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Author Archives: jeanneahlers


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Fear-Less

 

phone 408What is fear?

Fear is an emotion.  Why then, can fear control our lives?  If you really think about what you fear, can you feel it in the pit of your stomach?  Can you feel the adrenaline stab that takes your breath away?

The things we fear are mostly imaginary.  And I’m not just talking about having bad dreams.  The things we worry about are the things we fear.  What are you worried about right now?  What if I told you that none of those things will happen?  Would you still worry about them?

What if I told you that worrying about something can actually make it more likely to happen?  Do you believe me?  I read once that worrying is like praying for what you don’t want.  If our prayers are the feelings we have that we send to the Universe (God), then worrying is asking for those things to happen.

If you realized this was true, would you stop worrying and being fearful?  I know its hard to think that way when there seems to be bad things lurking around every corner.  And I have had my fair share of them, even a couple just in the last week.  But I have learned that if I offer up my thankfulness to my Abba (the Universe) and I pray for peacefulness, that my fear dissipates quickly and all that is left is a bit of anxiety that I can deal with on my own.  How can you be thankful when you are fearful?  You can’t.  But the great news is that God knows our hearts, and our worries, and He tells us not to worry about tomorrow, because each day has worries of its own.

Another thing we tend to worry about is what other people think of us.  Why do we do this?  We have this need for approval from others, and we had a need for approval from our parents, and our teachers, and on and on and on.  But who’s approval do you really need?  Just your own.  Once you cast away the fear of not fitting in, of people not liking you, of people being disappointed in you, then you’ll be free to live your true self’s life.  Your true self, or higher self, doesn’t care what you wear, so why did you spend a half hour picking out an outfit?  If you were running through the jungle with a tiger chasing you, do you think he would chastise you for wearing those shoes after Labor Day?  If your child was dying in the hospital, would it truly matter if your scarf doesn’t accessorize well with that belt? No, when it comes down to it, nothing material really matters that much.  Your true self also doesn’t care what you drive, where you live, or how big your bank account is.  Your true self wants peace.

I think this is why after a fire, or other disastrous event, people pull together and realize that things are replaceable, people are not.  Even those cherished mementos, the quilt great-grandma hand-stitched, and the photographs of your grandparents weddings, are still less important than people.  We spend a lot of money on trying to keep our things safe from harm, fire proof safes, fire suppression systems, burglar alarms, bigger and bigger houses and garages, and then we worry about those things too.  We worry about the buildings and we worry about what’s in them.  We worry about too many things that don’t really matter.  We are fearful of loss.  We are fearful of life.  We are fearful of decisions that we make and what the outcomes of those decisions might be.  We are fearful of consequences and our own failures.  We are fearful, sometimes, of ourselves.  And sometimes, we are fearful of crazy scenarios played out in our imaginations.

So if I stop worrying, and stop being fearful, I will stop inviting disaster and chaos into my life.  But how can I stop worrying?  How can I stop being fearful?  Think of something that worries you, that makes you feel fear.  What’s the worst thing about it?  What is your worst case scenario?  Imagine it happening.  Close your eyes, and feel the pain, feel everything.  There, now its done.  You’ve already experienced it, so there’s no need to worry about it anymore.  Now, look at that thing that hasn’t happened and be grateful.  Be grateful for what you have, instead of worrying about what you don’t have.  Your heart will be lighter, and your anxiety levels will plummet.  Be very aware of what your brain is thinking about, and if it starts the fear process, shut it down.  Offer thanks and gratitude and be fear-less.

Little Things

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Little Things

When is the last time you sat down on the grass under a tree and just looked with your eyes and heard with your ears? Listen to the birds in the trees, to the cicadas singing their song, the laughter of the neighbor’s children. Do you see the ants carrying their bundles through the grass or up the tree bark? Look at the veins in the leaves of a tree or a flower, can you see the pattern of the flower petals, or the pattern of the leaves on the branches?
Would you see this tiny toad if he jumped somewhere near you? Or are you too busy to notice the little things in life?
My challenge for you today, is to go outside to a green place, and look around until you find something that moves you, or makes you take notice. Find something that makes you say, “Oh, cool!”. And then come back here and tell me what you found!

Thank you Jessica, for the great idea. 🙂


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Perception is Everything

(This was my sermon for June 22.  I filled in at church since our pastor was at Synod in Pennsylvania.)

 

I love the mystery of the Bible.  There’s so much literature, poetry, and so many amazing parables.   I read a lot, and I love reading to increase my knowledge of God.  God is so amazing to me, all the creations He has created; people, animals, fish, plants, the Universe.  I also love science, and I am always so amazed when scientists discover new creatures, new worlds, and new galaxies.  If you ever get the chance to see the photographs taken by the Hubble telescope, I urge you to watch.  The magnificence of the universe is without words.  I have no words big enough to describe it.  I also have no words big enough to describe the magnificence of God.  My perception of God is indescribable.

I believe that’s why the people who wrote the Bible used poetry so much.  When they tried to describe God and His amazing wonder, they didn’t have words big enough to use.  They compared God to things on Earth, even though God created those things, and He is much bigger than what He created.  I also believe that sometimes this is why people have so many disagreements on what the Bible says.  There are some literalists out there, who believe that every word of the Bible is exactly true in the form it’s written.  But this can be silly, and I’m going to show you why.  Remember, its all about our perception.

If you are a literalist, then Jesus is a big rock, and God is a bird, probably a chicken.  Psalm 91:4 says “He will cover you with His feathers, and under His wings you will find refuge.”   And then in Matthew, God is compared to a chicken, a hen who gathers her chicks beneath her wings to protect them.  Now, I love chickens, but I don’t believe that God is a chicken.    I believe that the writers here intended to show us that God is our protector.  Have you ever tried to snatch a baby chick from under a hen?  If your answer is no, then I highly recommend you never try. Its not pleasant, and the hen will attack you and defend those chicks with her life.  The hen is one of the fiercest mothers in the world.  God also will protect us as the mother hen protects her babies from harm.

Now in Act 4:11, the Bible says “Jesus is the stone you builders rejected, which has become the cornerstone.”  I don’t believe that Jesus is an actual rock, or piece of stone.  He was a living breathing son of God who walked on this earth and is now at the right hand of God.  What this really means is that Jesus needs to be the foundation, the most important part, of our lives.  He has been rejected by many, however, He is the basis of our faith.  If you don’t believe in Jesus, I don’t think you can call yourself a Christian.  Jesus is the essential to our faith.

So God’s not a chicken and Jesus isn’t a slab of granite.  We can see how the writers use comparison to show us about God.  They used their perception of God and compared it to something they thought had similar qualities. We see this throughout the Bible.   The primitive people of the Old Testament were violent and war-like, so they assumed God was too.  Jesus showed us that God is love.  God didn’t change, we did.

I want you to imagine you are taken back in time to the time or Moses, or Noah, or even the disciples.  Now, try to describe our technology to them.  Try to describe a tractor.  How would you make them understand how GPS works?  How the computer works, how the planter is told how much seed to plant, and spray to spray, and how this enormous machine drives itself for part of the journey.  Could you explain to them how the telephone works?  Or how a smart phone works?  I actually have a smart phone and I have no idea how it works.  Would you start with a wagon or a chariot to describe a tractor?  And the telephone?  I mean, these people don’t even have soup cans and string to use as an example! Can you see how difficult it would be to explain?

There’s a segment in Dr. Wayne Dyer’s presentations where he asks everyone who has ever tasted a mango to raise their hands.  He picks one person who has, and one who has not.  He then asks the person who has, to describe the flavor of a mango to the person who has never tried one.  Its pretty funny actually, and when they are done, the  person still doesn’t know what a mango tastes like.  There’s no way to know until you try one.

Its like how God’s love works.  I could explain what it feels like to someone who doesn’t believe in God, and I could compare it to the love of a parent for a child, but its so much more than that.  God’s love is bigger then that.  When you hold your new born baby in your arms and feel that swelling of love and care and joy in your heart, that’s a  big kind of love; but that’s still not as big as God’s love.  We love because God first loved us.

The Bible also tells us what Jesus told His disciples when He was here on earth, and these are things from the Bible that should be taken to heart as they are written.  Jesus told many parables to His disciples: stories that illustrate God’s workings to us.  He talked a lot about seeds and how they grow because that was something His followers would understand.  In the same way as the older stories, Jesus helps us understand by comparing God to things on earth.  But Jesus truly does understand how God works, and He truly does know exactly how the universe operates.

Imagine yourself as a small child with chubby legs and chubby little cheeks.  You see your daddy and run to him and he sweeps you up into his arms and you hug his neck. You know you are safe in your daddy’s arms and you are filled with love and joy and happiness.  You can feel that sensation of love in your chest.  That’s who God is; He is our Abba.  Abba is an Aramaic word that literally means “father” as spoken by a child.   And we get to call God our Abba.  Jesus died on the cross so that we could  claim God as our Abba, and we can be that small child running to our Abba with outstretched arms, a smile on our face, and overwhelming love in our hearts for our daddy who loves us.  In Matthew 18:3 Jesus tell us that  “Truly I tell you, unless you be converted and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Those are words from Jesus Himself.  What does that mean?  If we don’t change and become like little children, we will never enter heaven.  Think about little children.  How can we become like small children?  Matthew Henry says “Children, when very young, do not desire authority, do not regard outward distinctions, are free from malice, are teachable, and willingly dependent on their parents.”

So we do really need to change our thoughts, and we need to change our hearts into the hearts of children.  We must become humble, and not try to rely on ourselves, even though the world tells us that we should.   We need to have open minds to absorb the teachings of God’s love, and not have closed minds like the world wants.  We need to read our Bibles with the heart like God’s, full of love and joy, not seeking to hurt others or justify our own short comings.  The next time you feel disconnected from God, remember to be that toddler with a beaming smile and heart of gold.  That’s what He wants.  He wants your heart.

Sometimes we get so wrapped up in the words of parts of the Bible, we forget that its a story to help us understand God’s love for us.  Its the history of how God’s people came to know God better.  Its a story of the evolution of people’s understanding of God and how God works.  We don’t know it all, and we never will.  But have you ever had an “a-ha!” moment where some parable or a selection of verses all of a sudden made sense to you?  That’s God’s voice in your brain helping you understand.  God’s still small voice; you really need to listen for it.  You need to take time in silence to hear it.  With all the noise of our modern world, sometimes its hard to find a quiet place.  Jesus would retreat into the wilderness to talk to God.  When’s the last time you took even a few moments in peace and quiet to just be in tune to God, and to feel His love in your heart?  Prayer doesn’t mean you have to talk, or ask questions, you can simply feel with your heart and your mind and offer up the feeling of gratitude to God for all the greatness He has shown you in your life.

I have read several interesting books over the past few months that suggest that God listens more to your heart and your feelings than to words.  The Bible tells us that the Holy Spirit is who interprets for us so that our words are suitable to God, but that God knows our hearts always.  So what we feel in our hearts is then our true prayer that God hears.

That was a new idea for me.  I grew up where prayer is just asking God for things, and thanking Him for things, and asking Him to not give me things that I don’t want.  But this makes more sense to me.  God says He knows what we need and what we desire before we ever ask for it, so maybe then instead of just asking for things, we should send our thankfulness for His love and grace instead, and ask for wisdom to know His heart.

The Bible shows the perception of God changing from angry God to loving Abba over the course of those pages.  Remember, God hasn’t changed, only our perception of God has changed.  Jesus is the one who really helps us understand God’s heart, for us, His little children.  So I ask that you go about your week with the goal of changing your heart to the heart of a child; loving, caring, honest, and humble.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


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Disappointed by Disappointment

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I have a problem.  I’m ready to admit it and get it out of my life.  I worry too much about what other people think of me.

It’s really a fear of disappointing people, and this is the issue I’m working on getting out of my life.  When I was a child I was a disappointment to my dad; I was the firstborn and I was a girl and he wanted a boy.  This sounds quite trivial I know, but its something that I’ve been dealing with for quite some time.  I wasn’t what my dad wanted.  My mom was happy with me, my grandparents were all happy with me, so why does this one little thing matter?

I believe that each of us has trials in our lives, and problems that result from all kinds of weird things that happen to us, or untruths that we grow up believing.  But this belief isn’t true for me.  I’m happy that I was a girl.  I’m happy with me, I love me.  And I know that I was created this way, as a female, for a reason.  I believe that God makes each one of us exactly the way He wants us to be for His purpose.  

But I also believe that what we experience in our lives makes us stronger and makes us into who we are as adults.  I consider myself to be a very strong woman, both mentally and physically, and spiritually.  I also get very defensive when someone tries to tell me what to do.  I don’t work that way.  I have to decide to do something, no one can make me do it.  I may be a little stubborn.  (I get that from my dad and his family who were amazingly stubborn.)  But this can be a good thing too.

A good thing? Remember, everything we experience can be a positive thing as long as we believe it is.  My stubbornness manifests in me sticking to my guns, not giving up or giving in, and if I truly believe something in my heart, no one will change that.  It makes me a stronger person, someone not scared to say what I mean, and say what I think.  I can look back and see that me trying not to disappoint people was all in my head.  I can’t disappoint anyone but myself.  Anyone who feels disappointed in you is really just disappointed in the fact that they were wrong about you.  Their idea of what they wanted you to do and what you did, were not the same.  Its their belief system that was wrong, not yours.  You can only satisfy yourself and your own belief system.  The fact that my dad didn’t get what he wanted is not my problem. 

(You can’t always get what you want.  The Rolling Stones were right.) 

So if I can take my own advice and remember this, I will be a much less anxious person, and will have a load off my shoulders.  There’s no reason to worry about disappointing anyone except yourself.  On that  same note, you won’t disappoint God either, because He knows your heart and your desires better than you do, and He loves you no matter what. 

What issues are you dealing with that may be something in your own belief system?  Have you dealt with this in your life?  What did you do to get out of this mindset?


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Thanks, Grandpa!

phone 028Grandpa’s favorite flowers had always been hollyhocks.  I’m not sure why, but he loved them.  They lined his garden and his yard, and some even grew out in the trees.  We, my siblings and cousins and I, would explore the trees looking for peacock feathers from Grandma’s prized peacocks in the summer.  Those birds had such an enchanting, sad, mournful call.  They were beautiful, but seeing them everyday made them much more ordinary than they really were.  I still to this day have some of those feathers.

I think all the grandkids loved being at Grandpa and Grandma’s house.  Grandma and my aunt, who lived with them and helped them, and eventually took care of them in their old age,  made homemade cookies, and sometimes Grandpa would sing and dance in the kitchen with the old cook stove sitting next to the modern electric range.  The dishes were done by hand after every meal, and Grandma had certain jobs that were done on specific days of the week, probably just like her mother had done years before.  Grandpa cut all the wood to heat the house, I don’t remember any other heating system, and there were lines hanging across the ceiling in the living room to hang clothes to dry in the winter.  I loved helping operate the ringer washer tub, where we washed clothes just like they did in the olden days.  He was a hunter, trapper, and farmer, and loved being able to help him.  I felt valued by all my grandparents, but especially by my two grandfathers.  My paternal grandfather died when I was only 6, and I know I was loved deeply by him, but my maternal grandfather made a very deep impression me as a child, and does still to this day.  He was very devoted to God, and lived his life the best way he thought he could.

Grandpa died when I was 17.  He hadn’t been “here” for a long time, and the last conversation I can remember having with him was one from when I was 14.  Grandpa was my male role model, mostly because I had always felt like my dad was disappointed with me,  since I was the firstborn, and I ended up being a girl.  (And to make it worse, I was a tom boy, rubbing salt in the wounds.)  But Grandpa loved me for who I was, and I loved playing baseball, and hearing stories about when he was a little boy.  I even had an empty chew can that Grandma had put raisins in, so I could have a chew just like Grandpa did.  I’ve been told I look like him, and yes, I can see the resemblance.

Fast forward twenty years or so; I’m a happily married mother of two young children.  My husband and I have moved to a small town in North Dakota, and are enjoying owning our own home.  The existing flower garden in the yard was very overgrown, and full of white flowers.  I dug and planted and dug and planted, trying to get rid of the white and add some color.  I enlisted the help of my knowledgeable elderly neighbor ladies to know which of these unfamiliar plants were weeds and which were flowers.  After a few years of gardening something strange happens; my yard erupts with hollyhocks.  I’m not talking one or two seeds that drifted in on the wind, or a pod dropped by a bird in a one area, but an actual eruption. 

I had hollyhocks in every corner of the yard, every crack of the sidewalk, and every space of the yard that wasn’t mowed.  They were every color, every shape, and every size.  Giddy, I let them all grow.  My yard looked like Grandpa’s.  I told my mom about what happened, and she told me Grandpa must have sent them.  I had never considered this, and this thought made me very happy.  After a few years though, I had to start pulling them out.  They seeded and reseeded and I pulled hundreds of plants.  I now leave about 20 of them or so growing all around the yard in different nooks and crannies.  They make me smile.   And they remind me of Grandpa.

 

Big Things Can Come in Smaller Packages

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Big Things Can Come in Smaller Packages

To be fair to both my precious pooches, I’ll tell you a little about Rocky this week. Rocky is a 5 year old Yellow Lab/Brittany mix. He thinks he’s a big dog, but he’s just a little 70 pound cuddle-bunny. He’s ferocious though, a natural born hunter. His greatest love is to have someone pat him on the head and tell him he’s a “good boy”, and then don’t forget to rub his tummy. I think that since the dog he sees every day is a giant, he thinks he’s the same size.

And that gets me to the point that, whatever you believe about yourself is what’s true. If you believe you are a valiant warrior, then that’s what you’ll be. If you believe you are smart and beautiful, you are smart and beautiful. But the opposite is true as well, if you believe you are less than, you always will be.

What we believe about ourselves is very important. Listen to your thoughts for a few days and see what your inner voice says about you. If its negative, then you need to make an effort to change that. Start telling yourself good things, positive things, and your whole world will change. Its amazing how much our own perception of ourselves matters in our lives.

Rocky has a killer instinct, he knows what his purpose in life is: to be a best friend, a retriever, and to disassemble anything with a squeaker inside. And he’s good at all of them. What’s your purpose? What are telling yourself about you? Are you a big dog in a smaller body like Rocky? That’s great! Big things can come in small packages, and maybe you notice the things you are lacking instead of the things you have naturally, but you need to step back and see the bigger picture. You can do anything you believe you can do. What do you believe about yourself? What is it that you want to believe? You can be a big dog too, you just need to believe it.

The “Big Dog” in Every One

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This is my Great Dane, Jack. Jack doesn’t realize how big he is. Some days he will try to sit on my lap in this chair, once we both fell backwards and that’s when I pushed the chair back so it can’t happen again. He’s heavy; weighing in at over 200 pounds. People are generally fearful of him for his size, and he really could hurt someone if he chose to; he stepped on my foot a few days ago and I still have a bruise.

However, Jack is not a mean dog, I do believe he thinks he’s a person. He can eat off the table or the counter without stretching. He’s like a small child, mentally, and he looks for cues from us as to how to act and behave around others.

I think sometimes people are like this as well. We don’t realize what we truly are, and who we could potentially be. We don’t realize how big we are, how important we are, and how much we could do in the world. Too many times we underestimate ourselves and our abilities. Each of us has certain talents and abilities that others do not have. But by all of us working together as a collective team, we can do so much more than we can on our own.

Each of us is a “Big Dog” in our own sense. Each of us has the ability to do good, and do it well, and help others. Who do you see when you look in the mirror?


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Smoke and Mirrors (A short story)

It all started with the smoke detector.  The stupid thing kept buzzing.  I pressed the button and it shrieked at me.  The buzzing stopped, and I continued putting together the new recipe I was making for my dinner.  Within two minutes, the buzzing started again.

I took the battery out of the smoke detector.  I walked through my apartment; nothing was smoking, there was nothing.  I opened my door to the hallway, nothing out there either.  Apparently the battery was going dead.  I scouted through my drawer in the kitchen with all the odds and ends, I had every battery except the rectangular one I needed.  One more thing for the grocery list, I left the battery out of the detector.

I reread the recipe and opened the cupboard to grab the can of cream of mushroom soup I had bought for the recipe.  I searched through the cans and didn’t find it.  Puzzled, I went through the other cupboards and drawers.  I looked in the closet by my front door and even in the refrigerator.  It was nowhere to be found.  I thought I was going crazy.  I bought a can of soup for this recipe and it wasn’t here.  I live alone, there’s no one else to eat the soup, unless my cat somehow managed to figure out the can opener.  I opened the cupboard again and checked, the cans of tuna were all intact, so it couldn’t be the cat.

I decided to make a quick trip to the corner store to get a battery and another can of soup.  As soon as I buy another, it will turn up in a crazy spot, I just know it.  That’s how my life works.  I grabbed my jacket and my purse, and headed down to the parking lot to my car.  I pulled the keys out of my purse and hit the lock opener, and slid into the driver’s seat.  I drove the few blocks to the store and pulled into the parking lot.  I always lock my car, even if I’m going in for just a couple minutes.  In this neighborhood, you just don’t take chances.

I walked into the store to hear a woman yell, “I have a gun, give me the money!” My first instinct was to run, but the bells on the door gave me away and she whirled around and pointed the gun at me.  “Get down on the ground!”

I couldn’t move.  Our eyes met and locked.  Her eyes grew wide and her mouth opened.  Mine did the same.  It was me!

We were wearing the same black clothes, the same shoes, had the same haircut.  She was a mirror image of me.  I was frozen in my spot.  She turned and looked at the clerk, who also was frozen, eyes wide and mouth open.  She took off running out the door like a wild cat.

The clerk had already hit the panic button and we could hear the police sirens in the distance.  “Do you have a twin sister?” he asked in an accented voice.

“No, I don’t.  I don’t think.”  I muttered and kept watching the door to see if she, if I, reappeared.

 

The police took both our statements and took my contact information.  They were very casual about my twin saying that in times of great stress people make mistakes like that.  But I knew better.  She looked just like me; it was the freakiest thing I have ever experienced in my life.  I forgot all about the soup and the battery when I went home.

As it turned out, I really didn’t need the battery anyway, or the soup for that matter.

The sirens were going off as I drove back to my apartment building.  It was on fire.  Great.  I remembered the battery at that moment.  I had to sneak into the parking lot, as the police had started turning people away right after I got back. But I had come through the other side and parked a ways away from the fire trucks.  I sat and waited as the fire department put out the blaze.  The Salvation Army showed up and offered to help all the residents find places to stay for the night.  All I could think about was my cat, and how much I hoped she had made it.  I got out of my car after the fire had been extinguished and walked over to talk to the police officer that was blocking the path.  He said it looked like arson.  I bit my tongue.  Do I tell him about my detector going off?  Why? So I can tell him I took the battery out?  But I did go right to the store to buy a new battery, well, once I realized I didn’t have soup.  And then I foiled an armed robbery by my newfound twin sister.  Do I have an evil twin?  Ok, I just need to stop thinking.

Later that evening the cat did appear.  I had sat in my car waiting, with nowhere else to go.  I could afford my own hotel room, not that I had any clothes or anything else to bring with me.  But something told me to stay, and that premonition proved true.  Ms. Monster came trudging through the wet ashes, the sludge of gunk running in the parking lot sticking to her fur.  I practically leapt from my car and yelled for her, grinning ear to ear with joy.

“Is that your cat ma’am?” The officer asked as I picked her up and proceeded to wipe the stains from her fur.

“Yes, she is, I’m so glad she’s all right!”  Ms. Monster purred and nuzzled her face into my neck.  I held her up to examine her, and there were no burn marks, no burnt fur, and no injuries I could see.  I got back into my car with the cat and pulled out of the parking lot.  No one would be allowed into the building until the fire chief said so, so I decided to try to find a hotel that would take cats.

I googled “pet friendly hotels” on my phone in the Target parking lot.  Luckily there were several on this side of town.    I had to leave Monster in the car, but she was used to that.  I went in and bought a few essentials, a change of clothes, pajamas, toiletries, and some cat food, two bowls, a cat carrier, and a new kitty bed.  She’d never used it anyway since she slept on the bed with me, but I felt the need to buy it.  I grabbed a few snack items since my dinner was burned, not by me at least.  I giggled at this thought.  I don’t know why, but I couldn’t quit giggling.  I also picked a new copy of the book I had been reading, hoping I’d be able to figure out which page I was on.

Once checked into the hotel and showered and changed, I called my mom to let her know I was OK, just in case she watched the news for once in her life.  She didn’t answer when I called, so I left a message.  She was probably sound asleep I realized, after I looked at the clock and discovered it was almost midnight.

Ms. Monster was curled up on the bed, licking herself clean.  She hissed in my direction.

“Hey Missy,” I scowled at her, “Don’t forget who waited for you and paid for this nice hotel room.”

I laid down on the bed and fell asleep quickly.  I woke up in the morning feeling drowsy and unsettled.  Then I remembered everything that had happened, and realized I was in the hotel room.  Ms. Monster was on the foot of the bed, staring at the mirror on the wall.  She must be able to see herself, silly cat.  Sometimes she would hiss at the mirrors in my apartment too.  Maybe she’s not happy with her body, or her hair, or who knows what.

I got up, made some complimentary coffee in a tiny complimentary coffee pot and drank it out of a Styrofoam cup.  My cell phone rang shortly after.  It was the police department and they wanted me to come down to the station.

I got ready real fast and Ms. Monster and I drove to the station.  I didn’t check out of the hotel though, because I just wasn’t sure what was going on.  Once there, a polite lady ushered me into a small interrogation room and introduced me to Lieutenant Dan.  All I could think about was Forrest Gump.  Lieutenant Dan! You got new legs!  I sat down as asked, and then it got a little crazy.

Lieutenant Dan wanted to know why I set my apartment building on fire.  They had it on surveillance camera.  He played the footage.  It really looked like me, I won’t lie.  I would have thought it was me if I wasn’t me.  But I knew better, I was me and I knew what I had been doing, and I knew that really, it was her.  It had to be.  I explained the story of the robbery before the fire, and he listened to my story like I was the most boring person on the planet.

“So you’re telling me that you stopped yourself from robbing the store while you were setting the apartment building on fire?”

“No, it wasn’t me, but it was someone who looks just like me.  I was just as startled as anyone.”

He left the room and I sat there for about ten minutes. I tried the door, but it was locked from the outside.  No one had read me my rights, and I hadn’t been arrested.  But it was cool outside and I knew my cat would be fine in the car for a while.  I pulled my book out of my bag and started skimming to try to figure out where I left off.  It’s my trick for never having to wait.  As long as I have a book with me, I never have to wait for any appointment or anything.

The lieutenant came back in and sat down.  He looked at me with a long stare.  “I talked to the officer who responded to the robbery last night.  He has gone over the video footage from the store’s cameras, and it seems he was actually talking to you at the time that the fire was started according to the time stamps on both videos.  I don’t know what’s going on here, but I don’t want you to go too far away.  I may need to talk to you again.”

I thanked him, for what I don’t know, and left the station. Ms. Monster was sleeping on my seat when I opened the door.  She yawned and I picked her up so I could sit down.  She sat on my lap and I petted her, scratching behind the ears, just like she likes.

My phone rang, it was Mom.  She wanted me to come stay with her instead of the hotel and I thought about it.  But I like being independent, and staying with mom is just too, well, codependent.  But since I had her on the phone I asked her if there was any possibility that I had a twin sister.  She paused, and very seriously said, “No honey, you don’t.  I would know if you did, don’t you think?”  Then she laughed and asked about Ms. Monster.

We went through the drive in on the way back to the hotel and ordered some junk.  I always crave junk when I feel stressed, and I was getting more stressed as the day wore on.  I know I had every reason, but yet, I wasn’t really feeling the reality of the situation yet.  I half expected to wake up and realize it was all a dream.

We went back to the hotel room and I spread my feast on the little desk. The cat kept hissing at the mirror, so I picked her up and walked over to it.  I laughed and touched her nose to her mirror image’s nose.  “See silly cat?  It’s just you.”  I put her on the bed and I sat on the chair. I unwrapped a sandwich and pulled out some of the meat for the cat.  I just put it right on the bedspread; it’s the hotel’s anyway, right? It’s not like I have to wash it.

Ms. Monster ate the meat and then started hissing at the mirror again, this time with the loud growling noise.  “Good grief cat!” I picked her up again, and we walked back to the mirror.  I held her up to the mirror again, but this time she clawed my arm and jumped down, tearing across the room.  I watched her fly into the bathroom.   I heard a noise behind me.  I turned and looked, and there on the floor by the wall, right under the mirror, was a can of cream of mushroom soup.

 


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…just a kid from a small town….

I actually grew up on a farm.  But now I live in a small town.  How small?  223 residents at the time of the last census.

The thing I like best about living in a small town is the sense of community.

When someone get sick or has an accident, or a baby born with a something that needs to be fixed, someone throws a benefit for them, and community shows up and gives large amounts of money to make sure they can pay their medical bills.

When someone’s house burns down, the community comes together and has the benefit, or at least someone collects donations to help them get back on their feet.

I’ll guess that at least half to 75% of the people in our community volunteer their time or money or resources to help others, or donate to their church or the Lions groups and they help others using that money.  The number might even be closer to 100% than I even realize.

There’s at least one person who can do anything you need done, in a small community, from welders and mechanics, EMT’s and paramedics, to firemen and computer programmers, and even that one guy who will climb down in the sewer and snake your septic line if it gets plugged.  There are painters and artists, writers and cooks, organizers and planners, and builders and demolition people.  The funny thing is, once you become a member of that community, you realize that community is just another name for  family.  Sometimes in a community, just like in a family, people fight, and get angry and say bad things about each other.  As long as we forgive each other and learn to forget the sins of those who trespass against us, we will also be forgiven when we mess up.  Because we all do, I have never met one single perfect person, other than perhaps a newborn baby.

Most of the people who live in our small community grew up here, and half of them are related to the other half.  I’m an outsider, as is my husband.  When we first moved here, we weren’t part of the community, we didn’t know many people, and we kept to ourselves, as many others do.  But as time went on, we met neighbors, made friends, and joined a church, and I took some training and joined our volunteer ambulance squad.  We felt like part of the community, but yet we weren’t fully engaged in it.  But once we bought the one little convenience store, the “general store” if you will, we truly became full members of the community.  We know everyone, and everyone knows us.

In a small community like this, the customers soon become your friends.  I know what beer they drink, what pizza they like, and their brand of tobacco if they partake.  I know their car when they pull in the lot, and I usually know if anyone in their family is sick, getting married, having a baby, or dying.  I know their kids, and their kids know me. And they know if I see anything “funny” going on, I’ll let their parents know.  But I hope their kids also know that if they ever needed someone to talk to or to protect them, I’m always available.

Sometimes it makes me think of Mayberry.  Maybe we don’t have Sherriff Andy or Deputy Barney Fife, but we have our own Andys, and our own Barneys, and our own Aunt Bee, maybe even a few Aunt Bees.  Every little town has their own unique personalities, and their celebrities, and their fallen.

I love to listen to the older gentlemen, who come in for coffee in the afternoons, talk about “the good old days” and what they did when they were young and how time flies.  It reminds me of the stories my grandfather used to tell me about when he was a boy playing baseball in Ocheyedan, Iowa.  And the stories my husband’s grandfather, who grew up in that same town in Iowa, would tell about his boyhood, riding trains and playing his guitar and singing for money.  And I realize that not that much has truly changed.  Technology, sure, but that same sense of community existed then, and it still exists today.

We band together, and we help each other.  We criticize each other, gossip about each other, and yet, we feed each other, we protect each other, and we all know that there’s always someone who has our back.  And someday, we’ll be the ones talking about the “good old days” over a cup of coffee at the table, wondering where time went.