There Goes The Rug

27
Nov

I haven’t written anything for my work in progress in a week.

Even typing this I feel like I’m wearing gloves (and I’m not).

My arms are heavy to lift, like I’m underwater or walking around the house in three thick wool coats.

The past week or so has been filled with intense emotions.

The best feeling is that one of my brothers and his wife had their first baby, a boy.

It goes drastically down hill from there.

On the same day, my dad went in for some tests because they discovered he had a mass in his lung. He had to wait in the hospital in order to get his levels of whatever to be able to do the test.

A couple days after that my sister in law’s grandmother, a woman who is like a third parent to her, suddenly became ill.

Then my dad was told the mass was probably malignant.

My sister in law’s grandmother passed away.

And my dad received the test results. It is cancer. It is bad.

So the rug has been pulled out from under us. Our time has come to learn first-hand how to help each other get through this hard time. My posts here will probably be as erratic as my emotions. I don’t want to force you to be my therapists, but I find that writing does help me process feelings and ideas.

I’m dropping out of National Novel Writing Month. It feels like a failure though dropping out is a necessity, and meeting my daily word count seems like a very trite concern for me right now.

In the midst of deep sadness and fear, there are still so many things to be thankful for. I know this. I even feel it. I know that days will continue to arrive. Life will carry on. There will be laughter and lightness even in the middle of heaviness.

Thank you for reading. Thank you for being a community of friends. Thank you for your patience as I try to figure out how to deal with this new reality.

Being a Junior Birdman…uh, Birdperson

22
Nov

Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center: south hangar panorama, including Air France Concorde, Boeing 307 Stratoliner “Clipper Flying Cloud”, De Havilland-Canada DHC-1A Chipmunk Pennzoil Special, Monocoupe 110 Special among others (Photo credit: Chris Devers)

There are so many little knobs. Textured with ridges, adorned with a simple white circle at the top and much of the white has rubbed off from the many hands that have adjusted it. You can tell which ones are the most used by their lack of white, even if you had no idea what it controlled.

There were special compartments, secret compartments, places you’d never think to look to stow your huge headphones.

And the codes.

Such great codes and terms only known to those who used them.

The cold air.

The check lists.

The tiny window within a window that you got to open and yell a quick, sharp, “Clear!”

That meant the game was afoot, and the prop whirled to life.

We joggled and bopped along the ground where we were never meant to stay, until we felt that ‘whoosh’ in the stomach that could only mean one thing…

Lift off.

And then we’d fly.

****

This is my flimsy little Five Minute Friday contribution. On the surface it’s not deep, not profound, not spiritual, but it is personal.

My Dad loves to fly. When in doubt, any gift for any occasion can always be money for Air Time and he’ll be thrilled. He’s taken me flying my whole life (in small aircraft, prop planes with three or four seats usually), and now he occasionally will fly over my house and the kids and I will rush outside and he tips a wing to show us he sees us. It’s fantastic.

What shared activities did you do with your parent(s) when you were growing up? Do you have a hobby you share with your family now?

Trees and other Growing Things

15
Nov

Today’s post is my typical attempt to participate in Five Minute Friday, a link up through Lisa-jo Baker. It is open to anyone,.She is a beautiful writer, and she’s creating a group of friends through the connections made on her site. Check it out at http://lisa-jobaker.com or search the hashtag #FiveMinuteFridays on Twitter.

There were two arborvitae, one on either side of the wide front steps that led to the front porch.

They barely touched the ceiling of the porch when we moved in.

Thuja Moment (Photo credit: monteregina)

When we moved away they were framed in the view from the upstairs windows.

The only thing that had grown more were my children.

Some days the minutes go by so slowly you check the clock, convinced it’s been at least a half hour only to discover it’s been two. Two long minutes playing blocks with someone who only wants to knock over your building,

Someone who only wants to undo the work you’ve done, eat one more snack, mess one more diaper.

And when you don’t notice it, when you’re not looking, the trees grow tall and strong. Your children develop friends, hobbies and interests, and calendars are needed to keep track of assignments and schedules.

Is it possible to note the growth of the trees without getting lost in the incremental close up?

It is good to take a wide shot every once in a while and note the way the child’s pants are too short or how far up their heads come when you hug them.

Then get back to cleaning up messes and driving kids here and there. While you’re at it, make more sandwiches, ’cause Lord knows they’re going to eat ’em.

Are you in a slow-growth period or is time zooming by for you? How do you make sure you’re paying attention in the every day so that years don’t go speeding by unrecognized?

(If you have a second and would consider liking my Facebook page, that would be above and beyond lovely. http://www.facebook.com/TCLarsonWrites or just click the Facebook doohickey on the sidebar. )

Decorating the table for Thanksgiving

14
Nov

Thanksgiving is the start of the “holiday season” and is a fun opportunity to embrace fall. It also is the last chance to live it up before winter and all things winter-wonderland start invading every orifice of your existence. Even your morning cornflakes become winterized after Thanksgiving, which is just silly because who wants to eat breakfast cereal that’s either glittery, icy or striped with green and red? Bleh!

What’s that you say? It’s almost time for Thanksgiving?

As we prepare for Thanksgiving, since the primary activity is eating we naturally began to think about setting the table. My sister and I wanted to set a table that was:

welcoming and practical
beautiful
wouldn’t require us to purchase a whole new set of anything.

We’re big on using what you already have. Many times if you combine things with something different or in new ways, that’s all it takes. It can be helpful to have someone else look at what you have, since you’re used to it and might have a hard time envisioning it being used any other way.

Here’s a colorful first attempt that obviously DOES NOT work at all:

In this photo, some things to avoid are:

Overfilling the table
Centerpiece that’s too tall
Table cloth that’s too small for the table – commit to a table runner, a full table cloth, or even both but a too small table cloth looks like you threw it on the table at the last minute.
Turkey hunting decoy

Other things to avoid:

Flowers or candles with a strong (or any) scent
Too many colors all at once or just random extra stuff that doesn’t serve a purpose

In the next photo we’re making some progress…

Because we used a mix of glassware and ceramics, the result is disjointed and haphazard. Even though the flowers are pretty, they don’t really make sense just plopped on the table, and would be better used on a sideboard or hearth.

Things to go for:

Fresh flowers, even just a few
Low centerpiece so people can see one another across the table
Handmade items or items with significance
Candles are an inexpensive way to create a warm and welcoming glow
Varying heights as long as they’re not too tall.
Taller items should be narrow so they don’t obstruct people sight line.
Unified color scheme

Here’s our final attempt:

Again, we tried to use what we had already. We also wanted to leave room for plates of food to rest on the table (who wants to have to get up every time someone wants another roll?). Even though we really wanted to use the flowers, we had to find a home for them somewhere else. By removing those along with some of the extras, the pretty table cloth becomes the focal point. There’s room for people to be able to navigate their plates without knocking over decorations. When the candles are lit and the lights dimmed, the result is warm and festive. Imagine a platter on the table, and the seats filled with family and friends, and you’ve got yourself a beautiful Thanksgiving experience.

We hearby announce the table is ready.

These are simple ideas we’ve figured out by trial and error. Do you have suggestions people should consider as they prepare to host a holiday event? Any real life lessons of what to avoid?

Teaching my kids the Truth about Heaven

8
Nov

Today’s post is a lazy (or pragmatic) woman’s attempt to kill two birds with one stone. Lisa-jo Baker’s Five Minute Friday has become part of the rhythm around here, and I’ve enjoyed the community involved there. This month I’m also participating in an online book club organized by Abi Bechtel. We’re reading Telling God’s Story by Peter Enns. Therefore, today’s post is based on the word prompt “Truth” and the first thing that came to mind was informed by book club, so I’m hybridizing the two.

Set the timer to five minutes.

Ready.

Set.

GO.

Two nights ago my son asked me about heaven.

He asked if it was really gold.

He said he used to feel scared of it, but now he feels better because he read in a kids booklet that there’s no crying or sickness there. This was a relief.

Then he did it. He asked what happens to the people who don’t have Jesus in their heart when they die. Do they go to heaven?

I want to be truthful, but I want to give him security. How can I do both when I feel like there is such a broad cannon of interpretation within Christendom? How can I tell him the questions in my own heart about the strict interpretation I was trained to accept? How do I tell him what is true?

The words of a former professor, Greg Boyd, popped into my head. I studied with him while at Bethel for more than one class, but his World Religions class was the scene of this truth bomb. I have come back to it again and again.

He said something similar to this, but this is not an exact quote…

Imagine you are a beggar with a loaf of bread. Another beggar comes to you holding a loaf of bread. It is moldy and dry. The beggar is breaking off bits and eating them. You say to him, “That bread may make you sick. It may not. But I can tell you for sure that the bread I have is good. It is life giving and you will not get sick from it.” And you share your bread with the man.

It goes along with the concept of there being a wideness in God’s mercy, which I love.

So what did I tell my son?

I told him that many many people who love the Lord have studied the Bible for years and years. These people have come up with different ideas about what it says. I gave him a couple short examples of what I meant.

I told him it is up to God to decide about who hangs out in heaven with Him, and He wants everyone, but that the simplest, most straightforward, reading exactly what the Bible says, is by asking Jesus into your heart…which he’s already done.

It’s not a fantastic answer.

Bread (Photo credit: CeresB)

Is it true?

Yes, sort of.

See what I mean?

STOP

*****

Sorry if this was hard to follow today. It was hard to corral my thoughts into a linear, succinct form.

May I ask how you interpret some of the hard, fast rules of entrance into the pearly gates? If you are a person of faith, how has your understanding changed from when you were a child? How do you handle the Big Questions of faith with your kids?

Happy Campers, a Work In Progress: Top of the Tower

6
Nov

This is an excerpt from the first draft of the project I’m working on during November. The working title is HAPPY CAMPERS. It is a Work In Progress (WIP) and for all I know, this portion won’t stay in the final product. Heck, I don’t even know if this girl’s name should really be Abby, but I like the ways you can tweak it, so I’m going with it for now.

Why am I posting this?? It’s because I’d like to give you a glimpse of what’s taking all my spare minutes this month. I want to be brave and share the writing thing that I’m so passionate about, even if I’m still learning how to do it well. …And I want you to tell me how great it is and how much you like it. That said, I do realize we can’t always get what we want. 😉

****

‘I can’t do this,’ she thought.

She stood on a small platform at the top of a 60 foot pole. Each rung of the ladder she had sent up a little prayer, but now she stood, clipped to the wire, with nothing between her and certain demise on the forest floor.

‘What was I thinking?’

From miles below she heard Jay’s voice, confident and strong.

“You can do this!” he proclaimed, and for an instant she believed him.

Then she rocked forward on her toes, only tipped forward a centimeter but it was enough to make her stomach lurch and throw her bodily functions into panic mode.

“I just peed my pants a little bit,” she screeched. “This is the worst idea ever. I’m coming down!”

She could hear Jay laughing down below.

Marshall chimed in from his safe spot next to Jay on terra firma.

“Come on, Abigail, you know the only way down is the zip line. You’ve coached people on how to do this.”

“I was lying. This is a death trap. There’s no way I can do this,” she yelled at him. “And also, I hate you.”

Marshall and Jay now hooted with laughter from their place of safety on the ground.

Section of right-hand Lang’s lay wire rope (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Abigail checked her harness again, triple checked her carabineer. She ran through the reasons why she was up on the platform, but she came up empty. She couldn’t remember why it had seemed so important to her, what compelling reasons drove her up into the trees. None of them could have been sufficient enough to trust her life to a diaper of webbing and a tiny wire cable. Her parents would say this was foolhardy.

“I’m coming up,” Jay announced. He was already enroute, and experience told her all her words couldn’t stop him once he had begun his ascent. She had to do this on her own. She knew he wanted to help her but she had to do this without him. Now he had started a timer and she resented him for it.

“Stop,” she yelled. “I can do this myself.”

“Then do it,” he said from his spot on the ladder 50 feet below her. “If you don’t I’m gonna push you off.”

“That’s not funny.” She tried to fight the tears but they stung the corners of her eyes. “Seriously, go away Jay. I’m scared.”

“I know, ‘Gaily. I’ll help you.” He was even closer now. “I won’t joke around anymore, promise.”

“Go away, Jay. I’ll do this my own way. You can’t help me.” Her voice shook with fear and adrenaline, her body buzzed with dizziness and nausea. She could hardly breathe.

Voices visited her, reminding her of things she didn’t know she’d retained, mental pictures flashed in her mind of situations she didn’t know she’d taken to heart.

You’re not your own. You belong to God and your body is his temple.

You’re not going to wear that young lady. You will cause boys to stumble.

What’s so hard to understand? You need to honor God with your life, and a B in biology doesn’t honor God with your mind.

Those musicians are being used to divert your attention from God. We won’t allow that music in this house. Why can’t you listen to one of those new Christian bands? They’re just as good.

Did you forget the Genesis story? It was Eve who pulled Adam down into sin with her.

All at once she was defeated. Time slowed down. She felt the pressure of her helmet against her skull. She felt the cut of the rope against her hand. She felt the sweat drip down her back and she knew she couldn’t do it. She was stupid to think she could do it. She should have known better. She was being proud and arrogant to even try, falling into rebellion again and deceiving herself to think it was anything nobler than that.

****

There you have it. My first attempt to share from a brand new WIP. I’ll try to keep you posted on how the story develops and what happens to Abby. For now, this is what I feel comfortable sharing (although “comfortable” is an exaggeration — it truly makes my heart pound to think of putting this out there). Enjoy, and have a wonderful week!

Brace for Impact — November’s Almost Here

30
Oct

Books (Photo credit: henry…)

November is National Novel Writing Month (abbreviated NaNoWriMo and then whittled down further to NaNo), and I’m going to be writing like a fiend.

You should plan to be my mental support group as I try to hit my word count every day. Don’t worry, it won’t require too much – just blankets, snacks, beverages, and encouragement not to go back and delete everything I’ve written so far. If you want to come over and do my dishes and feed my family that would be helpful.

I’m planning to be bold and share the Work In Progress (WIP) as I slog through November. I hope to make it pretty regular, but if you see a decrease in the number of posts from me, you’ll know why. You can picture me at my kitchen table, hair pulled up into a messy (read: not cute) ponytail/bun, dirty coffee cup within easy reach, a slightly frenzied look in my eye.

Because I’m not all that creative and not trying to write sci-fi or something that requires me to create whole new worlds , I use bits and pieces from life around me. Usually that means something real is the seed that becomes a new plant in the story. It could be a scene captured in my mind long ago, a conversation that was meaningful, a situation that never got resolved, even the smell of a lake during autumn, but these things rarely stay in their purest form while I’m writing. The grain of truth is there underneath but (at least this is how it’s worked so far) it gets trained on the trellis and becomes a new version of itself.

I’m telling you all this so that if you have deja vu while you read parts of the WIP you won’t feel threatened. I’m not here to air anybody’s secrets or write some kind of tell-all. I wouldn’t have much to tell, and I mean that in all the best ways. My experiences have been pleasantly devoid of scandal so you’ll know I’m making stuff up if things get juicy.

My new story for this year’s NaNoWriMo

The idea I want to focus on for NaNo focuses on camp. Did you ever go to camp as a kid, work there as a college student? I did both, and camp was a central player in my life for many years. Even now, I remain loosely tied to camp and value the camp experience for most everybody.

There are many people who outline and plot their WIP far in advance, and others who just wing it. I’ve only done NaNo one time (last year) and that time I had a rough plan for a story, most of which I kept in my head. Because you’re trying to write 50,000 words in one month and based on my experience last year, I think it is helpful to have a rough sketch of major plot points, kind of as a road map of where you want the story to go. Of course, you must be prepared to ditch the plan and go with what is happening (sometimes those characters are wily critters!).

That’s about all I can tell you right now, since I’m still percolating on many details. Some of them I won’t figure out until I’m already knee-deep in the story.

Wish me luck, and I hope to check in (in a more limited form) throughout November!

I’d welcome any vivid memories from those times at camp, positive or negative. I’m looking for inspiration, so even little details can be helpful. Do you have any stories you’d care to share?

Sunday School and November Book Club

29
Oct

High Bank, Denby. Derelict Methodist Sunday School Building. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Most of my life has been punctuated by Sunday School.

There were the many years when I participated in it.

There were the years when I was the teacher.

Now there are these years when my children go each week.

And it never really occurred to me to ask “why” about Sunday School until recently.

My dad, a retired ordained minister in the Covenant church, made the comment recently that Sunday School is a modern creation born of a desire to provide a place for children to learn to read since they were working every other day of the week. (Here’s a link to get the short version of Sunday School’s development: http://bit.ly/17uv3sB)

As someone who has grown up in the church, worked in various youth programs, and been responsible to create curriculum for those programs, I know that the regular idea is to make lessons that show God’s acitivity in the world, and use the scriptures to teach character lessons.

I wonder if I was coming at it all wrong.

In my conversation with my dad, it came up that you really don’t want to use a lot of “Bible Heroes” as such because they were a mess. Lessons ought to focus on how many mistakes these people made and yet God was able to accomplish great things through them, because He is great.

Instead, we usually focus (for example) on how David was “a man after God’s own heart” and gloss over his adultery and scheming, including arranging to have his competition sent to the front lines in order to get him killed.

Dude was sketchy at best.

Here’s another example. At our church a few months ago they wanted to teach about friendship so for some reason they chose the story of Job. If you’re familiar with the story, Job goes through some really hard trials. His friends hang with him for a while, but then they basically tell him to throw in the towel.

The lesson taught only focused on the first part of the story, and happily the teacher chose not to include the detail that God allowed Satan access to Job. My first and third graders were not ready to deal with that information. It was a poorly planned lesson that pick and chose details for their illustration of the point the creators were going for, regardless of whether that was the point of the actual Bible story.

All of this is to say that there might be a better way to go about teaching our kids about the Bible.

In the month of November I’m going to participate in an online book club. The book we’re going to read is Peter Enn’s Telling God’s Story (http://bit.ly/1coKmHn). I haven’t read any his books before, but it sounds like this book has a different take on teaching the Bible to kids.

The premise of Telling God’s Story is that for 1-4^th graders the focus should be on learning all about Jesus, then 5-8^th graders focus on the overall narrative of Israel, and high schoolers focus on the Bible’s historical context. I’m really interested in exploring a new approach to valuing the Bible and teaching it in a way that honors it.

I’ll be blogging about book club, and the fabulous woman hosting it is Abi. She’s a riot and is on a really interesting journey that I resonate with in many ways. If you’re interested in reading along with us via her blog, you can find it here: http://bit.ly/1aQVwOB It would be fun to do this together!

What are your memories of Sunday School? Was there a point when you started having friends there, rather than just merely sitting next to other kids? What’s your view of Sunday School now?

Sunday School, Chicago, IL, USA (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Five Minute Friday: Together

25
Oct

It’s Five Minute Friday and the word prompt is “together” but what came out spun off in it’s own directions. I don’t know how to explain this except to say when I saw the prompt I immediately thought about how lately I’ve been thinking about starting a “small group” through my church. The only thing is, the more I think about it, the more confined I feel by that definition — that a small group needs be organized under the umbrella of a church. I didn’t used to function that way. Maybe that was because I had the luxury of overlap between the people who were in the small group, people who were my friends, and people with whom I attended church.

Things now don’t have the same overlap.

Enough with the preamble. I’ll be interested in your reactions, so please feel free to chime in in the comments. As always, I am very grateful that you’ve taken time out from your day to read my scattered thoughts.

Deep breath.

Ready.

Set.

GO.

*****

I don’t know when I became so rigid.

Maybe it was bit by bit,

as frost settling onto the top of water

into a crust of ice

into a brittle sheet

into a thickness you drive a car across and need an auger to drill through.

Definitions matter, but not if you use the wrong ones.

A place that preaches a doctrine of small groups in the midst of being a swarm,

very little is intimate about the great multiple-gather,

multiple-site,

multiple satellite venue,

People punch tickets, hand out gold stars for attendance but gloss over how hard it is

to force foot in front of foot as that doorway approaches.

Inside you see the round table (why a round table – you can’t hear the person across from you, you’re stuck with two options of conversation and one of them is inevitably busy talking to the person on the far side of them), purses already stake out territorial plastic claims

And no one stops their sentence to greet you.

No one looks up,

No one seems to realize you’re even there.

****

STOP

Ode to a Stupid Chicken

24
Oct

Ferdinand with a treat she found.

Our white chicken disappeared.

We closed the coop later in the evening when it was already dark and we assumed they were all inside. (They naturally go into the coop as night approaches.) I opened the coop the next morning and went about my day.

The chickens stick together most of the time but when one needs to lay an egg, she goes back to the coop by herself for a bit then rejoins the “flock” when she’s done.

All of that to say, I didn’t notice that she was gone until many hours had passed.

Our chickens are not our pets. They do not have names. We like them but we do not love them. They are not part of the family.

But…

The white chicken was a cheeky hen who had too much personality to NOT earn a name,

So my husband and I called her Ferdinand (yes I know it’s a male name) after the mischievous duck from the movie Babe. It fit her.

In honor of Ferdinand, I offer this short poem.

Where’d You Go?

Your tail feathers cut a line through the air, stiff and sharp.

Ferdinand, where’d you go?

Rather than peck at your food or mill around with the ladies,

you snuck out through the nesting box,

anxious to begin your day.

Bright eyes, inquisitive with unspoken questions,

you cock your head,

bemused to find we won’t let you in the front door

even though you wait patiently.

You run toward me, skirts swept up, feathery petticoats charging up the hill,

your gaggle close behind

for the promise of

bread scraps, leftover oatmeal, limp lettuce.

Stark contrast of white against jaunty red comb,

You stand out amongst your more camouflaged friends

like a white-blond in a room of brunettes.

I like to think you took yourself on a road trip,

got cabin fever and went to visit some ducks across the pond.

Maybe you’ll show up at our door like no time passed,

tiny suitcase next to you and a grin on your beak.

TC Larson

Stories and Mischief

There Goes The Rug

Being a Junior Birdman…uh, Birdperson

Trees and other Growing Things

Decorating the table for Thanksgiving

Here’s a colorful first attempt that obviously DOES NOT work at all:

In the next photo we’re making some progress…

Here’s our final attempt:

Teaching my kids the Truth about Heaven

Happy Campers, a Work In Progress: Top of the Tower

****

****

Brace for Impact — November’s Almost Here

My new story for this year’s NaNoWriMo

Sunday School and November Book Club

Five Minute Friday: Together

Ode to a Stupid Chicken

Where’d You Go?