Those Silly Ads

By: Dennis Bates

The bold type below is reprinted from my brother John’s weekly church email. It’s sort of like a blog, but done decently and in good order just as you would expect a Presbyterian minister to do things. So don’t blame him. He can’t help it. He was raised that way by our mother and trained that way by seminary professors who had neither a charming Scottish accent nor a sense of French disagreeability.

Still, he turned out pretty good in spite of having to share a room with me during his formative years. I do wish he would let go of the fact that I punched him in the stomach a little too hard for the short time that our mother allowed us to have boxing gloves, but I am beginning to think that might be too much to ask.

I don’t necessarily agree with all of his points. (Hey, he’s my brother. He would never expect me to.) For example, I thought the ads featuring men running around in the tighty whities were a refreshing alternative to the endless adds that show scantily clad women pretending that they’re selling something other than the obvious. I also sensed a minor retreat from ads that depict all men as insensitive clods who can’t manage to say “I love you” to a beautiful woman. In my opinion,  those same ads would bring down the wrath of the rabid feminist Gestapo if they depicted women that way.

But hey, I’m a dinosaur, and I’ve never played nice in small groups of obviously brain washed children. Or adults

 Basically, I found the ads much like my brother describes them. Mildly amusing at their very best. Why is it that we willingly subject ourselves to this type of silly advertisement for things we know we don’t need nor want, but we refuse to even consider things that we need desperately? Thanks for making me think, little brother. His comments follow:

I’ve never understood all the hoopla over Super Bowl commercials.  Some say they only watch the game to see the commercials, which I have to doubt.  Sit through hours of football to discover one or two slightly amusing 15 or 30 second commercials? 

After all, these are commercials – which means somebody’s trying to sell us something: cars we can’t afford or pills we don’t need.  There’s enough advertising around without intentionally subjecting ourselves to more – like the cereal stickers I’ve peeled off bananas and the labels I’ve had to tear off the front page of the newspaper.  Enough with advertising; if I watch the Super Bowl I’ll use the commercial breaks to finish reading the paper.

            Although … I read of a New York City church that launched an ad campaign in January.  The church purchased ads in subway cars, featuring the words “God is” in bright colors set on top a background of dozens of words that complete that phrase, such as “with you,” “willing to help,” “ready to forgive,” and “the one who loves you.”  Church members hope the ads will get people talking about God and religion.

            Which would be a lot more interesting than discussing the latest Doritos commercial.

 

Thank You, Holy Spirit!

By:  Staci Stallings

I remember my first encounter with driving on ice like it was yesterday.  My younger sister and I headed to school in my Pontiac 6000 (cool little car!).  We made it all the way to the only real turn we had, and when we turned… well, the car just kept turning.  We ended up facing the direction we had come.  Breathing and freaking out, we made the big block and arrived at school safely.

That was 23 years ago.

Since then, I have been very conscious while driving on ice to slow down LOOONG before I get to a turn and be very careful on said turn.

Now I live in the Texas Panhandle, and as a general rule we don’t get that much snow.  Oh, we get snow, but it’s generally one BIG snow (8-12 inches) and dustings if anything beyond that.  We also have normal temperatures in the 40’s and 50’s, so when we get snow, it melts rather quickly and we’re done.

Yeah.  This year.  Not so much.

Last Thursday we got our first BIG snow.  Twelve inches.  They canceled school.  Great.  Kids home for the day to play in the snow, no problem.  But then they canceled school on Friday as well, which I, having been indoors the whole time thought was kind of odd.  School canceled one day, not too unusual, but two days running?  That never happens.

On Saturday, a full two days after the snow, I was going to take my kids to a doctor visit that had been previously scheduled.  Really I did not think this was a bad idea.  I should have had my first hint when my husband (who had been out 2 hours the night before and 2 hours that morning, doing donuts on the go-kart in front of our house) said, “You’re really going to go in? What are you going to do, drive 5 miles an hour?”  He’s usually fearless, and he was worried.  That should have been a clue.  But I’ve lived here a long time.  Snow just doesn’t last THAT long.  I assured him we would be fine.

Well, we were, but that was no thanks to me!

Driving in, we spun, literally… as in all the way around, skidding the whole way.  It was on a two-lane highway that is normally well-traveled, but thankfully we were the only idiots out there that morning.  We did get to the doctor after that (I know. I know).  Then we got stuck trying to get out of his driveway.  Four kind strangers and my daughter pushed us out.

When we finally got home, I told my kids as we were pulling into the garage with nary a scratch on anyone or the van, “Say, Thank You, Holy Spirit!”  Guarantee, He was the One who got us home safely!

On Monday, school started again.  It had been FOUR DAYS since the snow, but my first clue that it was still not safe to drive was that I got stuck in our driveway the night before, and then I got stuck again that morning.

The only way I can describe the drive on Monday morning is harrowing.  Cars were EVERYWHERE.  The snow and ice were still covering everything.  Then we got to the residential street leading to my daughter’s school.  It was a 7-block nightmare.  The snow there was still really deep.  We met our first stuck car halfway down the first block.  I had learned via the driveway escapades not to stop.  The second you stop, you’re stuck.  So I didn’t stop.

We met the second stuck car, which was being pulled out by a pickup, that came very close to hitting us on the second block.  By this point we were on the wrong side of the road, having gone to that side to avoid the stuck cars.  Another car coming the other direction met us on the right (that is a weird sensation).  I was so freaked out, I said, “Why is that car on the wrong side of the road?”  My oldest daughter said, “Because WE ARE!”  OH.  Yeah.  Right.  Huh.

At one point, I said, “Oh, hold on, hold on, hold on” because I had to power through another huge patch of snow, and I was afraid I was going to spin.  My daughter said, “We are, Mom.”  And I said, “No.  I meant ME!”

We met another stuck car about five blocks in.  By that point, my nerves were shot!  When we got to the school, I let my daughter out on the road (I know, but if I would have turned into the parking lot, that would have done us in).  Then a block from where the driving actually got sane again, we met another stuck vehicle.  Poor thing.  It slowed down to make the turn and stopped for a half second too long.

I did make it home on Monday.  Got stuck in my driveway that afternoon trying to get out to get the kids from school again.  Thankfully the Holy Spirit had seen fit six months ago to give my husband a cabinet job, so he was over across the street and could come help me get the van out.  I swear I’ve been thanking the Holy Spirit more in the past week than in my whole life!  Just getting from here to there safely is major.

Thankfully, the snow and ice had melted by yesterday.  Yea!  Finally. Then we woke up this morning… to five full inches of new powder.  Lovely.

I have to say, I’m getting better at driving on snow, but I still think it’s only because I’ve got the Holy Spirit right there.  I just hope He’s not laughing at me as much as my kids are!

A Little Help Here

By: Dennis Bates

When in the course of human events it becomes necessary…

Okay, maybe that’s a little over the top dramatic, but believe me this is necessary, and, in a way, my assembled words here today are a personal Declaration of Independence. And I’m going public with them so I am forced to hold myself accountable for them.

All my life I have been told I’m big boned, husky, broad shouldered, pleasingly plump and all those other blatant euphemisms. Well, I’m not. I am plain white bread FAT. Even after I wrote that, I tried to think of a softer way to say it. But I’ve ignored the obvious far too long.

I may be a skinny person trapped in a fat person’s body, but if the that’s the case, the real me is trapped way down deep somewhere and there is another layer that weighs the same amount as I do surrounding the real me. It is far too embarrassing for me to list my weight here, but let me give you a hint. If I were forty years younger and a foot taller, my current weight would give me a real shot to play offensive or defensive tackle. On an NFL team.

Get the picture? I don’t blame you if you don’t find it a pleasing picture. Neither do I. Mirrors are something I avoid like the mythical vampires that are once again popular. But unlike them, I avoid mirrors because I do see myself in them. At least part of myself. Sometimes the mirrors are large enough.

I loved participating in sports when I was younger and lighter. I played tennis, baseball, basketball and football (on the line, or course). In my 30s I ran long distances, completing three full length marathons. (26.2 miles is a full marathon) When training for a marathon I regularly ran between 50 and 60 miles a week. That won’t get you into Olympic qualifying shape, but it should get you under four hours, if you have any speed. I broke that barrier.

Today, I don’t go to certain grocery store because it is too far from where I park to the rack of grocery carts, and without leaning on one of those, I can’t get to the back of the store to buy milk and other dairy products. Fresh fruit, which is clear on the other side of the store is out of question. At least in the same trip. It’s either milk or fruit, but seldom both.

I can’t sit too long to have coffee with a friend because even if I can stand when I crawl out of the booth afterwards, I need a few minutes just so I can limp out. Do you know how embarrassing it is to have to lean on the server so you can get to the cashier to pay for a measly cup of coffee? I do.

So when the doctor told me recently that I had to have knee replacement surgery, and the sooner the better, I asked him to tell me what that involved. The first thing he recommended is that I work very hard to “take a few pounds off” before I have the surgery. He’s a nice man. Suggesting that I take off “a few” pounds was his way of saying, “Lose some weight fatso.” I got that.

I’m writing this to ask for help. As always, prayers, best wishes and encouragement are good things, especially the prayers. In addition, help me hold myself accountable. I plan to write something about how my weight loss is going every week. Sometimes it might not be much. Other times it may border on TMI. I apologize in advance for those occurrences.

If I know somebody else is reading this, it will force me to keep going. Down deep I’m not only a skinny person, but a slightly vain person. I don’t like to look bad. I’m tired of that meaning I can’t look. I will stay the course much more readily if I know I have to report in here every week, and somebody will know if I succeed or fail. With God’s help, I can do this.

At age 63, I have a lot to do yet. I need to get back to doing it.

A Blessing

By: Dennis Bates

I’ve been helping a fellow writer polish up a manuscript this past week and loved every minute of it. One of the really neat things about writing is how ready other writers are to help. I often get asked for a male perspective on a particular scene or piece of dialogue because, face it, most romance and love story authors are women.

In the present situation my friend asked me for that perspective and for an overall read of her revisions to a story I read at least once before. I’ve read parts of it even more than that, but that doesn’t matter. The fun for me is the exchange of ideas and styles. We all see things a little differently and write them down in our own unique ways.

 Some writing groups try to discourage that or beat your stories and styles into some sort of bland, universal product that sells well in the general market. That’s not necessarily a bad thing if sales are your major goal, but it’s the opposite of what this blog and small publishing effort is all about. Staci and I used to exchange stories and ideas a lot when we first got acquainted.

We still do from time to time, but both of us have expanded our territories since we first met. It is an answer to a prayer we shared from the first few days we knew each other. At the moment my territory has been expanded to include several new friends. The woman I discussed at the beginning is one of them. I get as much satisfaction from working with her as I do from working on my own pieces these days, and I have learned so much in the process.

God is funny that way. Especially when He deals with writers. He allows us to teach but requires us to learn at the same time. The best teachers are those who continue to learn. It really comes down to that.

The story I just finished for the second time is a mixture of romance and historical fiction. It is far more formula than what I write for the most part. Yet it is so compelling to me because the author’s voice (the way she tells the story) is so open and easy to understand. I found myself wishing over and over that I could write more like she does. I am convinced that if I could, over time, I could develop a string of stories that would sell through traditional publishing houses on a regular basis and make me a modest, but steady income.

But I can’t write that way, even when I try. I have formula elements to some of my stories, but I also have very edgy elements, some more than edgy. I write from the world I know, in the manner I see it. My fervent belief is that God lives in that world too and offers us his grace even if He has to give us a good power washing every now and then.

The sweetness I read in stories like the one I just read is something that has helped me smooth out a lot of the rough edges in the stories I write. If it makes any sense, I feel the sweetness inside me while I write from a different view point. Not all sweet stories do that for me. Some border on fantasy, but when done right, they work. And they help.

The story I just read does it right. I am certain that God allowed me to help the author so He could teach me as much or more than I could ever teach her. I think some people might call that a blessing. I know I do.

A Book Fair to Keep in Mind

By: Dennis Bates

Have you ever promised to do something before you stopped to think. I was going to go on, but I might as well put the period there. It covers so much more that way, and summarizes a lot of the decisions I make, or at least the reason I make them.

Well, I did it again.

I saw an article in my local newspaper about a local, self published author who decided we needed a book fair in this area. There’s never been a book fair here before. I’m a local self published author. I could use some exposure, so it seemed like a natural thing for me to send an email to the man in the article and tell him I wanted to be involved.

I figure I’d never hear from the guy, but in a fit of conscientiousness, I told him about myself. A few days later I got a phone call from the man. My wife almost hung up on him, figuring he was a telemarketer. We get an endless string of those. The guy turned out to be a very nice man so when he asked me to come to a meeting at the local writer’s center to discuss the book fair, I went. Not only did I go, but I agreed to help and ended up on the marketing committee.

So far you might be asking yourself, “So what?”

That’s where complication number one comes in. I have absolutely no idea what a book fair is. I thought it was just one big book signing or something like that. It isn’t. It’s a lot more than that and it includes local libraries, media people, book store managers, and other things I’m still learning about.

Complication number two is that so far the people on the committee all have slightly different ideas of what should and should not be involved, even though none of us has ever been involved in a book fair before. At least not to any significant degree. There’s an old adage about this that deals with who’s leading whom, but it may be politically incorrect so I’ll refrain from using it here.

So far we will be operating a book fair during an annual Mother’s Day  arts and crafts festival run by the power élite in the area. At least that’s how they think of themselves. Our piece of that covers the entire floor of a small restaurant on the fringe of the festival even though technically we are not official members of the festival itself. Don’t ask. Chalk it up to snobbery and move on. At least we’re there.

After that we will move to the local minor league baseball park and hold a traditional book signing there. There are plans that one or several of us might even get the chance to throw out the first pitch. Remember, it’s minor league baseball, but we’ll take it. I’ve never heard of mixing hot dogs, peanuts and a book signing before, but maybe we’ll be trend setters. Who knows?

The point of all this is I just wanted to find a place to schlep a few books, and now I may have to learn how to grip a four seam fast ball again and hope I don’t bounce it too many times on its way to the plate. That would be embarrassing. The rest of it just involves a lot of meetings and hard work. I never planned on that.

Keep watching here for further developments, and if you’re interested in helping or just having small place to sell some of your books, drop me an email. I’ll see what I can do and there might even be a pretzel in it for you.

The Sun Is Out

By:Dennis Bates

The sunlight is streaming in the window of the lower level back door next to my work area today. That alone excites me. It has been 14 days since we saw the sun here is eastern Iowa, and believe me nothing depresses me more than the constant gray skies that block out the sun.

Sure, it’s still only 14 degrees and the wind gusts make the temperature feel as if it is below zero as they blow the new snow around. But the sunshine almost makes up for all of that. Even though it is cold, there is something cheery about the sun.

The Bible tells us that on more than one occasion the face of Jesus shown as bright as the sun. At one point during the transfiguration His brightness was so overpowering that God commented from the heavens that Jesus was His son and He was well pleased with Him. The disciples fell on their faces when they heard and saw that. That’s how powerful the experience was to them.

That’s how it is with Jesus. He lights the dark corners of our lives and provides light on both cloudy and cloudless days. Sometimes His brightness is almost overwhelming even for those of us who are used to it.

But think of those who are not used to it. Think about those who live in the darkness of night or even the dull grays of a cloudy day. Is it any wonder that they are depressed, that they strive to find a way to give meaning to their depression and overcome it?

I know how gloomy I felt for the last two weeks even though I knew that eventually the sun would come out again and lift our spirits. How deep would my gloom be if I had no hope, no assurance and no reason to believe that I would ever see the sun again? Deeper than I could probably stand.

As Christians we need to tell others about the sun that lies just behind the clouds waiting to shine through. We need to assure those who live in the gray gloom of sunless lives that they do not have to live there forever. There is hope. We know because we have seen it and experienced it.

As the prophet Isaiah proclaimed:

            The people walking in darkness

                        have seen a great light;

            on those living in the land of the

                        shadow of death

            a light has dawned

And the prophecy was fulfilled in the Light to all the world. Jesus.

Freezing Rain

By: Dennis Bates

All beautiful the march of days, as seasons come and go;

The hand that shaped the rose has wrought the crystal of the snow,

Has sent the hoary frost of heaven, the flowing waters sealed,

And laid a silent loveliness on hill and wood and field.

                                                                              -Frances Whitmarsh Wile (1911)

The forecast for today is freezing rain, which may leave between a half-inch and an inch of ice over the six to eight inches of snow still left from earlier this month. The window to my basement office already has iced over, and I can hear the wind howling outside.

. The verses above came from my brother’s weekly devotional email. I love two things about them: their imagery and the message those word pictures convey.

I can see God’s own hands as they lovingly shape a perfect red rose. I can also see God’s breath in the hoary frost of heaven as it freezes the flowing waters and seals them, turning them into snow, or in my case, ice. And I am in awe.

God reveals himself readily every minute of every day. How often we forget to look for God’s awesome revelation of Himself, even in the freezing rain on my window. We serve an awesome God who loves us and shows Himself all around us every day.

All we have to do is look.

After the Call

By: Dennis Bates

I wonder if Edgar Allen Poe had to take time out from his writing to market his short stories and poems. How about Dickens? Did he write “A Christmas Carol” after a frustrating day at the book stores?

Marketing is the bane of every author’s existence. If you are self published, like I am, it’s just one more thing you hadn’t counted on when you decided to write, and it’s almost enough to make a person want to find an agent. Almost. These days you have to market to even find one of those.

Perhaps when you’re younger, the one-sheet synopses, one line pitches, and the begging for agents to represent you and editor’s to understand you is tolerable. Maybe when you are younger and more pliable as an author, you more willing to allow your diamond studded stories to  be translated into costume jewelry so they have a larger market, or any market at all, for that matter.

But when you get older most of us are unwilling to change our unique and fresh stories (written with tongue firmly in cheek) into the kind of formula that sells thousands of copies. And let’s face it, that’s the kind of author an agent wants to represent. You can’t really blame them for that, by the way; that’s how they make a living. If you don’t make money, neither do they.

In spite of what I know to be true economically there is this fatal flaw inside people like me that leads us down a much more complicated path humming what we convince ourselves is a simpler song. Stubborn. I think that’s what you call people like me, among other things even less flattering. And as my mother used to say, sometimes I’m just too stubborn for my own good. I’ve known that about myself for a long time. I just don’t seem to be able to do anything about it.

 “If you build it they will come,” makes a good line for a movie, but even here in Iowa where the movie was filmed, most of us know better. Once you build it, you have to sell it, and that means to some degree that you have to build something someone actually wants to buy.

Of course, if you not concerned about selling what you build, that’s another matter. If you want to build one “Field of Dreams” after another merely to say you can, then go for it. It will keep you occupied and maybe even inspire a person or two, but don’t be surprised if that field turns back into a cornfield a few years down the line, or worse yet, a weed patch.

That’s what happens when fertile soil is left unattended.  It’s also what happens to our writing if we leave it unattended by not marketing it. I know that many of us believe that we have been called by God to write, and I believe we have been. My only question is are we going to market what we’ve been called to do, or are we going to move from one field to another leaving nothing but a fertile field for the weeds to come in behind us?

Receiving God’s call is life changing. Responding to His call is exciting and exhilarating. Marketing what He gives us so it doesn’t revert back to a patch of weeds is hard. That doesn’t mean we should ignore it.

Trust, Mercy, Grace

By:  Staci Stallings

There is a fascinating personality test that gives your dominant personality in colors.  The four colors are blue, green, orange and gold.  While each is fascinating, I was speaking with a very gold friend of mine the other night, so we’ll talk about gold people here.  Gold people are great.  They are organized.  They get things done… RIGHT.  They love details.  The people who do the cleaning closet show on television are probably gold.  They like bringing ORDER to everything.  They have VERY high expectations of everyone in their lives, and they don’t handle life well when their expectations are not met.  They have high standards for themselves and everyone else.

My gold friend and I were talking about relationships, and I said, “In relationships, gold people really have to learn three words:  trust, mercy, and grace.”

Because many of us have gold tendencies, I’ll explain.

When you have high expectations, it is easy to get frustrated with others (and yourself) because we are not perfect.  Further, we don’t all see things the same way, and we don’t always make decisions the same way.  So what you wanted to happen, might not.  What then?

As I put forward to my friend, a gold person must first learn trust because they tend to want to have a guarantee before they put a toe in the water.  They have been let down so often that it’s easy for them to convince themselves to just stay on the sidelines.  “My standards are so high, there’s no way you can measure up.”

Trust is hard to learn especially with other less-than-perfect people.  The fact is, we “other people” are going to let you down.

So the next word you need to learn is mercy.

Mercy is what you get when you don’t deserve it.  You get a second chance and a third chance.  You get the benefit of the doubt.  Tough to give someone when they let you down.

Finally, what you most need as a gold person with high standards is grace.  Grace to cover all that not-perfect in your life.  You need God’s grace to realize that no one deserves what God holds out to us, but He holds it out anyway.

If you’re someone with high standards, you might want to practice trust, mercy, and grace.  Come to think of it, those are three good things to practice even if you’re NOT gold.

God’s Creation

By:  Staci Stallings

I’m having issues with my knee.  It started with other issues, but when we got a Wii Balance Board and I found the joy of skateboarding…  Well, that coupled with turning 40 in September just finished off what was already a problem.

Because I was having trouble getting around after skateboarding WAAAY too much, I resorted to getting a knee brace.  Now I graduated from college.  I even went back and started on a Master’s Degree.  However, when I opened the knee brace, I quickly realized the deplorable state of my technical understanding.  The knee brace is black.  It’s made of stretchy fabric and SIX straps.  The top three are supposed to go at the top of your knee.  The bottom three… well, at the bottom.

I won’t describe the scene because your imagination can’t be any worse than it was.  The only intelligible thing was the little circle in the middle.  Circle to kneecap.  Got it.  The rest?  Forget it!

As I struggled and struggled with this contraption that was supposed to help, the thought struck me.  To support a knee, man had come up with this marvel.  Whoever came up with it had several real challenges going in.  First it has to bend; therefore, it has to be in two distinctive parts but still be in one piece.  Then there has to be a piece in the front that allows the knee to actually bend.  It has to fit to the leg as it contracts and relaxes.  It has to fit when the leg is bent and when the leg is straight.

This was no small task.

But then think just beyond that about the knee itself.  This joint that most don’t even think about until something goes wrong has to bend and straighten, with skin that stretches and straightens with no problem.  The knee when straight must hold up a whole person.  It must bend and hold to lower the person into a chair.  It even allows a person to walk or run.

It does all of that with no straps or anything!

And people say there is no God.

Good grief.  Apparently they’ve never had to use an knee brace.

Oh, and just so we’re clear.  I’m forever and immensely grateful for all those human brains that thought up how to make a brace for a knee, but that is probably just more evidence of my point.