Selling Out

The Sun Magazine's theme of the month of November is "selling out." I wrote this and sent it in in the spring and it was published! In fact it's the first one published in the "Readers Write" section! Now you can read it on their site. When I saw the theme at first I couldn't think of anything worth writing about, and then this flash:

I went to a conservative Baptist college in Tennessee mostly because it was cheap. There I was taught it was wrong for any Christian to drink. My parents weren't against drinking. Dad often had a beer with supper on hot summer evenings. Though I'd never tasted alcohol, I wondered why my instructors felt it should be banned. Could something God had created be essentially evil? Hadn't Jesus's first miracle been changing water into wine?

So I decided to write an essay for English on whether or not good Christians should drink. I would wait until after I'd done my research before making up my mind as to alcohol's morality or immorality.

Our professor said we would need to present a thesis statement before we began. When it was my turn to read my thesis for the class, I said I would "study the stance Christians should take toward alcohol." The professor assumed this meant I would write an essay on why Christians should not drink.

I didn't correct him.

Although I found more scriptural evidence supporting the consumption of alcohol than opposed to it, I focused on the verses that could, if interpreted a certain way, make drinking alcohol seem immoral.

I got an A.



This is the edited version that will be published. I think I actually like the version the magazine editor came up with better than my own. It is more toned-down and less negative. Perhaps I'll post the original later on so that you can weigh in on which one you like best. The only part that I wish they'd kept is that I had originally ended it with "But now I drink," which I think is much more fun. Oh well.

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Jehovah-Jireh

Beaming

Overloaded with benefits

You just keep piling them on me

And I am thankful.

Providing abundantly,

Beyond the requests lurking in my imagination.

My heart pushes hard against it- for I do not deserve your grace.

I am no more than a wretch, most despised of all mankind.

But Alas! And did my Savior bleed?

The crimson trickling down

Oh yes, that sacred head, He gave for such a worm as I.

The perfect Lamb

The sacrifice

faint ashes on the altar

Crushed, broken, slain. Redemption paid.

And I am thankful.

(inspired by: Ps. 22:6, 68:19, Eph. 3:20, and "At the Cross" by Isaac Watts)
I wrote this one about 7 years ago. I'm not too happy with how it came out. I would like to edit it. Any suggestions?

Worms Dying

This is the story I sent into the Sun magazine for this month's theme, Rain.

As soon as I could smell the dying worms bloated in the puddles in the driveway, I knew it was fishing season.

Saturday morning before the sun's rays poured over the low Appalachian hills out my bedroom window, Dad lightly tapped me on the back. I burrowed under my covers, warm, before I drowsily let myself be lifted out of bed by my father.

Mom said the worms came up to the surface to keep from drowning from all the rain. Those that made it to the surface then died in the muddy puddles. And those we used for bait also drowned, I suppose.

Sitting on a black garbage bag to keep my backside dry, Dad showed me how to put the hook through the two thick purple pouches of the worms so that they wouldn't fall off the hook (certainly leading to drowning). I did, until he added that the thick parts were the bloated stomachs of pregnant worms. I couldn't bring myself to push a hook through a lady-worm killing her babies. So instead of fishing, I emptied out the styrofoam cup of worms onto the black trash bag. There, I let the worms crawl through my fingers, tickling me. It didn't bother my dad that I wasn't actually fishing; at least we were spending time together. And I didn't mind offering him one of the worms when he needed to rebait his hook.

Rainy days meant indoor recess. I'd stare out through the blurry window pane imagining all the worms I could gather for our next fishing trip. The day after a rainstorm was the perfect opportunity for digging up worms under the swing set. I figured they'd have come to the surface the day before, so that those that hadn't drowned would not have had time to burrow far into the earth. Kneeling under the swings with my hands trawling through the mud, I pulled the worms up from their tiny hollows. Then I thrust them into my jacket pockets.

As a quiet, almost silent, child, the gift of worms was my language of gratitude. I so enjoyed my moments with my dad. Even at a young age, I realized that our relationship was unique. My girl friends' fathers rarely spent time with them doing "masculine" activities. I hoped that Dad would correctly interpret the meaning of my gift as a plea to continue inviting me to go fishing with him on rainy spring Saturdays.

I imagined how pleased my father would be as I held out the worms in my cupped hands- a living sacrifice.

But when I stepped off the school bus and threw my hands into my pockets, I only felt their shrivelled, hardened corpses. I'd spill their parched bodies onto the driveway- a burnt offering.


(this photo found in Creative Commons)

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Rain

When I was in high school I loved to sit on the curb outside my house and watch the warm spring rain through the street light's rays. Inside the house, the air was charged with my brother's abusive anger, my father's misplaced guilt, and the fear that our family was falling apart. Outside, I could let that anxiety wash away in the illuminated streams of rain. I'd get up from the curb, where I'd been crying, dejected and discouraged, pull out my arms from across my chest, and spin, swirl, twirl in the grace of God falling upon me.

This picture reminds me of the evening rain that inspired the following poem.

It's been raining a lot this fall.. cold, windy storms.

As the Sun Magazine's theme this month is "Rain" I offer you a poem I wrote several years ago on the very subject.

Liberating Rain,

Fall,

Fall,

Fall,

Upon my face,

Upon my bare legs,

Upon my arms extended toward heaven.



Rinse away the longing for my past.

Remove the impurities from my soul.

Reconcile my heart with all that's true.

Renew the life within.

Namesake

Sometimes I long for a name

like Rebecca or Katherine or Elizabeth

that would grow throughout my lifetime



But I can be none other than Sarah,

not Becky or Kate or Liz.



Then I look to my namesake,

    Laughing in Doubt

        Then

    Laughing in Joy



All the world blessed through the tiny seed buried

deep within her fallow soil.

Tainted by salted tears

    Flowing-

    Rinsing away all hope



So she laughed.

Its echo resounds throughout the centuries

And pierces my heart.

Its flesh bleeds by the identical saber of doubt.



And though Sarah planted an indestructible weed,

God brought forth her seed as an unyielding oak.



Overwhelmed by joy, she burst into delight

Once Again.

Naming her promised son Isaac: 'Laughter.'



My wound knits whole by the salve of joy.



And I no longer long for a name.

At the Dinner Table

"No, don't ask him, he doesn't talk about the war. It must have been traumatic for him. Probably best not to bring those memories back, especially now when his memory's so vivid, but his body and mind so frail." I explained this in French, so that no one but our friend Kathleen and my husband could understand.

We were sitting at the supper table at my grandparents', a nook in the kitchen. The dining room was for special occasions, like Sunday dinner, and tonight we had take-out from Dominoes. I had come down to central Pennsylvania, my childhood home, from Quebec City, where I now lived with my husband, Jean-Philippe. We tried to visit my family at least three times a year, especially now that my grandfather's health was deteriorating. On this visit, in June 2008, we had invited Kathleen to come with us since she had always dreamed of visiting Philadelphia and Gettysburg.
Between bites of pepperoni pizza, Jean-Philippe convinced me that Kathleen could ask about the war. "Sarah, she's a guest. It's okay if she asks. If he doesn't want to talk, he won't."
"All right, all right. Go 'head."
Kathleen turned to my grandfather sitting beside her and asked "So, Mr. Keller, Sarah says that you were in the war. Were you on the front?"
"Oh no, no," he answered, "I was a radio operator even then. They'd sent me out to California to relay messages from the Pacific."
My entire perception of my grandfather as a soul troubled by the nightmares of the brutalities he'd seen as a young man crumbled before me. The images of years on the front line in France killing his German "cousins" dissipated. It wasn't that he was traumatized by what he'd experienced at war that kept him from answering my sister's and my questions about it for school projects, but just that he didn't have anything to say. Perhaps it seemed sacrilegious to him to speak of his safe existence in a Californian office while his childhood friends had been killed in action. Maybe he was ashamed of his security in a time of insecurity.
The cloak of silence fell with the curiosity of a stranger.


(Inspired by the Sun's March 2009 Readers Write theme)

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