Creating Moments or Finding Peace?

Well here it is, January 17th. 

Can you believe we’re half way through January already? Me neither. If you’re like me, you’re thinking “Where did that time go?” It seemed like just yesterday I was planning my Christmas holidays and now—it’s over. This time of January is always the dreariest for me. The holidays are over, the weather is typically bad in this part of Pennsylvania and there isn’t another holiday in sight until Valentine’s Day. No hope—just snow and cold.

Isn’t it odd how we wish our lives away that way? When there aren’t any holidays in sight we long for the weekends, but they come and go so quickly that we’re soon longing for the next, and the next. When holidays are on the horizon, we wish they were closer. We make plans on how to spend the special day, we get ourselves all worked up with stress about how we’ll spend the day and with whom—creating that perfect joyous moment, only to be slightly disappointed when the moment comes and goes too quickly, or is not all that we hoped and dreamed it would be. Too soon, the moment is past and we’re looking ahead to the next special day, never learning how we can deal with it better and never living the moments in-between.

Are you aware that there are other days in-between holidays and weekends? I know—I’m shocked too. What do we do with those days—where do they go?

I’ll tell you—we flounder them away wishing on the next great holiday, great weekend or spectacular adventure that we’re trying to create.

I’ve been writing about finding the joy in the little things, finding joy in even the smallest moments of life—even if it isn’t a holiday, weekend or special occasion. I want to stop squandering my life away wishing on the next big thing and the next big holiday. I want, instead, to find the next big thing in the everyday, small moments of my life. It’s not easy. It’s really a bad habit to say “I can’t wait for the weekend!” Many of us do it, but it’s worth breaking out of that rut.

You want to know why?

Because when we stop wishing away our week for the weekend, we actually might enjoy the times in-between instead of wishing them all away and then wondering where did the time go.

For example: Today I went out to lunch, by myself, to a local restaurant. It’s typically not my favorite place, but it was warm, on a cold day, with decent food. It’s not my favorite place mainly because it’s frequented by older clientele and I feel out of place. However, today, I noticed that the older folks, who must go there frequently, had chemistry with the servers. The waitresses laughed, joked and called people by their names. It was like a family meal. Although I wasn’t included, being new to the scene, I felt the warmth of their exchanges. It made me smile.

But if I had just been thinking about the weekend, what I was going to do, what I was planning, how fun it would be—I would have missed the exchange. We spend so much time with our noses in our computers, our phones and our TVs, that we miss out on what’s going on around us. We miss out on the joy that’s happening right now.

Put down that phone! (I’m really yelling mostly at myself here people…)

Later, I sat by their fireplace in an overstuffed sofa, watching snow drift silently down outside. I was thankful for a place on my lunch hour to sit and rest and be warm. No thoughts of the upcoming weekend assailed my thoughts—I just sat peacefully and was thankful for the comfy seat and warm fire.

It gave me a moment to breathe—something I haven’t truly had since before the holidays began. And even though it was snowing outside—I thought it looked lovely. So pristine and beautiful—a real gift from God. (Even if, ten minutes later when I was driving in it, I didn’t feel the same.)

Take time today to be thankful for the moment you are in…take time to breathe it all in. Stop thinking ahead to the moments you want to create and find moments throughout every day that just happen. I think we will all find more peace in our lives if we do.

God bless.

Sue Fairchild was born and raised in North Central Pennsylvania where she now lives with her loving, supportive husband and their four legged, furry “kid”. Her blog, Sue’s Simples Snippets (www.suessimplesnippets.wordpress.com) is about searching for the bigger meaning, or even the small meaning, in the simple, and not so simple, moments in life. She has been published numerous times in the Christian devotional The Secret Place and just recently in the Chicken Soup for the Soul book “The Dating Game”.

The Prayer Journal of Flannery O’Connor

     

                Flannery O’Connor’s short fiction hints at the gothic, with quirky, fallen characters who often don’t find redemption or do in unexpected ways.   They meet emotional, spiritual, or even physical violence, yet through those stories the reader finds their own redemptive epiphanies.   Now, with the publication of her prayer journal, her Catholic faith, life, and writing are examined in “The Passion Of Flannery O’Connor” by James Parker (The Atlantic, Nov. 2013).   

                I suspect being a Dead White Woman has helped her escape the multi-culti cabal overseeing what is Acceptable To Teach.  (Can we have an honest discussion sometime?)  Her most famous story, “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” is among several still included in college textbooks.  Its blazing ironic fire still rises from the fog of pedestrian reading thought canonical in 1970’s high school classrooms.  (Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” still gives me chills, while J.D. Salinger’s popularly baffles me.  But I digress.)  I included O’Connor in my college Literature class last fall and devoted much time to her Catholicism, the essential root of her art.

                O’Connor’s journal describes wanting God as the “greatest bliss.”  She longed to know Him, lamenting, “I do not know you God because I am in the way.”  Her stories are the outworking of her mysticism.  She believed that the Word is supposed to disrupt our preconceived notions of how the world works.  Her faith compelled her to portray characters who are “KO’d, dismantled, with a violence that would be absurdist, if the universe were absurd.  But the universe is not absurd.” 

                When I read O’Connor, I feel like I’m watching an accident happen.  I can’t turn away despite myself, because I’m sucked into the scene’s imagery and my own emotional response.  Objectivity is futile and the tension disconcerting.  Such is the state of our world and my place in it.

                As an “instrument for His story,” O’Connor doesn’t allow me to remain outside creation in all its horror and absurdity.  After all, God didn’t.  Because, as O’Connor also says, God decided this world was worth dying for.

Lora Zill is a teaching artist with the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts

and blogs about creativity, faith and the arts at http://www.thebluecollarartist.com.

She teaches writing at Gannon University and to gifted students and

speaks at writers’ and artists’ conferences.  Her nonfiction and poetry have been published widely.

Rebel Review by Vicki Taylor

Linda Windsor rounds out her Brides of Alba Series with an action-packed story of political intrigue and spiritual warfare. Rebel steeps Alyn O’ Byrne and Kella O’Toole in the mire of the last days of King Arthur’s reign. From the intricacies of the royal court to the revelation of personal secrets, this book is a page-turner from start to finish, especially for those who enjoy the romance of Arthurian legend.

Though significantly different from the Arthur taught in college lit. class, this series sparks a renewed interest in the facts surrounding the legend. Windsor places Arthur’s Court in the late sixth century, congruent with the only documented account of the historic Arthur. Though the characters and conflicts are similar to the stories found in classic British literature, Rebel’s basic premise revolves around the fight for Britain’s ecclesiastical future. 

The story opens with the death of Merlin, the leading druid/Celtic Christian priest in the kingdom. His absence creates a void of spiritual leadership that Modred, a high priest in the Celtic church, believes he has the right to fill, but Arthur’s preference for this honored position is Roman archbishop Cassian. The battle for power between the British and Roman churches ignite the struggle that eventually rips Arthur’s kingdom apart.

Main characters Alyn and Kella are thrown into the middle of the fray when Queen Gwenhyfar entrusts the two with ensuring the safe transport of historical church documents. The relentless antagonism between King Arthur and his cousin Modred has sparked religious discord among their countrymen that incites full civil unrest. With the population divided from within and the threat of the invading Saxons from without, Alyn and Kella embark on a perilous journey.

But completing this royal quest isn’t their only challenge. Alyn, a scholar of both religion and science, must overcome the guilt he feels over the death of a friend and accept his role as God’s prophet to the rulers of his generation. Kella, hiding the secret of an unplanned pregnancy, entreats Alyn to help her find her father and her betrothed, both of whom are missing from battle and presumed dead. Desperate to find hope for the future, these two old friends are forced to face outlaws, traitors, and the truth about themselves. It is in that truth that they find the freedom to love and the strength to overcome all the obstacles they face.

 Rebel is an incredible story with a perfect balance of action and romance and more than a hint of insight into the politics of religion that continues to impact our society today. Linda Windsor does a masterful job of weaving history, legend, and imagination into a narrative that brings the Arthurian legend to life like few others. I highly recommend this book and its counterparts in The Brides of Alba Series.

To find out more about Linda and her books, you can visit her website or make plans to meet her in person at this year’s conference. We hope to see you there!

UnWrapping of a Story

I suppose I was always a writer. It just took me a long time to admit it. It took me even longer to realize that writing was never really about what I thought it was. The first hint that I had of the truth came the year I became a follower of Jesus. To say my life had changed would be an understatement. In less than eight months I had gone from working as an engineer to enrolling at a seminary. My family and friends could not quite believe it. They were no more surprised than I. 

My first Christmas as a Christian came upon me quickly. I was half a continent away from my past life. I was not going home for Christmas. There was no money for gifts, and I was not expecting anything. I thought of all the Christmases I had spent without knowing my Lord and decided to write a poem for Jesus as my gift to him. It seemed easy enough. 

Days went by, and not only did I not have a poem, I did not have a line.  Then one night, at just about this time of the year, I did something that was radical for me.  I asked God to forgive me for being so cocky as to think I had anything to give worthy of him. I could only give him something worthy of him that he had first given to me.  I asked him if he would forgive me and help me write my poem.

When I set down my pen that night I had written a mere sixteen lines, and everything I thought I knew about writing had changed. My poem, rather than being my gift to God, had become God’s gift to me.

That poem, which was somehow never edited, was published the following year. It marked the official beginning of my journey as a Christian writer.  I now realize that writing is not so much my gift to him as it is His gift to me.  It is a present I enjoy unwrapping every time I pick up my pen for Him.  

Donald Hasselman, author of Tracks and Ties , published by Xlibris is a member of the SDCWC board.

It's Always the Primroses

When I was lifting flats of just-planted seeds onto a shelf in our basement cold room one February a couple years ago, my hand slipped.  One of those flats abruptly upended and strewed Pro-mix and seeds all over the old picture frames and rusty bird cages stacked on the cement floor

There go the primroses.  I knew that with sinking certainty, even before I looked at the label on the flat.  After all, it's never the seeds you don't particularly care about -- like cabbages or cauliflowers -- which get spilled.  It's always the gold-laced primroses. 

I told myself firmly at the time that I couldn’t complain about losing one type of flower, when I had so many more.  Just as I couldn’t complain about recently losing my job of ten years, because it was a good job while it lasted, and supported me when my career as a novelist seemed stalled. 

I couldn’t even complain about the weather.  It had been an unusually mild winter, just as my problems were mild when compared to other people's.  But even a mild winter seemed to drag on forever when I was waiting, on potential employers and editors or on seeds slow to sprout. 

I always sow the most difficult ones early every year, because I know it will take weeks of cold conditions for some of them to germinate.  I started my writing career early too, knowing it might require years of difficulty before I saw growth. 

There have been a few successes.  Sometimes, however, promising sprouts damp off and shrivel -- leaving me no choice except to start over again.  The pre-germination period the second time around always seems even longer.

I know, however, that I have to keep planting seeds, even when a change in the weather seems unlikely.  Otherwise, I’ll have nothing to contribute when spring finally. . .well. . . springs. 

I can’t be sure which of those seeds will sprout, though, or when.  The charm of  all real life, after all, lies in its unpredictability.  I may never get gold-laced primroses or a success-edged career.  But perhaps something else will bloom for me that I'll love far better.  That's what the waiting that irks us writers so much should be all about.  Not assurances, but possibilities.

That February, I gathered what I could find of the scattered Pro-mix and returned it to the flat.  I’d like to be able to report that my writing life has blossomed since then.  No such luck!  But, strangely enough, the seeds which had been spilled were the only primroses that sprouted for me that year.  Although those poor plants got scratched up by our chickens while they were still young, I’m sure there’s a lesson in that! 

Audrey Stallsmith, St. Davids Registrar, is the author of the Thyme Will Tell series of mysteries from WaterBrook Press and The Body They May Kill from Thomas Nelson.  Her work has also appeared in periodicals such as Woman’s World and Birds & Blooms.  She writes articles for Demand Media and Dave’s Garden, as well as her own sites, Thyme Will Tell and Inklings of Truth.