Day 7: Hey, Have I Met You?

He won the prize for most unusual meeting circumstances.

It wasn't that we were both employed by a Texas non-profit group, that he lived in Pennsylvania and just happened to be coming to New York, and that we managed to have breakfast together at the Algonquin. That would have been enough, really. But Bradley is a high achiever in the best sense of the phrase.

So I shouldn't have been surprised when I learned he'd been to my house. Almost 30 years ago.

Okay, so go meet Bradley J. Moore. He'll wow you with great management advice and a humorous, down-to-earth take on life and spirituality. Heck, maybe you'll even find out he used to be your back yard neighbor.

If you're interested in communications and marketing savvy, there's always Joan P. Ball, author of the upcoming Flirting with Faith: My Spiritual Journey from Atheism to a Faith-Filled Life She wins a prize too, for living near me and actually agreeing to come to my house for scones and tea. Go figure. We met at Jesus Creed, and it turns out she's practically my back yard neighbor? (She knows Bradley too... um, okay guys...)

While we're talking prizes, I simply must mention the articulate, thought-provoking journalist Christine A. Scheller. Wouldn't you award a prize to someone who drove six hours to meet you for the first time, after connecting with you in the blogosphere? (I flew to California, so I guess she figured she'd reciprocate with a six-hour road trip to meet me at my destination. Mount Hermon Christian Writers Conference.) Christine and her husband recently decided to move back East. And in September she hosted me at her home in New Jersey!

Merry Christmas, you three. Thanks for meeting me. Literally.




THE 12 DAYS:
1. Mary's Advent
2. Laura in the Moss
3. Social Media Guys
4. Snow-White Butterfly Tree
5. Butterflies and Parties
6. Let Me Not Forget
7. Hey, Have I Met You? (this post)



Red Table Wine illustration from card by nAncY, maker of Sineann wines.

Let Me Not Forget

I met her for the first time on a bench beneath the redwoods. I was fighting back tears, because it was the very first time I'd left my children— two little girls.

It seemed wrong somehow, that I should leave the girls for a whole week, go all the way to the opposite coast for a conference, to begin my first steps towards a writing career.

Kay Strom understood. She told me her story of leaving for the first time, and how her boy pressed his nose against the glass as the car drove away, and she was left standing at Mount Hermon Christian Writers Conference, where she began her own writing career so many years before.

Emotionally, I collapsed into Kay's arms. And I have done so on occasion since that first meeting. Being with Kay makes a person feel safe, remembered.

When I received her new book from the publicists at InterVarsity Press, I wasn't surprised by its title. Kay was about to remember Forgotten Girls.

I could tell you about the book in my words, but I would rather you feel the power of Kay's remembering...

"Have you ever noticed how seldom something 'life changing' really changes your life? The term gets tossed around a lot— to describe watching the sun set in a gorgeous blaze of color, for instance, or to rave about an exciting adventure. Consider the number of books with the phrase splashed across the front cover. Good things, all. Inspiring and helpful and memorable. But 'life changing'?

Yet truly life-changing events do occur. Events that forever mark a divide between the 'then' and 'now' of life. Between despair and hope. Between ignorance and understanding. Between life and death.

Consider Parimala. She barely had time to draw her first breath before she experienced a life-changing event. As her mother staggered in from the fields, the baby was already entering the world. But no one rejoiced in her birth. When her father saw that the baby was a girl, he grabbed her up and carried her outside. He dug a hole in the hard ground beside their thatch-roofed hut and dropped her in. Then he covered her with dirt.

Done, and done.

But the baby's grandfather saw it all..."

Today I celebrate Kay for remembering the forgotten girls. She travels the world, sometimes in very dangerous places, to gather their stories, to help us participate in changing lives. Kay might not accept what I'm about to say... but I do believe that knowing her has been life changing.

(To help in a practical way, check out Sisters in Service. Maybe that's something to do for your $10 Challenge?)

RELATED POST:
Number 100 Million and One



THE 12 DAYS:
1. Mary's Advent
2. Laura in the Moss
3. Social Media Guys
4. Snow-White Butterfly Tree
5. Butterflies and Parties
6. Let Me Not Forget (this post)

Butterflies and Parties

When you see something like a snow-white butterfly tree, it stays with you. Or it can. Taking things down in pastel is one way I've begun keeping startling visual experiences. Setting them into poems is another...

"On Belleview Avenue"

Serpentine tree,
Japanese, I suspect,
as in split maple, as in
it takes a hundred years to
snake these arms to such breadth;
anyway, it seems everything
must have been leading to this juncture—
droughts, floods, springs coming
too late and winters too early,
everything conspired towards this:
snow, like white butterflies, laid
over old curves, dead leaves, intersections,
now ready to soft wing
the empty night.

____

Being on-line has brought my poetic side to life; writing poems is something I seem to do better in Community. That's the way my other kinds of writing work too. So why did I think poetry should be any different?

One of my absolute favorite ways of writing poetry in Community has begun to happen on Twitter. About every other week, we have hour-long parties hosted by tspoetry. Wild things happen— things I'm grateful for, as they open my creativity.

Though many people stop by the Twitter parties (sometimes accidentally, sometimes as the result of a friendly kidnapping (sorry Bonnie!)), there are a few "regulars" I've come to count on as the life of the parties...

— sweet-spirited Monica who, as I recall, started a blog just so she could participate in Random Acts of Poetry at HighCallingBlogs and who now surprises me with her brief, incisive poems on Twitter

— thoughtful and artistic Kelly (you MUST check out her awesome photography)

— art-loving Maureen, whose poems rarely fail to silence me (particularly the ones she writes on-the-spot at our parties... she's got a gift for quick thinking!)

— delightfully amusing when she's not being deep or making wine nAncY (oh, and her art spans the whimsical to the beautifully arresting)

— speech-writing businessman Glynn, who began writing poetry seriously for the first time this summer (and his poetry is really growing... what joy!)

Thanks, Twitter-Poet Friends, for sharing your lives and words with me. I'm delighted to celebrate you during our 12 Days of Community...




Snowy Forest art by Gail Nadeau. Used with permission.

THE 12 DAYS:
1. Mary's Advent
2. Laura in the Moss
3. Social Media Guys
4. Snow-White Butterfly Tree
5. Butterflies and Parties (this post)

POETRY FRIDAY:
Kelly’s Un-Conversation
Monica’s White and Made Known to Me
Maureen’s A Three-Part Christmas Story and Art Lecture 101
Cindy’s In the purifying flames…
Fred’s The Past Presents the Future
Glynn’s Shadows of Dawn, Like Smoke
Diane Walker’s It was an offensive apology (scroll down in the comment box at Seedlings)
Erica's Heat

Snow-White Butterfly Tree

Texas had been holding out on us, playing with our snow, while we walked the avenues without need for heavy wools. Then Washington made a bid and the Lone Star State capitulated. Before long, leftovers drifted our way.

So we walked, as the sun went down. And I wished I'd dug out the red woolen hat.

Still, our evening walk was worth braving cold wind and breath caught sharp. For, up the street, we saw it. Japanese Maple, curly branched, was lit with snow that looked like white butterflies, frozen in time, waiting.

And this tree with snow-white butterflies followed me home, wanting to be born into my pastels. As I lay the colors down I thought of special people who have been unexpected encouragements to me... like miniature snow-white butterflies gracing a dry-leafed maple tree.

Thank you Lyla, Ann, Jennifer, Bina, Deb, Ted, Linda for your letters sometimes sent behind the scenes or your comments that have given joy and strength, on bright days and sometimes through storm. I'm so glad you are a part of my blogosphere community.


Snow-White Butterfly Tree, in soft pastels, by L.L. Barkat.

---

Is there someone you would like to thank or celebrate in the blogosphere? Join us for...



THE 12 DAYS:
1. Mary's Advent
2. Laura in the Moss
3. Social Media Guys
4. Snow-White Butterfly Tree (this post)

12 Days of Self-Promotion, Sorta

Is it okay to promote yourself? Over at High Calling Blogs, I've said it's not only okay, but necessary. I'll let you read the full lowdown over there.

Suffice it to say, self-promotion on-line is best done through genuine other-promotion. Which is why we're encouraging bloggers to engage in 12 Days of Community, by featuring at least 12 other bloggers on their personal sites throughout the month of December.

I'm going to try it out, starting with long-time colleague Mary E. DeMuth. I first met Mary over an awesome salad at Mount Hermon Christian Writers Conference. She answered my newbie-writer questions through many email exchanges, long before I ever wrote my first book.

This week, almost like a writer-auntie, she actually wrote an Advent Reflection rooted in that first book. While I appreciate the way it promotes my work, what really quieted me was the beauty of Mary's own writing.

She made me think of Advent in a way I never had before. She wrote in the way I like best from Mary.

If you haven't met Mary, over salad or otherwise, I can tell you she's authored eight books. Her latest book, Thin Places, is a memoir releasing in February. You can watch the trailer here. In some ways, her story reminds me of mine. Yet not. The way good stories always do.

Sorta.



Christmas Tree Up Close, by Sonia. Used with permission.

THE 12 DAYS:
1. Mary's Advent (this post)
2. Laura in the Moss
3. Social Media Guys
4. Snow-White Butterfly Tree