The Envelope

Writing Prompt: “My life changed the day I found that huge envelope stuffed with cash in the coupon exchange bucket at the supermarket.”

Writing Time: 10 minutes

I’d like to say I did the right thing. I’d like to say I didn’t think only of myself. All I can honestly say is my life changed the day I found that huge envelope stuffed with cash in the coupon exchange bucket at the supermarket.

Yellow, worn corners, thick with papers inside. I picked up that envelope with the thought, “well, someone gave up on serious couponing.” I expected cents and dollars off, not actual dollars. I glanced through the rest of the bucket and took the envelope with me, planning to flip through the coupons while I shopped and return what I didn’t use to the bucket. I was standing beside the sweet potatoes when I opened it up.

Five thousand dollars. I wrapped my fingers around the bills, not daring to lift them out of the envelope for others to see. My mouth went dry. I counted it three times. Five thousand dollars. My first thought was to bring it to the customer service desk. My second thought was of how many month’s rent would be covered by this cash. How many car payments or medical bills or grocery store runs. In that moment, surrounded by unaware shoppers and clutching the handle of my cart, I believed I had been miraculously blessed.

Had I not prayed for this? Lord, you know my needs, I’d whispered as I sat at my kitchen table this morning. Please help me, Lord. Please, help me. I know You will not abandon me. I believe you can show me a way through this.

Yes, that envelope was an answer to prayer. A wondrous, exciting answer that made me want to leap for joy right there in the produce section.

That was seven months ago. I still say it was an answer to my prayer, just not the obvious answer I imagined. No, nothing like I imagined.

Sometimes At Dusk

Writing Prompt: Sometimes at dusk we would see him come out from the hidden interior of his…

Writing Time: 15 mins

Sometimes at dusk we would see him come out from the hidden interior of his ramshackle home. Never in the morning. Never at noon. Only at dusk. The place was a rustic cabin, aged and uncared for over the years. In the evening, when the daylight was fully spent, the soft, flickering lights emanating through the windows suggested candles. None of us had ever seen inside so it was only speculation.

When I was especially young – five, six, seven years old – I assumed he was old and the sightings in the gray of twilight did nothing to correct that assumption. My sister, two years older, and I would huddle at the window of our sun room to watch. The crowns of our blonde heads down to our eyes were as much as we dared to show of ourselves. We’d whisper our guesses of who he was, always certain we hadn’t hit on the correct answers.

An escaped convict hidden away from the authorities. A man who ran away from an abusive family years and years ago, still afraid. A rogue spy who had enough of the lies and secrets and just wanted to be left alone.

The truth was nothing like our adventurous imaginings.

When I was fourteen, I realized he was young - maybe thirty or thirty-five. He moved into that cabin behind our backyard when he was twenty-three. 

A Little Prompting

I have a new love. In all my years of writing I have never used writing prompts. Well, that's not entirely true. If I think really hard, I can remember my 9th grade English teacher Miss Roberts (huge difference maker in my life!) conducting writing activities in which we were given a topic and needed to write on it for the remainder of class. I don't remember how well I responded to them at that time and I know she didn't make use of them often. So, let's focus on the present.

In January, I finally joined a writers' group for the first time. Oh, how I wish I had done this years ago! We meet once a month and share our writing projects. For the last half hour of the meeting, we use a writing prompt provided by one of the members. We write for only five minutes then share what we created. Plain and simple, it's my new favorite thing.

The prompts provide an itty bitty nugget of an idea. A start. A seed. When I read or hear the prompt, it's a thrill to know that in that moment there is no telling where I will go with it and yet in merely a few minutes I'll have formed a fuller concept and put words to the page. Each time it feels like I am being introduced to myself anew. Sometimes the result is tepid but other times I stare at the lines I wrote and wonder, "Where inside of me did that come from?"

This being the case, and the other case being that I have desired a return to blogging but have inexplicably struggled with writer's block each time I open a blank post, I shall make use of writing prompts here on the blog. My hope is that it will be fun and interesting, and will continue to break out the writer inside of me. I am excited to meet her each and every time.

On the Water

Then he made his disciples get into the boat and precede him to the other side toward Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd. And when he had taken leave of them, he went off to the mountain to pray.

When it was evening, the boat was far out on the sea and he was alone on the shore. Then he saw that they were tossed about while rowing, for the wind was against them. About the fourth watch of the night, he came toward them walking on the sea. He meant to pass by them.

But when they saw him walking on the sea, they thought it was a ghost and cried out. They had all seen him and were terrified. But at once he spoke with them, "Take courage, it is I, do not be afraid!" He got into the boat with them and the wind died down. They were completely astounded. 

They had not understood the incident of the loaves. On the contrary, their hearts were hardened.     Mark 6:45-52

I am much more familiar with Matthew's account of Jesus walking on the water than I am with Mark's. The number of words and actions that stood out to me upon my recent reading of this passage tells me that anytime I've studied this particular story of Jesus, I made use of only Matthew's account.

Right out of the gate, I note that Jesus made his disciples go in the boat and leave him behind. It gives the impression that they didn't want to leave, didn't wish to be separated from him. They had just witnessed the miraculous feeding of the five thousand. They were likely amazed, but confused, and had questions for Jesus. I would guess they were looking forward to some time spent with Jesus without the crowd so the twelve of them could ask those questions and mull over what had happened. Instead, Jesus tells them to take the boat to the other side of the sea and leave him behind.

On their way they encounter high winds and waves. It is stressful, exhausting, and possibly frightening. And Jesus is not with them. They don't know he's watching them from the shore. They don't know he is seeing their travail.

Then Jesus takes to the water. He begins walking across the sea. Easily could we think "He's going to them." Jesus must be walking to his disciples, his closest companions, friends, and followers. He sees their hardship and He is going to them. Thus my surprise when I read "He meant to pass by them." What?! This is the line that baffled me when I read this passage recently. It's been on my mind for at least a week. "He meant to pass by them." He was simply going to walk by them and leave them to the storm? He wasn't going to help? He wasn't going to get into the boat with them and calm the wind? Really, Jesus? Why?

It took until today, thinking on this yet again, to change my tune. "He meant to pass by them." As in, He meant to get close enough for them to see Him. Close enough for them to call to Him, to ask Him to help. Yes. That is what Jesus meant to do. Instead of keeping His distance, waiting out the storm, or even helping from afar - instead of this, He would draw near. He would help them in the midst of their trouble. He would make Himself personally available to them.

I'm not claiming this is the only possible interpretation of this moment in the Gospel. As far as what the disciples themselves realized about Jesus in that experience, I can't speak to that either. I am simply speaking as a person of faith reading this passage yet again and considering the manner in which our Lord sometimes chooses to help His beloved ones. We might want Jesus to stay with us in the particular manner we prefer, but He says no, you must go forward in the way I'm instructing you. We may want Him to appear in our midst, in our struggles, and take over the helm of the ship. He instead draws near and waits for us to recognize Him and call to Him.

God's help, His saving grace and guiding hand, often come in surprising ways. He's apt to choose the less obvious, the less understandable manner of meeting us on our wind tossed boats. And in every instance He commands, "Do not be afraid!" Do not fear! Trust in me! Know that I am here, that I, the Lord of Heaven and Earth, am available to you. I am here. Be not afraid.

Home Is a Moving Object

Time has an insatiable appetite, hording each present moment into its collection known as the past. Except even its ownership of all those moments doesn't satisfy. No, time must be sure we can't recollect what was ours. So it chips away at things, induces change, until the circumstances that made our memories are hardly recognizable. This is the conclusion I came to as I drove away from my hometown a few weeks ago. The building blocks of that structure, the "home" of that place, are gradually coming apart. Not crumbling or breaking, nothing so tragic as that. It's all the ordinary process of time passing, that's all. Blocks are removed, reshaped, separated from the rest. We all experience it. People move, people die, businesses close, buildings are remodeled, roads are rerouted. Essentially, time happens. What can we do about it?

Maybe the better question is what should we do about it? Because we can cling to the past. We can reconnect with as many old friends and acquaintances as we can find. We can dwell on what we no longer have. We can focus on memories until we are certain all was better then than now. But should we?

As I drove the two hours back to my present home after a weekend at my former home, my babies sleeping in their car seats and the radio giving a soundtrack to my thoughts, I let myself ponder all this. My conclusion: home is a traveling vehicle. It carries us, holds and contains us, and most of all, it moves with us. The old adage of "home is where the heart is" may be one of the most well known cliches of all time but that doesn't make it false.

We moved to our current home 5 1/2 months ago. I know exactly how long we've been here because it is the same as my little daughter's age, minus a week. We moved in a state of upheaval. Baby Girl spent one single night in our home in Menasha. We returned from the hospital and rested in a rocking chair while every other piece of furniture, article of clothing, and cooking utensil was packed up and hauled out. Then my husband began his new job, sleeping at the worst motel in our new town, and the kids and I had a limbo week at my parents' house while we waited for our place to be move-in ready. We unloaded all those boxes in Manitowoc and we were home. In the weeks and months that followed I have answered the "does it feel like home yet?" question countless times. I realize now that I've been answering incorrectly. I usually talked about what still needs to be done to settle in. I described where we were at in the stages of unpacking and decorating. I spoke of feeling like a stranger at our new church or how I don't have friends yet, stopping short of admitting just how lonely I am. I mentioned my gradual familiarity of the city's layout and what stores or restaurants or parks we've tried out. None of that answers the question though.

If I answered with clarity I'd say simply, "Yes." Yes, it feels like home. Just as our duplex in Menasha felt like home, or our apartment in Appleton after the wedding, or the apartment and then house I shared with my sister and friend in the years before being married, it feels like home. Because it is where I live. Not where I used to live or wish I lived or where my extended family or various friends live, but where I live now. It is where my life is happening. Home is a moving object. If I understand what makes a place or situation "home" then I can be sure to never leave it behind or have it taken from me. It will move and change with me, surround me at all times. It will be the scene of my life being lived, and that alone will give it the privilege of being called home.