Author: Lisa R. Howeler

Welcome to my blog! I am a wife and mom from Pennsylvania who also happens to write. I have been writing for 25 years, fourteen of those for smalltown newspapers in rural Pennsylvania and upstate New York. I'm a homeschool mom, a cozy mystery writer, a photographer, a wife, and a mom of two. I blog a little bit about a lot of things here on the blog. You can also find me on Instagram.

Catching up: What was on the blog last week and some favorite posts from other bloggers

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings19 Comments

It’s very possible you have a life beyond the blog world, like I do, and may have missed some of my posts and some great posts by some other bloggers the past week or so.

I thought I’d compile them in a list for you, in case you are lazy, like me, and don’t want to scroll back on the blog or search the web for the posts of others. Oh wait, maybe I’m not that lazy since I’m compiling this list for you. *wink*
On the blog here last week:

Sunday Bookends: House selling, snowstorms and rediscovering art

This just got real (more about house selling)

Faithfully Thinking: Is it true God only blesses you if you give money to the church?

Creatively Thinking: Like Breathing Again

Fiction Friday: A New Beginning Chapter 5

Some of my favorite blog posts from other bloggers last week included:

Love at First Light from Pete at Lunch Break Fiction. It’s such a sweet short story about . . . well, you’ll have to read it.

I read two posts this week about anxiety that I could completely relate to. The first was from Jenni at Housewife Hustle entitled Coffee Talks: Confession of a Scrooge Mom.

The second was A Letter to the Church about Anxiety and Depression by A.E.I. Writes, in which she reminds the church they aren’t doing the best job when it comes to helping those with mental illness. Trust me. I can relate to this.

This post by Alethea’s Mind about a group called anSpoken that helps people of all walks deal with their pain and not feel ashamed of the tough times they have walked through, but especially those who feel their church has judged them because of situations they have faced that were not in their control.

I absolutely loved this post, Waiting with Jesus, by BettieG but I love everything she writes. What a sweet, Godly woman with a chronic health condition that she has let bring her closer to God.

The Manitoba Mom Blog wrote about Why You May Feel Sad at Christmas and I can say I could relate to just about all of the reasons and how to deal with them.

So how about all of you? Any favorite blog posts of your own or others? Let me know in the comments.

 

 

 

 

 

Sunday Bookends: Reading mysteries with cats, watching artistic movies, and selling a house

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings, recap of the week, week in focus10 Comments

What a week last week was, or at least the beginning of it.

We knew we had at least one house showing in the middle of the week but then we were asked if we could accommodate a second house showing. Since our house had only been on the market for less than a week at that point, we said “sure why not,” but I also freaked out because I knew we had repairs and cleaning to do before then. Saturday through Tuesday was a blur of cleaning out, throwing out, scrubbing, scraping and desperate attempts to keep my youngest from making any huge messes before the showings.

Then the day of the first showing we had to figure out how to carry our cat to the van, since pets aren’t allowed during showings, and since she hates her cat carrier (not that I can blame her). My biggest fear is that she would get loose while we drove around town to waste time. Luckily that didn’t happen either day, even though she wasn’t very happy with being stuck in the van with two kids and a dog that likes to lick her all over.

The first day she was fairly anxious but the next day she spent a good part of the hour we were out yowling and for one brief moment, I thought she was going to throw up on me. As we drove she cuddled up against the dog, who really is like a buddy to her, even though they smack each other around half the time.

 

In the middle of the cleaning, we had our first snowstorm (Ezekiel) of the season and the kids enjoyed playing in the snow it left behind (which was much less than forecasters were calling for).

DSC_6345_2DSC_6348_2DSC_6349_2DSC_6352_2DSC_6195_3DSC_6245_2DSC_6296_2DSC_6299_2DSC_6430_2

On the reading front, I haven’t been reading a lot, partially because I didn’t have time and partially because my mom is using my Kindle after hers tragically passed away a couple of weeks ago and I usually read at night after the kids are in bed. I downloaded the app on my phone but I don’t enjoy reading in on the phone (even though I have a larger sized one) as much as on the Kindle.

I had a couple of hard copy books and read some of A Light from Heaven by Jan Mitford, but had to lay that one down because it dragged more than most of her books and I just couldn’t get into it. I did finally started a new “The Cat Who” book in the Kindle app after abandoning one she wrote in the first person.

I didn’t enjoy reading about a character who was usually written in the third person but was now in the first person.  The one I’m reading currently is The Cat Who Lived High (Book 11) by Lilian Jackson Braun and it is written in the third person. The Cat Who books are about former reporter James Qwilleran and his two cats, Koko and Yum-Yum. Koko seems to have a six sense, which Qwilleran uses in his amateur sleuthing. And like many mystery series, Qwill is the harbinger of death because everywhere he goes someone seems to die or has died already. Yes, he is another Jessica Fletcher.

At bedtime my daughter has been asking me to read stories from the Paddington books by Michael Bond. We are currently on the book “More About Paddington.” We love the stories about the crazy situations that bear gets into. As I’ve mentioned before on the blog, my daughter often passes out before the story is finished and I try not to read ahead so she and I can enjoy it together. She won’t let anyone else in the house read to her, mainly because I do all the voices for the characters. I also do all the voices for her toys when we play (I do a mean Hallie and Stuffy from Doc McStuffins). I really need to stop doing that. Ha!

On the movie front, I finally crossed a movie off my movie bucket list: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid with Paul Newman and Robert Redford.  I’m amazed I never watched it since I’m a huge Paul Newman fan. Who wouldn’t be with those blue eyes and that sexy mouth? It’s okay to speak about him this way since he’s been dead for years. *wink* Seriously, though, I’m a fan of his acting and this movie didn’t change my mind. It was definitely action-packed and worth finally watching.

butch_cassidy_-_h_-_2016

I also watched a movie called The Beautiful Fantastic, which wasn’t as good, though it was clean and the cinematography was beautiful. It got a bit too cliche in parts but I enjoyed and I enjoyed watching Andrew Scott, who I first saw in Sherlock as Moriarty. I probably won’t watch him as the “Hot Priest” in Fleabag because that show really doesn’t sound like it would be my cup of tea. The Beautiful Fantastic also starred Jessica Brown Findlay and Tom Wilkinson.

It’s imagery and unique angles helped to spark my feelings of creativity, so there was that at least.

maxresdefault

So, how about you? How was your week? What are you reading? Watching? Listening to even? Let me know in the comments or link to a blog post where you shared what you’re up to this week!

Lisa R. Howeler is a wife, mom, writer and photographer. She resides in Pennsylvania and is a former journalist. She currently provides photographs for bloggers and for stock agencies, Alamy, and Lightstock.

 

Tuning out the ‘Negative Nellies’ in life

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings9 Comments

What is the deal with everyone being so negative these days?

It seems like the moment someone gets excited or hopeful there is someone to rush in and dump a bucket of cold, hard reality on them to make sure they think of the cons of it it all.

I call these so-called “realists” Negative Nellies.

And yes I do picture Nellie, Laura’s nemesis from Little House on the Prairie, when I think of the term “Negative Nellie.”

I know about Negative Nellies because I am a recovering one and sometimes I still slide down the negative rabbit hole. I find I’m more prone to stumble into the negativity mire after I’ve been looking at the national media or social media and, no, I do not think that is a coincidence.

Prime examples of negativity in my family’s lives recently are related to the selling of our house and trying to buy another one. Instead of being happy for us we’ve had comments like: “ooh. Wrong time of year to sell a house. Good luck with that.” (Where the “good luck” wasn’t actual well-wishing but more like “yeah.. like that will happen…”); “Did you make an offer on that house? You should have waited until something better came along.”;  and “You’d better make sure you move to a good school district or somewhere with good internet service because you’re going to have to stop homeschooling your child and put him in cyber school or he’ll never succeed in life.”

Unsolicited advice and negative comments about homeschooling are not new to me. They are usually passed down to me in passive-aggressive ways, under the guise of “trying to be helpful.” Each time the advice is given as if I asked for it or brought it up, which I didn’t.

 

The challenge for all of us is to figure out how to tune out the negative people we encounter in life. Sure, we can just cut them out of our lives, which I have done with a few people, but doing so just quiets the negativity for a short time and we will have to deal with it again and again from someone else.

alison-as-nellie-4If the negativity is chronic, as it was in the case of at least one person no longer in my life, then, yes, it’s necessary to step away. But if the negativity is only on certain issues then I try to just let the person go and shut them down with statements such as “Thank you for your advice. I will take that into consideration.” Or “you’ve given me something to think about” (even if that “something” is wondering why I still talk to that particular person.)

People who sound negative don’t always mean to be negative. Sometimes they feel they are offering cons of a situation to help in your decision making (even if you didn’t ask) or sometimes they are trying to be realistic because they don’t want to see you hurt. The problem is that many Negative Nellies don’t tell you they are concerned for you or want to help, they just blurt out their negative opinion and make you feel depressed and deflated.

Then there are the Negative Nellies who aren’t concerned for you at all. They’re concerned for themselves. Maybe they don’t want to lose the role you play in your life because it will inconvenience them in theirs. For example, maybe you’re not a close friend but you serve some purpose in their life, like watching their children or taking them to work or being someone that makes them feel like a savior so they can fix you and feel superior. So if you suggest you’re going to change that situation they like then they are going to morph into a Negative Nellie in an effort to manipulate you into not doing what will inconvenience them.

It is this last group that is important to recognize and steer clear from as much as possible. Unfortunately, the Manipulating Negative Nellies can be the hardest to recognize because, one, they use charm and passive-aggressive behaviors to attempt to hide their negativity and two, some of them may not even realize they are doing it. It’s also hard to shut the Manipulating Negative Nellies out because they seem like such people at other times in our lives. They aren’t as overtly negative as the grumpy-pants Negative Nellies.

As someone who only now sees some of her past behaviors falling under both brands of Negative Nellies, I don’t recommend clean breaks immediately from the people in your lives who fit this description. If they are someone within your family, for example, or a longtime friend, try to understand their motives for being negative first. If, however, the manipulation and negativity continues for no apparent reason, either let them talk but ignore them, or distance yourself from them as much as possible, removing their opportunity to even offer a negative opinion.

And if all else fails, push them down a hill in a wheelchair into a pond.

Fiction Friday: A New Beginning Chapter 5

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn Fiction Friday5 Comments

If you want to catch the beginning of Blanche’s story, you can read it on Kindle and Kindle Unlimted.  However, you don’t have to read the first part to be able to enjoy A New Beginning.

If you want to read A New Beginning’s chapters that have been posted so far, you can find themhere (or at the top of the page). 

As always, this is the first draft of a story. There will be typos and in the future, there will be changes made, some small, some large and as before I plan to publish the complete story later as an ebook. Also, sorry about the lack of indentations at the beginning of paragraphs. I can’t seem to figure out how to make that happen in WordPress.

Light, Shadows & Magic (2)Daddy and Jackson were standing in the doorway with wet, muddy boots dripping water on the rug in the front room.

“Did you catch anything?” Mama asked.

“Not much,” Jackson said, feigning sadness, his hands behind his back.

“Oh well, at least you had fun,” Mama said with a knowing smile.

Jackson slid his arm from behind his back, holding up a stack of fish hanging on a long section of fishing wire and grinned.

“Well, we did catch these,” he said with a proud smile.

“You little trickster,” I said, taking the fishing line from his hand and kissing his cheek. “Now I suppose you expect Grandma and I to clean these for dinner.”

He laughed. “Well, of course, Mama. I don’t want to see no fish guts.”

Daddy grinned, rubbing his hand across Jackson’s hair.

“Take your boots off kid and we’ll tell the lady folk about our excursion.”

Jackson was my Daddy’s shadow. They fished together, worked on the car, mowed the lawn, cut down trees, and fixed any appliance that needed to be fixed. Wherever Daddy was, Jackson wasn’t far behind him and I could tell Daddy loved it, especially since he’d never had a son of his own to talk to about mechanics and so-called “manly things.”

As I reached over to shut the door, I caught sight of a blue truck pulling into the driveway and sighed.

“What in the world is he doing here?” I asked as Judson stepped out of the truck and waved.

It had four months since I’d been reintroduced to Judson and it seemed like I was seeing him everywhere lately – at Emmy’s, at church, at the diner when Emmy and I went for lunch during the week, and now at my own home since Daddy kept inviting him over to borrow tools or help with odd jobs. It also didn’t help he had moved into Mr. Worley’s old tenant house, less than a mile from our house.

Mama looked over my shoulder and smiled, waving back at Judson.

“I think I know what he’s doing here,” she said.

I rolled my eyes.

“Mama, please.”

“Well, I’m just saying. He’s single. You’re single…”

“Mama…”

“Knock it off you two,” Daddy said, pulling his boots off. “I know what he’s doing here. He’s bringing my pruning saw back. I loaned it to him to cut back some of the branches at his place. Stop reading into it.”

Judson lifted the saw out of the back of the truck and walked toward the porch, still smiling.

“He does have a lovely smile,” Mama whispered behind me.

“Mama, stop it,” I hissed.

Daddy pushed past us. “Good grief, Janie. Why don’t you just get a lasso and brand him already?”

Mama chuckled and grinned at me.

“Hey, that might work.”

I pressed my hand against my forehead. “Lord, Jesus, give me strength,” I said, copying Mama’s gesture when she was stressed.

Daddy stepped onto the porch and held his hand out.

“Judson! Hello! How did the saw work for you?”

“Great, Mr. Robbins and I managed not to lose any limbs in the process.” Judson laughed as he walked up onto the porch. He took Daddy’s outstretched hand and shook it.

“Jud, I’ve told you before – call me Alan,” Daddy said, holding the screen door open. “Why don’t you stay for dinner? I’m sure a bachelor like yourself would like a good, home-cooked meal for once. Blanche and Janie are going to fry up some fish for dinner. Jackson and I just caught them down at the pond.”

“I wouldn’t want to intrude …..”

“Oh, you wouldn’t be intruding,” Mama said. “Get on in here. We have plenty of food and plenty of room at the table.”

I smirked as I walked to the kitchen with the fish, my back to the front door, recognizing my Mama’s familiar ploy. For the last couple of years, she had composed a rotating list of potential suitors for me and Judson seemed to be on the top of that list since she’d met him at Emmy’s.

I listened to Judson and my parents chatting in the living room for a few moments and then Daddy excused himself to clean up from his fishing trip and Mama took Jackson upstairs to change out of his muddy clothes.

“Hey, Blanche.”

I smiled over my shoulder, cutting into the fish on the counter.

“Hey, yourself. How’s it going?”

“Can’t complain. The rain finally stopped so it looks like we’ll be able to pour the concrete at the new pharmacy location in Tannersville. I’ll be glad to finally get that job done.”

He stepped behind me and looked over my shoulder. I could smell his cologne and couldn’t deny he smelled better than I expected for a man who had just been cutting branches outside his home.

“Where did you learn how to debone fish like that?”

“Mama and Daddy. I don’t enjoy it, but it’s a handy skill to have when you have a dad who likes to take his grandson fishing.”

Jackson skipped into the kitchen and looked up at Judson.

“I caught all those fish, Judson,” he said proudly. “Grandpa helped me, but I did most of it. I even took the hook out of that big one over there. He ate half the worm!”

“Way to go, buddy,” Judson said. “I don’t know a thing about fishing so I know I wouldn’t have been able to do that.”

“Sure, you could. You can go fishing with me and Grandpa next time we go.”

Judson smiled and leaned back against the counter across from me. “I may just take you up on that. If you agree to put the worms on the hook for me. I could never do that.”

Jackson shrugged. “Nothing to it. Just don’t think about their guts squirting out on your hand when you shove the hook through.”

Judson grimaced and then laughed. “Gee, thanks, kid. I never actually thought of it that way before.”

I smiled at Judson, tossing a row of bones on top of the pile I’d already started. “My kid is nothing if not graphic in his descriptions.”

“I’m going to go dig a hole!” Jackson said skipping past us and out the back door.

Judson watched the door close and grinned. “Man, to be young again and find excitement in merely digging a hole.”

I reached for the flour in the turntable next to Judson, set it on the counter and opened the cupboard, reaching up for the bowl. I silently grumbled about my short stature as my fingertips grazed the edge of the bowl. I raised myself on my tiptoes but still couldn’t fully grasp the edge to lift it down.

“Let me help you with that.”

Judson’s hand grazed my arm as he reached over me for the bowl. He looked down at me as he handed it to me, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“Good thing I was here, or you would have been climbing on a chair and falling off or something.”

He was standing too close. I had to move away before I noticed the color of his eyes, or the masculine shape of his jaw, or anything about him at all.

“I have to get dinner done,” I said softly. “Maybe we can talk after dinner.”

“Sure thing. Can’t wait to taste the fish.”

I noticed a tremble in my hand as I pulled the eggs from the refrigerator. I cracked the eggs in a bowl and dipped the first piece of fish. My heart was pounding and a flush of heat filled my chest and rushed into my face. I hated the way my body reacted when Judson was close to me.

The first time I had experienced it we had been at church. At church of all places.

He had sat in our row and during the singing there weren’t enough hymnals so I stepped closer to let him look at mine. The strong timbre of his voice startled me, and I looked up to see if it was truly coming from his mouth. It was. His eyes were focused forward and I became fascinated with the way the muscles moved in his jaw as he sang. I pulled my gaze back to the hymnal moments later but then my eyes were drifting over his hands, noticing the shape of them and from there, my eyes drifted up to a tanned forearm and bicep. I wished to myself it wasn’t such a warm day and he wasn’t wearing a short-sleeved shirt. I closed my eyes and tried to control my thoughts. Church was nowhere to be noticing the shape of a man’s arms, the timber of his voice, his jaw, the blue of his eyes, the smell of his cologne…

“Lord, Jesus,” I had prayed to myself. “Keep my mind focused on you and not on a man. That’s how I got in trouble before. I don’t want to go down that road again.”

As soon as the singing was finished, I stepped quickly away from Judson and gently ushered Jackson to sit between us so there would be no chance of me noticing anything remotely attractive about Judson T. Waignwright.

I’d been making similar attempts to distance myself ever since. If I saw him in the supermarket I chose a different aisle. If he was across the street and saw me, I waved and then ducked into a store, as if I had meant to go there in the first place. If he was having dinner at Emmy and Sam’s I quickly made an excuse not to stay. I didn’t need him anywhere near me, clouding my mind and sending my heart racing, making me forget that I had built walls around my life and heart for a reason.

Mama helped me finish dinner and we set the table, adding an extra place for Judson. I made sure to sit him at the end of the table, across from Daddy and between Mama and Jackson, a good place for me to avoid accidentally grazing a hand against his or for him to try to start a conversation with me.

As I placed the last for next to a plate, I caught sight of Judson standing in the living room, looking at the photo of my uncle Jason hanging on the wall over the couch. Jason was wearing his Marine uniform in the photo, his broad smile identical to Daddy’s.

Daddy stepped behind Judson. “That’s my brother, Jason. He was killed in Korea. 1952.”

Judson turned to face Daddy, his expression somber. “I’m so sorry to hear that, Mr. Robbins. What a huge sacrifice your family made for our country.”

Daddy nodded, swallowing hard, and then gestured toward the set table. “It was hard for us, yes, but he died doing what he loved – serving his country.”

“You can sit here,” I told Judson, pulling the chair at the end of the table out.

“Did you ever serve, sir?” Judson asked Daddy after Mama said the prayer.

Daddy handed Judson the plate of fish. “I was drafted during World War II but it was at the end of the war. I never saw combat. The war ended before I was ever shipped out. Jason was my baby brother. The youngest of us four kids. He always wanted to be in the Army so he signed up right after high school. A year later he was in Korea and six months after that they shipped him home in a box.”

“That’s one reason I don’t like to talk about our country going to war again. I don’t want other families to have to go through what ours did.”

Daddy cleared his throat and I knew it was to try to keep tears at bay.

“I won’t make this a political discussion,” he said with a small laugh. “That isn’t appropriate dinner conversation.”

Judson nodded in agreement. “I don’t mind a little political banter but I understand what you mean about it not being great for dinner conversations. For what it’s worth, though, I agree with you and hope our country stays out of the situation in Vietnam. We have no business being there.”

Part of me was glad to see Daddy and Judson conversing about politics so easily but another part of me wanted to growl in frustration. It seemed the farther away I tried to get from Judson, the closer my family got to him. Keeping my distance certainly wasn’t going to be easy.

***

“You can’t keep living in a pause when your life deserves to move forward.”

I thought about what Pastor Frank had said from the pulpit a couple of weeks ago as I laid back on my bed on a warm Saturday afternoon. Sunlight reflected off the hand mirror I had laid on top of my dresser, casting rainbows across the ceiling.

“Your story isn’t over because something horrible happened to you. God is writing your story and He wants you to let Him walk with you through it to victory – to a well-deserved ending,” Pastor Frank had said. “Your story will end with God getting the glory out of every situation in your life. Maybe you were loved once and then that love ended, and you think you can’t be loved again. But you can be loved again, and you are already loved by your Father in Heaven.”

Laying on my back on the top of the bedspread I thought about how my life had been on pause for five years now. I wouldn’t let anyone too close to me or Jackson and I was still living with my parents when I could have easily rented a house or apartment. I spent most of my nights alone when I could have been involved in more activities in the community.

It was as if I was afraid to really live, afraid I would mess up again and the happy state I was now in would crumble around me. The ringing of the phone pulled me from my thoughts. Mama and Daddy were outside watching Jackson ride his bike so I knew I’d have to go down the stairs and pick up the phone.

“Hey, baby girl, how are you doing?” Miss Mazie’s voice on the other end of the phone was sweet and comforting.

Miss Mazie, the sweet woman with the skin dark like chocolate and the discerning spirit that could also see through all my lies. I’d met her after church one Sunday in Syracuse during a time when I was newly married, lonely, homesick and at the beginning of an unplanned pregnancy. She had been like a second mother to me when I was so far away from my own. Her thick Mississippi accent brought a smile to my face as I sat on the couch and leaned back to enjoy our conversation.

“I’m not doing too bad. How’s life been treating you, Miss Mazie?”

“Well, it’s been treating me real good. Real good.”

“Jackson and I are still talking about our last trip up to see you.”

Miss Mazie’s hearty laugh filtered through the receiver.

“That was a good visit. I couldn’t believe how much that boy had grown!”

“And I couldn’t believe how much Hannah’s kids had grown,” I said. “And Buffy’s, especially the new baby, who isn’t even a baby anymore.”

“Nope, she’s three already. Kind of hard to believe – she’s such a miracle baby and livin’ right up to that designation.”

Buffy’s youngest daughter, Patty, wasn’t even supposed to be born after Buffy had suffered a series of miscarriages over the years. About a year after I left God had blessed Buffy and her husband, the pastor of the church I’d attended, with another baby and she’d come despite a number of complications that left Buffy on bedrest for the last month of her pregnancy.

“And how is your daughter doing?” I asked Miss Mazie Any more babies on the horizon for her?”

“Oh, glory! Didn’t I tell you? She’s got twins on the way, Blanche! Can you believe it?”

I thought about Isabell, the tender way she’d bandaged my head and wrapped my ribs after I stumbled into her mother’s house, a bloody mess that night. It was our first meeting. What a way to meet a person, blooding dripping down the back of my neck and my lip swollen three times its’ size.

“I can’t imagine how she’ll continue working as a nurse with twins and two others at home,” I said. “But she’s an amazing lady and I know she can do it.”

“Well, she’s planning to take a break from nursing after the twins are born,” Miss Mazie said. “She’s finally realized she doesn’t have to be super mom to be walking in the place God called her to be in. It’s an answer to my prayers. It was hard watching her try to do so much and never take time for herself to rest. Of course, she won’t have much time to rest with all those youngin’s but at least she won’t be caring for them and working at the same time.”

I sighed and bit my lower lip, trying to decide if I’d bring the topic of Hank up with Miss Mazie or not.

“Miss Mazie…remember when you asked me about Hank when we were up there? If I’d forgiven him for what he’d done?”

“Oh yes, honey. I was probably a bit too bold there, but you know I know how hard that forgiveness is to come by for us. Forgiveness is so important because of the prison it puts us in.”

“I know,” I said. “And I wanted to tell you I’ve thought about it a lot lately and I think I can start trying to forgive him now. I can’t say I’m all the way there, but I’ve been able to at least pray for him. His father abused him. He never felt like he was good enough. We got pregnant with Jackson so young – I think it was all just too much for him, not that I want to make excuses for how treated me.”

“That’s a good step, honey,” Miss Mazie said. “A very important one. Every time you feel you can’t forgive him you ask God to help you to do it. Only with God can we do what we feel we never can. Now, okay, honey, so you’re working on forgiving Hank. But what about yourself? Have you forgiven yourself?”

I didn’t answer her. I couldn’t because I knew I hadn’t. I coiled the phone cord around my finger, crossed one leg over the other and bounced my foot.

“Blanche?”

“Mmmhmm?”

“Forgiving ourselves is the hardest thing to do, I know, but God doesn’t want you living like you don’t deserve happiness. Do you understand?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“There is a bright future out there for you, honey. Don’t dim it by living in self-loathing.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Okay, now. Lecture over. Fill me in on how everyone else is. How are Edith and Jimmy and Emmy and that sweet husband of hers? How are your mama and daddy? And is Jackson riding his bike yet? Tell me it all. I don’t have much of a life, so I have to live it through all of you.”

I laughed and then I filled Miss Mazie in on all she had asked me to, conveniently leaving out any mention of Judson “J.T.” Waignwright.

Faithfully Thinking: Is it true God only blesses you if you give money to the church? Can God be bought?

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings, Faithfully Thinking14 Comments

I was listening to a sermon Sunday and the sermon was good until the guest pastor got a little too excited in his bid to convince people to give to the year-end offering the church holds and said “Are you not getting a breakthrough (the new Christian buzzword, in case you don’t know) or aren’t seeing the blessings you think you should? Maybe it’s because you aren’t tithing (In Christianese this means giving to the church) what you should be.”

He went on to suggest people need to give money to the church or they will remain stuck in their negative situations. This rubbed me the wrong way, of course, not because I don’t think we should give money to the church. On the contrary, I do believe in tithing and I do believe that God provides us with our money and we should, therefore, give it back to him. What I don’t like is when pastors link that giving to receiving blessing or answers to prayers, from God.

Are they suggesting God can be bought? That God can be manipulated into doing what we want because we give money to his church?. And is it really his church if pastors are telling people they can only be blessed if they pay cash (or they accept VISA and MasterCard too.)?

000010_DSC_8028_1

It reminds me of these clickbait emails I get from a well-known pastor with subject titles like “Do this one thing and your prayers will be answered.” Or “Five steps to get your healing.” I never even open those emails. That whole vending machine mentality, as I’ve said before, drives me crazy.  It’s like: “Slide this ritual in and get an answered prayer out.”

Is this really what Christianity has become? Some vapid, self-serving, misleading lip service to get clicks and social media rankings? Does God really only answer our prayers if we pray this way or worship that way or give our money to a specific church? I don’t remember reading in the Bible that God only provides if you write a check to a well-known, internationally reaching church, though I do feel giving to the church (as a whole, not a specific one necessarily) is important, especially in a day and age of such absurdity and craziness going on.

My big worry is someone hearing what this pastor said and starting to believe that if they give all their money to the church their cancer will be healed, their husband will stop cheating, or their father won’t be an alcoholic anymore. What happens when their cancer progresses instead? What happens when their husband tell them he wants a divorce? What happens when their father dies in a drunk driving accident? Despite the money they gave.

Will they feel they didn’t work enough, do enough, spend enough to have their situation changed?

What message is that sending? “Come all you who labor and are heavy burdened…but bring your wallets because only then will God give you rest.”? I’m pretty sure that’s not what Matthew 11:28-30 says.

It says: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

 

His burden is light. He doesn’t want to put more burden on you. He wants to help make what you carry through life easier. So why is the church heaping more burdens, in the form of guilt, on its people?

The Church preaches that Jesus died on the cross for everyone and the salvation that his sacrifice provided us is free. They’ll say that you don’t have to do anything to earn that salvation, to receive it, or God the Father’s love, but in the same breath, they’ll hinge your healing, your life change, your unanswered prayers on whether or not you gave money to the church. Something about that doesn’t sit right with me. There has to be a better way to explain that the church needs financial support, so it can continue to help those within and outside its walls without attaching guilt to it.

Oh, wait, that was it. Just say that. Just say: “We need your financial support to help reach those in need and spread the gospel. Give what you can, when you can. Prayerfully consider what you can give and give what you feel God wants you to.”

Remove the guilt. Remove the contingencies. Remove the false teaching that God will not bless you if you don’t give to the church during their once a year giving session. Remove the month-long sermon series to sway listeners to give you their money. It smacks more of manipulation than honesty to me and many others.

Don’t manipulate your church into giving money by acting like you can manipulate God. Don’t lay down little pieces of bread of life-supporting goodness in your sermon just so you can tie it all up with a reminder that next week is the week to open your pocketbooks.

000007__DSC6422

The one good thing the pastor who spoke this weekend said was to give only what you can give – though he ruined it by adding whatever was given needed to be a sacrifice, which to me still sounds like he’s suggesting church members should give beyond their means if they want their blessing or their “breakthrough.”

We, as a church, need to stop hinging blessings and breakthrough on performance.

We need to stop hinging healing on writing a check.

We need to stop acting like we can buy God off.

No, we shouldn’t stop telling the congregation the church needs them to give and that God does want them to give so the church can continue its work. But when people start believing their illness, their loss, their difficult situation is based on what they didn’t do or didn’t say, we have a communication problem.

I don’t think that’s the message God wanted pastors to pass on — that they didn’t do enough or weren’t enough to be healed, to be saved.

God does love us and he does want to provide for us and it delights him to answer our prayers but we don’t have to do anything for him to do that.

We do not have to be saved by our works because Jesus already did the work for us.

Give to your church what you can give, support their ministries and make giving money a regular act, but never feel that if you are stuck in a situation it is because you didn’t give or do enough.

God never asks us to do or be enough because he is enough through us.

This just got real

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn authentic, everyday musings5 Comments

There we sat three days before Thanksgiving, a huge sign in our front yard, announcing to the world the house we are living in is for sale and we’re looking to get out of dodge.

It’s a surreal feeling, sleeping in a house that one day soon may no longer be yours. You lay awake thinking of the memories made within those walls and how the building meant something to you but might not mean anything to anyone else and wondering if you will be okay with people scoffing at the way you didn’t keep up with maintaining your house the way you might should have.

You wish you’d painted the bathroom wall before the real estate agent came in, cellphone in hand to upload photos to the internet of where you lived for the past 16 years and where you still live, for the entire neighborhood to judge you by.

Someone we know recently put their house up for sale sale and because the person no longer speaks to us, an acquaintance thought it was okay to tell us “a friend went to the open house and said the house looks so bad inside. It’s sad.” The house doesn’t look bad inside. I’ve seen the photos and been in there, though not in a long time.

It’s amazing how lives get picked over based on the condition of a building and how judgments are made based on ripped wallpaper in a kitchen.

Money was something we had years ago so we added a new roof and a fence and new, laminate floors then. But since then we haven’t painted inside or scrubbed the heckola out of the tub like we should have. Now we are left with self-imposed guilt and maybe a little personal disgust at ourselves for not being on top of such things.

But . . . life happens.

Chronic illness sets in, stress happens, friendships are lost, family members pass away and eventually you don’t notice the flaws in the house because you stare at it every day and it’s just your house, so much less important than the gnawing worry in your gut that you’re somehow ruining your children or will never have real, meaningful friendships again.

So here we sit in this house, a sign in our front yard, photos live online and the soul of the house left open for others to judge and shake their heads at. It feels almost cruel, leaving what has sheltered us – our children and our pets for so long behind but yet we hope that when we do some other family will come and find within its walls the same comfort, the same shelter, the same memories to be made.

Maybe it will all come full circle – a young couple standing on the porch, like my husband and I did so long ago, unsure what the future would hold but hoping for the best. And maybe a baby will be added like it was for us and life will really begin and then one day, they’ll know that it’s time to move on — more space needed, a new job started — and step away like we did, only to start the cycle all over again when the house wraps its arms around another family.

Sunday Bookends: House selling, snowstorms and rediscovering art

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings, recap of the week, week in focus19 Comments

Last week our house went up for sale and we prepared ourselves for a long wait before someone asked for a showing, even though we were hoping for a quick sale because we have a house we want to buy closer to my husband’s new job (and the purchase is contingent on the sale of the one we currently live in). Our house is a cozy, well-lived in house perfect for our little family, but it’s also a fixer-upper, so we didn’t expect people to rush to buy it. Imagine our surprise, and panic, when someone asked for a showing two days after the house went online. We were given seven days to repair a few, minor issues we thought we’d have at least a month, if not longer, to repair. As of now, we are down to four of those days with the majority of the repairs made, but a few still needed – including cleaning out my very full bedroom closet.

Of course, just because we’ve had a request for a showing doesn’t mean the people will be interested or buy it. This could be a long process and we know that. Our challenge next week will be getting the kids and the cat and dog out of the house at the same time. We don’t have friends or family near us so we’ve decided the kids will go to the library and I’ll wait in the parking lot with the animals in the van (since I have no plan to try to shove our cat into that little carrier again. The last time was for a trip to the vet a few months ago and my skin is still healing from some of the gashes she sliced across my skin.) I’m sort of hoping this process isn’t too drawn out since I don’t relish the idea of dragging the animals and all of us out of the house each time someone wants to look and see if our house can become their house.

The contents of that very full closet in my room have left me crying almost daily as I work through it, tossing scrapbooks into containers, photos of people who are now gone or no longer speak to us falling out of them. Then there are the journals, which I no longer look at because they contain too many cans of worms I prefer not to open. A couple interesting items I did find were old sketchbooks from college that contained images I took hours and hours to create but usually didn’t finish. Art was such a stress reliever back then but now I don’t seem to have the patience for it. Maybe I’ll get some patience back during the social media break I’m doing during December.

IMG_7350IMG_7353

I remember working on this project, which is made up of thousands of tiny dots made with an ink pen (a process called stippling) as a stress reliever but also as a way to focus better during college lectures. I find I can focus on sermons and lectures better when I can doodle of have something to do with my hands. I know there is science behind that but I don’t really want to research it and explain it here, so we will address that in another blog post.

Anyhow, I was working on this piece of artwork during a sociology lecture when the professor, walking up and down the aisle, pontificating about something sociology related, stopped and suggested I should be taking notes, not working on art. But then he said “So, can you listen to me better while you’re doing that?” I said I could. He looked at it again and said “That’s quite good. Carry on.” and then continued to walk up the aisle, rambling away.

IMG_7351

I need to finish that picture now that I’ve found it again. It would be a nice distraction, dotting away on a piece of paper, while the stresses of life (house selling, family and friend losses) swirl around me.

I should also finish this pen and ink sketch I started of The Beatles, I think.

IMG_7358IMG_7357IMG_7356

Our first snowstorm of the winter looks like it may hit us today and tomorrow, complete with a couple layers of ice and then up to 12 inches of snow. It even has a name- Snowstorm Ezekiel. At this point, we are just waiting to see what it actually brings in terms of snow or ice versus what the forecasters are saying. The big blob of pink and purple has been moving toward us but I haven’t seen much outside yet.

The snow will keep us inside but that’s a good thing considering we still have quite a few repairs to make and cleaning up to do before the showing.

So, how about you? What are you all up to or what have you been up to? How is the weather where you are? Cold? Warm? Let me know in the comments!

I’ll leave you with a verse from the book of Ezekiel in honor of Storm Ezekiel.

Ezekiel 37: 9-14 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Come, breath, from the four winds and breathe into these slain, that they may live.’” 10 So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army.

11 Then he said to me: “Son of man, these bones are the people of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.’ 12 Therefore prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: My people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. 13 Then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. 14 I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the Lord have spoken, and I have done it, declares the Lord.’”

 

 

Fiction Friday: A New Beginning Chapter 4

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn fiction, Fiction FridayLeave a comment

If you want to catch the beginning of Blanche’s story, you can read it on Kindle and Kindle Unlimted.  However, you don’t have to read the first part to be able to enjoy A New Beginning.
As always, this is the first draft of a story. There will be typos and in the future, there will be changes made, some small, some large and as before I plan to publish the complete story later as an ebook. Also, sorry about the lack of indentations at the beginning of paragraphs. I can’t seem to figure out how to make that happen in WordPress.

Light, Shadows & Magic (2)Chapter 4

I ushered Jackson upstairs to his bath on the eve of his Kindergarten debut, hoping playtime with his toy boats and submarines would be short and bedtime story time even shorter. It had been a long day and my body was screaming at me to lay down and cover it with a warm comforter and quilt.

Even on the days I was beyond tired, I looked forward to tucking Jackson into bed at night, snuggling next to him and reading Winnie the Pooh or Dr. Seuss.

“Read it again, Mommy,” he said as I finished Green Eggs and Ham for the second time.

“I think we’ve read it enough, sweetheart. You need to get some rest because tomorrow is your first day of Kindergarten.”

Jackson pushed out his bottom lip. “I don’t want to go to Kindergarden, Mommy. I want to stay here with you and Grandma.”

“We’re going to miss you, but you are going to love Kindergarten. You’re going to meet new friends and learn new things and –“

“But who is going to protect you and Grandma?”

“Protect us from what?”

“From the bears in the field.”

I laughed. “What bears in the field?”

“Grandpa said he saw a bear in the field on his way to work and what if it and its family comes to the house when I’m gone?”

“Well, what would you do if you were here?” I asked, enjoying listening to the way his mind worked.

“I would get grandpa’s gun and shoot them and make those bears into a bear rug for you and Grandma to sit on and drink hot cocoa on!”

I pulled him against me, laughing as I kissed his cheek. “And we would be so happy if you did that for us, but I don’t think any bears will come to our house. Bears are as afraid of us as we are of them.”

Jackson pushed against me and buried his face into my stomach.

“I still don’t want to go to Kindergarden, Mommy. It doesn’t sound like my type of garden at all.”

I rubbed his back and leaned back against the headboard, closing my eyes for a moment as he softly cried.

It seemed impossible to me he was already six and starting school in the morning. Stroking his soft, brown hair, I thought back to the first few days after I’d brought him home from the hospital. I’d been so lost and terrified as a first-time mother at the age of 19. Mama had stayed with me a few days, showing me how to change Jackson’s diapers, pat his back to bring out burps, and rock him to sleep.

“I know it seems scary, Blanche, but it’s going to be okay,” Mama said, stroking my hair as I clung to her the day she left.

“Oh, Mama,” I sobbed, sitting on the floor, my head in her lap. “How could I have been so stupid to have a baby already? I don’t know anything about babies. What if I can’t do this?!”

“You can do this, Blanche,” Mama said softly. “I know you can. You’ve never given up on anything you’ve set your mind to and I know you love this baby. You loved him even before he was born, didn’t you?”

I nodded, remembering how I’d talked to Jackson when he was in my womb, telling him about the book I was reading, or the meal I was cooking, or what the weather was like that day.

“All you have to do is love him and it will be just fine,” Mama said, rubbing my back as I cried. “Ask God to give you wisdom and strength for each moment as it comes and do your best not to let your mind race into the future, tangling itself up in the questions of ‘what if.’.”

Mama laughed. “I think two of the worst words for a mother are ‘what if.’ Or maybe the worst three words: “But what if . . .”

The day Mama left I never felt more alone in my life. I knew Hank wouldn’t be any help taking care of a baby he hadn’t even wanted.

Peering at Hannah Harrison through the crack in the front door of our apartment, the day after Mama left, I hesitated. She looked like a model on the front of a fashion magazine – soft blond curls, curves in all the right places filling out her pencil skirt and white, fluffy sweater. I closed the door, my hand on the bolt. I didn’t want someone as well put together as Hannah to know how little I knew about life; how incompetent I was as a mother and a wife. Still, I needed someone to tell me it was going to be okay now that Mama was back in Pennsylvania with Daddy and I decided to take a chance that Hannah might be that person.

“It’s going to be just fine,” she told me, taking a screaming Jackson into her arms, sitting on our couch and laying him across her lap while she rubbed the gas out of his belly. She made it look so easy.

Her words echoed Mama’s: “You just keep loving this baby, Blanche and you’re going to be okay.”

So many decisions in my life had hinged on my love for Jackson. Leaving Hank, coming back home, the jobs I had taken, the promise I’d made to keep us both from being hurt again. When Thomas Fairchild, the cub reporter at the paper, had asked me out on a date three years ago, I’d turned him down gently but quickly. Even if I had been interested in him, I had to think about Jackson and how my dating would affect him. I couldn’t risk him getting attached to someone I wasn’t sure about; his small heart broken if the relationship failed.

I looked down at my lap and saw that Jackson had cried himself to sleep. I lightly brushed an already drying tear from his soft, ruddy cheek with my finger and studied his perfectly shaped mouth and the comforting familiarity of his boyishly round face.

A rush of panic suddenly gripped me as I studied him. Though I had reassured my child only moments before that he would love his first day of school my mind began to race with fear. The heavy ball in the pit of my stomach that had been forming for weeks, months even, had clearly settled in to stay.

I didn’t want to let him go. I didn’t want him out of the safety of my or my Mama’s care. I wanted to hold him for as long as possible, keep him with me instead of sending him off into a world full of hurt, anger and dangers.

I curled myself around his body; the body of a boy who felt too fragile and small to send off into the unknown and closed my eyes, reveling in the feel of him warm against me, wishing we could stay this way forever.

My grandmother once told me that being a mother was like walking through life with your heart outside your body. Only after I’d had a child of my own did I understand what she meant.

So many times in the months after Jackson was born I’d wondered if my parents had felt the same about me and Edith when we were young – that unending, unconditional love that only seemed to magnify each day.

“Of course we did and still do,” Mama told me at 3 a.m. one morning when Jackson was 15 months old.

Jackson had fallen asleep only a few moments before after hours of crying from teeth trying to break through his lower gum. Mama rubbed clove oil on his gum, an old trick she’d learned from her mother. Within minutes he was asleep in her arms and she was standing in the kitchen, holding him in her arms, his head against her shoulder as we talked. Leaning back against the kitchen counter, her dark hair fell loose around her shoulders, her blue robe tied closed over her nightgown.

“Seeing you in pain, hearing you cry, it was like being hurt ourselves,” Mama said. “And when you made mistakes and faced the consequences, we never rejoiced. We always felt the pain with you and wished we could make it better. Watching you make mistakes — That was just as hard, sometimes even harder. We had to let you make them, we knew that, but it was so hard.”

“It must have been really hard to know what a mistake I’d made when I left with Hank.”

Mama smiled. “Yes, but there was also a hope that maybe I was wrong. I hoped it would all work out and Hank would turn out to be better than what others said he was. If I had known how bad he really was, I would have been beside myself with worry and would have been up there dragging you home.

She laughed softly. “Now, Daddy? He never doubted Hank’s lack of character.”

I laughed too. I could almost hear Daddy telling Mama Hank was hopeless.

I sipped tea, now cold in my mug. “Sometimes I worry about being a mom because we can do everything in our power and our children can still get hurt or break our hearts. It scares me. It scares me I won’t be as good as you were at having faith it will all work.”

Mama stroked the back of Jackson’s head and swayed a little in place. “You think your daddy and I always knew what we were doing? We definitely doubted ourselves throughout your childhood and yes, definitely after you left with Hank. We wondered what we had done wrong, what we hadn’t taught you that led to you leaving without speaking to us first. We felt we hadn’t been accessible enough for you to feel like you could talk to us and talked about how we could change that in the future, once your daddy dealt with the anger, of course.”

I felt tears in my eyes, and knew exhaustion was making my emotions even more raw. “You and Daddy did such a good job with us, Mama. Maybe you didn’t feel like it after I left, but it wasn’t anything you did. It was my own selfishness and pride.” I drew the back of my hand across my eyes to wipe away the tears. “I was so stupid. How could I have been so stupid? I’m so glad Grandpa and Grandma weren’t here to see me.”

Mama stood next to me and rubbed my back with her free hand as I cried.

“Life is made up of stupid decisions that we didn’t think were stupid when we made them,” she said. “But you took responsibility for your actions, you walked away from Hank when he became violent and you’re raising your son on your own — ”

“Well, with you and Daddy’s help,” I interjected.

“Yes,” Mama said. “But Blanche, you didn’t run away from Jackson when life got tough. You set your mind to being the best mother you could for him and you’re still doing it. I think those are all things your grandparents would have been very proud of you for.”

Jackson shifting in his sleep pulled me from my memories. I laid him back on his pillow, pulled the covers around him, kissed his forehead and stood to turn out the lights.

“Protect him tomorrow, Father and most of all, protect his tiny, innocent heart.”

***

A young Hank, maybe 11 or 12 stared back at me from the photo on Marjorie Hake’s wall. I’d seen it many times over the years since I’d been bringing Jackson to visit his grandmother and each time I studied I wondered what path Hank’s life had taken to transform him from innocent to broken. I’d brought Jackson to see his grandmother after his first day of Kindergarten. He’d been excited to tell her about his day and then darted outside to play with a homemade cookie in his hand.

A teacup clinked in a dish behind me. “It seems so long ago,” Marjorie said. “A lifetime ago, really.”

“Do you ever hear from him?”

“No. Never. And I’m never sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Eloise Carter told me last year her son had seen him in a bar in Syracuse maybe two years ago and he said he was moving out west. That’s all I know.” She looked at the photo as I sat down across from her. Still. After all these years. That’s all I know about him.”

“He wasn’t always so angry and selfish, you know. He was a good boy, always willing to help me around the house, take care of his little brother, protect me from Henry. He could never make his father happy, though. Never.”

Tears pooled in her eyes. “I truly think inside he’s a lost little boy who doesn’t know how to tame the emotions raging inside him. Not that any of this excuses how he acted, how he treated you. It never will. But it is a little insight into what transformed him into who he became, I suppose. If only I’d . . .”

She sipped her tea and shrugged. “Well, that’s in the past. Nothing can be done to change the past. I’m beginning to accept that life doesn’t always turn out the way we hoped or expected. And life is getting better now, brighter even, despite all the mistakes I made and all I’ve lost. Did I tell you I joined the garden club?”

“No, what does a garden club do?”

Marjorie laughed, and pushed a strand of her chin length hair behind her ear. “We talk about gardens and what we should do with our gardens and how to grow gardens. It’s very titillating conversation.”

I sat across from her and stirred cream into my tea. “Marjorie, I’ve never told Jackson about Hank.”

She looked at me, tea cup braced between her hands. “I know,” she said. “And I haven’t either. I can’t imagine what we’d say to him. He’s too young to understand. Maybe someday, but not now. I think it’s the right thing, keeping his father a topic to be discussed when he’s older.”

Sunlight poured across Marjorie’s dining room, wallpaper with pink roses she’d had installed the year after her husband died. She wanted to change everything about her life, she said, and after the bright wallpaper and hardwood floors, she’d had her hair cut short into a modern bob. When Edith spun the chair around so Marjorie could see herself in the mirror the reaction was visceral and sudden. Her head fell into her hands and she cried at the transformation. It was a visual representation of her internal revolution.

Out the dining room window in the backyard, Jackson drove his dump trucks through the mud, the front of his shirt and jeans stained brown.

Marjorie reached over and laid her hand over mine. “I know I’ve said it before, Blanche, but thank you so much for bringing Jackson to see me. Watching him grow up has been such a blessing and has filled so many empty places in my heart.”

“Actually, Marjorie,” I said, squeezing her hand. “Our visits have done the same for me.”