It is not often during Halloween that one receives a trick and treat. Usually, if you are of the age of going door to door seeking candy, or to a special event that includes sweet giveaways, you expect only the treat. Tricks come only from pranksters and grumps, and it is quite obvious which houses in the neighborhood to avoid. I thought about the idea of “trick and treat” after reading an October 30, 2023 article about well-known actress Goldie…
I don’t know about you, but I have always been a sucker for a good coming-of-age love story. There is something sweet that happens when love is shy—when two people are trying to make sense of romantic feelings for the first time. Of course, this is not limited to youth. Young or older adults who have fallen in love know that age does not insulate them from that same tender awkwardness. They would probably tell you the shy love experience…
If there were aliens, would it matter to you? If the existence of other intelligent life in the universe was proven without a doubt, what would that knowledge do to you? Would you be scared? Would you be glad to finally have the mystery solved? What would happen to your long-held religious beliefs? Would you doubt everything you once thought was true? Would you be angry? Indifferent? When I sat down to write Planet of Eden, I had these questions…
As an author, I often write about fictional relationships, calling upon my own experiences, as well as those of others, to create characters that are believable and relatable. Here is something important I learned along the way—that we all have been made for relationship. “No man is an island.” You may have heard that phrase before. It means every human being needs intimate connection with another. Never is that sentiment more keenly felt than when one is adrift upon…
If you’ve ever gone through a heartbreak, you know the pain of betrayal, rejection, loneliness, and loss. Those emotions represent something that was done to you, or taken from you—actions against your heart. But there’s another source of pain that comes from within your heart: the pain of overflow. Your physical heart was designed to pump blood in two directions: blood comes in and blood goes out. If there is damage or a blockage, the heart ceases to function properly,…
Have you ever experienced double vision? It’s a medical condition called diplopia where you see two images of the same thing. In my last blog post, I shared with you a vision that I had of my late wife Ann Marie. In this post, I want to tell you about my mother’s vision of Ann, which amazingly happened around the same time as mine. After I had my experience, I called my mom, and during our catch-up chat, I told…
Tuesday, March 7, 2023 was not a particularly significant day in my life. I had gotten through it alright. Keeping busy at work helped to distract me from the deep sense of loss and loneliness that marked most days since my beloved Ann Marie traded Earth for Heaven. Grief was coming in waves, as it usually does for widowers. One day, I could be fine—energetic, positive, ready to move on. But then the very next day found me hanging on…
Ann Marie Forman Whicker, 1964-2023 As I write this, I am still deeply grieving the loss of my wife Ann Marie Whicker–my other half, my muse, the love of my life. So you’ll forgive me for making this a brief post. According to the Bible, death for a Christian is simply a “translation” from a physical/spiritual existence into a purely spiritual one. Our spirits and souls are temporarily separated from our bodies and reside with our God and those who…
Leonardo da Vinci said that “art is never finished, only abandoned.” Fellow painter Francis Bacon must have felt that way; he frequently destroyed his own paintings, saying, “I think I tend to destroy the better paintings. I try and take them further, and they lose all their qualities.” Famous filmmaker George Lucas applied da Vinci’s words to his first Star Wars trilogy when he went back and added digital enhancements to the films. Did the movies really need the additions?…
The vastness of space is probably something most people don’t spend a lot of time thinking about. We know it’s a big universe out there, but since that doesn’t affect putting food on the table, how we’re going to pass this week’s exam, who has the cheapest gas, or anything else in everyday life, who cares, right? After all, we have enough to deal with on this side of the atmosphere without having to worry about what’s happening billions of…
