Cheating on the Brand: Brand Loyalty and Facebook October 16, 2011

After posts in my Exodus series an others about news events, I’m breaking from what I normally write (and, let’s face it, read) and taking a look at advertising. Specifically, advertising on Facebook.

 

It seems that almost every company or business has a fan page on Facebook. Commercials on TV inform us that if we want more information on their brand of soap/crackers/detergent/soup/furniture/tomato sauce/kitchen appliances/etc., we should visit the brand’s Facebook page. Beside more information about each product or brand (what kind of information about tomato sauce do people need aside from the expiration date?), the page promises tips on how to use the products, and, in the case of food, recipes. More importantly, though, most of these pages include coupons or online deals through the official websites that are only available to Facebook fans in the hopes that, now that we’re fans, we’ll be loyal to that brand of cooking oil and that brand alone, thereby ensuring a continuing base of consumers for the product.

______

Except it doesn’t. Not really.

________

I have a friend on Facebook who is a fan of more than 300 pages, most of which are brands and companies offering these coupon- or deal-delivering promises to fans. At least that’s why I assume she “likes” them. I can’t fathom anyone liking Wishbone salad dressing or Fresh Express (bagged) Salads or Hefty brand trash bags so much they would announce it to the world for any other reason. I have other friends who are fans of competing companies at the same time (Coke and Pepsi, Pizza Hut and Papa John’s, etc.). Why do they do this? It’s not loyalty — it’s coupons.

________

This, of course, is more of a problem for businesses than consumers. These people are savvy shoppers before they’re disloyal customers.

____

First, the question must be asked — Do the businesses really care all that much? Surely they have consultants who inform them this is happening. So what, if anything, are they doing about it? Just succumb to the fact that everybody’s in this game and do what they can to get someone to buy their products, one discount at a time?

———–

So . . . are you loyal to any brands or do you stick to whatever’s on sale? To what and why? What would it take to keep you loyal to one brand or product?

Words Left Unsaid: Why I’ll Never Regret my Christian Education August 21, 2011

It was Christian School night at Grace Baptist Church and my first Sunday as an actual employee of Heritage Hall Christian School, a ministry of my church here in Muncie. I was recently hired to work in extended care, a program for children whose moms and dads can’t pick them up right after school. Basically, I get to hang out with preschoolers for two and a half hours, three days a week. So far, we’ve discussed which snack food is better, pretzels or goldfish and why doing flips on the monkey bars in a dress without shorts on underneath would be a bad idea, so I can already tell this is going to be an awesome job.

)))

Before the preaching began, Dr. Ice asked all of the school’s faculty and staff to come and stand on the stage. He spoke about the high quality of the teachers standing around him to the congregation and the sacrifices many of them made to teach at Heritage Hall as opposed to other private or public schools in the area. After he was finished, he asked if anyone would like to give a testimony. Had I been prepared, I might have stepped up, but thinking about it now, my fear of public speaking would have probably gotten the better of me. I thought about what I would have said while listening to the preaching and, having missed my chance to say it publicly, I’ll go ahead and give the unabridged version here as I have no time constraints.

)))))))))

I have been in a Christian school all my life, preschool on up. I came to Community Baptist School in the middle of second grade, where I met some wonderful teachers who honestly cared about their students and a few not-so-great teachers, let’s face it. I had two of those consecutively in elementary school. The good teachers didn’t just care about academics, they cared about the student — (in no particular order) what was going on at home, what was going on with peers, their relationship with God, etc.. That’s not to say there aren’t public school teachers who care about their students — there are plenty. Hallmark and Lifetime put out movies illustrating this fact every year. However, the fact that my father, who, at the time, was not a Christian and had a pretty dim view of organized religion in general, would choose to send his kids to a school he could barely afford tells me that the education I received from Community was vitally important to who I would (and want to) become.

000000

I was not always a model student and I think I was even less of a model Christian student. I didn’t really read my textbooks (and still don’t), I doodled rather than took notes, and procrastinated with everything but Creative Writing assignments. Desperate for friends or anyone to include me, I allowed people who pulled me back from following Christ to become my influences. Yes, even in Christian schools, there are kids who would rather jump into a pit full of rabid squirrels than live a life dedicated to Christ. In hindsight, I know this only fueled my issues with depression and gave me no desire whatsoever for the things of God or my grades. My closer friends (and I can use that term loosely now) seemed to have no practical ambition for life or love for God, and while I held (and still hold) tightly to my ambition of being a writer, I was losing my grip on the vital importance of Christ in my life to guide my future. I was still the good kid who didn’t get in much trouble and tried to keep my “friends” out of it (sometimes even dipping to being their lying alibi when people asked about something they were rumored to have done). I didn’t cross the line as far as rules went — I didn’t drink, didn’t smoke (anything), didn’t sneak out of the house under cover of darkness, didn’t run away from home like some I could mention, and my grades stayed up (aside from Algebra, and who can blame me?) — but the heart for Christ I once had and the desire to become more like Him wasn’t there, despite the prayers of my mother and teachers. I suppose I was angry at Him for one reason or another or simply allowed my “friends” to get in the way. To be honest, it was probably a mixture thereof.

jjjjjjjjjj

Towards the middle of high school, I found myself shocked back to God through a ridiculous cancer scare (more on that some other time). Let me tell you, nothing will bring you back to Him like the possibility that you might be meeting Him face-to-face soon. Of course, God had a plan for putting me through that scare (which was only scary because I let it go so long without telling anyone or getting it checked out — stupid, stupid, stupid).  He was preparing me, not only for a renewed relationship with Him, but also the friends He wanted me to have, not only in the rest of my time in high school, but in the next step of my life — college.

)))))))

It didn’t take me long after arriving on campus to realize that I wasn’t in Kansas anymore. In fact, I wasn’t sure I was even in the same hemisphere. Up to that point, my life had been spent mostly in the protective bubble of a Christian school and semi-Christian home. My father cursed, sometimes violently, depending on his circumstances, but I wasn’t prepared to hear the profanity (both the words themselves and their regular and over-usage) coming from both my fellow students and the professors. My father drank, very responsibly, but I wasn’t prepared to for the stories I heard before classes started about people getting completely trashed over the weekends (despite having seen it on TV and in movies). I wasn’t prepared for the viciousness people felt and exhibited towards Christianity, through words and mostly passive-aggressive actions. Of course, I had been told that this was what the real world was. Teachers said it would be like this, the media showed it would be like this, but no matter how many people tell you about it, little will prepare you for having to go out there and see and hear it for yourself.

knlj

While my Christian education didn’t prepare me for what I would see and hear at a state school, it did prepare me for how to handle it. I could go back to what I’d learned in Bible classes about who God was and why He deserved my devotion to Him. I could remember those who went through much worse than what I was dealing with and get encouragement from them. Within a month or so of starting at Ball State, I found my church home at Grace and found new friends there who have helped and encouraged me to continue in the ways which thou (I) hast (hadst?) learned.

jjjjjjjjjjj

On my right ring finger, I wear my high school ring. While looking at the rings Balfour brings to campus every year with friends who are interested in buying college rings, I have been asked if I wanted to trade my high school ring for credit towards a college one. I’ve refused every time. Not because it’s the most expensive piece of jewelry I own or because it has my name on it in two places or because I’m stuck in my accessory ways. I refuse to part with it because it stands as a reminder of the people and the place that have given me the best foundation possible for the rest of my life. It wasn’t just the theology I learned in Bible classes and the Bible verse memory or the godly music we listened to and sang in school choir — though all of those are good. It was the examples of godly lives I saw in my teachers. One of the best teachers I had, Mr. Bradford (now Pastor Bradford thanks to a promotion to principal a few years ago), not only tutored me through Algebra I (which in a flurry of brilliance I followed up with Algebra II, much to my own frustration) but showed me joy, even through the midst of struggles. The man hardly ever frowned. Ever. Another teacher, one of the best and the hardest, Mr. Wellin, sang in the church choir and the enthusiasm and joy was abundantly evident on his face while he was singing. Mrs. Elliott taught four classes of English, one class of creative writing, edited the school newsletter and the yearbook, attended about 98% of the school sporting events while being a single mom to two teenagers. She had a laugh you could hear down the hall and we heard it a lot. None of this could have been possible without the joy of the Lord, which you can’t have if you’re away from Him. There were other teachers, in elementary, junior- and high school, who exhibited this joy, but I don’t have the time to mention them all here.

dsdfsd

And so, here I am, three years out of that school and working in another Christian school. I’m not a teacher. I’m not even full-time and I doubt any of the kids I get to work with will remember me down the road, but I hope these little 3-, 4- and 5-year-olds will be able to see at least a little of Christ in me as I continue the pretzel vs. goldfish debate. And I hope they realize what a gift they are receiving through going to a Christian school.

. . . And God Knew July 24, 2011

So, it has been an unfortunately long time since my last entry in my series on Exodus (the last one was May 15 . . . ouch!). In the last post in this series, I discussed the events that led up to Moses not only escaping the newborn male Israelite genocide, but being brought into Pharaoh’s palace itself by Pharaoh’s daughter to be a prince after being raised by his biological mother, Jochebed. Jochebed was a woman of, what I would call, extraordinary faith who, despite the dangers that lurked in hiding her infant son from the Egyptian soldiers and setting him adrift in a basket boat in a river containing large predatory lizards, chose to trust God to keep her son safe. She left her hopes and dreams in the hands of an almighty God and He, in His love and sovereignty, gave them back to her, if only for a temporary time.

__________

I plan to cover a bit more ground in this post – hopefully make it all the way through Chapter 3 if I don’t get sidetracked by something. We’ll see.

______________

We left off in Exodus 2:10 with Moses being named Moses by Pharaoh’s daughter after Moses was brought back to her when he had grown. It isn’t quite clear how many years passes between verse 10 and 11, but we are told that he was a “grown-up” again here. Whether this means he was a teenager or younger when Jochebed brought him back or whether Moses, who wrote this book of the Bible along with the rest of the Pentatuch, was just trying to clarify that he was an adult at the time of this event, is unclear to me.  I haven’t really found much in the way of research on this subject, so if anyone knows his approximate ages here, I’d appreciate knowing about it. Frankly, it’s irrelevant to the story, but as a journalism major, I like to know stuff.

________

Anyway.

__________

It says in verse 11 that Moses went out and saw “his people” (ESV) and their suffering under their Egyptian slavemasters. This claim of “his” people further perpetuates the idea that Moses knew full-well that he was a Hebrew, unlike what the Dreamworks film, The Prince of Egypt, says. (Of course, there was a disclaimer saying that some facts had been fudged for the sake of a better story, though, personally, I think the story is pretty great as it is, but hey, I’m just a college student. What do I know? It makes it somewhat hard to point fingers when they come out and tell you that all the facts aren’t accurate in their portrayal. Ahem. Moving on.)

__________

He sees an Egyptian beating a Hebrew and in verse 12, it says:

He looked this way and that, and seeing no one, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. (ESV)

____________

Now, this can’t have been an uncommon occurrence. This was a society and an economy built on the backs of slaves. I have serious doubts that this is the first time Moses saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew. It begs the question then: What set Moses off this time? What drove him to commit murder now? Why not before? Why this sudden surge of a feeling of kinship with his fellow Hebrews?

_______

I admit, I have no answer to that question and God and Moses didn’t appear to feel the need for an explanation.

_____________

Moses goes out the next day, and sees two Hebrews fighting amongst themselves and  approaches them.

“And he [Moses] said to the man in the wrong ‘Why do you strike your companion?’ He answered, ‘Who made you a prince and a judge over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?’”   ~ Exodus 2:13b-14a (ESV)

_________

Oops. Looks like Moses didn’t look quite hard enough before taking out that Egyptian. And while he longs for that kinship with his people, they don’t seem to have a lot of warm and fuzzy feelings toward him. The Bible says Moses apparently knew which of the two men were in the wrong and confronts him, which makes me wonder what position he held above these slaves. Obviously, being, more or less, a prince of Egypt would have put him in a loftier social position than these men, but was he in control of certain slaves? Had he been watching the fight from some corner and decided to intervene? According to the man he speaks with, the former doesn’t appear to be the case. In today’s vernacular, the man asks Moses, “Who died and made you boss?” These men had no love for the man they probably felt was a spoiled palace brat, not to mention a murderer. “Gonna kill me for fighting like you killed the Egyptian, big shot?” (again, my interpretation, of course). Another note here: the Hebrew man refers to the man Moses killed as “the Egyptian,” which makes it sound like this man knows Moses is a Hebrew, or at least, not an Egyptian. Why else would he make the distinction? Anyway.

________

The man’s mention of his activities the day before sets off alarms in Moses’ head. Apparently, he had not only been seen, but he had been seen by gossip-mongers who had spread the word.

“Then Moses was afraid, and thought, ‘Surely the thing is known.’” ~ Exodus 2:14b (ESV)

____

Or, in more modern words, “I’m toast.”

___________

It didn’t take long for Pharaoh to find out, but by the time he had organized himself and put a death order on Moses’ head, Moses had already flown the coop, running to the land of Midian and sitting down by a well.

__________

At the risk of sounding cliché this was the start of the rest of his life.

__________

“Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came and drew water and filled the troughs to water their father’s flock. The shepherds came and drove them away, but Moses stood up and saved them, and watered their flock.” ~ Exodus 2:16-17 (ESV)

__________

Moses the hero. The runaway criminal saves the damsels in distress.

___________

“When they came home to their father Reuel [Jethro (I’ll explain in a minute)], he said, ‘How is it that you have come home so soon today?’ They said, ‘An Egyptian delivered us out of the hand of the shepherds and even drew water for us and watered our flock.’ He said to his daughters, ‘Then where is he? Why have you left the man? Call him, that he may eat bread.’” ~Exodus 2:18-20 (ESV)

_____________

The damsels-who-are-no-longer-in-distress run home to Dad and, like many fathers would have, my own included, he wonders why they were done with their chores earlier than usual. If he were my father, he would have assumed I had skimped out of some of the work and not done the job to his usual satisfaction. These girls had an excuse though. They had help. A man they knew to be an Egyptian, either by Moses telling them or having the appearance of an Egyptian (which probably hadn’t helped his chances of getting on the Hebrews’ good side while he was back in Egypt) had been at the well and had driven away the shepherds who had been bothering them and had watered the sheep for them. They had also apparently forgotten to bring him along with them, so Dad tells the girls to go back and invite him to dinner. In verse 21, we find that Dad not only invited him to dinner, but invited him to live with him, even giving Moses his daughter Zipporah for a wife.

___________

I said I’d explain the Reuel/Jethro thing. According to an article on www.keyway.ca, a Canadian Church of God-based Bible study, the Reuel mentioned in verse 18, was a more personal name for Jethro, which was probably a more official or honorary name. Also, Reuel means “friend of God” and Jethro means “excellent.” This last statement is just a fun fact to know and tell that I found interesting. Moving on. This is the important bit (and it looks like Chapter 3 will have to wait until next time).

__________________

The last three verses set the stage for the next, oh, 13 chapters or so.

“During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. And God heard their groaning and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel — and God knew.” ~ Exodus 2:23-25 (ESV)

_______

God knew.

_________

Take a minute to think about that. When taken into a large context, it isn’t surprising. God is omniscient. Of course He knew. He knew their suffering and He knew what He was going to do about it. He knows our suffering, as well, though usually our suffering pales in comparison to slavery in ancient Egypt. God knows and He cares.

____________________

My old youth pastor (old in the sense of my no longer being in his youth group, not that he is old), Mike Thomas, once said, “If it matters to you, it matters to God.” By this, I think he meant, if it is a load on our hearts, God knows about it and is ready and waiting to help, if not to remove the pain, then at least to help us understand it or at the very least comfort us when we can’t understand. God already knows what He’s going to do about our suffering (or our worry or our fear) if we only ask Him.

________

That’s the hard part sometimes, though, isn’t it? Admitting that we’re in over our human heads and need help. Our need is so obvious, but our pride (or stupidity or pigheadedness, whichever you prefer) overwhelms our desire to ask for help. We can do it ourselves (Ha! Right . . .). Sometimes it’s because we’re bitter. We get it into our heads that a sovereign-but-loving God wouldn’t have sent the suffering to begin with and might bring even more suffering if we ask Him to help us because He’s trying to teach us something through it.  Sometimes, it’s a different reason altogether, but the end result is the same: a longer period of pain or a return to the loving embrace of our Father.

————-

Taking an objective point of view, these positions are ludicrous because we, as Christians, know God has our best interests at heart and doesn’t want us to be in pain, physical or emotional — that the pain will ease when it’s served its purpose and that God has every intention of giving us the necessary grace to get through it. But at the time, when it’s us going through the fire, our views change significantly, don’t they? “Does God know what He’s doing?” we ask. (Yes.) “Has He lost His mind?” we wonder. (No.) Our faith trembles a bit and, hopefully, you have people you can go to for encouragement and prayer to bring you back to the right perspective. I do and I’m thankful for them every day. Some of these people have no idea how they’ve helped me, and I’m sure others, as well. As I approach graduation (less than 5 months! I can’t believe it!), I’m finding my own faith in God’s plan for my future getting a little shaky.

—————-

Like I’ve said before, I’m a journalism major. My industry is, to say the least, a bit hard for new journalists to enter right now. I don’t really want to have to move from all my roots, both in South Bend and in Muncie. I’m a bit of a wuss sometimes when it comes to picking up and moving somewhere else and I’m praying for a job in the area, where I can be close to my family and friends. However, I have to look at reality and see that having to move a state or two away might very well be in my future. I’m not ashamed to say I’m a mite scared. Abraham probably felt a bit like this when God told him to leave Ur and head north to “the land where I [God] will show you.” (Genesis 12:1 [ESV]) He didn’t have a GoogleMap to show him where he was going, like I would if I got a job out of state (not that it would do much good — I take getting lost to an art form). He didn’t even have a clear destination. He only had the word of a God who had never let him down (incidentally, He’s never really let you down, either) that he would be led to a land where he would father a nation — a nation that would be as the number of stars in the sky and the sands on the shore.

____________

God knew then what was best for Abraham and God knows now what is best for me. God knows and I’m sure glad someone does, especially someone who can give me the grace to make it there and the power to keep me safe when I do it.

 ———-

“Be still and know that I AM GOD.”

~Psalm 46:10

Cherry Pajamas June 21, 2011

This has been a long day for many reasons.  Part of it is the heat and humidity (that I’m hoping leaves very soon) which I was out in for around an hour getting comments for a story about and watching the funeral procession for fallen firefighter, Scott Davis, who died fighting a church fire last Wednesday (see The Star Press article for more info. There are several, but this is one more about him.  I will be blogging about this soon.)  Part of it is the fact that Grace Baptist’s VBS has started and I’m starting to get worn down with the bus ministry as some of these kids have never been taught how to obey or anything about respect whatsoever.  Another part that I didn’t really mention today and probably wouldn’t have to anyone unfamiliar with the situation if it weren’t for this blog is the one most on my heart right now.

________

You see, ten years ago today, the world lost one of the greatest men you’ve probably never heard of.  My grandfather, Don Daugherty.  He led a simple, hard-working life — as simple as being the father of six could be.  It’s because of him that I tell stories, both fictional and real.  This was a guy who could tell a story that would capture my attention and imagination as a child (no easy feat, by the way) and could do so on command.  I’ll write more about this one day and perhaps fix the problems with this essay when my brain isn’t so dead.  Tonight, I’ll post an essay I wrote for an English class last summer about that night ten years ago when I was forced to look at and accept the fact that life isn’t fair and the ones you rely on might not always be there.

            It will probably go down as the worst night of my life.  He was my grandfather – my mother’s dad – and he had been fighting this growing monster inside him for the three years it spent eating him alive from the inside out.  He couldn’t fight any longer.  There was nothing the doctors could do, and personally, I think he grew tired of battling with the tumors in his body.  He was exhausted, both in body and spirit, and the only thing we could do was let him go.

_______

The day I hoped would never come, came and went without a whisper.  There was no thunder and lightning or heavy rain like in the movies.  The sun set just like it always did and rose again.  We woke up the next morning, and the world still turned.  Men and women went on with their lives and, in time, we would, too.  But a part of me is still in that back room of my grandparents’ house where I watched him lying in that rented hospital bed in a coma, still and silent.

_________

~*~

________

            Somehow all of my aunts and uncles and their spouses, my mother, grandmother, and I managed to squeeze into that little room, despite the fact that an enormous argument had erupted between them only days before which resulted in certain siblings more or less not speaking to each other.  We all felt we needed to be there and gathered almost all at the same time, as if we all knew what was going to happen.  My mother and I had been in Columbus, Ohio, for the past three weeks, waiting – hoping for a miracle but knowing better than to hold our breath.  She was the only married daughter whose husband was not present that night due to work conflicts.  I was all she had and I knew it.  As much as I didn’t want to enter a room where death was so near, I had to stay, even if I was told otherwise.  I was the only grandchild present when my grandmother, tears in her eyes, finally removed the oxygen tubes from her husband’s nose, whispering, “Tell Jeffy I love him.  I’ll see you soon.”

___________

Jeffrey Daugherty, or Jeffy, as my grandmother called him, was an uncle I had never met.  He had died of a brain tumor before I was born.  He would be my immediate family’s first experience with premature death.  Another uncle would face the same threat, but survived a brain tumor, losing only the hearing in his left ear.   We believe that, before his death, my grandfather’s cancer also spread to his brain.  This was both good and heartbreaking at the same time – good because we had some time to get used to the fact that he was, more or less, gone before he actually left this world, but heartbreaking to watch him become more and more confused before finally lapsing into a coma in his bed in that tiny back room, painted an obnoxious shade of teal with white curtains that hung and billowed gently with the slightest breeze, like ghosts that stood, watching for another spirit to leave its body.  And from the looks of it, his spirit was anxious to do so.  His face was pale, kind of a yellowish gray from the disease attacking his liver.  He looked like he was just asleep, but it was easy to tell he was sick.  His hair, which he never lost through the chemotherapy treatments, was white and thinner than it used to be, but still wavy, just like always.  He lay there motionless, like he was sleeping, and sometimes it was easier to believe he was simply sleeping.  That he would wake up any time and everything would be fine and we could go on with our lives as if this cancer never happened.  But the facts would invariably bring me back to reality.  He was drifting silently away and there was nothing I could do to keep him here.

________

~*~

___________

            I blamed the doctors at first.  In 1997, my grandfather had had surgery on his intestines and in the process of the operation, the doctors had seen something of concern in his colon, but declined to do a biopsy of any kind.  They barely mentioned the fact that they had seen anything.  Trusting the medical professionals, my grandparents went home.  In 1998, he noticed a suspicious-looking spot on his face and, knowing the history of skin cancer, specifically melanoma, in our family, he went to have it checked out.  It was then they found the cancer and, in the ensuing days, realized where it had originated.  The mystery mass the doctors felt was, apparently, nothing to worry about had been cancer.  It was to be the beginning of his fight with what had become stage four colon cancer.

___________

I remember clearly the hours spent in the hospital with him and my grandmother while he received chemotherapy drip by drip through an IV in his hand.  The hours spent on his bed with him because the therapy made him too sick to be up and about.  The obvious weakness every time I came back to Columbus after months back home in Indiana.  I watched as the cancer took hold in his liver and lungs, despite the offerings of modern medicine.  All I could do was stand by as doctors told us that the chemo was no longer working and as he was put on supportive care in an effort to make him as comfortable as possible.  There’s no more powerful way of realizing that you are completely helpless in a situation.

_____________

__

            After his lapse into a coma, I rarely entered the room.  He wasn’t really there.  He had left weeks before.  And, as an eleven-year-old, I could barely keep myself together when I was anywhere else in the house, much less his room.  I had already spent years in depression and just as I was coming out of the worst of that, we got the call – the hospice nurses said it was the end and we needed to come soon if we wanted a chance to say goodbye while he was still slightly able to comprehend the fact we were there.

__________

I was the oldest cousin on that side of the family.  I felt responsible to my fellow grandchildren to provide answers to the questions their parents didn’t want to answer.  This gave me a good excuse to hide behind corners and listen to what the adults were saying – things they probably didn’t want us kids to know.  Much of it was medical jargon, but even then, I knew the more technical the speech, the worse the situation.  While there was life, there was hope, but that hope had dwindled almost completely until it was gone.  No miracle was swooping in to save him, no doctor called saying there was one other thing they could try.  There was nothing I could do.  There aren’t really words to describe the feeling of utter helplessness when someone you love is slipping away from you and you can’t hold onto them to save their life – literally.  Especially as an eleven-year-old, who comes harshly to the realization that she has no control over anything whatsoever, from something as traumatizing as the death of her grandfather to something as trivial as what would be served at dinner that night.  No control at all.

______

~*~

___________

            There’s something about a patriarch’s imminent death that brings out the crazy in people.  My fully-grown adult aunts and uncles bickered for hours over something incredibly stupid, as far as I’m concerned, doing what they could to keep their children away from the argument to the extent that we weren’t allowed to come inside, even to use the restroom.  The sad-but-funny part was the fact that they were ganging up on my mother over the decisions she had made regarding the way I was raised, saying she wasn’t letting me have any fun and that she was hurting me somehow.  Honestly, I was more hurt that I couldn’t come in and use the restroom (a decision made by the aunts and uncles who claimed to have my best interests at heart) than the fact that my mother didn’t want me to go to see a particular movie with them.

_________

It was as though they didn’t want to believe we kids knew what was going on or what they were all fighting about.  We weren’t stupid and we were tired of being dragged into the adult situation of this death then being treated like little children who couldn’t understand sibling squabblery.  It was pathetically funny, the kind of thing you have to laugh at to keep from crying – adults acting like children, children having to act like grown-ups, the older cousins taking care of the younger cousins during these long bickering sessions, and my poor grandmother, trying to maintain at least a little peace with all of us.

____________

I’m sure it must have been difficult having all of us – five remaining children (three of whom had spouses present) and nine grandchildren – spending so much time at her house at such a time as that.  What she did for peace and quiet, I’ll never know.  I’m assuming, of course, she actually had time for peace and quiet.  She was having to care for a dying husband – her fifth grade sweetheart who she thought she’d spend the rest of her life with, or at least another twenty years or so – and keeping a house full of guests fed and cleaned-up after.  The woman was a superhero then, and remains so to this day.

_________

            It’s taken a long time, but I think I’ve finally come to forgive the doctors who neglected to do anything about the tumor in my grandfather’s colon when they first saw it.  If they had done something then, his cancer would have been discovered sooner, rather than it having to progress to stage four before anyone did anything.  But doctors make mistakes, just like I do.  Granted, I don’t usually make mistakes that kill people, but they didn’t know that was what they had done.  For all I know, they never knew.  As much as I think something should have been done to prevent doctors from making such a mistake, I don’t want my grandfather’s death, or anything else about him, to be something I remember with anger.

_________

~*~

___________

            There’s a saying that goes something like “When he dies, even the undertaker will cry.”  There were a lot more people than just the undertaker crying at my grandfather’s funeral, though whether the undertaker did indeed cry is something I doubt.  The undertaker had no idea of the person he was preparing for burial.

_________

He was such a vibrant person with a life story someone should write a book about.  A boy from rural Kentucky who, through hard work and perseverance, lived to become the owner of his own software company.  He was a son, a husband, a father, a storyteller, a fisher, a grandpa to, at the time, nine grandchildren, and to many others whose lives were touched by this man, he was more than I’ll ever know.  I want to remember the times we spent at a lake fishing (whether we caught anything or not) or the hours he spent making up stories for me.  He is my original inspiration – for both life and storytelling.  He’s the reason I tell stories.  Partly in memoriam, and partly because he instilled a magical passion for telling stories that I wanted to keep alive somehow in myself and, maybe, in others through writing them down and telling them aloud when I could summon the courage to do so.

___________

There were many who saw him as an ordinary man, but not me.  There was nothing ordinary about him.

            I can still hear the oxygen machine whirring on the left side of his bed.  I can see the shapes all our shadows made on the weird-colored walls.  I can still remember where everyone in the room was – for some, even what they were wearing.  I, myself, was in my cherry pajamas, with the drawstring pants and the button-down shirt.  They weren’t particularly comfortable, matching the mood of the long visit we spent there, basically waiting for him to pass on.  There was an almost tangible tension I tried to ignore so people wouldn’t worry about me, but I can’t honestly say I didn’t want someone to ask.  I was so lost without him.  Like a piece of who I was – who I am – has been missing since the night of June 21, 2001.

____________

And I can’t get it back.

Remembering May 30, 2011

More than 250 American flags hang somewhat limply in the heavy, humid May air along the pathways at Garden of Memory Cemetery in Muncie, Ind.  They are flags that flew over caskets of veterans who have passed on and if you look closer, you can see little blue nameplates telling you who the soldiers were.  I’m not there, necessarily, to remember a dead loved one or visit the graves of veterans.  I’m there to cover a Memorial Day exhibit for The Star Press.  It was a first for this particular cemetery, a traveling replica of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.  While the exhibit itself and what it represents is enough to bring a tear to my eye as I’m sure it does for many others, it’s what was said about Memorial Day and the way the man who brought the exhibit, one Shorty Geiger, and Joe Longo, the cemetery manager, reacted to what the day really means that got my waterworks running a bit when I sat down to write the story for the paper.

The traveling Tomb of the Unknown reads on the front "Here rests in honored glory an American Soldier known but to God." Photo © 2011, Kate Wehlann

Shorty Geiger lives up to his nickname.  By my estimation, he stands around 5’4′ with a long, white ponytail and bushy beard, both streaked with reddish-blond hair.  He smells of cigarettes and his voice is gravely, either from smoking or by nature.  He is dressed from head to toe in blue denim that matches his eyes, with a black beret on his head that bears two pins and a feather on the back.  The pins are symbols — one for the AMVETS, which he is a proud member of after his service in the Vietnam War (1969-1970), and another for the MIA/POWs.  I wish now I would have confirmed specifically whether he was a POW himself, but from other things I’ve read about him and other thing he’s said, I’m inclined to believe he was.  He’s been traveling around Indiana with the mobile Tomb of the Unknown for nearly 15 years now, ever since it first ran in the the Three Rivers Festival Parade in Fort Wayne.

____________

“The reason I started traveling with it was . . . I put it in the Three Rivers Festival Parade in Fort Wayne and whenever there’s a color guard marching with the flags and so forth, people stand and salute and they applaud.  We had a pretty good group that one year and then we had the tractor and we had a replica of the Arlington Cemetery set up on a hay wagon – large sheets of plywood with evergreen base to it and then the tombstones — and we had the Tomb of the Unknown and once people saw that, it was like a wave.  Those that were still sitting stood and the applause was just magnified and it was like a wave from the start to the finish and you could see the kids on the side grabbing mom and dad, pointing and, you know ‘What’s that?’ and you see the parents leaning over and explaining what this is and what it represents.”

_____________

He said it was sad that the kids don’t know what it meant already. “You know, even high school kids . . . our history teachers, you know, what they’re teaching today, kind of . . . it’s just one or two pages and it skims on and off.  A lot of them, if you’d ask them, how did they pick who was to be laid in the Tomb of the Unknown back in 1917, 1918, the end of the first World War, they couldn’t tell you.”

____________

As I said in my article, “according to the Arlington National Cemetery website, four unknown solders were exhumed from World War I American cemeteries in France on Memorial Day 1921. Decorated veteran, U.S. Army Sgt. Edward F. Younger placed a spray of white roses on the third casket from the left when presented with the four identical caskets. The chosen soldier was brought back to the United States aboard the USS Olympia and the remaining three were reburied in the Meuse Argonne Cemetery in France.”

____________

Geiger tells the story a little differently.

“He never actually chose. There were three bodies there, one from each of the branches.  He fought with himself – he knew who was who [I take this to mean which branch these men were from] – and he said, ‘How do I choose without slighting one of the others because the honor that would be bestowed upon this tomb would be forever, you know. He was a religious individual and he prayed to God and he says, ‘I’m asking for Your help.’ And he’d walk in the room and back out and most of the way through the evening and he went in after first light and it there was one place where there was sunshine shining in and the morning sunrise had come through and it shone brightly on one of the three.  And that’s how he chose it.”

____________________________________

“I’ve done Veteran’s Day programs where veterans go in and speak with elementary kids and on this last go-round after 9/11 first took place, I did one with a small group of kindergarten on up to fourth grade and I was amazed at the questions even kindergartners had,” he said. “And they’re hungry for it.  You talk to them as if they understand because with the news media today there’s nothing that they’re not exposed to so they’re more up-to-date than they were back in the ‘50s and ’60s when we were going to school.  We never had the type of news coverage of what was going on.  As a matter of fact, during the war, any of the wars prior to Vietnam, the news media were only given so much and they were told when they could put that information out and when they couldn’t.  To be honest, I think it should go back to that.  I’m all for freedom of the press, but there needs to be a line because the first time, back in 1990 it was a year before they declared war on Saddam and all he had to do to find out what our troops were going to do was throw a TV antenna up and watch CNN. He knew what was going on before they ever did it.  That’s ridiculous.  And there were a lot of guys whose lives were lost because of that.”

________

But we digress.

_____________________

When I asked him what he wanted people to go away with from his exhibit, his eyes grew distant and he paused and, for a moment, his hard, soldier exterior cracked, revealing the emotion beneath. Then said “To stop and think of the lives that have been lost.”

____________

What followed was a somewhat awkward silence while I waited for him to say more.  He sounded like he had more to say, which he did, but not until another question was asked.  These awkward silences are the worst part of my job, because I can’t quote a silence, even if that silence is loaded with words unspoken.  I can’t put it into words for news copy, even if what’s said in that silence is what people need to hear the most.

_______________

He said the most common question adults ask him when he shows the exhibit is ‘Why?’. This is ludicrous to me as I would expect the reason to be abundantly clear most adult Americans.  Geiger said, “I do it so people will stop and remember the lives that have been lost [and here’s the more I was waiting for in my awkward silence is finally spoken] and those who are still in harm’s way in order for them you [ordinary citizens like you and I] to be doing what they’re doing today. For them to have that freedom of expression or that freedom of the press or to come together as a group and – just as families.  In a lot of other countries, they can’t do that or say what they feel against a politician here or there.  If they do, they disappear in a lot of other countries.  Here, that’s your human right.  It didn’t come from nothing.  It’s a high price to pay.”

_______________

“I think the exhibit speaks for itself. It’s just a reminder.  Like I said, there’s flags from every one of our states out there [in the cemetery courtyard outside the office] and there’s American flags all over the place and there’s a lot of veterans that have been laid to rest in this cemetery also.  You can tell that by the flags at the headstones.  That’s what that tomb represents.  It’s a spokesperson that says on the behalf of the dead, ‘Hey, we’re here.  We’re shining. This is a symbol of what we’ve given by giving our all.’ And it just stands out and shines in that representation.  They see the flags, but when they see that [the Tomb], it kind of brings all of it together.  At least to me, it does from what I’ve talked to people and when I was talking, like I said, in the schools, the young kids, they’re ready to grab onto that.  I do a POW table that has certain things on it and each thing has a special purpose and a lot of times I’ll do a reading with that and I’ll sit at the corner of the [traveling] Tomb and we’ll place a wreath at the Tomb and a folded flag on the table and we’ll have a rifle volley and taps honoring them.  The kids really get into it and understand the whys and wherefores . . . some of them why their dad or their brother or maybe their mom today why they’re over there and I’m over here by myself or with my grandfather or an older brother or sister — why their mom or dad is there or their brother or sister, why they had to go. And these things, if they’re presented in a proper manner, those kids can grasp it and understand it.  There’s still hurt, but they can understand.  That makes it just a tiny bit easier for them to walk around and they stand a lot taller and a lot prouder.”

______________

My next contact for the story was Joe Longo, the manager at Gardens of Memory  Cemetery. He’s a very tan man, completely bald with a smile that could light up a dark room.  He’s been running around all day preparing for the different events that would be going on around his cemetery for the holiday weekend.  The stress and hustle of preparing for Memorial Day celebrations is no stranger to Longo, who has been directing the festivities for thirty years at various cemeteries across the country.  He said, between the days of Thursday and Monday (Memorial Day), the cemetery sees more than 7,000 vehicles, sometimes bearing several people a piece, come through the gates.

“A cemetery is where people pass away, but on Memorial Day, if everybody understands the definition of Memorial Day, it is where you’re honoring our veterans that have passed, either in war or in peacetime, but they’ve served our country.  Memorial Day is when we come to pay honor to them at our cemetery,” he said.

He told me that, between this and last Memorial Day, 89 veterans had passed.  I’m assuming we’re talking about had-died-and-been-buried-in-Gardens-of-Memory, rather than passed in general.

_______

Longo is the son of veterans (he said his family can be traced back to the Revolutionary War) and even enlisted himself, but was honorably discharged soon after and didn’t see any active duty.  His son is a student at Delta, with aims to join the Air Force Academy.  Regardless of his acceptance, he plans to join the Air Force to carry on the family tradition.  Longo said the most important part of events like these is the remembrance of loved ones who served in the military.

______

“They’re [average citizens] coming out to appreciate our peace and our freedom that they’ve [veterans] sacrificed for,” he said. “When you’re from a military family, you understand the sacrifices.  It’s not only the veterans, but it’s also the parents and the children that sacrifice.”

________

He said he felt very lucky to get the traveling Tomb for the weekend.  Being a member of the AMVETS and American Legion and the VFW himself, he met Shorty at what’s called a signal fire, or a watch fire, which the AMVETS puts on every September.  Shorty defined a watch fire for me:

“A watchfire is something that goes back in time to the Romans. It’s where they light a fire in the evening and it would be a means in the dark for these soldiers to find a way back to their lines. What we do today with it is [Muncie AMVETS do this on the second week of September] – there’s a prayer session, the opening, and we take and ask people to place a log on the fire in memory of or for somebody who’s in the service to keep their memory alive with this program.  A lot of places, they’ll have on Saturday where we’ll keep the fire alive, they’ll have programs starting with each of the wars, starting with World War I, II, Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, and so forth and so on.  It’s a way that people can come together and honor their relatives that are no longer here from previous wars because a lot of times, they just go with what’s happening today and there’s nothing for the guys that passed on and paved the way for those who fight now.”

__________

Longo said they also respectfully retire (via burning) used flags at the ceremony as well.  He said Shorty had the Tomb there last year and Longo asked if he could book the Tomb for this Memorial Day.

_____________

“That is a symbol of men and women that die in all wars from World War I and up.  We never forget them. We never leave them behind.  And if you look at the process of how that tomb came about — the history of it — it’s all done with dignity and respect to where we never forget those who have sacrificed for our freedoms and our liberties.  I take it as a very big privilege that we have it out here.”

___________

I don’t think I could put this next bit any better, so I’ll let Joe do it.

____________

“You find that a lot of people are celebrating opening pools, going to get their boats, getting ready for the weekend, getting ready for the race [Indy 500, for those unfamiliar with what I call Redneck Sports] and I think that we’re losing the meaning of what Memorial Day is.  It’s a sign of recognition for those who have died for us.  A lot of people can’t tell you the difference between Memorial Day and Veteran’s Day, and that’s sad.  Those are people out there who sacrifice, who basically write a blank check when they raise their right hand and that’s their life.  If I can do anything to educate one person, two people, with an opportunity of that Tomb and what it stands for, I’ll go out of my way for them.”

___________

“Days like this make people reflect,” said Longo, “If you’re going to have more than 7,000 cars coming through a cemetery, that means somebody’s thinking about them.  People are coming out here, they’re saying their prayers, they’re saying their thanks and they’re saying their gratitude.  I’m very proud.  Thirty years in this business and I’ve done these services all across the country and you can see the reverence of it.  I just hope our younger generation carries on the torch.  The soldier is the one that gives you the freedom to say what you want, to go to the race, to have a beer — that’s who pays the price.  It’s not the congressman, it’s not the president, it’s not the firemen, it’s not the police officers, it’s not the teacher — not with any disrespect to any of those people, but there are a few people that put their lives on the line that nobody can ever know that.  That is a fraternity that, unless you’re part of it, you don’t understand . . . We’re losing a lot of veterans.  We’re losing about 100,000 a day.”

___________

His voice falters a bit here and I can see his eyes misting up a little and he tells me, “So if anything about this article you can do is to [tell people to] say thank you to a veteran and give them a hug.  That’s all.”

Photo © 2011, Kate Wehlann

I know I’m writing this blog post a little late to remind you for today, but while you’re enjoying yourselves this summer in your pools or at car races or at the lake with your boats or whatever summer is for you, take some time to remember what allows you to have the chance to do these things.  And thank a veteran and remember those who aren’t here for you to thank in person today.

A Memorial to the Past and a Nod to the Present May 19, 2011

This is a community profile I wrote back in March for my feature-writing class at Ball State for Mark Massé.  I decided to do the Near West Side neighborhood of South Bend because of its rich history.  It has a bad reputation sometimes, but it just needs a little TLC and someone to actually care about the people and the area — the whole area, not just the historic part.

On the west side of South Bend, Ind., the

Looking down Thomas Street. Sorry for the picture quality. My camera wasn't behaving. Photo © 2011, Kate Wehlann

sun shines on the remnants of snow as winter reluctantly releases its grip on Thomas Street in the Near West Side neighborhood.  The dingy brown grass, withered by the cold and snow is dotted with patches of green, revealing the silent hope of spring.  A few children, freed from school for the day call out to one another as school buses drop them off.  Nearby, a train whistles and startles a flock of returning birds into flight.  Cars sit parked on the street lined with homes and scattered boutique shops.  Some of the houses are painted bright colors, sharply contrasting their more nondescript neighbors.  Others appear to be falling into disrepair.  Graffiti marks walls and street signs, and a few children play in a fenced-in playground outside the St. Stephen’s School building.  A police siren wails in the distance.

________________

The Near West Side neighborhood is the city’s oldest neighborhood, containing much of the city’s history.  The Oliver House and Studebaker mansion and its crumbling factory buildings are surrounded by the hundred-year-old homes that once belonged to the workers of their factories.  Other homes in the neighborhood were occupied by workers from the Stevenson Underwear Mill, which produced woolen long johns in a red brick factory along the St. Joseph River.

________________

The name of Studebaker is no stranger to South Bend.  In the book “Images of America: South Bend, Indiana,” Kay Marnon Danielson says the Studebaker enterprise began as Studebaker Wagon Works, which grew to be the largest wagon manufacturer in the world and the only business of its kind to “successfully switch from horse drawn conveyances to gasoline powered vehicles.”  While no Studebakers are in production today, there is a museum to the brand at 895 Thomas Street, and the mansion belonging to Clement Studebaker still stands in stone splendor on W. Washington Street.  After the home’s completion in 1889, the South Bend Times and Tribune wrote: “The house, in its proportions and appointments probably surpasses anything in Indiana.  It is an embodiment of all the wealth and taste can suggest, and modern skill and invention devise.”

The Studabaker Mansion, still decked out a little for Christmas, if you notice the wreaths. Photo © 2011, Kate Wehlann

My dad worked here for a while. Nice restaurant in a beautiful house.

Throughout its history, it has housed Studebakers and, after having to be sold when Clement’s son George declared bankruptcy, sat vacant for seven years before being used by the Red Cross during World War II.  After that, the home was occupied by the E.M. Morris School for Crippled Children from 1947 until 1970.  Ten years later, the home became what it is today – a restaurant and South Bend landmark, Tippecanoe Place.

_______________

Nearby at 808 West Washington Street, another mansion stands.  Copshaholm is a 38-room Romanesque Queen Anne house and was occupied for 72 years by the J.D. Oliver family.

________________

The Oliver Chilled Plow Works was the other major employer of the city.  A young Scottish immigrant, James Oliver arrived in the United States in 1837.  The Oliver Chilled Plow Works worked in conjunction with the Studebakers, using Studebaker wagon runners in their factory and products.  According to Danielson, Oliver secured 45 patents for his plow designs, “overshadowing all his other products.”  His son, J.D. took over the business and built Copshaholm for his family in 1895.  According to a video played before tours of the house, they moved in on New Year’s Day 1896.

The Oliver Mansion is a great place to tour through if you're interested in Indiana History, specifically South Bend. Photo © 2011, Kate Wehlann

The home was donated to the South Bend Center for History in the 1980s, and its contents are completely original, even down to the spices in the kitchen cabinet and the jackets in the butler’s closet belonging to the Oliver butler, Oscar, says Tim Jurgonski, a tour guide at the Oliver Mansion.  Catherine Oliver, the only unmarried daughter of J.D., redecorated the house to suite her tastes after the deaths of her parents, leaving many rooms painted “sea-foam green and Pepto Bismol pink,” Jurgonski says, laughing.

____________

Copshaholm sits on the property of the Center for History, a museum dedicated to South Bend’s varied history, including its industry, sports, academia and role in the civil rights movement.

__________________

In the basement of the Center for History, Kristen Madden works as an archivist.

_______________

“The idea of the chilled steel plow revolutionized agriculture . . . and my family grew up with Studebakers.  Studebaker was a name that everybody was aware of and it would have brought jobs into the area,” says Madden.  The Olivers and Studebakers had an enormous impact on the economy of South Bend.

__________________

Madden recently moved to the west side.  Despite the bad reputation regarding the crime that has steadily increased since the closure of the factories and the suburbanization of those who once lived there, she says she doesn’t feel it to be a problem.

__________________

“I think in a lot of cities there’s always that area that’s a little more dangerous, but at the same time, I know I’ve never felt particularly afraid of being in the area,” she says.

____________

Noreen Deane-Moran, an English professor at Notre Dame University and president of the Near West Side Neighborhood Organization, agrees.  She lives in the historic section of the neighborhood.  She says the community is split between the historic section, where crime is low and incomes are higher, and the rest of the neighborhood with lower incomes and higher crime.

_______________

“If you were to look at the census data, you’d find the lowest income, lowest education, highest crime.  However, if you were to look specifically at the historic area, you would find the opposite of all those things,” says Deane-Moran.  “Unless they’re looking for quick drug money, it [crime] is not usually against people they don’t know – they get in cross fires with themselves.”

_______________

The historic area of the Near West Side is classified as a national historic district, which means little.  According to the National Park Service, local historic districts have the highest level of protection, while national historic districts are simply a designation.  “We have no controls, no anything,” Deane-Moran says.  The neighborhood contains many beautifully renovated homes owned by people who love those homes and take pride in their history, she says.  While new neighbors are welcome, the real estate of this side of the neighborhood has attracted some unwanted attention.  “You have every landlord or lawyer in the city who would like to get an old house in a residential situation and change it to commercial and so you have to fight that all the time,” Deane-Moran says.

______________

After World War II, many of the houses once occupied by factory workers were split into sometimes as many as four or five apartments to accommodate returning soldiers.  There was also a movement from the city to suburbia after the war, leaving behind those who couldn’t afford to do so, and Deane-Moran says this leads to crime.  To combat this progression, many families have worked to restore these homes to single-family dwellings and to bring the neighborhood back to its former state.

_____________

“We changed from lots of boarding houses, crack houses, gambling houses and drug houses,” says Deane-Moran.  “We demolished two or three blocks and that has low- and moderate-income apartments now . . . My own house, I bought for a dollar and we moved it and then restored it completely . . . There are no programs to fix old homes up, so all the renovation is due to blood, sweat and tears because they live without heat or electricity for a couple years and actually put it together.”

______________

The neighborhood has increased in population 17.4 percent, from 1,583 in 1990 to 1,859 in 2000.  In this neighborhood, it is the Caucasian population that is the minority, with the African American population nearing three times that of Caucasians and more than six times that of the Hispanic.  In 2010, the national percentage of African Americans was 12.6 percent of the population, only a fifth of the percentage in the Near West Side.  With an average household income in 2000 of only $13,410, nearly 40 percent of the neighborhood is below the poverty line.  Aside from John F. Kennedy Elementary School, located in a largely African American section of the neighborhood, the schools that service the area have the lowest standardized test scores and lowest graduation rates.  However, there is still much pride in the area, revolving primarily around history – the houses in the historic area and the Civil Rights Era work in the African American neighborhoods.

_______________

The future of the neighborhood remains to be seen, but it has secured its place in the history of industry and the Midwest.

Cute as a Baby in a Basket May 15, 2011

            So I meant to start this last Sunday on Mother’s Day, but that weekend and the past week have been more hectic than planned, what with starting my internship at The Muncie Star Press, looking for a job (none so far, sad day) and catching up on post-semester apartment cleaning.  On Monday through Wednesday evenings last week, we had revival services at my church with Ben Everson, whose music and messages (the two I’ve heard so far due to having been in the nursery and children’s church with the kids) have been a great blessing. 

______________

            I’ve been throwing the idea of a series going through the book of Exodus around for a while after watching The Prince of Egypt, which was pretty accurately done for a Hollywood movie (and they admitted to a few minor artistic licenses, so at least there’s a disclaimer).  I’ve watched the movie several times and started doing some close reading through that area of Scripture (but not in that order!) to figure out how I want to approach this, and I’ve finally gotten myself in gear and started it.  I hope it’s of interest to those who read it and if anyone notices somewhere I’ve gone wrong on my theology, feel free to (respectfully) point it out.  Any comments are more than welcome, as I don’t claim to know everything or see everything from all angles.  Here goes . . .

________________

            Hebrews 11 is also called the Hall of Faith chapter.  In it, we are reminded of both New and Old Testament heroes of the faith (though none of the New Testament heroes are mentioned by name) – Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses and many more.  It says of Moses and the task God had given him in Hebrews 11:

“By faith Moses, when he was born, was hidden for three months by his parents, because they saw that the child was beautiful, and the were not afraid of the king’s edict.  By faith, Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin.  He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward [heaven].  By faith he left Egypt, not being afraid of the anger of the king, for he endured as seeing him who was invisible [God].  By faith he kept the Passover and sprinkled the blood, so that the Destroyer of the firstborn [see the last plague of Egypt in Exodus 12] might not touch them.  By faith the people crossed the Red Sea as on dry land, but the Egyptians, when they attempted to do the same, were drowned.”                       ~ Hebrews 11:23-29 (ESV)

            Makes Moses sound like a superhero, huh?  Well, as we go through Exodus, we’ll find that he was anything but.  He was simply an ordinary man who (most of the time) made himself available to and obeyed an extraordinary God.  Notice the capital “G”. 

—————–

            He was also born to a pretty extraordinary woman, whose name is hardly mentioned, despite her own hefty faith.  In Exodus 2, she is simply referred to as a Levite woman who married a Levite man and bore a son.  Further scriptural dissection elsewhere reveals her name to be Jochebed.

______________________

            Despite the hero of the faith Moses grew to be, he started out as what could be considered the lowest of the low — the infant son of a slave.  In the years after Joseph saved all of Egypt via God’s working through him to reveal the meaning of the Pharaoh’s dreams, the Hebrew nation grew from Joseph and his eleven brothers to more than a million people.  They settled in the land of Goshen and there thrived and grew until the Pharaoh we’re about to meet decided they had grown enough to be afraid of.

“Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.  And he said to his people, ‘Behold the people of Israel are too many and too mighty for us.  Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and, if war breaks out, they join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.’”~ Exodus 1:8-10 (ESV)

________________________

            And so, the Pharaoh made this nation Egypt’s slaves.  In verse 11, we are told that the Israelites built the “store cities,” Pithom and Raamses under the lash of Egyptian slave masters.  Still this was not enough.  The Israelite nation continued to grow and the Egyptians grew more fearful of their Hebrew slaves.  Pharaoh decided something more drastic needed to be done, so he called two of the Hebrew midwives – verse 15 tells us their names were Shiphrah and Puah – and told them to murder any boys born to the Israelites.

            _________

            What a command.  This man, who was revered as a god to his people, was so afraid of his slaves that he was dipping to the slaughter of infants.  Says something about how trusting this guy was in his religious system.  You’d think that a god on earth would have more confidence in his superiority.

            ___________

            These women had a choice to make.  They could bow to Pharaoh’s order, saving their own necks, or they could face up to their morals and defy his order.  After choosing the latter, they had yet another choice to make.  They could boldly defy Pharaoh or they could tell a little lie.  Now, I don’t approve of lying, but I’ve got to make an exception here and, it appears, so did God:

“But the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them and let the children live.  So the king of Egypt called the midwives and said to them, ‘Why have you done this, and let the male children live?’ The midwives said to Pharaoh, ‘Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.’ So God dealt well with the midwives.  And the people multiplied and grew very strong. And because the midwives feared God, He gave them families.”  ~ Exodus 1:17-21 (ESV)

            So the Hebrew women are just better at having babies, eh?  I’m inclined to think that God did not bless their lie to Pharaoh, but He did bless their courage.  This was a man who held their lives in his hands and they still had the boldness to lie to his face to save what could have been hundreds of children.

            _______________

            Pharaoh was less than pleased with this turn of events.  Every attempt he made to cull the people of Israel was failing him.  The next step was to turn to his soldiers, saying “Every son that is born to the Hebrews you shall cast into the Nile, but you shall let every daughter live.” [Exodus 1:22 (ESV)]

_______________________

            As far as I can tell, we aren’t given a reason for why Pharaoh singled out the boys for execution.  Perhaps it was because boys grew to be men and men were the ones who did the fighting.  Perhaps he felt that boys could, technically, produce children from multiple women, so it would be more effective to curb the future growth rate to eliminate the males.  A reason I think makes more sense, but I can’t find much evidence for in Scripture (if you know of any, I’d like to hear it), is presented in a video on Chabad.org, a Jewish TV website.  The speaker said “One day, Pharaoh’s astrologers told him that a boy will be born who will be the one that will ultimately redeem the Jewish people from Egypt . . . Undoubtedly, Pharaoh wants to prevent that from happening, so he resolves to have all the baby boys put to death.” He goes on to say that Pharaoh meant through telling his people “but you shall let every daughter live” he meant that these girls should not only be allowed to live but be helped to live, to be assimilated into the Egyptian culture, which included the immoral practices and behaviors of a pagan people.  The boys would experience physical death, but the girls would meet a spiritual death in a notoriously degenerate society as far as morals went.  He also goes on to make a very good point about how this corresponds to today, but that’s his lesson to teach (a good one, mind you) and I still have a bit to go before I make the point I want to make.  Let’s move on.

_________________

            Now, in Chapter 2, see enter my main characters for this post – Jochebed and, to a lesser extent for the moment, Moses.

______________

            The birth of a child is usually a very happy time for a family.  There’s balloons and fuzzy blue or pink blankets and parents relinquishing their once peaceful nights to what will now be very little sleep and much feeding, diaper changing, and spit-up.  For Jochebed and her husband, though, it was a time of fear.  Pharaoh’s decree was a fairly new thing (one commentator places Moses’s older brother, Aaron, exempt from the decree, at around three years old) and these third-time parents were well aware of it.  So they hid him.  For three long months.

_______________

            However, at three months, her beautiful and much-loved baby boy (the ESV calls him a “fine child”) was getting increasingly more difficult to keep hidden.  I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to keep a three-month-old quiet when he has every intention of squalling, but it’s not something I enjoy doing.  I’ve been working in church nurseries for eight years now and when three-month-olds start kicking up a fuss over something other than a problem easily solved, we generally get an usher to go find Mom.  Jochebed was Mom and she was met with a heartbreaking decision.  Behind curtain number one, there was the option to continue trying to hide her son in the house, which would no doubt have brought soldiers around sooner or later to take him away to be drowned or eaten in the Nile.  This choice could have put the rest of the family in peril as well, as I have the distinct feeling that Pharaoh would not have been pleased with his slaves disobeying his decree.  Behind curtain number two, there was the option of hiding him elsewhere.  Namely, in a basket lined with tar and set afloat in the Nile River to be watched by his sister, Miriam.

_______________________

            The Bible isn’t much for description here, so I’ll fill in the details, if I can do so reverently.  This would not have been a pleasure cruise for Baby Moses.  The Nile was home to two particular natural dangers – hippopotami and crocodiles – along with any number of lesser-known perils for an infant in a basket.  It was also a thoroughfare, with Egyptian fishing and pleasure boats full of people who could have spotted it or rowers with oars that could have rocked the basket hard enough for it to tip or pull it out into the main flow of the river.

_____________

            And this woman doesn’t even get a mention for her faith in the rest of Scripture?  It doesn’t seem fair.  This is a mother who had nowhere else to turn to save her child but to a river teaming with dangers – a river that held the remains of, feasibly, thousands of other baby boys.  She was setting her son afloat in a watery graveyard.  Furthermore, she had no guarantee that she would ever see her child again.  For all she knew, she had just sentenced her own son to death, but her faith that God would save him, this tiny baby boy who she loved and who she knew God loved, didn’t waver. 

______________

            I don’t know about you, but I would be running back and trying to find another way.  Find a way to escape Egypt with him, to raise him elsewhere.  Somehow.  I certainly wouldn’t have just left my daughter there alone, either, even to guard him.  If her faith had been as weak as mine, no doubt God would have found another way to bring His people out of slavery, but her life and that of her little son would have probably turned out very different.  Because of her faith, Jochebed was rewarded and Moses would grow to be used of God in one of the mightiest ways in recorded history.

“Now the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, while her young women walked beside the river.  She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her servant woman, and she took it.” ~ Exodus 2:5 (ESV)

            Whoa.  Imagine how Miriam felt right then.  An Egyptian, probably one of the people closest to Pharaoh, just found her little brother.  I imagine there was quite a bit going through her head at that moment.  However, true to God’s plan in this little baby’s life, we find that Miriam had nothing to fear.

“When she opened it, she saw the child, and behold, the baby was crying.  She took pity on him and said, ‘This is one of the Hebrews’ children.’” ~ Exodus 2:6 (ESV)

            How Miriam’s heart must have leapt at that.  She ran out and asked Pharaoh’s daughter if she should call a nurse from the Hebrew women to take care of the baby for her.  I imagine Pharaoh’s daughter smiling, gazing into the eyes of the child in her arms, not even looking at Miriam when she told her, “Go.”

_______

            Miriam ran to her mother to tell her what had happened.  I can’t even begin to think about what was going through this mother’s mind.  Not only was her son going to live, but she was going to get to raise him, teach him of his people and of his God.  On top of it all, she would get to be paid to do something she would have probably given her life to do.  I’m sure there was pain when she had to deliver the boy back to Pharaoh’s daughter “when the child was grown,” [Exodus 2:10 (ESV)] but the knowledge that her little son was safe and knew of God was worth the pain.

__________________

            So, unless we’re called upon to defend our infants from evil kings bent on their destruction, how does this apply?  This was a time when all the hopes and dreams of women lay in their children – the future of their families and their shot at, albeit shrouded, immortality (as genealogy passed through the father).  Jochebed was not only placing her son in the domain of hippos and crocodiles – an infant’s graveyard – she was placing her hopes and dreams there, with full faith that God would not let her down. 

_______________

             Ouch.  How hard is that for us to do?  To place our closely guarded and protected hopes and dreams – things not necessarily bad – in the domain of metaphorical hippos and crocodiles?  To simply trust that when Scripture said “Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart,” [Psalm 37:4 (ESV)] that He’ll actually do it?

_______________

            There’s a great book out by Phil Vischer (creator of the enormously popular VeggieTales franchise) called Me, Myself, and Bob and there’s an awful lot about dreams in there.  His dreams for VeggieTales came to fruition, but he lost it all by taking it from God’s hands and trying to keep his fingers around that dream on his own.  And he’s not the only one.

            _________________

            Everyone has dreams.  Some may not come to fruition, but if it’s God’s will that a dream comes true, then it will happen.  And, as I’ve told people worried about their future (but can never completely take my own advice, unfortunately), “If God wants it to happen, it will happen.  If God doesn’t want it to happen, then neither do you.”

At Long Last May 2, 2011

Posted to the Wall Street Journal Facebook page

“Have you forgotten, how it felt that day? 

To see your homeland under fire

And her people blown away

Have you forgotten when those towers fell

We had neighbors still inside goin’ through a livin’ hell

And we vow to get the ones behind Bin Laden

Have you forgotten?”

~ Lyrics from “Have You Forgotten” sung by Darryl Worley

———

In a word, no.

——-

On September 11, 2001, the American people were introduced to a man who would become the greatest symbol of evil of the 21st Century thus far. He was the face and the order behind the attacks on the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and another location still speculated, killing thousands and leaving a nation grieving and angry. This man, his ideology, and those who followed him sparked a war that has lasted almost ten years, costing the lives of thousands. While the British newspaper, The Independent, and M15 sources claim the terrorists who bombed the rush hour London subways on July 7, 2005 acted independently from Al Qaeda, it isn’t a stretch to think the bombers were influenced by a man I can now, finally, refer to in the past tense.

——–

I’m ashamed as a journalism major to say that I found out about Osama bin Laden’s death through a Facebook status last night around ten-fifteen or so. According to a Wall Street Journal article, bin Laden was killed in a “targeted attack in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad, roughly 40 miles outside the capital city of Islamabad . . .” As of the last several news reports I’ve found, his body has been dumped into the sea (as if the world’s waters needed any more pollution) at no definitive location to avoid his burial ground becoming an extremist shrine. After more than ten years (another article in the WSJ tells me he’s been running since even before 9/11), he’s finally gone.

———

From what I understand, he was on dialysis. Personally, I think it would have been more fitting for him to live on until the end of his days, suffering through a disease than be killed as he was to become what some will call a martyr, but I’m just a college student. What do I know?

————-

I logged into Facebook this morning again and saw another status among many praising our soldiers for a job well done and expressing happiness that bin Laden was no more. It said “Shame on us for rejoicing over Osama Bin Laden’s death…that’s another soul in Hell. Heaven surley [sic] isn’t rejoicing . . .” I’m inclined to say I agree.

———–

Now, before anyone gets angry and breaks out the pitchforks about this, let me explain. As Christians, I, along with my friend, believe that we serve a merciful God who has no desire to see His creation burn in a place He designed for the ultimate evil, Satan. There’s no true joy in the death of a human being, even one as wicked as bin Laden. However, I can also agree with some of the comments I found when I just went to copy and paste the status. One, specifically.

“I agree with you 100%.  it [sic] is sad that he is burning in hell for eternity. However, we are all given the chance to choose God over Satan and he made his choice. I am not rejoicing that he is burning in hell, but I am happy for all those who lost loved ones on 9/11. maybe [sic] this can give them a little closure. I cant [sic] imagine how they felt on that day or how they feel today.”

When I think of the feelings going through America today, I don’t really think it’s joy, per se, though the expressions and the celebrations certainly make it sound that way. I see it as dark satisfaction, mixed with a sense of closure I think some Americans had given up on.

—————

It’s a morale boost to our troops and our people, and a hit to the morale of Al Qaeda. In a way, it’s a grim breath of fresh air. It’s a historic moment and we can all feel it. We, along with people around the world, are happy he’s dead. It’s one less evil in a world with far too many as it is. It’s one less person of power bent on the destruction of Israel, America and our allies. It’s closure to a lot of Americans who lost sight of what we were fighting for. Oh, we were reminded from time to time that this is a war against terrorism – that our brave men and women are fighting for our right to live without fear of enemy attack on our own soil or elsewhere. We were told there were soldiers sent specifically to track down and put an end to bin Laden, but we hadn’t seen much in the way of results until now. To an even greater extent, it’s, I hope, some closure for those who received word that their loved ones were not coming home again on September 11. It’s, I hope, some closure for those who have received word these past ten years that their soldier is not returning to them at the end of their deployment. That we, really they, the soldiers, got ‘im.

—————-

I think there are a lot of us who don’t really know what to think. It’s all just too surreal. We’ll process it all after a while – after the months I anticipate the news outlets will cover the story and its aftermath, after some time to think – really think – about what this means to the world. It’s by no means an end to terrorism. There are enough independent cells operating throughout the world. There is enough anger at others for hatred that hot to still exist. Bin Laden’s death does not mean an end to this war (see the last two paragraphs of this article for added umph to my statement), though we’re a heck of a lot closer than we were on April 30th. Chances are, this event will put further strain on our relationship with Pakistan and I hope that doesn’t lead to more fighting there. I hope we can bring the soldiers home soon, but I know from what I see in the news from the region and what I’ve read and understood of biblical prophesy, peace in the Middle East will take much more than what we’re seeing right now. And it will only be the beginning to something much darker.

——————–

We’ll have to wait and see.

————-

I can’t post this without giving credit to where it’s due. Our soldiers have faced great odds far from home and ridicule by some more radical anti-war groups and individuals here in the States.  I’d personally like to send those people to the middle of a battlefield to let them try to get the terrorists to sit down for a spot of tea to talk things over and come out on the winning side. Of course, we’d never see them again. Or maybe we would, considering the fact that our troops’ dedication to their people would never let them go there alone. Maybe I’m just crazy. Anyway.

—————

So here’s to you, our brave warriors who never lost sight of what you were, and are, fighting for, even when so much of it seemed unclear. Whether or not you were at the site of bin Laden’s death, you were part of paving the way to bring an end to the face of the greatest symbol of evil since Hitler. I can’t speak for the rest of my countrymen, but you have my undying gratitude for risking your lives in service to your people and our nation.

————-

Thank you.

It’s SPRING!!! April 20, 2011

So I know I haven’t posted here nearly as often as I said I would and I feel completely guilty and worthless about that.  However, my immune system being what it is, I am not competent to write anything much thanks to the unhealthy amount of cold medicine I’m on right now.  Of course this would happen when I’m actually in the mood to write.  It appears I’ll have to settle with a huge mug of tea and listening to Brian Jacques read Redwall stories to me via the eleven audiobooks I’ve downloaded.  Because I still feel guilty about not posting, I’ve decided to make this a photo post, something I haven’t done yet since I set up this version of the blog.

_______

Something I miss about living in the woods in North Liberty (Indiana) is the woods and flowers my dad plants that show up in the spring.  However, Muncie, my town (for now) has one thing really has going for it: the trees.  There are flowers blossoming all over the city, many of which are amidst the leaves of trees — pink tulip trees, others covered in little white flowers, and more with tiny bright pink flowers (which aren’t quite out yet, sad day).  Thursday last week, I went with my News 233 partner to get video and photo footage of the Buley Center for our final project.

The kids loved looking through the cameras!

Afterward, I still had the camera for a few hours, so I decided to go shoot some spring pictures around Ball State’s campus.  These are a combination of what my dad has planted up north and what Muncie/campus looks like down here.  Because of weird formatting issues, the pictures of campus and up north are mixed.

All photos Copyright © 2011, Kate Wehlann

 

kkkkkkkk

  

kkkkkkkkkkk

  

  

  

  

  

   

Ball State Squirrel!

  

 

  

  

  

Red March 23, 2011

This is a short story I wrote for my English 285 class my sophomore year of college (considering that was only last spring, it shouldn’t feel like it was all that long ago, but it does).  I like it, though I still think it needs work.  This need for revision is normal for me, but I can’t decide what needs to be done.  My last post merited one reader who commented, so maybe this will, too.  As usual, constructive comments will be appreciated, flames will be deleted, and it’s mine all mine, so no pinching.

————————–

__________

The painting wasn’t particularly famous among most of the people in the town.  Sure, some of the more art-minded citizens were aware of it.  Teachers who had taken their classes to the art museum dozens of times over the years might recognize it, but for the most part, she was left in obscurity.  She waited still on her back wall of a back room for her faithful few admirers as the seasons passed slowly in the world beyond her frame.

jjjjjjjjj

She was stunning – beautiful in a simple sort of way – with her slight, knowing smile and wavy auburn hair that framed her face in light.  Her sparkling hazel eyes spoke uninterpreted volumes without a sound, drawing the viewer into the canvas with her if the patron wasn’t careful.  Behind her, a meadow spread so lifelike that the long green-brown stalks of grass seemed to bend with an unfelt wind and shimmer in the imagined sunlight.  Odd that an artist with such tremendous talent would neglect to leave some name or mark – anything to claim the masterpiece as his own.

———

He came to visit her on his lunch break every day.  Daniel Michaelson was fairly new in town, having found a job as a writer at the town newspaper soon after graduating from college.  The museum had never given him cause for more than a brief glance until he was called to write a story about its new manager, the son of a famous photographer in New York City.  The manager had fixed the place up and was as anxious for a new round of publicity as Daniel was anxious for a chance to see his name once again in print.  The manager showed Daniel a selection of paintings he was considering removing to the museum’s vault to make room for some newer photography when she almost audibly called out to the young reporter.  Daniel pointed to the framed canvas leaning against the wall and inquired whether the new manager was sure the picture didn’t merit a spot on a display wall.  The manager responded, jokingly, that he preferred blondes.

———–

As it turned out, Daniel had not been the first to ask about the painting’s fate.  “It seems to be something of a favorite with some of the regulars,” the manager said.  “I might keep it out if I can find a place for it.”

———

And so, the red-haired lady found herself still on display, even if it was still on the back wall of a back room.  Daniel had become enchanted with the image and after a few months, scraped some money together to sponsor a bench in her room.  This was where he could be found between the hours of one and two every day he had to work.  And then a good portion of his available Saturdays became dedicated to the lady in the meadow.

—————–

She seemed so wise, like an ancient guru draped in the body of a beautiful young woman.  It wasn’t long before, as crazy as it sounds, he started speaking to her.  Not out loud, of course.  At least not at first.  It began as whispers in his head and progressed to barely audible murmurs from his lips.  He vented his troubles and frustrations and released his hopes and dreams to his silent friend.  Disappointing months went by with Daniel mentally filling in her responses to the conversations he held with her.  It was almost a relief when he heard a voice besides his own answering him.

—————-

It had been a long week.  Deadlines were looming, with more irons being added daily to his already-overwhelmed fire.  For the first time since high school, he was seriously considering throwing away his career in journalism and finding something else to do.

—————

“What keeps you from quitting?”

———-

Daniel jerked upright from his slouched position on the bench.  He looked around, but there was no one in sight.  He looked back up at the red-haired lady.

———–

“Did you just –”

————

He couldn’t finish the sentence.  It was too preposterous, even to a man who had been imagining just such an event for nearly eight months.

———

“I’ve been here the whole time, Daniel.  Through tough interviews and great ones, the new dog, the old car with new problems.  The death of your mother, the birth of your godson.  You were the one who told me, remember?”

—————–

Daniel was mesmerized.  Even in his daydreams, he could have never imagined such a voice.  It sounded like chimes in the wind, felt like a breeze in summer, and smelled of a forest glade in springtime.  He stood and approached the painting, reaching out against museum rules to touch the canvas.  His arm recoiled in shock.  Her hair felt as real as the hair on his own head.  He touched the grasses of the meadow.  They felt as real as they had in the meadow near the cottage by the lake his parents had rented every summer when he was a boy.  He could almost smell the wildflowers.

——————

Showing no signs she had noticed the intrusion upon her canvas domain aside from a barely visible twinkle in her bright eyes, the lady repeated her question.

————-

“What keeps you from quitting?”

———–

Struggling to wrap his mind around the bizarre situation, Daniel seated himself once again on the hard wooden bench.  “Writing’s my only marketable skill.  I’ve been writing since the fifth grade – I haven’t cultivated any other talents.  I have to make a living somehow.”

—————

“Even at the expense of being happy?”

—————

Daniel had to think about that for a minute.  Happiness was something that had never really occurred to him before – not in his career.  Writing had simply been all he had known.

—————–

As if sensing his struggle to create an answer, the red-haired woman asked another question.

————-

“What makes you happy, Daniel?”

——

“Being here, talking to you.  Writing.  Not the stuff for work, but the other stuff.  The things I’ve told you about.”

=———

If he had not known better, he could have sworn he saw her nod. “I remember.  Your short story collection.  What make you set that aside?”

——-

“I couldn’t make money on it.  No one would pick it up and self-publishing would cost more than what it would make me.”

_________

“Is money so important?”

____________

Daniel paused.  Money hadn’t always been his motivation for his work.  When had it become such a driving force?

—————-

She continued. “You didn’t list money among the things that made you happy.”

————-

Daniel sighed.  His lunch hour was almost up. “In this world, we need money.  It gets us food, clothing, pays for rent.  It’s not really something we can just do without.”

-____________

“What a miserable life you people must live.”

————–

“Well, we can’t all live in canvases.  Someone must inhabit this world.  Someone must be there to paint the worlds you live in.”

————

“Yes, someone must.  Buy why must that someone be you?”

—————

His eyebrows furrowed in puzzlement. “Come again?”

—————-

“Certainly not all people are as unhappy in their lives as you.  Why can’t you leave that world and join ours?”

————–

Daniel shook his head.  “Because it’s not possible.  I was created in his world and you were created in yours.  We can’t just change universes because we don’t like the one we’ve been given.”

———

“Who’s to say what can or can’t be done?” the red-haired lady asked.  His vision blurred and before is eyes the arm of the painted woman began to move.  “Come, take my hand.  I’ll show you.”

—————-

He never would have thought it of himself, but Daniel found the proposition tempting.  Her voice, her eyes, her very presence could be felt, drawing him in.  He felt his hand rising and his peripheral vision clouded, leaving only the enchanting woman in focus.

————

BREEP!  BREEP!

———–

The alarm on his cell phone went off, snapping him back to the reality he shared with the rest of the human race.  His lunch break was over.

————-

His hand dropped to silence his blaring phone and he bent to gather his briefcase and empty big gulp cup.

—————

“Maybe next time.” He heard her whisper as he hurried from the room, anxious to be away from the odd influence he had just experienced, but at the same time sad to leave the beautiful woman in the painting.

————–

*   *   *

————-

All that day and into the night, Daniel tried to force the woman from his mind, to no avail.  While walking his dog after work he had almost been hit by a car, quelling his longing to be back in front of her for a few minutes before her face filled his mind’s eye once more.

—————

He did not sleep that night, not even after a double dose of over-the-counter sleeping pills.  After two hours of tossing and turning, Daniel gave up.  He reached for his laptop and for the first time in months, pulled up his word processor to create something other than news copy.

—————-

The sun rose the next morning to Daniel fast asleep on his couch, computer snoozing on his lap with the equivalent of over twenty new pages to finish his collection.

___________________

Thanks to his late night, Daniel decided to take the morning off, something he hadn’t done since college.  The image and proposition of the red-haired lady, still ever-present, had waned in intensity enough to allow him to edit the work he had done the night before, but returned with a vengeance.

——————

Having accomplished what he could before the lady’s presence claimed his concentration and before he had to leave for his half day of work, Daniel pulled his coat and half-jogged his way to his car through the flurries that had been falling since midnight.  On his drive to the office, he debated whether he should return to the museum.  The drug-high feeling had not entirely appealed to him, but he had never felt lighter, more carefree, in his life.  What if the lady was right? he thought.  What if I wasn’t meant to be here?  Can I pass up the opportunity to find out?

—————–

In the end, his curiosity won out and he found himself pulling up in front of the art museum and dropping a dollar in quarters into the meter.

—————-

Aside from an attendant at the front desk, the building was devoid of human life.  The old clock on the wall ticked in rhythm to his footsteps on the hardwood floors as he strode purposefully toward the back room.  Her room.

——————-

“I was hoping you’d come back.”

———

“What’s it like?  In there?  You said that maybe I belonged in there with you.  Why should I leave this world to join yours?”

———

“Your world is so hectic.  Here is simply peace – no wants, no needs.  Just being and, for the most part, being accepted as what you are.  Things you have wanted all your life, are they not?  And did you not say before that you were tired of the ‘rat race,’ as you called it?”

—————

“Could I come back?”

———

“Come back?”

————-

“If I began to miss this world and wanted to come back, could I?”

—————–

“It’s never been done, but that has no bearing as to whether or not it’s possible.”

—————–

Daniel rubbed his face with both hands.  He had spent all of the afternoon pondering what was keeping him from joining her.  His father had died when he was twelve.  His mother had died five months ago.  No siblings, no girlfriend.  He could easily be replaced at his job.  There really wasn’t anyone who would miss him.  His dog.

————

He called his neighbor, a crazy dog lady who had often stopped to admire his collie mix when she saw them together.  Surely she had room for one more four-legged friend.

————–

“Of course I can, Daniel,” his neighbor replied, a tad too gleefully.  “So sad you have to move.”

————

After ending his call, he turned back to the red-haired lady. “If I come with you, what will happen to my manuscript?  Will it just be forgotten?”

————

“Did you bring it with you?”

————-

“Of course.”

——–

“Then it will never be forgotten.”

—————-

Daniel stood silently, gazing upon the world around him, through the windows he could see at the front of the museum.   He wouldn’t miss it – not really.  And what kind of adventure would this be?  How many people had the chance to escape?

——–

“Have you made your decision, Daniel?”

——–

His eyes returned to the woman in the painting.  He felt his head nodding and his hand reaching out in front of him.  “I’m ready,” he whispered hoarsely.

———–

His heart beat wildly in his chest as his vision blurred.  He saw everything as though he was underwater, looking up at the surface.  Through the ripples he could see the porcelain arm of the red-haired lady reaching out to him.  He felt her touch is hand, sending electric shivers down his spine.  Warmth spread down his arm and through his body.  Then blinding white light filled his vision.

———-

*   *   *

————-

Two weeks later, the front page of The Checkerston Chronicle featured a story about a missing reporter.  His apartment was undisturbed, his dog given to a neighbor who hadn’t the slightest idea where he had gone.  The only clue, a thick stack of papers, containing a selection of short stories written by the missing Daniel Michaelson on a bench in front of where his favorite painting had once hung.  Now, a different image, similar enough for one to assume to have been painted by the same artist, was on display.

————–

The meadow, as lifelike and glorious as before, was the same, but where once only a red-haired lady had stood, a couple could now be seen.  A man with dark, wavy hair stood behind her, arms wrapped around the woman’s shoulders, face buried in her long, flowing hair.  Her slight smile had broadened into a frozen laugh.  A picture of happiness. A man and his love, finally brought together through the bizarrest of circumstances – but there were only two people in existence in this world or any other one who would ever know.