I hope you and your loved ones are doing well and choosing peace!

Speaking candidly, this world often seems anything but peaceful. I was recently reading a board book to my daughter that features pretty illustrations that pair with the classic Louis Armstrong song, “What a Wonderful World,” and I couldn’t help but long for a simpler, more peaceful time, when the world did indeed seem a wonderland of “trees of green, red roses, too … bright blessed days, dark sacred nights.”

But after a few fleeting moments of longing, I realized I was pining for something that’s never truly existed, at least not since the pre-fall days of the Garden of Eden, and that is pure, uninterrupted peace and harmony on this earth. Uncertainty, anxiety, fear, and unrest have always coexisted alongside the sheer loveliness that Armstrong’s heart-tugging song describes. In fact, the song, which was recorded and released in 1967, a year that like all years, was rife with global conflicts, from protests and natural catastrophes, to wars like the Vietnam War and Six-Day War in Israel (check out this Wikipedia page for more of the not-so wonderful events of that year). No matter what’s happening around us or in the news reports of happening halfway around the world, we have the choice between resting in the peace of our Father and Creator, or cratering beneath the enormous weight of temporal worries we can do very little, if anything at all, to alter.
This all leads me to the first of this week’s Top 4:

THE POWER OF THE EMPTY TOMB

 Because of the empty tomb, we have peace. Because of His resurrection, we can have peace during even the most troubling of times because we know He is in control of all that happens in the world. – Paul Chappell

FROM PEACE TO PAGANISM

Getting way off that topic now (there’s just no good segue here…), I’m excited to share with you the cover for my soon-to-be-released novel, The God Next Door.

Here’s the summary:

You can take the gods out of Olympus, but can you take Olympus out of the gods?

Eros, eternal teenager/legendary god of love, is experiencing an existential crisis and has concluded that his career as a bow-and-arrow-wielding matchmaker is over. It’s time for a change of pace, and residence.

When he and his mother, the very beautiful and vain Aphrodite, decide to leave Mount Olympus and settle in a small Texas town, they find that leaving behind their divine powers and privileges is significantly harder than they expected.

None too happy about his daughter and grandson’s desertion, the proud, promiscuous, and slightly addle-brained Zeus sends the hopeless pair of gods sets of instructions which provide a pathway to potential compromise.

Now, if only the terms of the proposed agreement were marginally intelligible.

And if only Aphrodite could play by Earth’s superpower-free rules and commit to working on her impulsivity and rage issues.

And if only Eros could stop being so clumsy and almost getting his next-door neighbors killed.

And if only their miniature, accidently obtained pet angus cow, Miss Clutterbuck, could keep her English-accented mouth shut so she doesn’t blow their cover.

The God Next Door is a witty, weird, and wonderful adventure that sparkles with the magic of Greek mythology while tipping its hat to the unmatched imagination and brilliance of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

MORE PAGANISM…

It may seem strange that I, a follower of Christ, would write a novel that’s well, not explicitly Christian. But if you’re familiar with my fantasy series The Petros Chronicles, then you know I have a decades-old love for Greek mythology, not because I admire the Greeks’ oh so debauched and depraved and ludicrously proud and impulsive pantheon, but because the characters and the extravagant myths they populate paint a hyperbolic portrait of sinful mankind, and its desperate need for reconciliation with the Creator of all.

The comedic The God Next Door, while not a serious work by any stretch, like my series The Petros Chronicles, magnifies a multitude of human flaws through the larger-than-life personalities of Eros, Aphrodite, Zeus, Ares, and the homely blacksmith, Hephaestus. Oh, and a pint-sized angus cow, but I’ll let her flaws and eccentricities remain a mystery until you read the book.

Anyway, I write all of that to underscore my personal conviction that novels, and indeed any kind of art, need not be explicitly Christian to make a Christ-honoring impact. “Whether eating or drinking,” or writing or knitting or hiking or laughing while reading a comedic fantasy, “do it all for the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31).

THE POWER OF BETTER QUESTIONS

“The questions you ask yourself will largely determine the answers you get.
‘Why am I successful?’
“You’ll get answers that berate you.
“‘How can I succeed here?’
“You’ll get answers that push you.” – Julie Gurner

I hope you enjoyed this week’s Top 4!

Also, there are now 10 episodes available on my podcast, The Inadequate Mom Show. Check ‘em out HERE!