Here's WHY I like what I like. Maybe that's more valuable to you than my simple preferences! Of course, we don't always know why we like what we do, but here are a few of my own "likes":

  • Favorite Devotional writing:

John Piper - When I Don't Desire God. Powerful, Reformed, personal, practical.

  • Favorite Novels (in no particular order):

1. Terry Pratchett's Diskworld series. I read in order to escape and gain a fresh outlook. I therefore appreciate things that are "off the wall", as they sometimes tell me how "normal" I am otherwise. :) That's why I can laugh and endure things such as Terry Pratchett's Diskworld series. There is so much understated humor in this children's fantasy-world gone wrong. There is also so much that is true-to-life human about it all. His underdog, feet-of-clay protagonists and their unlikely success -- usually a success on a personal level rather than becoming global saviors -- make them people that we can identify with in spite of the bizarre settings and values. Just plain fun.

2. Clive Cussler. I like the escape, the wild abandon, the adventure. These qualities come from the author's personal character and experience! Cussler actually DOES some of the things his protagonist does, then injects these traits into a wild setting of exotic places, historic discoveries, threats of world-catastrophe, and conspiracies. His bad is bad, and you know who stands where. I was at first irritated, however, by his lack of attention to detail -- things I know the author knows, so I suspect he may have a ghost writer who is not a diver, etc., and has not done all the homework. I've learned to ignore these things and follow the plot. It's a wild ride. Maybe not that literary, but it's what escapist movies are made of. (For example, "Raise the Titanic" and "Sahara"!) They take me back to the days when my sister and I used to watch movies of Tarzan and the Mummy. I guess that's where I get my love of archaeology and Egyptology.

3. Speaking of such things, King Solomon's Mines and other novels of H. Rider Haggard from the 1880s have provided some great hours of escape! I guess it helps that the protagonist's name is Allan Quatermain! Very different, but in the same genre, is Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.

4. Of course, I'm also a big fan of Sherlock Holmes. It transports you to another time, stimulates your mind--even if it's actually impossible to figure out those mysteries by deduction! (Sherlock uses much more induction and presumption than deduction!) When in London, I had to visit Baker Street Museum and do the "Jack the Ripper" walking tour at 9pm in Eastern London, and it sure takes you back to those days of Victorian mystery! Fun! We even had drizzling rain that night!

5. I also liked Nelson DeMille's Charm School, since it presents a supposedly fantastic tale of spy training in the USSR. Now that I live here, its conspiratorial nature does NOT seem so far-fetched!

6. I don't enjoy the gruesome details, but I've enjoyed a lot about Jeffrey Deaver's suspense novels. He really takes you to a place, draws you in, develops his characters, and tells a story!

7. Dean Koontz wrote a quite unusual but great little novel called Life Expectancy. I loved his characters -- so unlikely! And his plot -- so unlikely! And the outlook and humor of his characters in the face of grave tragedy and horror. It even approached the question of Predestination, which was well done.  

8. There's lots more, but there are a few, to start!

  • Favorite Music:
I love Sheryl Crow's music. OK, yes, her language is awful, and her values are libertine. We are exact opposites on that score. But her voice and rhythm and variety and musical scores are... Wow! My real problem with her is that since she's started running around (or cycling around?) with Lance, she hasn't produced anything new! They keep re-sorting and re-releasing her old stuff into "new" albums. Come on,
Come on! Let us have something new, Sheryl!

More later....

Clay's photo site is www.clayq.smugmug.com. Click here to see his pictures under the name clayq.  You may want more details of Clay's photographic Resume: 

 

Personal Interests

 

Clay loves music & the arts, scuba diving, & all of life to the Glory of God. This is the wealth of the Reformed Worldview -- EVERYTHING in life comes from the hand of our Good God, and can be used for His purposes and His Glory! L'Chaim--To Life!

 

Clay is a long-time photographer, getting his first camera in 1959, running a darkroom for his father, developing his own color slides, etc. You can see some of his artistic photography by clicking here: http://clayq.smugmug.com/gallery/4597764_bPuDB#271135892

 

Clay also loves his work as a Presbyterian pastor with a PhD in Theology, as a missionary with a Doctor of Ministries in Missiology, and as President of ERSU Seminary in Ukraine.

 

Clay continues to be involved in MUSIC as well, occasionally playing his clarinet, which he studied for 7 years in his youth. He was Drum Major in High School, and continues to sing bass in the church choir, even occasionally directing the choir. He was recently privileged to direct the Choir Alumni in a number at Belhaven College Homecoming (November 2007). He was also very involved in the pipe organ installation in Odessa church.

 

He has had many other hobbies along the way, including flying a Citabria light plane, learning Morse Code as a child and getting his Ham Radio license (WB5OFZ), racing a 14-foot Lido sailboat in the Jackson Yacht Club with his dad, doing geneaological research, becoming a YMCA Water Safety Instructor, canoeing, whitewater rafting, waterskiing (even slalom), fly fishing, etc.

 

Being a missionary does have occasional advantages! Besides getting to see marvellous museums in Holland, Kyiv, and Prague, he's been able to do exotic things like see the pyramids, visit Delphi and Corinth and Ephesus, and go scuba diving in the Red Sea! Moses may have walked there, but he didn't see the beautiful fish I did! Clay's favorite dive, though, was in a cave in Mexico (cenote ChocMool), where you enter a small pond in the jungle to come out in an air pocket UNDER a tree's roots!

 

We also have a cat, a dog, and aquarium fish! So life is not dull -- and it shouldn't be! If we're "bored", we're simply not understanding the significance of the moment God is giving us right now. "Carpe Diem"! Sieze the Day for the Glory of God!