Word and Journey

How do you make a monster? No, it’s not through viral injections, nor radiation, nor supernatural curses - Monsters are made by hate, anger, resentment, and wounds that never get healed.

Moses and Nics are back, talking monsters and heroes, love and hate, abuse and attachment, trauma and legacy. We talk about what it means to be a parent, and to hold the power to shape multiple future generations with just our words.

We talk about what makes a family, with an emphasis on shared struggles, and shared rituals.

In the story itself, we come to showdown scene in the long story of the Passage, in which the monstrous vampire The Babcock enters the arena with the mysterious, and small-looking Girl From Nowhere Amy. It’s a super fun scene, with a lot of build up and context.

As we follow the characters, we get into the mind and backstory of the chiefest of viral vampires, and we see(multiple times) his childhood trauma played out over and over. Moses reflects on the character of Giles Babcock, once a man on death row, now the First of Twelve great Virals, and his backstory of growing up with an abusive mother. Of all memories to survive the boy’s childhood, genetic transformation, and a century of being a vampire, it’s this story of being hurt and burdened, and it’s this story that now contaminates The Many.

In this, we see depicted, a very dark legacy. Let the reader consider the ripples they spread through centuries into the future with their harsh words.

Babcock is contrasted with Amy, who was loved, who was valued, and who experienced secure attachment.

We have no idea how far-reaching are our actions, and our words. Perhaps we should be disturbed by how much power we have, but certainly we should not ignore it.

Trauma never stays contained to one relationship, and abuse never stays contained to one household. But likewise…neither can love and respect, and having gratitude for life, and compassion for others be contained by any force imaginable.

For more discussion, that we hope will be profitable to you, please keep listening! And please share the podcast, rate and review it, and consider joining our patreon community!

To connect with Moses, find him at patreon.com/mosesbernabe or on insagram at @mosesbernabe.

To connect with Justin, find him on instagram and facebook as Justin Nichols, and on his youtube channel, and at www.gracechapelonline.org/soul-care

#books #reading #novels #thepassage #justincronin #thriller #horror #vampire #adventure #fiction #adventure #ensemble #community #relationships #character #trauma #endoftheworld #death #family #apocalypse #postapocalyptic #impact #legacy #family #colony #remnant #aging #loss #history #ritual #story #tradition #legacy #abuse #neglect #trauma

We're getting on the IFS Soapbox and blowing the Orthodox Trumpet and Woking Ourselves and unpacking Trauma and pondering the essence of being Human...and SPOILING the movie Avatar: The Way of Water!

Long-time friend and colleague Aaron Kelsay makes his first appearance on the show, after having taken me to see the new James Cameron film. We discuss and review it at length, and conclude with our estimation of the overall goodness-to-greatness of the story.

Brief spoiler - as counselors always on the watch for good metaphors for the healing journey - we got REALLY excited about the imagery and story arcs in the film, even the familiar archetypes were extremely familiar.

If you like this kind of conversation, please join our community at patreon.com/mosesbernabe. Offer your dollar support, and help me afford to bring you more conversations like this one.

If you can't do that please at least rate, review, and share this episode around.

Follow me through patreon, or on instagrat @mosesbernabe.

Reach out to Aaron through www.progresscounselingll.com. He'd be happy to hear from you!

#movie #story #film #avatar #wayofwater #jamescameron #moviereview #trauma #outcast #exile #community #family #relationship #action #adventure #spirituality #ifs #internalfamilysystems #orthodox #orthodoxy #orthodoxychristianity #woke 

How do you write an epic?

Moses and Nics(aka Rhys and Justin) analyze the writing style of Justin Cronin and reflect on how he brings the world and characters of The Passage to life. We look at world building, characters, plot, and word-smything. We discuss writing in multiple eras, writing with ensemble casts, and how to write info dumps and make them pretty.

In the content of the story, we utter many spoilers as we jump ahead 92 years to The Colony and a whole new group of characters! This is a lingering band of humans whose oldest members carry only the dimmest memory of a world that used to be, and that disappeared beneath the ravages of viral-induced chaos. Now, believing they are on their own, Peter, Theo, Sara, Alicia, Michael, Caleb, and others strive to find food, to find love, to spot the virals before they come, to keep their loved one’s safe, to come out on top in the village politics, and above all, to keep the lights running!

We reflect on major situations like the end of the world. How does one face the end of the world well? What kind of person do you hope to be?

We discuss what is important to be preserved, with many literary references. We also talk about what ends up preserving us, with reference to ritual and tradition.

We talk at length about what it means to have an impact, comparing figures such as Caesar Augustus, St. Anthony the Great, and an ancestor of Moses, Lolo June.

This leads us to discuss why we need history, both global and personal history. Our stories connect us to our ancestors. Nics says, “We need to borrow from those who have gone before us and paved the way for us to be where we are right now.”

This leads Moses to reflect on why we need shared belief, and shared ritual with which to participate in those beliefs with one’s culture and community.

We also talk about trauma, inter-generational trauma, and how it affects a society when they don't play.

For more discussion, that we hope will be profitable to you, please keep listening! And please share the podcast, rate and review it, and consider joining our patreon community!

To connect with Moses, find him at patreon.com/mosesbernabe or on insatgram at @mosesbernabe.

To connect with Justin, find him on instagram and facebook as Justin Nichols, and on his youtube channel, and at www.gracechapelonline.org/soul-care

#books #reading #novels #thepassage #justincronin #thriller #horror #vampire #adventure #fiction #adventure #ensemble #community #relationships #character #characterdriven #trauma #endoftheworld #death #family #apocalypse #postapocalyptic #impact #legacy #family #colony #remnant #aging #loss #history #ritual #story #sharedpractice #tradition

This is the episode where everyone is dead.

In the book The Passage, by Justin Cronin, it took thirty-two minutes for the world we know to end. The “Jumps,” or the Virals - the vampire characters, have broken containment, defied any attempt to contain them, and have spread their chaos across the continent. All the characters we have known and loved or hated so far have been slain, except for Brad and Amy. Now we pause with them for a year while they take refuge in the woods. Yet even their idyllic interval must come to an explosive end.

Moses and Nics reflect on life, death, family, and the end of the world. We reflect on the type of heroism where an adventure falls upon a reluctant person and demands that he or she transcend their instinctive natures to become noble. The story presents in vivid detail the conundrum of, when all the world is dying horribly, how do you rise above the downward spiral, to still be a good human?

Moses calls upon his counselor life to talk about attachment science, as depicted in the story. Amy has a very long and turbulent life, but still has this one year where she is consistently loved and found worthy. Coming up, we’ll get to see how this sets her apart from all the other virals, just as in the real world, secure relationships tend to set us apart from a very real chaos around us. “The most important learning we do is about how to relate to people, and thus how to relate to ourselves.”

Nics and Moses reflect on family, and how, no matter how challenging it is to raise a family, we find the rewards to be entirely worth the struggle. We talk about parenting struggles, and how they interact with looking ahead to our deaths. There is a beneficial shaping aspect to considering your death and preparing for it, even from a young age.

Here we meet Ida, who, a century later, will be known as “Auntie.” Her traumatic origins beg the question, what is the most extreme thing you would do to save your child?

Some of our favorite quotable moments:

“The ash was full of people, he knew. A raining ash of souls.”

“To di. This is why we live, to die.”

“A new feeling moved through him then, cold and final, like a draft from an open door onto the deepest hour of winter, only the stilled space between stars. When daybreak found him, he would be no more.”

In any case, as the story progresses, it deepens. There are layers of metaphor and insight to be found by those inclined to search them out. For more discussion, that we hope will be profitable to you, please keep listening! And please share the podcast, rate and review it, and consider joining our patreon community!

To connect with Moses, find him at patreon.com/mosesbernabe or on instgram at @mosesbernabe.

To connect with Justin, find him on instagram and facebook as Justin Nichols, and on his youtube channel, and at www.gracechapelonline.org/soul-care

#books #reading #novels #thepassage #justincronin #thriller #scary #horror #vampire #adventure #fiction #adventure #ensemble #community #relationships #character #characterdriven #trauma #endoftheworld #death #family #apocalypse #postapocalyptic

“Growing up, what was your favorite bookstore?”

For Nics, as a kid, it was the school library, and public library. For Moses, as a kid, it was Bookman’s, in Flagstaff, AZ. As an older kid, it was Barnes and Noble in Medford, OR. As adults, both Moses and Nics have a fond respect for Powell’s in downtown Portland.

Welcome to a new series with the Word and Journey! We are reading “The Passage,” by Justin Cronin. It’s our first ever sorta-scary story, packed with action, intrigue, mystery, murder, mutated humans, monsters, muddled morality, and mere mortals becoming heroes. It’s a story about sad and lonely people getting caught up in a dark adventure, all centering on a special experimentation program in Colorado…like the Stargate…and the centuries long aftermath of events that happen there.

In the first section we meet a young girl Amy who, on the surface, seems like one of those humans that slips between the cracks of society…but we’re promised that she becomes very special someday. We also meet special agent Wolgast who throws himself into his work to escape his grief. We meet a man on death row, a nun having visions, a janitor having nightmares, a security officer who kills a little too easily, a cowboy side-kick, and a vampire. As their stories develop and the characters come together, we get the sense we might be looking at the fast approaching end of the world.

Also, Amy can talk to polar bears.

Along the way, Moses and Nics get nostalgic about old cds and old bookstores.

We talk about what draws us to dark stories?

We wonder…can one have a good story about bad people?

We tackle the question of, What makes a story good? What makes a person good? These two questions seem like they would interact together.

Also, What happens to people when they are hyper-isolated with no particular purpose to their lives?

And because we both love LOST, we discuss how this story is similar/dissimilar to LOST (because, for the initiated….aren’t all things in reference to the Island?)

What draws us to the stories we love? Is it the things that makes us happy and feel good? Or is it the struggle? The Passage is an ensemble story, made up of “Very sad people,” each with a complicated and broken background. Nics finds this endearing and compelling.

The Passage has a fun plot, but Moses is most drawn to the characters. He reflects on how what draws him to(or pushes him away from) a story are the characters, their depth and complexity, the dynamism of their growth arc, and how he connects with their emotional state.

As we read about the humans and humanish creatures, we reflect on how isolation is exacerbated by our digital lives. Making friends as an adult is hard…and that’s even for us who have resources!

This podcast and all our wonderful conversations are made possible through your financial support, and through your rating, reviewing, and sharing of the show. Please do help us continue in this work!

To connect with Moses, find him at patreon.com/mosesbernabe or on instgram at @mosesbernabe.

To connect with Justin, find him on instagram and facebook as Justin Nichols, and on his youtube channel, and at www.gracechapelonline.org/soul-care

#books #reading #novels #thepassage #justincronin #thriller #scary #horror #vampire #adventure #fiction #adventure #ensemble #community #relationships #character #characterdriven #trauma

Happy Holidays!

My holiday of choice is the Nativity of our Lord, otherwise known as Christmas. This year, I commemorated the season by reflecting on some favorite stories associated with Christmas, Nativity, winter, etc. For the full line-up, check out the last episode, "Holiday Stories we Loved and Lived."

Of particular interest, is Charles Dickens' classic novel, "A Christmas Carol," in which the old miser Ebenzer Scrooge is visited by three spirits, and challenged to reflect on the way he keeps(or doesn't keep) Christmas, and how that impacts all of his relationships, and his very soul.

In this episode, I briefly reflect on Scrooge's visit to Christmas past, and his trauma narrative. I talk about how everyone, even the most miserable people, have a context that has shaped them.

I also reflect at length on the difference between a miser and a monastic. Prior to his adventures, there are aspects of Scrooge's life that almost seem to resemble the life of a monastic...but not quite. Is there a healthy way to live simply and forego pleasures? Turns out there is, and is closely tied to generosity, compassion, and community. By the end of Scrooge's story, he's not a monk, but he has gained some essential components of a profitable life, namely his relationships.

This leads into a brief discussion about why we need both Fasting and Feasting in order to have a balanced life.

To support this kind of discussion, and to be part of my community of readers and writers, please visit patreon.com/mosesbernabe and learn how to support this podcast.

You can also follow me on instagram at @mosesbernabe.

Thanks for listening!

#wordandjourney #books #novels #reading #charlesdickens #christmascarol #scrooge #ebenezerscrooge #christmas #nativity #holiday #monasticism #fasting #feasting

For this episode, I gathered together friends and family to reflect on stories we have loved, that have become part of our holiday traditions, that have created experiences for us, which in turn created more tradition. Our accounts range from the very silly, to the very personal, to the deeply thoughtful.

We need tradition to know who we are and how to be. Holidays, particularly the Nativity, provide a wealth of tradition and shared lived experience. In holding to traditions, holding to each other, and keeping in mind the Author of all Tradition, we can face the cold of winter, the drear of life, and whatever dark nights of the soul await us.

Jake shares, "The Toy that Saved Christmas," from Veggie Tales

Joel shares "Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer," with a mention of "Peanuts."

Moses shares, "White Christmas," and "Gift of the Magi," and the account of St. Nicholas and the Gold Coins.

Justin shares, "The Family Stone," and "Klaus."

Stephanie shares "Jotham’s Journey."

Matt shares "Father Christmas," from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. He says, "All true myth that connects with deeper human meaning is a shadow of the Christian narrative." Also, "There's hope...but it's more winter. But there's gifts along the way to help you battle the evil, and at some point I'm looking for Aslan's return."

Jeremy shares "Lord of the Rings: Return of the King," as a story closely related to the holidays in his life.

Jeremy also shares about his dinners for his friends, his chosen family. We riff on the role of holidays and traditions in deepening long relationships. He says, "Holiday's give the excuse to want to connect with people."

Matt shares again about how hard his parents worked to create memories and special experiences for him and his siblings.

Moses and Rousseaux reflect on the generosity of older church members, and particularly the rigorous love and generosity of mothers.

Rousseaux shares the "The Good News of Christmas," which is the poetic retelling of the Gospel accounts of the Nativity of Christ, which he wrote this year.

To buy Rousseaux's book, find it here... https://www.amazon.com/Good-News-Christmas-Celebrating-Christs/dp/073698609X/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1NZBKN1DTLDXV&keywords=good+news+of+christmas&qid=1670533148&sprefix=good+news+of+christm%2Caps%2C413&sr=8-1

To learn more about the podcast, to join our community, and to support this work, please visit patreon.com/mosesbernabe, or follow on instagram @mosesbernabe.

“There’s these stories, they live in us, they gotta come out!”

More on how to write a book, AND how to market a book, even while also reading good books.

You’d think writing a book is about inspiration, or even skill…but functionally, it ends up being more about discipline and persistence.

We talk about our concerns about representing our characters well and doing them justice…as peripheral to how the characters represent ourselves.

“You’ll be judged by your first book until you have a more famous book that’s different.” Writer hazards.

You, the listener, get to binge listen to our commentary on Boy’s Life, but in real time, it took us almost a year to work through the story together. In this, we reflect on the experience of taking in stories in binge quantities, versus slowly over time. As a story, it’s more like a mosaic. There is a plot, but the story is moreso driven by the characters, their perspectives, and their inner lives, moment to moment.

Eric says, “It doesn’t feel like he’s trying to tie off all the loose ends; he’s just finishing the story of this season of the boy’s life. These are the things that happened during this season, but it’s more about the boy than it is the actual stuff going on.”

“Less about Cory’s accomplishments, or even his skills, and more about his character and essence,” says Moses.

Cory wins by being the most gentle, and loving, and that’s his superpower.

Moses recalls stumbling across a Robert McCammon quote in real life, during an IFS training.

“We all start out knowing magic. We are born with whirlwinds, forest fires, and comets inside us. We are born able to sing to birds and read the clouds and see our destiny in grains of sand. But then we get the magic educated right out of our souls. We get it preached out, spanked out, washed out, and combed out. We get put on the straight and narrow and told to be responsible. Told to act out age. Told to grow up. And you know why we were told that? Because the people doing the telling were afraid of our wildness and youth, and because the magic we knew made them ashamed and sad of what they’d allowed to wither in themselves.”

Robert McCammon.

“We’re getting inducted into this young boy’s [inner] life, and getting to be free with him,” Moses, on Cory’s life. “Let’s just have some meandering fun, and enjoy it for 500 pages.”

Meanwhile, there’s a parrot cursing in German, a vindictive, jealous piano teacher, the death of Davy Ray, really interesting conversations about faith, doubt, grief, pain, trauma. There’s bullying and fighting, late night train rides through nightmare montages, dream sharing between Cory’s dad and The Lady, and the final showdown between Cory and his dad, and the killer, on the shores of Saxon Lake where everything started.

It’s a very satisfying ending, with a wonderful journey to get there.

At the end of it all, there’s a vitality to our young inner children that typically gets lost as we get older. The wise among us retain access to these young kids, without also being ruled by them.

There is a healing power in connecting to a young child’s energy, being released from obligations to produce or perform, and simply be allowed to be”

Word and Journey relies on the support and participation of followers, patrons, friends, listeners, and readers. If you like what happens here, please subscribe at www.mosesbernabe.com, or offer support at www.patreon.com/mosesbernabe. You can also follow me on instagram at @mosesbernabe, and you can look up the Word and Journey on Youtube.

Eric Love can be found at https://www.ericshanelove.com/ and that is where you can subscribe to his most engaging newsletter as well as purchase his books!

Crucial to every work of fiction is a good editor.

Moses and Eric are back, and talking about writing! We discuss why we have editors, how to make good use of an editor, and what are some features of a good editor. As writers, we get deep in our heads and profoundly affected by our work, and we need the occasional grammatical gut punch to set us on a right course. Eric shares tips on how to best use the feedback from Alpha and Beta Readers, as well as developmental and line editors. 

Then we get into “Boy’s Life,” Robert McCammon’s masterpiece. We reflect on the experience of reading a long story structured as a series of short stories, some of them in very different genres from each other. There’s comedy, thriller, western-style-shooter-show-down, gut-punching trauma narrative, supernatural mysticism, action and car-chase, and mystery.  There’s a wandering, episodic feel to this book, and at times it feels like a bunch of disconnected story threads all living together in the same universe for a reason that is not clear. But it works, because the author very deftly connects us to the characters and builds trust with the reader very early on in the story. We know the feel to expect from the story, even if we don’t always know what genre this particular is emulating. In this, we learn that, in order to build trust with a reader, the writer must know what she is doing!

“And then they go to a carnival where they somehow have a triceratops, and it’s being abused but then later escapes, and so now, potentiallyOld Moses(the river monster), and the triceratops, might hook up, at some point,” narrates Moses.

It’s just that kind of story.

Along the way, Cory learns about friendship, death and loss, grief, trauma, danger, running for his life, racism, the supernatural, and learning he can’t always trust what he sees, but inside there is still an ever greater well of confidence.

Word and Journey relies on the support and participation of followers, patrons, friends, listeners, and readers. If you like what happens here, please subscribe at www.mosesbernabe.com, or offer support at www.patreon.com/mosesbernabe. You can also follow me on instagram at @mosesbernabe, and you can look up the Word and Journey on Youtube.

Eric Love can be found at https://www.ericshanelove.com/ and that is where you can subscribe to his most engaging newsletter as well as purchase his books!

#book #bookclub #novel #story #shortstory #poetry #authorialintent #boyslife #robermccammon #boys #nostalgia #fantasy #smalltown #adventure #mosesbernabe #wordandjourney #writer #editor #trauma #mystery #friendship #relationship

Eric published a book!

He shares bits of his journey of self-publishing and marketing, which, he says, was harder than actually writing the book.

Word to the wise - getting a book published on Amazon is easy. Getting a book on Amazon correctly and effectively, is hard and complicated and a multi-layered process. Eric states that there does not yet exist a concise instruction manual for how to accomplish this feat…so he’s writing one. Stay tuned!

“The one thing I’ve learned is you really need to know what you’re doing before you self-publish,” says Eric.

Other word to the wise - once the book is up, it cannot be taken down. So be sure everything is spelled correctly. Because they’re like tattoos.

Scarecrow Hunters, and A Greedy Shadow, are two dark fantasy novels by Eric Shane Love, and they are available for purchase and reading now!

We briefly muse on the value of horror, dark fantasy, and reading stories marked by fear. These stories can be gruesome, but they tend to involve a high degree of facing and overcoming fears, and in this finding redemption.

Comparing and contrasting Eric’s book “Scarecrow Hunters,” to McCammon’s book “Boy’s Life,” gets us into talking about growing up as a boy, what it means to become a man, and then we talk about initiation…which leads us to talking about the first Tom Holland Spiderman film and writings on initiation by Richard Rohr.

As we talk about Boy’s Life, we encounter a chapter where the boys fly on bikes…and it’s not clear if that’s metaphorical or not. We muse on the episodic, short-story nature of how Boy’s Life is structured, and how that reminds us of poetry.

We talk about how the “Story product is a particular sort of feeling,” that is aptly captured by the fantastical elements of the story, such as river monsters and flying bicycles.

The story of Lucifer the Monkey, the reverend, and the Beach Boys gives us opportunity to reflect on a rigid religious tradition versus a lively spirituality.

The stories of Nemo Curliss remind us of outsiders being brought into the group

Cory’s observations of his father and The Lady, and the local bullies, teach him what it means to have enemies.

Cory faces outer adversaries, such as bullies picking on the new kid, as well as inner adversaries, like his own shyness when it comes time for him to read a short story he wrote in public. As he stands up to bullies, to insecurities, and sometimes to his very own family members, he discovers his full strength.

Mean while, Cory’s dad is quietly experiencing post-traumatic stress in teh back ground. It’s a gentle sort of trauma, and Cory must grapple with the loss, not of his father bodily, but of his father the confident hero.

McCammon’s writing defies linear logic, and fuels our imagination. We have to read it in the right frame of mind. Moses and Eric both love to be given hints of a story, and made to fill in the gaps with their own intuition. Moses says, “I love to be ushered into a story…to experience the full impact of the world the writer has created, in the way it was meant to be experienced.”

“As a writer you have to decide - are you going to write for mass appeal, or are you going to write for a very niche kind of readership? I made the decision to write for myself. If I can write something and it passes my scrutiny, there is at least one kind of reader that will enjoy that book.” - Eric

As writers we aspire to do a little more than entertain; we try to make the reader feel, and think.

#book #bookclub #novel #story #boyslife #robermccammon #boys #nostalgia #fantasy #smalltown #adventure #mosesbernabe #wordandjourney #writer #scarecrowhunters  #trauma #comingofage #initiation #poetry #darkfantasy #fantastical