Travis Seitler

Lullaby: Wisdom Seeker TP

(From Alias Enterprises.) This all-ages romp through the fantasy worlds of children’s fiction is a wonderful story that focuses on beloved characters of childhood yore. Join Jim Hawkins, Alice, Pinocchio, Little Red Riding Hood and the Pied Piper as they join forces to stop a dark magic warping their world and discover who is behind the evil scheme. You’ll never guess who the bad guy turns out to be in this fun-filled adventure! Scheduled to ship 07/06/05. (6747)

ITEM CODE: FEB058460
SC, 7×10, 96pgs, FC Price: $9.99

I’ve got issue #1 (sold out!), and #2 (also sold out!) is coming in this week… so far, I really like the story: it’s got a lot of potential, and from the tidbits I’ve picked up, I think the story’s going to flesh out nicely.

For those who "must know," here are the issue summaries for the stories comprising this volume (special thanks goes to Silver Bullet Comics for cataloging PREVIEWS in its entirity each month!):

Lullaby: Wisdom Seeker (Issue 1)

A strange force has been twisting the magical world and making its way toward Wonderland. Alice, who has become the right hand of the Queen of Hearts, sets out to find out what this dark magic is and perhaps find her way home in the process. We’re also introduced to Jim Hawkins, proud, independent, adventurous…and fired! A pirate without a ship, Jim’s never been one for taking orders, and that lands him on his own, but not for long. Pinocchio, once again a little wooden boy, tags along and invites Jim on a whole new adventure.

Lullaby: Wisdom Seeker (Issue 2)

Jim and Pinocchio continue their quest to Oz, when they are sidetracked by a band of religious zealots who kidnap Pinocchio! At the same time, Red and Piper confront Grandma’s kidnapper, who points the finger at Alice! An exciting, action-packed issue not to be missed!

Lullaby: Wisdom Seeker (Issue 3)

All roads lead to Oz, but no one ever said it would be easy getting there. Jim Hawkins fights to rescue his friend Pinocchio from the denizens of the World Tree, but he may not like what he finds. Meanwhile, while searching for Red Riding Hood’s grandmother Alice, Red and the Pied Pier find their way blocked by three hell-bent Billy goats. Granny’s secret is revealed, but will it matter by the time they find what’s left of her?

Lullaby: Wisdom Seeker (Issue 4)

LULLABY comes to a dramatic conclusion as Jim and Pinocchio finally come face to face with Alice, the Piper, Red Riding Hood and Cheshire Cat. A bond is formed quickly, not only because both groups are heading toward Oz, but also because they share a common menace. A menace that threatens everyone� Oz’s own Tin Man. But just as everything else has been twisted and bent in this fairy tale world so has the Tin Man. Can the newly formed fellowship stand against the lumbering, steam powered giant, or will this be the end of the journey for our heroes?

LULLABY: WISDOM SEEKER is © and ® Mike S. Miller & Hector Sevilla, 2005. All Rights Reserved.

Stress Revelation (cute quote)

The more I’m alone, the more I realize that all my stress is caused by my own mind. Oh. Great. That means I can’t get away from it.

That’s my darling wife right there. I tell ya, it’s stuff like this that I find so endearing. How could I not love a woman who’s an endless source of quotable quotes?

Passing Along the Good Stuff: the Church’s “Missing Men”

The main reason that men are not in church is that they simply are not seeing the Holy Spirit move in power. At the risk of alienating the many women who read Cerulean Sanctum, I want to make a bold point: even if the Holy Spirit were not present in a supernatural way in our churches, I still believe women would still show up on Sundays. The Church has no problem attracting women because women are naturally drawn to the community and relationships that a church provides. However, this attractor does not work for many men. Men need a profound experience of God in order to get them to sit up and take notice. If the Holy Spirit doesn’t fall on them in power, then the positives a church can provide outside of the supernatural make little difference. A church can hypermasculinize itself to death and still not break that three women to every two men ratio if the Spirit is barely discernible on Sundays. Men have a better built-in B.S. detector than women do and function more out of the rationale of “prove it to me.” Without the manifest presence of the Holy Spirit in our gatherings, we have little to combat a set of crossed arms and a raised eyebrow.

[...]

I believe that the reason the message of Eldredge and Morrow resonates with many men is that those men can’t put a finger on what they are truly missing. If you’ve never tasted champagne, why would you miss it? In this way, if our churches gatherings are not filled with the Holy Spirit and our churches are not speaking to the one thing we still use to define a man, then the loss of both cannot be fully appreciated by the man who feels empty after the church service is over. All he knows is “Well, that wasn’t it.” So he goes off to hunt bear with a pointy stick or to climb mountains like Eldredge says. And while that might captivate him for a while, it does not fill the vacuum in his soul. His expectation then becomes that of simply muddling through the day.

And to that, I give a hearty, “AMEN!” Drop the fluffy crap and gimme the real stuff!

EDIT: Dan Edelen graciously (and almost too subtly) pointed out in his comment that I didn’t give search-engine-friendly credit for the quote from his post “Another Look at the Church’s Missing Men” on his blog Cerulean Sanctum. I’ve been an RSS subscriber to CS for six months now, and I’ve been greatly edified by his thoughtful posts. The last thing I want is for people to not be able to track him down! Dan, this edit’s for you!

The Voice of Your Brother’s Blood is Crying to Me

I agree with Mr. Arnold: this is vile, ugly, and definitely worthy of the usage of “pissed” in describing how I feel after reading it:

In reading about various topic in bioethics, I came across this rather ominous sounding bit of Orwellian newspeak: “wrongful birth.” It’s kind of like “wrongful death,” but the exact opposite. It points to a rather elaborate counterfactual analysis of circumstances:

If a mother had known that her fetus [unborn baby] was afflicted with some incurable genetic “disease” (i.e., Down’s syndrome, cystic fibrosis, etc.), then she would never have allowed the pregnancy to continue its course and instead would have aborted [murdered in the womb] the fetus [unborn baby].

“Families” have sued doctors for wrongful birth, claiming that doctors should have provided them with information about certain genetic markers that portend to genetic defects or diseases, so that these “families” then could have chosen abortion [murder] rather than carrying the fetus [unborn baby] to term. I say “families” because can you imagine being in such a family? “Gee honey, we didn’t really want you but we got you anyway, so we’re gonna sue Dr. So-and-So for making us take you.”

Anyway, I’m sure there is some real philosophical argumentation to be done here, but I’m too pissed to do any right now. Maybe later.

And to think, these are the people who like to call fundamentalist Christians “nazis”? Sorry, we don’t tend to encourage mass murder… and last time I checked, “infanticide” and “genocide” bore more of a resemblance to each other than did “genocide” and “intolerance”.

I’m sick of selfish idiots.

Evangelism for the Glory of Self?

"We don’t work to persuade people that the gospel will meet all their felt needs, rather that they were made for the soul-satisfying glory of God in the gospel." — John Piper, God’s Passion for His Glory

In the office where I work, we’ve got a security guard station just before you reach the elevators. I usually say "hello" to the guard on duty while I pass, but rarely more than that. (See, I’m usually late, or almost late, and every moment counts!)

Anyway, yesterday I was returning from lunch with a couple of quasi-co-workers (Tom J. and Steve W. work for sister companies in the same office building and we were D&D gaming buddies for a while), and as we passed by, the guard on duty casually asked how we were doing. Without really thinking about it, I looked her in the eye and said, "wonderfully. Life is wonderful!" She got this big grin on her face and said, "you’re always ‘doing great’. You’re the only one around here who’s always ‘doing great’."

Whoa. Can we say, "opportunity"? What do I do? What do I do???

I should have told her all about how the loving Creator-King not only sacrificed his Son to forgive me, a pathetic usurper, of high treason; but how he has also adopted me and granted me full rights and privileges to be his son. I should have told her about how I’m now coming to see just how beautiful this Creator-Father-King and His Kingdom really are, and how any ‘revolution’ against them only seem to leave us with something ugly and weak. I should have told her how my Father has commissioned me to extend the same offer of forgiveness and adoption to her as well.

But by that point, I was entering the elevator and it was too late to explain why life is wonderful. I just chuckled — I guess about how depressed the world is? — and went back to my desk.

I feel like a heel. But why? Is it really because I passed on an opportunity to show forth the beauty and glory of God? Or is it because I feel humbled by my own laziness and embarrassment?

My felt need is to have an easier time sharing my faith, so I won’t feel guilt. But perhaps my true need is to be so wrapped up and lost in the majestic splendor of God that such evangelism just spills over with no conscious contriving on my part.

Father, baptize me the way cucumbers are baptized into picklehood. Seep into every part of me, and transform me. Make me like you!