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ON THIS BRINK

Sit with me on this brink of time.

Tonight is the threshold of a new calendar year. It could be a turning point – we hope it is. And this kind of assessment could be part of any turning point, any transitional moment. I don’t make New Year resolutions, but I can assess the situation and evaluate my resources just like preparing to go on a road trip. Only this time, I’m traveling into 2021 and beyond. First, the question:

 

What did I do with 2020?

Well, I finished writing, then published my second book in early March. It’s a memoir of the ten-year period of paradox when my marriage dissolved and God became absolutely real and bizarre. Check it out here: Turn & Walk: an unexpected quest. My website went live shortly after I began self-isolating. Read more

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BEFORE AND AFTER

I’ve been trying to think of something I could say about this book that would compel people to read it. The whole reason I put my story out there is so some person, in this generation or the next, would read it and find hope. That won’t happen if they can’t find the book. So, I’m posting articles that might travel to that person.

SO WHAT’S THE BIG DEAL ?

The book’s story line is about an unplanned adventure, a spiritual quest that took a curious woman, bound by duty and conformity, through some weird stuff. When writers frame this type of scenario for the page, the expected outcome of such a journey is that the main character emerges changed in essential ways. She is reconstructed – new. And yes, I am fundamentally different from who I was before all those strange experiences changed – transformed – me.

THE  TRAIL-HEAD 

The story line of the book begins on the farm. It has to. A consensus in writing is that the author doesn’t start with backstory but sprinkles it in, scene by scene, along the story arc. That made no sense in this book. To show how drastic my renovation, I had to take you deep into the original landscape of my basic personality framework – the pot of soup this little dumpling emerged from. I needed you, dear reader, to feel what I felt. The first three chapters offer a taste of a way of life through which I interpreted the wider world, how I came to think like I did.

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INVISIBLE

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Have you ever felt invisible?

Was it a pleasant feeling or a sad one?

From my porch, coffee in hand, I watch these “invisible” critters.

Over there, a young buck – invisible in the shadows of the trees. Fresh velvety antlers the color of tree bark. The muscles of his neck thick from carrying the weight of his developing rack. He’s not ready to be seen.

At the other end of this acre, a doe tries to be invisible – and silent. It’s six o’clock, predawn, and her wet fawn is still finding its legs, staggering under momma’s cleansing tongue. To be visible is too dangerous.

An invisible hawk passes overhead, revealed only by her huge shadow gliding over the grass. Silent. My eyes jump toward the sky. She’s visible for only a second as she soars through branches and beyond the woods. Read more

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WHAT IF…..?

What if…..? What if I died tomorrow?

That may not be a typical ‘what if’ question, but this 2020 spring, it’s a more common consideration. The Covid-19 numbers have most of us realizing its potential. However, this question is not a new or distressing one for me.

In 2001, I got my first flu shot and spent most of the next two years near paralysis – looking death in the face. Incredible burning pain in all four limbs. Helpless. Watching my body get weaker and weaker. Trouble swallowing, trouble drawing breath. Suppressed neuro-muscular communication, misdiagnosed time after time.

Natural herbs and minerals, good water, my sister’s Ondamed healing therapy, and time got me back to my new normal. That’s another story for another time.

But during that season of torment, I really thought I was dying. And I couldn’t do anything but accept the possibility.

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