Con or Bust or Else

Okay, time for a happy one.

So I went to ConQuest this past weekend, which proceeded to treat me and everyone else like nerdy superstars. (Seriously, it's a terrific con. If you want aggressively welcoming bookish SFF, go.)

Per my usual custom, I waited until the last minute to figure out bunking arrangements, and asked on the ConQuest FB page if anyone needed a roommate. Carol Cao answered the call. We got to talking, and I asked her what took her all the way up to Kansas City. She said, "well, I applied for funding through this organization that provides assistance for fans of color to attend conventions, and -"

"- oh, you mean Con or Bust, right?!" (Me, gleefully interrupting)

"Yes! You know about it?"

"DO I." (NB: I do. It's my main charity.)

And it was the most aptly-timed conversation ever, because that was the last day to enter something in the annual Con or Bust auction, and I was seriously considering bailing this year. Don't have time, ruinously tired, need to stop adding more stuff to my plate, etc.

But here was a CoB recipient, offering me hotel space after my own total lack of forethought or planning. And you can't let generosity end there.

So now I have a new friend (she's going to Italy in a week, y'all! Cheer her on!) And now YOU have 48 hours to bid on these wonderful things:

• an ARC of my third book, Dreams of the Eaten
• a "director's cut" author-annotated edition of my second book, Medicine for the Dead
• a "personal training session" for writers

All right here, right now.

And just in case you were wondering - yes, those are our excited faces.

Requiem for a Dane

Once upon a time, like five years ago, my mom lost 100 pounds. Not 10. 100.

Obviously, you have to celebrate big for a thing like that. So Allison and I agreed to meet up at Party City and go buy some of those special number balloons. I walked, since it was right behind my apartment, and she drove.

So we went in, got the balloons (huge shiny things!), and went back out to her car. Whereupon I discovered that she had filled up the ENTIRE back seat with Pete the Wonder-Dane. (Because Pete, I guess, but mostly because Al.)

That was when we discovered that Pete was deeply, deeply not okay with balloons. (We thought nothing could possibly be scarier than plastic bags and empty pizza boxes. We were wrong.)
So I held the balloons out the passenger side window while Allison drove at like ten miles an hour. Picture it, y'all: a tiny white Toyota clown-car making its own parade route down the street, sharing its bobbly silver "100" joy with the world while our harlequin Marmaduke farted anxiously in the back.

But despite our best efforts, the balloon strings broke and we lost them. So we went back to the store to buy new ones.

And I guess when you're a professional party-balloonist and the same two customers come back in the space of twenty minutes to order the same three balloons, you wonder about it. And when you ask, and we tell you the story, and you immediately have to rush out to meet the dog in question... well, when the dog in question is Pete, apparently there's nothing else you can do but give us a new set of balloons, free-gratis. It's probably just as well he didn't know that his own adorable melty Dali face prompted that second round of helium anxieties.

And that was Pete the nebbish adventure-dog. He walked parades and went shoe-shopping with Dad. He hiked and man-bonded with Alex. He moved up to Oklahoma with Al, and commuted back home with her every weekend like gassy clockwork. When she rescued Ripley, Pete helped teach him how to dog. And when she got married, Pete ran down the aisle after her, two rings secured in a drool-proof silk sachet around his neck.

Pete went on his last adventure today. 8 is a pretty good number for a dane, although of course we wish it were another shiny silver 100. And the thing I keep thinking about is something that Al and I decided a few years back: that pets are exercise for your emotions – especially the ones that don't get enough play in your everyday life. It's good that we remember how to roll in the monkey grass and run away from the vacuum cleaner and greet our favorite people with a full-throated, vociferous moo. And even though we don't enjoy it, it's good for us to invite this great, inevitable sadness into our lives – to know that the price for that big-footed puppy in the laundry basket will be a tremendous, piercing grief, and bring him home anyway, because we've already decided that we would rather lose a friend than miss out on one.

So here's to Pete, the Rick Moranis of dogs. Here's to Al, the greatest dog-mom I know. And here's to the love and friendship and carpet-stains that live on beyond our earthly tenure, and bring out the best in all of us.

The Sisterhood of the Unravelling Plans

It's a hell of a thing, having a sister.

First you fight like cats and dogs, and if you're not getting in trouble for knocking her teeth out, you're yelling at her for eating all of the (insert literally anything here) even when you'd told her not to. And you just know she'll be your annoying, exasperating nemesis forever.

Then she turns fifteen and she's dating boys and gone ALL the time, and one time you stay up literally all night long to keep her from sneaking out of the house, and she's wicked pissed at you. And you just know that as soon as she's out of high school, she'll be gone for good and you won't be a family anymore.

Then at twenty-three, she decides she's going to be a vet. She gets a degree in biology. She takes all of the classes, gets all of the grades, applies to all of the vet schools – and keeps getting rejected. For four years.

Then she gives up on the dream. She says she's not going to be a vet, and you wonder what she could possibly do instead, because you've never tried and failed that hard at anything in your life. And you just know she's never going to make it.

Then – by which I mean now, yesterday, this weekend – her charming ubermensch of a husband drives your whole family up to Oklahoma to watch her walk across the stage and receive her Masters in International Agriculture, which is officially becoming a PhD in Veterinary Biomedical Science. She's not going to spend her life neutering cats and dogs. She's going to cure equine diabetes. She's going to replenish the oceans with tuna. She's going to save the goddamn world.

And this is why I don't believe in happily ever after – because it implies there's no more story left to tell. It erases all of the messy middles, the hard, unrewarded work, the life-changing chokepoints that force you to revise yourself and move forward.

Give me long enough and I'll find a new thing to worry about, a new reason why everything is hopeless. But I won't wish for a straight, easy road. When you're related to Allison, there's no such thing as happily ever after. There is only boldly forward – usually in a cloud of dog hair and fruity shampoo. And I just know it's going to be a hell of a ride.

Running Up the Down Escalator

All I can say is that it seemed like a good idea at the time.

It was the first night of DFWcon, and there was nothing but a downward escalator standing between me and the party upstairs. Who's going to let a little workout get between them and cake?

Here's a little-known fact about escalators, though: they don't stand still. And when you get about three-quarters of the way up and your thighs catch wise to your cardio-treachery, your oxygen-starved brain starts thinking, "hey, that's all right - I'll just rest for a second."

And that's when true cost of your little escalark becomes clear.

It wasn't pretty, but I made it. #noregrets

That's about where I am these days. I've been charging hard up the stairs for a couple months now, and I'm so ruinously tired - but I'm not there yet, and there's no quitting without losing the progress I've made so far.

I got Kristen's Patreon launched, but still need to find another $450/month to cover her bases.

I did DFWcon - maybe better to say that DFWcon did me - but still need to turn that momentum into finally, actually running my own classes.

I got the Writers Bloc started (with a whole lot of help from my partner in organizational crime), but still need to find it a permanent home, and a new set of speakers for the summer.

I turned in Dreams of the Eaten, but still need to revise it, clean it up, and add the various bells and whistles (map, index, etc) before the end of the month.

I made this great plan to promote it when it comes out at Christmas, but none of that is going to mean bupkis if I don't actually start submitting, applying, and travel-planning pronto.

(And if you're wondering what in the hell is the Writers Bloc, or since when Eaten got a release date, that is because I am doing a lousy job of promoting any of this.)

And man, you guys. I am just so tired. It's mostly happy-tired, of course. None of these projects are disasters or tragedies; I threw myself at all of them voluntarily, and so far they're all bearing fruit.

I just miss the other parts of life. Cooking and going for walks and catching up with my friends. Doing things with the Dude. Sleeping through the night. Some things really are backsliding down the escalator - diet, physical therapy, all that good stuff - and I really need to pick them back up before they hit bottom.

So I'm sitting here at 4:30 on a Sunday morning, eating a reheated cheeseburger and writing this tiny little testament to the overclocked life. No, it's not healthy. No, it's not long-term sustainable. But there's party-cake waiting upstairs, and damn it, I'm going to get me some. Onward and upward, y'all.

You don't find your calling. You fight for it.

The Indispensable Word

You know, one of the best, most vexing things about Latin is that it is so dang ambiguous.

Take the word pes or pedis, for example. It's where we get pedestrian, pedestal, pedal, and so many other foot-related words. But for the Romans, the term encompassed the whole lower leg generally - there wasn't a special word for things like "calf" or "shin". (How this became the language of medicine is really beyond me.)

But the wonderful thing about this ambiguity is that it let Latin speakers enjoy multiple meanings simultaneously. We do this in English too, to a much lesser degree. "Season" can mean the time of year, or spicing your food. "Mine" can mean an excavation, or something that belongs to you. So much of the most beautiful Latin poetry really can't be translated, because putting it into English requires choosing just one of a word's multiple meanings, and destroying the others.

So gratia seems like a good word for today. It means grace, for one thing. You hear it in phrases like Maria, gratia plena (Mary, full of grace). It also means "for the sake of" - which you invoke every time you use the abbreviation e.g. (exempli gratia, or "for the sake of example"). It's also thankfulness (gratitude), pleasure (gratifying), kindness (graciousness), and something freely given (gratis, gratuity). The phrase in gratiam even means "friendship".

Tecum in gratiam fui et semper ero.

This is something I did not appreciate at the time. Let me tell you: when it's already midnight and you have thirty more lines to translate before 9AM, ambiguity is not your friend.

But after this week, I am revisiting that.

English is by many counts a million-word language - a fact I've enjoyed and extolled to my students. After all, we don't just have a foot. We have a foot, ankle, heel, arch, ball, shin, calf, toes - some of us even have cankles! With so many words, it's easy not to get attached to any particular one. So if the word "diversity" gets too loaded, for example, we'll move on to "inclusiveness" or "multiculturalism" with no trouble. Because when you have a surfeit of anything, no single one is very valuable. When you have a million words, or a million workers, you might not even notice when a few of them get damaged or thrown away.

This is the dark side of plenty - one that we as a culture are seriously struggling with. We have more than at any time in our history - more people, more freedoms, more entertainments, more possibilities - and yet we've never felt worth less.

And I think in Latin we see the remedy for that. This old, sacred language carries old, sacred values. It was born from a time when people were precious, though not all well-treated - when everybody was valuable, because every body was valuable. It's been enshrined in a faith that says we are more than what we do, that we have worth beyond our works. And it lives on in us today, in our mouths and thoughts, as we go on blithely speaking daisy-chains of Latin children and grandchildren. This enduring language does not lose words easily. You can't cut out a word like gratia without leaving a bleeding hole in the lexicon.

So maybe it's not too late. Maybe our culture can re-learn to value its people the same way a language values its words - by giving them more than one meaning. Kristen was a disposable nonentity as long as she was a case number, a patient file, an unfortunate statistic. She has all too easily fallen through the cracks. But when you-all got to see her as a teacher, as a terrible-cat-lover, as a roommate and a friend and an underdog success story, she became real and precious to you - as multifaceted and meaningful as the Latin gratia. And now she can't be lost or forgotten about, because she is too many things to too many people.

So that's it, you guys. That's my plan. When we're well, we can be our own presenters. We can share as much of ourselves as we choose to. But when we're sick or hurt or grieving, we need someone else to communicate us - and if you're reading this right now, you have that power. You can be someone's avatar - communicate a person we otherwise wouldn't see or care about. This is how we can stay real to each other. This is how we make sure we don't get crushed by the engine of plenty.

Kristen is my indispensable word - my gratia, my grace. And now you-all are hers.

P.S.: If you haven't been able to sponsor her on Patreon but still want to get updates, please get me your email address (here, Twitter, Facebook, or tex at thetexfiles.com), and I'll be happy to include you.

Fix Your Con Panels By Using This One Weird Old Trick

Man, you guys. You know that feeling you get when you're so pumped you're actually punch-a-wall angry?

No?

Okay, let me back up.

I rounded up a few members of the DFW Writers Workshop and ran panels with them at All-Con this weekend. This was a good plan for several reasons: it gave us a chance to promote our workshop and conference, gave them a chance to practice public speaking without any one person having to solo in the spotlight, and gave me a chance to spread the joy of con-dom (heh) to writers who hadn't visited a fan convention before. We had a huge range of genres and experience levels represented, and a tremendous variety of interests.

Jennie Komp, for example, was interested in the inflatable T-Rex.

And y'all. Seriously. They KILLED it out there. This crew was just so head-and-shoulders above anything I expected, and honestly, above 80% of the panels I've done with published professionals. They were prepared. They were enthusiastic. They endured heroic commutes and ludicrous parking costs. They sat in on each others' panels, passed the ball to each other and to the audience, and rolled gracefully with every logistical punch the weekend threw at them. In short, they treated the convention experience like the pleasure and the privilege that it is.

And like... I don't need to build them up by tearing other people down, but this is SUCH a change from what I've come to expect from the convention panel format. Patrice Sarath said it better than I could. Short version: if you are LUCKY enough to have even a single person seek you out and sit in a room to hear your opinions on whatever given subject, you owe them your absolute best. Yes, cons can be exhausting. Yes, it's hard when you're sick or haven't had much sleep. But if you aren't going to bring your A-game, do the rest of us a favor and don't show up. Nobody in that audience came to hear about how tired you are, how drunk you got, how you don't know why you're on the panel or how we're lucky you're even talking to us at 9AM on a Sunday. You're (allegedly) a professional. Go hard or get out.

Okay, rant over. But to the con organizers of the world - let me lay something on you.

The DFW workshop crew aren't just magically a superior breed of human (though they are pretty dang fabulous.) They rock because they know how to play as a team. Like, they worked on this project together for literally weeks before the con. They came up with panel topics and descriptions, sorted themselves into teams, collaborated on questions, chose their own moderators... basically, they ran this thing from soup to nuts. More importantly - and here is the key difference, I think - they weren't just in this for themselves. They came to represent the workshop - to ride for the brand, as it were.

While they were at it, they also represented Ripley, Rey, Captain America, and Cosima Niehaus.

And that's what I think we're missing at our conventions. When I go to AggieCon next month, I'll be representing myself. I want people to think I'm cool and buy my books, so I will do my very best. And I happen to be a team player-type, so I will put the interests of the panel/discussion ahead of my own - but you can't count on people to do that. Given the choice between hogging the mic and maybe making a book sale off it, or passing it to the rando next to them and making the discussion more interesting... a whole lot of people are going to go with Option A. So you end up with a panel full of people playing air-time tug-of-war, talking themselves up at the expense of the conversation. It's the tragedy of the nerd-commons.

But if you "subcontract" some of your panels out to other organizations - then the dynamic changes. If everyone on the panel is from the same writers group, the same podcast, the same publisher or anthology or whatever, then suddenly it's in all our best interests to play for the team. We have sharper banter, better chemistry, the warmer atmosphere that comes from already knowing each other - and more importantly, our personal interests now align with the group interests. In improving the discussion, we improve our collective image. And that's good for everyone.

And yes, I will totally take credit for our sweet matching name tents.

I've seen this work well at other cons already. The Gentlemen Nerds put on a great show at ConDFW last month. The Redheads of the Apocalypse always do. And those names - those "brands" - are becoming a recognizable staple of Texas con programming: you don't have to know what the panel is about to know what kind of time you're going to have when you get there.

We need to do more of that, y'all. We have tons of terrific authors and artists on the con circuit, and wonderful things can happen when they land on the long side of a table together. But we also have some amazing collectives, too - and if you give them the freedom to choose their own team and run their own show, I promise you will see results.

No, better than promise - I challenge you. Book the DFW Writers Workshop con-squad for your next convention, and we'll put the 'pro' in your programming.

P.S.: All-Con was AMAZING. DFWcon will be too! For a good time, use discount code ALLCON2016

#sfwapro

#BMBB

I haven't been blogging much lately. I promise I'm not lazy, but I've been taking a real hard look at all the things I do that don't make me money or increase my audience. (Because let me tell you: there are a whole lot of ways you can give away all your time and energy without actually accomplishing either of those goals.)

But Pam decided to celebrate World Book Day by calling my ass up at 9 in the morning to tell me to tweet more. So I did.

Guest Post: How Dinosaurs Can Fix Your Wedding

Funny story, actually. I was at my very first-ever convention, all the way back in 2013. The phenomenal Jennie Goloboy had just plus-one'd me into the SFWA party suite, and I was keen to flex my neonatal networking muscle - so I asked her what she was trying to sell.

"Well," she said. "I have this one client, Dan Bensen. He's written this time-travel romance called Groom of the Tyrannosaur Queen, and..."

I don't actually remember anything she said after that. The mere mention of that title shut my brain down like an EMP going off in the middle of Manhattan. 

And now, three years later, it is actually, really a real book: written, illustrated (ILLUSTRATED!), printed, and published. And here, today, the Tyrannosaur Groom himself will expound on - what else?

How Dinosaurs Can Fix Your Wedding

by Daniel Bensen

Trals Scarback, war leader of the Ethlek, has an opportunity and a problem.

The opportunity is a weapon of otherworldly power that fell out of the sky.

The problem is Andrea, who claims to be a soldier from the tomorrow of tomorrows. The weapon, her powersuit, will only work for her. Plus, she has killed several of Trals's men.

Trals's tribe is of two minds: either the foreign woman is war booty or she is an enemy warrior and should be killed, her hair flown from the poles of the tents of the women of the sons she killed. If Trals wants the use of Andrea's powersuit, she must officially join the tribe, so she is no longer an enemy. And there is really only one way to join an Eethlek tribe.

The following is a description of an Eethlek marriage ceremony.

If the woman is foreign, she must apply to the Leader of the tribe, the one who leads its triceratops herd who commands raiding and gathering parties beyond the boundaries of the camp. If he (leaders are almost always men) agrees that his warrior deserves to be a husband and father, the marriage proceeds. If not, the woman if free to choose some other man in the tribe. Then the Driver, the one who drives the herd from behind and governs within the boundaries of the camp, must agree that the tribe has enough resources to support a new member. The woman gives up her possessions to the tribe, and in return gets all the necessities to start a new life with her husband: a tent, a pot-sack, heating-stones, leather robes, metal tongs if she's lucky, and a triceratops, chriostenotes, or raptor egg depending on the season. Then the tribe's Revalatee holds a public trance, and its Sayer interprets the revelation for the congregation (it's almost always a blessing for the marriage).

Expert paleyarntologists have reconstructed
one of the dinosaurs in question.

There is then a recitation of the saga describing the historical event that separated the tribe of the husband from the tribe of the wife. If you happen to be a time-traveling soldier from the 21st century and had never heard of the Ethlek before a week ago, the saga is the origin myth of the Ethlek themselves. You will learn that long ago there was a city on the floodplains that are The Face of God. That city was Megga, and its people died when the salty tears of God killed the crops they had foolishly planted. In the chaos the followed the fall of Megga, everyone died or scattered except for a small band of people who followed a Driver who taught them how to drive the triceratops before them and a Leader who taught them how to steal food from the tyrannosaur. Soon, all people who lived on the Face of God were the children of this Driver and this Leader, and they were They who Talk Alike.  Ey-Thke-Lek

Finally, each newlywed cuts off a lock of their hair and braids it into the hair of the other. They retire to their new tent, where they summon the angels of the heavens to take up residence on the Face of God. And that's where babies come from.

About the book:

Groom of the Tyrannosaur Queen is a time-travel romance with dinosaurs.

Former soldier Andrea Herrera isn’t happy with where her life’s taken her. Specifically, to Hell Creek, Montana, 65 million years before the present. As far as careers go, making sure the dinosaurs don’t eat her paleontologist clients comes in a pretty dismal second choice to serving her country. But when their time machine malfunctions, Andrea and her team are trapped in a timeline that shouldn’t exist with something a hell of a lot more dangerous than terrible lizards: other humans.

Need more help? Well, look no further - because dinosaurs can fix your everything!

Links:

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Deviant Art

ConDFW Schedule

So I recently heard the most phenomenal, life-changing bit of advice, from my amazing particolored pal Darusha. It seriously blew my mind. Are you ready? Here it is:

"Because everything flies by at the speed of light, no one knows you're not around a lot. They think they just missed you. So you can not tweet or blog or facebook or whatever for ages, then so long as you don't start with a big long "sorry I haven't been here," no one will notice that it's been a while."

Where have I been? No, pal - where have YOU been?!

Well, I'll tell you where I'm GOING to be - at ConDFW this weekend! Rumor has it there'll be a couple of other cool folks there - something something Scalzi? So if you haven't put the finishing touches on your Twilight Sparkle costume and poured out some kibble for the kids... might wanna get on that.  See you there!


Interstellar Archaeology: Part One – Initial Findings 
Friday, 5PM - Madison
Panelists: John DeLaughter (M), Michelle Muenzler, Tex Thompson, Michael Ashleigh Finn, Rachael Acks, Linda Donahue
The first of two panels where we inflict discover startling artifacts of OBVIOUS alien origin and our esteemed (and indeed, TRAINED) archeologists in turn tell us what the artifacts are. Light hearted fun, and bring ear plugs! This year we will visit Jakku in Star Wars VII. ROOOOOOAR!

Reading
Friday, 6PM - Adams
Tex Thompson, Martha Wells

Return of the Lone Western 
Saturday, 11AM - Hamilton
Panelists: Sabine Starr (M), Scott A. Cupp, Tex Thompson, Linda Donahue, Patrice Sarath, Bill Crider
Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight brought signature Western back to the cinemas this past month. Is it a sign the Western is back? Or is it just a fanboy’s dream? Our panelists talk about cinematic Westerns and their effect on writing Westerns in today’s world.

Escape from the Slush Pile
Saturday, 12PM - Hamilton
Panelists: Julia S. Mandala (M), Lillian Stewart Carl, Tex Thompson, Adrian Simmons, William Ledbetter
The perennial panel returns at a new time as we tantalize people with mistakes and errors you should try to avoid. Beware: someday you may end up here if you do not learn from your mistakes. Come and learn from our editors what to avoid so you don’t end up on – the slush pile.

Broke Down and Out of Gas... in Space 
Saturday, 4PM - Madison
Panelists: Tex Thompson (M), Paul Abell, Martha Wells, KM Tolan, Chris Donahue, T.M. Hunter
Because even Furiosa occasionally gets a flat. Let's talk about all the fun you can have when spaceships break and flux capacitors blow – and how our favorite characters MacGyver their way back into action!

Artemis: Guys vs Gals 
Saturday, 5PM - Jackson
Guys: Michael Ashleigh Finn, Mark Finn, Aaron de Orive, Stephen Patrick, Adrian Simmons, Stephen Sanders
Gals: Mel White, Linda Donahue, Rachael Acks, Julie Barrett, Kathy Turski, Tex Thompson
An idea proposed by the Gentlemen Nerds while they were talking to some Redheads we know, then floated to Programming. Who will prove to be the superior gender? We will find out!

Researching the Technology Tree
Sunday, 11AM - Hamilton
Panelists: Tex Thompson (M), Scott A. Cupp, S. Boyd Taylor, Larry Atchley Jr., Stina Leicht
The Technology Tree is the path that humans take to find out technology. In other words, you need to learn how to make steel before you can make really good swords. Guns won’t fire if you haven’t learned the recipe for gunpowder – and that’s before learning the difference between corned powder and serpentine powder. Where in the technology tree is your world? How do you find out? Our alternate history experts talk about this and more. 

Money Makes the Multiverse Go Round
Sunday, 3PM - Hamilton
Panelists: Tex Thompson (M), Frances May, Melanie Fletcher, K.B. Bogen, Stephen Sanders
Whether you trade in credits, simoleons, rupees, or Flanian Pobble Beads, one thing is clear: money doesn't grow on trees (unless you're Donkey Kong), and you're not going to get very far without it. Come enjoy a rousing discussion of the weird, wild, and often ridiculous workings of our favorite fictional economies – guaranteed to be worth every woolong!

This is How Your House Dies

I wasn't there when it came apart.

I'm told there were ten of you in the house when the tornado hit, seven taking shelter in a single downstairs bathroom. I can't imagine what that was like. I can't believe you all survived. By the time I get there, you're long gone – in a motel, probably, or maybe staying with relatives. But the pile that was your house is still there, and someone has to take it away.

So after the bulldozer knocks down what was left of your walls, our volunteer corps get to work. We descend on your house in our grungy dozens to sift and scoop and shovel, putting the salvageable things safely to one side and sorting the rest into FEMA-approved curbside piles: brick here, yard trash there, garbage seemingly everywhere. We work cheerfully, sometimes making little jokes ("Oh! I found the Cuervo. Everyone can stop looking now.") It's crass to admit it, but even as we sort through the wreckage of your life, you're still a little bit unreal to us. We are sad to see the smashed pink plastic castle and the Doc McStuffins wrapping paper.  We marvel at the unbroken hard-boiled eggs. We put the sodden yearbook carefully aside.

You stop by a little later in the day, and I'm amazed at how calm and collected you seem. You tell us how much you appreciate our work. We tell you we're sorry that we haven't been able to find your mom's wallet. And as I rip up what used to be your living room carpet, I am grateful to you.

Because here's the thing. Your house has died, and 95% of it is going straight to the landfill. The few things we manage to save for you look like a pathetic fraction of a yard-sale: just a tiny pile of random, dirty, second-hand junk. I doubt you will find much consolation there. But as we scavenging Samaritans descend on the remains of your home to pick it clean, an amazing thing is happening. A rare and special kind of life is happening.

You've seen some of it already. The bubba brigade is out chain-sawing dead trees and broken fences, while tough Texas ladies shovel debris and haul supplies in their big muddy pick-em-up trucks. It's good, hard work – the kind that brings out the best in people.

And yet we're so much more than just our most visible vanguard. Our big kids are out delivering lunches to the workers, while the smaller ones sort clothes and canned food back at the donation center. People who can't do manual labor are going from house to house, checking on residents and finding out what they need. People with limited mobility are manning phone lines and registration desks. People who are housebound are fostering lost pets, sharing news online and connecting the resources we have with the people who need them. Everyone is doing their best. Everyone is contributing something.

One fellow called our work a "ministry of presence". I'm not very church-literate, so to me that sounds sort of exotic, almost alchemical. But I love the idea that service begins with the simple act of showing up – of bundling up all your talents and limitations and gifting yourself to whatever need arises. There's an exuberance here that I've never felt anywhere else, and I think that's where it's coming from. Here, in the rubble of your old life, a tiny, temporary, utopian human world is growing – one in which everyone is valuable and important and wanted, in which everyone is contributing towards a common goal. This is the humanity that our prophets and leaders always advocate. This is way the real world should work but never, ever does.

It won't last, of course. In a matter of hours, we've skeletonized your house – swept it clean down to the foundation and moved on to the next one. And soon the work day will be over, and soon we'll have to go back to that bigger, coarser world, in which our talent and generosity have to take a back seat while we pay the bills. I hope you don't have to go back there too soon. I hope your need doesn't outlast your help.

And even though we would never have wished this on you or anyone, I hope you know that the death of your house has brought a little more life into the world – that that big wet heap of splintered wood and crumbled sheetrock has enriched everyone who touched it, and everyone who touched them in turn. That's how I know its loss was not a waste, and why we're so glad to do this with you: because your old life has already made a better world – for all of us – in which to build your new one.

Over a thousand homes and businesses were damaged or destroyed by the tornado on Dec. 26th. As of this writing, FEMA is considering declaring the area a disaster zone, and volunteers are still desperately needed. If you're local, please visit the City of Rowlett homepage to find out how you can help.