Its not all bad

It is another beautiful day! Leaves are popping, flowers are blooming and fat bumble bees keep flying into my living room window. I think everyone needs that cheerfulness as we enter yet another week of isolation. I might even need to mow the lawn today for the first time this season! Although grocery shopping is like being in a post-apocalyptic movie, flour and toilet paper are like gold, and I even miss interacting with people in person at work and going into the city, this moment in history is letting me write like I have not been able to do since I lived in China. It is a pure joy to be able to indulge my mind in things other than just higher education administration. For the last few years, work has actually been a bit of hell with transitions and struggles that I will not go into here, as this world is a work free zone! The times have pushed me into a routine that I think is ultimately healthy and great exercise for my brain. All this isolation and having to work from home is a rare opportunity, and I should use it for good! On the personal side, it has also been great to be able to spend more time with the wife. I value our nightly walks, something that was probably possible during normal times, but not plausible.

I can’t help but draw comparisons to other dark moments in history. This pandemic is undoubtedly nasty, but it could be worse, and we should try to remember that, focus on the good things, and give thanks! Recently, I’ve spent a fair share of my time looking back to the 13th century. The year 1241, to be exact. It is right in the meaty parts of the “Dark Ages” (5th to 15th centuries before the Renaissance). In recent years, there has been some movement away from that term, as the Middle Ages were not all dark times, but the area of the world and the time that my novel Slaying of the Bull (book 1 of the Tocharian Gospels Series, coming soon!) takes place, things were very dark indeed.

I’m trying to write an intellectually engrossing yet action-filled story, and sometimes, the actual human suffering that was going on around my characters drifts from the mind. I’m trying not to romanticize war, but sometimes that just happens. Last night I worked on a chapter where two of my main characters enter Krakow soon after the Mongolians sacked and burned the city, massacring all the inhabitants. There is a fine line between showing the reader the horror of what my characters saw and experienced without getting disgusting or getting too cozy with the human fascination with the macabre. I mean, you need some of that to provide interest, but I don’t want to glorify the horror either. As my story unfolds, the war decimates whole armies. We are talking about 20,000, 30,000, and even 50,000 souls lost in a single day. In the Kingdom of Hungary, as much as 500,000 civilians died in 1241, a full fourth of the population. The Mongols also destroyed 80% of their settlements, which led to famine. But all these terrible things are important to show, so the reader can see the strength of the evil that threatened the European world. And that is what it was, pure evil. Historians like to look for justifications for atrocity, and it is easy to gloss over the suffering as it was so long in the past and therefore easily forgotten. I don’t want to do that in this book. The Mongolians were savage in their destruction. Sure, rumors of this horror that spread before the armies may have caused some cities to surrender, thereby easing the flow of blood, but to instill that fear, the Mongolians and their allies did some truly horrible things. Things we can’t even imagine. If your curious for more detail, you’ll have to buy my book (it is coming soon!).

The plight of the Dark Ages puts our current difficulties in perspective. Sure, this pandemic can be terrible. It is certainly taking its toll on all of us, and for some, it is indeed a horror. But today the sun is shining, and the birds are chirping. With masks in hand, you can even enjoy some of that fresh air not tainted by the savagery of war.

Cheers!