A New Perspective

        Sherry called and asked if I’d like to help out with the care of my friend, Flo, whose brain tumor’s growth now paralyzed her right side. Sherry was putting together a list of people who could come in and sit with Flo.  I swallowed twice, cleared my tightening throat, and said, “Sure, when do you want me?”  Flo and her husband Don seemed really old to me at the time, but they were probably only in their fifties.  They had made it their personal mission to help street kids and had a Gospel Mission down town which Don needed to tend

  

 “I’ll put you down for the lunch hour on Thursdays if that’s okay. Come about 11:00 and the next person will be there at 3:00.  I’ve got the shift just before you, and I’ll have lunch prepared.  All you’ll have to do is take it out of the refrigerator and help Flo if necessary,” Sherry instructed.

“No problem,” I said, “I’ll see you then.”

            I hung up the phone, looked around the now-quiet kitchen, cluttered with breakfast dishes, cereal boxes, milk, the ordinariness of my housewife’s life, and swallowed the lump in my throat.  Whew!  You never knew what curve balls life would throw, and whether you’d be up for catching them. I made a note on my calendar to show up at Flo’s at 11 am next Thursday.

            At 10:45 that day I left the house and headed north on West Seventh to Don and Flo’s.  I punched in my favorite station and caught the end of “Annie’s Song” by John Denver.  My thoughts floated on the notes trying to imagine what I was going to say to Flo.  What do you say to someone holding her ticket out of this life?  What did I know about it anyway?  Nothing!  The only thing I’d had to deal with was my mood swings around "that time of the month."  Why couldn’t I have the faith to move this mountain and have Flo leap out of bed and dance?  How did Jesus do that anyway?  The song ended with me lost in my own wonderings.

            Ten minutes later I pulled up in front of their home, much like my own, "little boxes on the hillside, little boxes made of ticky-tacky."  Only the house number, if readable, could guide anyone wanting to find you.  I was surprised when Don opened the door.  His rotund frame and crew cut, his ear-to-ear smile disarmed me; and I walked happily into his welcoming arms.  “Hey, how’s it going?” he asked, as he patted me on the back.

 “Oh, can’t complain,” I beamed.  Don had a way of banishing all my insecurities.  “Come in and give Flo a hug,” he commanded.

            Not having seen her for weeks, I wasn’t prepared to find my Big Momma lying in a hospital bed in her kitchen wearing a post-surgery butch haircut.  I didn’t want to act weird, but I froze...tears formed...throat blocked...breath stopped.  Big Momma was dying and I was here to help her negotiate the passage for four hours every Thursday.  I suddenly got it.  

          Thank God for automatic functions!  My lungs kicked in and breath entered, defrosting and grounding my body in the present moment.  I forced a smile, walked over to Flo, bent down and put my cheek next to hers, whispering, “Hi.”  I didn’t trust my voice and told myself she didn’t need a “Gloomy Gus” for a companion.  “Jesus, you’re always getting me into these challenging places.  Help!” I sighed under my breath.”

            Flo was feeling fine on her Percodan and anti-depressant.  Naturally conversational, she began giving me updates on what was happening at the Mission. What a relief!  She hadn’t changed on the inside!  We chatted happily away, and before I knew it she asked for her lunch.  The local Sunny-side radio station was playing music appropriate for an office, all upbeat and light. 

“I thought you’d have the Christian station on,” I wondered out loud. 

“I don’t get the same feeling from their music,” Flo explained.  I wondered what she meant and made a mental note to check out the differences on the way home.

            After lunch, Flo napped.  I sat across from her in an overstuffed chair and read C. S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce, an allegory of heaven and hell.  What a writer! I could feel the expansiveness of heaven and the sharp, isolation of hell. Lewis’ take on this counter-intuitive theology helped me as a feminist and modern woman relate to the Biblical concepts.

Before I knew it there were soft taps on the front door, and I rose to answer it.  Sherry greeted me and explained her earlier absence, “I didn’t come this morning, so I’m taking the last shift today. Hope that didn’t throw you. Next week, I’ll be here with you.  Flo’s son is getting married, and she’s asked me to bring her some dresses to try on.  It’ll take both of us.”  This will be interesting, I thought.  Life goes on; doesn’t matter if you’re dying of a brain tumor, you have to get a new dress for your son’s wedding.  Somehow this was encouraging to me, and it surprised me that I felt so hopeful leaving when I’d felt so Tin-Woodsman-like earlier.

            The next Thursday arrived before I knew it, and I once again rang the bell at the Holmes’ home for our grand adventure.  Sherry answered the bell, and in a matter-of-fact way ushered me to the kitchen.  There, across the hospital bed and across Flo were two queen-sized, floor length dresses in soft, shimmering knits.  Flo was grinning and I couldn’t help smiling myself.  “Well, finally you’re here!  I’ve been dying to model for you both!” she laughed.

 I wasn’t prepared for her humor.  “Doesn’t dying put a damper on things?” I asked myself.  Looking at Flo--one side paralyzed, her fuzzy, closely cropped head, her eyes shining with life--I couldn’t reconcile what I thought was reality with her relaxed and easy manner, even if she had good medication.

            Sherri and I pulled back her covers, and I climbed up on the bed to be on her left side, leaving Sherry standing next to the paralyzed side. 

           “Are you ready for this?” I looked at Flo. 

          “What do you think?” she smirked.

           “Where shall we start?” I asked Sherry. 

           “I’ll roll the dress up so just the neck opening is above her head, and then we’ll work it down from there.” 

           Okay, we got her head through easily enough. 

          “Flo, let Nancy roll you towards her, and I’ll see if we can pull this down over your other shoulder and put your arm in the sleeve,” Sherry directed.

           I bent over to take hold of Flo’s right shoulder and torso and pulled toward me.  It felt like five hundred pounds of dead weight.  Sherry pushed. I pulled. Flo ended up on her left side.  Sherry needed help with Flo’s arm.  As she pulled the dress down and I pushed the limp arm into the sleeve, I lost my balance and fell across Flo; she rolled back onto her back.  The tension around needing to be so intimate with Flo’s crippled body broke, and we both began to laugh like a couple of crazies.  Sherry got caught up in our hilarity and doubled over with great guffaws.  The kitchen rocked with our glee.  Somehow we got both dresses on and off, and Flo chose the outfit she’d wear to the wedding, "the blue one."

            As I left that day I reflected on what Flo had taught me--not to fear the worst, to live fully in every minute we are given, to be grateful for drugs that help and not to hold too rigidly to all my natural remedies and organic foods, to listen to elevator music if that’s what helps you cope, and to be open and friendly to any caregivers that offer their loving kindness. Maybe dying isn’t the worst thing.  Maybe I can do it when I get my ticket. I just hope there will be the love for me that there was for Big Momma as I go.

Words from the Song of Songs according to Solomon rose to mind, “Place me as a seal over your heart, like a seal over your arm; for love is as strong as death, … it burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame.  Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot wash it away.  If one were to give all the wealth of his house for love, it would be utterly scorned.”[1]

“Flo, pray for us.”

---

[1] Song of Songs 8:6-7, NIV 1982, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, MI

Flow-of-Consciousness to Crafting a Scene

Here is an example of two different approaches to writing the same scene.  The first is called “downloading,” which is a simple, flow-of-consciousness kind of writing, the kind I do when I’m just getting the memory down.  The second is more crafted--more action, more showing, less telling--but not finely edited.  The final version, if it survives editing, will pare down unnecessary portions.  Let me know how you experience each and which you prefer and why.  (Names have been changed to protect….)

Mid-life Crisis

As I pulled the autumn-colored quilt over our king-sized bed, I looked up at the shredding curtains behind it, sighed, wondering when Ken might be willing to budget a face-lift for the room.  The necessities headed his To Do list of bill paying, but clothes, home furnishings, personal items did not have his interest; my efforts to discuss them met with a grim expression.  I was grateful he provided the necessary things, but  didn’t feel I could ask for what he saw as extras being a stay-at-home mom with only a part-time job when I could get it  Still, the shabbiness of the bedroom deepened my the low grade depression.  Our kids, Sherrie and Tom, were in elementary school all day decreasing their need for me, and I’d just completed my term as President of Women's Aglow Fellowship. I missed leading this vital, faith-filled, supportive group of women like a newly blind man misses colors.

 * * * * * *

Our friends’ used, velvety sage green carpet, now ours, cushioned my steps as I entered the bedroom and walked over to our California king.  I reached down and lifted the edge of the quilt striped in an autumn rainbow of gold, green and orange.  No apologies.  It was the 70’s.  I pulled the quilt into place and plumped the pillows.  Would Ken ever give up his lumpy one?  And what about these drapes?  I reached behind the silky tangerine curtains, now shredded where the sun shone in each morning, and pulled the cords that drew them open.  Somehow new ones never got added to the budget over which he ruled.  I made a mental note to learn how to be more assertive.  Dust shedding from the disturbed curtains tickled my nose. Sneezing, I grabbed a Kleenex from the night stand and blew.

             If only I had a good job, my own money, I could get those drapes.  On the other hand, a job would work against my hours spent volunteering at the church and at Rebound, the ex-prisoners’ rehab center.  There was always the on-this-hand-but-then-on-the-other-hand thinking with me.  I could argue both sides on every issue and get stuck in the middle.  No action taken.   Lots of practice caring for others; little caring for myself.  No wonder I experienced this low grade depression.

            Reaching down to pick up Ken’s dirty underwear, I felt the angst of being a stay-at-home mom when the kids no longer needed a lot of attention.  From the day they started school, friends had replaced the fascination they found in my company, and if they weren’t playing with their buddies, they were watching TV.  I didn’t miss diapers and bottles, but I did miss the snuggling and play times together.

My volunteer work as President of Women's Aglow was over.  God I missed those women on my board, the close friendships, the prayer for each other as we shared our personal stories, the excitement of putting on a monthly meeting for the public with good food and an inspirational speaker, other women opening their hearts to the love of Christ.  I loved leading the praise and worship portion, banging my tambourine against my leg as the audience clapped and sang “I’ve got a river of life flowing out of me….”  It had been an exhilarating ride, but now someone else was president, and I needed to take a back seat.  I tossed his skivvies into the hamper.

Surprised by God

This took place in my late forties after several years of illness.

With a brimming cupful of spiced tea, I stretched out in my usual spot on our comfortable hide-a-bed. I pulled my baby-duck yellow, fisherman knit afghan I’d knitted years ago over my weary body.  It comforted me.  I picked up my Bible.   I was thirty chapters into the book of Job hoping to discover what helped Job deal with all his losses—deaths of children, loss of wealth, having a discouraging spouse, friends who preached unhelpful dogma to him, and finally losing his health.  One thing was clear.  Job wanted God to explain his suffering.  My mood fit Job’s well-reasoned accusations fired at God who, according to the story, had allowed the devil to take everything Job loved except his life.  The difference between Job and me that particular morning was that Job had more energy for the fight than I.

I don’t know how many days I began the morning with Job, starting with my sense of Job’s companionship in physical and emotional misery, and with his trying to make sense of it all.  I was hoping to find some healing word in this ancient sacred book, hoping Job’s story would open a window with some fresh air of hope to dispel my confusion, discouragement and apathy.

For some thirty-three long chapters I’d read Job’s protests about the unfairness of his suffering, and I was about to give up finding anything inspiring. I resolutely struggled through the next two chapters without finding anything supportive.  Finally in chapter thirty-six some hopeful words, “[God] is wooing you from the jaws of distress to a spacious place free from restriction….”[1] 

Whoa!  What’s this? Although I had gone as far as I had set myself to read that day, this scripture injected new hope and vigor into my soul.  It was enough to keep me going into chapter thirty-seven.  It wasn’t just the words that struck me, but a permeating sense of Presence. Past experience had taught me to believe that when I was gripped by a passage of scripture, God was making the passage personal to me.  Here God was saying to me, “Nancy, I’m working to move you out of this prison of misery, to a place where you can live your life fully!”  I sat up straight, shifted the book in my hands, when I read the words, “Then the Lord answered Job out of the storm.[2]”  My heart started to race.  I set my tea down so my shaking hands wouldn’t drop the mug. I read the words again, “Then the Lord answered Job….

 It’s difficult to explain just what was happening inside me at that moment.  For thirty-seven chapters I’d been mired in Job’s suffering, his agonies, his confusion, his frustration, his endless questions, monologues to his God who seemed to be absent; and my heart was echoing his sentiments.  It was as if my experience and Job’s experience had become one.  Then an encounter, God showed up to answer Job’s questions!  GOD showed up!  God was aware of Job, had heard Job, cared about Job, wanted to teach Job how to view his current difficulties, and for Job it was as if he and God stood face to face!   I’d put a lot of stock in theology and spiritual practice, but it was the impact of my own sense of meeting God face to face through this scripture, words infused with truth, that shifted my whole perspective.  If hope were a waterfall it would have drenched me in that moment.  All the good I’d believed about God came back to me, all my wilted faith flowered again.  I didn’t know how and I didn’t know when, but I knew in the depths of my soul that God was real, personal and willing to be involved in my life.  I’d always known this, but it had faded, and now it came alive again.

Why did these words initiate such a light-filled, transforming moment?  I saw in a blaze of spiritual insight that understanding wasn’t what Job needed.  What he needed most and what I needed most was encounter, to be acknowledged, responded to, to know we were known and valued by a God “in whom we live and move and have our being,” as the ancient Greeks put it.  My physical and emotional distress had been a muffling agent to the presence of God in my life, and I needed the living God to break through to me and remind me of my belonging and belovedness, that the world still made sense, that my place in it and my relationship to God made sense.  What I needed was an epiphany, the manifest presence of God to me in a way I could fully comprehend.  Job had his, and I was having mine!

What God goes on to say to Job in the verses that followed didn’t matter at the time to me, the words just kept reinforcing this direct encounter Job was having, and that I was having in that moment. God directly speaking to me, making Presence felt and known in an unmistakable serenity yet all my attention on alert status, my mind experiencing a light-filled awareness, my chest filled with a luminous spaciousness in a rare communion with Spirit, in Oneness with Wisdom and Love. This entire experience was quiet and simple, nothing outwardly dramatic, and yet everything changed within me.

As I continued I read Job’s words, “My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you,”[3] I thought I knew just what he meant.  Most of my Christian life was spent living by faith, choosing to believe that the Divine was with me, loved me and was involved in my life whether or not I saw what I considered evidence of this.  But when, by grace, I experienced an epiphany, a manifestation of the presence of God, I lived in a moment of clarity, of sight, of a reality that truly exists and confirmed my faith.  This was one of those moments.

As I became more conscious of what had happened through my reading, the hardness of my life as a chronic invalid was softened by an even greater truth I needed to know again, the transcendent reality that the cosmos is saturated with the love of God which is given freely to all who would draw near, and that a meeting of God in the human heart is actually possible.  And here, on the blue-plaid hide-a-bed, this meeting was happening to me, in me. 

In this fresh revelation, a semi-transparent cloud settled over all that was painful, unpleasant, and sad, over all my troubling unanswered questions, and grace lifted my heart to worship, to love and adore this mysterious God.   I sat, breathing freely, full breaths of hushed life, companioned by the ancient Job and infused with the cosmic breath of God; me, unexciting as a child’s milk spilled out on the table, bathrobe clad, barefoot, alone in the moment, and still chronically ill.  It didn’t matter.

Troubling questions would haunt me later.  Why don’t we have life-sustaining revelations, manifestations of God each and every time we’re hurting, confused, lost?  Why are epiphanies so few and far between?  God came near to me and healed me in my mind and soul that day, but not my body.  Why was that?  If God can appear and put an end to mental distress, why doesn’t this happen when asked…every time?  What I learned was that these questions must not be allowed to stop me from asking for God’s help and remaining open and expectant.  God’s promise is that if we draw near, if we take the time and energy to place ourselves in a receptive frame of mind, and do so for as long as it takes, God will come near to us,[4] and it will make all the difference.

---

[1] Job 36:16a NIV, 1988

[2] Job 38:1, Ibid.

[3] Job 42:5 NIV 1988

[4] James 4:8a, Ibid.

Some Thoughts About Marketing and Publishing Your Book

Recently I attended a workshop on marketing and publishing your book, presented by the Purple Sage Publishing Consortium here in Reno.  Pat Holland Connor was the speaker, and shared about her book, Doorways to Significance.

Her first statement was: "Marketing and publishing my book is my business today!"

Pat spends all her working time marketing her book now that it is published.  She has had a lot of help from a local publisher who provided a variety of services from which she could select according to her needs and budget.

Indie Publishing

At our Unnamed Writers Group meeting Saturday, Cindie Geddes of Lucky Bat Books gave us a knock-out presentation on the new e-book publishing route.  She urged us not to get agents or go the traditional publishing route for at least the next two years as things are in a huge transition, and authors are getting tromped on in the process.  Instead she recommends Indie publishing (independent publishing), and says, "Drop the words 'self-publishing.'  Her group, Lucky Bat Books, provides all the services an author needs to get published.  You pay only for the services you need, and the author doesn't have to pay ongoing publishing costs to them.  Her website is:  http://luckybatbooks.com


Here are the blogs she recommends, and they are compelling and relevant:

The Business Rusch by Kristine Kathryn Rusch (I had trouble accessing this blog.)

http://www.deanwesleysmith.com/ by Dean Wesley Smith (Really helpful!)

  http://accordingtohoyt.com/by Sarah Hoyt (Has left her agent for indie publishing.)

http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/ by Joe Konrath (Has had amazing success with e-books!)

Here's a definition for indie publishing:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_press

Out of the Doldrums

When first posted under this title, the content was incorrect.  Here is the appropriate content.

After eighteen years of chronic illness, I developed any number of strategies to beat the blues.  When my ability to cope dropped near zero, I wanted an elevator with an H button for heaven.  Not having one at hand, I did the next best thing.  I went to bed for three days.  My model was Jesus in the grave three days and then, voila! Resurrection! On my three days I did nothing but eat, sleep, void, and watch funny movies.  I didn’t try to be nice or appropriate to anybody or do anything I didn’t want to.  I always got enough energy that way for my coping dial to turn up to a good six or seven for several more weeks.

But for days when I just have the blahs, I make ketchup.  After researching and trying several recipes, I’ve put together one that I’m quite fond of.  It’s simply called Nancy’s Ketchup Recipe.

On a bleak day towards the end of winter, I looked at the time and noticed it was almost two o’clock p.m.  I was still in my rose colored chenille robe with its cuffs tarnished from too many breakfasts and not enough washings—typical attire for miserable days.

Time to get going! Do something for god’s sake!

I mentally ran through a list of things I like to do, and making ketchup rose to the top.

Tomato juice…sweetener…arrowroot for thickening…the ingredients tumbled through my thoughts energizing me enough to get to the spice cupboard.

I arranged everything I needed and reached into the kettle cupboard to pull out my red Dutch oven, a spur of the moment buy-on-sale at Kohl’s some months before.

I wonder what’s on KUNR? (the public radio station.)

I pushed the power button on the kitchen boom box and went back to my self-prescribed, anti-depression ritual.  Classical melodies infiltrated my gray mood and brought some soothing tones into my heaviness as I began combining ingredients.  That done, I started the good part, the long, slow, aromatic task of keeping my brew from burning on medium high heat.

My robe redecorated itself with new blots and blotches of red as an assortment of bubbles burst releasing their yummy tomato smells.  I ignored the new stains.  I was in an altered state--stirring…smelling…humming…listening.

The male radio anchor began giving the history of the next piece, the Olympic Symphony by Panayoti Karousos with movements named after exotic Greek gods and goddesses, all of whom I’d been studying in my Ancient Literature group.  I smiled as the first piece sent its shivery notes down my back.  Wakefulness began to rise within me like yeast in fresh, warm dough. 

In this moment I am a mythological crone stirring my cauldron accompanied by ancient goddesses.  In me the sun has come out from behind the clouds.

A Coming Out Party

All the food was ready; the sweet-acerbic smell of my famous Hawaiian meatballs filled the kitchen.  Sodas were chilling in the forty-year-old cooler on the well-worn redwood deck.  Lee had just hosed it down for the expected crowd and an after-the-rain smell hung in the air.

Tension in my stomach and shoulders reminded me I was losing control over my private space.  I told myself there was no reason to be anxious--these were all family and friends coming to this celebration!--but I wasn’t sure just who would actually show up.  Will there be enough people coming to make it feel like a real party?  I already knew my son wouldn’t be coming, and that had dampened my mood.

As I set out the iced tea the doorbell chimed, and when I ran to open the door my heart leapt into my throat.  It was Carol Purroy, my writing teacher, with a pot of raspberry-colored flowers in a hand-thrown pot.  I shouted out her name with great delight and drew her in.

No sooner had I helped her orient to the surroundings than other guests began coming.  Lee took over the door as I moved them outside to the newly landscaped garden—one of the two big reasons for this party.

 I repeatedly explained my design, “This is a Jungian conceptual garden where union of the opposites is the key. Here is the English country garden with its daisies and roses representing Western culture.  On the east side is the Japanese garden with its heavenly bamboo and rounded bridge over the dry creek bed—Eastern culture.  Uniting them is the labyrinth, the feminine aspect.  Looking up the hillside outside the split-rail fence, you’ll see the rocky ledge with iron benches—the masculine element.  Here on the level ground we have the formal, cultivated area and just outside the gate to the hill is what I call the wild garden with naturalized plantings from Western high desert areas.”

I smiled as I noticed guests beginning to walk the labyrinth in measured steps and a quiet, meditative mood.  Let there be much prayer and praise in this place!

A half hour into the festivities, Heidi came up to me with her toddler and pre-teen explaining she needed to leave.  Chevy, the baby, was having too much fun rearranging the rocks of the labyrinth and she’d had it trying to keep up replacing them.  I urged her to stay just a few more minutes so I could unveil my new painting for everyone, and she agreed though she wrinkled her brow warily.  I asked Tina and Lee to shepherd everyone in for the event.

      I brought a little stool in from the deck so when I removed the cloth I wouldn’t jerk the painting off the wall.  When everyone was comfortable, I teased off the drape to soft gasps of pleasure.  Using the laser pointer Lee had bought me at Walgreens that afternoon, I pointed its scarlet light at an assortment of symbols, explaining their meaning, such as the concentric circles representing campsites, or in my case, places I’d lived; wavy lines indicating trails, my path to the next home site.  It was the story of my life told in golds and reds, purples and whites, all dots, circles and lines in the style of the Australian indigenous peoples.

      In that moment, with the dearest people in my life all facing me, obviously enjoying themselves, giving me their rapt attention, I felt completely at one with all things, quietly filled with a gentle ecstasy of welcome.  Lee told me later I was radiant, and I knew my own inner gold had finally escaped its introverted container and was shining for my entire world to see.