2 Panhandle authors examine spirituality
By Mike Haynes
The Texas
Panhandle may not be known as a haven for authors, but we’ve had a few good
ones pop up the past 100 years or so, and two of them have notable books out now.
One’s a
novel and one’s a reference book, so they really have only one common element:
spirituality.
If you know
the soil and the grass of area farms and ranches; or if you appreciate
unrequited love and relationship dilemmas; or if you’re into World War II aircraft
and Nazi intrigue; or if you
Pakan grew
up on a ranch near Shamrock, so the introduction of his main character, David,
and David’s disapproving father, Jesse, is full of sweat and hot sun and horse-training
tools such as hackamores and halters. It feels accurate for the early 1940s, and
it’s expressed lyrically:
“A squeal
quivered on the heavy air. David sank his ax into the cedar, turned to see a
colt skitter along the road, black as tarnished silver, every line an echo of
perfection.” “David pulled a rope from the saddle and tied it to an oak that
held its weight like wisdom bending toward the water-smooth sand…”
The story
flows from the ranch to Army basic training to a B-17 bomber gunner’s perch to
the French resistance to cat-and-mouse schemes with a Nazi officer. Baby-boomer
Pakan didn’t experience the WWII details himself, but it’s obvious his research
was extensive. He learned from Commemorative Air Force experts how a gunner’s
knees press against Plexiglas, how a flight crew used the onboard intercom.
I wouldn’t
call “Jesse’s Seed” a Christian book, but a good story with Christian elements.
David struggles with a lack of confidence in himself and in God, and the author
maintains a restrained touch as he develops questions of faith. David
understands that his magnificent horse knows nothing of the divine, being satisfied
with nature and freedom. “But man was born hungry for something more,” David thinks,
“something that made him discontent with only what he saw and tasted and felt.”
The only
frustration with this thoughtful, suspenseful novel is that some plot lines
remain hanging at the end. That’s because Pakan plans to release a sequel soon.
Amarillo
native Jason Boyett’s latest book is “12 Major World Religions” (2016, Zephyros
Press), a straightforward reference work with basic facts and explanations of
faiths from Christianity to Zoroastrianism.
Boyett’s
background is Christian, but he’s trained in journalism, so he has done a good
job of researching and reporting in a neutral way on key aspects of all 12
religions in the book. For each religion, he includes a timeline and summarizes
major beliefs, major texts, ceremonial practices and key people in that faith’s
history. For example, the Judaism section briefly identifies 12 figures, from the
patriarch Abraham to Golda Meir, the Israeli prime minister who died in 1978.
The author
offers brief predictions for the future, and as a bonus, he throws in sections
on the ancient religions of Egypt, Greece, Rome and the Nordic region.
Boyett has
written more than a dozen books, and his style sometimes is a little irreverent
and definitely chuckle-inducing, such as in his other 2016 release, “Greek
Mythology: Timeless Tales from the Ancients.” This time, he sticks to the
facts, but the book has a more lively style than, say, the comparative religion
textbook I read in college in the 1970s.
And it has
pictures.
