An Angel Story

I have a number of 'Angel Stories' but for today my focus is on a point that needs to be made about one of them in particular. The whole story will come in another post; for now the abbreviated version will make the point.

A recent topic of conversation was about angels; it reminded me of the reluctant angel I met when my vehicle overheated on I-25 between Pueblo and Colorado Springs, the one who drove a red corvette convertible. 

I needed help and he helped me, confused as all get-out because, as he told me, he just didn’t do stuff like help people because all people are inherently bad, hateful, and generally mean. Nevertheless he helped me in more ways than one and was on the receiving end of a blessing of his own.

He drove into the Springs to get the part my poor little beat-up S10 Blazer needed, leaving me with my vehicle because otherwise it probably wouldn't be there when we got back, and I was to stay IN the vehicle (doors locked and windows up). 

While he was gone, people pulled off of I-25 from both directions to check on me. I’m not even kidding you a little bit here. I started writing down plate numbers on the back of an envelope but stopped when I ran out of room and lost count. More than FORTY vehicles pulled into that little area, some of the folk choosing to stick around until my ‘angel’ got back with the part, which took better than an hour.

The point I want to make here is not so much that there are indeed an abundance of ‘angels among us’ (although that’s most certainly true and I’m here to tell you so) but ... 

Those angels showed up from all socio-economic backgrounds (going by their vehicles and clothes) and from all the ethnic-cultural backgrounds that the Front Range is home to, they were of all ages and both genders – and not a one of them gave any of the others so much as a sideways look, I’ll have you know. 

Each and all of them had pulled off of that highway urged by the exact same impulse, to help someone, and they all knew it. Grins and waves from each to the other and they were back on their own paths for the day. 

Few of them would have known how MANY they were a part of on that day, but I knew and so did a couple of the early stoppers who stayed to ‘stand guard’.

So it wasn’t just me who was blessed on that day, nor just my reluctant angel (who was shocked enough to find a group of folks waiting with me when he got back, let alone when we told him how MANY more had stopped), but also all those folk who took the time out of their days and made the effort to check on the well-being of a total stranger.

Do not ask me to explain because I flat out cannot do it. 

Such a thing may never have happened before and may not have happened since and may never happen again – but on that day it did I tell you true.

In today’s world we could have and would likely have recorded the whole thing and it would have gone viral on line. As it is, the memory makes me smile and having had the experience makes me believe very strongly in just the opposite of what my reluctant angel told me about people on that day.

Score one for the good folk!

From all walks of life, from all ages, from all ethnicities, from all cultures, male and female they stepped up to the plate and offered aid, support, good wishes, protection, and many a smile and/or hug as well. 

That I am still so impacted by that one short time speaks on behalf of everyone who was there on that day. 

I couldn’t tell you the name of a single one of them except that I remember Ric was the name of the reluctant angel. 

But I will never ever in my life forget the message they brought with them, each and all independently of everyone else. 

‘I care,’ they said. ‘I am here.’

*sentimental sigh*

I totally love remembering times like that.

An Attitudinal Experiment

Enlisting the aid of all my favorite folk and embarking together on an experiment, yep.

We are going to make things better, yes we are.

Better for our own selves and better for those around us.

We are going to remember and we are going to remind one another that we are on a kind of quest, a journey toward 'better'.

We aren't looking for Utopia, just 'better'.

We acknowledge from the get-go that it is not going to be always an easy or fun journey - that's why we're going to remind each other when need be. We know that each and all of us are going to have struggles to get through, times we're going to need the strength,or humor, or compassion of someone else to help get us through. 

And so we are going to pay attention to ourselves, to each other, and to those around us. We want to be aware, alert to those subtle things that are cues for us to ask for answers from ourselves, one another, and those around us - and to stop being afraid to ask, and to answer.

'Howyadoin?Fine,andyou?Okay.That'sgood.' is not going to cut it any more for us. We each have our own things to cope with and the world around us isn't going to help our quest along much - so yeah - we're going to need to lean on somebody now and then. You can lean on me if you need to and I can lean on you when I need to. We can all lean on one another if need be, and nobody is going to let anybody else fall down, not if we can help it. 

Knowing that, just knowing it, makes all the difference.

We are going to make things better. Us. We are. Nobody else is likely to help us and so we are going to help our own selves. 

That, my friend, is our attitudinal experiment. Finding the good and building on it, in ourselves, in each other, in those around us. Every single day. 

And you know what?

It's already making a difference.

If you're reading this, feel free to join in our experiment. Look people in the eye and say, 'We're going to make things better.' Give them a grin to get it started and they'll smile back and agree - and it has begun!

*laughing*

If they ask, 'How are we going to make things better?' you look them in the eye again and tell them that smiles are magic that way. They'll feel good and so will you; you'll both be the better for it.

One day at a time, one smile at a time, one person at a time. Beginning with me, and with you.

There's more than plenty negativity in the world in which we live in - it needs to be balanced - and the only way to balance it is for us to provide that balance. 

MAMM SPEAKS - JUST THE STORY ...

These are the seven books that contain the STORY part of the Mamm Books. 

We had to make more than one book because for this version we went with the LARGE PRINT at the request of some of our readers. Makes for some almighty big books, let me tell you. These are 8 1/2 X 11 inches with a font size of 18. Only a couple of them are over a hundred pages so none of them are going to be bulky despite their larger dimensions. And their covers, as you can see, are simple and color-coded following the rainbow.

I have to admit it seems kind of strange to read the STORY without it being in the context of the Dunnottar Story Line ... without knowing what's right around the corner for Danann and Sidhelagh, and their family, at the end of this STORY ...

Frankly, I've been curious about how they would read when separated, the twined story lines of the Mamm Books.

You can read the 'History' part of it, as these books show, with no problem at all - it's a good STORY standing alone.

Such is not the case with the 'Today' part of the Story Line of the Mamm Books, however.

Again and again and again that Story Line refers back to the 'History' Line. If you don't have the 'History' part, the 'Today' Story Line is not going to read at all well. You aren't going to 'get it' - without knowing the back story upon which the whole is based.

Without the 'History', you won't have any idea what drives our Characters, what motivates them, what inspires them, what makes them entirely unwilling to relinquish what they hold most dear. You won't know what it is that guides them when the times come for them to draw their lines, to take their stands and to hold them against all odds.

You see, the STORY and what it means is an integral part of life for our Characters. They know what past generations of their family had to do in order for them to be able to pick up where those generations left off.

Today I realize that their lineage breeds true and it makes me quite very sentimentally proud to have 'gotten to know' both the Characters of SONG and the current Characters who also stand true to what the 'History' part of SONG is all about.

I tell you true.

Scotland does herself proud in so many ways, every day.

The world watches now, alert and wary, as Scotland takes to herself those on whom the world would turn its back. She is not unwary, believe that. She is plenty alert. That, my friend, is a part of the strength Scotland is showing to us right about now, once again taking the lead. Being alert and wary are, I think, a part of the nature of the Scots - with just cause.

Would it not make her doubters hoot and howl if the guests of Scotland turned against her, tried to do her harm? Yes. The world would shout, 'We told you so, we told you so!' But, should such a thing come to pass it would most likely be quite very short lived.

Even in the Mamm Books such ones came among our Characters. When they proved themselves 'incompatible', they were marched right on out of there in no uncertain terms, and delivered directly to those on whose behalf they had been trying to cause harm to the very people who had given them safety and offered them friendship.

Yes I write fiction, and yes its setting is a very long time ago. The 'bad guys', those who would do harm to others for whatever reasons they want to come up with, might wear different faces and names these days. That doesn't change who and what they are.

Today's 'History' Line isn't really all that different from the 'History' Line of the ancient days, you know.

When an entity threatened the Legacy of Faith, Family, Friends, Freedom, and Future our Characters of SONG were living, protecting, and preserving, said entity made great gains right up until it ran up against the People who would not give up and would not give in. Said People joined forces, pooled their resources, and an Empire bit the dust.

I'm not real sure what 'History' books our today's 'entity', our today's 'bad guys' have been reading, but they might maybe want to reconsider their interpretation of whatever they've been thinking was the outcome of their 'History' books.

At any rate, now I know that yes a 'History' Story Line can stand alone - but a 'Today' Story Line cannot. It is much too entwined with the 'History' Line to be able to stand without it.

We need to be thinking about that some, friends - and giving it some consideration when the time comes for us to have to make a Choice of our own.

You want to know how the STORY ends?

It doesn't.

It isn't going to end.

And the doubting world can watch all it wants, make dire predictions about this, that, and the other thing. Soon it will get bored, because success is never as interesting as conflict - and ain't that just a sad commentary on life in the world in which we live in. Success based on caution, alertness, wariness - built on compassion and a willingness to offer friendship - is quiet, you see.

The rampaging brats get plenty of attention; for every one of those there are many who are quietly going about just being nice. 

So, bottom line?

Be careful with your Choices.

Respect the 'History' of the Spiral and the need for balance.

If you're going to stand for something, let it be Peace.

Never EVER lose your Faith that good will come even out of bad.

Allow, nay encourage, the Healing that must come among us.

Know that against all odds it is Hope that will keep us all going.

Accept the fact that Love isn't always peaches and roses. Tough Love is harder to understand but understand it we must.

Above all, realize that Unity must prevail. It will strengthen us more than you think it could. A fragmented People is not a strong People. 

That little story about the sticks of kindling is Truth and Wisdom. 

You cannot break a bound bundle of kindling regardless of how easily individual sticks might be snapped in two. It doesn't matter if the sticks are of all different kinds of wood. If a stick of balsa is tucked into that bundle it is not going to get broken any more than will the sticks of oak, of pine, of elm, of cottonwood, of ash, of any of the kinds of sticks ... yet unbind them and you can break them at will. 

Yep.

And that's it for my bits of wisdom on this day I do believe.

Short Stories,Tall Tales, and Such : Live on Kindle : Amazon

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(or get it on Kindle!)

Rua and the Brownies take on some Pesky Pixies in this book of short pieces.

*laughing*

Got that one finished and thought,'Well, this book is about ready to go now!'

Then had a horrifying thought: I had promised somebody a Tall Tale about Paul Bunyan and Babe - and it wasn't written, let alone in this book. 

So I tagged it on at the end of Rua's story since that file was already open and fomatted for this book. Hurried to get it in, and went to work getting it published.

It was only during the final on line editorial preview that I found I had put Rua's story in twice and Babe's love for salted herring and subsequent thirst was nowhere to be found.

*sigh*

So back into the book's working file I went, got it straightened out, changed the name of the file to avoid confusion, and re-submitted it.

This little book has a lot in it, truth be told.

Elves, 

the first adventures of Renegade, Rebel, Rogue, and Riley 

(and introducing Reckless and her horse Roger), 

thoughts on religion, spirituality, and mysticism, 

a bit of family history, 

some Shakespeare, 

a modern day Sass doing what Sass does, 

a couple of esoteric pieces, 

Giant Worms and Skeeters, 

some French History presented by Sass, 

a bit of an introduction to the PHI Line when Brann meets up with Danann of Perth on the Spiral ... 

and of course Rua's Pesky Pixies!

I'm finally getting a few of these projects filed into the 'Finished' folder, trying to clear my desktop for what's coming up next.

Being as I have a couple of days off from shift-work here, now's as good a time as any to get on with getting on!

And so back to editing I go ... this time I think the poetry book. I keep putting it off because I keep writing poems. That's not really a sensible reason to not get a book published when it's ready to go, you know. There are ALWAYS going to be poems coming, one after another after another. I may as well go with what I've already got, and let the new poems go into a book of their own. What the heck. 

I'm just about back 'on schedule' ... getting closer!

Anyway, look for poetry next I think. Then maybe SNARK if I can come up with enough Snarky things to go into it. I hope I can because the next books of SONG (all of the rest of them, when it comes to that) have to have bad guys in them. Seriously bad. I'm not used to writing such things but ... all I can do is the best I can do with what I have to work with at any given time. I'll give it my best shot.

Not My Circus

Not My Circus

It was long ago and far away, in a waitressing kind of world. 

The young woman’s face showed traces of recent tears.

She grinned cheerfully at me and started chit-chatting about the weather or some such, laughing.

A touch on her arm stopped her mid-sentence.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing!’

A little too emphatic and no eye contact.

Hmmm …

Silently I just looked at her and finally I caught her eyes.

‘No. Not here. Not now. I can’t. I have to go.’

‘Later.’

It was not a question.

‘Yes.’

And off she went. Both of us had jobs to do and so we did them.

In the pit of my belly I felt what she could not tell me.

She was hurting, in pretty bad pain. Her belly was in knots worse than mine. Her heart was bleeding from wounds my own could only just barely feel. Her soul was torn, rent so raggedly that I could hardly find a place to get a hold on it, like a hundred broken-winged birds trying to fly.

Later came.

This time there was no hiding anything. Tears rose, coursed her face, fell. Her heart and her soul were in those tears, little rivers finding their way down the pretty face of this young woman. Swelling as pent emotions began to locate the breaches in walls that had been for too long far too effective, little rivers became raging torrents. Torrents became lakes only to overflow banks and continue on their way. The room in which we sat was soon flooded.

This is what it feels like, folks.

In those tears are the very sharp and dangerous shards of the little pokes and snarky words collected over time. In them are the snickers and laughter (not quite accidentally) loud enough for her to hear. In them are averted eyes. In them are greetings not spoken, encouragement not given, respect withheld. In them also are pain of loss, poverty, hopelessness, worry, doubt, fear. In them are also many other powerfully destructive interactions which cannot bear being named.

Riding atop the tumultuous waves is the will to continue of this person. It looks fragile, so very fragile, by comparison. Yet it has survived.

When you knowingly and deliberately add to the pressure of the burdens the tears of this young woman represent, you are doing her harm.

When you allow, or worse yet instigate, behaviors designed to encourage others to do harm to this person, culpability lies at your feet. Guilt lies heavy on your shoulders. Do you feel the weight of that unholy mantle?

You will never see the tears. You will never feel what you wreak so heedlessly in this young woman. It is not to you she will come when those tears can no longer be stifled.

Around us roils the tumult of emotions of others, the ones that are beginning to leak out past the too strong walls. That you are impervious is no doubt a blessing to you. Were you actually able to experience the devastation of the environment you have wrought, it would overwhelm you. It often threatens to overwhelm me, and I’m not even the guilty party here.

Not my circus, not my monkeys.

You created the circus. It IS your circus; they ARE your monkeys.

Fortunately the young woman of this post did manage to hang on to her will to continue. The effects of that long ago time linger - they have tended to make her stronger over the years.

So really what are you accomplishing? 

In this case, motivating one of your monkeys to escape. 

In other cases perhaps more dangerously effective consequences could have resulted. 

For all you know (or care) your choices may well have contributed to (or directly caused) permanent harm to another.

Not your circus? 

If you create the circus, they are your monkeys.

Own it.

Who Do You Think You Are!?

To those who ask this question, the answer lies in another question:

'Who' I am? What does that matter? Am I not, to you, 'who' you think I am, 'who' you see me as?

Who do you think you are?

Are we not all God's Children?

I am a Daughter of the Creator and the Holy Spirit, Sister to Jesus, as are you Daughter and Sister, or Son and Brother. The titles are ours by birthright, gifts of the Holy Trinity, whether we claim them or not.

Because part of the gift is also freedom to choose to accept or to reject the path we are given. Choosing Acceptance carries the responsibility of Being, to the best of our ability, Daughters and Sons of God - yet even Rejection can be reversed; therein lies Hope ... and Mercy ... 

See, the Creator knows who we are, has known us since before our births, each and all of us.

Heaven knows we are not perfect Beings. We're going to fall flat on our faces time and again, we're going to get tired and cranky and whiny, we're going to know fear and pain and loss, we're going to doubt ourselves and the Creator who made us, we're going to say, 'What, are You crazy? We can't do this! We don't want to do this. We're falling down exhausted, our feet hurt, our backs are killing us, our hearts and wills are broken ... You're nuts if you think we can just keep going the way we are!' 

And then, just when we're absolutely positive that we can't and won't carry on any further comes another breath, another bit of strength, a little more will ... and we take just one more step. And another. And another.

By that third step we might be coming to realize something.

We don't have to do this thing, whatever it may be, all alone.

For one thing, we have one another. When the time comes that each and all of us are about to go down in flames, we look around us and know that together we're going to make it through that next step, and the next, and the next. And so we do.

More importantly, when we've reached the end of our collective rope will come something we may have been too tired, too hurt, too disheartened to have thought much about. And within us something will stir; we'll find what it takes to get us the rest we need, the healing we need, the heart and the will that we need.

That, my friend, is a part of the gift as well.

Do you think the Spirit who dwells within us each and all doesn't know full well (having been a part of many more than just us from the dawn of Creation) that we're going to become tired and cranky and whiny, know fear and loss and doubt, fall flat on our faces? 

When those times are upon us we'll find that sure enough we aren't strong enough, we aren't smart enough, we aren't tough enough, we aren't anything enough.

We aren't.

We don't have to be.

Someone Else already is.

Someone already has our aching backs. And our hurting feet. And our broken hearts, our exhausted wills.

What we are given to do we will also be given the means to do.

When we realize that, something inside of us relaxes. The absence of tensions we weren't even aware of frees up our own internal resources - believe that because it's true. It also opens a door, or a window perhaps, or maybe even just a bit of a chink in our walls (it doesn't really take all that much) that Hope can walk through, or come in like a breeze, or sneak up on us unexpectedly.

Such a simple thing, but so very hard to find out how to do - yet all we have to do is do it.

We are given a Command: Fear Not

That's not just a suggestion, folks.

That's a Command.

And it's followed by a Promise: I am with you

In other words: Don't worry. I've got this.

All that's required of us is to do the best we can with what we have to work with at any given time. What we need will come when it is most needed.

We, each and all, are gifted before birth with everything we'll ever need. We are known, cherished, Children of the Creator. 

So really ... think about it ... 

Someone who created the universes tells us, 'Don't worry. I've got this,' and proves it time and time and time again - and we're still fretting and fussing?

Well yeah, we are. 

Not that it does us any good. 

We've been doing it since we were old enough to know what worry is, we're doing it now, and we'll continue to do it. Probably most of us will spend our entire grown up lives that way - because we tend to forget that we are Children, Daughters and Sons, Sisters and Brothers, of ... hmmm ... 

Do you remember the powerful arms of your father from when you were a very little child? The comforting ones of your mother? The hugs of a strong sibling? Not worrying about stuff like bills and fatigue and pain and all that?

Yep.

Guess what.

Confidence in yourself is not required. Strength of your own isn't mandatory.

And it doesn't really matter a whit 'who' you are or 'who' you are not in your own eyes or in the eyes of others. You are not just your own self. You have never been 'only' anything or anyone. There's no 'only' about you, never has been. God doesn't create us to be 'only'; we are created to be Daughters and Sons, Sisters and Brothers.

So:

Who Do You Think You Are!?

These Words Are For You: Help Them

These words are for you:

If you’re reading this it’s because you’re supposed to be reading it.

Half of Syria’s civilians have left their homes for a good reason. Almost half of those have left their country for a good reason.

Help them. Help those who are still there to get out.

I tell you: get the civilians out of there because wrath will rain down on that place.

Women, children, fathers, brothers, sisters, grandparents … get them out of there, all who wish to go.

Yes I know how many are already doing everything they can; and no I’m not some crazy nut. I’m a little old gramma lady in the middle of nowhere who cannot herself go and help, who cannot even contribute but with my Voice.

People who are abusing this situation for your own gain, stop it. Help them; just help them.

People who are able to help but are not, stop dicking around about it and pitch in.

People who are fretting about terrorists coming among us, cut it out already. These are families who are FLEEING terrorism. Do you really think they’re on the side of those from whom they flee? Get real.

From around the globe come the pleas of people like me, for those who can get innocent civilians out of a war zone to do so and to do it quickly. So many have already come out; so many more remain in danger.

If I had the means … alas I do not … perhaps you do … perhaps you will be the one to find a way to help one of those families, just one of them.

And I weep.

I weep for them, and for a world which has allowed such things to come into being.

I weep for Russia.

I weep for the United States.

I weep for China.

I weep for Germany who cannot alone stem this tide. I weep for those who are helping, overwhelmed at every turn.

I weep for Europe.

I weep.

Not that it does any good for me to weep. My tears will not put food into a child’s belly. It will not ease the heart of a mother who fears for her family.

If I’m this affected from so great a distance, how must those be affected who are in the midst of it all?

Already the tide begins to turn; it is in the very air of our world.

‘Hurry, hurry,’ comes the message, through me to you. ‘Help them, help them. Get them out of there.’

If that place is to run red, let it not be with civilian blood, let it not be innocent blood that runs. 

Hurry, hurry. Russia, China, United States, Europe … all who are already pushed to the limit, bear up for a little longer … help is coming.

Can you not feel the rising of the wind? Can you not sense the turning of the tide? Can you not hear the coming of a whirlwind? Can you not see into the hearts of the people of our world, the compassion fused with outrage?

Yes.

If you are reading this, yes you can feel, sense, hear, and see.

If you are reading this and happen to be INFJ, turn not away from the winds that now ride the air, nor from the tides that would overwhelm you, nor from the sound of the whirling wind, nor from the sight of our hearts. Instead, embrace it all, let it pass through you strengthened and send it back out again. Yes I know it hurts. But it passes as it needs to.

Help them.

Get them out of there.

These people too have roles to play in the future of our world; this fragmented nation of civilians in flight from their own homeland, at the mercy of our bigger world.

Show mercy.

Help them.

Hurry.

Uffda. From whence come these words? I cannot help but think they are not entirely mine own. They belong to all of us I think. 

Joy - and Peace

When the world seems to have gone around the bend, when I look around me and know that there's so much I can't do, so much I don't have, so much that's wrong and I can't fix it ... it can get more than a little disheartening ... 

On the other hand, lots of the time I end up looking around me, and inside of me for something, anything, to give me hope. Lo and behold, there's always something there. Maybe not much of something, but still ... enough to make something.

That, my friend, brings Joy, and it brings Peace.

There are things I can't do physically, intellectually, spiritually ... lots and lots of them. There are things I don't have the money to tend to the way I would like, lots and lots of them. There are things I don't own and never will. There are times I'm hungry or cold or miserable. There are people I don't see enough of, and people I may never get to see, and people I will never see again in this life. There are places, as with people, I don't see, may never see, won't see again ... There's stuff going on in our great green world that will turn our green to dark if we don't watch out.

And yet ... sometimes when I'm feeling the most down there will come to me a warm embrace, like a strong hug from Someone who loves me despite all. Here is Peace, I seem to hear. Make something of it.

And yet ... in the darkest of dark a tiny flicker will catch my eye for an instant only. What was that? Was it real? Where did it go? Oh, there it is again. Here is Hope, I seem to hear. Make its light stronger.

And yet ... into the depth of my utter loneliness will come a Voice, perhaps from a far distance, perhaps from near to hand, and I am blessed with an unexpected gift. Here is Friendship, I seem to hear. Let it in.

And yet ... and yet ... and yet ... all of the Circles of Dunnottar come one by one, turn and turn about to bring their gifts: Faith, Family, Friends, Freedom, the Future ... just when they are most needed. They didn't spring from my imagination; they've been gifting me, and you for that matter, all along.

So too the Voices of SONG: Choice, the Spiral, Peace, Faith, Healing, Hope, Love ... they aren't just parts of the fiction I write - they are parts of the books because they have been first parts of each and all of us.

I write because it is in me to do so - and out it must come whether I would will it or no. Perhaps there may be only one person in the entirety of this world for whom the words are meant; perhaps that one person is yet unborn. That is not for me to know. What is for me is to do - to do the best I can with what I have to work with at any given time.

When despair is but a heartbeat away ... I look around me, and inside of me, and make a Choice. To make something or to not make something out of what I find, no matter how small or insignificant.

And comes Joy, comes Peace ... and all the rest of it.

It doesn't necessarily have to be 'good enough' for the rest of the world. It has only to be the best I can do, and that's good enough.