New Book!
I have just discovered a wonderful Author: Calvin Miller. Apparently he is one of the best loved contemporary Christian writers in North America. He has produced over 40 books and have sold more than two million copies around the world!

Several weeks ago a friend sent me an "except" from one of his books called "The Singer". I was captivated by his beautiful poetic writing. That very day, I logged onto Chapter.ca and ordered his "The Singer Trilogy", so I have the 3 books now (The Singer, The Song and The Finale).

If you like authors like C.S. Lewis you are bound to enjoy Miller's writing as well. These books have been described as being the mythic retelling of the story of the new Testament.

Each chapter starts with a little line or two that gives you a tease for what it coming. Here is an example and was the very "passage" that was sent to me a few weeks ago:

"No person ever is so helpless as the man in whom joy and misery sleep comfortably together. No physician can give health and happiness to the man who enjoys his affliction. For such a man health and happiness are always contradictory.

(The Singer = Jesus)

From night to day and back to night again he travelled on.
He saw the glow of the great city, far on the horizon, and just
the light of it roused expectancy and fear. By twilight he was
weary and he turned aside to sleep beside a moonlit stream.
The water fell in froth and white cascades into the wooden lattice
of a creaking wheel.

The Miller who was still at work seemed most determined to finish
out his toil by starlight. It was only by the merest chance he
found the Singer sleeping by the stream just above the giant wheel.

For a moment he saw the Singer only as a vagrant and was inclined to drive him from the premises. But then he changed his mind and invited him to share the evening meal.

As the went into the grain room, the Singer looked upon the great
machine which turned the giant stones which milled the grist.

The Singer was about to ask him where he found the mason to
quarry such impressive stones, when suddenly he discovered that
one of the Miller's hands was badly scarred and crippled.

"Can you run so great a stone with but a single hand?" The
Singer asked.

"I manage...though it always was much easier with two."

"Did you lose your hand in this machinery?"

"I was in much too great a hurry three harvest-times ago. I was
trying to sweep the grist away when I dropped my broom upon the floor stone. When I reached to pick it up, the great stone caught my arm and hand. And when they rolled the grinder back, this was all that I had left" he said.

"I will," observed the Singer, "make it useful once again if you
will just desire it whole and believe it can be."

"It cannot be so easy, Singer. Would you wave your magic wand
above such suffering and have it all be done with? I sometimes
wake at midnight with a searing flame of fire and throbbing
agony alive through all this twisted, dying limb. You have
both hands and cannot understand this sort of pain."

"I have no pain like yours, but I have a healing melody. Earth-
maker gave the song to me for healing hands like yours.
Already it has helped a little girl to be made whole."

"Was her hand as badly mangled as my own?"

"It was her legs - but yes, they were..."

"How often I have wished that I might trade a useless hand for such a leg," the Miller interrupted,

"Why either - why not simply be made whole?"

"Oh that such a healing now were possible - the speed I might regain in working at the mill. But no, it cannot be. Can you not understand? Have you no sympathy for suffering? Are you so
empty of conscience as to suggest a hopeless remedy. You only add to misery by forcing me to see myself a cripple. I soon shall
have to close the mill or sell it.
I cannot make the necessary quota since the accident occurred."

"There is power within the Melody I know to make you well. Please,
Miller, trust and let me sing and you will run the mill alone
with two good hands."

"Stop your mocking. I am a sick old man whom life has cheated
of a hand. The nightly pain has already begun now. The season
of my hope is gone."

The Singer watched him caught in some dread spasm of his aching circumstance. He moaned and fell upon the floor and with his healthy fingers he held his mangled hand.

His surging pain caused him to cry, "O God deliver me from this
body...I never can be well and whole as other men."

He waited for the Singer to join him in his pity, but when he
raised his head for understanding, the door stood open on the night and the Singer was nowhere to be seen.