Retreating Writers

For the second year in a row, I had the incredible pleasure of mentoring/instructing a very talented group of retreating writers at the Hemingway-Pfeiffer Museum and Education Center in Piggott, Ark. Part of the ASU system, HPMEC has had success with the writer retreats as this past summer was the 7^th Annual, and the one just finished was the 2^nd Annual Fall Retreat.

But the writers weren’t actually “retreating,” at least not in the military sense. In fact, they were very much advancing, taking full advantage of the beautiful Fall weather on the HPMEC grounds, which features a “barn studio” where Ernest Hemingway penned parts of A Farewell to Arms. Catered to by Deanna Dismukes and the staff, the writers are able to spend the entire week focused on writing, whether that be finishing a project, trying new ideas, or searching for an elusive muse. What a cool idea.

The neat thing is that the writers came from all over the state of Arkansas and Missouri just to spend the week writing. Some of them know each other from other writing groups, some were first timers, and some were even first-time writers. But they were all treated equally.

So what is it we actually do at the retreat? Each morning begins with a writing exercise, something with the intention of loosing up the writing muscles. Writers aren’t required to do the exercises—they can immediately tackle whatever project they want to tackle—but most end up participating in them each day. At lunch the morning exercise work is read, and often (though not every day), an afternoon writing exercise is given. Again, the main purpose is to hopefully inspire creativity for the writers. Those exercises are they read by the writers before the group leaves for the afternoon.

At the end of the week, the writers turn in those exercises along with other writings they’ve chosen, and a special Retreat Anthology is created. I’m the lucky owner of two thus far and I’ve enjoyed the works in both. I’m looking forward to receiving the one just created.

The picture was taken in the barn studio—that’s Hemingway’s typewriter (or rather, one of them) in the bottom right of the picture. From L-R; bottom to top: me, Ethan Baker, Bob Jones (looking a little like he’s channeling Hemingway), Wanda Jones (red), Linda Wyss, Monica Moore, Chris Henderson (who’s commented on some of my blog posts in the past), Carol Griffin, Rita Dortch, Joseph Hargrave, Pat Laster, Phyllis Rhodes and Elizabeth Foster.

On Friday, Faye Williams Jones signed copies of her new release: Erasing People. It can be ordered online here! Though tired and ready to get back home, I think many of the writers—like me—hated to see the week come to an end.

Is it all worked out?

Shortly after the University of North Alabama downsized me, BJ and I were offered a tag-team type of job selling collegiate furniture. It was an interesting job, to say the least. I didn’t really know the first thing about furniture, but we believe it was really BJ and her very long list of contacts they mostly wanted anyway. For the most part, I enjoyed it.

However, it was during this time that I spent a lot of time on the road traveling from University to University, in the tri-state area of Kentucky, Tennessee and Arkansas. My travel partner was one of the VPs of the company; a man younger than me who knew a lot about the furniture. As so much of the time was spent traveling, we spent a great deal of time in conversation. He was a devout member of the Church of Christ, and I was fresh off a religious conversion in 2000 (Southern Baptist for those of you with a scorecard).

Now I happen to be one of those who think that most of the folks who call themselves “Christian,” aren’t. [I think it was Billy Graham that said 80% of the people in churches are unsaved] And I don’t get too terribly worked up about the different flavors. Yeah, I think it’s silly the Church of Christ won’t have musical instruments in their churches (but they’ll turn that radio on quickly!), but I don’t think that’s a deal-breaker with God.

I DO think there are some deal-breakers; a core set of beliefs that all those under the “Christian” umbrella should believe. Things like Mary being a virgin, Jesus physically dying AND rising again, etc. Most of the “Christian” religions believe these things.

I don’t, however, think it really matters if a Christian is a pre-trib, post-trib, during-trib…I just don’t think it matters that much. One of the things that I have a tendency to believe that my fellow “Christians” don’t is the idea of predestination: that God picked out everyone who’s going to heaven in the beginning. Yes, I realize that most Southern Baptists don’t believe this—but I’m okay with that—it doesn’t fall on that list of “core” ideas.

But my Church of Christ employer couldn’t grasp the concept of my belief. It was just that he didn’t agree with it, it didn’t make sense to him how “I” could believe. His major concern, as I recall it, was why do Pre-destiners even bother with sharing the Word and attempting to spread the Gospel. If God has them all picked out, why waste my time talking about it.

To me, however, the answer is simple: Because God told us to do so. Just because I think God’s got it all worked out doesn’t mean I can simply stop doing what He says. It seemed—and still seems—like a no-brainer to me: God says it, so I do it (or at least attempt to do it)…pretty cut and dried.

He never did understand what I was trying to say…but we had many very good looooong conversations about it all!

I ψ#$€ shots

I absolutely, positively (shouldn’t it be “negatively” though?) do not like shots. Of any kind. You’ll note that I did not use the word “hate” as we try to convince our kids that it is such a harsh word that we have to be careful how we use it. So, since I can’t really tell my kids not to use it and then turn around and do it myself, let me just repeat for the record that I really, really, really dislike shots. A lot.

I can’t remember when my emotions for shots became so strong, but I do remember a near-encounter with fainting when I had to have my bloodwork done before BJ and I got married. BJ had already given—or had it drawn, or whatever you want to say—and I was doing so. The nurse was so worried about me—it seems I turned pale as a ghost—that she made me sit down. I don’t remember being pale, but I do remember breaking into a cold sweat.

I still don’t like them but I can tolerate them. I still get the cold sweats when I have to actually give blood or have a needle in my wrist or in the fold of my arm. Apparently, I do not have “good veins,” which loosely translates to my veins are small and they have to dig around to find them.

So I shouldn’t be too upset when my kids scream and holler about their shots.

When the kids were younger, we’d been having some serious “winter” issues with colds, runny noses, RSV and other such and the doctors recommended the flu shot. So we all got them and had a much different winter. Oh, we still fought with colds and such, but about 50% less than when we didn’t get them. So we’ve gotten them every year except the year they ran out.

But anyway, we were in the habit of going and this particular year—about 4 years ago—Brett got his shot first. He’d been doing pretty well and we managed to keep him distracted so that he didn’t even see the needle go in. But when he felt the pain—talk about screaming! BJ had been with Brittany and I had him in the hallway waiting for Brittany to get hers and trying to calm him. He was screaming—until he heard his sister screaming. And he just flat STOPPED! He wanted to see why his sister was screaming. From that point on, he was done screaming and crying (for that year, I mean). It was actually funny to watch him just stop!

However, Brittany had gotten big enough that BJ couldn’t really hold her and so we had to swap. I handed Brett off to her and proceeded to the shot room. Brittany was in such a hysterical state that the nurse had me actually lay down on top of her just to hold her still! The funny thing is that since she was crying so much she didn’t even realize when the nurse had done it and she was still screaming when the nurse told her she was done!

Yes, we’re going tomorrow to get our yearly flu shots…fun!