See that banner at the top? That foreign image in the sidebar? Yes, those are ads.
I’ve succumbed to the invitation from WordPress to try the WordAds Beta.
What does that make me? A greedy sellout? A savvy businesswoman?
A somewhat clueless blogger would be more accurate. I’m still learning and this is part of the process. Together we’ll see how this works.
Together as in me and you. You and I. We. You are an accomplice, complicit in the crimes and passions of this crazy blog experiment.
Relax. Your part is easy and doesn’t involve the getaway car.
Please keep reading and visiting the site. If you see an ad that’s offensive or in poor taste, please let me know immediately via comment, email or Twitter. I don’t choose the ads that appear on my page, but I can pull them lickety-split.
Blogging with WordPress has been positive so far. If this newest twist works, great. If not, we’ll have learned something. What do we have to lose?
For I am the Lord your God
who takes hold of your right hand
and says to you, Do not fear;
I will help you. Isaiah 41:13 NIV
Ambivalence bordering snarkiness rules the day while the jury’s still out about the ads. Taken For a Fool? I hope The Strokes’ lyrics don’t apply here, even though their song rocks.
As a reader, what’s your opinion of the ads?
If you blog, what’s your experience with ads been like?
My Aunt Leah was rarely sick and always bounced back. Fell and broke her hip this past Christmas. Returned to work by February. And she was 74 years old.
Quiet, gentle, dignified, but tough as nails when it came to perseverance. Leah was steady. Without pause, always there, sure and steady.
A nurse by profession, she once took in my mother and I when we needed a place to go. Years later, when my mom was dying, Leah came to be with her youngest sibling for a week. She stood in my mom’s kitchen stirring soup made of carrots and celery she’d diced into tiny cubes.
Leah was the first person to French braid my hair. I’d come to visit that summer. I may have been 10, perhaps younger, so I don’t remember sitting still as she weaved the plaits tightly, an exercise she missed with her three sons. A picture remains to bear witness to those perfect braids.
Most of her life she lived in an old house with a rambling yard and a vegetable garden so big that I never did walk to the end of it. Her youngest son and I traversed that garden one evening as children. We navigated between squash and cucumbers and bushes of beans.
We climbed to the top of the compost pile. Then he said, “Snake!”
I never saw it. I bolted out of the garden all the way back to the house. Aunt Leah yelled from the yard for me to stop that ridiculous screaming.
Last summer, I returned with my husband and son to visit my Aunt Leah and Uncle Abe in their newer house. Their big garden was left behind, but the table was forever full. Salads and sauces and pasta to eat in the late afternoon.
She was the eldest of six children. The mother of three. Grandmother of six. Faithful wife of Abe for 53 years. She was unwavering in prayer for our family. The pages of her Bible were falling out from use.
It happened this spring, a cascade drawn out over weeks that started slowly and picked up speed as days rolled along. Leah had trouble breathing. Leah went to the emergency room. Leah developed pneumonia.
Leah was hospitalized. Leah was given oxygen. Leah was in critical care. Leah’s lungs sustained damage. Leah was on life support.
Then this past Tuesday, at 2:34 p.m., my Aunt Leah died. Surrounded by family here on earth, she was ushered into the arms of family there.
another view
It’s been almost 16 years since my mother died. Sixteen years since my family last experienced death. Years filled with so many challenges, but such a long stretch without funerals.
I wonder what they’re talking about now. Has Leah told my mom she saw me last summer? That I have a son with hazel eyes? Are they sitting with my Grandma and Grandpa V?
Are they sipping cups of tea while Grandma has coffee? Is Grandpa wearing his fur coat? Are they gushing and waiting with ease for the rest of us to meet them at the table? For dinner to begin in the late afternoon?
Over the next few days, I’ll be off the grid. Look for me in real life as I travel alone to gather with the family that’s left. To pay tribute and grieve our loss of Leah, steady and true.
We’ll miss you, Aunt Leah. Wait for us there. Unwavering, wait for us.
Precious in the sight of the LORD
is the death of his faithful servants. Psalm 116:15 NIV
This past Monday, we celebrated National Poetry Month here on the blog. The response to Poetry Slam Party has been intelligent, thoughtful, and moving. Ariel Price graced us with poem by John Donne in the comments. Seems fitting to end this week with another of Donne’s most excellent works.
Death, be not proud (Holy Sonnet 10)
Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou are not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou'art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy'or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.
Who is waiting for you in heaven? How do you grieve here on earth?
In celebration, everyday epistle is hosting a Poetry Slam Party.
best remembered poems
This is not your ordinary poetry slam. You don’t have to write the poem you share or read it on an open mic in front of strangers. There are no hidden judges in the audience. We’re just here to enjoy reading and remembering the selections you choose.
All you have to do is share the title and author of a favorite poem.
If the mood strikes, tell why you like it, dazzle us with its best lines, or be my guest and share the whole enchilada.
Why?
Because Poetry is the shock of cool water on the tenth day of triple digits. Bonfire smoke and goose bumps in October. A wool coat wrapped in the silence of the first snow. A nest of newborn robins in the regal holly tree.
the poems of emily dickinson
Who couldn’t use more of that?
I’ll get us started with Emily Dickinson’s My life closed twice before its close:
My life closed twice before its close—
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me
So huge, so hopeless to conceive
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.
Let the Poetry Slam Party begin, good readers. The floor is yours.
You know it’s bad when your yoga teacher hands out weather maps in class.
red fence
“The storms are coming,” said Grace last Saturday morning. “They won’t be here until tonight, but they’re coming. Don’t know what you want to do about that.”
Saturday afternoon, I was inexplicably driven to clean. This was a momentous occasion. Our first chance to come face to face with the legendary storms of Tornado Alley. Needed to get our house in order, if only to have it flattened.
“Tonight we’ll have a slumber party,” we told our son. “We’ll be in the basement together and that’s the safest place to be.” Not counting other states or planets.
Preparation felt cursory. Unnecessary. We moved about in denial. By six o’clock, the twisters had yet to materialize. We shook our fists at the sky. Dined at a teriyaki restaurant called Tsunami. Let our son watch The Wizard of Oz at his Kids’ Night Out party. Drove home uneventfully.
buckled
Meanwhile, the sky went black and began to rain. Normal at first. Then in torrents. Hail. Wailing tornado sirens.
Our descent downstairs was a rush of grabbing the child, the dog, bottled water, pillows, a candle, lip balm. We barricaded our troop in a basement bedroom. From there we monitored the storms’ progress online. Posted updates on Facebook. Prayed.
We couldn’t see or hear the twisters from inside our bunker. Online reports were our only source of information. We quickly learned tornadoes are fickle.
The storms have turned south and will miss us. No, they’re headed north into downtown. Now they’re coming straight up the highway. Right for us!
Our camp scrambled into the bedroom closet. We huddled on the floor with our smart phones and prayers. You realize by telling you this I make you accountable. If God forbid we should ever go missing in a tornado, you are to direct rescuers to look for us in that closet.
inside
And then, without warning, it was over.
The next day, the sky was bright, sunny, and blue. We’d awakened to a life that looked the same as it had many mornings before, except for a few broken blades on our outdoor porch fan.
We wandered through Sunday trying to absorb our surroundings. Watched a storm chaser’s video of the tornadoes. Saw their smoky devil tendrils trickling downward from a smooth expanse of charcoal clouds. Mustering spins. Willing themselves into funnels.
upside down
When Midwesterners learn I grew up in North Carolina, I cannot tell you how many have said to me, “Oh, I wouldn’t want to live there. You have hurricanes!”
Hurricanes are visible on weather maps three days out. Those that make landfall wreak havoc, but most hurricanes sputter and die at sea. They are devastatingly dangerous, yet hurricanes lack the element of surprise.
We’d survived this first round. A fine welcome to Tornado Alley.
Our days on earth are like grass;
like wildflowers, we bloom and die.
The wind blows, and we are gone—
as though we had never been here.
But the love of the Lord remains forever
with those who fear him. Psalm 103:15-17 NLT
Dust in the Wind, like you’ve never seen or heard it before, by Judith Mateo.
I shot the photos in this post three miles from my home.
I didn’t know what a troll was until one came to my site.
His strong negative reaction to a post was a dead give away. He implied I should be arrested. Wonderful.
To me, trolls were strange, little garden statues. Wait, that’s gnomes. Told you I didn’t know what they were.
Let’s try that again.
To me, Trolls was a bar in the basement of a building across the parking lot from my sorority house in college. Smelled like beer. Had foosball tables and booths. Became the second living room of the sisterhood. The one where alcohol and boys were allowed.
That was Trolls, until Mr. Meanie came a calling on my blog. I was crushed. I feared he would key Cranberry Mary. Stick pins in a voodoo doll of me. Or worse.
My husband, the calming force in our home, told me it would be okay. The comment wasn’t that bad.
You know, he’s right. I’m small change on the blogosphere. I have it easy. Upon further research, I discovered there are entire sites devoted to dissing other people’s sites. Meanies, every one.
i am not a troll
Who has time for this? I can barely keep the wheels on my own blog, much less create another one to ridicule, criticize, or spew at people.
Then last week, a twist. I’d been following this Blogger who shall remain nameless. That’s Blogger with a capital B.
Blogger enjoys an enormous following. I like Blogger, but Blogger writes things with which I disagree about topics that matter to me.
I first read Blogger when a friend sent me a link a few weeks ago. In response, I submitted my comment of respectful disagreement.
The next week, I visited Blogger’s site to be rankled by another post. I submitted my comment of respectful disagreement.
Then last week, I read a post by Blogger on a popular website. Blogger was once again wrong (surprise). I submitted my comment of respectful disagreement.
This time something went horribly awry. The captcha bit me. The queue malfunctioned. My comment appeared multiple times. Like a broken record. On a major site. In response to Blogger with a capital B.
Immediately, I contacted the site to correct the mistake. Prayed no one noticed the fumble from small change on the blogosphere.
That’s when it hit me. Each time I read Blogger’s work, I get upset enough to lodge a complaint. No matter how respectful I am, my response is still negative.
i am not a troll
This may be Blogger’s modus operandi. Stir the pot. Salt the wounds. Elicit a response. Spike the stats. Who knows? Doesn’t let me off the hook. I was becoming a troll.
If you come here to my itty bitty blog, and what you read repeatedly upsets you, gets your panties in a wad, sends your blood pressure soaring—well, against all blogging wisdom about building an audience, I would probably suggest you not come back.
Lively discussion in the comments is welcome. But I bristle at my blog being a source of upset for readers. Challenge, maybe. Upset, not so much.
Don’t know if I’ll continue to read Blogger. Sure Blogger has impressive stats. But Blogger brings out the troll in me. That’s not acceptable. Trolls in my life will best remain a memory of a bar in the basement of a building across the parking lot from my sorority house in college.
If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth. But if we confess our sins to Him, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness. 1 John 1:8-9 NLT
There are days you need a straight shot of courage. That’s why I’m excited to launch chapter & verse on Tumblr. This hopeful offshoot of everyday epistle is a microblog, ideal for folks who prefer visuals to text.
spring hope
Every entry on chapter & versewill show an interesting everyday epistle photo with a verse from the Bible, the source book of Life. There will always be a click-through to transport you back here to read the original story.
The inaugural chapter & verse post features this inspiring snapshot of a robin’s nest we found in a holly in our backyard this past weekend. The nest and eggs survived the tornadoes, as did we. More to come on that.
Click over to chapter & verse, check it out, follow, and share. See you back here this week as we continue the journey together in posts and now tumbles.
Oh sing to the Lord a new song;
sing to the Lord, all the earth! Psalm 96:1 ESV
Last night, I read in said book about a Japanese novelist who awoke at 4 a.m. every morning for seven months to write his most important work. He would write for five hours, then jog. Requires discipline and strength, he said. Writing and running, that is.
So at 4:27 a.m. today, unplanned, I awoke. Beckoned by the power of suggestion. I can explain it no other way.
I lag behind the author from Japan. Twenty-seven minutes and umpteen books to be exact. He’s accomplished. I’m but a lowly blogger. Unsure. Beginning.
The blackness of the morning yields itself to the task. A complement to the blank white of the screen, the darkness hangs in the air, and all is quiet.
Requires concentration, I read in the book. Uninterrupted stretches of lonely pounding out, writing and jogging. Words to page, feet to pavement.
Two and a half hours, a thousand words later, the sun is up and I’m going back to bed. No jogging for me. It’s Saturday after all.
Will I do this again? Wake up in the third watch and write? I can’t say. Strength can come at any hour.
So I’m minding my own business, browsing in my favorite home furnishings store, when it comes on the sound system. The saddest song ever recorded.
I’m not going to link to it because it’s so sad. I might not even tell you what it is.
Cat’s in the Cradle by Harry Chapin. Circa 1974.
decor
My sugar plum thoughts of needlepoint pillows and coffee table tchotchkes came to a sudden halt. My mind flooded with the festering waves of parental guilt.
What if my child grows up and never comes to see me because he has to go shopping instead?
“Yes, I’m gonna be like you, Mom. You know I’m gonna be like you.”
I sprinted past the dinette sets. Wriggled around étagères. Leaped over ottomans. Until I landed in living rooms where my son sat on a fine leather sofa with my husband, vanquishing a game of Penguin Wings.
Yes, Little Boy Blue and the Man in the Moon were in the store with me. And no, we still don’t have a cat.
“Mommy loves you!” I said with watery eyes.
“I have 145 penguin coins,” said my son and shooed me away from the iPhone.
“Why are they playing this song?” I said to my husband.
“What song?” he said.
And then there’s Same Old Lang Syne by Dan Fogelberg. Oh, Dan, Dan, Dan.
It runs a close second for the saddest song ever recorded. Heard that one while ice skating recently. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Imagine kneeling and weeping on the cold, cold ice.
pac man fever
Did you know it was based on a true story? Fogelberg crooned the tearjerkers Leader of the Band and Run for the Roses with it on the same 1981 album entitled The Innocent Age. Good grief.
Fogelberg dominates the sad songs category for the 80s. Maybe for all time.
Sister Christian by Night Ranger in 1984 was sort of sad, and yet oddly comforting at the same time.
“You’ll be all right tonight.”
In 1989, Don Henley managed to sneak New York Minute in under the wire and into the decade on his album End of the Innocence. Nice bookend, Don.
November Rain by Guns N’ Roses didn’t come out until 1992. Axl Rose had been working on it since 1983. That explains a lot.
I won’t try to escape if those songs come on like I do with Chapin and Fogelberg. But I will cover my ears if the anguish fest of 100 Years by John Ondrasik (aka Five for Fighting) does. It’s from a 2003 album called The Battle for Everything.
Could someone please just wake me up before you go-go?
Sorrow is better than laughter,
for sadness has a refining influence on us. Ecclesiastes 7:2 NLT
because clearly I do not spend enough time with my child
Wham! was destined to make an appearance here sooner or later. Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go, Jitterbug. Gotta get in line for one of those t-shirts.
Have a great weekend, y’all! Be a peach and leave a comment about a sador not-so-sad song on your way out the door, will ya?
Thank you, William Shakespeare and John Steinbeck, for inspiring the title.
I’ve lost count of the tests and books, the hours of discussion, the rabbit trails run to determine what I’m supposed to be when I grow up.
Another career consultation looms today. Part of the relocation package. Help for the uprooted spouse.
I wonder how many people go through this. Figuring out how best to care for your family while also using your abilities to contribute meaningfully and financially with work outside the home.
Meaningfully. Oh, how I’d like to be passionate about my work.
Financially. Oh, how I’d like to be compensated for it.
I’m not much for the process. Just get to the point. Tell me the answer without the ambiguities.
But life’s not like that, is it?
The Israelites stood on the banks of the Jordan River at flood stage, waiting to cross. It had been quite a journey and Moses was dead.
The officers circulated through the camp. They told the people to watch for the ark of the covenant, the symbolic box where God lived. It would lead the way.
road full of promise
“Then you will know which way to go, since you have never been this way before.”
“Keep a distance of about a thousand yards between you and the ark; do not go near it.”
The pastor I heard teach this from Joshua 3 said the ark was far ahead of the people so all of them could see it. The distance symbolized the separation between God and the people’s sin.
Joshua then told the people, “Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things among you.”
And God did. That very day He parted the river waters for them to cross.
I don’t follow an ark. Christ’s death and resurrection closes the separation between Him and my sin. He comes near to me. Emmanuel, God with us.
Chin up, buttercup. Keep walking. Who knows what amazing things await?
Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness (or your Righteous One) will go before you,
and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard. Isaiah 58:8 NIV
All I have to show for my 1997 root canal is a crown and a seasonal toothache.
power dental, as seen at Target
Every year I get this pain and I think my teeth are rotting inside my head. I rush to the dentist for x-rays. The dentist tells me everything’s intact, and it’s not my crown that hurts because there are no nerves there. It’s just sinus pressure. Take an antihistamine, grin, and bear it.
So when the first pangs surfaced last Wednesday, I remembered this and saved myself a trip to the dentist. A long trip since my dentist is still in St. Louis. He opted not to relocate with us.
Then Thursday night I woke up to searing, constant pain. Perhaps I’d made a misdiagnosis. Maybe this was more than sinus pressure.
The next day was Good Friday. While my husband gathered Reese’s peanut butter eggs at Walmart for Easter baskets, I frantically loaded up on the OTC.
But the OTC couldn’t kick it. My jaw was on fire. Surely a mutant borer was tunneling through my bicuspids. A microscopic mole was burrowing out a den in the swollen, pink flesh of my gums. My crown would soon explode.
By Friday evening, I was self-medicating with leftover Naproxen I’d found in our medicine cabinet. By Saturday morning, I was in urgent care. Why do these things always happen on holiday weekends?
The doctor prescribed an antibiotic and a pain med. I spent the rest of the weekend floating through pain-free episodes of Easter wonderment and excruciating dips between doses. Simply glad to be alive.
The antibiotic was in full force come Monday morning, so the pain had subsided. Made my husband drive me to see a dentist in our new city anyway. Certainly a sane dentist would sedate me immediately and surgically remove the nuclear warhead lodged in my mouth.
“Your crown is intact, and I think we can save it,” said the dentist. “We used to believe there were only three nerves involved in a root canal. Now that we have better technology, we know there are four nerves.”
Or thirty-seven, I thought.
“You need another root canal to get that fourth nerve,” he said.
a strange beast
The dentist’s colleague who does this type of root canal can’t see me until the end of the month for a consult to schedule the procedure.
Are you kidding? Do it now! No, it’s not hurting at this moment, but I don’t ever, ever want to have that pain again.
Pain is a such strange beast. We hate it, yet we need it. It tells us when something is oh-so wrong. Tells us when we need to move, change, or get help. Fight or flee. Steels us inside so we can endure more than we thought possible. And when we’re in pain, we know without a doubt what’s important and what’s not.
Part of me abhors calling pain a gift. Another part of me marvels that it is.
But He was pierced for our transgressions,
He was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on Him,
and by His wounds we are healed. Isaiah 53:5 NIV
Last night I decided to change to another layout. Then I decided to change back.
Then I decided to add a column. Then I needed a different size masthead.
What once would have cost me hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars in web design was reduced to a couple dozen decisive (or indecisive) clicks.
Now I’m contemplating ads. WordPress invited me to try their WordAds Beta.
What on earth would they advertise here? Hair coloring seems logical. Or shoes. Or lipstick. Or dog treats. Or maybe Zoloft.
fresh dress
What if they slap an ad up here for something inappropriate? Like Skout. Or a Joel Osteen book. (Apologies to Joel fans. Jim and Tammy Faye ruined it for me. Alas, that’s another post.)
And how much are they going to pay me for ad space? Pennies per click, I’m guessing.
Oh, the drama of the blog, as if we need more drama in our lives.
Another layout? A coupon for Jamba Juice?
Stay tuned. There’s always something brewing here. And it’s bound to be fresh.
