Friday, November 30, 2018

Driving, Writing, and Living On the Wrong Side of the Road

OXFORD CREATIVE WRITING MASTER CLASS
Picture yourself here with me on the next OCWMC 
"Drive left. Look right! God, help me to do this right--I mean, correct!" So I tell myself and pray in the days and hours before leading another group of aspiring writers on the Oxford Creative Writing Master Class. At Heathrow, I warily circle the nine-passenger rental van and then lunge into the driver's seat on the right side, murmuring to myself to keep the vehicle on the left side of the road and a weather eye to the Bentleys, Minis, red buses, and black cabbies bearing down on my right side. Though it is not my first rodeo (not to be construed as a cliche; it is a metaphor chosen precisely to reflect how it feels swerving around about every frantically encircling roundabout intersection), I have driven in the UK on the wrong side of the vehicle--and the road--over many years now. But I still pray earnestly before loading the van with precious human cargo and braving the blaring streets, curvaceous back roads, and bustling motorways of Britain.

And then there's the matter of my talking--while driving (whilst motoring, to be more colloquial). One previous OCWMC participant, her hand trembling, passed me an almost illegible note on which she had scrawled out a plea for me to stop using hand gestures as I talk--and drive. "Please, please, keep both hands on the wheel," she implored me (I nodded, looking down at the clutch and gear shifter, wondering just how I was supposed to do that when every vehicle in the UK seems to be equipped with a manual transmission). As I teach my master class writers the evil of exaggerating language, I will avoid pronouncing it "miraculous," but it is a significant answer to prayer, with many instances of divine intervention, that I have never had an accident whilst motoring in Britain (okay, a few close calls; every one of them, I am morally certain, not my fault, like the one en route from London to Oxford opening day of the master class when a raven-colored Peugeot nearly strafed the side of us on the M-40, clearing my arteries, invigorating my vocabulary, and making me still more grateful).

In Oxford, or anytime I talk about writing, I emphasize the importance of figurative language, of metaphor. "The greatest thing by far," wrote Aristotle in his Poetics (384 BC - 322 BC), "is to have a command of metaphor. This alone cannot be imparted by another; it is the mark of genius, for to make good metaphors implies an eye for resemblances." And for the rest of us who are emphatically not geniuses, we work at training our eye and ear so we are equipped to use the most appropriate metaphors, the precise imaginative comparisons, the best mini stories to awaken the imagination and immerse our readers in the larger story.

Which makes me pause and consider driving on the wrong side of the car and the road as a metaphor, a miniature story very much like life itself. The author of the book of Proverbs employed a similar metaphor: "Turn not to the right hand or to the left. Keep your foot from evil." When driving a car, if I turn right when I should have turned left, or if I don't keep my eyes on the road ahead of me, screeching tires, broken glass, mangled metal, and far worse can follow.

Similarly, when writing a book, if I take my eyes off the real issue for my protagonist, or when I lose control of the story arc and the plot wanders aimlessly like an overfed bovine, sniffing at this or that irrelevant morsel, my reader gets distracted, yawns, closes the book, and (after awakening from his stupor), pounds out a scathing review on amazon.

How much worse when this happens in life. When I wander to the right and then to the left, grazing for fulfillment and happiness in this tidbit and that morsel of this life, I will always come up empty, unsatisfied, idolatrous, lost. And damned. The stakes are high. Those who persist with this try-this, try-that, foraging approach to life will end this life and enter the life to come with the most horrific words ringing in their eternal ears, "Depart from me you cursed into everlasting fire where there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth." When we do this in life, the result is infinitely worse than a car smash-up or a bad review on amazon.

Though our culture persists in shrieking the mantra, "There are many roads," or in effect, "Take whatever road feels good. There is no wrong side of the road." Imagine driving or writing that way. Made in the image of God, we all know at the deepest level of our being that there is only one road that leads to heaven. "One road leads home and a thousand roads lead into the wilderness," as CS Lewis put it. Left or right, O the pain of those thousand roads. No one gets to heaven by scrupulously following the right path, the path of self-improvement and good works; or from swerving left, following his heart and doing what he feels.

If not to the right or the left, where are we to keep our eyes? If there's only one way, The Way, how are we to get on--and keep on--the road? There's no equivocation. Nor is there any alternate route. The Word of God makes the path of life plain. Abandon all hope in ourselves and "Gaze upon the beauty of the Lord." It is what we were made for, not just on Good Friday or Easter, We are designed to keep our eyes straight ahead, to "Fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith." We do this because by his finished work on the cross in place of sinners and his righteousness imputed to those same sinners' specific account, Christ is alone the path to life; in his presence there is fullness of joy; at his right hand their are pleasures forevermore (Psalm 16).

God alone places us by his grace on the right road--and he alone keeps us on it. All other roads lead into the wilderness.     

Douglas Bond, author of dozens of books, directs the Oxford Creative Writing Master Class. Contact him about the next OCWMC at bondbooks.net@gmail.com

Wednesday, November 28, 2018

Thanksgiving discount ends soon bondbooks.net
Inkblots on a stormy, blustery evening after a day of barrels of rain. We sat around talking about books and publishing, typesetting, and copy editing. And other things. Most folks don't have anything immediately to read. So we talked about setting goals. And went around the room discussing plans for the future, and setting goals for our next gathering.

I "finished" the film script I have been commissioned to write today. When they first approached me I declined to take it on as I was too busy with other writing and speaking projects. So the arrangement is that they would present me with a draft of the script and I would then revise and rewrite it to my satisfaction. As I have been doing so, I have been reminded of this observations. “Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating” (Simone Weil). Hollywood usually settles for imaginary evil, and, hence, so often portrays sin as romantic and varied. Rarely does the film industry take off the mask and portray real evil for what it is: gloomy, monotonous, barren, and boring. On the contrary.

We discussed the role of copy editors. What is the role of the copy editor? Are they your friend or your adversary? Writers all need another set of eyes to help us see where we are being inconsistent or inaccurate. Sydney is enjoying doing copy editing and writing for website content for some new clients. Editors are not infallible but they are indispensable, in my opinion. Cheyenne has a copy editor that has told her to divide her first volume into two volumes and add a third for a trilogy.

Let's set some goals for two weeks from now. I am going to write my article for Modern Reformation and at least one of the hymns I have brainstormed shaped into the real deal. Rachel Ng is going to continue writing on her 1950s yarn. I recommended creating a rough table of contents with expanded ideas in parentheses for projected content in each chapters. Though you will always be changing and revising, doing this gives you a place to put ideas in some degree of order and establishes a map for where you are going. Sydney is going to continue writing on her weighty yarn, getting more forward direction and planning in place. Cheyenne has divided the first volume with a cliff hanger ending of the first, second starts at the same scene. 

Cheyenne reads from the beginning of the second volume. It seemed, may not be the best opening sentence of the book. Then again, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." Nevertheless, though Dickens pulled off an unforgettable opening paragraph starting with It, I would consider a more concrete beginning. But the description gets pretty riveting after that. It is grim. Axe in the back, and specifics of sound and sight at the gruesome scene. Cheyenne is writing well in first person. I think you need to bring readers back into the scene for the beginning of a new book. It's easy to overdo this and over write, tell too much from the past book and back story. But without reacquainting your readers with the characters and placing them back in the grim setting it seems abrupt and lacking in context. Giles and I were just talking last evening about series and trilogies (he wants me to write a Civil War story that continues the M'Kethe clan, as P&R and I have discussed for several years). His theory is that in trilogies each book should end in a cliff hanger. I have written my trilogies more with the idea that each book could stand alone, be a complete and satisfying story, but more to experience by reading all and in order. There is a measure of wisdom in seeking a publisher for the whole trilogy, as publishers do like to publish series. John pointed out that at a burial scene he thought characters should be more soberly thinking about death and what happens after death. 

John will read the first chapter of Violetta and work on continuing the yarn. I am begging to copy edit his Saving Grace contemporary novel this week.

Don't miss out on the special Thanksgiving season discount on my April Oxford Creative Writing Master Class; it expires November 30, only a few days away. Comment or email me right away and reserve your place for the next Oxford Creative Writing Master Class, which one OCWMC grad said was ...above and beyond my wildest dreams. I learned so much about writing, history, theology. It has truly changed my life.” Go to bondbooks.net, check out the OCWMC page under tours, and contact me before the big Thanksgiving discount expires November 30.

Tuesday, November 27, 2018

HISTORICAL DEMENTIA AND BARBARISM, by Douglas Bond

The high cultural pricetag on forgetfulness
I hope you never have to experience the blank expression of a loved one who no longer knows you, has no memory of who you are. My father-in-law died a few months ago from Alzheimer’s, a disease that tragically robs an individual of their ability to remember. As yet, there is no cure. But there is a cure for the particular kind of collective memory loss from which we as Americans are suffering—the loss of memory of our history. We resent reminders of our memory lapses. It’s easier simply to revise history so that it accords with, rather than challenges, our new ideas.
We’re inclined to roll our eyes when we hear the maxim, “Those who will not learn from history are bound to repeat it.” Yet, when forgotten, that same history relentlessly demonstrates that we inevitably repeat the most horrific parts of it. “One of the most dangerous errors,” wrote C. S. Lewis, “is that civilization is automatically bound to increase and spread. The lesson of history is the opposite; civilization is a rarity, attained with difficulty and easily lost. The normal state of humanity is barbarism.”

THE CURE FOR BARBARISM
Allow me to propose an antidote to this dangerous error caused by our memory loss. The cure begins by pausing and stepping out of the frenzy and tyranny of the here-and-now. Only then can we begin to learn the lessons of history.
Winter is coming on. Curl up with a cup of tea, a favorite sweater—and a good book on WWI or WWII. Immerse yourself in the prodigious and difficult deeds accomplished to preserve freedom and that rare thing: civilization.
Another excellent way to do that is with the new documentary film The Girl Who Wore Freedom. It tells the story of five-year-oldDanielle Patrix who fell asleep June 5, 1944 in enemy-occupied Normandy and awoke the next morning to the thrilling sounds of liberation—and to kindness from American troops. The Allied forces had landed to free her at last from the jack-booted heel of the National Socialist (Nazis) German Wehrmacht.
The well-crafted story unfolds as Danielle Patrix tells of the profound gratitude that her people in Normandy feel to this day for the sacrifices our Allied soldiers made—for many, the ultimate sacrifice—spilling their blood on the beaches of Normandy so she and her people could be free from tyranny. “Freedom is not free,” one of the eyewitnesses of liberation declares. “We have to keep the memory alive.” Every generation must remember the cost of freedom, that it is, as Lewis put it, “attained with difficulty and easily lost.”
Title character Danielle Patrix, the girl who wore freedom, is determined to keep that memory alive. In a 1945 photograph, Danielle wears a dress her mother made her from an American parachute, gratefully colored in red, white, and blue, and decorated with stars and stripes. Alas, some careless Americans, forgetful of the past, have a historical dementia so complete, they tear down those stars and stripes and set it on fire. But not Danielle who wore freedom, not her friends in Normandy who remember.

MEMORY AND GRATITUDE
Patriotically cliché as it sounds to some, it’s all true. Though some parts of France have the reputation of being less than friendly toward Americans, there are few places on the planet where Americans are so welcomed and appreciated as Normandy. I was reminded once again of their gratitude last June while leading a historical tour that included Normandy; I’ve observed this many times since the first tour I led there twenty years ago. “We have to thank them—forever,” said an appreciative French woman of the Allies who gave all to free her country from oppression.
Why is it so important that we avoid the dangerous error and remember our history? “We need an intimate knowledge of the past,” wrote C. S. Lewis, “not because the past has anything magic about it, but to remind us that the basic assumptions have been quite different in different periods.” Lewis urges us to avoid the mere “temporary fashion” of current ideas and goes on to argue that being perpetual students of our history will in some measure make us “immune from the great cataract of nonsense that pours from the press and the microphone of [our] own age.”
Teen age 2/Lt C. S. Lewis fought and was wounded in WWI, and he became “the voice of faith” for his Broadcast Talks on BBC radio in WWII. I’m convinced that if Lewis were alive today he might very well agree that The Girl Who Wore Freedom is an important way of learning from history, keeping memory alive, and holding off barbarism.

Douglas Bond is a leader of historical tours and author of a number of successful books, including War in the Wasteland, set in 2/Lt C. S. Lewis’ WWI platoon, and his latest book The Resistance, set in WWII Normandy. Learn more at bondbooks.net

Wednesday, November 14, 2018

Your Writing Reveals What You Value Most--INKBLOTS

Join me in Oxford for the writing time of your life
Six 'Blots this chilly evening, fall inching toward winter with most of the leaves crunching underfoot on the ground, and frost on the pumpkin in the morning. One of our dogs killed a possum trying to get at our chicken girls in the night, Giles and I armed to the teeth coming in after the kill. Coyote bait. By the way, I invite you to subscribe to my youtube channel where I am making video versions of The Scriptorium, my podcast on literature and writing, theology and history, aesthetics and life https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHyc37G1dTip2bnznLhc6hA?view_as=subscriber.

I lead off reading this piece then talking about our axiology as writers, what is most important to us, what do we believe most foundationally, what do we believe is true? "If religious books are not widely circulated among the masses in this country, I do not know what is going to become of us as a nation. If truth be not diffused, error will be: if God and his Word are not known and received, the devil and his works will gain the ascendancy; if the evangelical volume does not reach every hamlet, the pages of corrupt and licentious literature will; if the power of the Gospel is not felt throughout the length and breadth of the land, anarchy and misrule, degradation and misery, corruption and darkness, will reign without mitigation or end" 
(Daniel Webster, 1823). We talked about how we are impacting our readers with good or evil, nothing neutral or middle way.
John leads off reading two versions of the synopsis for Saving Grace, his important contemporary novel exposing the evils of abortion and celebrating life. Why are synopsis so important? Firstly, a reading service or publisher needs to know what the book is about in a brief moment. Plan on two degrees of synopsis: 50 word, 150 word. Secondly, the synopsis is the first demonstration of the author's writing ability (this underscores the critical role of the cover letter as well), so write at the absolute top of your game. Think of it as the sonnet to the full play. Shakespeare explored some of the same themes in 140 syllables that he explored in 20,000 words. The synopsis is the sonnet. Thirdly, the synopsis helps the writer assess his own book. If you can't write a synopsis that makes sense, that works, there are likely problems with the book itself (this may also be why we are reluctant to write the synopsis in the first place). Lastly, the synopsis ought to create tension and a need to read/ Think of it as the hook that compells someone to take up and read (first, to buy the book).

Alisa felt like John maybe gave too much away in the synopsis, for example, mentioning the suicidal thoughts she did not feel needed to be in the synopsis. Sydney thought that the unplanned pregnancy clarity in the synopsis is important as so many young women in our world have, or know someone who has, experienced this personally.

Hannah K gave us a summary of her 6,000 word short story that just emerged from reading about Switzerland. Set in 1994, in Western Washington. Her mother's dark blue eyes darted to the rear view mirror, when she replied to her daughter. Pronoun antecedent problem. I liked your inflections as you read. Clearly you are enjoying your characters, which is infectious. Be careful of too much chit-chat exchange at greeting another character. Readers are able to compress light exchanges so we don't need to write all of the hi, how are you, I'm fine, and you, material. This is interesting everyday feeling material, read well, cohesive. But I do wonder where you are going. Are you laying down intentional character development that will make sense when you get to the end of the story? I'm new here. Your dialogue has an authenticity that is enjoyable. You captured our attention and interest. I really wanted to know about the Woodsman, who he was, is he real, is he scary? Give us some rumor and speculation about villainous deeds he has done. A place where you feel like you read it aloud completely wrong is a place to go back and look more closely at what you did write. Was there a lack of clarity? Try cutting out any unnecessary words. Any word that does not have real work to do, kill it. Sydney felt the dialogue sounded natural and the little kids, difficult to do in fiction, came off well. The arsonist story being told seemed lacking in set up. Maybe the character needs to be developed so that the arsonist story fits better.

Dave Killian picks up on his sequel to his futuristic American yarn. It was futuristic three years ago when Dave started it but has come into alignment pretty close to where the world has gone now, not quite, but close. Cory simply said, we have a problem. You don't need simply; kill adverbs. The aggression happened too suddenly, it seemed to my ear. Maybe I haven't been in enough barroom brawls (mine have been brawls of words far more than of fists, at least since I was in about sixth grade when I got beat to a pulp defending my big sister against two older boys who I thought were being inappropriate toward her, or so I want to remember it). Dave explained afterward that this was just a reminiscence of a brawl not the actual one. More clarity there will help reader. Someone like you, a good book title maybe. I like the idea of having an unlikely fellow be fluent in Latin and not fit the stereotype of your average hick.

Sydney continues reading her weighty epic now in first person. I appreciate how Sydney sets us up for looking for things she's not sure are working quite the way she hopes. Monk is not dead but unconscious. Immediate feel now in first person, its happening to me, so it feels, almost. Such a time, such a place, such a.... Not a problem, just noticing the repetition, effective repetition. The dialogue, the thoughts, the narrative, woven like a medieval Arras tapestry by a master craftsman. Sydney reads with such care to cadence and the weight of her words, intriguing. I appreciate how you don't feel like you have to use coma conjunction structure, just coma. It gives a sense of rawness, grasping for phrases that alone can express what must be expressed. I feel that your characters are developing their own unique voice in the unfolding story. And you are feeling less need for traditional attribution as a result, yet we know who is speaking. The clipped simple sentence is so effective. Above all, Sydney writes such lyric prose that we find it beautiful to listen to, as if it is a form of music, but we all agreed we had less visual sense of the setting. Without losing the lyric quality of the narrative, consider giving the reader touch points of visual description. We do need to breathe. John points out that it's almost like you can't keep up with it. And consider giving your reader a lighter exchange, a mildly humorous brief episode for a reprieve from the high emotional tension of the story. Look up, look down, look under. Maybe there's a little creature that can become your lighter touch, be the symbol of ordinariness, comic relief, suspend the weight for an instant, and use throughout (a bird, a mouse, a cat--I don't know but something along those lines comes to mind).

I read the blog article I was asked to write on the importance of remembering and learning the lessons of history for the forthcoming documentary THE GIRL WHO WORE FREEDOM. I'll post the article here next week. Preorder my imminently forthcoming WWII historical fiction The Resistance.

Monday, November 12, 2018

Armistice Day--Remembering True Heroes

My friend John Hemminger with his P-47
“Pay attention!”
            Steve Kelley, sportswriter for the Seattle Times, recently recollected the advice his father used to give him when they sat together watching the Philadelphia Phillies at Connie Mack Stadium. “Pay attention,” his dad would say when Willie Mays came to bat. “You’re watching greatness. You don’t want to forget this.”
I remember sitting on “Tightwad Hill” with my uncle watching the farm club Tacoma Twins, cheering wildly as I peered through the binoculars. Next day after school, I’d grab my bat and try my best to imitate the swing of those heavy-hitter wannabes. For the record, no matter how hard I tried, I wasn’t wired for baseball greatness. “You can’t put in what the Lord’s left out,” quipped the trainer in the classic film, Chariots of Fire. When I would come to bat at neighborhood games, on queue the outfield moved in, or just squatted down and waited until I finished flailing the air. Through all this, however, I have figured out something important: I pay attention to men I think are great, and I desperately try to be like them. And so do you. 
Kelley’s dad was right about one thing: you don’t want to forget greatness. We must sit up and “pay attention” to real greatness. But what makes someone worthy of this attention? What makes someone truly great, a worthy hero, someone you should never forget, someone you should hold in the highest regard, someone you should imitate?

All men honor heroes
“Any nation that does not honor its heroes,” said Abraham Lincoln, “will not long endure.” In an age when debunking heroes has become as American as apple pie and hot dogs, an age of flag-burning ingratitude, of pompous disdain for the past, an age that chants “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Western Culture’s got to go,” we should cringe at Lincoln’s prophetic words. Maybe we’ve come too close. Maybe we’re there already. Maybe we are a people that mock at real heroes and, in their place, are now bowing down before the real villains.
Nineteenth-century Scottish historian Thomas Carlyle wrote that “Hero-worship cannot cease till man himself ceases.” In the fifth century, Augustine referred to men as homo adorans, man made to adore, to worship, to venerate heroes. Thus, kings and generals are followed by their adoring armies even into the jaws of death. “Once more unto the breach, dear friends,” cried Shakespeare’s Henry V as he rallied his men before the battered walls of Harfleur, “or close the wall up with our English dead!”  In the 1st century BC, Julius Caesar was so adored by his legions that they were prepared to cross the Rubicon and march in defiance against Rome and Pompey. Or the young Alexander the Great motivating thousands to fight and die so that he might spread Greek culture and language--and rule the world in the bargain.
The literature of Western Civilization is the fascinating saga of great achievement, an enduring celebration of heroes. Great poetry praises the deeds of heroes, real or imagined, from the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae, to the bloody triumphs of Beowulf, to the dragon-slaying Red Cross Knight of Edmund Spenser’s epic allegory, to the 600 courageous men of Tennyson’s Light Brigade, even to the humble heroics of Tolkien’s mythical Frodo the Hobbit--it all fires the blood and fascinates the imagination.
One thing is overwhelmingly clear: You and I were made to adore heroes. We pay attention with all our being to great men.

Beware of false heroes
This ingrained tendency to adore heroes, however, poses particular challenges for young men growing up in a culture inundated by glitzy, muscle-bound icons of popular culture and the sports arena. Pop culture particularly plays on your love of heroes. It could not survive without it. The icons of entertainment demand your worship. They live and die for it. So it has always been.
Many historians argue that the history of the world is the history of men following heroes. It would be just as accurate to say that the history of the world is the history of young men blindly following the wrong heroes, following unworthy examples, whose vices are tragically compounded in their fawning worshipers.
So who are your heroes? In today’s reading, Paul urges the Philippian Christians to “Join with others in following my example,” that is to say, follow the right men, set up heroes for yourself and be like them. Speak as they speak; do as they do. The Bible often speaks this way. Twenty-eight times we are told to imitate others, often to follow Christ the Captain of our salvation, but fully seventeen of those times we are commanded to follow others, like Paul, who have been transformed by the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ and have been enabled by that same power to heroically follow Christ.
 Paul, here, is in earnest. This is no casual advice, take it or leave it. No. He reminds us, “I have often told you before and now say again even with tears.” Why with tears? Why so earnest? Because “many live as enemies of the cross of Christ.” Because an earthly hero has his “mind on earthly things.” And the young man who chooses to follow worldly heroes, to applaud at their entertainments, to listen to their music, to cheer at their achievement, to spend his money on their products, to paper the walls of his bedroom with their posters, that young man should not be surprised if he follows those heroes right into the jaws of hell. From this, you and I are duty bound to draw the line in the sand. This is no trivial matter. Don’t follow the enemies of the cross of Christ. “Their destiny,” Paul declares without equivocation, “is destruction.” And so will yours prove to be if you follow them.
Moreover, the more impressed you are by the status and achievement of unbelievers, by their sophisticated good looks, by their clothes, their shoes, by their posture, their swagger, by their prowess in sports, by their associations, their way of speaking, by their money and fancy cars, lavish houses, planes, and yachts, the more you are moved by these things the less you will be able to separate out their vices. Soon they won’t seem like vices at all. At the last their vices will be yours. Know that their end will be yours as well. Fully expect to become like those you adore.  
“We are all creatures of imitation,” wrote nineteenth-century Anglican bishop J. C. Ryle. “Precept may teach us, but it is example that draws us.” And since those examples can draw us from both directions, you must beware of the tendency to go easy on the parts of your sports or music heroes’ lives that you know are sinful.
Do you honestly think that you will be unaffected by the foul language, the unfaithful living, the hostility to truth, or the swaggering arrogance of your worldly heroes? I doubt it. And the more impressed you are with their achievement the more likely you are to embrace other elements of their lifestyle.
Don’t expect to see it coming like a tidal wave. It all happens gradually. Rarely does a young man, like yourself, who is growing up in a Christian home, rarely does he plunge headlong into sin with his back against all he has been taught. Generally, it happens little by little, one single, what’s-the-big-deal step at a time. “The road to hell,” observed C. S. Lewis, “is a gradual one.”
The best way to avoid the gradual road to hell, is to cultivate honor for and imitation of truly worthy heroes. Here’s one of mine.

Fight to the death
            I’ve thought a good deal lately about one of my heroes. P-47 World War II fighter pilot, John Hemminger lived with his wife and three children on American Lake, a five-minute bicycle ride from my childhood home. I was the neighbor kid who always hung around in the summer, fishing, swimming, and doing wood-working projects in the basement. Along with the stray dogs that attached themselves to kind-hearted Mr. Hemminger, I too adopted the Hemminger family as my own.
My mother’s rule was that I couldn’t go swimming unless the thermometer read seventy degrees. I soon figured out how to nudge it up with the hair dryer, and then I’d hop on my bike and off to the Hemmingers. I always tried to time things so I could sit down for the usual lunch fare of grilled cheese sandwiches, soup, Gravenstien apple sauce, dilly beans, and smoked salmon. Nobody did homemade applesauce like Edna Hemminger, and nobody did salmon like John Hemminger.
John Hemminger was a man of deeds and not words, and so I rarely heard him speak about the war, and never about his role in it. I was forced to piece things together from pictures and from stories others told about his role in that great conflict.
“The greatest catastrophe in history,” Stephen Ambrose called World War II and “the most costly war of all time.” In April, 1945, 300,000 Americans attacked the Japanese island of Okinawa, while the US Navy was pounded by 350 kamikaze planes. We lost thirty-six ships. In human life, the casualties were beyond staggering: 49,200 men in one battle. The Japanese lost 112,129 human lives at Okinawa. Still they fought on.
Germany surrendered in May, but by summer, it appeared that Japan would fight on until there was not a Japanese soldier who remained alive. A full-scale Allied invasion of Japan seemed the only option, but it was an invasion that would have cost 1,000,000 American soldiers their lives. President Truman opted to drop two atomic bombs on Japan in hopes of breaking the enemy’s will to fight to extermination. It was as if the entire nation had become kamikaze flyers.
           
Fighter pilot greatness
In 1941, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, America joined the war, and can-do men like John Hemminger were desperately needed to fight. He said goodbye to his childhood sweetheart, Edna Mae Firch, and joined up.
The picture I will always have in my mind of him is of a quiet young man in a leather bomber jacket, a shy, boyish grin stretching across his handsome features, posing with his beloved P-47, affectionately dubbed Edna Mae. Though called on to do highly dangerous and daring feats, there was no hint of the cocky, swaggering dog fighter in his looks or carriage.
John Hemminger loved machines. I can only begin to imagine his fascination at first sight of his P-47’s Pratt and Whitney, eighteen cylinder, 2,800 horsepower engine, or the heart-pounding thrill when he first accelerated into the heavens at his plane’s maximum speed of 433 mph.
He was a gentle, peace-loving man, so I particularly wonder what his first thoughts were when he laid eyes on the eight 12.7mm Browning machine guns bristling from the wings of his P-47, a machine engineered for killing. One thing I’m sure of: there was no better cared for fighter plane than his, and likely none more skillfully used for its designed purpose.
John Hemminger was credited with the last P-47 kill of the war. By some accounts, he and the Japanese pilot were slugging it out somewhere over the blue waters of the Pacific, September 2, 1945, while American top brass accepted the Japanese unconditional surrender on board the USS Missouri. The facts are unclear, because John Hemminger rarely spoke about the war, and boasting was something he never did.
What is clear is that John Hemminger, along with a generation of Americans, was a humble servant hero who did his duty, and then, unlike many with whom he fought, he returned home. Bidding farewell to his P-47 Edna Mae, he married his beloved Edna Mae, raised his family, and lived a long, seemingly insignificant, life. John Hemminger and his dear wife were not bombastic about their faith in Christ, but few people have more consistently lived out the Lord’s injunction to love their neighbor as themselves. Consequently, their home was a quiet, contented one, filled with stability and service.
In the world’s eyes, after the war John Hemminger lived an ordinary life, some might have called it boring. But not so to the dozens of missionaries he supported and took fishing when they were home, and whose decrepit cars he repaired, rebuilt, or replaced, often at his own expense. And all done hush-hush, so no one would give him credit for his latest acts of generosity.

True greatness
Jesus told his disciples, if they wanted to be great, to become servants. He didn’t say to become great baseball players, or inventors, or CEOs, or powerful politicians, or celebrity pastors, or best-selling authors—or even fighter pilots. “Whoever wants to become great,” Jesus said, “must be your servant” (Matthew 20:26). If you want to be great you too, must be a servant. John and Edna Hemminger were great Christians, because they were transformed into great servants by the ultimate Servant of servants, Jesus Christ.
My hero John Hemminger died of Parkinson’s Disease, December 27, 2006. His wife Edna Mae suffered for decades with Multiple Sclerosis before her home going. But I never heard either of them complain. They bore their trials with patience—even with smiles. Nor did I ever hear either of them speak critical words about others. I think they were simply too busy, in Christ’s name and by his grace, loving and serving their neighbors. Pay attention, young man. This is true greatness.
You probably don’t need to travel to faraway places to get to know and honor servant heroes. I suspect that in your church, neighborhood, and extended family there are several John and Edna Mae Hemmingers. Folks like them help unmask the masquerade of what passes for greatness among modern celebrities. Pop icons and all their vain-glorious glitter look pretty irrelevant next to great people like these--but only if you train your eye and your affections to know and honor genuine greatness.

Glitz or glory
Let’s face it. It’s far easier to talk about being impressed with servant greatness than it is to actually be so. I wonder if the normalization of sin is not the reason. “Worldliness is what makes sin look normal,” wrote David Wells, “and righteousness look odd.” Hence, venerating worldly heroes sets us up to begin feeling that humble, holy living is pretty out of touch, not much fun, certainly not cool.
Here again, you must pay attention. When you honor heroes who live worldly lives, you should expect to gradually become more impressed with their worldliness. Meanwhile, your worldly hero’s lifestyle will increasingly seem to be the normal way of things. And since no one wants to be odd, everyone wants to think of himself as a normal guy, so gradually you will wink at their vices, embrace their values, and imitate their ways. Finally, Paul’s point in Philippians 3:17-21 is that if you do this, when the dust settles, you will share in their destruction.
Puritan Jeremy Taylor described the incremental decline that a young man should expect to pass through if he forges friendships with worldly heroes and their sin. “First it startles him, then it becomes pleasing, then easy, then delightful, then frequent, then habitual, then confirmed, then the man is impenitent, then obstinate, then resolves never to repent, and finally he is damned.”
On the Judgment Day, all that worldly glitz, all that superficially impressive lifestyle will be unmasked. And if you have been duped by a false hero, by one whose “mind is on earthly things,” it will be far too late to halt the cycle of decline. You must do it now.
Join with others in following the example of great Christians—like John and Edna Mae Hemminger. The Bible is full of them, and so is church history. Pay attention to them.
Throw in your lot with the truly greats. Know your citizenship. Paul says it is “in heaven.” Know that most of the world’s heroes are frauds. Their power, their prestige, their wealth, is all borrowed and will someday be swept away with them. “Their destiny is destruction.” No real man would throw in his lot with losers like that.
You, young man of God, were predestined for a glorious body, transformed by the infinite power of the Lord Jesus Christ. Make him your ultimate hero, honor those who honor him, and resolve that he will have no worldly rival.
Learn more about my 20th Century books, War in the Wasteland (WWI) and The Resistance (WWII), both a significant CS Lewis historical connections--bondbooks.net