Why ‘A Different Kind of Sentinel’ Was Written

Hand­i­capped by an alco­holic step­fa­ther, the author set off on a cru­sade in search of the very soul he had lost to this ogre. Along the way, did he find a fac­sim­ile of his soul, marry her and begin to raise a family.

Hav­ing just poured the foun­da­tion for their home in the coun­try, he was awak­ened one night, shortly there­after, by an omi­nous dream. As he stood on the precipice of utter dark­ness, he was struck by the bril­liance of the light that emanated from deep within the dark side of his being.

“What’re you going to do now?” asked the source of this great light.

Imme­di­ately, he woke up feel­ing as if he was being called to do some­thing else with his life. But what he didn’t find out until later that fall, when he per­ma­nently injured his back at work.

Con­fronted by the ever-​​worsening con­di­tion of his back and bank account as well, was he forced to seek out the only work he could find—given his back­ground in construction—as a build­ing inspec­tor. A year at this job, though, only seemed to bring him increas­ingly greater dis­sat­is­fac­tion, for build­ing inspec­tion sim­ply did not meet his deeper emo­tional needs.

Left won­der­ing if any job in today’s mar­ket could ever meet his needs, was he dropped off, in a dream, on some deserted island in the South Pacific where he was con­fronted by that same per­me­at­ing voice.

“Why do you refuse to write?” it asked him.

Aston­ished, he woke up more con­vinced than ever that he should be writ­ing. But still he resisted for some reason.

“Why are you so afraid to write?” asked this same voice, in yet another dream later that fall.

Obvi­ously, some fear was keep­ing him from writ­ing then.

Stymied for the time being, he stewed over the mat­ter until the fol­low­ing sum­mer when dis­sat­is­fac­tion with his job reached an all time high. With no other recourse, he finally turned to writ­ing which in its own time gave rise to A Dif­fer­ent Kind of Sen­tinel.