There is only one true religion

It is practiced by a small tribe in the darkest jungles, untouched by the outside world. They have lived in isolation since the beginning of time. It is only their devotion, sacrifice, and continued prayers that keep the god Ichypoo from destroying the world. Be thankful!

In the small town of Lima, Montana, population 250, there is apparently a need for eight Tesla charging stations!

I write fiction.

I am not anti-religious, as I’ve said before, but it seems the pre-release serialization of City Limits has inspired some comments that pit various religions against each other.

H: “Rats, I'm a big fan, but I detest anti-religious screeds, and mind control stories.”

X: “There is a difference between Christians and "christians" the second group being the ones who use the book to justify their crappy mind set bigotry and lip service.”

C1: “The author needs to create conflict in his story in order to make it interesting for his readers. The evil church is a great way to achieve this. The only suggestion that I would make would be for the story to have 2 churches with the other run by real Christians and serving to counter balance the other evil church.”

C2: “Islam is supposedly one of the great religions. However, it is at the core evil. Muhammad created it as an evil dedicated to world conquest and the imposition of a Sharia based tyranny to rule.”

X: “STOP SMOKING INFO WARS BRAND CRACK”

T: “So Christians haven't burned people at the stake, tortured and killed people, enslaved entire countries? C2, you're an idiot.”

They all miss the point dramatically. Not even sure where the comment about Islam came from! I don’t write about religions. I write about people. There are good people and there are bad people. There are good people who believe in a Christian god, a Jewish god, a Muslim god, a Shinto god, a Buddhist god… There are bad people who believe in a Christian god, a Jewish god, a Muslim god, a Shinto god, a Buddhist god…

And in my opinion, the one thing that is missed most often in our black and white world is that good people do bad things and bad people do good things. If nothing else, it makes for good plot twists. It would be so much easier if we could point and say that person is good and never does anything bad. Or vice versa. But even Hitler had a great love for Eva Braun. It didn’t make him a good person.

The Continental Divide is nothing compared to the Religious Divide.

Religion is probably like that, too. I can think of no religion that is entirely good or evil. What a person believes does not tell me what is true. It only tells me what kind of person he or she is. If you believe in a vengeful god, it shows me you are a vengeful person. If you believe in an anti-gay god, it tells me you are an anti-gay person. If you believe in a white nationalist god, it tells me you are a white nationalist. If you believe in a loving, forgiving god, it tells me you are a loving, forgiving person. Or at least that you want to be. Remember, no one is all one thing or another.

None of these reveals truth.

I’m reminded of a meme I saw on Facebook recently. It said, “Does drugs. Smokes. Has unprotected sex. Won’t drink diet sodas because artificial sweetener will kill you.”

We all have our artificial sweetener.

* * *

So, I am just a few days from my summer home in Northern Idaho at Sun Meadow. (http://www.sunmeadow.org) I’m pretty exhausted. Battling the cold and wind for the past two months really took it out of me for some reason. Park City, Utah certainly showed both sides of beauty in the same day on Monday.

Same day. Snowing like crazy in the morning and 60 and sunny in the afternoon.

I moved on from Park City to Crystal Hot Springs RV Park in Honeyville, UT. It was a drive of only 98 miles according to the GPS, but I managed to extend it to about 170. Part of that was because on two previous trips through Utah, I’ve been within thirty miles of Promontory, where the Golden Spike was driven to unite the Transcontinental Railway, and never managed to stop. So, this time I drove the thirty miles off the interstate to see it.

Central Pacific "Jupiter" (left) and Union Pacific "No. 119" (right).

I’ve been interested in this site for some time. The Devon Layne series of Erotic Paranormal Romance Western Adventures is set primarily in Laramie, WY and the small town of Centennial, thirty miles west. The time travel portion of Blackfeather focuses on the era of the completion of the Transcontinental Railway in 1869. It was fun to see the site and tour the museum, even though the actual golden spike is on exhibit at Stanford University. Donated by some guy named Stanford, who was president of the railway, so it was his spike, I guess.

When I called to make a reservation at Crystal Hot Springs, there seemed to be some concern about what site they could assign me and how long I could stay. I had a bit of difficulty finding the place because just at the time my GPS said to follow I-15 north, its battery died and I was without guidance. That took me an additional half hour of wandering around before I finally saw the place.

Crystal Hot Springs. 70 sites, no waiting.

There was no one there.

I tried the trailer of the camp host, but no answer. I found my site (#30) and hooked up. Didn’t see a soul through my stay when I left the next morning.

I was pretty wowed by the beauty of Northern Utah as I headed up I-15. Lush, green, and inviting. I suppose that to get that, you have to put up with five months of winter and five months of draught, but I got here just at the right time. On Friday, I moved from Idaho Falls to Basin, Montana, between Butte and Helena. I crossed the continental divide three times and ended up on the east side. The first two times were nice gentle slopes and the truck and trailer hardly ever went below fifth gear and fifty miles per hour. That third crossing north of Butte, however, was a long slow drive in second gear at 35 mph. That means that I have one more crossing to go when I leave on Monday.

But what a beautiful place I have for the weekend!

View from the picture window in my trailer.

My site is quite large at the Merry Widow Mine RV Park. As I look out my window, I see the Boulder River rushing past. It is conducive to writing as I can type while my eyes are fixed on the rapids fifty feet away.

Boulder River, Basin, Montana.

The long drive of 240 miles gave me a lot of time to think about my characters. I’ve been very focused on getting City Limits out to reviewers and pre-readers. If you want to review an advance copy, let me know. I have it in Mobi, ePub, and PDF. Paperback review copies will be available in limited supply next week.

I am now looking for a place to hold a release party on Saturday, June 23 in the Seattle/Bellevue/Kirkland/Redmond area. If you would like to help arrange the official release, please let me know! Lots to be done. If you’d like to host the party, better yet!