Come to the Water

To read more about our story, go to: www.EvaMarieEversonsSouthernVoice.blogspot.com (Eva Marie Everson's Southern Voice)

Before TS Debby

We live on Lake Kathryn in Florida. Over the past few months, dry weather and no rain dwindled our beloved lake to a puddle.

Not really, but so it seemed.

The Rains are Coming

Sitting in only a foot or less of water, our boat was nearly dry-docked. My husband felt so sorry for it, he brought it out of the water and covered it. The water that typically went to the grass line now exposed grass.

Then Tropical Storm Debby came and brought with her, rain. And more rain. And a few more days of rain. Unable to go outside for much of anything, I sat on the sofa against the sliding glass doors of our family room and watched the water rise through the gray haze of an unending summer shower.

Or so it seemed.

Ducks and Spoonbills play between showers

After Debby

Fun in the Sun Returns

And the water rose. The beach disappeared. The backyard grass became lush. When the storm had passed, birds sang so loudly they could be heard inside. Nature came to roost on our lawn and in the trees and along the beach. Folks brought their water toys back into the lake for afternoons of sun and fun. It was marvelous.
I couldn't help but think how this whole scenerio was like being a Christian. At times, the water seems to dry up. We can't reach it, though it is still there. There is no where to dock our boats so we dry-dock them instead.

And then the water comes. Life is lush again. Full of life and wonder.

Jesus called Himself the "Living Water." He also said, "Let him who is thirsty, come."

When we come to the water (or even when it comes to us, showered down from heaven), we are restored. Renewed. Made vibrant and alive again. The old dust is washed away and life returns to our branches.

Even so, Lord Jesus, come ...

Come Heal with Me

Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery


Notes from the Book:  Morris Wee teels that one day his theological professor said to the class, "About fifty percent of all human misery is caused by the violation of this commandment." That seems an extreme statement -- "about fifty percent ..." The students did not believe it, but after a score of years i the ministry, Dr. Wee says he now knows it is so. Sit with me in my study in a church on a main thoroughfare of a great city. Listen to my telephone, ready my mail, talk with many who come in person. You, too, will begin to believe the professor was right.

Adultery is violation of the marriage vow of faithfulness to each other.
It is wrong because God said it is wrong.
It is wrong because it brings further wrong. Sorrow is a wound.
[Jesus] hated the sin but never ceased to love the sinner.

[In John 8]: Now comes one of the grandest scenes in the Bible. The matchless Saviour is alone with the woman. Not one harsh word comes from His lips. Not even a look of rebuke. Instead, gently and tenderly He says, "Neither do I condemn thee: go and sin no more."

Mother's Notes:  SR (sexual relations) between married person and another not their spouse. Voluntary SR between unmarried.

Psalm 32 & 51
Proverbs 5,6,7

1 Co 6: Body is the temple of the Holy Spirit

Cover of darkness

My Notes: I turned to this portion of the book with trepidation. My father, as much as I loved him, committed adultery against my mother (and, subsequently, his children). He--like the woman in John 8--made amends with God, but the damage was severe. My mother, living in a small community where she and Daddy reared us--was forced to hold her shoulders back and keep her chin forward in the midst of personal heartache and sorrow.

"Sorrow is a wound" the author wrote.

Mother circled the words. How well she knew. But her grace and dignity taught me more about the person of Jesus than a month of Sundays sitting on a hard pew. Her forgiveness taught me how to love more deeply.

And my father's sin taught me that, without Jesus, we are all sinners--the adulterer and the gossiper.

"We are all sinners," I heard a convict-turned-prisoner once say. "Some of us rob liquor stores and some of us tell little white lies. But we are all sinners."

When I die, I wonder, what will people remember about me? Mother was far from perfect (actually, she was pretty close to perfect ... but by my standards) but her imperfections are not what I remember. What I think of, when I remember her--which is constantly--is the faith by which she lived her life. My father, even after the divorce, called her "a fine lady."

Even when I think of Daddy, it's not of his mistake, but his work for the Lord as a repentant and saved man.

When I think of them both, I remember her sitting by his hospital bed during his last days. Quietly they watched an old movie while their children took a break from death and dying. Not a lot of words were spoken, she told me later, but not a lot of words were needed.

When my father died, Mother wrote a letter and slipped it into his suit coat pocket he wore to the grave. In it she wrote: While our marriage did not survive, I will always love you as the man who gave me the two greatest gifts of my life, my children.


When I die ... what people remember about me depends on what I do now. Not what I have done ... but what I do.




Photo: Bracker (1924) Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery 
art by M Leone Bracker (1885 - 1937)

Come Heal with Me

Thou Shalt Not Kill


Notes from the Book (God's Psychiatry): God made us to live with each other, and the very process of living requires certain rules. God laid down five rules for us to live with each other. The first one is: "Thou shalt not kill" (Exodus 20:13).

This applies (first) to our own selves. We did not create our lives, and we do not have the authority to destroy our lives. The very fact of life carries with it an inescapable obligation to live.

Murder, too, is prohibited.

Also forbidden are the destructive emotions of men: fear, hate, jealousy, anger, envy, anxiety, excessive grief, and the others. To counteract them requires developing within our lives the healing and life-giving emotions such as faith, hope, laughter, creativeness, and love. Love, for example, is a process of giving.

Positively, it means to live and help live.

Mother's Notes in the Margins:  Mother's mind was ablaze with questions, it seems. She wrote:

have the car checked
war & self-defense
religion
mercy killing by doctor
capital punishment
kill by our words
suicide
willful
Samaritan
God values life


My Notes:  What stands out to me more than anything in this portion of the book is one word Mother circled: anxiety. My mother tended to be an anxious person. She worried about things ... try hard as she may not to. She knew God didn't want her to worry, but she did. Her worry came naturally. She worried about my father (who worked in law enforcement) when he was out working a case. She worried about her children (with good reason ... we tended to keep her knees calloused until the day she died). She worried about her grandchildren (who also kept her knees bent).

One thing I can know for sure, when Mother died, she left all her anxieties in this world for the joys of heaven. As my brother and I sat vigilant by her deathbed, two people called and told me the same story. Just recently, they said, Mother had expressed her desire to leave the worries of this life for the face-to-face presence of Jesus. She loved her Jesus. More than she loved us. And that's okay by me.

Still, for a year and a half I've struggled with Mother's death. Before I had two seconds to mourn her, another tragedy hit my family that has rocked me far more than losing Mother or Daddy. Their deaths make sense in the light of this. We live our lives and, if we are Christians, we die to gain our reward.

So, for a year and a half, I've been tossed like a ship on the Galilee during a storm. Then, about two weeks ago, I admitted something out loud that I'd only toyed with in my mind. "I don't want to die," I said to a friend. "I just don't want to live any more."

Just saying it out loud ... and the healing began. Don't ask me why. I don't know.

I do know enough to know that death by my own hand is not what God has in  mind for me. His desire is that I lean into Him and trust Him with ... my life ... and my death, which will be at His command. Not mine.

Meanwhile, I have a life to live. I have a life to give. 


Father God ... let the healing not only begin, but continue in the days, the weeks, and the months ahead.

"I am ready."

[photo by Eva Marie Everson]

Come Heal With Me

Honor Thy Father and Mother

Notes from the Book: God gave us ten rules to live by. The first four deal with our relationship to Him. The last five deal with our relationship with other people. The fifth rule has been called the centerpiece of God's law. "Honor thy father and mother" involves both our relationship with God and with our fellow men. When God made man He also set up the pattern by which men must live together. First a man and a woman come together in marriage, and out of the union come children...As the child learns to love and respect its parents, so later does it love and respect God.

1) the parents must be honorable.

2) the children should recognize, respect, and love their parents.

3) we must recognize our debt to the past and be thankful for it.

Mother's Notes Written in the Margins: Mother had a lot to write in this portion of the book. Not only did Mother have a lot of respect and honor for her parents (even with their imperfections) she had the honor and respect from her children. My brother and I knew, without a doubt, that our parents loved us. They were far from perfect, but they were the perfect parents for us.

One of the notes Mother made struck me. "Grow up to be like the parents" she penned. This was close to a paragraph that tells of a mother who took her son to the zoo. When he saw some young wildcats in a cage, he asked, "What are those?" The mother answered, "Wildcats."

Like most children, he pondered for a moment and then asked, "Why are they wildcats."

"Because," the mother said, "their parents are wildcats."

My Thoughts and Notes: I understand not everyone is blessed with loving parents who also love Jesus. I know that many who may read these words will say, "My mother never touched me...hugged me...said she loved me..." or "My father's way of showing love was a roof over our heads, a meal in our stomachs and a strap if we misbehaved."

I understand. I just was blessed otherwise. There is not a day that goes by that I don't pray my children will see me with the same love and respect as I had for my parents. If anything, their amazing parenting is one of the things that makes me miss them all the more.

My husband did not have such parents as I had. Yet, he is a marvelous father. But his greatest joy is seeing that his children are better parents than he. His prayer is that, whatever he got right, they will imitate and whatever he got wrong, they'll learn from...grow from...do better from.

If you have good parents, give them a call or go into the next room and say, "Thanks. Even for the things you didn't get right. Thanks."

If you had good parents, give a thanks to God and set your mind on imitating and doing better.

If you didn't, I ask you to look beyond what they were to you and try to see what their parents were to them. Then, with prayer (and therapy if you need it), you be the parents to your children you always wanted your parents to be to you.

Mother and Daddy: I love you. I miss you. You were the best!

(Photo taken of Eva Marie Everson and Van Purvis with Betty Purvis (top), Eva Marie and Van with Preston Purvis (bottom) c. 1962.)

Come Heal With Me

Remember the Sabbath to Keep it Holy

My notes from the book (God's Psychiatry): More words were written about this commandant than any other the others. Think about it. Four words and four words only were given to "Thou shalt not kill" but ninety-nine words were given to this commandment.

The first thing we are told is to "remember." It is scientifically impossible for man to forget anything. Every detail of every day of your life is stored somewhere in your brain. However, "forgetting" and "remembering" are two different things. We may not remember what we had to eat three months ago on a Thursday but our brains have stored that meal forever.

God is reminding us through this commandment that this is one thing we must not forget to remember.

To keep the Sabbath, the 7th Day, is to take a precious gift from God. It is our reward for six days of labor. A man named Moshe Wolf (quoted by Sholem Asch in his book East River) said, "When a man labors not for a livlihood, but to accumulate wealthy, then he is a slave."

The Sabbath teaches us that we are not work horses, meant only to work, eat, sleep...we are children of God, born into an inheritance.

The Sabbath was given to each man so that he could be recreated physically and spiritually. It has been proven time and again that we can do more in 6 days with one day of rest following them than we can do in 7 days without rest. But more than just physically rejuvenating, the 7th day spent in rest allows the spirit to catch up to the body.

An old miner once said, "I bring my mules out of the mines for a full day, every 7th day, to keep them from going blind."

"Be still and know that I am God," we read in Psalm 46:10.

Beauty doesn't shout. Loveliness is quiet. Our finest moods are not clamorous. The Divine is not obtrusive. He is reserved and courteous. We need a day to hear his voice.

Mother's Notes in the Margins: The first four commandments are between man and God. The following six are between man and man. This is the last commandment dealing with man and God.

What would our country be like if we really observed the Sabbath as we should?

Psalm 84:10: (Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere; I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked.)

(Next to "we are in too big a hurry," Mother wrote:) Satan busy.

God doesn't push himself on us but waits patiently for us.

My Thoughts on Both: A few years ago, as my work and ministry seemed to explode around me, I took on the 7th Day of Work attitude. Yes, I went to church but then I came home, marched myself to the computer and started working. Occasionally I'd throw in watching an old movie on AMC or TCM...but mostly I worked. I told myself that I enjoyed it, therefore it wasn't really work.

Then, one day, my back began to hurt. And it wouldn't let up. The pain traveled to my right hip, locked itself in, and then moved on down my leg. The pain was excruciating. I went to doctors. I took pills. I had shots. Nothing gave relief and no doctor seemed to have the answer.

I was forced to stop working because I couldn't sit at my computer very long. For someone who averaged about ten hours a day of work, I was lucky to get three. Ice packs and heating pads and narcotics had become my best friends.

I sat at the dining room table one evening, opened my Bible, and laid my head on it and cried. When I was finished weeping, I looked at the words spread before me:

This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says: "In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it."

The admonition found in Isaiah 30:15 wrapped itself around me like the sting of a father's belt. My salvation...my strength...was found not in working, but in repentance, rest, and quiet.

I knew the truth of this. I had taught it, for crying out loud. Many is the time I stood before a class or an auditorium filled with people and said, "Psalm 46:10 says, 'Be still and know that I am God.' The word still in Hebrew is raphah. It means to cease. Be still. Stop. Sink down and relax. Abide..."

Oh for the joy of just being with God! A whole day not worrying about working, but enjoying his gift of time. Of family. Of friends. Of the simple joys like watching the children play. Or taking a long walk. Or picnic-ing with loved ones. Watching that old movie.

And, of course, worship.

One thing I have noted. God said for us to "remember the 7th day" so that we "keep it holy." I believe we have confused what He commanded here. He did not tell us that nothing apart from God, worship, prayer, etc. should be enjoyed. He did not say, "If you lie on the couch and watch an old movie...or take your child to a matinee...or sit out by the lake and watch the ducks swim...you have broken my law." No...he said "remember"...

I do not worship God but one day a week. That is every day. He is with me constantly, praise Him! Even when I am at my worst, He stands by and says, "Get your hissy fit over with and then let's move on." And I praise Him for that!

Remember to rest. Remember to enjoy this precious gift God has given you. One day a week. One whole day. How marvelous is that?

Photos copyright Eva Marie Everson

Come Heal With Me

Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord They God in Vain

Notes from the Book, God's Psychiatry:

What a person thinks about determines what he is.

The secret desires of our hearts eventually show up in our very appearance.

A man is what he thinks about all day long.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Our life is what our thoughts make of it.

Marcus Aurelius

For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.

Proverbs 23:7

Mother's Note in the Margins: Where are you Adam?

My notes: As I read the chapter titled "Thou Shalt Not Take the Name of the Lord in Vain," I grew confused. I flipped back and forth from the text to the title, back to the text. What, I wondered, did my thinking patterns have to do with taking God's name in vain?

Growing up, I'd always heard that saying "Godda**" was the ultimate sin. "God cannot damn," some teacher once told me. But the more I thought about it, the more it didn't make total sense to me. At the end of the book, it seems to me, God pronounces judgment, bringing some into glory with Him and condemning others to a life of "weeping and gnashing of teeth."

When I was a little girl, I dreamed that God could be seen high and lifted up, high above the whole world. There, standing in the front yard of my childhood home, I stood, looking up...looking at God. And, the whole world stood there with me (how we all got on that property, I'll never know.)

God was ready to pronounce judgment on the whole earth, on all mankind. He said, "I will separate the earth. Those on the right will come to heaven with me. Those on the left will go to hell with the devil."

The earth began to split, from just under the Almighty all the way down...toward me. I watched as some fell to the right, others to the left, and some fell into the great crevice. Just as the line approached me, I tried to judge it. To mark the timing. As it reached my feet, I reckoned, I would leap to the right.

But instead, I fell to the left.

I was going to hell??? This could not be right.

I looked up at God. "Can we have a do-over?" I asked.

And God granted it. Again, I positioned myself, ready for the great crack to come toward me, ready to jump to the right.

And again, I fell to the left. I looked up in horror. As I did, God said to me, "Eva Marie, this is just a dream. Mankind has been given chances time and again. But one day, the chances will run out."

Then I awoke.

I spent the rest of my childhood trying never to say a bad word (I was reared by parents who never cussed) and certainly not to commit the "unpardonable sin" as I knew it to be. But now I understand something even more: when we hold something in high esteem, we do not "take its name in vain." We honor it, both with our thoughts, our words, and by our relationship with it.

I. Love. God. Period.

I adore Him. Cherish Him. Worship Him. But do I ever take his name in vain?

Yes. Every time I get angry and say anything that would disgrace Him or my relationship with Him. Every time I don't take our relationship seriously and our time together seriously.

Mother wrote, "Where are you Adam?" God knew exactly where Adam and Eve were hiding. What He was asking was, "Where are you and I in this relationship, Adam?"

When we grieve, as I have grieved this past year--both for Mother and the other things I have lost (as this has been a year of loss)--I have both run to God and run from Him. Angry. Bitter. How could you? How could you have taken her...or her...or her...or it from me? Haven't I been a good daughter? Haven't I tried to live on the 'right' side of the crevice?

I took my eyes off the One I love and put them on my circumstances.

Don't get me wrong. It's okay to cry (even Jesus cried at the death of Lazarus). To be angry. To question WHY??? But in doing so, we should...we must...keep our eyes on Him. Become more like Him.

To live on the right side of the crevice.

Come Heal With Me; Week 14

Thou Shalt Not Make Unto Thee any Graven Image

Notes from the book, God's Psychiatry, by Charles L. Allen: It is much easier to whittle God down to our size instead of repenting, changing our way of living, and being godly ourselves. When Horace Bushnell was a college student he felt he was an atheist. One day a voice seemed to say to him, "If you do not believe in God, what do you believe?"

He answered back, "I believe there is a difference between right and wrong."

"Are you living up to the highest you believe?" the voice seemed to ask.

"No," he said, "but I will."

That day he dedicated his life to his highest belief. Years later, after he had been pastor of one church 47 years, he said, "Better than I know any person in my church, I know Jesus Christ." when he began conforming his life to his beliefs, instead of making his beliefs fit his life, he was led to a realization of God.

Mother's Notes Found in the Margins: He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to Him. Nothing in His appearance that we should desire Him.

My Notes: God created man in His image, yet we are told not to create any image of God for the purpose of worship. So, we seek to find something within creation to connect with our Creator. We sit on the ocean's edge and marvel at it's power. We look out over a range of mountains and can barely speak. We gape in wonder at a forest of Sequoias. Why? Perhaps because in our effort to find God--to worship Him--we attempt to create Him in our image of what we think God is like.

We try to make God into what we want Him to be; not who He is. We know God wants us to live according to His goodness. Yet, when we want to sin, we create in our mind a God who is okay with that. We create a God who gives--health, wealth, prosperity--but we do not want a God who requires of us--thithes, offerings, acts of service.

We worship God by "picturing God" according to our own ideas and fabrications. but what if those notions aren't accurate? What if they aren't even close?

Philip said to Jesus, "Lord show us the Father."

Jesus replied, "He who has seen me, has seen the Father."

Those who walked with Jesus and went on to write about it failed to tell us anything about Jesus' physical appearance (almost as though they were commanded thusly). But they told us plenty about who He was.

How wonderful it must have been to look into the eyes of Jesus and know you are looking into the eyes of God! But we don't have that opportunity. We have no image, graven or otherwise.

Or do we?

It is us, you know...We are created in His image. When we look into our own eyes or the eyes of one another, we should catch a glimpse of His. We are to imitate Him, so much so, we become His reflection.

Lately I have found it difficult to worship because life has sucked everything out of me, leaving nothing but a shell and vacant eyes. My prayers of praise are spoken through tears and anguish. My example of Christianity has been anything but. When others look into my eyes, they hardly see God. They see hurt, betrayal, anger, anguish, confusion, brokenness. I fight to hold it all together for the sake of the call and if that is not apparent, then no one is really looking.

But maybe, what God really wants me to do is to stop pretending and start coming to Him from such a raw place, I am emptied of all of me and replaced with only Him.

John gave us the most incredible promise in the 22nd chapter of Revelation. He reminds all that those who are faithful "shall see His face" (vs 4).

No longer will we have to look to the mountains, the seas, the trees, or each other. One day, when there is nothing between us and God but the praise and worship, we shall see the glory of God by His own image.

Notes from the book: One thing more. After Thorwaldsen had completed his famous statue of Christ, he brought a friend to see it. Christ's arms were outstretched, His head bowed between them. The friend said, "But I cannot see His face."

The sculptor replied, "If you would see the face of Christ, you must get on your knees."

He is the perfect image of God; let us have no other.

Come Heal With Me; Week 4

He leads me beside still waters.

Notes taken from the book (God's Psychiatry): Sheep are afraid of moving water. This is based on instinct; because of their thick woolly coats, they cannot swim. When sheep are thirsty, they will drink only from still water.

If there is no still water around, this presents a problem for the shepherd. So, while the sheep are resting (He makes me to lie down in green pastures), the shepherd gathers rocks to form a watering pool of still water.

The shepherd understands the fear of his sheep and provides a way of peace and safety.

Mother's Notes Written in the Book: Jehovah shalom (written not once, but twice in the margins). God of peace. God of still waters.

My Notes: After reading these words, I walked into my home and realized--for the first time--that as soon as one enters, the peaceful view of the lake is there. When the water is still, it looks like a pool of ink laying on the canvas of the world. It calls to me from nearly every room...but how often do I go out, sit, and drink of its beauty? Of its respite? Of its peace?

Not often enough.

But I have come to realize that long before I lost Mother, long before I began my struggle with "why?", God was at work gathering stones to form a place of peace where I can heal. The wound of losing Mother to heaven will never be fully healed until I join her there and stand before the Throne of Grace & Mercy with her, shouting "All glory and hallelujah" to the Prince of Peace and to his Father, Jehovah Shalom. But until then, God has prepared a place for me, where I can "drink" of His peace.

My notes to you: Where is your place of peace? Where can you go to find respite, to drink from God's goodness, from His Word, from the quiet he whispers into your soul? You may not have a dock jutting out over a lake. Your place of peace may be the shower, the commute train or the car. It may be your closet or the walk from the front door to the mailbox. Like Suzanne Wesley, mother of John & Charles, you may have to sit in a corner, throw your apron over your head, and demand a moment of peace (most mothers will relate to this). Even if only for a moment each day, find a place where you can be quiet. Take a short walk. A long walk. Whatever you need to do...but make a time of quiet. Of stillness.

My dear friend Robert Benson once told me, "Eva Marie, the only person who knows what God has whispered into your heart is you; but you won't hear him if you don't hush."

A famous line (misquoted) by Emerson goes like this: Let us be silent that we may hear the whisper of God.

Find the place God has prepared for you. It's easy to do. Just look for the rocks...

Have you ever been to the Garden of Eden?

I have.

Okay, not the actual Garden of Eden; no one knows for sure where it's located. But I have been to a place so tranquil, so lovely, the natives there call it The Garden of Eden. Even in the hottest time of the year and at that time of day when the temperature reaches its peak, it's a cool spot of respite and relaxation. It seems to me that even the water dares not to move. It stands in contemplation of the One who might come walk in the "coolness of the day."

It's in Israel, specifically in the northern portion, in the region known as the Wilderness of Dan. I fell in love with it the very first time I saw it and couldn't wait to return. What I wanted to know above all else was whether or not it was truly as I had remembered it or if my romantic notions had taken hold and rewritten my memory.

It was the former, not the latter. It was as tranquil and as lovely as I'd remembered it to be.

As I stood and beheld its beauty, I wondered if my "mother," (Eve) had ever thought back to the real Garden of Eden. If she and Adam had -- in the cool of the day when work had ceased and family had gathered -- spoke of the way it had been. Before. When there was no sin. Nothing to separate them from God. When listening for His footsteps had brought about great anticipation, hearts fluttering, minds anxious and filled with questions thought of during the day.

Or ideas.

"I meant to ask you about this," Adam might have said to his Father. "This right here. I thought I'd call it a rose. What do you think?"

"Rose," God would have mused. "Rose ... rose ... rose ..." and then He might have smiled and said, "By any other name would it smell as sweet?"

Adam and Eve would have been confused and God would have said, "That's for another day ... another time ... oh, well ... another millennium!" And together they would have laughed.

There would have been so much to say. To share. To go over.

I wish I could go to the Garden of Eden in the Northern part of Israel every day. I wish I could skip along the paths leading to it, listening to the rustling of the leaves in the trees and the water rushing from the heads of the Jordan toward the river that snakes down the country. I wish I could sit on its cools banks and speak to God ... share with Him ... go over things. Things which are important to me.

To Him.

But I cannot.

I can, however, find my own Garden. My own place of respite and relaxation. My own place of prayer and conversation. Of laughter with God.

Writing Out of Experience

I am currently working on the final of the Potluck Catering Club novels with Linda Evans Shepherd. This is the third in a three-book series ... which is part of a two-part series of books:

1-a The Potluck Club

1-b The Potluck Club: Trouble's Brewing

1-c The Potluck Club Takes the Cake

2-a The Potluck Catering Club: The Secret's in the Sauce

2-b The Potluck Catering Club: A Taste of Fame (see photo at right)

2-c The Potluck Catering Club: (No additional title yet)

(There is also The Potluck Club Cookbook, to be released sometime this summer)

So anyway, all that to get back to the point at hand: I am working on the third of the second series of the books.

In this book, someone has died (for our fans, I won't say who) and someone is mourning that loss.

Grief is a personal thing; everyone responds to it in their own way. Some people appear to be handling the loss of a loved one as though their pet goldfish died. Others fall into a stoic day-to-day existence. Everyone, however, will experience the five stages of grief at some point, each in their own way.

The other night I broke down and dusted the master bedroom in our home. Goodness knows it needed it. The room stays clean -- don't get me wrong -- it was just dusty. Antique mahogony furniture gets both dusty and thirsty, so I choose a product for dusting that includes an oil, beneficial for the furniture's longevity. As I set about my task, I found two bottles of after shave that had belonged to my father. Two bottles that, three years ago, previous to his unexpected passing, had been taken with him to the hospital so he'd smell nice for the nurses (I suppose) :).

I picked up one of the bottles -- I'd almost forgotten it was there -- sat on the floor and gingerly twisted the cap. I held it to my nose but I held my breath, unsure if I was really ready to inhale its fragrance. I waved the bottle back and forth, back and forth, until -- when I thought my lungs would explode -- I took in the scent of the after shave.

The scent of my father.

I closed my eyes. For a brief moment, Daddy was in the room. He was still with me. If I had so wanted, I believe I could have spoken and he would have heard me.

Maybe.

I have long come to the fifth stage of grief: acceptance. But my character has not. She is somewhere between three (bargaining) and four (depression). After the dusting of my room was finished, I walked back to my home office and wrote a scene in which "Name Here" (for I will NOT give her name away!) finds a bottle of after shave, opens it, and breathes in his scent. As a writer, I felt every moment of this chapter. I had -- by opening Daddy's after shave bottle -- experienced for myself the emotions of the character. Now, as a writer, I pulled on those emotions. I depended on them totally for expression.

Sometimes we writers can write out of an experience we have not had or have yet to have. But for the most part, I think, this is why we hear that real writers are born after their 40th birthday. We have to have experienced life in order to write about it with any deep sense of emotion.

When we do, we take readers to the deepest part of themselves. They experience -- again and again -- their own life moments as they walk them out with our characters. This is, what I call, bleeding on paper for the sake of our reader. It has to be done. It's rarely easy. In fact, I would have to say that it is never easy.

But it's worth it when we read -- and our readers read -- the end result.