Quills: Inspiring Codes

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This month: some of the codes, beliefs and philosophies that inspire our writing.

PATRICIA REDING

Author of Oathtaker

Patricia's Website

This is a loaded question—and not one fully answered in a few short paragraphs—but I can share some general thoughts . . .

At the outset, I would say that this topic makes me think of posing the following question to a judge: can you render a decision without letting your ideology play any part?

(Read More on Patricia's blog!)

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ROBIN LYTHGOE

Author of As the Crow Flies and two short stories

Robin's Website

In all honesty, I don’t think the limited space of this format is up to the task of dealing with the subject. The best we can do is skim the surface of the tender, personal area that is our beliefs, codes, or faith. Do I have faith?

(Read More on Robin's blog!)

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KRISTIE KIESSLING

Author of the short story Sanguis Dei 

and the poetry collection Light and Dark 

The Way of the Warrior

Japan, her people, and her language has fascinated me since grade school The beauty and mystery of such an ancient place takes me to a land I've never seen, but long to visit. From this far off isle comes a philosophy that strikes a chord in my soul and meshes with the beliefs that inspire and underscore every aspect of who I am as a writer. 

I believe we are all made in the image of God and the very notion of Bushido's essence, Life in Every Breath -- as spoken, I admit, by a character in a movie I adore -- expresses the fullness of heaven on earth in individuals. The "Way" is a term used to describe the path of the Warrior, but it is also how some early Christians talked about the path of following Christ. The dual reflection captures my soul. It gives rise to the imagination of lands where people value the stamp of the Creator's very image upon them. Such an understanding demands respect of one another in a way that merely being human does not. The breath of that Creative force animates us and connects us as nothing else can and to me, this notion of life in every breath then becomes the Breath of Life in every person.

We each have a destiny with which we will someday reckon -- that of death and of meeting God face to face. That meeting and how we are predestined to handle it is shaped in some small, mysterious part, I believe, by how we take that Breath within us and transform it. We can mutilate it, and breathe it out as poison upon our brothers and sisters, or we can submit to it and breathe it out from every pore as the perfume of the very Life it came from, that of the Creator.

I have a job given to me by divine mandate: to love those around me as God has loved me and given himself for me so that I may be one and whole with him. Not because the doing of this makes me good or righteous, but because he has given me righteousness by his sacrifice and thereby I reflect his goodness in my actions. In my expression of the gifts he has given me, my desire to write and weave worlds where love is the center of the tale is the ultimate desire to reflect that job of loving one another. There is no manner in which it is not reflected in me when I put words into a story.

May you know that Life in every Breath you take.