......R I S E N......

                         A Unique Adventure

                                                            By


                                                    N A Vincent


     My big decision to set foot inside a movie theater after 20 years happened today. This set off a gamut of emotions: A little bit of fear that my eardrums would rupture--memories from Grand Junction days inside the dark cave where "The Passion of the Christ" played, and I went with family and friends. The volume was so loud  it hurt my ears. So, today I went prepared: several wads of cotton, which I stuffed in and had to take out when the sound was too muffled.
     Secondly, my ignorance of "Today's Movies Operating Procedures".   I went this afternoon for the 1:30 showing. I told the ticket agent, a tall man in a suit and sporting a mustache, that I hadn't been to the movies for 20 years or thereabouts. He said, "Go inside those doors, turn right, and into Auditorium 9". Well, inside the doors were Doors number something to ten thisaway and something through something else thataway. I was alone in outer space, wondering where was everyone, as I had gotten to the theater at 1:25, and thought the movie might be beginning already!
     Third, Confusion, as I was "Lost in Space". I finally hobbled my cane down the vast corridor, found Door Number 9 and rather uncertainly opened. I don't know exactly what I expected to find, but not a soul was in any seat. I was Queen of the Empty Movie Theater! Had my choice of Seats, did I!
     I chose one: the very back seat on the aisle on my left.
     I settled in.
     I wondered why the movie hadn't started yet, as it must by now be 1:35.
     Presently something started: Ads for how enjoyable this theater company was. Then more ads. On and on they droned. Then selected previews accompanying this production. Then more selected previews for this movie, most of which looked pretty boring.     
     Which brought up a little bit of impatient annoyance to the surface.   After about twenty minutes I got up, grabbed my stuff  ( denim trench coat, in case the theater was cold, and the 50 lb purse and my navigator and 'protector'--my cane) and hobbled back a mile to the front desk to complain and demand my money back. The sweeper was out front and he got the first blast, which brought the manager, who patiently explained Why There Is No One In The Theater The First Half Hour:   Because that's when they run their ads and their previews.
      If that is so, why bother showing a half hour of ads and previews, when no one comes to see them anyway, and folks delay until the movie starts? Doesn't make sense to me, although he did explain that it gave people running late to arrive in time for the start of the film.
     No one was running late for this showing. I absolutely experienced A First!! I had the theater all to myself. It was a big theater, too.  Since I was the only-est Only One, I broke the No Cell Phones On rule and called my daughter Anne while waiting for the last few minutes of  How Good We Are to end and found out this is how things go these days, Just relax Mom, and enjoy the movie.
       So I did. Except for an employee who came in and right out again to check on things twice while the movie was playing.
      And except for a few details which do or don't detract from the movie,
       RISEN
  has got it right.
       Amen.
    
    

Two Upcoming Can't Put "em Down Authors by Sam James

                                 Publishers Wanted

                             On the Assassination of John F. Kennedy

     For Readers Who Like Intrigue based on History:
                   On the market soon, look for


              THE DUTCHMAN: An Assassin's Story
                                  by A.D. Patterson
   
       This book of fiction is a page-turner, even if you aren't too keen on its genre`. The interest lies primarily in the theory that the real-life event in history--the assassination of President John F. Kennedy-- was an act of conspiracy and cover-up by The Powers That Be. As the book develops, from the viewpoint of one of the assassins known as  The Dutchman, the theory proves to be not only possible but probable. A theory shared by a great many Americans.
        I was given a copy with proofreading errors. I'm an avid reader, and I can tell you this is one you won't want to put down.
       The author, A.D. Patterson, lives in Aurora, Colorado, and has other books and plays in the works. Go online to see how to obtain the book, or I can provide more information.

                        IN SEARCH OF RELIABLECHRISTIAN

                                      AGENT OR PUBLISHER

        In a totally opposite genre, the series

                                  "IMAGE OF A PERFECT SON",
                                            by N.A. Vincent




     Book One, The Fall , was published in 2003 and is now in the archives, available on e-book and paperback at Authorhouse.com.
     This series portrays the invisible power struggle of Good against Evil from the Christian doctrinally-oriented viewpoint. Is not for the queasy nor those who will not admit that evil does exist, nor is it a "Grace Livingston Hill" work where all Christian characters are All Good, and all non-Christians are "All Bad"--since the old sin nature and the human condition exists in all of us--and we are delivered from it only by the blood of Christ, shed for our sins.
           No details in this post, but I will follow-up with description and excerpts from all soon.
             The rest of the series is complete, in the form of five-six completed drafts covering the 1958-1960 era plus succeeding books on "The Rest of the Story", plus
other books by "Sam James, S.Vincent James," (pen names) or me, N.A.Vincent.
          My works  would make an EXCELLENT tv series. I will be publishing excerpts from all, plus the rest of "The Dude Ranch Murders" , which I had meant to do but got interrupted.
      I am on Linked In and if any agents or publishers would like to review my work, I have plenty of "fans" (references) and finished drafts (needing editing). These are all page-turners, which readers like, and most end on the climatic What Comes Next? of the old Saturday matinees. More later.
      Google is no longer automatically sending to non-Google emails or accounts, so that presents a bit of a problem for those of us who want to reach as many as we can.  


      Talk at'ya later, then........

Signs of the Times by N.A.Vincent

        The Times, They Are A'changin'

      My mother lived through decades of changing times. She was born in a farmhouse in North Dakota in 1918. She lived through a run-a-way rig when Grampa stopped the wagon to open the gate. The team spooked and took off at a dead run with the children still in the wagon. Brother Bud yelled, "Jump, Myrtle---and jumped! Myrt hung on all the way to the farmhouse and came out unscathed.
      I think my mom had been living through exciting adventures her whole life--but remaining calm about them. Her greatest adventure was her last day, in which she lay dying in her bedroom at home, and I had for days been comforting her with passages from The living Word of God, and preparing her for the realization that she would soon be with her Lord...reassuring her that when she closed her eyes in death, she would open them instantly Face to face with Our Lord. I held her in my arms one night, slept beside her in her bed, just to let her know that I was there, though she seemed comatose, I know she understood every comfort, every word.
       My mom was 96 when the Lord took her home last March. She wanted to live more, sorry that her life was coming to an end, though she knew she would be with the Lord. She taught us well. She taught us to believe that God so loved the World, he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believed in Him should not perish, but never die.
     She lived to see automobiles chugging down dusty unpaved ruts that were called roads, then to see the strange sight of a flying machine called an airplane fly over across an untroubled sky. She married a handsome man whose motto was Wine, Women, and Song, and whom she divorced because he "gave her the clap". And probably because he would go out to the diner, charge a meal, while Mom and two toddlers sat home with nothing in the cupboard.
     She lived through the changing ages of moral living versus wild parties, the times when men wore hats and short hair and dressed like men, and women were feminine and Real Women, even though they might be dressed in overalls to help out the farm work.
       The age of the putt-putt washing machine out in Gram's yard on washday, and running the clothes through the wringer, changing the water--heated on the stove--after all the clothes were washed with homemade soap--then rinsing with the machine agitated by a switch. Then came the draining water out into the dry North Dakota land, creating a muddy stream for a short time.  She lived through the Depression, hitchhiked all over the country with her sister-in-law, when picking up strangers didn't seem so dangerous. She glided into the 50's still a young woman, endured many hardships, the suspected murder of her son at age 16, then on to the 60's and the beginning of the end of the freedoms our country has known. I think the generation of her children's children was the last era of "Spare the rod and spoil the child" discipline.
      The last era of respect and obedience children had for adults, or anything or anyone else. I'm glad in the end she was not aware of how much this world has changed. I'm glad she went with me by her side instead of cold and alone in some "nursing" home. For ten years we were together, thinking back, it was close to March of 2005 we were together again, and March of 2015 when she went away.
       She didn't have to endure the selfish MeMeMe that has become our world, the three person (Me, Myself, and I) personna that now thrives in our country.
      Where once youngsters opened the doors for their elders, spoke politely and only  when spoken to...(No one ever talked back, or argued with his parent or another elder--or out to the woodshed the child went. Children did what they were told, shared in the household labors because it was their due, were disciplined for their bad behavior and had remorse which caused them to try harder, to achieve an honorable and noble goal of some kind, to try to do well in school. They were not lazy!
       But they were loved.
     Children  knew how to play outside and invent games. They had no electronic gadgets to rob them of their inventive childhood.
     Push a button to fast forward: As the Bible has declared, "In the last days, men shall be lovers of themselves, proud, boastful, disobedient, with covetousness. Mother against child, brother against sister, fathers disobedient to the Lord. Wrong will be called right, and Right will be called wrong.
      The Old of us, who remember those days, regretfully are the victims of the times, for it is we who must change our ways to accommodate the ways now seen as The Norm by the generations who came after us. If we are abhorred in the supermarket by spoiled children sassing their parents or running amuck, we must be silent and move to some other aisle, because now they are as likely to run us over and knock us down yelling "Get out of my way"...as not. If our grandchildren talk back to their parents and argue with us, we are secondary to their whims and wants and tantrums, and dare not say a word, for we have become secondary to the age of The Spoiled Rotten Brat.
      Teachers and bus drivers dare not discipline any young thug in kindergarten through high school.  Cops are suddenly The Enemy, while hoods are heroes. These same young bullies can do no wrong to their parents, who seem blind to anything that used to be bad behavior. And these grow up to kill anyone they get mad at.
     We are indeed in an era of Chaos, where reason does not prevail, either in Home, At Work, At Play, In Business,  or anywhere else in our fallen country.
     Our flag is tattered
fluttering lamely in the winds of indifference, tyranny, cowardice.
     Where is this land of the free? Where is this home of the brave?
     Patriotism is in the hands of We, The Few, and we are being swept away by the tidal wave of the Irresponsibility and Ungodliness of the Many.
     Swept away by the raging torrent of evil and greed.
     God have mercy on America.