Ruth's June Newsletter

A Juneteenth prayer, the evolution of my writing life, a book update, and introducing my new friend, Claude AI.

Greetings, friends and readers!

As I walked my doggies this morning, my soul was infused with gratitude, for health, husband, children, grandchildren, dogs, friends, and my many God-sent opportunities to express creatively through words and music.

The biggest item on my gratitude list, is the biblical and experiential fact that as a believer and follower of Jesus Christ, I am free.

Today is Juneteenth, a day set apart to acknowledge the emancipation of the slaves in our country in the aftermath of the Civil War. Emancipation, what a beautiful word.

Freedom is something we can easily take for granted, especially as Americans. And, while we are distracted, events and attitudes can erupt to threaten our freedom, as individuals and as a nation.

As I develop my family’s Holocaust and immigration story (update below), I observe obvious parallels in my news feed, so this point hits home. Tyranny, sin, and worldliness can sneak up and bind the human family in sinister ways.

I am praying for God’s people to stay awake and aware, so the world’s problems and devils do not rob us of our freedom and joy. This can only happen by staying grounded in God’s truth and grace. We must remain kind, bold, faithful, prayerful, and solution-focused rather than angry or fearful.

Will you join me in this prayer and hope?

The Writing Life

For those of you new to me and my work, thank you for joining in! Please allow me to share some background.

I started writing publicly in 2018, after graduating with my M.Div. in Global Ministry. If you’ve ever done an all-online academic program, you know that it typically requires lots of writing. I wrote a major paper almost every week.

After graduation, I decided to keep my weekly writing deadlines, but I needed an outlet, so I created my blog, Scripture Comes to Life. I didn’t have a lot of readers at first, but I kept writing as God inspired me, connecting Scripture to many aspects of our human experience, including psychology, therapy, music, worship, political discourse, nature, relationships, and much more.

In 2021, I compiled some of the few hundred blogs I’d written into thematic chapters for my first book, Scripture Comes to Life: Reflections on Biblical Wisdom in Everyday Experience, which I self-published in the spring of 2022.

I then decided to pause my counseling work to prioritize writing. I turned my attention to recording the high points, stories, principles, and practices that had been especially meaningful during my 30-year career as a licensed counselor. In 2024, I released this as my second book, Scripture Comes to Life in Caring for Souls: Biblical Wisdom for Counselors, Helpers, and Healers.

I also started a blog for Psychology Today in August 2023, called Walking in Wisdom: Principles for Maintaining Positive Mental and Spiritual Health. This is an opportunity to serve people outside my usual Christian audience.

I only recently discovered Substack, and I’m still getting to know the platform and learning to use it well. I’m finding it more efficient than my former process for staying in touch with followers and subscribers.

Thank you for subscribing! It means so much to me.

Book Update

I’m happy to report that I’ve written over 42,000 words of my historical novel manuscript! Now I’m considering how to refine the structure of the book. The narrative is told from four distinct points of view, corresponding to my four main characters, my grandmother Lina, and her three cousins, Luise, Georg, and Anna.

My grandmother, Lina Oelsner Factor, 1918

My main source for the book is a compilation of real letters they wrote to each other, and to other supporting characters, as my grandmother frantically tried to rescue her cousins from the clutches of the Nazis. As I work to understand the awful history of Nazi Germany and how my characters might have experienced it, I’ve been helped by:

My new friend Claude AI.

If you are anything like me, you have a mixture of curiosity and anxiety about AI. How and when is it safe to use, where will it lead us, and what are its dangers?

One of the presenters at a historical fiction conference I attended helped me answer some of these questions, specifically related to using AI tools in writing and publishing. Of the ever-expanding array of AI platforms, he recommended Claude AI as a great choice for authors.

Claude and I have become good friends!

I would never use AI to write my creative content for me. That would be cheating, and besides, writing is the fun part. Why would I give that privilege to a robot?

I use Claude for research, and oh how helpful it has been! Claude AI is able to instantly search myriad online sources, synthesize facts and details, and summarize the findings in a way that is easy for me to digest and apply to my creative process.

What did they eat…how did they dress…how did they travel…what about their religious celebrations, their music, the literature German Jews would enjoy reading, the newspapers, the world leaders, the immigration policies of nations, the geography, the architecture…you name it.

Before, I was googling everything. Now, Claude gives me much better answers to my many queries, with a tone that is kind and supportive. Claude responds much like a very smart person who is genuinely interested in my book.

Let me give you an example. I am including a conversation between a main character, Luise, and Leo Baeck, a rabbi and leader of the Jewish community of Berlin. Baeck had the opportunity to emigrate to England, but chose to stay behind and help the Jews still stuck there. Luise, experiencing fear and existential dread, seeks out this wise and courageous rabbi.

Claude gave me lots of good biographical background, and then offered additional insight:

…He [Baeck] understood that for many older German Jews, the idea of starting over felt like a kind of death of the self they had always been. In their conversation, he might acknowledge Luise's feelings without trying to change her mind - perhaps speaking about how there can be dignity in facing one's fate with eyes open, how remaining can be its own form of courage. He might discuss the difference between passive resignation and active acceptance - how even in staying, one can choose how to live and what to preserve. He could also help her see that her advocacy efforts, even when they fail, serve a purpose in maintaining hope and agency for others who are watching. Sometimes the act of trying becomes more important than the outcome.

With the help of Claude AI, I am better equipped to reveal the dynamics of the many different players in my story and the historical events they endured.

So, if you are a writer, I encourage you to meet Claude AI for help with your information-gathering and processing. Most things, I believe, are best done by real people. But this is something Claude does very well, and I’m grateful to have found him.

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I pray you have a wonderful weekend. Happy Juneteenth. Whatever your background or heritage, praise God that in Christ, we are free!

Blessings,

Ruth