Autobiography In Five Short Chapters by Portia Nelson (1920-2001)

No Fuss

A Human Need

A Twisted Faith: A Minister's Obsession and the Murder that Destroyed a Church (True Story) by Gregg Olsen

Paperback:  New York Times bestselling author Gregg Olsen investigates the sensational  story of a minister who seduced four of his female congregants and hatched a cold-blooded plot to murder his wife.  His sin was adultery.  His crime was murder.

On 26 December 1997, near the affluent community of Bainbridge Island off the coast of Seattle, a small brown vertical-sided house went up in flames.  In it was the shy, beloved minister's wife Dawn Hacheney.

When the fire was extinguished, investigators found only her charred remains.  Her husband Nick was visibly devastated by the loss.

What investigators failed to note, however, was that Dawn's lungs didn't contain smoke.  Was she dead before the fire began?

So begins this true crime story that's unlike any other.  It investigates Nick Hacheney, a youth pastor at Christ Community Church on Bainbridge Island.  He counseled young couples and convinced young women that having sex with him was part of God's plan but that wasn't the worst of Youth Pastor Nick Hacheney's unspeakable sins.  The tragic house fire that ultimately consumed his soft-spoken wife was no act of God.

What demons drove a highly respected minister to commit the most sinful of crimes?

How did five women including Hacheney's own mother-in-law fall prey to his seductions?

Combining firsthand confessions, erotically charged emails and one woman's chilling prophecies, Gregg Olsen paints a shocking portrait of a church, a community and a man of the cloth who turned out to be a wolf in sheep's clothing.

He would be convicted for his wife's murder five years to the day after the crime on 26 December 2002, more than a year after his arrest.  He did not testify.  Throughout his incarceration, Nick has professed his innocence.  In 2007, he won a legal victory in the Washington Supreme Court when the panel of justices agreed that the arson charge was not substantiated by the facts, thereby striking down the "aggravated" aspect of his conviction, which had carried a mandatory no-parole sentence.

He was resentenced on 30 May 2008 and now will be eligible for parole as soon as 2025.

From one of the foremost names in true crime, Twisted Faith (2010) is a gripping and truly unforgettable story which started on that smoky Bremerton morning more than a decade ago and which seemed so final, so devastating in its outcome that none involved could know that they were in the middle of a story.  Not the beginning and far, far from the end.

About the author:  Throughout his career, Gregg Olsen has demonstrated an ability to create a detailed narrative that offers readers fascinating insights into the lives of people caught in extraordinary circumstances.  The award-winning author has written nine non-fiction books, nine novels, a novella, and contributed a short story to a collection edited by Lee Child as well as been a guest on scores of national and local television shows, including educational programs for the History Channel, the Learning Channel, and Discovery Channel.  He, a Seattle native, lives in Olalla, Washington, with his wife, twin daughters, three chickens, Milo (cocker spaniel) and Suri (dachshund).

Never Quite Understand

Screams From The Balcony (1993)

Charles Bukowski (1920-1994)

Pray For Paris

Pilgrimage by Gerry Straub

I cannot learn about God.
I can only unlearn the things
that are keeping me
from a full awareness of God.

To find Christ you must make a pilgrimage
to the center of your being,
to the place where the human and the divine meet.

The key to being a pilgrim
is to remain still interiorly as you journey…
otherwise you are just a wanderer.

To pray is to embark on a journey without end -
a journey deep into the heart of darkness, of paradox, of mystery.

The journey to God is slow.
Each day, we inch our way along a steep, winding road.
The pace of spiritual transformation
moves about as quickly as traffic in Los Angeles.

Spirituality is essentially a journey
in which we move from what we are
to what we will be;
it is a journey to weakness.
We truly learn to live when we begin
to explore our weaknesses.
Every experience of weakness
is an opportunity of growth and renewed life.
Weaknesses transformed by the reality of Christ
becomes life-giving virtues.

Martin Luther King, Jr (1929-1968)

A Woman of No Importance

Each Birthday

Each New Year

Greetings 2015