Spreading your wings in a perplexing world
July 2023                                                    James P. Hurd

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Contents

• Blessed Unbeliever available
• Writer’s Corner
• New story
• This month’s puzzler
• Wingspread Ezine subscription information
• Wisdom

BLESSED UNBELIEVER 

Sean McIntosh lives in a California world of Fundamentalist certainty—until his world unravels. He fails to make sense of losing his girlfriend and losing his dream of becoming a missionary pilot. And he’s shaken by contradictions and mistakes he finds in the Bible. His missionary zeal morphs into religious doubt. His despair leads him to commit a blasphemous act and declare himself an atheist—all this while he’s attending Torrey Bible Institute! But Grace pursues.

Blessed Unbeliever (paper or Kindle version) can be found at Wipf and Stock Publishers, Amazon https://a.co/d/9su5F3o or wherever good books are sold.

Writer’s Corner

Tip for writers: Whether writing fiction or nonfiction, try writing in the first-person present tense. Instead of “Sean walked downtown,” write “I am walking downtown.” Makes the action more immediate, personal. It’s harder to write this way, but worth trying.

Word of the Month:  PROBLEMATIZE. I use this word to refer to questioning a convention. Instead of agreeing with the majority, raise questions, challenge conventional statements. This energizes the reader—even if they disagree with you.

Book of the month: HEBRIDEAN ALTARS by Alistair Maclean. A marvelous collection of stories, prayers, poems and saying from the people of the Scottish Hebrides Islands over the centuries. Good for prayer and meditation.

Question for you: Have you written a short story or poem? Send it to me and I may post it on my Wingspread blog.

New story: World Over the Wall

I visualize my Southern California childhood, filled with snowless winters, hot summers and throat-burning Los Angeles smog that dissipates only when the dry Santana winds blow in from the desert. I see myself lying on our backyard grass under our wooden windmill clothesline, gazing up at the clouds and dreaming childish dreams—dreams that Mother feeds. When I tell Mother I’m bored, she says, “Read King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table,” or “Let’s play cards.” Our Fundamentalist church frowns on playing with regular “Euchre deck” cards, so we play Authors, where each suit has a picture of an author and each card is one of the author’s books . . .

To read more, click here:  https://wordpress.com/post/jimhurd.com/3518

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This month’s puzzler

Adapted from Car Talk Puzzler archives

It was a beautiful sunny summer afternoon in 1958. And I was driving my new car.

I came to an intersection and stopped, and there on the sidewalk stood a pedestrian waiting to cross the street. He noticed that I had stopped.

I remained where I was at the intersection. He stepped off the sidewalk and walked right into the right front fender of my car.

Explain the reason for this curious behavior. 

(Answer in next month’s Wingspread ezine.)

Answer to last month’s puzzler: 

The question was, what is the capital of Liberia and why was the capital given that name?

In the early 1800s, many white people in the United States became concerned over the existence of freed slaves in their country. Some slave owners believed that the existence of freed slaves increased discontent among those still in slavery. Other white people objected to the integration of the black freed slaves into this society. So in 1816, a group of white Americans established the American Colonization Society, ACS, and what the society did was to return free black people to their home continent, Africa. 

So the ACS bought land on the west coast of Africa and started a settlement. They named it Liberia. 

And the capital of Liberia was named Monrovia, after the then President, James Monroe. 

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Wisdom

An elderly couple found themselves fighting all the time so they made an appointment with a marriage counselor. Because it seemed serious, the counselor asked to meet with each of them separately.

Alone, the wife confessed, “I don’t know. We’ve been married for almost 50 years, but the last few years all we do is argue; we can never agree on anything.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“It’s so bad. I’ve given up. I’m praying that God will take one of us home. . . And when he does, I’m going to go live with my sister.”

Socks that go missing in the laundry come back as Tupperware lids.

Fight like the third monkey on the ramp to Noah’s ark.  Mike Huckabee

The purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself. ― Albert Camus

 USER: The word computer professionals use . . .
when they mean idiot.

As soon as the hospital put me in one of those little gowns . . .
I knew the end was in sight.

It is better to live one day as a lion . . .
than 100 years as a sheep.

The lion shall lie down with the lamb . . .
but the lamb won’t get much sleep.

Bigamy is having one wife too many . . .
Monogamy is the same thing.

I have Van Gogh’s ear for music.