Is Anyone Out There?

I have been keeping a blog for over a year and no one has left a comment. Perhaps I am a really bad writer and no-one reads more than a couple of lines before moving to greener pastures. Perhaps the blog is so crowded that few people really are reading stranger’s blogs. I have listed my blog on several of the groups that is the only way I find other people’s blogs. Maybe I need pictures and such to make the blog interesting. The problem is that I don’t know how to do that. I have been working on computers for a while but just around the edges of what a computer can do. My husband knows a lot about computers but doesn’t have a lot of time to make my ideas reality.

I tried starting a group and I did not know enough to respond to the one person who expressed interest. At least a blog is something you can do on your own. But there is little feedback. If I didn’t want feedback I would not be posting online. I want to post more on Faithwriters.com but the section I am interested on are scaring me away. I am ready to give away some of my older work, however I suppose I will have to totally rewrite my older work before posting it in the, "articles for free," section. It is a bad thing to be run by fear I must overcome it.

Full Circle

I have finally gotten back on my blogs after yet another computer disaster It seems to me that is where this blog started so long ago. The latest computer problems are my husband’s fault he told me the hard drive would be directly transferred so I only backed up the most essential pieces. And contrary to what he thought I lost everything on the hard drive. I spent hours trying to retype things that I would have saved on floppies if Mario had not had so much confidence.

I had to change my password to get to my blogs now I will have to start writing on my blogs again. I will also have to get going on my paper journal again. I kind of lost track when I was sick. Whatever was going around recently was horrible. I started the year wonderfully with the spread sheet to track my journaling. While I had whatever this was I didn’t even feel like turning the pages. It has lingered over a week but for the most part I feel better now.

Writing in a Series of Journals

It has been a long time since I have written on this blog I have been trying to do other forms of writing. I may do some serious writing on journaling before long. It might even be worth publishing an article there are several types of journaling I am now using. A spreadsheet to track the various forms of writing I do. It is keeping me writing in one form or another every day, usually I end up writing in more than one form as I am today. The variety keeps things fresh.

The categories start with the computer journal. I have a journaling program which has several types of journaling covered within it. For instance it has separate functions for entering a normal daily entry or a dream. I wish I could use the dream function but I am one of those rare people who almost never dreams. I guess that is because I don’t get long stretches of uninterrupted sleep. It also has a section of prompts and quotes to prompt writing. I have been collecting prompts, from various sources, for years. I will discuss that more later.

The next category is "freewriting". This term comes from several books on writing and basically talks about writing about whatever is on your mind. Books on Bible study suggest this before studying the word. Books on writing talk of it as a time to generate your own writing ideas from whatever is on your mind. Counseling books suggest this kind of writing to reach the sub- conscious and purge yourself of anger, or grief, etc. Personally I use this term for a regular journal entry that could always have been anything.

Another category is prompts. As a writer I use these as story starters, they can come from books, magazines, internet groups such as http://www.faithwriters.com/ or http://www.oncewritten.com/ http://www.writersdigest.com/ on writing, ChristianJournaling http://www.groups.yahoo.com/group/ChristianJournaling/.com is doing a series of prompts for personal growth. One prompt rich link is http://www.edhelper.com/writing.htm which has links geared to students of various ages. You can get prompts anywhere from a word taken from the dictionary at random, things you have seen even to interesting things you hear on the news. I got one of my best poems because the mechanic was late for an appointment I saw a bird trying to find breakfast while waiting for him to come. The bird was a prompt that day.

Other things to write about are your daily Bible study or your prayers. Your bible studies can be a predetermined list of readings such as found http://www.bibleplan.org/ or http://www.backtothebible.org/devotions/bible_guides.htm I will admit neither of links is the one I was looking for. As for prayers I no longer track prayers but a number of people do. To do that you simply record the prayers with a date and the answers with date when they come. I do occasionally write what I am praying out which is also a form of journaling prayers.

The next form of journaling I call conversational. I started journaling this way because of a book called Lord I’ve Been a Worm So Long It’s Hard to Think Like A Butterfly by Joan Wilson. I tried for a long time to replace this from bookstores with no success. My husband has located it on Amazon.com. The conversations start with you asking God a question and waiting for an answer. If you do this you will be amazed at the results.

Another use for journaling time is an art journal. If you draw like a talented artist or a child’s drawing. I did sketch books for years and never thought of them as journals. Since becoming a member of the ChristianJournaling group on Yahoo I have begun doing quite a lot of this mainly illustrating quotes. The local library has an interesting book called Calligraphy A Course in Hand Lettering by Maryanne Grebenstein. and I am putting various quotes and scriptures. I use a blank book for this purpose.

This is the last type of writing is the blog. In short what you are reading now. I will also post this link on ChristianJournaling and I will post it as a finished article on FaithWriters. I have two blogs this one can be anything pretty much like a standard journal entry http://annettes-world.blogspot.com/ the other is strictly a study on the names and titles of God it can be found http://hisnames.blogspot.com/ This study has been of special interest to me for years I have been collecting various books on the topic and always intended to write one. A blog gives you a time and place to work out your writing with an audience.

First Published Poem

I have started a new blog just for my study of the names of God. I am planing to start posting a lot of my writing on my blog. I will be going through some of my archived pieces and posting them in a more public sight. I will begin with the poems that have been accepted by various publications and go through other things I have published and still own, then perhaps some more of the new things that have never seen the light of day. I will start with my first published poem.

GOLDFINCH

On hillside grew a thistle
Filled with ripened seed
Festooned with silken plumes
God's provision, lowly weed

A pair of goldfinch
Attracted by purple crown
Stood on thorny blossom
Finding seeds beneath the down

Neath the colorful petals
Uncovering tasty seeds
In joyful abandon feasted,
At banquet form a weed

True to his promise, God provided
Birds of the air all they could eat
Together they sing their praises
Thanking God from banquet seat

Never hungering, with no worries
Trusting God for all their needs
Enjoying what he provided
Dining on their feast of seeds

written August ‘94 Published ‘96 Famous Poems of the Twentieth Century Appeared 8/04 Faithwriters

This poem was written about birds between a factory and a car dealership. It was a tiny snippet of nature in a world of technology. There is beauty anywhere you choose to see it.

Highs and Lows

I always feel guilty when I miss writing but this last month has been a difficult. My father in law died under such bad care from the emergency room that the state medical examiner has "pending" on the death certificate. We will have a defiant answer in about 6 weeks. The emergency room sent him home with nothing more than a perspiration for pain pills while he quietly, slowly bled to death.

I have been trying to get my life back together. One of the new things in my life is a kitten. We have named him Christopher which means, "Christ bearer." It is almost like he is branded with a design of a cross on his back. He is laying on the foot of the bed curled into a sleeping ball. He doesn’t have a care in the world. I wish my like had that kind of simplicity.

In many ways this is time of loss is going to bring simplicity to my life as well. I have been caretaker for the last five years. Now I won’t have to get up early and feed him after getting up even earlier and fixing breakfast and lunch for my husband. Sleep depravation gets you after a while. I also find myself watching movies he liked and remembering...

We do try to get more normalcy in our lives. We eat and sleep, and work. We have car troubles, get hair cuts etc. On the subject of hair cuts Giannia and I both donated ten inches of our hair to "Locks of Love" a remarkable charity that collects human hair from donors to make wigs for children who have diseases of one kind or another that cause them to loose their hair. The bible calls hair a woman’s crowning glory imagine how demoralized a small child could become if they lost their hair. This is the second time I have donated hair for the children. The first time I was trilled with the donation. This time I just wanted to get rid of the hair, I had been waiting for the 10 inches to grow. It has been a long hot summer. I will not be growing another donation. But there are a lot of people who are willing to donate and there are far more beauticians willing to properly collect the hair and send it off.

Hearing Behind the Words

Today I was doing my morning Bible study in the Life Application Bible put out by Zondervan. I am the type that reads the footnotes and the footnote on John 5:26 starts out, "God is the source and Creator of life, for there is no life apart from God, here or hereafter." That quote had me thinking back to the time I was called to the principal’s office as an adult teacher.

It started simply enough, I was in a classroom with some very bright high school students waiting for first bell when home room would end and first period start. Three or four young women were having a discussion, not about boys, or fashion, or the latest music, but about God. Two of the girls were witnessing about the Lord. The courts have things so messed up I couldn’t jump in and help with this most important discussion; I could only sit back like a silent cheerleader rooting for God’s team.

The discussion went on and the class was nearly ready to begin when one of them asked me point blank what I believed. I was torn with stepping out and speaking my faith and getting fired for proselytization or saying nothing at all out of fear. I kind of copped out with an esoteric comment that really did not clearly speak to my faith. I simply remarked, "Everyone lives forever it’s just a matter of address." I thought I was so clever, I thought I had dodged the bullet. I had answered the question honestly in a way that did not put my faith out there, after all some eastern religions have the same soul going on lifetime after lifetime. Granted my perspective was the Christian one instead of one reincarnation after another on earth I was thinking you go to heaven or hell a one shot deal based on one life’s choices.

Apparently the Moslem child in the classroom whose religion I had not known took it the way I did. If I had read the role really thinking the name would have given a clue of his possible religion. I would most likely have still said the same thing even if I had known someone of another faith was there, because I hadn’t said anything blatantly Christian. Instead of putting the story in context of what was going on the young man went home and told his parents I had said he was destined for an eternity burning in the underworld with all the rest of the sinners. The parents called the school and the principal called me out of a class to face an irate father and his silent, submissive wife.

I eventually disused the situation by saying I didn’t really belong in that classroom at all, their teacher had been called away to take a phone call; probably her own run in with an irate parent. Since I was on my planning period I had been asked to sit in with the class till she came back. The call had come up suddenly and there had been no plans left. All I had to go on was the question I’d asked about what they were working on the day before. I told those who had not finished to work on the last assignment and gave the rest a kind of a study hall, to do something quietly. The conversation about God had ended; the books were open, the class was going fine when their teacher returned to give them the day’s real assignment.

I don’t know why I really changed the topic in the principle’s office. But after being lectured about the wrong I had been perceived as doing, I gave an example of different cultures from a woman I had met a couple of years before in a hospital in Crimea. Few words had been exchanged; the translator was in another room just as the teacher had been. But the woman in that hospital and I had reached an understanding in spite of a language barrier. The student had reached what I was thinking and carefully wording my response not to reveal as clearly as the woman who spoke only Russian understood my English words. I had tried so carefully to conceal my true meaning from the students I wasn’t aware at the time that I really had been trying to say you’re going to end up in heaven or hell. Both heard behind the words.

Inspiration Comes from Different Places

I bought a pack of fortune cookies when I was going to be serving Chinese to guests. As usual most meant nothing of consequence. One however read like a prophecy:
"Your heart is pure, your mind clear and your soul devout."
I would like to think my heart is pure, I’m a believer and my sins got washed away. Now I try to live the life God would want me to live. My mind is not as sharp as it once was but I have to believe that is merely aging and perhaps lack of exercise, for I know your mind gets sharper with good blood flow.

Another good thing is a very profound in one of my writing groups, (writershelpers@yahoogroups.com), there is a fellow who always writes in poetry. I am very selective about the poems I choose to collect but this one will be in my personal collection.

Things You Just Cannot Do

You just cannot sit down and write

a poem of vast enlightenment

or sublime simplicity like the macrocosm or microcosm.

It would be easier to write,

Once upon a time, there was a blue bear....

For a poem, you need words

sharp as blades,

daring to fill gaps

in lines with exacting purpose,

calculated only by muse and perhaps revision.

But, is a poem ever really finished?

The blue bear may end his season by snoring

at home for the winter. A poem has to keep swimming,

a thresher shark in deep water,

never stopping for fate of death.

jon "jon j." iamb1000@yahoo.com

I include that poem because it has touched me. I think it is brilliant. "Words like sharp blades," or the question, "Is a poem ever really finished?" Every few years I go back through my old poems and always find things to refine in an old poem.

I got started writing again I had taken some time away from writing. But, I’m back!