“Spreading your wings in a perplexing world”
July, 2019                                                       James P. Hurd       

Contents

• New story: Leaving Lancaster County
• Writer’s Corner
• Puzzler
• How to purchase Wingspread: Of Faith and Flying
• Wingspread subscription information

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New story: Leaving Lancaster County

The Saturday after that wonderful Thanksgiving of 1959, Alex drove Shawn around Lancaster County.

“Let’s stop and buy some venison,” he suggested. The Oldsmobile’s tires crunched on the crushed limestone farm lane as they pulled up to a house and found Ruth Hostetler standing in the kitchen doorway.

“Where’s Seth?” Alex asked.

“He’s still sleepin’.”

“Oh, don’t bother him; we want some venison but we can come back later.”

“That’s all right. Chust come and sit here in the livin’ room and I’ll go up and get ‘im.”

They sat down, calmed by the smell of the hot woodstove with its black chimney. After about ten minutes Seth walked down the stairs in his long underwear. Ignoring the boys, he leaned over to tap out his pipe at the woodstove, his bare rear end peeking out through the undone flap. He refilled his pipe, lit it from the stove, sucked on it, then turned toward the boys without smiling…..

 To read more, click here:   https://jimhurd.com/2019/07/12/alex-and-shawn-leave-lancaster-county/

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Writers’ Corner

Word of the Month:  Logline: A one or two-sentence summary of abook.

Book of the month: Summer of the Danes by Ellis Peters, 1991. Benedictine monk Brother Cadfael is pleased to join a mission of church diplomacy to Wales. Travelling in the safety of the Prince of Gwynedd, they face unexpected dangers when Danish longships beach at Anglesey. They seek to protect a young Welsh woman from harm. Set in 1144.

 Watch for my upcoming novel: Atheist in the Institute. A young graduate travels east to train for mission aviation at Torrey Bible Institute, Chicago. One problem—his childhood faith is dwindling away. After failing to qualify for the flight program, he declares himself an atheist.

Presently in the “edits” stage. Target publication date: Spring, 2020.

Every author’s nightmare

July puzzler: 

I King 7:23 says that Solomon’s brass basin is described as 10 cubits in diameter and 30 cubits around. The skeptic argues that this proves the Bible contains an error, since, mathematically, circumference equals pi x diameter. Therefore, a 10-cubit diameter demands a 31.4 cubit circumference. How might the biblical literalist explain this apparent biblical error?

 Answer to June’s puzzler: 

Recall that the contest was a kite flying contest. The first person to be able to get his kite to land on the other side of Niagara Falls, won.

After one little kid was successful, the  engineers then took that kite string and attached to it a rope that was slightly heavier than the kite string. They pulled that rope across and they attached successively stronger ropes, until they finally had one strong enough to pull, what? The first cable of the bridge spanning the gorge!

 

Buy James Hurd’s Wingspread: A Memoir of Faith and Flying.  How childhood (Fundamentalist) faith led to mission bush-piloting in South America—and Barbara. Buy it here:  https://jimhurd.com/home/  (or order it at Barnes and Noble, Amazon, etc.)

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