Churchspeak Explained

It is often embarrassing to realize, when you respond to a statement you have heard or read, that the speaker or writer was using a special linguistic register and that you didn't really understand their intended meaning. This can be most uncomfortable when it comes to communication within the church, where we're all meant to be united by a bond of brotherly or sisterly love. So here, for your future convenience, is a translation of some expressions commonly used in a church-related context. In each example, the words you hear or read are followed by the literal meaning.

The pastor's doctrine is all right, it's his personality that's the problem.
Translation: We've had it up to here with faithful Law and Gospel preaching.

Our kids would come back to the church if it would only make its services more seeker-friendly.
Translation: The church doesn't feel comfortable enough to unbelievers.

You shouldn't be so afraid of a change of style if the substance stays the same.
Translation: Please ignore the fact that we are replacing one religion with another.

You should have followed proper procedures of 8th Commandment/Matthew 18 admonition.
Translation: How dare you take a faithful stand against apostasy!

Let's lodge a complaint about this guy without following 8th/18 procedures.
Translation: We have to deal with this faithful twerp. There's no time to lose.

We've got to change how we (teach/worship) or our numbers will never grow.
Translation: The Word of God is not effective enough without added help.

Pastor, we're all going to withhold our offerings from the general fund.
Translation: If we can't sack you in an ungodly way, we will afflict you and your family until you quit.

Of course So-and-So (seldom seen in worship) is eligible to chair the Finance Committee. He's a lifelong member and highly capable!
Translation: Mammon is our God. Get out of the way.

Of course So-and-So (who resigned in protest under the previous pastor) should be reinstated as head elder, now that he's transferred back into membership.
Translation: He helped us get rid of the previous guy, maybe he can do it again.

We chose this congregation over three churches closer to home because we love it. But this, this, and this need to change.
Translation: We have chosen this church as our mission field to convert you all to the one true faith.

We just want what's best for you, pastor.
Translation: We think you should try another line of work.

Pastor has been faithful in every way, but we think it's time for him to move on.
Translation: He didn't do what we wanted him to do, so he must go.

The problem with you, pastor is (insert personal opinion about his character or that of his family).
Translation: I'm about to say the kind of thing to you that, if you said it to me, would end with me breaking my fist against your teeth. Now shut up and take it.

The Cuckoo's Calling

The Cuckoo's Calling
by Robert Galbraith
Recommended Ages: 14+

Here is a most satisfying recent example of the classic type of private-eye novel. The detective is the whimsically named Cormoran Strike, an ex-military policeman whose career in the army ended when a roadside bomb took away half a leg. His name has nothing to do with his father, a philandering superstar rock musician with whom he has no relationship whatever, and a lot to do with his "supergroupie" mother, who was flaky and impractical and died with a heroin needle stuck in her arm. He is thirty-five years old, up to his ears in debt, picking up the pieces after the end of a stormy 15-year relationship with a beautiful woman called Charlotte, and struggling to keep his business afloat while sleeping on a camp-bed in his office. Yet, perhaps surprisingly, he is a very determined, methodical investigator. He has a special gift for drawing answers out of people who don't want to be questioned. And when he looks at the evidence of a celebrity death that the police declared to be suicide, he sees a different picture emerge.

It all started when Strike was a boy of nine or so. His best mate went away on a school holiday and never came back, dying in a tragic cycling accident. Now the older brother of this never-forgotten friend shows up in Strike's office, asking him to look into the death of his sister, supermodel Lula Landry. Lula's last days and hours were full of encounters with possible suspects, but at first it is hard to see how her death could have been anything but a suicide. When she plunged off the balcony of her third-floor flat, everyone who had a motive to kill her had a solid alibi, and no one who could have done it was found in the security guard's immediate search of the building. The only witness who claims to have heard Lula arguing with her killer, and to have seen her body fall, was high on cocaine and could not have seen or heard what she claims from the bathroom of her soundproof apartment. Nobody resembling the men seen fleeing the scene on CCTV has been identified.

At first, all Strike has to go on are the fact that her brother doesn't think Lula would have killed herself, and a few suspicious questions like: Who tipped the paparazzi off, luring them away from the scene of Lula's death at just the right time? Could someone have gotten into the building while the security guard was in the bathroom? Could the downstairs neighbor really have witnessed what she claims? And why did the victim change clothes before jumping? The more Strike finds out about Lula's movements toward the end of her life, the more questions arise. And though the police are sticking to their story that Lula's death could be nothing but suicide, Cormoran Strike becomes convinced that her death is the work of a psychopath who has killed before and will kill again.

Aiding him in this investigation is a secretary named Robin, who comes to Strike's office from a temping agency although he had meant to terminate their services. Impressed by her initiative, Strike keeps Robin on for the week. Then, cutting out the temping agency, she stays on for a few more weeks while interviewing for a better-paying career. They develop a surprising companionship, in part because of her tact and efficiency, and in part because she has always cherished a secret fantasy of being a detective. Robin takes on an increasingly active and even, in her fiance Matthew's opinion, foolhardy role in her boss's investigation. If Matthew's concern isn't at least partly motivated by jealousy, it probably should be. And so alongside the progress of Strike's case develops this charming partnership, which promises to grow even more intriguing in the future.

Strike is a convincing and well-drawn character, somewhat out of the traditional line of hard-boiled dicks. Like them, he comes to us at a precarious moment when every aspect of his life is grinding him down. But instead of sinking into a slough of despond, or a bottle of self-destruction, he fights back. Except for a couple of especially dark moments, he keeps fighting with a certain can-do, damn-the-torpedoes, better-to-live-one-day-as-a-lion blend of natural courage and indestructible good humor that does credit to British servicemen, past and present. His pain is complex and deeply felt, yet the causes of it include some of the reasons he is good at what he does. And in this book he is presented with a case that he seems uniquely formed to solve. It also presents the avid mystery reader with a marvelous exercise of her/his armchair sleuthing skills. We get all the information we need to solve the mystery at the same time as the detective who actually solves it. If by the end you haven't guessed who done it, and even spotted the key puzzle-pieces that prove it, it's your own fault. On the other hand, even having made this guess, the cleverness of the trap Strike sets for the killer is such that his reveal-all explanation may still bring surprises.

Ex-military policeman Robert Galbraith was on his way to having a distinguished career in mystery writing when, three months after the release of this debut novel, he was outed as a pseudonym of Harry Potter author J. K. Rowling. Undeterred, he continues to write Cormoran Strike novels, with a second title, The Silkworm, coming out in June 2014.

The Monster

The Monster
by Garth Nix & Sean Williams
Recommended Ages: 10+

The second book in the Troubletwisters series finds the small seaside town of Portland threatened by a fragment of The Evil that menaced it in Book 1. At least, so the Shield twins suspect. Jack and Jaide are still a bit jumpy after their narrow victory in their first adventure. The wards are all intact, protecting Portland, and the world, from the all-consuming hunger that lurks outside our universe. But Jack can never forget how it felt to have The Evil invading his mind, tempting him to join it. And neither Jack nor Jaide finds it easy to take Grandma X at her word, since she hardly ever gives their questions a straight answer. "Mind your own business" simply doesn't cut it with these curious kids, even though they know they have a lot to learn about controlling their gifts as future Wardens—and that it is these still unruly gifts that give them the name "troubletwisters."

Jack's gift has to do with shadows and darkness. He can see in the dark. He can cloak himself in darkness, becoming all but invisible. And he can travel instantly along the length of any shadow. Jaide's gift, meanwhile, focuses on breezes and draws power from the sun. So she can move things with miniature tornadoes, and can float on the breeze. Controlling these gifts, however, demands precise control that the twins still do not have. Until they do, they will keep getting into accidents and mixing up each other's powers. For example, at times they swap gifts. At other times, one twin or the other will possess both gifts. Since they don't know what will happen when they use their gifts, they can end up doing serious damage even with the best intentions—and their judgment isn't always the best, either.

Such are the handicaps of two growing young heroes as they try to investigate the remnant, or "excision," that The Evil left behind. Who could The Evil be controlling this time? Maybe it's the sleazy real estate developer, whose daughter is their best friend at school. Maybe it's the rival of their feline friend Kleo, whose challenge to her leadership portends a sort of gang rumble, only with fur and claws. Or perhaps it's the Monster of Portland, a creature that nobody has personally seen, though everybody knows somebody who has seen it. Could the Monster be the cause of the horrible groaning sounds in the night, the drag marks in the dirt, the giant snakeskin left on a construction site? Is one of these sinister creatures hoping to take down one of the wards again, so that The Evil can reunite its separated essence?

As in their first outing, Jack and Jaide make a lot of wrong guesses. They blunder into bad situations, making them worse through everything from bad timing to simple tactlessness. And, of course, they are eventually on the spot when the bad thing comes down, so that all depends on them putting it up again. It's a lot of responsibility for two kids. But they're learning a lot fast—and among the things they are learning is to know themselves better. Facing their doubts and fears, protecting their friends, giving their enemies a second chance, they continue to grow towards an awesome (and perhaps terrible) potential.

With some reluctance, I'm sticking a mild "occult content advisory" on this book, and the series as a whole. Parents who guide their children's reading selections according to strict criteria of what types of magic are and are not acceptable, may find the troubletwisters' gifts wobbling on the not-very-fine line between the two. The theory of Warden gifts, as Grandma X and her colleagues explain it, might have a touch of New Age mysticism about it. It's all in how you interpret it. On the other hand, the story portrays a very definite distinction between good and evil, and the ongoing secret battle between the two whose outcome is meant to have cosmic significance—all of which runs crosswise to some notions of New Age thought. Judging it gently, I prefer to think that its philosophy of magic is simply the storytelling engine that allows a kid-friendly, magical adventure to move along its own unique course.

Troubletwisters

Troubletwisters
by Garth Nix & Sean Williams
Recommended Ages: 10+

The cover art of this book gives a misleading impression of what kind of trouble the "troubletwisters" specialize in. The fact that the book actually does feature several tornadoes and a hurricane may add to that impression. So you may be surprised to learn that the term "troubletwisters" in this book does not have anything to do with cyclones, as such. Troubletwisters are kids who have started to manifest powers—powers which, if brought under control and properly harnessed, will enable them to serve as Wardens: specially gifted people who dedicate their lives to keeping the Evil (with a capital E) out of this world. More on that later. While they are still coming into their powers, troubletwisters have a tendency to cause unintended chaos, and to twist a little trouble into a big problem. Hence the name.

The two troubletwisters we meet in this book are twins: Jaide Shield and her four-minutes-younger brother Jack. They start twisting trouble when their father comes back a day late from a long business trip. As they are carrying his suitcase upstairs for him, a mysterious object falls out of it that, when touched, unleashes a terrible energy. In fact, it blows their house up. But not before the Evil finds them and tries to seize control of them.

Their father saves them just in time, and packs them off to stay with his mother—the mysterious Grandma X, whom the twins have never met. With Dad off on another business trip and Mom pulling a three-day shift as a paramedic, Jack and Jaide are suddenly at the mercy of a strange old woman they don't trust. A woman who talks to her cats and seems to hear them talking back. A woman who drugs them with hot chocolate, plays mind-fuddling games with them, refuses to answer all their questions, and tampers with their short-term memory. The kids are starting to think Grandma X is a witch, and are thinking about trying to escape from her clutches when the Evil finds them again, and wages a full-on attack.

The Evil, for your information, is a force from outside our world that wants to get in and take everything over. It starts by possessing small things, such as insects, then mice and rats, then dogs. Cats are immune, of course. As the Evil grows stronger, it merges ever larger swarms of its minions into a single, monstrous form—like a human figure made of rats, and things even nastier than that. Eventually it seeks to control a human puppet. And if it can get a troubletwister or two under its power, it can use their gifts to bring down the Wardens along with the wards that protect our world.

This is why, one stormy day when Grandma X has been hurt and can do nothing to help, everything depends on Jaide and Jack doing a lot of learning fast. They need to learn how to listen to the cats, for one thing. They must then persuade the cats to give them information that only full-fledged Wardens are supposed to know. Then perhaps they can learn to control their own powers enough to hold the Evil back until they can find and fix the Ward that has broken. Until they do all this, Grandma X's coastal town of Portland (not the one you're thinking of), and the twins' souls, and the whole world are at risk.

The danger that threatens the troubletwisters is not the stuff of cute, whimsical, kiddie literature. It's dark, dangerous, and downright disturbing, pardon the alliteration. Jack and Jaide have nightmares about it, and some young readers may as well. Each kid's unique gift, their distinct personalities, and their tendency to be strongest when working together, all hint at a great potential for unusual and exciting adventures in the future, full of creative solutions to far-out problems. The books of which this most often reminds me are the "Fablehaven" books by Brandon Mull. But the troubletwisters seem to be well on their way to staking out their own corner of YA fantasy-land, with three further books in their series to-date: The Monster, The Mystery, and coming at the end of April 2014, The Missing.

Garth Nix and Sean Williams are both prolific authors from Australia. Nix is well-known for his young adult fantasy titles in the "Old Kingdom," "Keys to the Kingdom," and "Seventh Tower" series, plus such standout titles as Shade's Children. Williams, who often collaborates with another fellow-Aussie named Shane Dix, has authored or co-authored numerous sci-fi novels, including the "Evergence" series and some "Star Wars" titles. Apparently this means that, whether you like your thrilling conflict between good and evil to be loaded with magic or to have something to do with a life-form from another universe, the "Troubletwisters" series will have something for you.

Darksolstice

Darksolstice
by Sam Llewellyn
Recommended Ages: 12+

The second book of Lyonesse concludes this most unusual variant of the Arthurian legend, based on the folklore of the author's native Isles of Scilly, off the southwest tip of Britain. It follows up on The Well Between the Worlds, which seemed such an engaging and original work of fantasy that I had read half of it before I realized that the resemblance between its characters' names and figures associated with King Arthur was more than a coincidence. Now on board with the secret, I read the second half of the saga and met even more familiar characters under a different guise. Amazingly, knowing what I already know from having read several tellings of the deeds of King Arthur and his knights, I didn't know enough to spoil the plot of this book. I guess you'd have to grow up in the Isles of Scilly to know what to expect. Maybe even then the creative touches added by the author of the Little Darlings series, and of many other novels for adults and children, would be enough to make the story seem new, richly inventive, and full of surprises.

As the story resumes, Idris (better known to us as Arthur) has been forced to flee the land of Lyonesse, where he is rightfully king, only to be attacked by corsairs and fished out of the sea by citizens of the neighboring land of Ar Mor. Idris begins this new chapter in despair. He has lost the sword Cutwater, which he had pulled out of a stone. He believes that his sister and best friend Morgan has been killed or taken into slavery. The future of his kingdom, ruled by an evil regent named Fisheagle and her horrible son Murther, lies heavy on his heart. And now one of his loyal followers, a survivor of the corsair attack, is found clinging to a piece of wreckage, and even with the healing magic of the scabbard Holdwater Idris is helpless to save the man's life.

But the rescued man's dying thoughts, and the amazing return of Cutwater, set Idris on a new path. His quest is to travel to Aegypt and rescue Morgan from slavery. If he brings her back safely, he can count on the kings of the neighboring countries to support him in his fight to take back the throne of Lyonesse. Setting off alone, Idris steadily attracts allies until he has half a dozen young knights following him. Through one dangerous adventure after another, he leads them to the very walls of Aegypt: a country where slavery is a grim fact of life, and where vast ancient beings dwelling in pits hold an even more terrible mastery over everyone.

Skipping over a lot of what happens, let's just say that Idris comes back to Lyonesse more ready than ever to fight Fisheagle and the otherworldly monsters with whom she is conspiring to poison the land. He grows a lot, learns to bear himself as a king, and shows a knack for commanding the loyalty of man, woman, and beast. But the way things are situated back at home, it seems increasingly likely that the fate of Lyonesse will be tragic in one way or another. The only choice seems to be whether its end will be evil or ennobling. And that decision is ultimately up to Idris, a boy on the cusp of manhood, who would have been a good king if only he might have had a country to rule.

So, one thing this branch of Arthurian legend has in common with the main channel is the bittersweet ending, tinged by an indefinite hope for some brighter future. That much you can expect just from the fact that it has characters in it named Tristan, Gawaine, Galahd, Bors, and Lanz. It gets so that there is no point in trying to avoid spoilers, because you're dealing with a story everybody has heard many times, told in many ways. The difference is what happens along the way to Idris' (Arthur's) bittersweet-hopeful destiny. It has to do with hideous alien monsters that hunger for blood, living in a universe full of darkness and poison. It involves a massive conflict between good and evil, defined as those who care about how their choices affect other people and those who do not. It includes narrow escapes, clever capers, a variety of vivid imagination-firing scenery, and a wise wizard who tells a young hero the hard and painful truth.

Many of Sam Llewellyn's other works involve ships, boats, and settings along the west coast of Great Britain. His titles for younger readers include The Magic Boathouse and The Polecat Cafe. His books for grownups include sailing thrillers and nautical fiction, such as Blood Orange and Hell Bay. He has also written some nonfiction works, including a set of biographical sketches called Small Parts in History, and a phrasebook to different regions of Britain, titled Yacky dar moy Bewty!. Since tales of sails are among my special interests, I expect to read more of Llewellyn's work in the future—though I have a misgiving that these Lyonesse books may be his most outstanding work.

Blood Oranges

Blood Oranges
by Kathleen Tierney
Recommended Ages: 16+

Siobhan Quinn is a runaway, a junkie, and a tough chick, living by her wits in the streets of Providence, R.I. Things start to get really dark for her when she sees her girlfriend being eaten by a ghoul. She kills it, of course. Under the patronage of a flamboyant character whom she calls "Mean Mr. B," she soon sets out on a career as a slayer of nasties. Then one inadvertent slaying lands her in the middle of... well, I don't want to spoil it. Before Quinn figures out what's going on, she gets turned into a werewolf and a vampire—doubly cursed, doubly damned, an abomination to abominations, etc., etc. Worse, someone (or something) is pulling her magical strings, controlling her transformations, and using her to track down and kill everyone who crossed him or her. Or it.

So, basically, it's a twist on a murder mystery in which the killer, or perhaps the weapon, is the one trying to solve the crimes. It's a riff on the horror and fantasy genres too, with a vampire who can go out in sunlight without incinerating or sparkling. Who also happens to be a werewolf who can turn hairy even when the moon isn't full. And all the other suspects are just as spooky and weird, if not more so.

Quinn narrates her own story in a style that I suppose may appeal to a certain set of readers, such as those who like their urban fantasy set to a heavy metal soundtrack (or whatever sub-style of metal may apply). It might not sit so comfortably with readers who are still comfortably locked in the groove of pop-culture fandoms such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer (which she puts down gently), Twilight (which she puts down hard), or Harry Potter (of which she opines that its action sequences flow like a pile of bricks).

I'm OK with authors using references within the genre to triangulate the coordinates of their unique fantasy world. What doesn't thrill me so much is a book that is so aggressively badly written that it keeps making excuses for its bad writing. Sometimes this may be excused, or even made into a virtue, by verisimilitude to a tale being told by a character who is emphatically not a writer. Sometimes this may even provoke interesting thoughts about the ambiguity of dealing with an unreliable narrator—for example, one who repeatedly admits to being a liar. But I would also caution that, in a world abundantly supplied with well-written books, writing badly on purpose may not serve the author's interests. And it may try a reader's patience to the point where he or she says, "Is this almost over yet?"

A super-strength "adult content advisory" applies to this book, which swarms with depictions of extreme violence, IV drug use, lesbian snogging, and strong language. It drops enough F-bombs to wipe out a small country, and other equally incendiary words ensure that if there is ever a movie based on this book, it will be rated R. As to occult content, I'm not sure there is any more harm in it than your common or garden tale of the undead, but Christian readers and their parents may find the author's anti-God attitude a bit abrasive.

It's not an altogether unenjoyable novel. I laughed at some bits that were meant to be laughed at. I felt sympathy toward some of the characters, at times. And I totally got the horror part. There were a couple of points in the audio-book version, narrated by Amber Benson, when I found myself saying, "No, no, no..." and would have put my fingers in my ears, if I hadn't needed to keep at least one hand on the steering wheel. In a starred review, I would give this book at least two stars, which admittedly is a pretty low score on the scale that I use; but I wouldn't review it at all if I could think of no reason to recommend it. I imagine it would go over well with people who follow the modern faerie tales of Holly Black and Melissa Marr, or who like their vampires tattooed, pierced, and generally messed up.

Kathleen Tierney is a pseudonym of Caitlín R. Kiernan, an Irish-born paleontologist and award-winning author living in Rhode Island, USA. Specializing in creepy, dark fantasy and science fiction, her work includes the novels Murder of Angels, The Drowning Girl: A Memoir, and the sequel to this book, Red Delicious; as well as such short-story collections as Wrong Things and A is for Alien. While I'm not particularly eager to continue reading this series, I have not ruled out reading one or two of the titles published under her own name.

Alien on a Rampage

Alien on a Rampage
by Clete Barrett Smith
Recommended Ages: 12+

In his second summer at the Intergalactic Bed & Breakfast, David (formerly "Scrub") Elliott expects to enjoy his time with Grandma, his sweetheart Amy, and a houseful of extraterrestrial tourists. But things get off to a disappointing start, and get worse from there. First, he suspects that the new alien handyman is up to no good. But far from being able to convince anyone to listen to his concerns, David soon learns that Grandma, Amy, and her security-chief Dad trust skull-faced Scratchull more than they trust him. The more he tries to prove his suspicions, the more Scratchull makes him look like a fool—or worse.

Then David realizes that nothing less than the survival of Earth is at stake, but for his efforts to save the planet he gets into even worse trouble. Just when he is about to be sent home in disgrace, he recognizes Scratchull's final, villainous plan to escape from his exile on Earth, a plan to turn the town's Pioneer Day celebration into a cosmic scene of terror.

Yes, David has a rough summer. His good-humored character is put to another severe test, as he faces discouragement, desperation, and the disappointment of the people he cares about. Plus, he has to deal with a missing Sasquatch, a forest meadow that suddenly turns into quicksand, a river that suddenly turns into a glacier, and a gooey alien who keeps losing bits of himself. Meanwhile, he is put in charge of a dog-like alien who needs constant exercise and who, if not fed hugely and often, may eat them out of house and home. Literally. And, after all, saving the world is a lot of responsibility for a thirteen-year-old boy.

I enjoyed the first book in the "Intergalactic Bed & Breakfast" series, but I think this second book is even better. It deftly combines the weirdness of visitors from other planets with comedy, wit, thrilling sci-fi danger, and a warm glow of puppy love (in more than one sense). The sinister genius of Scratchull's gadgets, the aftereffects of Grandma's scones, the furniture-chewing antics of the creature known as Snarffle, and the sarcastic retorts of the toothpick-chewing ex-sheriff Tate, fill what might otherwise be a predictable, formulaic story with creative touches. I am eager to beam up to Book 3, Aliens in Disguise.