The Making of a Preacher -Prep

Building My Brand

The idea behind The Making of a Preacher is the premise that all humans have an important message to proclaim with their lives. Not all humans will be known for public speaking, but all humans will express the true beliefs of his or her life to others through the words they say and/or through the ways in which he or she lives life.

This is primarily a Pioneer story in which the main character learns to "take new ground for good" from the core of his being, (aka the internal struggles) to the outer reaches of the physical realms of possibility with a view to success in the Land, known as Eternity, after this life has ended. There will be some Science Fiction mixed into this story for the purpose of exploring human reactions to the as-yet-unknown.

The reader for this particular story is the middle-aged (or older) man, who wonders if all the trips and falls in life, all the internal conflicts, all the life situation changes, that have left him on the paunchy side, confused about life, feeling like life has passed him by are really the harbinger of his uselessness or if there is life after life in this rather convoluted life on Earth.

I guess I'm describing myself in many ways, but "giving up" is not a phrase in my dictionary. I want to give the reader hope that there is life after 50. I want to keep hope alive for myself that there is life after 60 since I'll be there in a couple of years. I suppose that I fancied myself to be fairly well-to-do by this age. However, my career choices have never really had "making it rich" as a job description. After college, I was a sixth-grade teacher for three years, a high school teacher for one, a radio announcer/disc-jocky for about four or five years, and a church pianist for about that long, too. Other aspects of my career include being a missionary-in-training but never making it to the place of ministry outside of the United States. For about four years I was a vendor in Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Dollar General Stores and various and sundry other small gigs.

The truth is that I'm writing this novel for myself, hoping that at least one or two other guys, who look very much like me, may actually get some benefit from the encouragement and hope that I am presenting to those, who've lived lives that are very similar to the ones we have lived.

I take hope in the fact that Grandma Moses didn't start painting until she was 80 years old.
I take hope in the fact that Harlan Sanders got his big break as Colonel Sanders when he was in his 60s.
I take hope in the fact that Moses, Israel's great leader in ancient times, stood up to the Pharaoh when he was about 80 years old, remaining the leader and quite lucid until he was approximately 120 years of age.

I take personal hope in the fact that I started playing the viola a little over a year ago, after starting as a musician at age 6 when I began piano lessons.
I take personal hope in the fact that I successfully completed NaNoWriMo 2017, and that I am on track to do so again this year. (Let the reader know that 2017's offering was my first novel rough draft while having begun as a poet at age 13.)
I take personal hope in the fact that after turning 50, I began a few new things.
---1. I became a community actor, performing in White Christmas, the Musical during the Christmas season after turning 50.
---2. I became a painter, using acrylics, pastels and occasionally watercolors.
---3. I started making crafts with threads, including the completion of some rather complex needlepoint kits.

There are other things I would like to do, such as learning to play the harmonica, but "one thing at a time" as they say.

My persona will always include a year 'round love of Christmas, the fact that I wear bolo ties by choice rather than the straight black ties, my love of poetry, and my hobby of collecting Morgan Silver dollars when I have enough money.

Now, as to the synopsis of The Making of a Preacher, Matthew Marks is a very concrete thinker and has been all of his life. He used to be harsh with atheists as a young man in his twenties, but he has lived long enough to have a great deal of compassion for everyone, who has trouble thinking outside the realm of scientific proof. He knows this very well since he accepted Jesus as his personal Savior at the age of six, but he has often been troubled with doubts because faith is not something that can be proved in a test tube.

In other words The Making of a Preacher is the journey of life through internal and external struggles that any human being can experience and only the most courageous are willing to confess that he or she has. It is being written to bring strugglers to a place of peace and confidence with the assurance that the greatest things in life are often unprovable to the logical mind, but which remain, however, very real in the sort of proof that no human could explain, given infinite words and ability to express.