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This Morning I Cried.

To the Michaels of this world, I salute you.

I sat at my desk after emerging from a long writing session for my next ‘New York’ novel, a story about falling love in with the mentally ill. It’s an especially touching story because in so many ways we’re at least all mentally challenged.

Looking through some posts on the Gathering, I came across a whole string of posts by people who received Gathering Tickets as gifts. Stories of parents taking their son or daughter on a vacation centered around the Gathering. Christmas gifts, birthdays. Graduation gift.

A ticket to the Gathering as a graduation gift.

I don’t know what happened to me in that moment, but I lost it. Tears flooded my eyes and my throat knotted up. I stared at the name of this one poster (I’ll call him Michael) who was receiving a ticket to the Gathering as his graduation present and all I could think was: He’s me. This kid is me, twenty years ago. Story informs his world. Michael’s on the outside of the bubble, peering in, like so many of us. He’s not in the box. He sees the world differently because of his unusual intelligence or gifting and he’s found a Circle of people who have also escaped the box.

For his graduation he asks for a ticket to the Gathering. To celebrate his crowning achievement he was coming to the Gathering, a celebration of our making, his peers and I. In some small but significant way I, Ted Dekker, held his achievement in my hands!

I grabbed the phone and called Kevin, who’s is charge of the event. “It’s for Michael’s Graduation!” I cry. “We’ve got to blow it out! This party is for all the Michaels of the world, and I want the celebration to be worthy of this boy.”

I tell you I felt like the father in the parable of the Prodigal Son. Bring the fatted calf, put a ring on his finger, sound the trumpets; we’re going to throw a party. They’re all coming home!  They’re coming out of their hiding and crossing the highways and byways to connect with a world that make’s theirs turn.

And all the while all I could think was, “More. Michael deserves more!”

The Gathering is for Michael and Susan and Kirsten and whoever else is coming. This is their event. But it’s also my event, because I am like them. We share something in common that is largely shunned by this world. A bond ripped from the pages of the Books of History. Our world has been shaped by Justin and his call to the Great Romance. I too need to bond with those who answer that call. I too choose to cross the land for the Gathering, because I too need to remember.

So once a year we will gather and join arms and remember our own history. This is our time to shed our skin, to step out of our shell, to bond on a level that can only be found deep in the folds of story.

Now I will tell you what has not yet been said.

This year the Gathering will be completely different from last years event. From the time the doors open until we go home late that night, exhausted, we are going to relive the Circle Series. We’re going to be transported through time to a world which retells our own redemptive history. To the annual Gathering deep in the desert, written about in the first chapter of Green, complete with the actual music from that Gathering.

We’re bringing in the most talented interpretive dance troupe in Nashville, the very best actors and story tellers, a master illusionist, lights and music, myself and of course most importantly, you, and we’re going to remember! From the Sage with the long beard who steps out on stage to start the story to the very last dance, retelling the great love of Justin, we are going to dive deep into another world that will stay with us always.

Michael, if you are reading, you will cherish your graduation! I swear it if breaks my bank. Because you and I are one. The rest may not understand us, the world my think that we are strange, our parents may not fully grasp our longing... But the Great Romance calls us and we will answer Justin’s call.

Michael, I salute you.

Dive Deep.

P.S. I want everyone to have the opening chapter of Green because it paints the picture of what the Gathering is and what we'll all celebrate together. Here it is friends. Download it. Read it. Dive into it.

The Challenge of being Gay

The Challenge of being Gay

So here I sit, facing down another monster. You’d think that after all this time nestled down in my hole on this spinning globe, I’d be able to look challenges in the face and think of them as something less threatening than a monster. But then again, life is all about monsters.

The loss of a job. Graduation. A parent who’s scrambling to make ends meet. A breakup. A particularly large zit that has insisted on perching itself on the end of your nose just when you’d cleared up. In their own ways, every new challenge is a kind of monster, waiting to be conquered or courted, depending on the circumstances.

I face several such challenges at this point in my life.

First, there’s the website redesign which, after being nearly completed by one party in November was entirely scrapped because it just wasn’t doing the trick, know what I mean? Ouch. But we look to have take-two up mid to late March and we’re looking forward to courting this monster and winning him as a friend.

Second, there’s my first co-authored novel with a woman with the current release of KISS. It’s a twisting story that harkens back to the “old Ted” only this time with Erin Healy. Jennifer Deshler, the marketing guru at the publisher came up with the marketing tag “Heart Pounding meets Heart Warming” and I think that about sums it up. Typically I write my stories with my alter-ego sitting on my shoulder. Samantha, perhaps you know her. Perhaps that’s why working with Erin who also is a woman came so naturally to me. Early reviews are very strong.

Still, what will all the peeps say?

Thirdly, there’s the release of my first truly "mainstream" novel, BONEMAN’S DAUGHTER. Yes, the novel plumbs spiritual themes about God’s intense love in contrast to the love offered by a very, very wicked killer called BONEMAN, but it’s not specifically labeled as being a story solely for Christians any more than Jesus’ parables were labeled as such. 

Says James Rollins, New York Times bestselling author of The Last Oracle: "Ted Dekker's latest thriller BONEMAN'S DAUGHTERS is a tour-de-force of suspense that demands to be read in one sitting. A twisting story…  made all the more visceral for its taut telling and conflicted characters. "

Says Brad Meltzer, New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Lies: “BONEMAN’S DAUGHTERS doesn't just get under your skin. It crawls there, and nests, and raises its head with a bitter tug, like it's living within you."

This novel seems to have struck  a unique chord that I’ve sought to strike for years. And where’s the monster in this you ask? Yes, well this brings me to my whole point about being gay. And being Christian. Now please, hang with me here. My reasoning may stretch you, but you wouldn’t be reading anything written by me if you didn’t like to be stretched now and then.

You see, I used to be “gay.” In fact, if I had been published twenty years ago at the height of my gayness, I might have been branded “The Gay Author.”

Then things changed. I didn’t change, my happy self remained constant, as did all of what made me merry and carefree and thus I remained quite… well, gay. But the word “gay” itself began to change until one day it no longer meant happy, but rather “homosexual.” And once being gay, which only meant “happy,” I was no longer gay because I am now and always have been happily heterosexual.

No matter how much anyone might want the term gay to mean what it once did, it’s the hearer of a word, as much as the speaker, who determines any terms real meaning. That’s how words and communication works.

So the real challenge of being gay today is that I’m not. Although I was at one time and still am quite happy and carefree.

Now, back to BoneMan’s Daughter and, more specifically, whether BoneMan’s Daughters is a piece of Evangelical Christian Fiction. Like the word gay, the term “Evangelical Christian Fiction” has changed over the last twenty years. For starters the term “Evangelical” is fast becoming a measure of ones fanaticism and dedication to particular political and social agendas rather than a term that denotes doctrinal convictions or affiliations. The term “Christian” is close on its heels.  Put together the meaning of phrase “Evangelical Christian” means one thing in Atlanta, and another thing entirely in New York or Boston. In one city it means protestant, in another it means bigoted, politically motivated, fundamentalist who hates liberals and is willing to take up arms to prove it. Or something like that.

If that is what is understood by “Evangelical Christian” than I have never written “Evangelical Christian” novels, and I should certainly never be counted as a bigoted, politically motivated, fundamentalist who hates liberals, particularly if I have any intention of following the teachings of Jesus. In fact, an argument could me made that in many places “Evangelical Christian” is decidedly un-Christian. Please take no offense, both are just words that became associated with Christ long after his time on earth.

I myself am a believer, unshaken in my convictions, and every novel I write grapples with those very same convictions. Still, BoneMan’s Daughters is my first which sheds the label “Evangelical Christian Fiction” in part because the term is radically misunderstood by half the country. Will Christian bookstores like Family, LifeWay and Parable still promote a book of mine like BoneMan’s Daughters which contains no offensive language or sex and explores God’s sacrificial love? Of course. It’s hardly different than Thr3e (which CBA stores voted fiction title of the year in 2003) or a number of other novels I’ve written in this respect. CBA stores carry many products and books not specifically labeled as “Evangelical,” beginning with the Bible itself.

Will my current readers buy BoneMan’s Daughter? If they like my thrillers, yes, it’s a humdinger and will challenge any reader’s understanding of God’s love.

But the issue of labeling a book surfaces a deeper one facing our culture today. Are our books decidedly Evangelical Christian? For that matter, are we? Are you? Or has the term's meaning changed over time, like the word Gay?

If the term "Evangelical Christian" no longer properly describes a follower of Jesus to a growing segment of our society, should you, knowing this, use it?

Or, should you use the term only among those who understand what you mean by it, and use a different term among those who don’t know what you mean? I know it sounds like I’m begging the question, but I really do want you to help me form an opinion. This is an issue that is facing us all, including our good friends in CBA bookstores.

Tell me what you think by clicking on comments below, then go to the home page of Teddekker.com and vote on the poll. And thank you for carefully considering a difficult question.

Latent Chrisitianity

WATCHING PEOPLE'S reactions to the themes in the movie House has been interesting. The film as a whole is deeply influenced by everything from cinematography to acting to direction to score to special effects…the list is endless, and the end product was way beyond my control. But the story on which the movie is based was mine and reviewers' reaction to the basic theme of that story interests me.

They fit into three broad categories that look something like this:

First, there are the Christian reviewers who act as so-called experts on the value of a film, a quantity they derive by scoring negatives and positives. Like mathematicians using formulas, the more analytic among them give the end product either a thumbs up or a thumbs down. For many of these, House wasn't Christian enough.

Then there are the hosts of Christians thrilled to see something hit the screen that isn’t blatantly Christian. As long as the theme is fairly plain, the mere absence of an overt Christian message draws cheers from them. In their view, House was just about right.

Finally, there are the non-Christian reviewers. Reading their opinions, you might think House was blatant propaganda designed to shove the church down the audience’s throat. In their view, House was far too Christian, nothing short of an evangelical sermon.

So which is right? It all boils down to expectations, really. What people expect from a movie or a book, profoundly impacts their interaction with it.

What Order to Read Ted's Books

*Originally written Feb. 11, 2008

I am often asked about the ideal reading order for The Books of History Chronicles. Readers from all walks of life have waxed eloquent on this subject, glad to give a new reader the inside scoop on this somewhat twisted world of books I’ve coaxed to life.

There is an answer to the question, but it isn’t what you might expect. Then again, nothing in the Books of History Chronicles is what you might expect.

I could say that the first books to read should be the Circle Trilogy, Black, Red, and White, but that isn’t entirely right. They are a prequel to the whole series, much like Genesis is a prequel to Matthew. Does reading Genesis before Matthew affect your appreciation for either? Not necessarily.

I could say that Showdown should be the first book you read, but that isn’t right either. Showdown is a prequel to Sinner (due out in September 08,) much like Exodus is a prequel to the Gospel of John.

So then where is the beginning? Surely all things have a beginning and an ending. Just quit running circles and tell me.

Lost

*Originally posted on April 3, 2008

I’m sitting here at my desk staring at my screen, lost. For the first time in what feels like years I have nothing to do but sit and stare at the screen and wonder how I got here.

                           

It’s odd, you know, being here, in this unfamiliar place. There are a number of things I could do with my time. I could search for some new music on itunes. Hard to find good tunes, the kind you just can’t stop listening to. I could go outside and stare at the house I’m having built, but it’s raining and I would probably be the only one there, feet in the mud, wondering why it’s not done, why the chimney looks crooked, why the front door is swinging in the wind.

I could listen to One Republic or Muse and write a blog. I choose Muse and decide to write the blog. But neither change the fact that I’m sitting here staring at the screen, lost.

Why I Write Naked Novels

*Originally posted May 23, 2007

Wired magazine’s April cover story “Get Naked and Rule the World” covered the new attitude of the emerging corporate culture in which authenticity is valued above the protective public relations spin of yesterday.

I read the story nodding my head, but in my mind I was thinking more of religion than I was of corporate America. There are many parallels.

The fact of the matter is that most people today are so fed up with the lies spun for political expediency that they applaud any form of authenticity to a fault. It’s gotten so bad that the emerging culture has simply decided to turn off. If the discussion refuses to be real, they shut it out. If the store refuses to carry the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the whole, ugly truth, they find another store.

And they do in masses.

Bring Back the Old Ted

Bring Back the Old Ted
February 6, 2007
Every artist faces fans with this age-old demand, and I am no different. My readership has grown significantly of late and that's fine, but you have to understand, it's largely beyond me. I don't determine what you will or won't like.

Only you can do that. Most of my newer readers prefer my newer books, naturally. But there a bunch of readers who long for my older style of writing which was more obvious in many ways.

To all those who prefer my older stories to the newer ones, I do empathize with you, my friends. When I read a book I want it to blow me away, and out of all the fiction I read last year, that happened maybe once. It's infuriating!

Will I ever blow you away again? I can't try, of course. Unless I want to risk losing my soul, I can't write anything but that which blows me away. Only that which is deeply affecting me will translate.