Tuesday, November 29, 2011

My invalid, diseased, sick characters...and my other truer self

Okay, so my characters tend to be ill. Loic has epilepsy, Psal has polio. Novella had a stroke. Not to mention all the congenitally-disabled children that abound in Carole McDonnell stories.

I've had this idea, this thing I cling to, that there is this other me...the healthy me. The healthy me wouldn't be so reclusive and choosy about her friends. The healthy me would be generally witty and light and funny and not prone to snapping folks heads' off. The me that was, the me that should be...at age 51/52.

But come on.... there comes a time in one's life where one says, "Uhm, this is me. For better and for worse."

I know God has placed his healing virtue in me and I know I will be better soon. I also know my younger son will be healed.

But I also know that this 30-year phase of my life has certainly affected me and my work.

Quite simply, what would I have written about all these years if my in-laws had liked me, if I hadn't been sick, if younger son hadn't been afflicted? Healthy people? Good grief, no! Say not so. I've always had a liking for folks who didn't quite fit in. Of course they were healthy folks and they didn't fit in because they chose mentally and geographically and intellectually not to fit in.

But the past 30 years have given me a body of work that honors the valiantly ill. (This is not me, mind you. I'm never valiantly ill. I whine like whining is the new trend. )

My characters are lovely wonderful and wounded. Some of them, like Loic in Wind Follower, don't whine. But Loic lives in denial, and he makes everyone around him live in denial as well. No one is to mention or even notice when he has an epileptic fit. To be noticed is to bring a burden of shame on him that he can't deal with.

Some ill characters, like Psal in Constant Tower, work with their illnesses but their personalities are nevertheless marred by their illness. I'm a bit like Psal. Psal doesn't exactly whine but he is frustrated. He wants what healthy people have but which his health prevents him from getting. And he gets nasty when people challenge him. Yeah, that's me... Psal.

Some ill characters, like Ephan in Constant Tower, keep quiet because they feel happy to be accepted. So they hide their illness from those who would judge them....and they speak of their pains only to close friends. They soldier on in endurance and patience. I want to be like that.

Funny the way human personalities deal with things. Anyway, yeah, I'm glad I've created sickly characters. Not glad I've been sick...but yeah, the creation of these characters are my treasures in darkness. I would not have created such wonderful literary souls if I had never known illness. So, am thankful to God for that.

Saturday, November 26, 2011

Dark Parable: Communal and Mutual Dreaming

Okay, something weird and interesting is happening. Strange mutual dreaming between me and friends afar off. Now, I've had experienced communal dreams before. And I kinda understand what they're about. I'll put them  in three basic categories (although there may be more...but I'm just going to talk about my own experiences.)

An example of communal dream type A:

One week when I was very depressed, I got emails from about four friends. They didn't know I was depressed and didn't know each other but suddenly all of a sudden within two days of each other ...they all dreamed of me in a state of peace. Several saw me surrounded by bright colors. The bright colors were either clothing or butterflies. Several saw me on a porch looking out at the sunset. I took that weird flaky happening as God comforting me.

An example of communal dream type B:

I was worried if my son would ever be healed. Out of the blue all these folks all had dreams the same night and calling me up to say they saw my son healed and talking.

And now for the new kind that has me a bit befuddled.

Communal dream type B (which is also a kind of mutual dream)

On Wednesday morning before Thanksgiving I dreamt this:

I dreamed my friend Rain and I passed by an old house and I said I wanted to buy and rebuild it. She said, "It was my grandmother's house. I love it as well."
Then I dreamed about my celibate gay friend Jim. In the dream, he had written a novel about a pedophile under a pseudonym. I wondered if it was about him. Whether he was the victim or the perpetrator. I had a friend who I invited into Jim's house and after we ate there I was wondering how to explain to Jim in an email that we had been in his house without his permission. We walked toward my friend Rain's house. She and Jim both used to live near each other. But there were construction workers in the road and in the intersection. Finally I got there.
I asked Rain for some pecans from her tree. She said, "I prefer giving and offering without people asking." (In real life she is not like this at all.) I told her Jim's tamarind tree was full. She asked, interested, "Are they ripe?" I answered, "Yes,they are ripe. Very ripe."



The friend who I had dreamed about dreamt this:

On the same night, Rain dreamed I came to her with  a little girl about 8 years old. She was my daughter. My daughter had a little boxwith a bird inside which she kept kinda covered because she didn't want the bird to fly away. I said, "It's a pigeon." Rain said, "It's a duck. Look at its flat bill. It's a duck."


Another friend, Debra, dreamed this the day after:

Oh my I had a series of strange dreams early this morning. I think you figured in one of them so write to inquire whether you had a similar dream. Are we multi-dimensionally traveling you and I?
All I recall now, several dreams and hours later, is that we were talking, and you were comforting me in the way friends do, and we started to dance. A small slow dance in the way you would do with a friend to encourage each other in life. At least I think this was you; it looked like you; you were wearing a head piece of some kind, and you had on a sleeveless sheath dress that flowed free to your ankles.


As my friend Rain and I talked yesterday night, we found our lives had been taking on some odd parallels. For instance, she had been going to the store everyday to buy pecan to make pecan pies and she had been thinking of my friend Jim (someone she rarely thought about)

So what is going on? Is God simply saying that He is aware that I am praying for these people and these people are praying for me? Or is something else going on? And what the heck is going on with the pigeon/duck thing?

Friday, November 25, 2011

Unresolved Sexual Tension (UST) and the joy of restraint

Okay, I'm still thinking of Stepheney Meyer and Twilight which, among other things, is about sexual tension. And it could be argued that the culmination of the book is pretty much about the culmination of the sexual act. Pretty much all the world, and the relationships between the werewolves and the good vampires, will be much better after Edward and Bella have their daughter and give her to Jacob to whom he is bonded from the womb.Yep, the whole series is a waiting for the big O

Of course all romance novels are about sexual tension. We want the hero and heroine to get together but the Twilight Series is so about carnal concupiscence and sensual longing. Long wistful needy stares, restraint, restraint, restraint.

As a writer I can tell you that kind of UST is hard to pull off. In a novel. and definitely in a series. I, for, one, have attempted to make my characters in Wind Follower keep away from each other and I never really managed it. I wanted them in bed. And because I wanted them in bed I (lacking all restraint) had them indulge in premarital sex before marriage. But I set up the world in such a way that the poor girl suffered for it. So in my overly-indulgent way, I celebrated the wisdom of safety.

In My Life as an Onion, my WIP, I'm succeeding in keeping the lovebirds apart....although they live in the same house and pretty much have set up household together. I can see why they haven't done it. My female character is a Christian girl (and a nut-case) who wants to prove she's not like the loose girls he's slept around with (the swiss cheese party girls who are all full of holes because they were used and discarded.)And the guy has slept with so many people (Note: people) that he doesn't think sex is anything special... although he doesn't want her to sleep with a particular person but he doesn't mind if main character will sleep with his best friends.

I'm not sure what I think of this situation. It's possible I will find that it doesn't satisfy me. Something in me wants to deal with sexual relationships outside of marriage. So I'm kinda hoping that this story is really true as is...and that I'm not just doing what is required of me. I want to write truly...which means allowing the BG (Black Gang of the subconscious) to write the stories it wants to.

And then there is the UST in Constant Tower which I'm in the last stages of editing. This is kinda weird for me. Because there is one female main character and three possible suitor princes. Prince A loves her and there were signs of mutual attraction when they first met. However, he did something evil and unforgivable so the two who might have been perfect for each other, had trouble not arisen can never get together....although Prince A is still in love with female MC and is determined to marry her. Prince B who is fated to marry and fall in love with main female MC is totally in love with another princess for the first half of the novel. His mind is utterly elsewhere sexually. The reader, nevertheless, wants him to end up with the princess because ...well, yours truly is also dragging them along blindly and pushing the reader to want this. But at this same time yours truly (because I am THAT good) is also setting up cute little scenes between Prince C and female MC, the kind of angry UST scenes that make you say, "Good grief, these two are always arguing with each other, sure he has a thing for older women, but good heavens! could it be they are in love with each other and this will cause trouble between Prince B and C in the future."

But the characters are young. Yep, Bella and Edward's age. But war is going on and a whole lotta stuff and there is a longhouse full of men in need of sex...so teen angsty UST isn't going on in CT. In a weird way, for all the sexual and feminine issues going on in this book, love and passionate sex is nowhere in the book. Why is that? I'm really thinking the Christian critics of Wind Follower who laid into me because of a few none too wild sex scenes is the cause of it. Or maybe the final marriage is so full of grief, politics and is really about comrades fighting evil that sexuality has no way to get into the story. But shouldn't there be a balance? Shouldn't I show a fully sane marital sex scene? (Uhm, thinking, thinking, did I have a fully sane marital sex scene? Do I even have the capacity to do such a scene?) But the more I think about the lack of real Bella-Edwardesque UST in CT, the more I feel I ought to put it into the story. Yet, I can't.... ah me... so, will the book be curiously sexless?

Gotta think. 

In Defense of The Twilight Series

There's this quote going around:


‎"Harry Potter is about confronting fears, finding inner strength, and doing what is right in the face of adversity. Twilight is about how important it is to have a boyfriend.” -Stephen King


This quote shows up everywhere and no one questions it. They just post it on their blogs, facebook status, etc. 


First, I have a deep dislike for scorn. 


Second, I have an even deeper dislike of folks swallowing every glib funny dismissive comment that pops up. I'm not a mormon or a lover of vampires. Nor do i care one way or another about Stepheney Meyer's success. I just think the belittling of a work that explores teenage sexuality or anything the world deems "small" is incredibly rude. Especially when Christians join in on the general sneering. Incidentally, I'm a huge fan of Stephen King. But surely, he should know better not to diss another successful author who tacked the same subject his book Carrie did.


So what is this Stephen King's problem with this book? (I might be reading into this quote but he seems to have a problem with the main issue which is about having a boyfriend.)


Well, ya know...it is very important to have a boyfriend when one is a newbie to a high school. 


Moving on. From what I have heard, having only seen one movie and listened and read countless reviews, the book seems to be (to me, anyway) an exploration of sexuality and carnal concupiscence. 


Now, what a grown up male writer says about a book exploring teenage sexuality should be taken with a heavy dose of feminine salt. Everyone writes about different things. Christians write about what things that Christians consider important. And sometimes we write about things that even atheists consider important. And vice versa. So, as writers, we shouldn't be so easily dismissive of what another writer considers important. Who are we to judge what another person has been called to do? We don't want others to easily dismiss our souls in our own writrings, do we? We don't want them to challenge the importance of the mission we are called to write about.


Now from what I've heard in movie reviews there are some interesting issues in the last book:


Passionate sex that breaks the bed.


Celibacy


Fear of sex, fear of passion


Fear of pregnancy


Pro-life issues. A fetus being allowed to live in spite of presenting danger to the mother.


Pedophilia because Jacob the werewolf bonds with Bella's unborn baby girl.


This is heady stuff.


A lot of folks are saying the pedophilia subtext has to do with Meier's Mormonism. Maybe yes, maybe no. 


True, there is a lot of pedophilia in the history of polygamy...especially the polygamy of Mormonism. But there really is a simpler answer. Trust me as a writer I know this one.


Quite simply, When a book has consisted of three main characters -- two of whom are in love with the third-- there is always a way found to make everyone one big happy family. 


Star Wars -- Han Solo, Princess Leia, and Luke Skywalker
Harry Potter -- Harry Potter, Hermione, and Ron Weasley,  (In this case, Ginny Weasley helps to bound the family group together)


In the case of stories like my WIP Constant Tower where one is allowed two husbands, then a brother-sister relationship or a fourth person is not necessary to create the bond. But in Twilight, the bond between the female character has to be maintained through her daughter. It's an old pattern. Even better, the daughter will bring all warring groups together (one suspects.)

Anyway, I don't think dissing love and teenage sexuality is a good idea.


Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Emotionally Honest Characters and Christian Dismissiveness

My characters are always emotionally-aware and often emotionally-honest with each other. Somewhere along the line I learned to really love scenes where some needy character tells his/her soul. Picture poor lame Phillip in Of Human Bondage telling one of Muriel's lover "not to take her fromme"or the unloved Cathy Sloper in Henry James' Washington Square "asking her father to say something nice about her." Such scenes wrench the heart because the heart of the character and thus the goal of the story depends on whether or not the character's bravery in telling his heart's need is going to be dismissed or not. And let's face it. Often it's dismissed.

Anyways, I have this thing about emotionally honest characters who know themselves and who live honest lives, characters who sometimes say the neediest things.

But I'm thinking about whence came my interest in dismissiveness? I'm thinking it's because of my various encounters with dismissive atheists, dismissive christians, dismissive people in general. Especially when folks are dismissive after they have been told something incredibly important.

There's a movement in Christianity that is all about dismissiveness. Joyce Meyer's "Get over it" preaching for instance, which she uses to tell people to tell themselves to stop being entrenched in their own grief but which many Christians (being human with generally unredeemed emotional thought life and habits) often use against others who are in pain because they are unwilling to bear each other's burden.. But even before Joyce Meyer the tendency existed, especially in the reactions of male ministers toward certain folks in the Bible.

Bible personnages can be divided into Sacred cows and Scapegoats. And in Bible studies, we are taught who to hate from our youth up.

When I look at Potiphar's wife, I see an unsexually-fulfilled woman who is married to a eunuch. Sure, the women in Pharoah's harem are safe from the king's chamberlain...but heck...so is his wife. No, I'm not excusing her false rape charges being brought against a guy she tried to seduce...but I am seeing the complications here. Complications which... most Christians will dismiss because she's a scapegoat we've been taught to demonize her as an evil woman.

When I hear a minister use the Prince Amnon rape of Tamar story to say that all lust leads to hate after the sexual act is fulfilled, then I instinctively think of Prince Shechem.He wasn't the son of David, he wasn't a descendant of Jacob. YET he loved the woman he seduced and wanted to marry her after the seduction. If I bring that up to the minister to challenge his "lust leads to hate" sermon, he gets dismissive.

Okay, so those are sexual issues. But even when the issue has nothing to do with sex, the "trained" Christian talent for dismissing the pain of others comes up. We are taught to dismiss Mrs. Job's pain. Sure, she lost all her children, sure no one has come to comfort her, sure she is the weaker vessel and her husband should be comforting her...but heck... we have to think about Job because Job is God's prophet and she's "upsetting and tempting him."

And the dismissing of the pain and goodness of "foreign" scapegoats just gets to me. Oh yes... David murdered Uriah...but well... David was a man after God's own heart so...well, God forgave him. Oh, yes, sure Delilah was being threatened but she was a temptress (Folks, she was being threatened!) and she was a foreigner. (Puhleze, we don't know if Delilah was a foreigner or not. The Bible doesn't say.) Oh, sure David killed all of Michal's adopted son just to be nasty but well, Michal laughed while he danced before the Lord (Folks, that was more of an angry quarrel between a man and his estranged wife than something that had to do with God.)

So, I can see why modern Christian men and women have gotten this habit of dismissing "the emotional facts" for the sake of some higher purpose. They will therefore attempt to bombard the emotionally honest person with "the facts." Weirdly, this leads to a world where Christians become repressed and rarely tell their hearts because they know some Biblical truth will be used against them. Plus we end up with Christians actually thinking it's rude to be honest or that it's pathetic to tell one's heart.  Christian propriety is often another way to be cruel and dismissive.

As I am working on the Constant Tower now, I see how fixated my mind was on this kind of cruelty. I always knew I hated it but more and more as I edit I see my anger at the cruel dismissiveness shown by the larger clan toward the wounded within it...for the same of some higher ideal. I so want this book out and in the world soon.







Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Dark Parable: What is truth?



I dreamed my friend Rain and I passed by an old house and I said I wanted to buy and rebuild it. She said, "It was my grandmother's house. I love it as well." hen I dreamed about my celibate gay friend Jim. In the dream, he had written a novel about a pedophile under a pseudonym. I wondered if it was about him. Whether he was the victim or the perpetrator. I had a friend who I invited into Jim's house and after we ate there I was wondering how to explain to Jim in an email that we had been in his house without his permission. We walked toward my friend Rain's house. She and Jim both used to live near each other. But there were construction workers in the road and in the intersection. Finally I got there. I asked Rain for some pecans from her tree. She said, "I prefer giving and offering without people asking." (In real life she is not like this at all.) I told her Jim's tamarind tree was full. She asked, interested, "Are they ripe?" I said, "Yes, very ripe."

What a world we live in where we must decide if we can be open to our friends or not! In both dreams, the issue is about honesty and self-revelation. My friend Jim is very important and has an important job so perhaps he can't tell his truth directly. He must reveal his truth carefully. He has to tell it slant, as Emily Dickinson says. But self-revelation to friend versus self-revelation to the world at large is something different. Yet, this is a road to be dug up and explored... I know why I dreamed this part of the dream. Sometimes some people are unapproachable and require dishonesty of us in order for us to befriend them. Sometimes, we ourselves are afraid of being truthful.

One should be able to say to  friend, "I have need of this" or "I want this." One should not manipulate in order to get one's friend to offer. IT doesn't seem like friendship to me. One should not have such weird rules when it comes to friends.

Eating in a friend's house might imply telling about a friend's life without getting permission to say so. Not sure why I dreamed this part. Generally I'm not a gossip so I don't know what's what with this part. Although I do wonder about my friend Jim and the sexual issues he had to endure. How does he speak his truth?

When I finally figured out this dream, this is the verse that came to me.
Behold, You desire truth in the innermost being, And in the hidden part You will make me know wisdom. Psalm 51:6


If we cannot be honest with our friends, can we be honest with God or with ourselves?

Monday, November 21, 2011

Dislike your own clan? Let the black gang handle it.

I forgot when it was exactly but the day came when I realized I really did not like the clans to which I belonged. Perhaps I knew them too well. Perhaps I had grown up in a contentious time where stories were weighted in such a way that it bothered my sense of fairness...at least the stories I was forced to see because they supposedly told of my clans sorrows so truly.

But I was always the one who would look at a tough feminine woman in a story and groan that the plot was set up to make us like her.  Truly, fifty years from now when folks look at some of the sitcoms I grew up with ...the silliness and the overwhelming agendas of the plots (Are all sitcom dads stupid? Are all female cops tough and are all weak women to be mocked?)

But it wasn't only the female clan that annoyed me. The Christian clan as depicted in Christian movies bugged the crap over me.  Because I had met those pious insensitive dismissive holy camel-swallowing-gnat-straining legalistic Christian types before. But I also hated the way atheists and secularists and "former Christians" depicted Christians.

Especially the former Christians. To me it was a problem with art. Their art was always unbalanced, like they were trying to show one side so powerfully that they could not for the life of them see another side. I have this thing about balance. And it's really difficult being balanced when one belongs to one of the suffering groups: black, Christian, or feminine. Because one knows that everything we the sufferers write in our novels about the larger world is probably true, and yet at the same time we know that although the world has caused us to suffer, we have also done our share of victimizing others (those like and unalike ourselves.)

So how is an artist to deal with this?

I venture to say that the BG should handle it. The BG (Black Gang of the subconscious) are invariably more artistic than we ourselves are. I cannot tell you how many stories I have destroyed because some bitterness against some black/white, male/female, Christian/atheist person has seeped into my story. I totally think anyone who sets down to write about her clan without thinking the matter through will end up with a wobbly book that only shows her neuroses without any elegance or writerly craft.

The Constant Tower is my novel that the BG wrote. All my issues are in it. Yet, because the BG wrote it, it is not bogged down in specifics. My Life as an Onion is the novel where I am aware of my own issues and of each opportunity to slip in some comment against Christians etc.. Hence, it's the novel I have to really be careful of. I really really really should not have written a contemporary novel. My issues seem to come out better  and more elegantly in fantasy. But now what to do? I like Onion. So.... I'll have to finish it. It'll probably be a bitter novel, like one of the novels written by former Christians, Black and white.   Aaargh! May God have mercy on my soul. 

Thursday, November 17, 2011

POEM: I fear my mother will




I fear my mother will,
upon her death, become omnipresent;
all-knowing, all-powerful.
I shall be in my lover's house
safeguarded - I think-
from the eyes of my husband.
I shall be about to come
when just at the wrong time
in that pervasive darkness,
my mother's invisible right hand
will make itself known.
And a voice - hers: I will recognize it-
will demand
that I rise up and go home.
She will pull the blanket protectively, prudishly,
over my naked breasts
And I,
embarrassed, and mother-beaten,
will retrieve my clothes from the floor
and go home.

Saturday, November 12, 2011

Bible Historical Books: Writing History as a Calling from God

If you love history as much as I do, you will have noticed that many primary historical sources are written to praise historical figures or to curry favor or to show the historian's skillz. Not so, the Bible histories. I'm not sure but I think they are the first historical documents written that shows one's nation's history -- warts and all. Probably because they were written by prophets or scribes who were priests.

Looking through the books of Samuels I+II, Kings, I+II, and Chronicles  I+II, one sees king after king -- even the good ones-- who do good, evil and a mixture of both. We see cause and effect...and can even figure our why certain historical and personal events happen in their lives...we can even understand why some of the good kings died so badly...and can even pin-point the moment they sealed their fate by doing some subtly ungodly act. Yep, even the subtle little not-so-bad things have some major consequence.

It definitely shows God is very involved in the lives of kings...and no doubt in the lives of commoners. It shows the power of curses uttered over one's self and by one's ancestors.

These prophetic historicans didn't even have to have insight (I think) about why certain events happened. God simply told them.

Sometimes we Christians go about saying they don't know why something bad happened in their lives, or we say something bad happened out of the blue, or we say God isn't working in our lives. But the histories show God is always working in our lives. Sure, the book is about kings but i suspect the same forces are  working in ours. We are led to either think that stuff happens for no reason at all or that there are spiritual causes working...stuff we might have done in this life, stuff our ancestors have done, etc.

A) I'm not saying God does everything. B) I'm not saying we are the cause of everything that has happened in our lives. C) I'm not saying that we personally deserve everything that happens but I am saying that everything really bad or good that happens seems to have a reason. Either because the king was not close to God or listening to God and some demonic force was fighting against the king and the king was unprepared (or made the wrong response.) Or the king made an ungodly decision (or two or three) and planted a seed which caused him to reap something really bad in the end. Or the king's ancestor did something and the curse fell upon the king.

Whatever the reason, I've got to give kudos to the Prophets and Priests who wrote the chronicles. They listened to God's spirit and were honest in their depictions of the kings. Even David, who was so loved, is shown in his horrible humanness. Pretty good history-writing for back in the day, I think.

When the kings listened to God

Wednesday, November 09, 2011

Just Six Numbers: The Deep Forces that Shape the Universe


Just Six Numbers: The Deep Forces that Shape the Universe 

Martin Rees 



  • Hardcover: 300 pages
  • Publisher: Basic Books (December 1999)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0465036724
  • ISBN-13: 978-0465036721
  • Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 5.7 x 0.8 inches




  • How did a single “genesis event” create billions of galaxies, black holes, stars and planets? How did atoms assemble—here on earth, and perhaps on other worlds—into living beings intricate enough to ponder their origins? What fundamental laws govern our universe?This book describes new discoveries and offers remarkable insights into these fundamental questions. There are deep connections between stars and atoms, between the cosmos and the microworld. Just six numbers, imprinted in the “big bang,” determine the essential features of our entire physical world. Moreover, cosmic evolution is astonishingly sensitive to the values of these numbers. If any one of them were “untuned,” there could be no stars and no life. This realization offers a radically new perspective on our universe, our place in it, and the nature of physical laws.




    Tuesday, November 08, 2011

    Writing About Humans


    I'm feeling feel really blessed to have written some of my stories, and in this case, "Changeling."
    And i feel really blessed about the story "Cry for hire" in Warren Lapine's anthology, Fantastic Stories of the Imagination.

    I think a lot of people who are white who expect black folks to write about certain things will look at Changeling and see, "wow, there is art here!" 

    I'm a lit major so i read great works and I aim to write great works
    but there are folks black and white who have beliefs about what writers should write about
    social issues or race or feminism, or politics, or religion or whatever. In stories like those, stories written with a purpose to preach about an idea or change the mind of the reader or support some particular tenet, one ends up with cliches and tropes and really nothing is new in those stories because we have seen these issues (and often those stories) before.

    I'm not saying writing religious stories are bad or that writing about race is bad or writing about the oppression of women is bad. I'm saying writing cliched characters is bad. And writing about politics creates old stories that make readers eyes glaze over because those writings (in the hands of most writers) tend to be stereotypical and to create characters who lack humanity and uniqueness.

    My characters in A Cry for hire and Changeling are all very human
    But Cry for Hire is about poverty, race, isolation. Changeling is a folktale full of human characters in a tragic regal history but it is also very political.

    And yet, when I wrote them, I had no political agenda or racial agenda. I simply wrote for the love of story and the love of depicting the human condition. Somehow the political, my own neuroses, and my concerns seeped through. I think that's the issue with many stories. Most people are too controlled when they write and writers with  political/racial.social/racial agendas are even more controlled than others. They have to learn to trust the discomfort of having human characters who may not fall in line with the required stereotype. 
     

    Saturday, November 05, 2011

    Dark Parables: Caring for the wounded



    I dreamed I had some kittens, not newborn but not really old either. They were in our kitchen/bathroom. The room had a large bathtub and a fridge. We kept them there to protect them from our doggie, Hemo. The kittens were inside this room, inside the tub, inside cages (although there was one cage that was shared by two kittens), and they had warm little jackets on inside the cages. There were about five of them. My husband was the one who consistently fed them and I pretty much forgot about their existence. Then I was accidentally reminded by my husband that I had to feed them. I had forgotten to feed them one day and they had managed but I realized I hadn't been feeding them. I opened the door and made sure the dog couldn't go inside. Then I let the kittens roam free and took off their littlekitty kackets so they could feel each other's fur and bodies. As I looked around, I saw a kitten who went back and put on his jacket. I thought how strnge it was that he had gotten used to it.

    I dreamed I saw a movie shedule for Friday movie nights and Wednesday movie nights. I was sad because I could no longer go out at night to watch movies because of the fibro but the movies in the series were sooo good, I was tempted to start going to the movies anyway. Twice a week couldn't ruin my life so much. Then I was in one of the movies I had wanted to see. A girl (who was me) was talking to another girl (who was apparently a bit of a snob) about a boy she missed. The girl said, "I miss my old friend. He had a sadness in his eyes but I really liked him. And I don't like this new neighbor." The snobbish looking girl said, "You miss him because although he had sadness in his eyes, he had a light in his heart that you could see. This new neighbor has darkness in his heart because he has had a great sorrow. But you should try to find the light in his soul again and re-light it." Then the scene shifted to a different place far away where the boy whom had been the girl's neighbor had moved to. Now, he was the one who had no light in his spirit because he was sad because he had moved away from the girl.

    I think both dreams are about working hard to heal the wounded, especially the young wounded people in the world. I used to put myself out to help the wounded and hurt but I kind of stopped after a while. I think the dream is telling me to learn how to do this again.Interesting that it was the snobbish girl who brought it to my attention. Generally, my pride and hackles rise and my fangs go out when a proud person tries to tell me anything. But in this case I listened. Oh well, good advice from icky people is good adivice no matter how much you might dislike them.

    I think this connects to some of the folks I meet on the internet.


    I do seem to end up with a lot of male young friends from all over the world and so many of them are sexually wounded. But I am so fearful of being hurt, or distrustful that they might be using me for money that I can be very distant...even when I'm friendly. I think God wants me to lighten up and develop compassion. 
    Yep, this is a "compassion required" dream. 

    Friday, November 04, 2011

    Returning to Daily Communion

    Okay, I had totally forgotten our habit of taking daily communion to get myself and my son healed. Yes, yes, yes... one forgets to do stuff.Perhaps because I went all gluten or was engrossed in other matters. Anyway, we have returned.

    So yeah, everyday...three times a day.... communion for the family and affirming the work Jesus did by shedding His blood for us.

    Hubby and I basically have saltines and water or tea or juice.

    We declare:

    "Jesus we are doing this because we believe you when you said your body is food indeed and your blood is drink indeed. We understand that feeding on you is a spiritual thing and spiritual things are happening as we feed on you. Therefore feed our spirits, souls, minds, bodies, spirits with what we need.

    Jesus, you fell on the way to the cross. You hit your nose as you fled, therefore your nose bled for Gabe and his congestion. You fell and broke your teeth as you fell, therefore your teeth and gums were wounded so that ours might be healed. It is written, you were wounded for our transgression, the chastisement for our peace was upon you, and by your wounds we were healed. Therefore, we believe and affirm this exchange. By those wounds to your nose, Gabe's nose was healed. By those wounds, Gabe's palate is healed and restored.

    Jesus, you were crowned with thorns that pierced your head and the blood vessels and nerve endings in your brain. Therefore, by the blood you bled from your head, all brain injuries were healed. We believe and affirm as we take this communion cracker and meditate on your work, that you were pierced -- as this cracker and matzoh was pierced-- for our iniquities and wounded so that Gabe's brain and  my brain and all the illnesses in Gabe's head can be healed.

    Jesus, you thirsted on the cross. Therefore we declare that you were thirsty for our sakes and the dehydration in our bodies was healed by your thirst. The pain in your throat was for our sakes, therefore our throats are healed because you bore all throat illnesses.

    You were whipped 33 times. We affirm as we look on the stripes on this matzoh that the stripes you received were for our sakes and for the healing of our entire body, soul, and spirit. As we break this matzoh,  and cracker, we remember that Jesus took the bread in the Passover and broke it and we thank you and affirm that his healing is now ours. We look forward to our healing and to the mighty work that your body and blood are doing in it.

    Then we take the water, juice, tea and say, "The life of the body is in the blood. Therefore, Lord, we take your life...since you took our sins. By the blood of the eternal covenant, we are in covenant with you and equipped against sin, sickness, and deception in this world. Dear Lord, your body and blood are preserving our body and blood from sickness and sin in this world and in the world to come. Thank you for delivering us from what we don't know and from what we have gotten used to. Amen. It is done."

    We'd been doing communion for a while before it fell by the wayside...but thinking back... I was totally battling unforgiveness then. And a bit of anger in my heart against hubby. So now, we'll be able to do this the right way. YAY!!!!!

    Okay, healing...come quickly.

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