The primary aim of the "Novel Excerpts" blog category is to showcase my creative writing, specifically from the novels I've written. Hopefully, these posts will provide a glimpse into my storytelling style, themes, and narrative skills. It's an opportunity to share my artistic expressions and the worlds I've created through my novels.
The Boaz Secrets, written in 2018, is my third novel. I'll post a chapter a day over the next few weeks.
Book Blurb
Fifteen year-old Matt Benson moves with Robert, his widowed father, to Boaz, Alabama for one year as Robert conducts research on Southern Baptist Fundamentalism. Robert, a professor of Bible History and new Testament Theology at the University of Chicago’s Divinity School enlists Matt to assist him as an undercover agent at First Baptist Church of Christ. Matt’s job is to befriend the most active young person in the Church’s youth group and learn the heart and mind of teenagers growing up as fundamentalist Southern Baptists.
Olivia Tillman is the fourteen year old daughter of Betty and Walter Tillman. He is the pastor of First Baptist Church of Christ. Robert and Matt move to Boaz in June 1970, and before high school begins in mid-August, Matt and Olivia become fast friends. Olivia’s life is centered around her faith, her family, and her friends. She is struck with Matt and his doubts and vows to win him to Christ. Over the next year, Matt and Olivia’s relationship blossoms into more than a teenage romance, despite their different religious beliefs.
June 1971 and Matt’s return to Chicago comes too quickly, but the two teenagers vow to never lose what they have, even promising to reunite at college in three years after Olivia graduates from Boaz High School.
The Boaz Secrets is told from the perspective of past and present. The story alternates between 1970-1971, and 2017-2018. After Matt left Boaz in June 1971, life happened and Olivia and Matt’s plans fell apart. However, in December 2017, their lives crossed again, almost miraculously, and they have a month in Boaz to catch up on forty-six years of being apart. They attempt to discover whether their teenage love can be rekindled and transformed into an adult romance even though Matt is 63 and Olivia is 61.
In 2017, Olivia and Matt are quick to learn they are vastly different people than they were as fifteen and sixteen year old teenagers– especially, when it comes to religion and faith. Will these religious differences unite them? The real issue is the secret Olivia has kept. Will Matt’s discovery destroy any chance he and Olivia have of rekindling their teenage relationship?
Chapter 12
December 10, 2017
Sunday morning at 6:30 a.m., my cell phone vibrated beside my sleeping bag. It was Olivia.
“Get up sleepy-head. Take me to breakfast and let’s go hear Warren preach.”
“Let’s not and say we did. At least concerning the preaching.” I said, still disoriented from being shocked awake.
“I get it. Last night you said you would call me early.”
“That was your suggestion.”
“Oh, I get it. You’ve had all night to reconsider.” Olivia seemed truly sad, almost perplexed.
“I was going to call early.” I said, struggling to stand up from the floor while holding on to my cell phone. Sorry, I forgot that early to you is 5:00 a.m.”
“Matt, you have a good memory.” I had always thought it strange for a teenage girl to love getting up early. By age 14, Olivia had developed the habit of having an early morning devotion, even on school days. She was so committed to God she immersed herself in Bible study and prayer in her bedroom at a little desk. I still remember her talking about looking out her eastward-facing window and watching the sun come up every cloudless morning. She never failed to say that the real Son had been up taking care of her all night.
“My memory isn’t near as good as it used to be, but I do remember you used to eat like a horse. I’m still full of that giant strawberry milkshake I ate at Sonic last night.”
“Pick me up at 7:00 and let’s go to Waffle House. It’s too far to drive back down to Cracker Barrel.”
“You should know there is also one in Guntersville. But, that’s too far also.”
We did go to Waffle House and Olivia ate a double order of pancakes. I had coffee and a piece of toast. All we talked about was John and Paul. After nearly an hour it seemed all we were doing was playing a game, imagining what each of them looked like. Were they identical twins? Did they have my dark colored eyes or the sky-blue eyes of Olivia? Were they taller than either of us? Probably. Were they slim, like Olivia, or had they picked up a few pounds on an otherwise perfect frame as the years had gone by. Like me.
After Waffle House, we came back to my house on College and sat on the swing. I had given Olivia the tour. As I showed her one empty room after another we ended up in my bedroom with two pillows and my sleeping bag on the floor. She commented that it had been in this room, on my bed, that we had confirmed our love and commitment. We held each other, and she shared how thankful she was that she had been able to not get caught up in a life of promiscuous sex. She admitted, as I did, that we should have waited about having sexual intercourse until we were married. Olivia started to cry. I held her, and she whispered that she wished things had worked out when we were young and that we had married as soon as she graduated high school. Before we walked outside to the swing, I kissed her lips. A real, passionate kiss. She accepted my forwardness. I could have stood there with her in my arms forever. We both sensed things could get out of hand, so she pushed me away. “Back Fido. Sit.”
Warren’s preaching was predictable. He was an excellent speaker and stuck strictly to the text of the scripture. He followed a three-point outline like any good Southern Baptist preacher. His scripture was one verse, John 3:16. Warren’s theme was God’s love and his ongoing involvement with His children. God loved us, past, present and, here, after two points made, I anticipated Warren having a third ‘p.’ But, he didn’t. I wanted the alliteration to continue. It didn’t. ‘F’ for future was his last point. All believers could rest assured that God would never stop being interested and involved with His special creatures.
At 11:45, Warren called for an altar prayer for Eugene Lackey. I had not heard of him. Warren went on to say that Mr. Lackey was the thirty-five-year-old Boaz High School basketball coach who was very sick. Two years ago, he had contracted a virulent form of cancer, but prayer, according to Warren, had worked and Eugene’s condition had gone into remission. Now, the cancer was back. It seemed well over half the people present walked to the front and bowed. After a long time of contemporaneous prayer, Warren verbalized his final prayer to the ever present and active God. He ended his plea with an all familiar statement, “God, may your holy, blessed will be done.”
After the service I walked to the Parsonage with Olivia and waited on the front porch. She went inside and changed clothes, again. This time, donning a jogging suit. We walked back to my place on College where I changed. For the next two hours we mixed walking and jogging, mainly for her to counter the zillion calories she had consumed in the last twenty-four hours. It was for me too. I no longer ran five miles a day as I had most all my life. Three years ago, knee surgery had slowed me down. These days, I rarely ran more than a mile at a time. I was now more of a walker.
One thing we had learned long ago, when Olivia started running with me as teenagers. Our best talks came when we were outside, putting one foot after another as we traversed city and country roads.
“Can I ask you something?” I said, out of breath after pushing myself during the last mile to keep up with a surprisingly eager and athletic Olivia.
“No.” She replied. I hoped she was joking but I wasn’t sure.
“I’ll ask anyway sweet pea. I assume you came to a point you no longer believed in prayer. How did that take place? Do you recall how the first doubts started?” I said realizing I probably should stick to asking one question at a time.
“How could I ever forget. That’s like not remembering the night I lost my virginity.” Olivia said, hardly puffing at all.
“Let’s not go there.”
Olivia continued. “Okay. It was in 2007. I was still at Southwestern, teaching. My students had learned that Jack was very sick, that he had cancer. One class had asked a few weeks earlier if they could start praying for Jack after I had finished my lecture each day. Of course, I agreed. I remember it like it was yesterday. It was a small class, Pauline Theology. I didn’t voice a prayer, I just let the students pray as they were led. The prayers had ended, and everyone had left, except the oldest student in school, Thomas Stivender. He asked if I had a few minutes. The short version is that he said, ‘I don’t intend to offend you, but you do know that prayer doesn’t work?’ I was taken aback. Why would a seminary student say such a thing? Why would he be spending a lot of money to learn to be a preacher if he didn’t believe in the efficacy of prayer?”
“Let me guess. He wasn’t a believer at all. But, he was deeply interested in learning the inside story of what preachers were being taught?”
“Pretty close. I suspect you have heard this from your Dad, about this type thing happening.”
“Yes.”
“That day I learned that Thomas Stivender was thirty-five years old and had spent the past five years traveling the country, observing and investigating miracle claims. He also had a deep interest in Televangelists and watching the so-called miracles that happened on national TV. Thomas would track down those who were supposedly healed. He said that so far, all he could conclude is that prayer doesn’t truly work. He had never discovered one instant where the claim would stand up to real scrutiny.”
“So, this made you change your mind about prayer?” I asked while we were resting on the bleachers at Snead State’s Baseball Field.
“No, not at all, but someway the thought buried in my mind and it launched a search, an aggressive search for answers, for the truth. One thing that Thomas said to me was particularly persuasive, and enlightening. He said, ‘I encourage you to do one thing since I know you are skeptical of my position. Imagine you did not grow up in church and that you are simply an observer, an outside observer of Christianity. Be a skeptic, forget faith. That won’t get you to the truth. Be honest with yourself and your investigation. Reason your way to the truth. Simply follow the evidence where it leads. If your Christianity is true, it can withstand all scrutiny.’”
“Sounds like good advice to me. Of course, I also know, for a Christian, this is almost impossible to do.” I said.
“I agree, but for some inexplicable reason, I took his advice. I thought I was ‘secure and intelligent enough to see the value of questioning my beliefs,’ as Derren Brown wrote in his back-cover review of Richard Dawkins’ book, The God Delusion.”
“What happened? What did you do?”
“To begin with, I read everything I could get my hands on about prayer, from a research or scientific standpoint. Obviously, I already knew quite a bit about prayer from a theologian’s standpoint. I discovered the Templeton Prayer Study. I’m sure you’ve heard of it.”
“I have.”
“As you know, it was a double-blind test and the results revealed that prayer had no effect upon those who were prayed for, those undergoing heart surgery and recovery.”
“I think it actually showed that the group who knew they were being prayed for, fared worse than the other two groups.” I added.
“Correct. Here’s the funny thing. What truly convinced me that Thomas was correct was not all that I read, it was when I finally started evaluating my own life and my own experiences. I realized I had a mountain of data to consider. I had grown up in virtually one continuous prayer meeting. This got me to searching my mind to determine if I could recall examples of obvious miracles, like a physical healing, only as the result of prayer. Here’s the bald-faced truth. I couldn’t think of a single incidence. Oh yes, I thought of many examples of what, on its face, appeared to be an answer to prayer. Things like, I would never have moved to Boaz if God hadn’t guided me in the purchase of my house. Other type examples were where family problems, including sickness of a child or parent, resulted in the person recovering. All my life I believed this was God at work, answering the prayers of His children. At best, they are mere coincidences. You know humans love to seek out patterns.”
“I do. Of course, you know that died-in-the-wool Christians would never agree with you. They have been brainwashed into an entire nonsensical method of analysis. They believe nothing happens to them without God’s permission. God helps them find their keys when they go missing. Ask God for guidance. He responds. The keys appear. Here’s the rub. These folks credit God with every good thing that happens. Uncle Bill’s cancer goes into remission. Praise God. But, when Aunt Sue dies, these folks don’t blame God. They never once question, ‘why did God fail?’ No, it’s always, ‘we can’t know the mind of God. He works in mysterious ways. No matter what, I will praise Him because He has a plan for my life and it is perfect. God is good, yesterday, today, and tomorrow.’”
“I agree fully with what you are saying. It makes me mad, almost angry, to realize that I spent fifty years believing a lie.”
“Indoctrination is a powerful thing. When a baby is born and grows up saturated by family, friends, and a community, with nothing but God talk, the Bible, it is virtually impossible to gain freedom. The truth is, this same child would have totally different beliefs if he were born into a similar Muslim environment. Religion, religious beliefs, are almost fully geographical.” I said.
“I’m thankful I’ve been set free. I’m excited about my new life’s work. Trying to persuade others to, as Darren Brown said, be ‘secure and intelligent enough to see the value of questioning their beliefs.’ As you say, it is almost a losing battle, but I feel so strongly, given my half-a-century wandering in the wilderness, that I have to try.”
As we walked back to 118 College Avenue I couldn’t help but remember how zealous teenager Olivia was to evangelize the world with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Her complete transformation was almost unbelievable, as I considered her view of Christians and Christianity now.
The Pencil-Driven Life 