Please welcome Peter Churness - Pastor, Friend, Musician, Composer, Video Game Creator, and Writer!
When I first heard that Peter Churness, Pastor and friend, had written a book, I said to myself, "is there anything this guy can't do?" And, when he asked if I could proofread it for him, I agreed. So, after the proofread, I asked him when he planned to release the book or if he planned to send it off to a publishing house.
He said he wasn't sure when he would be ready for that.
I encouraged him to go for it.
He has a busy life of a Pastor, so . . . I've been waiting for a while now . . . but his first book, The Breaking, is finally out! And, I got first dibs on interviewing him. :)
He's been on TV before, so I figure that this is huge. (Peter is probably just shaking his head now, turning red, and chuckling.)
1. What inspired you to write The Breaking?
There were really three things that helped to inspire me to want
to write a book about Abraham’s early life.
First was a suspicion that there was a political backstory of
some kind. Though we know from Scripture
that God called Abraham to leave the city of Ur, there is archeological
evidence that the city of Ur was destroyed by invading Elamites about the time
that Abram would have been migrating north.
It’s quite possible Abram initially left as a refugee.
The second thing that struck me was that I suspected that there
was a love story here somewhere. The
fact that Abram apparently stayed faithful to Sarah (pre-Hagar) all those years
she was barren hints that there was real love between the two.
And then finally, and most importantly, I’ve always been
fascinated with the question of where Abraham’s faith came from. He grew up in a pagan culture worshipping the
moon goddess Nanna.
Where did his belief
in a one “Most High God Creator of Heaven and Earth” come from?
So not only is there a political story and a romantic story,
there is also this story of Abraham’s spiritual journey. And that’s really what the book is about –
it’s about Abraham’s conversion.
2. What
inspired you to include references to the Epic
of Gilgamesh in The Breaking?
It was really the Epic of
Gilgamesh that gave me the idea to take my ponderings about Abraham’s life
and turn it into a novel form. There are
some great motifs in the Epic of
Gilgamesh – friendship, search for life’s meaning, etc. Though it’s very unlikely that the Epic of Gilgamesh had anything to do
with the real Abraham, the setting is very close – it’s generally the same
geographic area of Abraham’s youth and it refers to a time within a couple
hundred years of when Abraham was alive, which is negligent when you consider
we’re talking about someone who lived 4500 years ago.
And then of course there is this wonderful
reference in the Epic of Gilgamesh to
this “sole survivor” of the Flood named Utnapishtim (the Babylonian Noah). And so that drew in my long-time fascination
with the pre-flood world. A friend of
mine and me, during our seminary days, developed an elaborate fantasy world
based in the pre-flood world. This Abram
series of books in some ways is simply an introduction or teaser into that deep
backstory of the world before the Flood we’ve developed from which we have
conceived of eventually developing further novels and also video games.
3. What was your favorite part of the writing journey for The Breaking? The
creative conquering of the blank page? The tireless march through revisions?
Or, the finishing touches of putting the book together?
Interestingly, I actually enjoyed each of those aspects, but
there probably is nothing that really matches the “conquering of the blank
page” as you say. Though the book has
structure and the plotline was planned out and outlined from the start, the
actual emergence of each set of dialogue or description of environment or
whatever, is certainly a much more dynamic and spontaneous thing. And so it was always an adventure to come
back to the laptop and to wonder as I began to write the next chapter or
section – okay… I wonder what happens next!?
4. Do you write with music playing in the background? Or, with silence?
I love music. I love
playing and writing music as well as listening.
For that reason, I usually write in silence. Music tends to distract me. I’m tempted to break away from the creative
writing experience and listen instead to the creative music experience of
someone else. The exception to this is I
sometimes will listen to classical music when I write, mainly to shut out the
white noise.
5. Do you have a tip /quote/inspiration you would like to share with
writers and/or readers?
One of my favorite all time quotes, and one that also has
relevance to my writing of The Breaking,
is a quote by C.S. Lewis when he said, “Enemy occupied territory, that’s what
the world is. Christianity is the story
of how the rightful king has landed – you might say landed in disguise – and is
calling all of us to take part in a great campaign of sabotage.”
All of human history is a great epic story of how our planet
entered into this Great Rebellion against its rightful ruler, and about how the
Creator has ever since been working out a grand scheme to win the hearts of
humanity back to Himself. There are many
facets to that story, but when it comes to looking at the Biblical narrative as
a whole, I think of everything before Abraham as being like the preface of
God’s great novel of salvation history.
With Abraham we turn the page and come to chapter one. The
Breaking seeks to imaginatively fill in some gaps and unpack some of the
hidden drama of that first part of God’s great epic novel.
He grew up a Sumerian Prince with Dreams of Leading Armies
and Conquering Kingdoms.
His true destiny was something far greater....
Before he was known as Abram, his name was Enkidu, the
youngest son of King Terah of Ur. His
dream was to resurrect the glory of the Old Sumerian empire, with himself at
the head of its armies, and with his childhood friend Gilgamesh of Uruk as the
future High King of the realm. But his
aspirations are clouded when a battle
with a fierce desert warrior leaves him mortally wounded. As his life ebbs away, he hears a Voice
calling to him: “Come away with Me.”
Even as he despairs, he is saved by a mysterious traveler from the West,
and when he recovers, he finds his ambitions conflicted by the haunting
memory of the Voice.
So begins an epic tale of political intrigue, romance and
the emotional soul searching of a man who would become one of the world’s most
influential figures. Three great
religions would come to claim him as their forefather in faith. But where did Abraham’s faith come from? Part historical fiction and part fantasy, The Breaking tells that story.
About
the Author
Peter Churness lives in Gig
Harbor, Washington where he is the pastor of One Hope Church (www.ohcgh.com). He’s been married to Sandy
for nearly 20 years (all of them blissful) and has three fantastic kids,
Hannah, Megan and Caleb. In addition to
doing church stuff and writing he also has been involved in making spiritually
themed video games (see www.TheRebelPlanet.com). He also sings and plays guitar and has
composed and recorded an acoustic guitar version of Handel’s Messiah (you know,
because Handel’s version wasn’t good enough). (He's kidding, btw.) Check that out at www.MyMessiah.org.
Links:
Twitter: @peterchurness
and @therebelplanet
Merry Christmas, Everyone!!!
