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Archive for June, 2010

Weekly Schedule in Case Inquiring Minds Would Like To Know

Posted in Uncategorized on June 30, 2010 | 2 Comments »

Okay, so maybe I’m gonna be a little less hodge-podge sporadic on this thing…at least for now. Probably need to get some help from some of my Reflections buddies on how to set up those neat little schedules on the sidebars. Oh, well.

Mondays: hodge podge devotion style. Basically, what I’ve learned or how God has challenged my thinking. (Always in need of a perspective-otomy!)

Tuesdays: creative writing, just for fun stuff. (My favorite. grin.)

Wednesdays: parenting on purpose

Thursdays: Book talk. What I’m reading, what I want to read or what I just read. Maybe an occasional author interview, or maybe I’ll talk about my latest wip. (work in progress.)

Fridays: Hodge podge devotion style.

Got a parenting on purpose article you’d like to share? Send it my way at slattery07@yahoo.com

Blessings.

BTW, there will be a test on all this next week, so make sure you memorize the schedule.

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Turning a Picture Into a Story–my dad’s version

Posted in Just for fun, tagged , , , on June 29, 2010 | 5 Comments »

My dad, Rex Febus, sent this one via facebook. Again, the photo used is:

The assignment was to use this photo to create a scene, partial scene or story background. Here’s Rex Febus’ version:

oh that boy of mine. jest dont know what im gonna do wit im.

ever since his paw ran off after that fool fourth baby he gived me. he just been a handful. day and night

why just the other day he got himsef kicked out a that piggily wiggliy store.
the little scamp was watching “laurel and hardy” on jim bob’s dad’s picture box.
so he saw them picture box boys give each other a hot foot and then traipsed his self down to the store.
he seen this man over lookin the meat counter and like a snake in da grass he slithered on his belly up to the man’s foot. he stuck a match in the crack tween da sole and da shoe. then he lit it and then run off.
curious as a daggone cat he comes back and seed the man swatting his leg cause da pants ketched a fire.
the man grabbed him by the scruff of his neck cause he was laughin so bad and carted him off to the sto manager.

nows i gotsta whack him a good one or so. but these othere chilluns are weighin me down so i cant catch im. now i gonna have to get mysef down to da sto

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Terry Palmer’s “Creative Writing”

Posted in God's Authors, Just for fun, tagged , , , on June 29, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

Terry Palmer, author and Reflections In Hindsight Columnist sent me this via email in response to my previous post (scroll down) on turning a picture into a story. Here was the picture:

The assignment was to use this picture to either generate a scene, partial scene or story back ground.
Here’s how Terry’s imagination interpreted this photo:
“Children!  Quick, turn your heads and don’t peak!”  They knew what was in the upcoming wagon and didn’t hesitate to turn away in sadness.  The third death wagon of the week ground its way through the filth of the camp.  She knew what brought her family to this camp but wondered what tales of woe held these people; held them here until the wagon took them out.  What would the toll be today?  More innocent children?  Her gaze carried past the slow moving wagon, past the awful machines, out to a grassy meadow on the far edge of camp.  That was the place for her children.  Oh, to be free to escape and take them to run and play in the soft grass and sunshine.  Memories of a simple and clean home life sprang to her thoughts.  Her thoughts.  They kept her holding to a form of sanity and propriety.  She knew what happened to the women who surrendered to the filth.  She knew the haunted eyes and ravished bodies.  Suddenly her view of sunshine clouded over as the smelly form of the camp boss closed in upon her place of refuge -

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Another One Just For Fun: Turning a Picture into a Story

Posted in Just for fun, tagged , , , on June 29, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

I love reading Sol Stein’s “How to Grow a Novel”. I’ve been reading it for quite some time. It’s one of those books you pick up, read a few pages (sometimes even just a few paragraphs) then make a mad dash for your keyboard. It’s like diving into a literary Sudoku! Last time I read this book, I determined to spend a minimum of one day per month “observing”. I even had all sorts of idea-stimulating places I wanted to go–the mall, a coffee shop, the city market, a park. Anywhere where my mind, and thus my pen, could be stimulated with original sights, sounds, eccentricities (like that odd man with rubber-band lips eating that overly-ripe banana while driving down the freeway. Seriously, have you ever watched people eat? Giggle, giggle.) And yet, for the most part I’ve remained inside my nice little air-conditioned (for the most part) house, hidden behind a computer screen relying on istock photo and Google Earth to navigate the world.

But now that my novel is done (minus a little fine-tuning here and there), I’ve decided to spend a little time playing with words before jumping on to my next one. I thought it would be even more fun if you all would like to join me. Obviously, we can’t take a sensory field trip via cyberspace (okay, so maybe we can, but I’m really not in the mood to argue. Just go with me on this one.) But I thought that perhaps by posting a unique or intriguing photo once in a while it might stimulate some great brainstorming sessions. Wanna join me? I’d love to hear your ideas, thoughts or creative tellings of this photo. I’ll add a few prompts, and maybe some ideas of my own and you can either post yours in the comments or email them to me and I’ll publish them as a separate post. My email address is slattery07@yahoo.com. Please make sure to put “creative writing” in the subject heading, otherwise you’ll be sent to my trash pile. :)

Here’s the photo:

Here are some questions and thoughts to get you started:

1. Notice details. What type of clothes are these people wearing and why?

2. There is a dark spot on the child’s arm. Is that a bruise or a splotch of dirt? Why?

3. How old is this woman?

4. The children are clinging to her, and yet her face is angled forward, one hand is under her chin and the other appears to be in her lap. What might this say about her?

4. Where are they? What has led to this moment?

5. Is it morning, evening or night?

6. Based on the clothing and the tarp over the woman’s legs, it appears to be cold out, and yet, their hair is still so there doesn’t appear to be any wind. Are they inside or out?

7. What is the woman looking at?

It was bitterly cold, despite the steady stream of sunshine poking through the holes in the tarped roof. Mary Lou’s jaws ached as she fought to keep her teeth from chattering. For the children’s sake. Raylon’s breath was warm and moist against her neck, and for that she was glad. And yet, the very thought of taking comfort in the huddled breath of her child brought enormous guilt.

Angry voices seeped through the canvas walls of their make-shift home–men fighting, women yelling, hungry children crying out to their mothers–reminding her of how precarious her situation really was. True, they didn’t have food inside their thread-bare shelter, and the warmth of the many fires lit through out the camp failed to penetrate the icy air within, but at least here, they were safe. For now. And yet, one glance at young Ida’s cracked and flaky lips told her she’d have to venture out soon enough, and make her way past the hateful men with hungry eyes and grabbing women ready to claw a child’s eyes out for the tiniest crumb of bread. Waiting for nightfall wouldn’t help, for that was when the men gathered around the fires with home-made liquor flooding their foul-breathed mouths. She’d heard they had a still somewhere full of fermenting potatoes. One of these nights, or early mornings, she would find where it was,  and grab a few spuds for her girls. They said only the rotten ones were used, but what did she care. Rotten or no, it would fill her girls’ bellies. Maybe even give them the strength to make it through the winter. Yes, that was all that was needed–something to help them survive this bitter season. Once spring came and her husband returned everything would be made right again. Wouldn’t it?

Okay, now your turn. :) Wanna give a little background on the people in this photo or maybe write a sample paragraph or two? Just for fun?

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A Relentless Investigation

Posted in Let's Get Real, tagged , , , , on June 28, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

It’s easy to write about love, mercy, grace and protection, dancing on the edge of truth, sprinkling just enough to spark ones curiosity yet failing to speak the words of life. So many of us have forged our own views of reality, based on nothing more than what appeals to us. We’ll grab a little Buddha, sprinkle in some New Age philosophy, and top it off with Christian ethics. And so long as we are sincere, and no one gets hurt, we’re good to go. Until one day we stand in the great throne room of God and He asks us the only question that matters: What did you do with My Son.

Borrowing from Francis Chan, “When we face the holy God, “nice” isn’t what we will be concerned with, and it definitely isn’t what He will be thinking about. Any compliments you received on earth will be gone; all that will be left you is the truth.

The truth, not our version of reality, but reality as it is. Funny, we spend more time studying the stock market or the next political wave than we do searching out truth. It’s as if we expect spiritual answers to be handed to us. In our spiritual apathy, we readily adopt the popular view of the day, discarding it when a new, more appealing view comes along. Basically, we create a virtual world in our head consuming ourselves with things that will last but a moment without a second thought for those things of eternal significance.

A few Sunday’s ago our pastor told a story about a man who had crossed over from Mormonism to Christianity. Why? Not because he had thoroughly investigated Mormonism and found it to be false but because he had thoroughly investigated (like a single-minded detective who wouldn’t rest until he’d uncovered the truth) Christianity’s truth claims and found them to be true. Truth is the ultimate reality, and if we search for truth openly and honestly, not allowing our deceptive desires to sway our interpretations, we will find it. And if we seek God, honestly seek Him, we will find Him.

If you’re interesting in investigating, for yourself, this thing called Christianity, some great books to start with are:

Evidence New that Demands a Verdict by Josh McDowell

Testing Christianity’s Truth Claims

The Case For Christ by former atheist Lee Strobel

Mere Christianity by CS Lewis

And to gain a better, and coherent, understanding of various other truth claims, The Universe Next Door is an excellent book and has been used in many university classrooms.

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When Transparency is Hard

Posted in Let's Get Real, tagged , , on June 24, 2010 | 2 Comments »

Last night I walked away from church thinking, “Wow, did I share too much?” This is a common thought for me. It’s so easy to hide behind an “everything’s fine” slogan, presenting the perfect image for everyone to see, but I think the upkeep is unbearable. And it only demonstrates a complete misunderstanding of grace. Grace doesn’t say, “Get it all together, then come”. Grace says, “Come as you are.” But unfortunately, we live in a sinful world where judgments are made every day, and we’re gonna get hurt. Most often by those we trust the most. But that doesn’t mean we add another brick to our heavily-mortared walls or pull the covers over our heads. It means we keep our eyes on Jesus, and stay rooted in His love.

This has been a hard lesson for me to learn. To be honest, over the years, it has often been the body of Christ that has hurt me the most. During those times when I shared a portion of my heart, only to find it smashed beneath heavy combat boots, or when I offered a helping hand only to be  shot down. And for a period of time, I hid in my safe little house behind my computer screen. But then God began to stir in my heart. I think I heard Him strongest when I sat and listened to an older lady who had been a Christian for over fifty years recall her journey. I didn’t hear anything about her struggles, fears, temporary bitterness, and even occasional rebellion. True, she may have been a spiritual powerhouse who never faltered, not once, not even when she was sitting in an African Bushman’s shack watching ginormous bugs crawl up the walls, but I don’t think so. I have a hard time believing that she was able to stay above the fray, consistently, for fifty years. Unless she had somehow managed to shed off her humanity. I do, however, think her intentions were good. She wanted to glorify God and help others see the all-surpassing peace that comes from resting in His hands, but unfortunately, by omitting the struggles that brought her there, she clouded the path, leaving others just beginning their journey to navigate this thing called Christianity alone.

About a year ago, I felt God nudging at the deepest recesses of my heart, urging to me to lay it all out there–to be real. To show others what it means to fail again and again and again, only to find yourself more deeply rooted in grace. And so, I am continuing in obedience, even if it’s uncomfortable. Even if it causes me a few friends along the way, because somewhere, sometime, an empty soul will happen across my writing and will, by the grace of God, lift up their eyes to the one who pulled me from the pit. And I think it is that realization, the understanding that there are others out there struggling even more than I, searching for the faintest glimmers of hope, that keeps me throwing my dirty laundry on the line. And when I face rejection, when someone more “spiritual” than I cringes at the depths of my depravity, I’ll brush it off and turn my eyes back on my Savior, the One who knows the extent of my sin and yet loves me anyway.

Maybe you’re struggling with this very thing. Trying to live up to a societal or “religious” standard, bouncing from one church to the next with a forced smile on your face and a “God is good” slogan popping out of your overly-cheery lips. Or maybe you’ve opened your heart up only to find it broken and smeared. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you that somehow if you do A or B, that will magically change and people will respond to you with the unconditional, accepting love of Christ, but I can tell you that He will never turn you away. When everyone else fails you, He never will. And for me, resting in that freedom–the freedom of knowing that I am dearly loved and totally accepted, has made all the difference in the world.

Tomorrow I have a guest writer on my “Till Death Do We Part” column, and it is my prayer that you are as touched by her story as I was. It shares some very deep struggles and moments of total faithlessness, and I  know it was hard for her to write. But as I read her email I realized her desire to comfort others overcame her desire for self-protection. Now that is love–loving others enough to open yourself up for judgment and rejection. Stop by Reflections in Hindsight tomorrow to hear how God resurrected a dying faith and marriage.

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Looking for the Treasure Hidden in the Mundane

Posted in Let's Get Real, tagged , , , on June 22, 2010 | 2 Comments »

Last week our house felt like a sauna. No, maybe sauna is too mild of a term. I think it’d be more accurate to liken it  to a lava bath on Venus. After two weeks of no air conditioning, (luckily we were on vacation for one of those), our home had gone from mildly uncomfortable to nauseatingly unbearable. Seriously. By Friday afternoon, with our thermostat reading ninety-three and climbing, our bodies began to revolt.

It’d been a rough week for all of us. The evenings were the worst. At bedtime, with the outside temperature barely dipping below ninety, there was no way to cool our house no matter how many fans you got going or windows you opened. Needless to say, the Slattery household was anything but cheery come Friday morning. Although we did have one thing going for us…the air conditioning guys were installing our new unit that day. Woo-hoo! Unfortunately, that meant Ashley and I had to stick around, in a hot, sticky house while they did it. And after a week’s worth of sweaty, itchy, crabby, sleepless nights, I was expecting fireworks. Or at least a few angry tears.

I was not anticipating any “precious-memory making moments” that day. In fact, I think I would have been happy just to get through the day without either one of us losing it entirely. And yet, despite the heat (or perhaps because of it) and lack of sleep, my daughter and I had the silliest, giggliest day we’ve had in quite a long time.

It started with time.

Despite a 92,000 word document desperately needing to be edited and numerous impeding deadlines, I shut my computer down and put it aside, along with anything else that required movement. (minus the occasional fb pop-in) And my daughter, too tired and hot to play outside or hide out in her room, hung out with me.

The giggles were initiated by dog-vomit

So here we were, dying, wishing we could head to Sonic for an ice-cold Cherry Limeaid when our mop-top started spewing nasty green stuff out of her mouth. So I picked her up and ran to the door, sending globs of bile shooting across the sofa, onto my daughter and leaving a trail from the den to the back yard. This quickly sent both of us into a fit of giggles and an afternoon of silliness–chasing dogs down with ice-cubes, Ashley sprawled across the wood floor in an effort to stay cool, us making goofy faces at each other. At the end of the day, a moment of discomfort led to some very special times between me and my baby-girl. And as I think back over our time, I can’t help but wonder how things might have been if one of us, just one of us, had reacted differently. What if I had thrown a fit when our dog started spraying our furniture with vomit? What if my daughter had lashed out when the vomit smacked her in the face? What if, after a day of roasting,  her giggles had become “annoying” or my jokes “lame”?

An entire day worth of special, long-to be treasured moments would have been lost.

It makes me wonder how many other moments I’ve missed. On those days when I’ve allowed circumstances to control me instead of looking for the silly, ironic or down-right absurd. I think God has many blessings hidden among our day, if we’d but look past ourselves and our momentary circumstances. In fact, I wonder if even those seemingly terrible situations can be turned into our greatest sources of joy.

One of my favorite verses says: “Every wise woman builds her house but the foolish one tears it down.” (Proverbs 14:1)

Unfortunately, I spend way too much time tearing down. Getting frustrated, distracted, upset, whatever. And yet, it is just as easy to build up, with joy, giggles, words of encouragement and focused time. Air conditioning or not.

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Writing your life story

Posted in Let's Get Real, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on June 20, 2010 | 4 Comments »

My daughter just gave me this poem and I loved it so much I wanted to share it.

Your Life’s Book by Ashley Slattery

Your life is like an open book

For anyone who cares to look

The story of your life.

There it shall be

For all eyes to see

The story of your life

So now’s your chance

To take your stance

And with a heart-felt grin

Take up your pen

Write the story of your life

Now its your legacy

For the ones after you to see

Their turn to read

About who you came to be

The story of your life.

Our life story will live long after we are gone and although our past colors who we are, it does not define us. Unless we allow it to. The ending of our story, to a large extent, is up to us. And  the ultimate question is, will the world be a better place after having read it, or are we just tickling their ears?

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Standing on the outside

Posted in Let's Get Real, tagged , , on June 17, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

I was going to post an article about donning our investigative hats in a relentless search for truth, but as the day progressed and my prayer list grew, I began to realize the deep pain surrounding me. I’ve heard it said that we’re all walking wounded. Oh, how true that is. Life hurts. People disappoint, expectations fizzle and no matter how hard we try to keep everything together, the threads unravel while still in our grip. And yet, instead of tossing our ropes to the Craftsman, we cling all the tighter, adding knot after tangled knot until it all becomes a mess at our feet. And for me, someone who’s been plucked from the heat, it’s hard to understand why we cling so tightly. Perhaps its fear of the unknown. Maybe its pride. Perhaps its a muddle of  confusion clouding our heads and hearts, preventing us from seeing those hands reaching down for us.

“I came that you might have life and have it to the full.” Jesus, John 10:10

Are we living life, really living? Or are we merely holding on?

This Is Your Life. Are you who you want to be?

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When the walls fall down

Posted in Let's Get Real on June 16, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

I think God has a direct line to my email account because every day I receive a message that draws my heart to Him and reminds me afresh of His goodness. This morning I was reading a message from a dear friend who’s helping me write an article on prayer and as I read through her testimony, I was reminded once again of God’s grace, and power. And my total powerlessness. It’s funny, I spend so much time constructing what I believe to be impenetrable walls around our daughter, anticipating every “what if” scenario so that I can take steps to avoid them. And yet, deep in my gut reality nibbles at my false sense of peace, reminding me how unpredictable and uncertain life can be. No matter how hard I try to avoid it, life happens. But when man-made walls crumble at my feet, one thing remains–the protective, loving hands of my heavenly Father. And those hands are much stronger, and more permanent, than any walls I could construct.

Our daughter is reaching a difficult age, an age where my husband and I must release the reigns a little to allow her to grow. And although I would love to insert a “rational-decision making” computer chip into her  brain, I realize that experience is the best teacher and like it or not, she’s going to make mistakes. But I also know that the God who created  her, who gently guides her and who loves her even more than I do, will catch her when she falls.

 

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