Dec 24

World Neighbors

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This year marked a first for me. I learned about a major event happening in another country via Twitter instead of from a television or radio news announcement. Getting the information on my phone, less than an hour after the crisis started, made me realize how fast world news reaches us today. Compare that to a catastrophe occurring a hundred years ago. For example, if an earthquake hit a remote region of China in 1915, it wasn’t likely that anyone outside of that country would hear about it. The news might not have even made it out of the impacted region.

When bad news travelled slowly or not at all, it was easier to feel comfortable that all was well. Tragic events happening close to home were usually few and far between, which if you think about it is actually still the case. What’s different is that every world event can come into our homes at amazing speed. An earthquake in one country, a terrorist attack in another, drought on another continent—we may hear it all in a single newscast. At best, it’s unsettling. At worst, it depresses a person’s spirit.

We are now world neighbors. There’s no escaping the fact. And we need to start living and thinking that way. In some ways we have, such as when we donate to relief efforts. In other ways we haven’t. You can find plenty of examples of people being bad neighbors in much of the politically charged rhetoric being espoused today.

Technology and economics made us neighbors. I believe it can help us become good neighbors and even friends. Technology makes it conceivable that my wish at the end of this blog could actually reach people worldwide. It’s a hope. It’s a start.

To my world neighbors, as we end this year and begin a new one, I wish you peace, goodwill, and safety for all our days together on this planet Earth.

Dec 23

Onward and Upward in 2016

Over the years I’ve come to realize the world is a fast changing place, and once things change there is no going back. The real world doesn’t work in reverse.

One thing that has not changed over the years is the appreciation I have for the people around me: my family, friends, readers and fellow writers. This is the time of the year to say Thank You. I truly value your friendship and the input and comments you’ve provided this past year.

That’s it for this month, too close to Christmas to go on when a simple Thank You says it best. Have a fun Holiday and a wonderful New Year!

Onward and Upward in 2016!

-Phil

Dec 21

Do You Agree?

Customs and traditions are funny. What’s expected in one culture may not even be appropriate in another. I was wondering the other day, what are the consequences for someone who does what’s expected and feels cheated or breaks with tradition and goes their own way?

In the 1950s United States, if you were a girl, you were expected to grow up, marry and move out. It didn’t matter if you were the first-born or last or somewhere in between.

I recently read Brooklyn: A Novel by Colm Toibin. Several weeks later I saw the movie. The story in both is about Eilis, 18 years old and living in a small town in Ireland. Her three brothers are away working in England, her father has died and her older sister, Rose, has a good job as a bookkeeper. Rose and Eilis live with their mother.

Normally in Ireland, since her father has died, Eilis, being the youngest, would be expected to live at home and take care of her mother or, if she married, she and her husband would either live with her mother or take her mother with them. Her fate was sealed the day she was born the youngest girl in the family.

Rose, being older, would be expected to marry and leave. But, in Brooklyn, she doesn’t. Not only doesn’t Rose move out, but when Father Flood, an Irish priest living in Brooklyn, comes back for a visit, she arranges with him for Eilis to go to America. He finds Eilis a place to stay and a job in a fashionable department store. Normally, it would be Rose who went to America.

Being part Irish, I know the traditions so I was surprised by this turn of events. I kept looking for a reason. Rose had a responsible job. She was earning a good salary as a bookkeeper and she would definitively do well in America. Why didn’t she arrange for herself to go?

Once Eilis arrives in America, she does well. She’s a success at the department store, is taking bookkeeping classes at night and has an Italian boyfriend who wants to marry her.

Rose dies one night in her sleep. It seemed somewhat mysterious until her doctor explains that she’d been seeing him for the last several years for a heart condition she had and she knew she didn’t have long to live.

When Eilis hears that Rose has died, she is filled with grief. She can’t make it back to Ireland in time for the funeral but tells her boyfriend she wants to go back for a visit. He is terrified that she won’t return and insists that they marry before a Justice of the Peace before she sails. They do and she leaves the next day.

Once back in Ireland, tradition kicks in. Her mother makes it clear that she expects Eilis to stay and take care of her. To help make this happen, her mother lets the owner of the company Rose worked for know that Eilis also knows bookkeeping and needs a job. He offers to hire her temporarily to try her out. Then her mother contacts Nancy, Eilis’ friend from before she left Ireland. Nancy’s fiancé has a friend, Jim Farrell, who quickly becomes romantically interested in Eilis.

When the three of them (mother, Eilis and Jim) attend Nancy’s wedding, Eilis’ mother is pleased with the way she’d been able to turn events in her favor and remarks to Eilis, “We’ve done well.”

Eilis is not so sure. She doesn’t have a close or warm relationship with her mother. In fact, her mother doesn’t seem particularly interested in Eilis and talks mostly about Rose.

Eilis has Tony back in America. She sees what her life would be like in Ireland and is not happy at the prospect.

This becomes a crisis. Eilis tells her mother she’s already married, he’s Italian and she’s returning to America. She doesn’t ask her mother to come with her, thus breaking the tradition.

Do you agree with her choice?

 

Dec 18

Reflections on Resolutions and Writing

‘Tis the season.

What does your season look like?

It’s December, and I’m running around with holiday madness. I don’t have the time to remember my gift list let alone what I did or didn’t accomplish this year. In fact, if hadn’t written them down, I’d have forgotten I even had thoughts to change my world.

I don’t believe in resolutions. Too often they’re wishes without a specific plan for success. That’s why I embraced my writers’ group commitment to three Non-Resolutions for 2015. The challenge was to identify the “specific and concrete” steps to “improve yourself as a writer.” I did this thinking it a simple challenge something specific and easy it’s the end of the year, tis the season to look ahead while looking back. so I share my successes and failures in life, the universe and everything else.

How did I do? Let’s just say I take ownership of my actions and my non-actions. These were my commitments:

1.(A) Find an editor and (B) publish my memoir before June 2015.

Nope. Nope, nope, nope. Not even close. Every time I sat down to edit, thinking the book just needed some tweaking, I found a jumble of sentence fragments and missplelled words instead. I suspected that organizing the non-chronological series of vignettes was the problem. I came up with creative ways to procrastination. I read blog posts by fiction and nonfiction writers to learn how they handled organization. I read a memoir to see how it was organized. I found checklists to follow, but still my story didn’t flow.

That got me thinking about format and tools to ease my struggles. I purchased Scrivener, a software program has a “corkboard” to organize my thoughts and scenes so I can rearrange as often as needed with a swift swipe of my mouse. This is a useful procrastination, I told myself. I spent two weeks slugging through the detailed tutorial and then hit a snag with the program. I set it aside in frustration to continue after November’s NaNoWriMo. It’s December and is still untouched.

2.Explore at least one new book/genre and revisit an old favorite.

This was a flop. Aside from reading that one memoir early in the year, I didn’t finish another book.

 

I started what I presumed was “an old favorite” but it wasn’t as interesting as I remembered. I found a sci-fi book that both Mom and I read. I committed to read it at night, maybe not every night, but I put it and a spare pair of reading glasses on my nightstand for convenience. The only space available was at the edge, so the book is too far to reach, and my clumsy, ill-fitting dollar store glasses are awkward to wear. I have made reading more complicated than it should be.

3.Set aside time to journal at least once a month.

I accomplished this! I may have skipped weeks at a time, but I wrote more, that I know. That I feel.  I mingled my thoughts with blog posts and ideas, sprinkled between to-do lists and notes from writers’ conferences and meetings. I rediscovered that I write more fluidly by hand, so I spent more time journaling just for the fun and love of writing on paper. Writing by hand is organic to me, so I will keep journaling.

Nothing is truly a failure. These commitments did not need to be complete, nor did they need to be completed for me to succeed. I learned about myself and gained some valuable perspectives and insights into my actions.

What did I learn?

I need to break my writing and editing tasks into smaller snippets and set a timer. Tell myself “Tuesday morning, research editors” and allot 27 minutes only. I’ll know at the end of the timer I’ll either need a break or feel inspired to keep working. It’s how I survived and won NaNoWriMo.

In 23, 27 or 33 minute segments, I wrote 50,721 words in the last 20 days of the months. I started on November 11, so this equaled 2500 words/day which for me was about 1 1/2 hours per day. That means I can find the time to write because I have the time when I’m not distracted by Major Crimes on TV or Angry Birds on my phone. I remind myself of this daily because not only is it motivating but because in the madness of the month, I discovered a 25,000-word story, a complete one that I can actually work with and interests me. I consider the purchase a distraction and a success. I can use Scrivener to organize this book as I edit to publish by the end of 2015, a swift spellbinding sequel to my initial Jimmy the Burglar book.

Getting back to my roots of handwriting gave me the opportunity to see what I was thinking. Words on paper, written by my hand, helped me focus on what I want to do with my writing. I will change the focus of my blog to include more writing, insights, interviews and inspiration. Posts on Deadwood Writers Voices may change. I want to entertain my readers, offer them something worthwhile, while writing topics that excite my passion and enthusiasm. I’m exploring what those topics may be.

As for reading books, I will purchase a better pair of reading glasses.

Dec 16

Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee!

In Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, Ebenezer Scrooge was obsessed over the accumulation of wealth. He was greedy, hoarding his pennies. He was mean, complaining about the poor. He was nasty, wishing ill on others. No one wanted to be around him. His main problem, however, was that he had lost his joy. Wretched behavior grew in the chasm left behind. In a last ditch effort to save Scrooge’s soul from eternal torment, three ghosts individually appeared to him to whisk him through time: past, present, and future. With the Spirits’ guidance, Scrooge examined poignant moments of his life and was convinced that he needed both a change of heart and a change in behavior.

Similarly, we’ve all had moments in which we’ve buried our joy so deeply that it seems like we’ll need several miracles to find it again. We battle busy schedules and stress over unfinished projects. We say things we don’t mean to loved ones and regret how we’ve hurt them. We obsess over wrongs done to us and harbor contempt towards offenders. Financial worries, health scares, and tension all add to our woe. We want to dismiss everyone and everything with a loud “Bah! Humbug!”

But we don’t have to hide from the Grim Reaper—or avoid answering the phone—by curling up beneath our covers on cold, dark mornings. There are ways to get through the gloom and into the light. We just need a healthy disposition and a route to lead us back to joy. The three avenues that help me are to give, pray, and sing.

GIVE
A year ago, I fueled my van at Costco and started to maneuver past the pumps. I wasn’t in too much of a hurry. I had plenty of time to meet my boys at their school and take them home. It was cold, about 40 degrees. The boys would keep warm inside until they saw me arrive.

Just as I was about to exit the Costco lot onto a busy road, I saw a young woman walking through the grass. She struggled on the uneven ground in part because she was lugging an infant carrier. I had no doubt there was a baby tucked underneath the layers of blankets. Of the two travelers, the young mother was the one crying.

For once in my life, I wasn’t conflicted over whether or not to offer help. I rolled my window down and shouted a couple of times in the woman’s direction before she heard my offers to give her a ride.

Quote taken from A Christmas Carol. Photo by Kelly Bixby

She told me that her van had run out of gas in a lot across the street from Costco. She had seen the gas pumps and made her way over to ask for help. A man whom she had approached was rude and turned her away. Her tears led me to believe that she was emotionally defeated by the time I came upon her.

According to Jesus, “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35). Through my chance meeting with the young mother, I know exactly how it feels to be blessed. It is joy to be handed trust and confidence from a stranger. It is joy to provide for another person. It is joy to cry together, hug goodbye and wish good upon one another.

In Matthew 25:35, we read, “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.” If you’re inspired to give of yourself in any of these ways, you’ll meet a need in someone’s life. Sometimes they’ll thank you. Sometimes they won’t. When you give freely, without expecting anything in return, you’ll feel differently, and you’ll want to give more.

PRAY
There was a time when I couldn’t imagine squeezing a single minute out of my day for any other being, even God. I was a busy mother, wife, daughter, sister, friend, volunteer, committee member…titles galore. For crying out loud, I couldn’t possibly support one more relationship! And then, I gave in to an ever-present tug: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God” (Philippians 4:6). So, God joined me during my early morning showers.

Praying while showering may seem disrespectful to people of other faiths who are tied to strict worship ceremonies and customs. But my Christian faith teaches that nothing stands between the Creator of the Universe and me. I can approach Him anytime and anywhere. I may be casual and speak conversationally with Him. Alternatively, I can be formal and lower myself to the ground in reverence, never losing sight of the fact that He is owed my perpetual thanks and utmost respect.

Throughout my years spent getting to know Him, I’ve discovered that He has quite a sense of humor. He’s very opinionated and He’s jealous for my attention. He’s loving and kind too. And sometimes His expression of love comes with harsh discipline. What’s really cool, however, is that He provides me with all that I need.

We work well together: I seek His input into my life and He directs me…I may have that statement backwards. Either way, I don’t always listen, and the path isn’t always easy or clear. I’ve tripped over plenty of litter—ugly sin and temptations, disappointment and heartache—scattered by the world. I’m not immune to any of it. Often, I wonder if I might even be more susceptible to it than people who don’t care about His approval.

The beauty of His and my relationship with one another is that He knows what I truly think about Him, and I get to experience the joy of His companionship as He walks with me through all my trials. It feels good to know that He is ever present and looks forward to our one-on-One time. “Go into your room, close the door and pray to your father, who is unseen” (Matthew 6:6).

SING
The Detroit Christian radio station, K-LOVE 106.3 FM, challenged its audience members to spend thirty days listening to nothing else but Christian radio. The point was for listeners to replace worldly distractions with the praiseworthy songs and positive messages provided by Christian radio programming.  For me, that meant that I would have to turn off daytime TV shows and evening news programs.

I did it! I tuned out mainstream media and primarily listened to three stations: K-LOVE; Faith Talk 1500; and WMUZ 103.5 FM – The Light. For well-over a year now, my life has been practically void of televised news and I don’t miss it one bit. There are plenty of other ways to get information. My friends, family, and church all provide enough details for me to feel like I have some idea as to what is happening in the world. If I want to know more, I look to the Internet and mindfully select what I want to read or view. By choosing to do this, I am not bombarded with overly negative and repetitively broadcast stories. Bucking popular information sources and spending time singing along to songs of worship has brought greater peace to my life and more productivity to my days.

I admit to venturing astray by going to hear the Rolling Stones play at Comerica Park; how could I not? I collected nearly every one of their albums during my youth. By the way, the concert was amazing! The guys all defied their ages as they played a dozen and a half of their iconic songs, and I had fun singing.

In comparison, a year earlier my husband and I celebrated our wedding anniversary by attending a concert performance of Christian artists: Third Day, Mercy Me, and Colton Dixon. That concert was amazing for a different reason: Christian music seeps into my soul like nothing else. I carry songs of praise almost constantly in the background of my mind. And the joy I feel is powerful enough to get me fervently dancing. That’s a phenomenon for a conservative girl like me. With my arms reaching towards heaven, I belt out words of worship, words reserved for the King of Kings. Mick may still jump around like a thirty-five year-old, but I know my heart belongs to Jesus. I feel it in my joyful soul.

“Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 5:19).

This Christmas, I hope you’ll plot your way to joy. GIVE cheerfully, PRAY boldly, and SING loudly!