"As A Man Thinketh...In His Heart"

I hope you have a few minutes because this could very well be one of my longest posts. (Sorry James - I know you're busy.)

On Monday I received an email from my very favorite author, James Michael Pratt, asking me if I would endorse his new book - As A Man Thinketh...In His Heart. I've been a fan of James since reading "The Lighthouse Keeper", and writing to tell him how much I enjoyed the story. Surprisingly, James responded to my email and later sent me an autographed copy of "The Last Valentine" which I gave to my fiance who was then dying from cancer. Since then we've written occasionally; but I was both surprised and honored that James would ask me to endorse his new book.

I received the manuscript and printed it out to take home with me on Monday night. Despite having to work two jobs, I finished the book in 24 hours. Let me say up front that this book came into my life at just the right moment, and I suspect that it will do the same for you wherever you are. The timing is just one of the serendipities I've experienced over the past several months. For a long time I've been in a rut, but now I'm at least walking on the slope so that I can see a better, brighter future ahead.

Anyway, normally I work as an usher cleaning theaters at night (http://www.dirtymoviecritic.blogspot.com/), but Monday night I worked in the box office. Traffic was predictably slow on a week night so I went to the car for the manuscript and began reading between customers. I read a little after getting home but fell asleep because I'm too old to be working two jobs. I read some more on my lunch break yesterday and then committed to finish the book last night.

Arriving home I went straight to my bedroom, kicked off my shoes, and sat in the chair next to the bed. I pulled the throw my darling Pam had made for me over my lap, propped my feet on the bed and made myself comfortable. In his book James talks about returning to a simple, less stressful lifestyle. This is the mood I wanted to be in to finish the manuscript. By now I was captivated by the story and how James so skillfully combined fact and fantasy so that the reader doesn't know what is real and what is imagined. His story-telling ability draws the reader into the story and one can smell the salty ocean air and taste the ham sandwich.

I finished the book after midnight, crawled into bed, and dreamed of living in a cottage and doing heroic things. I awoke early this morning, recalling the manscript and the purpose of the story. I won't divulge much of it here because you need to read it for yourself. I'll just say that wrapped into the story within the story is a truth about the triune nature of man who was created by a Triune God. It was the underlying truth in the story that I thought about on the way to work this morning and which prompted me to record my thoughts here before they're lost in the busyness of my work day.

This is my take on James' new book, "As A Man Thinketh...In His Heart": We function in life on three levels. The first is physical - our bodies. Our bodies make demands on us - safety, provisions, pleasure. These primal 'needs' control much of what we do with our bodies. We eat to live, we live in houses to protect us from the environment, we procreate as often as possible. These needs are so great that we create lifestyles to fulfill them: bigger homes, we eat far more than we need to, we find new ways to enjoy sex; we work jobs we don't enjoy to provide for a lifestyle that doesn't satisfy. This is where our second nature comes in.

Our mind is the next highest level. With our minds we create things that will meet our physical needs. We diversify: we go to college to get an education to get a better paying job to provide us more shelter, more sustinance, more pleasure. But more than that, our minds seek to know something more than our own selves. We want to know how we got here, why we're here, where we're going and what, if anything lies on the other side of life. Sometimes our minds can overcome the primal needs of our bodies - but not often. We're so busy today that our most precious possession isn't physical possessions or even relationships - it's time. The more technology does to create more time for us, the more we feel we have to pack something into that time. But eventually our need for rest overcomes our desire to learn or work or even enjoy sex.

It's like the law of gravity can be temporarily overcome by the law of aerodynamics. Gravity still exists no matter how high we fly. Once the law of aerodynamics fails, gravity takes over. Our bodies will shut themselves down in spite of our attempts to pack as much life into the time we have. I know from personal experience that working 16 hour days leaves one exhausted and less efficient at either job.

When we are able to use our mind to overcome our bodies - we consider those moments heroic. We admire Olympic athletes who finish a race a half second before the competition, or soldiers who fight on afer being wounded, Holocaust victims who survived Nazi death-camps or pilots like John McCain who was shot down over VietNam and survived years in a POW camp; or fire-fighters who risk being burned alive to save a life - even the life of a pet. We make heroes of people who put their bodies in harm's way for a cause: Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr, Ghandi, Mother Teresa. But most of us are dominated by our physical nature and seldom rise to the heroic level.

Then there is the third level - the one that James wants us to understand in his book - the heart level. Certainly we think of someone who wins a race or a boxing match as having "heart", but in fact those things were really determination - or mental decisions to overcome their physical bodies. The heart, on the other hand, can be likened to our soul. Where our physical selves are the body, and our intellect is our minds, so the heart is our soul: Body, mind (intellect), soul (spirit) - just the way that God created us.

In James' book, he wants us to make decisions for our lives not only with our reason, but with our instincts. We must learn to trust our hearts if we're going to live a purposeful life; and by combining our heart instincts with our rational minds we can script the path our life should take to realize that purpose. If we say we want to be a writer, for instance, but we spend most of our time being president of the PTA, chances are we're going to be good at leading the PTA, but be a lousy writer.

As James explains, we're where we're at in life because we followed either our minds or our hearts. But if we're going to live a life of significance and change this world into which we were born, we must learn to use the heart to rule our brain, which is the part of us most closely connected to our Creator.

That's as far as I feel comfortable going with James' material - if you want to really understand you're going to have to get his new book. I will only say that this manscript coming into my hands at this point in my life is not coincidental. For the past six months, God has been opening my eyes to His plan for my life. There have been too many experiences to chalk them up to coincidences. I've been blessed with a new love - something that has drawn me out of the pit I dug for myself. I've seen my daughter, her body eaten up with cancer, deliver a baby boy who survived almost nine months of toxic chemicals, cigarrettes, rap music, his mother's daily bouts of nausea and drug induced sleep. My finances have begun to turn to the positive after decades of life-draining debt. I've begun to dream of owning a bed and breakfast so that I can spend as much time as possible with my soon-to-be wife, and I've considered enrolling in a culinary course at the local community college so that I can handle the 'breakfast' part of the business. On top of that, my novel 'Sea Tree' won't let go of my mind. It's a story that needs to be told.

I've procrastinated for two years over this novel - which finds it's origins in a dream, much like James' "As A Man Thinketh...In His Heart" does. There have been three hang-ups I've struggled with: First, will writing this novel be more work than it will be fun? I'm already burned out on work. If Sea Tree isn't going to be fun for me to write, it won't be fun for you to read. Second - what if I find out I can't write and I've been deluding myself all this time with romantic notions that writing is my calling in life? And third - do I really have anything to say in this novel that will touch the readers? It's not so much about whether the book becomes a best seller, but gaining recognition as being a published author does lend a legitimacy to my life and a legacy to my heirs.

My prayers have been that I will lead a life of significance. Like many, success comes most often in our latter years. Maybe this is my time to shine. Maybe there is no coincidence that James Michael Pratt is my favorite author and it certainly is no coincidence that he entrusted his manuscript to me. Perhaps my endorsement of 'As A Man Thinketh' isn't as important as the message that God has for me, that indeed I have a divine plan and purpose for my life and this book is His way of helping me come to that realization.

I hope that you will all read "As A Man Thinketh...In His Heart", not because I want James to earn more money so he can write more great books; but because it can be the catalyst to change in your own life. I know that I am not alone among my friends who are looking for significance and purpose in life. Guided by my heart, in touch with my Creator, I believe that the best is yet to come.

You can find out more about James' new book and all of his other fine novels and non-fiction at this website: http://www.jmpratt.com/ or at http://www.powerthink.com/. Thank you, James, for sharing this life-changing work with me.