Media Notes

This page is for context – not publication

For the discerning publisher, I offer some context for the works that are made available here, those both unpublished and already posted.

Henry James de Jong is the name that has blessed me for sixty-eight years. The de Jong name goes back as far as 1607 on the island of Terschelling. Of course, my ancestry is mixed up with many other names, belonging to an assortment of Hollanders, mostly of the rural, farming sort. But among them is physician Pascasius Justus Turcq, author of the sixteenth century “On Gambling”, father Feito Ruardi, various teachers and preachers, grandfathers who both wrote memoirs, my own father, Herman de Jong, who wrote prolifically in Dutch and English (much of it for “Calvinist Contact”) and a daughter who blogs for “The Twelve” and consistently comes up with good sermons.

H. James Company is the name of the renovating business that kept me occupied and put bread on the table since 1984, when I quit studying at twenty-eight to start a family. Henry the dreamer got put on hold for James the doer. During that time, I worked mostly alone, building and renovating things. There was plenty of satisfaction to be had, and also opportunity for thinking, but not much in the way of thoughtful engagement.

With retirement, Henry has been coming to the fore again, somewhat wiser and more experienced, and with a renewed desire to engage. Writing is a fellowship all on its own — the act of putting thoughts to words is a creative act (mirroring the Word) that bounces off of society and self (and God), even if it stays private. It’s a way of making good in creation, as much as renovating or tending a garden .

So what I have written and presented here on this website, I’ve done in the first place for me. I endeavour to set down thoughts that have popped up in reaction to experiences of the past or present. Most of these sink away again, quickly becoming hard to recall, but some stick around waiting to be tested — to be subjected to the refiners fire.

I’m no specialist, so my thoughts are all over the map. Generally, those that lure me to writing are the ones that no one else seems to be thinking. (It’s rather pointless, I feel, to write about how bad Trump is.) But I am embedded within distinct traditions, so I do aim to get some traction with readers from those traditions with the choices I make.

Most articles start out as a single thought, often embodied by a title. With one kernel at root, it’s appropriate to be as succinct as possible, so I’ve embraced the discipline of aiming for around five hundred words. Perhaps that is what publications and busy readers are after anyway. But sometimes it’s hard, especially when reviewing an event or publication, and if there’s an interest in more detail, I am open to expanding. Many of the articles will come with captioned photos that I’ve taken, almost all of which are available in high resolution.

Until articles actually go to press they are works in progress. During this time I’m open to suggestions, and of course corrections, and even reworking. I value collaboration and feedback as much as the publishing/posting itself. Publishers are welcome to use whatever and whenever they want. Don’t feel bad if you don’t use something. I can always put it in the box with my dad’s unsung booklets.

I’ve chosen to start this new enterprise by focusing on our connections to the old world, using it as a vantage point for engaging with current events. I’m not out be a recreational travel writer — I’ll only explore if it has some bearing on our lives now. I’ve been stimulated by work on MyHeritage family tree and by a seven week trip to Europe last summer with my wife. But historical sensitivity has long been a part of me, and is shared by my immediate family.

I don’t see how you can separate the present from the past, so that awareness will inform all of my life. But I am committed to the present and the future, and I would like to face these head on. I have engaged at the church life level, through construction and gardening, and through camping and travelling. I hope to expand on this as retirement permits.

You can explore the paths that I’ve already taken and topics that I hope to explore from the list of lists at the top of this page. If there is anything there that might be of interest to publishers, a word of encouragement and some ideas for development would serve us both. And, current corpus considered, new topics of mutual interest can be fast-tracked. Unless I’ve missed the mark and this falls totally flat, I expect to keep up the writing indefinitely.

Your suggestions for publishing opportunities are welcome, and I’m also on the lookout for mentors. First come, first served as I approach publishers incrementally, so it would be necessary for them to stake claims, long-term to pull them off the market table.

If this all seems over-organized, you can attribute it to Tiago Forte spurring me on to the task of “Building a Second Brain”. I bought the book in Schiphol on the way home last summer and had half of it read before we landed. The task of reorganizing my stuff into projects took a great deal longer, and these pages are some of the first fruit.