A new book is coming!

News flash: I’ve got a new book coming out soon!

  I’ll offer details later, when I have a better idea of when it will happen.

  I haven’t posted anything on this blog lately because I’ve been occupied getting the final manuscript to the publisher.

  Sad to say, it will not be out by Nov. 30, which is the end of the publisher’s half-price sale.

  (A reminder: two of my previous books are half-price! They are Keeping Christmas and Change of Heart. Check them out at wipfandstock.com.)

  Don’t think the new one will be out by Christmas either, so tell Santa he can cross it off his delivery lists this year.

  I turned in the manuscript and associated paperwork last Friday. I’m relieved to get over that initial hurdle, but more work is ahead, including paginating, copy editing, proofreading and early marketing. Happily, I don’t have to do all those steps, mostly just wait for the results.

  * * * * *

  Here’s more on the “hidden” Pantocrator at St. Fin Barre’s Cathedral in the city of Cork, Ireland.

  Linda and I toured the cathedral late in the summer as part of a Wesley Study Tour of the British Isles.

  The cathedral occupies a relatively small footprint but soars high into the sky above Cork. For all its height, it lacks the flying buttresses you often see to support the high walls in other cathedrals.

  The lack of buttresses may explain why high above the altar you can barely see a mosaic depiction of Christ Pantocrator, or Christ the King. The view is obscured by several colorful support beams.

  When I asked about them, a spokesman for the cathedral said the beams were probably used to carry the weight of the walls from the inside because there were no buttresses outside.

  Recently I got a message from Shane Broderick, a cathedral guide who also is a historian and folklorist. He said he thought the Pantocrator was not part of the original design by noted architect William Burges, but was added later.

  He provided a drawing by Burges of the upper reaches of the walls above the altar. There’s no Pantocrator visible.

  So maybe another piece of the puzzle falls into place, so to speak.

  Shane sent me several photos of the Pantocrator. I’m including one here. You may notice that he is not nearly so fierce as so many other renderings of him.

  I’m also including another photo he sent me – a photo of one of the angels that line the high walls near the Pantocrator. This angel is holding a model of the cathedral.

  From that iconography it would appear that not only was the cathedral a part of the heavenly plan, perhaps the “hidden” Pantocrator was as well. Ask the angels.