{"id":6255,"date":"2008-05-27T15:13:59","date_gmt":"2008-05-27T20:13:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.epictales.org\/treskillard\/2008\/05\/27\/tolkien_owes_me_350_for_my_air_condition\/"},"modified":"2017-03-08T20:05:13","modified_gmt":"2017-03-09T02:05:13","slug":"tolkien_owes_me_350_for_my_air_condition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.epictales.org\/treskillard\/2008\/05\/27\/tolkien_owes_me_350_for_my_air_condition\/","title":{"rendered":"Tolkien Owes Me $350 For My Air Conditioner"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"goleft\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com\/images\/I\/519SXD8BCGL.jpg?w=1200&#038;ssl=1\"\/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Yes, that&#8217;s right.<\/strong>  If only he had known the consequences of his writing, his hand might have shuddered and refused to pen the Lord Of The Rings.<\/p>\n<p><strong>I do say this tongue in cheek<\/strong>, but my wallet will in fact be flatter because of his writing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>A few days ago<\/strong>, I wrote these words:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>As writers, we need to be careful what we write. We have no control over who reads our words once it is out there.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>But at the very moment<\/strong> that my fingers left the keyboard, the Lord had a direct lesson for me as my youngest daughter came running in the house with bad news.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What was the bad news?<\/strong>  If you recall, in the same post I also wrote these words:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>[J]ust yesterday, I let my kids purchase a &#8220;Return of the King&#8221; video game.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>Well, lets just say that my son got a bit excited about Legolas and his bow<\/strong>, and &#8230; err &#8230; accidentally shot the A\/C compressor at the side of the house using his compound bow and a blunt metal tipped arrow.  All the freon came roaring out, and in three frantic trips to the compressor with various tools, I was unable to close the inlet valve.  So not only have I lost all freon, but I need to have it repaired.<\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"goright\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www-images.theonering.org\/torwp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/07\/legolas_l.jpg?w=1200\"\/><\/p>\n<p><strong>So, here are the chain of events:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Tolkien writes the Lord Of The Rings<\/li>\n<li>LOTR books become popular<\/li>\n<li>Technology catches up with his amazing vision<\/li>\n<li>A set of movies are made<\/li>\n<li>A 3D video game is made<\/li>\n<li>My son plays said video game<\/li>\n<li>My son shoots and kills the Air Conditioner<\/li>\n<li>$350 repair bill<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So you see, <strong>our words DO have consequences<\/strong> so be careful what you write!<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, I was hoping my <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.epictales.org\/treskillard\/2008\/05\/23\/a_confusing_stance_in_christian_fantasy\">previous post<\/a><\/strong> would be received in the spirit it was intended, and so far it has. <\/p>\n<p><strong>I really believe<\/strong> that Christian Fantasy is an appropriate vehicle for communicating eternal truths regarding the great story that God is telling about He and His own battling the evil schemes of Satan&mdash;with good triumphing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>But I myself have a checkered background<\/strong> and used to play Dungeons and Dragons for many years before becoming a Christian, and I had to leave fantasy behind for a long time until my faith became stronger and I was able to see that God&#8217;s redemption can extend even to fantasy literature.  (To the opening of my eyes, I owe a thanks to Stephen Lawhead!)<\/p>\n<p><strong>And even though I have grown<\/strong> and can deal in strength with fantasy from a Christian perspective, that does not mean everyone can.  And it does not mean that I do not have my own weaknesses where I dare not tread.<\/p>\n<p><strong>To those who write and\/or support Christian Fantasy<\/strong>&mdash;have compassion on our brothers and sisters who consider this sin.  Perhaps for them, it is.<\/p>\n<p><strong>To those who, in their faith, cannot endure Christian fantasy<\/strong>&mdash;please try and understand that timeless truths can be communicated through fiction as well as fantasy without either the author or the reader turning aside from a solid scriptural foundation.  And where we, as a body of writers, fail, please help us in a gentle manner.  <\/p>\n<p><strong>After all, we serve the same Lord<\/strong> and are each answerable to Him.<\/p>\n<p>Views: 68<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry-summary\">\nYes, that&#8217;s right. If only he had known the consequences of his writing, his hand might have shuddered and refused&hellip;\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.epictales.org\/treskillard\/2008\/05\/27\/tolkien_owes_me_350_for_my_air_condition\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &ldquo;Tolkien Owes Me $350 For My Air Conditioner&rdquo;<\/span>&hellip;<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6853,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[41,10,104,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog-reading","category-christianity","category-j-r-r-tolkein","category-on-writing-fiction","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.epictales.org\/treskillard\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/519SXD8BCGL.jpg?fit=353%2C500","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p67v0M-1CT","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.epictales.org\/treskillard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.epictales.org\/treskillard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.epictales.org\/treskillard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.epictales.org\/treskillard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.epictales.org\/treskillard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6255"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.epictales.org\/treskillard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6255\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6854,"href":"http:\/\/www.epictales.org\/treskillard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6255\/revisions\/6854"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.epictales.org\/treskillard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.epictales.org\/treskillard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.epictales.org\/treskillard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.epictales.org\/treskillard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}