Two Unrelated Quickies

     Today is going to be very busy, so please enjoy the following two tidbits in place of my usual interminable drivel. I should be back to my customary droning-on tomorrow.

---

1. Fiction On Sale!

     For the month of July, my fiction will be deeply discounted – some of it all the way to $0.00 – at Smashwords. If you’ve been curious about it but hanging back out of penury or miserliness, now is your chance. Enjoy!

---

2. If Today You Hear His Voice...

     Christians are frequently told about the “still, small voice” and how important it is to listen attentively to it, especially as we pray. However, there are other voices through which God sometimes chooses to speak – and some of them are the tongues of men.

     As it happens, I have some chronic back problems. About a week ago they crested in the form of a spasm that sent me into agonies and kept me bent at a forty-five degree angle for an entire day. It took quite a lot of hot water – thank You, God, for Holly the Hot Tub – and gentle stretching to restore my ability to stand upright and to sit without pain. When I told the C.S.O. about it, she shrugged and said “You sit too much.”

     “Well, yes, possibly,” I said, “but I’m a writer. It’s pretty hard to do what I do standing up or lying down.”

     “Don’t make excuses,” she said. “Stop sitting so much.”

     Well, being a stubborn sort, I simply kept on as I’d been doing...and about thirty-six hours later the spasm came back at even greater force. Clearly it was time to see the doctor – in this case, an orthopedist. He listened to my plaint and looked me over as orthopedists do.

     “You don’t appear to be dehydrated,” he said, “and nothing else seems out of whack. Tell me about your typical day.”

     So I told him. When I got to the part about sitting at the computer most of the day, he held up a hand. “Stop right there,” he said. “It’s pretty clear that you sit too much. That’s the most common reason for back pains. Make a point of getting up every twenty to thirty minutes. Stroll around. Stretch. That should clear it up all by itself.”

     I nodded and left...and went right back to spending most of my day sitting at this BLEEP!ing torture device. Of course the pain kept coming back. Of course I regularly exercised my hereditary gift for creative profanity (Dad was a Navy man). But Jesus told us to pray for the relief of what ails us, so after my stubbornness had worn most of the way off, I did so, thus:

     “Dear Lord, Your Son has told us to pray for our daily needs and the relief of our maladies, and I am doing so. Would you please help me with this back affliction? It impedes my ability to labor in Your vineyard with the gift of words You have granted me. I’d appreciate it very much. Abide with me always. Not my will but Thine be done. Amen.”

     Now normally the reply, if there is one, is faint; I must strain to hear it. So I stretched my interior “ears” and waited... and was stunned and deafened by the voice of thunder that resounded in the cavern of my skull:

“Moron! Two of My servants have already told you what you need to know. You sit too much! Get off your ass and move around some!”

     That’ll learn me.

     May God bless and keep you all.