My Reason to Relay

I'm more involved in this year's Relay For Life campaign.  Currently I am working with the Survivor/Caregiver committee.

Pictured below is a photo of my Reason To Relay:

The man on the left was my Pap, my paternal grandfather.  He died in 2001 from his second bout of prostate cancer. The man on the right is my Dad. This photo was taken years ago { before I was born} on the island of Martha's Vineyard.

I miss him everyday. Although I was blessed with having Pap in my life for 23 years: his was the first death that really " hit home" for me.

Cancer takes away so many people each year. This hear I also lost a dear friend to his disease & several people I know in my parish are fighting it now.

The American Cancer Society is leading the course for a cure . Will you help me help find a cure for cancer  so that someday everyone will have " more birthdays"? Thanks.

NaNoWriMo...I'm in!

It is official. I, Sarah Beth, am an official participant of National Novel Writers' Month. The idea is to write {at leas}t 50,000 words during the month of November. there is a web site where you can enter your word count daily and also communicate with " writing buddies" from your geographical area & even around the world.

This year I am focusing on FUN...and not quality. As a matter of fact this year's genre is a Young Adult Paranormal novel about a coming-of-age female vampire.

Yup. I'm writing a vampire novella.

 My heroine, Katharine { or Kat, as she'll be known to my readers} is the anti-Bella Swan.  My heroine is strong, confident & ready to fulfill her destiny. Unlike Bella, Kat embraces the changes that fate has forced upon her.

Naturally, my young heroine will have a love interest, but her object of affection will be her 18th Century British Lit professor. He is a tall, dark and handsome....human.

Stay tuned, as I have not yet worked out the details of that plot line yet!

 Kat knows that pairings between vampires & humans is forbidden---she herself is the result of a young human man falling in love with an impressionable vampire girl. In order to protect her, Kat's parents placed her with a human family who were childhood friends of her father. Kat loves her foster parents very much, but from the tender age of four, she knew she was inherently different..

Here we go......

I've been remiss..and I've literally dealt with shit everywhere.

I've been remiss, but life has kept me busy.

Last weekend I went to Atlanta to see my ADORABLE baby nephew. My brother & SIL had a little open house party to celebrate his arrival , so I saw some of my other relatives who reside in  Atlanta and met some of my siblings' friends.  Naturally I took several GREAT photos of my baby nephew, but I will not post them for the entire World Wide Web to view.

I arrived home on Sunday tired and grouchy. Best Dude had to work, so after I'd " chillaxed" for a bit, I decided to take a nice warm shower .{ This usually sooths much travel-weary muscles} I'd noticed that the shower drain was not removing the water efficiently, but I'd paid no heed to it until AFTER I'd stepped out of the shower. Water was EVERYWHERE and seeping into the bedroom.  Quickly I dispatched some towels in an attempt to control the flow of sewer water into the bedroom. A quick call to Best Dude advised me to monitor the situation & " test " the septic tank by throwing in some clothes in the washing machine.

When I checked on the situation a few minutes later there was a deluge of sewage. A quick look into the spare bathroom confirmed that the backed up septic tank was also emptying into the bathtub.  After I stopped the washing machine I called my parents{ my neighbor whom I would usually call during such a crisis as this was not home that day}

My Dad, THANKS BE TO GOD, came over with his shop-vac & we cleaned up the master bed/bath area as best we could. Every towel we have in the house was used in the cleanup.

In the garage I found Best Dude's industrial fan & carried it into the house to aid in the drying process.

Since we could not use the water, it was an " interesting"{ to say the least} evening at our house.  Best Dude called a sewage company in the morning & we once again have a working septic tank.

Remembering, but not dwelling

I love blogs. Most of the blogs I follow are those of people whom I know in real life {IRL}

Anyhow, today I saw a blog by my rector that REALLY made me think.

I see a lot of posts on Facebook today about the anniversary of 11 September 2001. Heck, I even posted my own " where I was when the planes hit" status today.

My rector's musings on his blog today were NOT the average 11 September 2001 musings.

he reminded us that, when it is right & good to pause in remembrance  of the tragedy that occurred today, we must not forget to LIVE.

In the years before & sine 2001, this day on the calendar has been cause for celebrations for countless people. Birthdays, anniversaries & other " milestones" of human life have & always will occur on this day.

After all, there ore only 365 or {every four years) 366 days in every rotation around our sun.

It is good to remember & pay respect to collective tragedies that occur within our history. Yet we also need to celebrate all that makes life good--and celebrate each & every day.

Amen.

Nothing at all to writing...only blood, sweat & tears

Today's quote is :

"There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter & bleed." ~Ernest Hemingway

Well, said Old Man of The Sea.

I am still not anywhere near finished with my short story. To be quite honest: I have not looked at it since last month.  I've discovered that writing a work of fiction that is so entangled in some emotional truth in my life is hard.

I WANT to tell this story, and I NEED to tell it. Yet I've had the worst trouble with " writers' block".

Writers' block sucks.

For a few days, I was faithful in my pursuit of literature. I wrote every day, if only a paragraph or two.  I've discovered that the closer I get to the "truth" upon which the fiction is based, the more trouble I find while trying to make the words come.

Yuck.

Writing can be literally PAINFUL. It can call to one's subconscious all sorts of" demons" from one's past. {Especially if said mental demon that is the subject of the work of fiction was not * all bad*}

Sigh.

"Only the good die young" and other musings

My friend  was called Home to his Maker a couple of days ago.

I am heartbroken. Although my faith teaches me that he is in a better place & without suffering, my heart aches for the wife & grown sons that he left behind on this Earth.

Requisitat en pacem, " G". You were a true hero & a friend to so many.

After praying for the repose of my friend's soul, I started asking God WHY.

Why must a good man like " G" die young of a horrible disease when there are so many " lifers" in our prison systems who spend their healthy days locked in a cell & taken care of by our government?

Why must our government spend billions of dollars planning to police the world with gunships and other weapons while saying that there isn't enough money in the coffers to give combat veterans access to the health care they need & deserve?

Why must children go to bed without supper when lobbyists wine & dine members of Congress? Why do lobbyists even exist?

Why , if one dares to question the " party line" fed to us by the mainstream media & the corporations who control our elected officials is one referred to as unpatriotic? A person can love his or her nation and still passionately dislike its government & the people in charge of said government.

Why must some upper-middle-class & wealthy Americans use their money to bully people & organizations into following "their" agenda?

Why must there even BE agendas? Life would be so much more pleasant if we humanoid s would just learn to get along.

Think about it:

A society free from bullies.

A society where equality for all persons, regardless of their " other-ness" is fully achieved.

A government that takes care of her people before seeking out ways to bend other nations to its will.

Imagine.

Amen.

This week's Gospel lesson...and looming war drums

There are many reasons why I am against the war drumming that President Obama has been beating lately.


Sunday's Gospel lesson is ...interesting.

Read this:

"Or what king, going out to wage war against another king, will not  sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one who comes against him with twenty thousand. If he cannot then, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace."
{Luke 14:31-32}

First, let me admit that I HATE prooftexting Scripture. More conservative Christian denominations use this technique to justify their hatred of people" not like us" , so I am very wary of anyone prooftexting Scripture.

Secondly, my EFM studies have taught me that this passage really is NOT about war, it is about the cost of  following Jesus.

But if I WERE clergy , and I am clearly not of the order of priests, I would struggle with the urge to preach an anti-war { and some would say an isolationist} message. Anyone who knows me at all knows how I feel about our great military's continual involvement in foreign conflicts. I have never believed that the place of a world superpower such as the United States is to " police" other nations and punish them for not accepting the Western worldview of life. call me a " dirty Libertarian" if you wish, but the verbs OFFENSE and DEFENSE are not synonymous.

Taking out bin Laden is defense. Bombing Syria is offense.

I do not see Jesus, if He were walking the Earth today, wielding machine guns and waging war against anyone who disagreed with Him. So at the risk of sounding terribly dated and cliche, I ask

What is it that Jesus would do?

Clearly I do not know the answer to this question. {If I did, I would for sure not be sitting in this po-dunk beach town, I'd be teaching graduate-level courses at a top-notch university.}

It is true that the cost of discipleship is great & that he requires much from those who follow Him.  yet I doubt that He would authorize a war against a rogue nation--a rouge nation located in a part of the world that has suffered conflict since before the time of Jesus Himself. Would Jesus want His disciples to wage war against those who do not accept His teachings? I doubt it. Perhaps he'd encourage more genuine diplomacy between two nations with opposing ideas regarding what is " right"?

The Syrian government is committing atrocities against her own people & that is morally wrong.  Yet will the bombing of Syria by Western superpowers really convince the regime in that nation that using chemical agents as war weapons is wrong? It will not.

Amen.