cloistered away in Bozeman

A view of the Montana mountains - shot using my Blackberry.
Copyright (c) 2009 Wendee Holtcamp

Time is flying by, but fortunately I've made some good progress on my book! I've edited the first four chapters, and gotten a substantial amount of the next one written - Land of the Lost - which is about creationism. In it I talk about my visit to the Creation Evidence Museum which I visited in late October 2008 - See my old blog post from then, Land of the Lost.

I have literally been in my yummy black fleece North Face sweatpants and t-shirts, no makeup, for the past week. I write in different corners of the house... downstairs I have a gas fireplace that is toasty warm and a couch, a round table with comfy stools, an office with a desk, and then my bed (where I'm at now). I write upstairs on the couch watching the snow fall as I did today... it was really coming down today! We got like 8 inches of snow!! The other day it snowed, then that all melted and it was sunny but cool. Then it snowed again starting last night through today. It's so pretty! I haven't really been out in it though.

The other day, I walked to the Bozeman Community Food Co-op which is 4 blocks from Elissa's house - we sooo need one of these in my community! I seriously have thought about opening one... then again I have way too many ideas for my own good sometimes! Anyway, I worked a bit upstairs at their coffee shop which has wifi. The view of the mountains is awesome - see the picture below. I took Elissa to the doc, and saw another beautiful view, the pic above is from the doc's office window. All these are just from my Blackberry. I need to upload some of my pics from my better camera but haven't yet. Last night they had some friends over to watch the Steelers-Chargers football game and I helped Elissa make a Thai food feast!

Other than writing, the only plans we have so far are to go see The Cove - a documentary about the dolphin slaughter in Japan - on Thursday at the Bozeman Film Festival - which is really just alternative movies playing at a local theater... and then we're talking about taking a couple days the following week to go to Chico Hot Springs, Yellowstone, and staying in Cooke City near the northeast park entrance. It's apparently a great time of year to see wildlife because the snows will have started bringing them into the valleys, and they're trying to fatten up in prep for the long winter. I will also probably let Elissa take me up in her Cessna and fly me over Yellowstone some other day too. She's been a pilot for a while. Here are a couple more pics. Now I'm back to writing!

The view out the back porch today with all the snow that has come down! It will probably melt soon though.

A view of the mountains from the upstairs coffee shop at the Bozeman Community Food Co-op.

stages of faith

Lots of potato varieties at a market in a small town in Peru. Peru is basically the birthplace of the potato and is known for its abundant varieties of potatoes!

"Human nature is to go to the bathroom in your pants." - Scott Peck in Further Along The Road Less Traveled. The man's a genius, I swear to God.

This blog may be somewhat rambling. I have to keep it short as I am trying to get work done on my book chapter "What is Truth." Profound aye? It talks about spiritual truth versus scientific truths, and in some of my book-reading-research, I stumbled back upon that genius quote by Scott Peck today, which cracked me up. It was in the chapter that probably had the biggest influence on my conversion from atheism to Christianity, Spirituality and Human Nature, in which he talks about the stages of spiritual growth. I swear that every human being should read these pages of that book, p. 119-126. They changed my life. In my book, I talk both about my conversion from atheism to Christianity, how that book played a very important role, and I also talk about Peck's stages of spiritual growth. I could talk about them here, but it would take too much time, and I need to write them up in my book not on my blog! But in short...

Peck took the 6 stages Theology professor and Methodist minister James Fowler had outlined in the book Stages of Faith, and simplified into 4 stages. Fowler's book relied on the work of classic psychology experts Piaget, Erikson, and others. And in my estimation the stages perfectly explain the culture war between science and faith. I mean, it is earth-shatteringly to a T a perfect explanation of why science and religion have battled for so long! And that is part of my book. So you'll just have to read it :)

Rereading the stages, I had a HUGE eureka about my personal life, today, actually. This may not make sense to anyone but me, but if I don't write it down I'm afraid I may forget it, and by putting this here now I can come back to it. I realized that one can be at a later stage of spiritual growth in most areas of their life, but still have a toehold (or more) in an earlier stage. In other words a person may have most of their life together, but there may be one particular habit or hangup or area of life in which you still just do not have control over - and hence are regressed in an earlier stage. The chapter AFTER the chapter on spiritual growth actually is about addictions, which was kind of interesting because I think that all put it all together. Peck talks about regressing, but he does not talk about how one person can have a toehold in another stage (except in the case of borderline personality disorder). But I think that one can be basically in a later stage of spiritual development, but still need to be "told what to do" (which is a characteristic of stage 2) in order to have control over the chaos (stage 1) of a particular stronghold, while in all other areas of their life they can be independent thinkers. I don't know if that makes any sense whatsoever, but... anyway. It makes sense to me, and is enough to remind me of my thoughts when I come back to it!

Another thing I have been pondering is to create little tributes to my friends. I love my friends so much. I have had a rough few days, and I can not tell you how much it means to me to have the friends there to talk to and listen to me, and this is the best part: they don't just agree with me but they argue the other perspective. You know your friends are true when they support you and love you and listen, but they also gently encourage you to see the other side. I have thought about how to do tribute to my friends for years. Over the years, I've thought about creating photo collages, or something written. And I thought the other day that I may create some blog entries with some thoughts and pictures here and there, as a tribute to some of my closest friends.

I was going to do one tonight but don't have time but I do want to leave you with a link to one of the most beautiful songs I have ever heard, and it is played by my best friend Daline! I've actually posted some of the lyrics here before, back when she played it live for men as she sat here with her guitar in my living room. She blogged the full lyrics at her new blog Pixie Dust World Tour. The song is Loud and Clear, and you can listen to it by downloading the file here.

One last thing, I am quoted in this article, Don't Feed the Beast! Ending the cycle of consumerism, credit and crisis, so wanted to link to it! The author T.M. Elkins actually didn't interview me, but took quotes from one of my favorite articles I've written, My 30 Days on Consumer Celibacy (OnEarth Magazine, Summer 2007). I'm quoted toward the end of the first page of Elkin's article, and then at the beginning of the 2nd page also.

bobcats in suburbia

Me giving a talk on the Galapagos and evolution.

My latest article is out on bobcats! It's the cover story in this month's Texas Parks & Wildlife Magazine. Cat of All Trades: Bobcats are adapting to life in suburbia, where they mostly eat rats and squirrels - not cats and dogs.

I gave my talk to Sam's school on the Galapagos Islands this morning. I showed photos from all the islands I visited, and I talked briefly about Charles Darwin's observations of finches and giant tortoises, his theory of natural selection, the overwhelming evidence for evolution from fields such as geology, molecular biology and genetics, and how many Christian denominations have made peace with evolution (including the Episcopal, Presbyterian, ELCA Lutheran, Methodist and Catholic churches). It's challenging to give a talk to kids ranging from Pre-K to Middle School, but I managed!

working away

I've been working hard while the kids are gone at their grandparents, trying to finish revising my book proposal. Yes, the same darn book proposal I've been working on for over 2 years! The first version was more of a straight narrative nonfiction type book, which I called The Fish Wars: How Evolution and Christianity Can Make Peace. My agent sent it around to publishers but it didn't fly for various reasons - too many competitors that were about to come out, I didn't have enough of a platform (i.e. I'm not a pastor or an academic scientist). But after meeting with my literary agency (the Carol Mann Agency) when I went to New York City in April, I came up with a new idea that we're very excited about.

This version is much more of a memoir, my personal story about how I became a Christian who accepts evolution, and what that means. It's more like Elizabeth Gilbert's eat, pray, love (which I love, by the way) than like one of the stuffy books about theology and religion and evolution. I hope to reach a far broader audience, and I can use my strength which is my writing style. So wish me luck, send good wishes and prayers as I'm getting close to being done with this new revision and then my agent will hopefully soon send it to publishers again!

My latest article is out in TX Parks & Wildlife Magazine's Annual Water Issue. This year's theme: The State of Lakes. As you may or may not know, Texas has only one natural lake, Caddo Lake. I covered the newly emerging concept of offchannel reservoirs in Dams on the Side: Off-channel reservoirs can help meet water needs while causing less environmental impact than dams that halt a river’s flow.

These are the books I want to read, or more correctly listen to (I don't have time to read these days, I just listen to audio-CDs when I run or drive around). Has anyone read any of these? Comments? Poisonwood Bible has been around for a long time but the rest are relatively new.

Freakonomics by Steven Levitt
The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
The Assault on Reason by Al Gore
God After Darwin by John Haught
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver
I Feel Bad About My Neck by Nora Ephron

Did I tell you I got Sam a Robo Sapien? I think I blogged a couple Christmases ago about how Sam, Savannah and I just laughed so hard in Radio Shack while playing with a Robo Sapien and Robo Raptor. Well they were God-awful expensive ($200) and I said sorry, no way. But we had fun playing with it in the store. That year, Savannah was the only student in Holy Trinity middle school to get the Superior Achievement Award (which means she got a 95 overall average and never lower than a 90 in any class all year long) and I told Sam, who was about to enter middle school, that if he got that next year then I'd buy him a Robo Sapien! And what do you know, he did! In fact both my kids were the only 2 kids in middle school this year to earn than same award, and I'm very proud of them. Luckily the price has gone down some, and it's only $99.95. There's a V. 2 that has better gripping claws and more programming options. He's a pretty cool little dude. In fact that is what we named him, Dude.

Travels ahead - I'm going to the ASJA East Meets West conference at UC Berkeley Sep 29. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to meet editors from The New Yorker, New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly, Salon, Wired, and Smithsonian. Other than National Geographic, those are my dream markets!! With a book possibly coming out sometime soon, this is a great networking opp.

I may be going to Nepal in November for a story on red pandas, more details soon, and I also WILL be leading a group either to Panama, Belize or Bolivia in Dec 07 or sometime in 2008. It will be a 10-day/9 night trip with lots of wildlife, rainforest and reef/beach time. If you're interested let me know!