Perhaps you’re like me and you wake up each morning with a song playing in your head. I just looked it up, and it seems there’s a name for it. Actually, it has two names—“earworm” and “involuntary musical imagery.” I prefer the latter. Earworm sounds more nightmarish, maybe like the creatures that Khan let loose into Chekov’s ears to control his mind.
The song in my head this morning is “Hurricane” by The Band of Heathens. Give it a listen. You might like it. If you’re interested, you can hear it here: https://youtu.be/75X4bWf5fIs?si=Uqq8ZLeohDQfQXSI.
I know why the song is hovering in my mental spaces. But first, an explanation.
Every year, while vacationing in Florida, I usually spend my mornings writing for my AngelsPortion blog. But I haven’t done any of that. This year, I’ve started plinking out chapters for another book. I really enjoyed writing and finishing the children’s fantasy fiction book last month. (Watch for it in May of 2026 – The Heroes of Ganchimi). Now, it’s on to a thriller of sorts about a vigilante pastor who… well… handles troubling things in this world in ways he probably shouldn’t.
I had about nine chapters completed before we boarded the plane. I’ve written every day since we got here, and now I have twenty-one. While writing various scenes along the way, there’s a sense that a song like “Hurricane” is playing beneath the various events.
The song has that a-storm’s-coming vibe. Or maybe it’s more like a something’s-broken-but-no-one’s-doing-anything-about-it ambiance. It starts slow, moving like heavy boots down a hallway. Whoever’s wearing them isn’t hurried. But he is unrelenting. That’s how the main character’s thoughts land. The world around him keeps spinning, in many ways pretending to function. But in truth, everything’s off-kilter—just enough that you know judgment is coming. And not the divine kind. Not yet, anyway. First comes an unremarkable man in a collar who, though he seems relatively harmless, has entered a place where he’s anything but.
And so, he watches. That’s because beneath his vestments is a taut wire pulled far too tight by grief, frustration, and commitment to someone he let down. He knows something that happened—and is still happening. He knows where the bodies are buried, both literally and metaphorically. He follows a trail someone left for him and discovers even more dreadfulness along the way. And when the moment comes, he acts—not as a man dispensing mercy, but as a man who’s seen too much rot and can no longer stomach its stench.
In a sense, the hurricane doesn’t arrive noisily. It moves quietly, like him. And by the time the person he’s pursuing realizes what’s happening, the windows are already shattering, the walls are already shaking, and the room is filling with vengeance’s black water.
Now, for a sense of what I mean by the song, go back and read the last three paragraphs I just wrote while listening to it. You’ll understand. It’s a pulse of sorts—a forecast, maybe, especially since I plan to write another chapter or two today. I already know what I think is going to happen next, and yet, like most things I write, I don’t really know until the keyboard starts clacking. That’s when the winds in my mind start picking up.
Jennifer told me I’d never get away with writing a book like this. Maybe she’s right. I’ve only ever written inspirationally or satirically. Even the fantasy fiction volume is deeply Christological in every way. That said, this one definitely has its theology. And it’s been surprisingly fun. And I still think I could make it work, maybe even seeing it through to a respectable end. And by “respectable end,” I mean one that doesn’t glorify badness, but also doesn’t flinch from it. It’ll be a story that lets the reader dwell beside a character who exists in the underbelly of sin’s darkest things, which, by the way, many pastors already know far too well. God willing, the reader will sit in the tension of what is, in reality, a Law and Gospel space—a location that often feels like a blend of grace and grit. I want to explore what happens when a good man—an honest-to-God shepherd—starts asking the kinds of questions that polite society would rather leave unanswered, and then, instead of merely defending the sheep, he breaks from the flock to hunt the wolves.
In one sense, somewhere along the way, he became more and more undone by the question, “Where’s the line between mercy and complicity in evil?”
I have a weird brain. At least, I think I do. Maybe it’s weirdly creative enough to wrestle with these things. And like I said, it’s been fun tapping at it so far. It hasn’t been an easy story to tell. But I also don’t want it to be. I just want to write whatever comes along. And I want it to ache, at least, a little. I want it to make people uncomfortable in the right ways. Honestly, I want to tell a good story, and as I do, I want the reader to feel the heat of the collar around the pastor’s neck when he crosses the line and the blood spatters. I also want readers to wrestle with the reason he stepped in the first place. Perhaps they may even find themselves understanding why he stepped, while also knowing exactly why what He’s doing is questionable.
So yes, maybe Jennifer’s right. Perhaps I shouldn’t write a book like this. What pastor writes this kind of stuff? Well, I guess I do. And there are two reasons why.
First, I’m on vacation, and for anyone who knows me, that means I’m more or less on the writing Autobahn. There aren’t any mental speed limits on this road. Second, and returning to my original analogy, I’m already several chapters down the hallway. And the boots are still moving. Indeed, the clouds are already swirling. If you listened to the song I mentioned previously, you’ll know I can “hear the south wind moan.”
But here’s the thing—and it’s the thread I need to be sure never snaps. No matter how dark the story becomes or how deep the shadows reach, if the story is ever to be true, there must be a line that neither I nor my character can cross without consequence.
That’s a truth for all of us, really.
The story I’m trying to tell isn’t about someone fixing the world by force. It’s about what happens when a man tries—and what it costs him when he does. It’s about how easily justice can turn to obsession, and how thin the line is between standing against evil and becoming a reflection of it.
Still, that doesn’t mean you turn away from what’s rotten. Looking the other way is just another kind of guilt. But there’s a difference between fighting the darkness and feeding it, between standing against evil and letting it hollow you out.
Maybe that’s what this story’s really about—the space between those two things. The place where conviction starts to sound a lot like obsession. Where even the good guys start to wonder what’s left of the good in them.
So I’ll keep writing. And as I do, I’ll make sure the story doesn’t lose its way. No matter how dark it gets, there has to be a flicker of light at the end—something worth chasing, even if it’s barely there. Because if there isn’t, then all that’s left is the darkness. And I’ve seen enough of that to know it doesn’t need any more storytellers.
And maybe—just maybe—if I do this right, the reader will see that flickering in him. Beneath the stink of gun metal and guilt, beneath the blood that dries to his hands like confession and the burden that grinds bone to dust, in the spaces where nothing seems to wash off and the burden never lifts, there’s a man who still believes the world can be better, even if he’s forgotten how to live in it. You can’t help but want him to find his way back. And that’s at least one of the threads I’ll follow—the hope that somewhere, under all that ruin, there’s still something in the grotesque hero worth saving.
As noted in its title, the previous note was written prior to finishing Ashes to Ashes. The book is now available! Click here to order your copy! – Rev. Thoma+
Rev. Dr. Christopher I. Thoma 