Why We Love Conspiracy Theories

More than any time in history, America is saturated in conspiracy theories. It seems almost every aspect of society and pop culture is touched by the idea of a conspiracy of some sort. There are the classics, such as the moon landing being faked, filmed in a basement by Stanley Kubrick, to more bizarre ones like the flat-earth theory and the claim that the Beatles never actually existed, to the dangerously delirious - the Sandy Hook shooting never happened, 9/11 was an inside job, vaccines contain tracking technology, and JFK Jr. will appear in Dealey Plaza to claim the Presidency for Donald Trump (despite the younger Kennedy being dead for 22 years).

It's almost as if conspiracy theories are en vogue. If it was 1997, conspiracy theories would be the Billy Corgan ZERO t-shirt. Why do we embrace them? Why do we cling to them?

The answer is disappointingly simple - they excite us, and they comfort us.

We can look to the biggest conspiracy theory in all of American history for the perfect example: the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Theorists have long rejected the idea that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in shooting JFK, that the whole thing was a plot by the CIA, Vice-President Lyndon Johnson, or other powers that be. Many more far-out ideas have been posited, such as Kennedy was killed because he planned to reveal the existence of extraterrestrial life.

The facts are, unfortunately, much more boring - Oswald, a young Marxist loner with delusions of grandeur, shot the President to make a statement, to be somebody for once. I write "unfortunately more boring" because a great leader such as John F. Kennedy deserved a better end - a man of his accomplishments deserved a better assassin, as morbid as it sounds. Even a rogue government and/or alien-related conspiracy would have been a more fitting means to such a great man's tragic end: it's disheartening and disappointing to accept that one of our greatest Presidents was simply slain by a born loser - who in turn was slain by another born loser, with no mob connections, no secret CIA motive. The true backstories of Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby are too real - but the fantastical explanations, the intricate and complex, the convoluted, take us away from such a reality. A nice, exciting conspiracy overshadows the tragedy with grandeur. Therefore, aliens and the CIA.

The outlandish and wondrous, bluntly put, make us feel better. They give us a noble quest, to expose the truth. They add adventure and intrigue, put us in a James Bond-like role, a covert mission to gather intelligence and expose the Deep States and Pizzagates of the world. Conspiracies take us from our glum place as mourners to freedom fighters for truth. And when they send us on a spiral of violence and fanaticism, they make us martyrs - heroes even - when we storm the Capitol shirtless, wearing face paint and a horned helmet. 

Meticulously compiled evidence that dashes these conspiracy theories brings us back to Earth. Back to the grind of the mundane and terrifying. It's terrifying to think that an ordinary nobody in our midst could take it upon themselves to kill the President - it's exciting to think it was the work of an ominous boss-level boogieman. 

Inside, we're too horrified - and inconvenienced - to accept that there's a new virus beyond our control that's killed millions of people worldwide, that we don't have as much reign over nature as we think. So, the virus must be a hoax, one we have a duty to expose; if not a hoax, a plot by Anthony Fauci and his cronies to force people to wear masks, so they can receive hefty kickbacks from the big mask industry. 

We're too delicate to consider that our candidate lost an election fairly. We're too dogmatic to learn the intricacies of elections, because that knowledge might prove us wrong. We hate being wrong. We don't like things that dash our narratives, so they must be false. It must all be fake news - "Fake news!" being code for "I'm too fragile to handle that."

Maybe my armchair psychology is my own way of romanticizing why we love conspiracy theories. Maybe the truth is even more humdrum than human insecurity -

maybe we're just bored. Maybe we can never be satisfied as the needy humans we are: not even a global pandemic satisfies our lust for action. 

Or, maybe we've seen too many movies.

The Semantics of Suicide

For some, it's become inappropriate to use the term "commit suicide." The reasoning behind this is that the word "commit" implies a crime or a moral wrong - i.e. committing adultery, committing murder. Of course, emotional and psychiatric duress should never be classified as something morally reprehensible. So, alternate terms are suggested: "died by suicide," or the somewhat and confusing morbid "completed suicide."

Being a career mental patient, under consistent psychiatric care since I was 14 (I'm now 35), and having attempted to take my own life at least once in the past, I feel I have an authority to speak on the subject, and the right to give advice to anyone else who's struggled with such things:

If you ever confide in someone about your personal experience, and they correct or rebuke you for using the term "commit suicide," should you choose to phrase it that way, you have every right to tell that person to bugger off. To go fly a kite, to suck an egg, to die mad about it. Anyway you choose to phrase it: this is your story, your experience, your struggle. You are under no obligation to adhere to the vocabulary of anyone's else's ideology. 

There's enough anxiety in life as it is, for both mentally healthy and unhealthy people, without adding to it by walking on eggshells to placate others. Don't go out of your way to offend people - but if mental health matters, as we say every May, be good to yourself and don't allow others to burden you with more tension than what's already necessary in daily life.

Sincerely,

a chronic mental patient

Permission To Plagiarize Me

I noticed something interesting on the Twitter recently. A fellow expressed his concern and disapproval of  preachers who plagiarize other preachers' sermons. I honestly had no idea this was such a problem in Christian ministry. But I do admit there was a time when I myself was very concerned about my own religious writings being stolen. 

Years ago, when I still held the heady but modest title of "lay chaplain," I published a book of sermons, Sheep Named Spike. I'd be happy to autograph it for if you buy a copy. Most of what's in the book is based on my cheaply produced YouTube sermons, but there was also plenty of material that simply came from a flow of creative writing. 

I decided not long ago, however, that I shouldn't pursue "Christian writing" anymore, at least not until I overcome my tendency toward vanity. That is, I noticed so much of what I wrote to proclaim the Gospel was dangerously close to becoming "The Captain Bud Sturguess Show." I found much more of an emphasis on the absurdity and self-deprecation that I used to illustrate whatever point I was making, to the point that Christ was almost a background Player in the sermons. 

So, though I feel the things I published as religious works are still solid proclamations of the truth of Jesus Christ, I think it's best I don't continue writing straight-up sermons, lest I put myself at the forefront. 

Having said that, if in those sermons I wrote something pure, something Gospel-centered, something aligning with Scripture, something with the true zeal of preaching Christ, then I have to acknowledge that it came not from me, but from the Holy Spirit. The front of the book may list my name under the copyright notice, but it's far more accurate to say that anything truly good I wrote is the intellectual property of the Spirit. 

I certainly don't speak for other preachers, but it can only follow that if someone copies my sermons, even word for word, I have no more room to object than I would if a musician rips off Back In Black - Back In Black is not my intellectual property, not the product of my creativity, therefore only AC/DC and their lawyers have a right to file suit against the plagiarist. 

It's the same with my sermons. Again, I emphasize that I only speak for myself, not only as part of the royal priesthood of believers, but also as a writer. If another Christian desires to proclaim our Savior from a genuine conviction and longing to bring the Gospel to others, I have no qualms if they Xerox my work and recite it in their own diatribes. Reaching the hearts of our neighbors is far more important than letting everyone know how clever, creative, and original I am.

So, let this blog be a binding contract of sorts - I will not sue, I will not complain that my genius has been ripped off. If something I wrote or recorded for Christ is found to be pure and unadulterated truth, it makes no difference if my name is attached to it. The Name above all Names must be first, and mine not at all. I'm content being a creation rather than a creative.

I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't rather preachers be creative and labor over their own sermons rather than recite someone else's work. But truth is truth, and I claim no copyright for it. Let truth abound.   

Untitled Poem, Re: Gabby Petito / Brian Laundrie

Buffalo wins the game

Ratings slow and steady

Til the man with no name

says get three coffins ready

Google gathers for a game

of Guess Whose DNA

taking me back

to memories of Caylee and JonBenét

and bigwigs counting stacks

(though with respect, counting them in black)

"It's Not True Because I Don't Like It"

In discussions with others concerning belief vs. non-belief in God, at least the God of the Bible, I'm often smugly bemused by some who, when explaining why they don't believe in God, bypass any scientific or logical reason and, instead, cite what they consider God's flaws: "how could God allow this?", "if He's good why would He do this?" etc. It was strange to me that they equated a perceived poor character with proof of nonexistence. 

But I recently realized I do the very same thing, in reverse. I think of life with no intelligent Creator as cold and empty, arbitrary and meaningless - but citing those negative views on disbelief in a moral God does not equal a rational explanation of why I don't take an atheistic view.

These mindsets on both the part of the believer and the nonbeliever are cut from the same irrational cloth as: "I want to go to Denny's and I don't like wearing a mask, so COVID is a hoax," or "I don't like that Trump lost the election, so it was rigged."

"It's not true because I don't like it" is an unreasonable and precarious way of thinking.

What My Father Taught Me About Masculinity

Among my favorite photographs from my family albums is one taken on Halloween sometime in the late 80s. In it, my father holds me, his firstborn son in a clown costume, then just a toddler; in front of us, also in full Trick-or-Treat gear, are my older half-brother and two of my cousins, half-brothers to each other. The significance of the children that surrounded him that Halloween evening never occurred to me until recently:

my older half-brother's father had been divorced from our mother, and died soon after; one cousin's father spent most of his sons' lives in prison; and the other cousin never knew who his father was until he'd reached his late teens. 

These three children were essentially fatherless. 

There's a slew of other photographs in the family album that show my father, again, engaged in various activities with my cousins as well as his own two sons and stepson, pictures that remind me how often they joined us for outings like fishing and water balloon fights. He always took the time to include them, as often as he could. When he died in 1996, my cousins seemed more devastated than I was; a sense of shock never really left me, while my vivid memories of his loss are those of my distraught, tearful cousins. 

It was as though they'd lost a father themselves, or at least someone they saw as a strong father figure. The importance of my father's role in their young lives had certainly occurred to them far earlier than it had to me. My father died before we reached a lot of "milestones" many fathers reach with their children, particularly their sons. We didn't reach those father-son "heart to hearts," and never reached the point where the son challenges the father when the son feels he's finally "become a man" (whatever an individual renders that to mean) - the young lion challenging the old one. So, many of the things I learned from him only clicked in my brain years later, or had already been taught, unbeknownst to me, by his subtle example.

My mother often worked weekends, while my father usually had weekends off. It wasn't at all unusual for him to cook dinner - especially desserts - and do the household cleaning (while making us do the same). Whether he meant to teach us anything by this or not, it still destroyed a "traditional" notion of the husband-wife roles. It taught me a man is not above what many see as "women's work." It taught me it's a man's job as much as anyone else's to take up an egg beater and a can of Pine Sol.

My father was not a scholar or an intellectual, and I'm glad of it. I'm grateful that his example of domestic life came from modest example rather than long, woke discourses.

The heart of the matter is that my father showed me that caring for children is important. As stunningly obvious a statement as that is, there are countless men who've never let the idea cross their minds. By using his thick, calloused, coarse hands to take up what is depicted as work for the weak, my father showed me a sign of strength. If manliness and masculinity are abstract and intangible concepts, subjective to say the least if we're being honest, I feel no audacity in asserting that one of the essential attributes of being "a real man" is a sincere feeling of duty to care for children; not just by household necessity, but in the way my father cared for the fatherless, for those who feel adrift and lost seeing other children with their own fathers, while theirs are nowhere to be found. 

My father taught me that a key role in masculinity is to make children feel seen, heard, included. To let them know they're important. Particularly to those without fathers or father figures: "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." (James 1:27)

Worldly masculinity - or, "toxic" masculinity if you like - is the kind of masculinity defined by feats of physical strength; towing diesel trucks with a rope clenched between your teeth; initiation by violence, copious intake of alcohol; the flaunting of domination over women; a certain quota of one night stands. These things are all meaningless. If a man seeks to teach children noble values and to be an example they won't regret following, he mustn't only be a father to his own children, but a positive presence for those who feel abandoned, be they sons or daughters. 

If men, be they dads or not, seek to shape a better generation of men and women to succeed them, they must take up God's definition of chivalry - not fist fights and drunken carousing, but in this simple, almost childlike mission: help those in need: "Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow." (Isaiah 1:17)

Unfinished Poem: "Joanna-Not-Afraid"

The search turned up no one alive

as searches often go

They found the victim

Joanna-Not-Afraid

sixteen years old of the North Cheyenne tribe

(or maybe the Crow)

She lived on some reservation

the kind you hear about

in little stories about curious little things

but nothing new –

the government

the Highway of Tears

(though that was a bit further west) 

etc etc.

They buried Joanna-Not-Afraid

in the earth, so she could return to it

as you’re supposed to do

But she did not stay there

She wandered the ethernet ether

the electronic space of chatter

and theory and rage

In the dimension of cables

and talk, talk, talk, talk

Joanna-Not-Afraid encountered a Captain

who had committed felo-de-se

(That was still a crime when he was alive

but not now when he’s dead)

“Where are you going

with that kind of expression on your face?”

asked Joanna-Not-Afraid

“Never mind,” said the Captain

“They put me in the void with you

and you’ll hear all about it soon enough

They won’t bury me in St. Mary’s church

because it’s against the rules”

“I’ve had quite enough of voids,”

thought Joanna-Not-Afraid

“This place and its pixels

is sufficient with tears and trivia”

She took the Captain by the hand

He was shaken by such a tender thing

A shock to his decaying system

“We’re going away from here,”

said Joanna-Not-Afraid

“This fat belly of broadband

is sufficient with tears and trivia

I know somewhere we’ll rise again”

“No! This isn’t right!” protested the Captain

But he followed Joanna-Not-Afraid

He felt helpless and embarrassed

On the way to the place Joanna-Not-Afraid had in mind

she and the Captain encountered a woman

She was drenched in blood

and petting her belly, swollen with a baby inside

“What’s your name?” asked Joanna-Not-Afraid

“I’m Sharon Tate,” the woman replied

as if surprised someone had to ask,

“and this is my baby”

Joanna-Not-Afraid took her hand

even more gently than she had taken the Captain’s

“Come with us. I know somewhere we’ll rise again”

“No! Please don’t!” Mrs. Tate protested

“Murder made me famous!

It’s my lot in life and my lot in death

They told me so when I got here!”

But Mrs. Tate was compelled to accompany them and 

far too exhausted to argue

On the way to the place Joanna-Not-Afraid had in mind

they found a man in a shirt and tie

belying his dazed and weathered face

his thousand yard gaze not matching his polished shoes

“What’s your name?” asked Joanna-Not-Afraid

She had to ask twice to stir the man from his stupor

“I don’t have a name,” the man said groggily

“If I do, I’ve forgotten it. Or someone swiped it.

They only call me the Somerton Man”

“Come with us,” said Joanna-Not-Afraid

“I know somewhere they’ll give you a name”

“Well, what’s your name?” asked the man

as he struggled to stand up straight

“My name is Joanna-Not-Afraid”

“Well, that’s an odd name,” said the nameless man

in something of a Lancashire accent

“Besides, having no name suits me fine

because I’m only dead. Nothing more than that.

Somerton Man is sufficient for me”

Joanna-Not-Afraid paid no heed

and the Somerton Man stumbled along behind her

On the way, she took the hands of all of them

Every form that once thought, heard, saw,

tasted, wept, laughed, and all those things

Every human shape blurred by poor resolution

that once had eyes like moonbeams

or some other such pretty thing

She took all of their hands

Irish bombers, Arab bombers,

American bombers,

a million John and Jane Does,

Jimmy Hoffa, Jeffrey Dahmer,

the Lindbergh Baby,

all of Jack the Ripper’s prey

(both canon and otherwise),

and a soldier called Juan Soldado

whose body has its own chapel in Tijuana

“No one will pray to me in a pauper’s grave,”

protested Juan Soldado

“I beg you to leave me in my chapel

Anywhere else I’ll be Juan Morales again

and if you’re telling the truth

if we rise again

there’ll be no more mystery over me!”

Joanna-Not-Afraid knew the soldier was right

No one would pray to him

if he were to escape the dot on Google maps

But she said to him as she’d said to the others

“This place is sufficient with tears and trivia.

“And besides,” she said, “we’re not going to graves.

We’ve all had enough of graves”

“Where are we going?”

the scores of shadows asked

All of them were tired from walking after so long being still

from being disturbed from their troubled sleep

“We’re going to find a heart to live in,”

said Joanna-Not-Afraid

“A pure heart, one that’s genuine.

A heart that won’t treat us like ghosts”

“But we are ghosts,” slurred the Somerton Man

“It’s our destiny,” said a Jane Doe

“The world knows us as ghosts,”

said the Black Dahlia

“we’ll never be anything more. We’d might as well accept it”

Joanna-Not-Afraid replied, not scathed in the least

by the objections of these haunts and haints

“Only if we stay here can they make us ghosts

If we find a heart, a pure heart

an aching heart

will we rise again.

Haven’t you ever seen someone with an aching heart?”

“Oi! I was someone with an aching heart!”

said the Somerton Man

“Then you know full well that if your heart ached

you must have loved someone,”

said Joanna-Not-Afraid

The Somerton Man hung his head

“I suppose I did”

An Iraqi bystander once blown to pieces 

wiped a tear from his eye

Album Review: "A" by Jethro Tull

In honor of the new box set edition of Jethro Tull's 1980 album A (which you can order here), here's a piece from my book Rocktology Exam (which you can think about buying here), covering this complex and ultimately engrossing album. (Note that my opinion on the track "Flyingdale Flyer" has changed, and I somewhat enjoy the song these days.)

If one didn’t know the backstory for the one-letter title, or the cover depicting the group in a futuristic air traffic control room gazing at an ominous pink A in the looming clouds, one could be excused for assuming, given prog-rock tradition, that A is some kind of concept album; perhaps about a dystopian future society in which rock music is banned (it’s always banned in the future according to concept albums), only for it to be rescued by a misunderstood loner superhero called "A." Or whatever. Basically every concept album ever. 

But it’s not anything like that. A’s humble beginnings found Jethro Tull leader Ian Anderson attempting his first solo album (hence A for Anderson, you see). He later told MTV, when they were into this kind of thing, “It wasn’t really Jethro Tull music. It wasn’t really Ian Anderson music, either. But setting out do so a solo album, the whole point was that I would be unfettered with any stylistic straight-jacket.”

The previous year, Anderson had served notice to the classic Tull lineup of the 70s that he wished to perform with different musicians, albeit still under the Jethro Tull banner. He then recorded A, and was convinced, with great difficulty, by Chrysalis Records to release it as the new "Jethro Tull album." Perhaps the record execs feared the band’s Dickensian minstrel rock would see its demise in the new decade, and saw the uncharacteristic use of synthesizers and electronics as a step ahead, a sure fit for the ever-growing technological “advances” in rock music. It would be sure, they felt, to seal Tull a place in the new decade. 

Unfortunately, the rest of Jethro Tull, save for faithful guitarist Martin Barre, who played on A, weren’t made privy to the decision until they read a statement from Chrysalis in the music press, of which Ian Anderson was apparently unaware, that they’d been fired from the group – which hadn’t been the case at all. Feeling betrayed, their understandably bitter feelings toward Anderson made his job of reforming Tull with new musicians a bit easier, though not under ideal circumstances. Keeping Barre on board, Anderson enlisted drummer Mark Craney and bassist Dave Pegg (formerly of Fairport Convention); the latter, signed up for a one-off solo project, would remain with the band for over a decade, proving the fallout from the solo project was not for naught. 

Also on board, temporarily, was violinist and keyboardist Eddie Jobson; his seethrough electric violin was quite a sight on stage, matching the haphazard “futuristic” look that Anderson, with great regret, had formed for their live shows; he traded his vest and troubadour neckerchief for a white parachute material jumpsuit. “I hated it – I don’t care if I never see it again!” he said in 1987 during a rare spot as a guest MTV VJ – yes, the guy from Jethro Tull was a guest VJ on MTV. It was once an amazing world.

Accompanying the album was a home video release, Slipstream. The video preserved for all coming time the unique sight of Jethro Tull performing pixie-rock staples like “Songs From the Wood” and “Heavy Horses” in cheap space-age costumes, but the visual was blown away by the audial, as Anderson retained his acrobatic energy throughout. He is truly one of rock’s greatest frontmen, among the ranks of Freddie Mercury or Ray Davies.

Back to the album, A is by no means a bad record, and some of its numbers could have become concert staples and possibly classics. If the infectious, exciting “Black Friday” had been pushed as the single, instead of the dull “Flyingdale Flyer,” the album might not be so out of mind in the Jethro Tull discography. It’s strictly conjecture, but that one change in singles plans could have given A a shot in the arm commercially, and the record’s more memorable songs – “4WD,” “Batteries Not Included,” “Working John, Working Joe,” and the great opener “Crossfire” – might not be as obscure in Tull’s catalog. 

Elsewhere though, some material is admittedly lifeless and easily forgettable, some tracks barely discernible from others. Even if “Black Friday” had gained more airplay, and if A had climbed higher on the charts, the aforementioned standouts would still have been paired with a few less interesting tracks like “Protect and Survive,” “Uniform,” and “And Further On,” none of which stay long in the membrane or command repeated listening.

Fortunately for the album’s drastically more technological sound, Anderson’s trusty, trademark flute was not left at home. The woodland instrument never seems out of place in the synthy landscape, and adds much warmth to some of the album’s more studio-sterile sections.

A is a curious album, a sudden exception to the Jethro Tull sound from the albums that immediately preceded it. But it’s no less interesting and adventurous, and even no less terribly British, even if it “wasn’t Jethro Tull music or Ian Anderson music.” Though not a “proper” Tull album in technicalities and origin, it’s stuck in the band’s canon. The circumstances surrounding A are an integral part of the band’s history, which, even if it had been released as an Ian Anderson solo album as intended, impacted the band’s history and future. It ended an era that had lasted a decade-plus, almost completely disintegrating its most well-known lineup, and sending Tull headfirst into the 1980s. A transported a rock band that could have entertained the court of Elizabeth I into the court of digital doodads, its leader clutching his trusty flute as a talisman.

Four years later, Jethro Tull released Under Wraps, an album gilded in drum machines and songs of Cold War espionage, a distinctly 80s record, making A sound like Songs From the Wood by comparison. 

But there was still the flute. There would always be the flute.

Lord, Don't Let Me Be a Famous Christian Author

If by God's grace, and the questionable literary tastes of the American book-buying public, I ever achieve widespread recognition for my writing, I desperately hope it's not for my more overtly "Christian books."

Modern successful Christian authors are often turned into demagogues of sorts, their books rendered Gideon's ephod. Big names in Christianity* like Mark Driscoll, John Piper, Tim Keller, Rachel Held Evans (RIP) have developed fandoms that border on cults of personality, so to speak. Whether this is the author's conscious goal or not is different with every heart. There are those who eschew such celebrity worship and give the glory of the message to God, while it seems many are clamoring to be the next theological rebel, the next boat-rocker and wave-maker, rather than meek preachers of the Gospel.

My first two Christian books, Sheep Named Spike and Hog Heaven were, in hindsight, little more than The Bud Sturguess Show; Christ came second. I don't want to put myself before Him anymore. John the Baptist says of Him, "He must increase, but I must decrease" (John 3:30).

I once saw an interview with John Piper, who strikes me as a very humble and genuine preacher, in which he answered questions written by readers. One of the questions, of course by no fault of Piper's, was, "if you had 2 minutes with the Pope, what would you say?" I hope no one ever wonders or cares what Bud Sturguess would say to the Pope. I hope they have no delight in my Reformed Protestant theological sass and spunk setting Francis straight on a thing or two. 

If - again, by God's grace - any of my work should receive notice and acclaim, I don't want it to be for my "Christian books." I do believe God can be seen in secular works - partly because, nothing is truly secular. There is either that which acknowledges God and that which doesn't; that which gives Him glory and that which ignores or curses Him. Neither "Bootylicious" nor "My Utmost For His Highest" can escape His judgmental and discerning eye.

"And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ" (Colossians 3:23-24).

Not every Christian woodworker builds crosses, but the woodworker who builds a porch for God's glory does more than the cross maker who etches their own name on each one. If I write a book for God's glory, and someone is positively impacted or moved by it, I'd much rather they say "I read some thing by this guy, and this one character said something that really touched me..." than someone read my sermons and gush, "OH. MY. GOSH. BUD STURGUESS IS SO GREAT! HAVE YOU READ BUD'S STUFF?!"

Heaven forbid there ever be a BUD STURGUESS STUDY BIBLE or a BUD STURGUESS DAILY DEVOTIONAL CALENDAR. I want to be a Christian, not a Christian media personality.

"And they said, 'Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.'" -Genesis 11:4

PS Yes, I'm aware of the irony of using Christian writing to declare how I hope to never become famous for Christian writing...and while I'm bordering on hypocrisy, you can check out my books here: lulu.com/spotlight/BudSturguess.