add my own little flair. Nevertheless, it was cheating. What a little cheater I was! Although, I'm sure laziness was also part of it. I once took a report about Hiroshima from a friend of mine; he got a C+ and I turned it into an A+... again, with flair. Flair seems to = A+. He was frustrated that I got a better grade, but oh well. Now, enough of my cheating and back to my wondrous life as a award-winning screenwriter. I'm not there yet. No hot models and actresses hanging off of me yet. I wish.

from my facebook blog...

People have been asking me how my life has been going and what has been getting me down. It has been a bit of trouble. With back pain, nerve pain, neck pain... (five minutes later)... and the toenail that bugs me, it is hard NOT becoming depressed. I'm stuck in bed all the time these days until I heal up and get up occasionally for about two hours segments. This is infrequent and typically happens once every couple of days. It's not the life I wished to find, far from it. But as with any sort of artistry, life is a process of discovery, not photocopying. You put in some hard work here, some lackadaisical work there and pay no attention to other areas; somewhere in the midst, colors mix and you discover yourself or watch your shape form. Let the metaphor fly any which direction you wish. At this point, I have no answers, only the life I live (now I'm paraphrasing CS Lewis).. I thank everyone for their prayers and passions they've expressed for my own life. Sometimes I think the prayers don't do any good, but then... the colors mix and something new is created. Naturally, this is not every time! Prayers are not always solved or answered. It's much like my task list in Outlook; I have so many tasks in there, but only a small portion have been satisfied. Most of which are half finished or not even started. Some tasks are in there and I have NO intention of completing them; I know you did this too, so no judging. I'm thinking God's task list looks about the same. As for my health, I seem to be getting better, though not with the jumps and strides of some super technology in a sci-fi feature. I love those movies! They solve the problems we have every day in 45 minutes. Star Trek does it all the time and to such perfection. Can Dr. McCoy do any wrong? "Bones! AIDS needs a cure!", and "Bones! We have a cancer problem over here! "Dammit Jim! I'm a doctor not a... nevermind. I'm on it."