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…
Can a Christian believe there is other intelligent life in the universe? Most Christians who accept the authority of Scripture would probably say no. God and aliens do not mix. Theologically conservative churches usually teach that mankind is alone in the universe. God made man and woman on Earth, and it is highly unlikely that He would have created beings on other planets, or even animals or plants. Earth is all there is, and we should feel special about that.…
Yeah…may Eden be with you. I like the sound of that. So, I’m sitting here in front of a computer screen, listening to some great “epic battle music” (I’m a movie and game soundtrack fanatic), and trying hard not to write a blog post regarding “May the Fourth Be with You” and the modern Star Wars universe. It would be so easy to do for this recovering Star Wars fan. Why do I say “recovering?” Because after 45 years of…
You’d think that for a science fiction writer living in the future would be a good thing. I mean, sci-fi is all about futuristic stuff, isn’t it? Well, not always, but this genre does usually imagine dazzling worlds and life in distant future times. Imagining what could come in the future makes for some good storytelling. This is all in the realm of the imagination, and there is certainly nothing wrong with future-thinking when you set out to craft a…
