That’s what WordPress calls it. “Click here to see your site’s activity.” And like so many blog sites out there, this one had settled into a stasis. It’s one of a half dozen I’ve started over the years. What I used to store in a box of various writings up in my closet I now store online. A screenplay, a collection of short stories, another site with an attempt to collect some of the many facts that leak out of my British husband’s brain periodically.
But for my latest increase in personal site activity I credit my late mother’s gentle encouragement: “Slow and steady wins the race.” I’ve now rewritten the previously ponderous prologue for Friends of Freedom and instead carved into it Besse’s listing of the first of the Quaker sufferings. From 8-year-old Tom’s perspective no less.
But also, I have returned with inspiration to a short novel I’d struggled with a decade ago: Recommitted. The story was finished but the mechanics didn’t make sense. It’s about a proud youth pastor who has made a late in life career change from plumber to pastor, deciding he’s experienced enough to take over the head pastor job. Instead he’s called to a dying church on the other side of the Dallas Metroplex (and if you know Dallas, you know that the move of a dozen miles means a different life, because it’s too hard to commute back and forth to the friends and places you once knew). In any case, the issue was that I felt the title was God-given, but my hero was already committed to getting the big job, so it didn’t make sense that he had to recommit himself to his faith. Except in a roundabout sort of way, I suppose.
Then after my last post I realized this long-neglected story niggling in the back of my mind could work if the impetus at the beginning was different. I’ve been struggling with how much work we should expect from ourselves now that we’re retired. What if my hero was happily settled in his semi-retired role as youth pastor and didn’t want the added responsibility of a whole church? Especially the effort required to keep a congregation together after many have fallen away.
This flash of inspiration included the events of my last few years when, as I approached a relaxing retirement, we joined a church of elderly volunteers. Seriously, at 60 I was one of the youngest people there and everybody seemed to be volunteering for something. And just as suddenly I was laid off, not quite ready financially to go without at least part-time employment…and the pastor offered me a lightly paid position as the church treasurer.
That was a day, let me tell you. Because at the same time I had a promising interview for a well-paid tech writing gig. You know, it’s been a pattern in my life that God always seems to offer two options when I’ve faced big life changes. It’s like the movie Sliding Doors but without one being good and the other being bad. As a pastor in my youth once described it, it’s like God is offering you balloons of different colors. You want red? Take red. You want blue? That’s fine, take blue. But the paths they represent are mighty different.
I took the lesser job, was a terrible treasurer due to my poor math skills but turned out to be a fantastic social media manager. And I did that until my Social Security kicked in.
So in any case I did rewrite my Recommitted Chapter 1, but now I realize the storyline for poor Pastor Dave will need to change a little. I can’t force him to take the blue balloon…he has to choose it. Just like I need to keep choosing to pick up my laptop and write.
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By the way, I hope you enjoyed today’s featured picture. This is how I envision my characters as I write their stories; pick known actors and let them play out the parts.
Friends of Freedom 