by Christine Sunderland
There is a white cross on the hillside of Angel Mountain, aka Mount Diablo, the setting for one of my novels. I have learned recently that it is a place of prayer and meditation, a light in the dark. We can see the cross from our house, a moving reminder to pray and give thanks, and on a clear night when the stars are out and the moon is full, we can see the cross shimmer below the mountaintop. In my novel, a hermit preaches at the foot of the cross, calling for repentance and baptizing in a nearby pond.
November is a month of giving thanks, singing our songs of grace, moving from the Festival of All Saints to Veterans Day and ending with Thanksgiving Day, a celebration of America as she keeps the lamps lit, the light flaming on the hill for all the world to see. We give thanks as November opens the door to December, the month of Advent and the birth of Christ, God with us, Emmanuel.
As Christian fiction writers, we sing our song in our pages, creating meaning from matter, spirit from flesh. We carve and whittle and share our vision with readers, as we birth characters and propel them through plots, setting sensory scenes of beauty and grace and delight.
For the world is full of beauty and grace and delight. Mystery and miracle abound. As writers, we merely point to it, reveal and give voice to the glory of God and his song in each of our hearts. Just so, we hope to touch the place in the heart of each reader that senses this truth, that God lives among us, singing his song of beauty and grace, linking us with one another in his love.
In a way we are all John the Baptists, pointing to Christ, reminding humanity what and who they are, that each one of us is created in the image of God, born and unborn, young and old, every race and ethnicity. We remind the world that we are holy creations, to be cherished and honored.
So we sing a song of thanksgiving in our pages, and as the pages turn, so our melody is joined by a chorus, a symphony of sound that propels the planets in the great cosmic dance of time. No small thing for us, we creatures of dust.
Christian fiction writers sing songs of thanksgiving with words, breathing life into dust and ash, singing life into our dying world. @Chrisunderland #writing #ChristianFiction #ACFW Share on XWe give thanks. We give thanks for time given: past, present, and future. Each minute glows, a jeweled gift of life, called to account at the gates Paradise. Repent, we cry! And turn toward the light! Turn toward truth and beauty. Sing our song of thanks for our very breath, in and out, breathing the name of Jesus into our souls.
We sing our song by telling stories, stories of losing, of finding, of redemption and salvation. Our characters break through the film of doubt enshrouding our world, to bring the reader into the reality of God, his love and his design for each of us.
We give thanks. We give thanks for our time, talents, and treasure, for they are gifts to multiply and not hide under a bushel or bury underground. Like loaves and fishes, we offer our words, and they become miraculous, soaring onto pages and into hearts and souls and minds. They multiply as they did in my recent novel, Angel Mountain (Wipf and Stock, 2020), set in the month of November, this season of thanksgiving.
Our preacher in our Berkeley chapel spoke recently of the touch of Christ, as he gives sight to the blind man and heals the woman reaching for him. He touches and heals and feels life leave him, to enter the other. We are the other. We receive his touch in sacraments and blessings, and we are healed, opening a window to light streaming upon us.
And we are told to give freely of that which we have received. We point to the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Hidden behind a veil, lost in shadows, we lift the veil and shine his light into the dark. We freely give as we have freely received.
And so we sing the song of thanksgiving today for America, the last bastion of such freedom. We were an unlikely group arriving on these shores hundreds of years ago. We were fleeing for our lives, seeking God in a new land, a foreign land, a wild land. And in spite of our many failings, we survived, our freedom survived, and our faith survived. We give thanks.
We gather together with family and friends and give thanks for the gifts of America, the rule of law, the rights of citizens, the voice of the vote, the dignity of every person, born and unborn. We give thanks for life itself.
As tellers of tales, we sing thanksgivings with our words. We take dust and ash, the raw material of our world, and breathe life into them, fanning the spark into a flame, turning notes into music, paint into paintings, words into stories, seeds into gardens, singing life into our dying world.
Christine Sunderland has authored seven award-winning novels: Pilgrimage, set in Italy, Offerings, set in France, Inheritance, set in England, Hana-lani, set in Hawaii, The Magdalene Mystery, set in Rome and Provence (all Oaktara), The Fire Trail (eLectio), set at UC Berkeley, and Angel Mountain (Wipf and Stock), set on Mount Diablo, east of Berkeley. She is a member of the Anglican Province of the King. She is currently working on The Music of the Mountain, about life and death and life again. Visit Christine at www.ChristineSunderland.com (website and blog), Facebook, and LinkedIn.