And yet, life in Santa Cruz goes on. Children still go to school. Moms still go shopping. Birthdays and holidays remain on schedule. The Del Mar Theater still shows movies and the Pep Creamery across the street still serves ice cream. A circus comes to town.

One day, 11-year-old Charlie and his best friend, Barry Bennett, are Kit Carson and Jim Bridger, Rocky Mountain trappers; the next day, dressed in army surplus gear, they’re soldiers on patrol. A week later, they’re dismantling roller skates to make orange crate scooters and before you know it, they’re tearing down Miramar Hill on a patchwork soapbox car.

Through it all, Charlie’s grandfather, Vernon Stevens, gently guides his grandson through lessons about Santa Cruz and nature, scouting and life… until that one day when the tables are turned: Vernon’s life is suddenly at risk and Charlie and Barry are faced with a challenge that may be beyond their reach.

At my age, it took more time and effort that I’d like to admit to wander through the mists of memory and retrieve events from my early years in 1940’s Santa Cruz. That said, I’m doubly grateful for the bounty of photos and article on the war years available online.

Nonetheless, writing this book was a lot of fun, for it was very much like re-living many of my childhood joys. Most of the accounts of each chapter actually happened, at least in part, like gleaning Brussels sprouts, the soapbox fiasco down Miramar hill, taking a ride in the locomotive, the abandoned house on Mission Street and the ‘discovery’ of the valley, complete with the Jewish cemetery on Meder Street. And yes, there really was a fern-covered cave with a small waterfall in the back.

Take a trip back to the ‘50s as you stroll Pacific Avenue or enjoy raviolis at the Santa Cruz Hotel; stop for burgers and shakes at Spivey’s 5-Spot, catch a movie at the Del Mar, or enjoy the best abalone dinner ever at the Palomar Hotel.

As a Santa Cruz native, I’ve revisited the places, events and people that comprised Santa Cruz of the ‘50s, recalling the small beach town as a warm and wonderful place to grow up. I invite you to come along for a visit to one of the greatest small towns on the California coast: Santa Cruz ’52.

Provocative, challenging, encouraging, hopeful, funny … Analecta is all of that, and more. As a pastor and psychotherapist, I wrote these ten short stories to explore various ways in which God prevails, Jesus Christ teaches and heals, and the Holy Spirit restores in our lives … sometimes without our knowing … sometimes for no other reason than we are the object of his great love.

In those times when we’re offered opportunities to respond to the situations and people God brings before us, will we honor him in how we conduct our lives, or not? Analecta offers some alternative scenarios for your consideration, keeping in mind that Hamlet was right: to be or not to be the person God created is the question.

“The river is full of rapids and pools, bends and rocks, sandbars and snags – let’s call them trials and temptations to the people, the men and women and children who seek answers to life’s questions, who are learning the lessons of what it takes to travel the river’s course, and to find what gives them purpose, what brings them fulfillment.

“Because the river-journey is filled with these many challenges and trials and temptations, each individual will have numerous opportunities to answer to the call of self or to remain steadfast to the call of Christ.

“There will be loss and gain, birth and death. There will be joy and sadness, upset and peace, love and grace. Throughout the journey, each person who professes faith in Christ is called to maintain his or her faith, to honor God, and to honor one another.

“Observing the journey of each one of his precious children will be the Creator himself, watching to see what you – and you, and you and you – will do with his commands and with his promises. And he will be watching all the while to see what you will do with his son, Jesus.”

I liked Roger’s analogy. It fit where I was in my own journey down this river of life, what I was learning about what it meant to be a Christian (and I’m still learning, by the way). Not many days later, I came upon this quote by theologian and mathematician, Blaise Pascal, “What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, for there is a God-shaped void in the heart of each man which cannot be satisfied by any created thing but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus Christ.” Then, when I read this passage in Isaiah, “But now, O Lord, you are our Father: we are the clay and you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand,” these concepts coalesced and The Potter and the Clay was born.

I enjoy writing allegories. I find them a viable way to pursue ideas outside the box of conventional thinking, where analogies and poetic language fit well with the style and format. I like how the words flow to bring form and fit and credence.

My aim here, with The Potter and the Clay, is simple: to set down a form in which biblical truths and their life-giving principles – that powerful stuff that impacts and brings change and growth to our lives – can be conveyed in such a way as to encourage both thought and spirit, and perhaps, to prompt consideration for deeper truths of the Kingdom of God.

So it is I offer The Potter and the Clay, that ‘out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your heart through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge – that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God’ (Eph 3:16-19 NIV).